ucation, and also whether the Occident is conspicuously deficient in
this psychic characteristic. Thus stated, the question almost answers
itself.

Orientals educated in Western methods of thought acquire logical
methods of reasoning and teaching. The old educational methods of
Japan are now obsolete. On the other hand, intuitionalism is not
unknown in the West. Mystics in religion are all conspicuously
intuitional. So too are Christian scientists, faith-healers, and
spiritualists. Great preachers and poets are intuitionalists rather
than logicians.

Furthermore, if we look to ancient times, we shall see that even
Occidentals were dominated by intuitionalism. All primitive knowledge
was dominated by intuitions, and was as absurd as many still prevalent
Oriental conceptions of nature. The bane of ancient science and
philosophy was its reliance on a priori considerations; that is, on
intuition. Inductive, carefully logical methods of thought, of
science, of philosophy, and even of religion, are relatively modern
developments of the Occidental mind. We have learned to doubt
intuitions unverified by investigation and experimental evidence. The
wide adoption of the inductive method is a recent characteristic of
the West.

Modern progress has consisted in no slight degree in the development
of logical powers, and particularly in the power of doubting and
examining intuitions. To say that the East is conspicuously
intuitional and the West is conspicuously logical is fairly true, but
this misses the real difference. The West is intuitional plus logical.
It uses the intuitional method in every department of life, but it
does not stop with it. An intuition is not accepted as truth until it
has been subjected by the reason to the most thorough criticism
possible. The West distrusts the unverified and unguided intuitive
judgment. On the other hand, the East is not inherently deficient in
logical power. When brought into contact with Occidental life, and
especially when educated in Occidental methods of thought, the
Oriental is not conspicuously deficient in logical ability.

This line of thought leads to the conclusion that the psychic
characteristics distinguishing the East from the West, profound though
they are, are sociological rather than biological. They are the
characteristics of the civilization rather than of essential race
nature.

A fact remarked by many thoughtful Occidentals is the astonishing
difficulty--indee