IMAGINATION
In no respect, perhaps, have the j.a.panese been more sweepingly criticised by foreigners than in regard to their powers of imagination and idealism. Unqualified generalizations not only a.s.sert the entire lack of these powers, but they consider this lack to be the distinguishing inherent mental characteristic of the race. The j.a.panese are called "prosaic," "matter-of-fact," "practical,"
"unimaginative."
Mr. Walter Dening, describing j.a.panese mental characteristics, says:
"Neither their past history nor their prevailing tastes show any tendency to idealism. They are lovers of the practical and the real; neither the fancies of Goethe nor the reveries of Hegel are to their liking. Our poetry and our philosophy and the mind that appreciates them are alike the results of a network of subtle influences to which the j.a.panese are comparative strangers. It is maintained by some, and we think justly, that the lack of idealism in the j.a.panese mind renders the life of even the most cultivated a mechanical, humdrum affair when compared with that of Westerners.
The j.a.panese cannot understand why our controversialists should wax so fervent over psychological, ethical, religious, and philosophical questions, failing to perceive that this fervency is the result of the intense interest taken in such subjects. The charms that the cultured Western mind finds in the world of fancy and romance, in questions themselves, irrespective of their practical bearings, is for the most part unintelligible to the j.a.panese."[AP]
Mr. Percival Lowell expends an entire chapter in his "Soul of the Far East," in showing how important imagination is as a factor in art, religion, science, and civilization generally, and how strikingly deficient j.a.panese are in this faculty. "The Far Orientals," he argues, "ought to be a particularly unimaginative set of people. Such is precisely what they are. Their lack of imagination is a well-recognized fact."[AQ]
Mr. Aston, characterizing j.a.panese literature, says:
"A feature which strikingly distinguishes the j.a.panese poetic muse from that of Western nations is a certain lack of imaginative power. The j.a.panese are slow to endow inanimate objects with life.
Sh.e.l.ley"s "Cloud," for example, contains enough matter of this kind for many volumes of j.a.panese verse. Such lines as:
"From my wings are shaken The dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest On their mother"s breast As she dances about the sun,"
would appear to them ridiculously overcharged with metaphor, if not absolutely unintelligible."[AR]
On the other hand, some writers have called attention to the contrary element of j.a.panese mental nature. Prof. Ladd, for instance, maintains that the characteristic mental trait of the j.a.panese is their sentimentality. He has shown how their lives are permeated with and regulated by sentiment. Ancestral worship, patriotism, Imperial apotheosis, friendship, are fashioned by idealizing sentiment. In our chapters on the emotional elements of j.a.panese character we have considered how widespread and powerful these ideals and sentiments have been and still are.
Writers who compare the Chinese with the j.a.panese remark the practical business nature of the former and the impractical, visionary nature of the latter.
For a proper estimate of our problem we should clearly distinguish between the various forms of imagination. It reveals itself not merely in art and literature, in fantastic conception, in personification and metaphor, but in every important department of human life. It is the tap-root of progress, as Mr. Lowell well points out. It pictures an ideal life in advance of the actual, which ideal becomes the object of effort. The forms of imagination may, therefore, be cla.s.sified according to the sphere of life in which it appears. In addition to the poetic fancy and the idealism of art and literature generally, we must distinguish the work of imagination in the aesthetic, in the moral, in the religious, in the scientific, and in the political life.
The manifestation of the imaginative faculty in art and in literature is only one part of the aesthetic imagination.
In studying j.a.panese aesthetic characteristics, we noted how unbalanced was the development of their aesthetic sense. This proposition of unbalanced development applies with equal force to the imaginative faculty as a whole. Conspicuously lacking in certain directions, it is as conspicuously prominent in others. Rules of etiquette are the products of the aesthetic imagination, and in what land has etiquette been more developed than in feudal j.a.pan? j.a.panese imagination has been particularly active in the political world. The pa.s.sionate loyalty of retainers to their lord, of samurai to their daimyo, of all to their "kuni," or clan, in ancient times, and now, of the people to their Emperor, are the results of a vivid political idealizing imagination. Imperial apotheosis is a combination of the political and religious imagination. And in what land has the apotheosizing imagination been more active than in j.a.pan? Ambition and self-conceit are likewise dependent on an active imaginative faculty.
