doctrine of the future life that I
have never heard as much as mentioned by any Occidental youth. Though
without doubt not original with him, yet he must have had in some
degree both philosophical ability and interest in order to appreciate
their force and to seek their solution.

In conversation not long since with a Buddhist priest of the Tendai
sect, after responding to his request for a criticism of Buddhism, I
asked him for a similarly frank criticism of Christianity. To my
surprise, he said that while Christianity was far ahead of Buddhism in
its practical parts and in its power to mold character, it was
deficient in philosophical insight and interest. This led to a
prolonged conversation on Buddhistic philosophy, in which he explained
the doctrines of the "Ku-ge-chu," and the "Usa and Musa." Without
attempting to explain them here, I may say that the first is amazingly
like Hegel's "absolute nothing," with its thesis, antithesis, and
synthesis, and the second a psychological distinction between
volitional and spontaneous emotions.

In discussing Japanese philosophical ability, a point often forgotten
is the rarity of philosophical ability or even interest in the West.
But a small proportion of college students have the slightest interest
in philosophical or metaphysical problems. The majority do not
understand what the distinctive metaphysical problems are. In my
experience it is easier to enter into a conversation with an educated
man in Japan on a philosophical question than with an American. If
interest in philosophical and metaphysical questions in the West is
rare, original ability in their investigation is still rarer.

We conclude, then, that in regard to philosophical ability the
Japanese have no marked racial characteristic differentiating them
from other races. Although they have not developed a distinctive
national philosophy, this is not due to inherent philosophical
incompetence. Nor, on the other hand, is the relatively wide interest
now manifest in philosophical problems attributable to the inherent
philosophical ability of the race. So far as Japan is either behind or
in advance of other races, in this respect, it is due to her social
order and social inheritance, and particularly to the nature, methods,
and aims of the educational system, but not to her intrinsic psychic
inheritance.

XXI

IMAGINATION

In no respect, perhaps, have the Japanese been more sweepingly
criticised by f