Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/166

 human machine. And in this failure is a lesson for the people of the West, if they would profit by it.

I said that the Oriental mind is saturated with traditions. But the Occidental mind, no matter how modern, how insurgent, is not wholly free from it. Nor can it or should it be. In fact, every nation has its traditions, which illumine its history and enrich its life. From tradition springs the flower of culture. On it chiefly depends the cultivation of the character, the customs and manners, of a people. There is this difference, however, between the Oriental and Occidental nations: the first allow their traditions to grow to seed, to run wild and impoverish the soil, while the latter seldom neglect its cultivation. In other words, the Eastern people allow their traditions to accumulate throughout the centuries, without ever attempting to reduce or overhaul the pile, while the Western people seldom hesitate to abandon what has become more or less effete in the process of acquiring or creating new traditions.