in terms. No matter how negative the idea to be given, it
must be conveyed by a positive expression. Even a void is grammatically
quite full of meaning, although unhappily empty in fact. So much is
common to all tongues, but Japanese carries its positivism yet further.
Not only has it no negative nouns, it has not even any negative pronouns
nor pronominal adjectives,--those convenient keepers of places for
the absent. "None" and "nothing" are unknown words in its vocabulary,
because the ideas they represent are not founded on observed facts,
but upon metaphysical abstractions. Such terms are human-born, not
earth-begotten concepts, and so to the Far Oriental, who looks at things
from the point of view of nature, not of man, negation takes another
form. Usually it is introduced by the verbs, because the verbs, for the
most part, relate to human actions, and it is man, not nature, who is
responsible for the omission in question. After all, it does seem more
fitting to say, "I am ignorant of everything," than "I know nothing." It
is indeed you who are wanting, not the thing.

The question of verbs leads us to another matter bearing on the subject
of impersonality; namely, the arrangement of the words in a Japanese
sentence. The Tartar mode of grammatical construction is very nearly
the inverse of our own. The fundamental rule of Japanese syntax is, that
qualifying words precede the words they qualify; that is, an idea is
elaborately modified before it is so much as expressed. This practice
places the hearer at some awkward preliminary disadvantage, inasmuch as
the story is nearly over before he has any notion what it is all about;
but really it puts the speaker to much more trouble, for he is obliged
to fashion his whole sentence complete in his brain before he starts
to speak. This is largely in consequence of two omissions in Tartar
etymology. There are in Japanese no relative pronouns and no temporal
conjunctions; conjunctions, that is, for connecting consecutive events.
The want of these words precludes the admission of afterthoughts.
Postscripts in speech are impossible. The functions of relatives are
performed by position, explanatory or continuative clauses being made
to precede directly the word they affect. Ludicrous anachronisms, not
unlike those experienced by Alice in her looking-glass journey, are
occasioned by this practice. For example, "The merry monarch who ended
by falling a victim to profound melancholia