There can be no doubt the writers quoted above have drawn attention to some salient features of j.a.panese art. In the literature of the past, the people have not manifested that high literary imagination that we discover in the best literature of many other nations.
This fact, however, will not justify the sweeping generalizations based upon it. Judging from the pre-Elizabethan literature, who would have expected the brilliancy of the Elizabethan period? Similarly in regard to the Victorian period of English literature. Because the j.a.panese have failed in the past to produce literature equal to the best of Western lands, we are not justified in a.s.serting that she never will and that she is inherently deficient in literary imagination. In regard to certain forms of light fancy, all admit that j.a.panese poems are unsurpa.s.sed by those of other lands. j.a.panese amative poetry is noted for its delicate fancies and plays on words exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, of translation, or even of expression, to one unacquainted with the language.
The deficiencies of j.a.panese literature, therefore, are not such as to warrant the conclusion that they both mark and make a fundamental difference in the race mind. For such differences as exist are capable of a sociological explanation.
The prosaic matter-of-factness of the j.a.panese mind has been so widely emphasized that we need not dwell upon it here. There is, however, serious danger of over-emphasis, a danger into which all writers fall who make it the ground for sweeping condemnatory criticism.
They are right in ascribing to the average j.a.panese a large amount of unimaginative matter-of-factness, but they are equally wrong in unqualified dogmatic generalizations. They base their inductions on insufficient facts, a habit to which foreigners are peculiarly liable, through ignorance of the language and also of the inner thoughts and life of the people.
The prosaic nature of the j.a.panese has not impressed me so much as the visionary tendency of the people, and their idealism. The j.a.panese themselves count this idealism a national characteristic. They say that they are theorizers, and numberless experiences confirm this view.
They project great undertakings; they scheme; they discuss contingencies; they make enormous plans; all with an air of seriousness and yet with a nonchalance which shows a semi-conscious sense of the unreality of their proposals. In regard to Korea and China and Formosa, they have hatched political and business schemes innumerable. The kaleidoscopic character of j.a.panese politics is in part due to the rapid succession of visionary schemes. One idea reigns for a season, only to be displaced by another, causing constant readjustment of political parties. Frequent attacks on government foreign policy depend for their force on lordly ideas as to the part j.a.pan should play in international relations. Writing about the recent discussions in the public press over the question of introducing foreign capital into j.a.pan, one contributor to the _Far East_ remarks that "It has been treated more from a theoretical than from a practical standpoint.... This seems to me to arise from a peculiar trait of j.a.panese mind which is p.r.o.ne to dwell solely on the theoretical side until the march of events compels a sudden leap toward the practical." This visionary faculty of the j.a.panese is especially conspicuous in the daily press. Editorials on foreign affairs and on the relations of j.a.pan to the world are full of it.
I venture to jot down a few ill.u.s.trations of impractical idealism out of my personal knowledge. An evangelist in the employ of the k.u.mamoto station exemplified this visionary trait in a marked degree. Nervous in the extreme, he was constantly having new ideas. For some reason his attention was turned to the subject of opium and the evils China was suffering from the drug, forced on her by England. Forthwith he came to me for books on the subject; he wished to become fully informed, and then he proposed to go to China and preach on the subject. For a few weeks he was full of his enterprise. It seemed to him that if he were only allowed the opportunity he could convince the Chinese of their error, and the English of their crime. One of his plans was to go to England and expostulate with them on their un-Christian dealings with China. A few weeks later his attention was turned to the wrongs inflicted on the poor on account of their ignorance about law and their inability to get legal a.s.sistance. This idea held him longer than the previous.
He desired to study law and become a public pleader in order to defend the poor against unjust men of wealth. In his theological ideas he was likewise extreme and changeable; swinging from positive and most emphatic belief to extreme doubt, and later back again. In his periods of triumphant faith it seemed to him that he could teach the world; and his expositions of truth were extremely interesting. He proposed to formulate a new theology that would dissolve forever the difficulties of the old theology. In his doubts, too, he was no less interesting and a.s.sertive. His hold on practical matters was exceedingly slender. His salary, though considerably larger than that of most of the evangelists, was never sufficient. He would spend lavishly at the beginning of the month so long as he had the money, and then would pinch himself or else fall into debt.
