is the great quality of impersonality.

If we take, through the earth's temperate zone, a belt of country
whose northern and southern edges are determined by certain limiting
isotherms, not more than half the width of the zone apart, we shall
find that we have included in a relatively small extent of surface
almost all the nations of note in the world, past or present.
Now if we examine this belt, and compare the different parts of it
with one another, we shall be struck by a remarkable fact.
The peoples inhabiting it grow steadily more personal as we go west.
So unmistakable is this gradation of spirit, that one is tempted to
ascribe it to cosmic rather than to human causes. It is as marked
as the change in color of the human complexion observable along any
meridian, which ranges from black at the equator to blonde toward
the pole. In like manner, the sense of self grows more intense as
we follow in the wake of the setting sun, and fades steadily as we
advance into the dawn. America, Europe, the Levant, India, Japan,
each is less personal than the one before. We stand at the nearer
end of the scale, the Far Orientals at the other. If with us the I
seems to be of the very essence of the soul, then the soul of the
Far East may be said to be Impersonality.

Curious as this characteristic is as a fact, it is even more
interesting as a factor. For what it betokens of these peoples in
particular may suggest much about man generally. It may mark a
stride in theory, if a standstill in practice. Possibly it may help
us to some understanding of ourselves. Not that it promises much aid
to vexed metaphysical questions, but as a study in sociology it may
not prove so vain.