Still further evidence proving Japanese possession of the higher mental faculties may be found in the wide prevalence and use of the most highly generalized philosophical terms.  Consider for instance, “Ri” and “Ki,” “In” and “Yo.”  No complete translation can be found for them in English; “Ri” and “Ki” may be best translated as the rational and the formative principles in the universe, while “In” and “Yo” signify the active and the passive, the male and the female, the light and the darkness; in a word, the poles of a positive and negative.  It is true that these terms are of Chinese origin as well as the thoughts themselves, but they are to-day in universal use in Japan.  Similar abstract terms of Buddhistic origin are the possession of the common people.

Of course the possession of these Chinese terms is not offered as evidence of independent generalizing ability.  But wide use proves conclusively the possession of the higher mental faculties, for, without such faculties, the above terms would be incomprehensible to the people and would find no place in common speech.  We must be careful not to give too much weight to the foreign origin of these terms.  Chinese is to Japanese what Latin and Greek are to modern European languages.  The fact that a term is of Chinese origin proves nothing as to the nature of the modern Japanese mind.  The developing Japanese civilization demanded new terms for her new instruments and increasing concepts.  These for over fifteen centuries have been borrowed from, or constructed out of, Chinese in the same way that all our modern scientific terms are constructed out of Latin and Greek.  It is doubtful if any of the Chinese terms, even those borrowed bodily, have in Japan the same significance as in China.  If this is true, then the originating feature of Japanese power of generalization becomes manifest.

Indeed from this standpoint, the fact that the Japanese have made such extensive use of the Chinese language shows the degree to which the Japanese mind has outgrown its primitive development, demanding new terms for the expression of its expanding life.  But mental growth implies energy of acquisition.  The adoption of Chinese terms is not a passive but an active process.

Acquisition of generalized terms can only take place with the development of a generalizing mind.  Foreign terms may help, but they do not cause that development.

In a study of the question whether or not the Japanese possess independent powers of analysis and generalization, we must ever remember the unique character of the social environment to which they have been subjected.  Always more or less of an isolated nation, they have been twice or thrice suddenly confronted with a civilization much superior to that which they in their isolation had developed.  Under such circumstances, adoption and modification of ideas and language as well as of methods and machinery were the most rational and natural courses.