Mr. ----, the head of the k.u.mamoto Boys" School during the period of its fierce struggles and final collapse, whom I have already referred to as the Hero-Princ.i.p.al,[AS] is another example of this impractical high-strung visionariness. No sooner had he reached k.u.mamoto, than there opened before our enchanted eyes the vision of this little insignificant school blooming out into a great university. True, there had been some of this bombast before his arrival; but it took on new and gorgeous form under his master hand. The airs that he put on, displaying his (fraudulent) Ph.D., and talking about his schemes, are simply amusing to contemplate from this distance. His studies in the philosophy of religion had so clarified his mind that he was going to reform both Christianity and Buddhism. His sermons of florid eloquence and vociferous power, never less than an hour in length, were as marked in ambitious thoughts as in pulpit mannerisms. He threw a spell over all who came in contact with him. He overawed them by his vehemence and tremendous earnestness and insistence on perfect obedience to his masterful will. In one of his climactic sermons, after charging missionaries with teaching dangerous errors, he said that while some were urging that the need of the times was to "his back to Luther," and others were saying, that we must "his back to Christ" (these English words being brought into his j.a.panese sermon), they were both wrong; we must "hie back to G.o.d"; and he prophesied a reformation in religion, beginning there in k.u.mamoto, in that school, which would be far and away more important in the history of the world than was the Lutheran Reformation.
The recent history of Christianity in j.a.pan supplies many striking instances of visionary plans and visionary enthusiasts. The confident expectation entertained during the eighties of Christianizing the nation before the close of the century was such a vision. Another, arising a few years later, was the importance of returning all foreign missionaries to their native lands and of intrusting the entire evangelistic work to native Christians, and committing to them the administration of the immense sums thus set free. For it was a.s.sumed by these brilliant Utopians that the amount of money expended in supporting missionaries would be available for aggressive work should the missionaries be withdrawn, and that the Christians in foreign lands would continue to pour in their contributions for the evangelization of j.a.pan.
Still another instance of utopian idealism is the vision that j.a.pan will give birth to that perfect religion, meeting the demands of both heart and head, for which the world waits. In January, 1900, Prof. T.
Inouye, of the Imperial University, after showing quite at length, and to his own satisfaction, the inadequacy of all existing religions to meet the ethical and religious situation in j.a.pan, maintained this ambitious view.
Some j.a.panese Christians are declaring the need of j.a.ponicized Christianity. "Did not the Greeks transform Christianity before they accepted it? And did not the Romans, and finally the Germans, do the same? Before j.a.pan will or can accept the religion of Christ, it must be j.a.ponicized." So they argue; "and who so fit to do it as we?" lies in the background of their thought.
Many a Christian pastor and evangelist, although not sharing the ambition of Prof. Inouye, nevertheless glows with the confident expectation that j.a.ponicized Christianity will be its most perfect type. "No one need wonder if j.a.pan should be destined to present to the world the best type of Christianity that has yet appeared in history," writes an exponent of this view, at one time a Christian pastor. In this connection the reader may recall what was said in chapter xiv. on j.a.panese Ambition and Conceit, qualities depending on the power of seeing visions. We note, in pa.s.sing, the optimistic spirit of New j.a.pan. This is in part due, no doubt, to ignorance of the problems that lie athwart their future progress, but it is also due to the vivid imaginative faculty which pictures for them the glories of the coming decades when they shall lead not only the Orient, but also the Occident, in every line of civilization, material and spiritual, moral and religious. A dull, unimaginative, prosaic nature cannot be exuberantly optimistic. It is evident that writers who proclaim the unimaginative matter-of-factness of the j.a.panese as universal and absolute, have failed to see a large side of j.a.panese inner life.
Mr. Percival Lowell states that the root of all the peculiarities of Oriental peoples is their marked lack of imagination. This is the faculty that "may in a certain sense be said to be the creator of the world." The lack of this faculty, according to Mr. Lowell, is the root of the j.a.panese lack of originality and invention; it gives the whole Oriental civilization its characteristic features. He cites a few words to prove the essentially prosaic character of the j.a.panese mind, such as "up-down" for "pa.s.s" (which word, by the way, is his own invention, and reveals his ignorance of the language), "the being (so) is difficult," in place of "thank you." "A lack of any fanciful ideas," he says, "is one of the most salient traits of all Far Eastern peoples, if indeed a sad dearth can properly be called salient.
