Whether their failure to follow the natural course of evolution
results in bringing them in at the death just the same or not, these
people are now, at any rate, stationary not very far from the point
at which we all set out. They are still in that childish state of
development before self-consciousness has spoiled the sweet
simplicity of nature. An impersonal race seems never to have fully
grown up.

Partly for its own sake, partly for ours, this most distinctive
feature of the Far East, its marked impersonality, is well worthy
particular attention; for while it collaterally suggests pregnant
thoughts about ourselves, it directly underlies the deeper oddities
of a civilization which is the modern eighth wonder of the world.
We shall see this as we look at what these people are, at what they
were, and at what they hope to become; not historically, but
psychologically, as one might perceive, were he but wise enough, in
an acorn, besides the nut itself, two oaks, that one from which it
fell, and that other which from it will rise. These three states,
which we may call its potential past, present, and future, may be
observed and studied in three special outgrowths of a race's
character: in its language, in its every-day thoughts, and in its
religion. For in the language of a people we find embalmed the
spirit of its past; in its every-day thoughts, be they of arts or
sciences, is wrapped up its present life; in its religion lie
enfolded its dreamings of a future. From out each of these three
subjects in the Far East impersonality stares us in the face.
Upon this quality as a foundation rests the Far Oriental character.
It is individually rather than nationally that I propose to scan it
now. It is the action of a particle in the wave of world-development
I would watch, rather than the propagation of the wave itself.