hat
the Chinese and Japanese and Hindus have no emotional or volitional
characteristics, that they are strictly "impersonal"; nor does he mean
that the Oriental has less development of powers of thinking, willing,
feeling, or of introspective meditation. The whole argument shows that
he means that _their sense of the individuality or separateness of the
Ego is so slight that it is practically ignored; and this not by their
civilization alone, but by each individual himself_. The supreme
consciousness of the individual is not of himself, but of his family
or race; or if he is an intensely religious man, his consciousness is
concerned with his essential identity with the Absolute and Ultimate
Being, rather than with his own separate self. In other words, the
term "impersonal" is made to do duty for the non-existent negative of
"individual." "Impersonal" is thus equivalent to "universal" and
personal to "individual." To change the phraseology, the term
"impersonal" is used to signify a state of mind in which the
separateness or individuality of the individual ego is not fully
recognized or appreciated even by the individual himself. The
prominent element of the individual's consciousness is the unity or
the universalism, rather than the multiplicity or individualism.

Mr. Lowell in effect says this in his closing chapter entitled
"Imagination." His thesis seems to be that the universal mind, of
which, each individual receives a fragment, becomes increasingly
differentiated as the race mind evolves. In proportion as the
evolution has progressed does the individual realize his
individuality--his separateness; this individualization, this
differentiation of the individual mind is, in his view, the measure as
well as the cause of the higher civilization. The lack of such
individualization he calls "impersonality"; in such a mind the
dominant thought is not of the separateness between, but of the unity
that binds together, himself and the universal mind.

If the above is a correct statement of the conception of those who
emphasize the "impersonality" of the Orient, then there are two things
concerning it which may be said at once. First, the idea is a
perfectly clear and intelligible one, the proposition is definite and
tangible. But why do they not so express it? The terms "personality"
and "individuality" are used synonymously; while "impersonal" is
considered the equivalent of the negative of individual,
un-individual--a