Indirectly, their want of imagination betrays itself in their everyday sayings and doings, and more directly in every branch of thought." I note, in pa.s.sing, that Mr. Lowell does not distinguish between fancy and imagination. Though allied faculties, they are distinct. Mr.
Lowell"s extreme estimate of the prosaic nature of the j.a.panese mind I cannot share. Many letters received from j.a.panese friends refute this view by their fanciful expressions. The j.a.panese language, too, has many fanciful terms. Why "pa.s.s" is any more imaginative than "up-down," to accept Mr. Lowell"s etymology, or "the being (so) is difficult" than "thank you," I do not see. To me the reverse proposition would seem the truer. And are not "breaking-horns" for "on purpose," and "breaking-bones" for "with great difficulty," distinctly imaginative terms, more imaginative than the English? In the place of our English term "sun," the j.a.panese have several alternative terms in common use, such as "_hi_," "day," "_Nichirin_," "day-ball," "_Ten-to Sama_," "the G.o.d of heaven"s light;" and for "moon," it has "_tsuki_,"
"month," "_getsu-rin_," "month ball." The names given to her men-of-war also indicate a fanciful nature. The torpedo destroyers are named "Dragon-fly," "Full Moon," "The Moon in the Cloud," "Seabeach,"
"Dawn of Day," "Cl.u.s.tering Clouds," "Break of Day," "Ripples,"
"Evening Mist," "Dragon"s Lamp," "Falcon," "Magpie," "White-naped Crane," and "White Hawk." Surely, it cannot be maintained that the j.a.panese are utterly lacking in fancy.
Distinguishing between fancy as "the power of forming pleasing, graceful, whimsical, or odd mental images, or of combining them with little regard to rational processes of construction," and imagination, in its more philosophical use, as "the act of constructive intellect in grouping the materials of knowledge or thought into new, original, and rational systems," we a.s.sert without fear of successful contradiction, that the j.a.panese race is not without either of these important mental faculties.
In addition to the preceding ill.u.s.trations of visionary and fanciful traits, let the reader reflect on the significance of the comic and of caricature in art. j.a.panese _Netsuke_ (tiny carvings of exquisite skill representing comical men, women, and children) are famous the world over. Surely, the fancy is the most conspicuous mental characteristic revealed in this branch of j.a.panese art. In j.a.panese poetry "a vast number of conceits, more or less pretty," are to be found, likewise manifesting the fancy of both the authors who wrote and the people who were pleased with and preserved their writings.[AT]
The so-called "impersonal habit of the j.a.panese mind," with a corresponding "lack of personification of abstract qualities,"
doubtless prevents j.a.panese literature from rising to the poetic heights attained by Western nations. But this lack does not prove the j.a.panese mind incapable of such flights. As describing the actual characteristics of the literature of the past the a.s.sertion of "a lack of imaginative power" is doubtless fairly correct. But the inherent nature of the j.a.panese mind cannot be inferred from the deficiencies of its past literature, without first examining the relation between its characteristic features and the nature of the social order and the social inheritance.
Are the j.a.panese conspicuously deficient in imagination, in the sense of the definition given above? The constructive imagination is the creator of civilization. Not only art and literature, but, as already noted, science, philosophy, politics, and even the practical arts and prosaic farming are impossible without it. It is the tap-root of invention, of discovery, of originality.
It is needless to repeat what has been said in previous chapters[AU]
on j.a.panese imitation, invention, discovery, and originality. Yet, in consideration of the facts there given, are we justified in counting the j.a.panese so conspicuously deficient in constructive, imagination as to warrant the a.s.sertion that such a lack is the fundamental characteristic of the race psychic nature?
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. j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese imitation, we are further warranted in ascribing to the people no insignificant development of the imagination.
