alone could possibly have afforded. Thus harmonized, they will help
us to realize humanity. Indeed it is only by such a combination of
two different aspects that we ever perceive substance and distinguish
reality from illusion. What our two eyes make possible for material
objects, the earth's two hemispheres may enable us to do for mental
traits. Only the superficial never changes its expression;
the appearance of the solid varies with the standpoint of the observer.
In dreamland alone does everything seem plain, and there all is
unsubstantial.

To say that the Japanese are not a savage tribe is of course
unnecessary; to repeat the remark, anything but superfluous, on the
principle that what is a matter of common notoriety is very apt to
prove a matter about which uncommonly little is known. At present
we go halfway in recognition of these people by bestowing upon them
a demi-diploma of mental development called semi-civilization,
neglecting, however, to specify in what the fractional qualification
consists. If the suggestion of a second moiety, as of something
directly complementary to them, were not indirectly complimentary to
ourselves, the expression might pass; but, as it is, the self-praise
is rather too obvious to carry conviction. For Japan's claim to
culture is not based solely upon the exports with which she
supplements our art, nor upon the paper, china, and bric-a-brac with
which she adorns our rooms; any more than Western science is
adequately represented in Japan by our popular imports there of
kerosene oil, matches, and beer. Only half civilized the Far East
presumably is, but it is so rather in an absolute than a relative
sense; in the sense of what might have been, not of what is. It is
so as compared, not with us, but with the eventual possibilities of
humanity. As yet, neither system, Western nor Eastern, is perfect