thical
devotion. This latter is volitional, the product of character. This
altruism can arise chiefly in a social order where individualism to a
large extent has gained sway. It is this variety of altruism that
characterizes the West, so far as the West is altruistic. But on the
other hand, in a social order in which individualism has full swing,
the extreme of egoistic selfishness can also find opportunity for
development. It is accordingly in the West that extreme selfishness,
the most odious of sins, is seen at its best, or rather its worst.

So again we see that selfish aggressiveness and an exalted
consciousness of one's individuality or separateness are not necessary
marks of developed personality, nor their opposite the marks of
undeveloped personality--so-called "impersonality." On the contrary,
the reverse statement would probably come nearer the truth. He who is
intensely conscious of the great unities of nature and of human
nature, of the oneness that unites individuals to the nation and to
the race, and who lives a corresponding life of goodness and kindness,
is by far the more developed personality. But the manifestations of
personality will vary much with the nature of the social order. This
may change with astonishing rapidity. Such a change has come over the
social order of the Japanese nation during the past thirty years,
radically modifying its so-called impersonal features. Their primitive
docility, their politeness, their marriage customs, their universal
adoption of Chinese thoughts, language, and literature, and now, in
recent times, their rejection of the Chinese philosophy and science,
their assertiveness in Korea and China and their aggressive attitude
toward the whole world--all these multitudinous changes and complete
reversals of ideals and customs, point to the fact that the former
characteristics of their civilization were not "impersonal," but
communal, and that they rested on social development rather than on
inherent nature or on deficient mental differentiation.

A common illustration of Japanese "impersonality," depending for its
force wholly on invention, is the deficiency of the Japanese language
in personal pronouns and its surplus of honorifics. At first thought
this argument strikes one as very strong, as absolutely invincible
indeed. Surely, if there is a real lack of personal pronouns, is not
that proof positive that the people using the language, nay, the
authors of the langu