In ill.u.s.tration, consider j.a.pan"s educational system. Established no doubt on Occidental models, it is nevertheless a distinctly j.a.panese inst.i.tution. Its buildings are as characteristically j.a.ponicized Occidental school buildings as are its methods of instruction.
j.a.panese railroads and steamers, likewise constructed in j.a.pan, are similarly j.a.ponicized--adapted to the needs and conditions of the people. To our eyes this of course signifies no improvement, but a.s.suredly, 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 j.a.pan. Indeed, this quality is conspicuous among the descendants of the military and literary cla.s.ses; and this fact furnishes us the clew. "From time immemorial," to use a phrase common on the lips of j.a.panese historians, up to the present era, the samurai as a cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 const.i.tutions, would become the social if not the practical leaders of their cla.s.s; 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.
If, therefore, this trait is more marked in j.a.panese character than in that of many other nations, it may be easily traced to the social order that has ruled this land "from time immemorial." More than any other of her mental characteristics, impractical visionariness may be traced to the development of the nervous organization at the expense of the muscular. This characteristic accordingly may be said to be more inherently a race characteristic than many others that have been mentioned. Yet we should remember that the samurai const.i.tute but a small proportion of the people. According to recent statistics (1895) the entire cla.s.s to-day numbers but 2,050,000, while the common people number over 40,000,000. It is, furthermore, to be remembered that not all the descendants of the samurai are thus nervously organized. Large numbers have a splendid physical endowment, with no trace of abnormal nervous development. While the old feudal order, with its constant carrying of swords, and the giving of honor to the most impetuous, naturally tended to push the most high-strung individuals into the forefront and to set them up as models for the imitation of the young, the social order now regnant in j.a.pan faces in the other direction.
Such visionary men are increasingly relegated to the rear. Their approach to insanity is recognized and condemned. Even this trait of character, therefore, which seems to be rooted in brain and nerve structure is, nevertheless, more subject to the prevailing social order than would at first seem possible.
Its rise we have seen was due to that order, and the setting aside of these characteristics as ideals at least, and thus the bringing into prominence of more normal and healthy ideals, is due to the coming in of a new order.
j.a.panese prosaic matter-of-factness may similarly be shown to have intimate relations to the nature of the social order. Oppressive military feudalism, keeping the vast majority of the people in practical bondage, physical, intellectual, and spiritual, would necessarily render their lives and thoughts narrow in range and spiritless in nature. Such a system crushes out hope. From sunrise to sunset, "_nembyaku nenju_," "for a hundred years and through all the year," the humdrum duties of daily life were the only psychic stimuli of the absolutely uneducated ma.s.ses. Without ambition, without self-respect, without education or any stimulus for the higher mental life, what possible manifestation of the higher powers of the mind could be expected? Should some "sport" appear by chance, it could not long escape the sword of domineering samurai. Even though originally possessing some degree of imagination, cringing fear of military masters, with the continuous elimination by ruthless slaughter of the more idealizing, less submissive, and more self-a.s.sertive individuals of the non-military cla.s.ses, would finally produce a dull, imitative, unimaginative, and matter-of-fact cla.s.s such as we find in the hereditary laboring and merchant cla.s.ses.
Furthermore, j.a.panese civilization, like that of the entire Orient, with its highly communalized social order, is an expression of pa.s.sive submission to superior authority. Although an incomplete characterization, there is still much truth in saying that the Orient is an expression of Fate, the Occident of Freedom. We have seen that a better contrasted characterization is found in the terms communal and individual. The Orient has known nothing of individualism. It has not valued the individual nor sought his elevation and freedom. In every way, on the contrary, it has repressed and opposed him. The high development of the individual culminating in powerful personality has been an exceptional occurrence, due to special circ.u.mstances. A communal social order, often repressing and invariably failing to evoke the higher human faculties, must express its real nature in the language, literature, and customs of the people. Thus in our chapter on the aesthetic Characteristics of the j.a.panese[AV] we saw how the higher forms of literature were dependent on the development of manhood and on a realization of his nature. A communal social order despising, or at least ignoring the individual, cannot produce the highest forms of literature or art, because it does not possess the highest forms of psychic development. Take from Western life all that rests on or springs from the principles of individual worth, freedom, and immortality, and how much of value or sublimity will remain? The absence from j.a.panese literature and language of the higher forms of fancy, metaphor, and personification on the one hand, and, on the other, the presence of widespread prosaic matter-of-factness, are thus intimately related to the communal nature of j.a.pan"s long dominant social order.