EAST AND WEST

THE FIRST THING to be done in the study we have undertaken is to determine the exact nature of the opposition that divides East and West and, with this object in view, to define the meaning that we think should be attached to the two terms of this opposition. It may be said as a first rough and ready approximation that for us the East is essentially Asia and the West is essentially Europe; but this in itself requires some further explanation.

When for example we speak of the Western or European mentality, using either of these two terms indifferently, we mean the mentality proper to the European race taken as a whole. We will describe therefore as European anything bound up with this race and we will affix this common denomination to all the individuals issued from it, whatever part of the world they may happen to inhabit: thus Americans and Australians, to mention two cases only, are Europeans from our point of view and come under exactly the same heading as men of the same race who have continued to live in Europe. It is of course quite plain that the fact of removing oneself to another region or even of having been born there, cannot of itself alter the race nor consequently the mentality belonging to it; and even if a change of environment is liable sooner or later to produce certain modifications, these will only be modifications of quite a secondary kind, not really altering the fundamental characteristics of the race but on the contrary liable even to accentuate some of them. Thus it can easily be seen that certain tendencies which form part of the modern European mentality have in the case of the Americans been pushed to their extreme limit.

Nevertheless, at this point a question arises which we cannot afford to overlook entirely: we have spoken of a European race and of its own special mentality; but does a European race really exist? If by this is meant a primal race, possessing its original unity and a perfect homogeneity, then the answer is in the negative, because nobody can question the fact that the present population of Europe is made up of a mixture of strains drawn from very different races and that there exist fairly well-marked ethnic differences not only as between one country and another, but even inside each of the national groups themselves. However, it is nonetheless true that the European peoples possess enough features in common for it to be possible to distinguish them quite easily from all other peoples; this unity, even though acquired rather than primal, is enough to allow one to speak, as we are doing, of a European race—only this race is naturally less fixed and less stable than a pure one; the European elements, when mingling with other races, will be more easily absorbed, and their ethnical characteristics will disappear rapidly.

But this applies solely in the case of inter-marriage; when there is only juxtaposition, the mental characteristics, which are those which interest us most, appear on the contrary in sharper relief. Moreover, it is these mental qualities which best characterize European unity such as it is: whatever the original differences may have been in this respect as in others, a mentality common to all the peoples of Europe has been formed little by little in the course of history. This does not mean that a special mentality does not exist for each of these peoples, but the peculiarities that distinguish them are only of secondary importance when compared with the common foundation on which they appear to rest; they are, in short, as the species of a common genus. Nobody, even among those who doubt whether it is permissible to speak of a European race, will hesitate to admit that there exists a European civilization; and a civilization is nothing else than the product and expression of a certain mentality.

We will not attempt straightaway to define the distinctive features of the European mentality, because they will reveal themselves clearly enough during the course of this work; we will simply remark that a number of influences have contributed to its formation, the preponderant one being undoubtedly the Greek, or, if preferred, the Greco-Roman influence. As far as the philosophic and scientific points of view are concerned, Greek influence is practically supreme, in spite of the appearance of certain special tendencies that are entirely modern and of which we will speak later. As for Roman influence, it is more social than intellectual, and it asserts itself especially in the concepts of the State, of law, and of institutions; besides, intellectually, the Romans borrowed nearly everything from the Greeks, so that it is largely Greek influence that has made itself felt indirectly through the Romans. One must also note the importance, from the religious point of view especially, of the Judaic influence, which moreover is found similarly present in a section of the East; we have here to do with an element that is extra-European in its origin, though part of it is a constituent of the present European mentality.

If we turn now to the East, it is not possible to speak in the same way of an Eastern or of an Asiatic race, not even with all the reservations we admitted when considering the European race. We are dealing here with a more extended whole, containing much larger populations and presenting far greater ethnic differences; in this whole, several more or less pure races can be distinguished, presenting well-defined features of their own and each possessing a civilization markedly different from that of all the others: an Eastern civilization cannot be said to exist in the same sense as a Western civilization; there are in reality several Eastern ones. There will therefore be room for special remarks about each of these civilizations, and in due course we shall point out the broad general divisions that can be established; but in spite of everything, if one is less bound by form than by meaning, sufficient common elements, or rather principles, can be found to make it possible to speak of an Eastern mentality as opposed to a Western mentality.

When we say that each of the Eastern races has its own particular civilization, that is not absolutely accurate; it is only strictly true of the Chinese race, whose civilization has its real foundation in ethnic unity. In the case of the other Asiatic civilizations, the principles of unity on which they repose are of an entirely different nature, as will be explained later, and this it is which allows them to embrace in this unity elements belonging to widely differing races. We speak of Asiatic civilizations because those we have in mind are such by their origin, even though they may have spread to other regions, as has happened chiefly in the case of the Islamic civilization. But we must make it clear that, apart from Muslim elements, we do not in any way regard as Easterners the people who inhabit the east of Europe, or even certain districts adjoining Europe: one must not confuse an Easterner with a Levantine, who is rather quite the opposite, and who, at least as far as his mentality is concerned, displays most of the characteristics of a typical Westerner.

At a first glance one is bound to be impressed by the disproportion between the two entities which constitute respectively what we have called East and West; though they may stand opposed to one another, there is in reality neither equivalence nor even symmetry between the two terms of the opposition. The difference is comparable to that existing, in the geographical sense, between Asia and Europe, the second appearing only as a simple prolongation of the first; in the same way, fundamentally, the position of the West in relation to the East is that of a branch growing out of the trunk, and it will now be our task to explain this point more fully.