Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/398

376 the other hand, it is no mere abstract idea of god, but rather a vaguely concrete general idea, accidentally clothed upon by particularity. For the gods are successively individual enough, in spite of their hasty succession. In fact, the Japanese idea of god is kin to all the other Japanese ideas; like their idea of man, for example, as it shows itself in their speech, the idea neither of a man nor of mankind, but just the idea: man.

The dominant idea thus betrays a very curious state of mind in the possessed.

Though the man's self has quite departed, the mere lessness of that self survives, and not only characterizes all subsequent tenants, but unites them by a sort of common lease. The individual has vanished; but the race is left.

Such a result, indeed, is what we should expect from our theory on the subject. For the race characteristics are the ones most deeply graven into the character of the individual. They are the great arteries of thought, the well-worn channels through which the stream flows most easily. So easily does the current pass through them