amurai
as a class were quite separated from the practical world; they were
comfortably supported by their liege lords; entirely relieved from the
necessity of toiling for their daily bread, they busied themselves not
only with war and physical training, but with literary accomplishments,
that required no less strenuous mental exertions.

Furthermore, in a class thus freed from daily toil, there was sure to
arise a refined system of etiquette and of rank distinctions. Even a
few centuries of life would, under such conditions, develop highly
nervous individuals in large numbers, hypersensitive in many
directions. These men, by the very development of their nervous
constitutions, would become the social if not the practical leaders of
their class; high-spirited, and with domineering ideas and scheming
ambitions, they would set the fashion to all their less nervously
developed fellows. Freed from the exacting conditions of a practical
life, they would inevitably fly off on tangents more or less
impractical, visionary.

If, therefore, this trait is more marked in Japanese character than in
that of many other nations, it may be easily traced to the social
order that has ruled this land "from time immemorial." More than any
other of her mental characteristics, impractical visionariness may be
traced to the development of the nervous organization at the expense
of the muscular. This characteristic accordingly may be said to be
more inherently a race characteristic than many others that have been
mentioned. Yet we should remember that the samurai constitute but a
small proportion of the people. According to recent statistics (1895)
the entire class to-day numbers but 2,050,000, while the common people
number over 40,000,000. It is, furthermore, to be remembered that not
all the descendants of the samurai are thus nervously organized. Large
numbers have a splendid physical endowment, with no trace of abnormal
nervous development. While the old feudal order, with its constant
carrying of swords, and the giving of honor to the most impetuous,
naturally tended to push the most high-strung individuals into the
forefront and to set them up as models for the imitation of the young,
the social order now regnant in Japan faces in the other direction.
Such visionary men are increasingly relegated to the rear. Their
approach to insanity is recognized and condemned. Even this trait of
character, therefore, which seems to be rooted in brai