hoicest youth of
the nation. Joseph Neesima was such a personality. The transparency of
his purpose, the simplicity of his personal aim, his unflinching
courage, fixedness of belief, lofty plans, and far-reaching ambitions
for his people, impressed all who came into contact with him. No one
mingles much with the Japanese, freely speaking with them in their own
language, but perceives here and there men of "strong personality" in
the sense of the above-quoted passage. Now it seems to me that if
"impersonality" in the corresponding sense were a race characteristic,
due to the nature of their psychic being, then the occurrence of so
many commanding personalities in Japan would be inexplicable. Heroes
and widespread hero-worship[CW] could hardly arise were there no
commanding personalities. The feudal order lent itself without doubt
to the development of such a spirit. But the feudal order could hardly
have arisen or even maintained itself for centuries without commanding
personalities, much less could it have created them. The whole feudal
order was built on an exalted oligarchy. It was an order which
emphasized persons, not principles; the law of the land was not the
will of the multitudes, but of a few select persons. While, therefore,
it is beyond dispute that the old social order was communal in type,
and so did not give freedom to the individual, nor tend to develop
strong personality among the masses, it is also true that it did
develop men of commanding personality among the rulers. Those who from
youth were in the hereditary line of rule, sons of Shoguns, daimyos,
and samurai, were forced by the very communalism of the social order
to an exceptional personal development. They shot far ahead of the
common man. Feudalism is favorable to the development of personality
in the favored few, while it represses that of the masses.
Individualism, on the contrary, giving liberty of thought and act,
with all that these imply, is favorable to the development of the
personality of all.

In view of the discussions of this chapter, is it not evident that
advocates of the "impersonal" theory of Japanese mind and civilization
not only ignore many important elements of the civilization they
attempt to interpret, but also base their interpretation on a mistaken
conception of personality? We may not, however, leave the discussion
at this point, for important considerations still demand our attention
if we would probe this problem of