Chapter XXI: Imagination

Some criticisms of Japanese mental traits--Wide range of imaginative activity--Some salient points--Unbalanced imaginative development--Prosaic matter-of-factness--Visionariness--Impractical idealism--Illustrations--An evangelist--A principal--Visionariness in Christian work--Visionariness in national ambition--Imagination and optimism--Mr. Lowell's opinion criticised--Fancy and imagination--Caricature--Imagination and imitation--Sociological interpretation of visionariness--And of prosaic matter-of-factness--Communalism and the higher mental powers--Suppression of the constructive imagination--Racial intellectual characteristics are social rather than inherent, 233