te cannot be dissociated from
the Imperial Throne. It lasts forever along with the Imperial line of
succession, unbroken for ages eternal. If the Imperial House cease to
exist, the Empire falls." "According to our ideas the monarch reigns
over and governs the country in his own right.... Our Emperor
possesses real sovereignty and also exercises it. He is quite
different from other rulers, who possess but a partial sovereignty."
This is to-day the universally accepted belief in Japan. It shows
clearly that national unity and sovereignty are not conceived in Japan
apart from personality.

One more point demands our attention before bringing this chapter to a
close. If "impersonality" were an inherent characteristic of Japanese
race nature, would it be possible for strong personalities to arise?

Mr. Lowell has described in telling way a very common experience.
"About certain people," he says, "there exists a subtle something
which leaves its impress indelibly upon the consciousness of all who
come in contact with them. This something is a power, but a power of
so indefinable a description that we beg definition by calling it
simply the personality of the man.... On the other hand, there are
people who have no effect upon us whatever. They come and they go with
a like indifference.... And we say that the difference is due to the
personality or the want of personality of the man."[CV] The first
thing to which I would call attention is the fact that "personality"
is here used in its true sense. It has no exclusive reference to
consciousness of self, nor does it signify the effect of
self-consciousness on the consciousness of another. It here has
reference to those inherent qualities of thinking and feeling and
willing which we have seen to be the essence of personality. These
qualities, possessed in a marked way or degree, make strong
personalities. Their relative lack constitutes weak personality. Bare
consciousness of self is a minor evidence of personality and may be
developed to a morbid degree in a person who has a weak personality.

In the second place this distinction between weak and strong
personalities is as true of the Japanese as of the Occidental. There
have been many commanding persons in Japanese history; they have been
the heroes of the land. There are such to-day. The most commanding
personality of recent times was, I suppose, Takamori Saigo, whose very
name is an inspiration to tens of thousands of the c