Inferences about the movement of the whole will follow of themselves
a knowledge of the motion of its parts.

But before we attack the subject esoterically, let us look a moment
at the man as he appears in his relation to the community. Such a
glance will suggest the peculiar atmosphere of impersonality that
pervades the people.

However lacking in cleverness, in merit, or in imagination a man may
be, there are in our Western world, if his existence there be so
much as noticed at all, three occasions on which he appears in print.
His birth, his marriage, and his death are all duly chronicled in
type, perhaps as sufficiently typical of the general unimportance of
his life. Mention of one's birth, it is true, is an aristocratic
privilege, confined to the world of English society. In democratic
America, no doubt because all men there are supposed to be born free
and equal, we ignore the first event, and mention only the last two
episodes, about which our national astuteness asserts no such
effacing equality.

Accepting our newspaper record as a fair enough summary of the
biography of an average man, let us look at these three momentous
occasions in the career of a Far Oriental.


Chapter 2. Family.

In the first place, then, the poor little Japanese baby is ushered
into this world in a sadly impersonal manner, for he is not even
accorded the distinction of a birthday. He is permitted instead