the lives of men._

_And a belief in matter itself is unmentionable and
inexpressible,--it is neither a thing nor no-thing: and this is
known even by children and ignorant persons._



IV

Now it is worth while to inquire if there be not some
compensatory value attaching to this impermanency and this
smallness in the national life.


Nothing is more characteristic of that life than its extreme
fluidity. The Japanese population represents a medium whose
particles are in perpetual circulation. The motion is in itself
peculiar. It is larger and more eccentric than the motion of
Occidental populations, though feebler between points. It is also
much more natural,--so natural that it could not exist in Western
civilization. The relative mobility of a European population and
the Japanese population might be expressed by a comparison
between certain high velocities of vibration and certain low
ones. But the high velocities would represent, in such a
comparison, the consequence of artificial force applied; the
slower vibrations would not. And this difference of kind would
mean more than surface indications could announce. In one sense,
Americans may be right in thinking themselves great travelers. In
another, they are certainly wrong; the man of the people in