ative faculty which pictures for them the
glories of the coming decades when they shall lead not only the
Orient, but also the Occident, in every line of civilization, material
and spiritual, moral and religious. A dull, unimaginative, prosaic
nature cannot be exuberantly optimistic. It is evident that writers
who proclaim the unimaginative matter-of-factness of the Japanese as
universal and absolute, have failed to see a large side of Japanese
inner life.

Mr. Percival Lowell states that the root of all the peculiarities of
Oriental peoples is their marked lack of imagination. This is the
faculty that "may in a certain sense be said to be the creator of the
world." The lack of this faculty, according to Mr. Lowell, is the root
of the Japanese lack of originality and invention; it gives the whole
Oriental civilization its characteristic features. He cites a few
words to prove the essentially prosaic character of the Japanese mind,
such as "up-down" for "pass" (which word, by the way, is his own
invention, and reveals his ignorance of the language), "the being (so)
is difficult," in place of "thank you." "A lack of any fanciful
ideas," he says, "is one of the most salient traits of all Far Eastern
peoples, if indeed a sad dearth can properly be called salient.
Indirectly, their want of imagination betrays itself in their everyday
sayings and doings, and more directly in every branch of thought." I
note, in passing, that Mr. Lowell does not distinguish between fancy
and imagination. Though allied faculties, they are distinct. Mr.
Lowell's extreme estimate of the prosaic nature of the Japanese mind I
cannot share. Many letters received from Japanese friends refute this
view by their fanciful expressions. The Japanese language, too, has
many fanciful terms. Why "pass" is any more imaginative than
"up-down," to accept Mr. Lowell's etymology, or "the being (so) is
difficult" than "thank you," I do not see. To me the reverse
proposition would seem the truer. And are not "breaking-horns" for "on
purpose," and "breaking-bones" for "with great difficulty," distinctly
imaginative terms, more imaginative than the English? In the place of
our English term "sun," the Japanese have several alternative terms in
common use, such as "_hi_," "day," "_Nichirin_," "day-ball," "_Ten-to
Sama_," "the god of heaven's light;" and for "moon," it has "_tsuki_,"
"month," "_getsu-rin_," "month ball." The names given to her
men-of-war also indicate