 Preface of Bushido, the Soul of Japan. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Awaii in November 2009. Bushido, the Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe. Preface. To my beloved uncle, Tokitoshi Ota, who taught me to revere the past and to admire the deeds of the samurai, I dedicate this little book. That way over the mountain, which who stands upon is apt to doubt if it be indeed a road, while if he views it from the waist itself, up goes the line there, plain from base to brow, not vague, mistakable. What's a break or two seen from the unbroken desert either side? And then, to bring in fresh philosophy, what if the breaks themselves should prove at last the most consummate of contrivances to train a man's eye, teach him what is faith? Robert Browning, Bishop Laugram's Apology. There are, if I may so say, three powerful spirits, which have, from time to time, moved on the face of the waters and given a predominant impulse to the moral sentiments and energies of mankind. These are the spirits of liberty, of religion and of honour. Hallam, Europe in the Middle Ages. Chivalry is itself the poetry of life. Schläge, Philosophy of History. Preface. About ten years ago, while spending a few days under the hospitable roof of the distinguished Belgian jurist, the lamented Monsieur de la Vallée, our conversation turned during one of our rambles to the subject of religion. Do you mean to say, asked a venerable professor, that you have no religious instruction in your schools? On my replying in the negative, he suddenly halted in astonishment and in a voice which I shall not easily forget, he repeated, No religion! How do you impart moral education? The question stunned me at the time. I could give no ready answer for the moral precepts I learned in my childhood days were not given in schools, and not until I began to analyse the different elements that formed my notions of right and wrong did I find that it was Bushido that breathed them into my nostrils. The direct inception of this little book is due to the frequent queries put by my wife as to the reasons why such and such ideas and customs prevailed in Japan. In my attempts to give satisfactory replies to Monsieur de la Vallée and to my wife, I found that without understanding feudalism and Bushido, the moral ideas of present Japan are a sealed volume. Taken advantage of enforced idleness on account of long illness, I put down in the order now presented to the public some of the answers given in our household conversation. They consist mainly of what I was taught and told in my youthful days when feudalism was still in force. Between Lafcadio Hearn and Mrs. Hugh Fraser on one side and Sir Ernest Sato and Professor Chamberlain on the other, it is indeed discouraging to write anything Japanese in English. The only advantage I have over them is that I can assume the attitude of a personal defendant while these distinguished writers are at best solicitors and attorneys. I have often thought, had I their gift of language, I would present the cause of Japan in more eloquent terms. But one who speaks in a borrowed tongue should be thankful if he can just make himself intelligible. All through the discourse I have tried to illustrate whatever points I have made with parallel examples from European history and literature believing that these will aid in bringing the subject nearer to the comprehension of foreign readers. Should any of my illusions to religious subjects and to religious workers be thought slighting, I trust my attitude towards Christianity itself will not be questioned. It is with ecclesiastical methods and with the forms which obscure the teachings of Christ and not with the teachings themselves that I have little sympathy. I believe in the religion taught by him and handed down to us in the New Testament as well as in the law written in the heart. Further I believe that God hath made a testament which may be called old with every people and nation, Gentile or Jew, Christian or heathen. As to the rest of my theology, I need not impose upon the patience of the public. In concluding this preface, I wish to express my thanks to my friend Anna C. Hartschorn for many valuable suggestions and for the characteristically Japanese design made by her for the cover of this book. Inazo Nitobe, Malvern, Pennsylvania, 12 months, 1899. Preface to the 10th and revised edition. Since its first publication in Philadelphia more than six years ago, this little book has had an unexpected history. The Japanese reprint has passed through eight editions, the present thus being its 10th appearance in the English language. Simultaneously with this will be issued an American and English edition through the publishing house of Mrs. George H. Putnam's sons of New York. In the meantime, Bushido has been translated into Marathi by Mr. Dev of Kandesh, into German by Freulein Kaufmann of Hamburg, into Bohemian by Mr. Hora of Chicago, into Polish by the Society of Science and Life in Lemberg, although this Polish edition has been censored by the Russian government. It is now being rendered into Norwegian and into French. A Chinese translation is under contemplation. A Russian officer, now a prisoner in Japan, has a manuscript in Russian ready for the press. A part of the volume has been brought before the Hungarian public and the detailed review almost amounting to a commentary has been published in Japanese. Full scholarly notes for the help of younger students have been compiled by my friend Mr. H. Sakurai to whom I also owe much for his aid in other ways. I have been more than gratified to feel that my humble work has found sympathetic readers in widely separated circles, showing that the subject matter is of some interest to the world at large. Exceedingly flattering is the news that has reached me from official sources that President Roosevelt has done it undeserved honor by reading it and distributing several dozens of copies among his friends. In making amendations and editions for the present edition, I have largely confined them to concrete examples. I still continue to regret, as I indeed have never ceased to do, my inability to add a chapter on filial piety which is considered one of the two wheels of the chariot of Japanese ethics, loyalty being the other. My inability is due rather to my ignorance of the Western sentiment in regard to this particular virtue than to ignorance of our own attitude towards it and I cannot draw comparisons satisfying to my own mind. I hope one day to enlarge upon this and other topics at some length. All the subjects that are touched upon in these pages are capable of further amplification and discussion, but I do not now see my way clear to make this volume larger than it is. This preface would be incomplete and unjust if I were to omit the debt I owe to my wife for her reading of the proof sheets, for helpful suggestions and, above all, for her constant encouragement. Inazo Nitobe Kyoto Fifth Month Twenty Second 1905 End of Preface Chapter 1 of Bushido The Soul of Japan This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Avae in November 2009. Bushido The Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe Chapter 1 Bushido as an ethical system. Shivalry is a flower no less indigenous to the soil of Japan than its emblem, the cherry blossom. Nor is it a dried-up specimen of an antique virtue preserved in the herbarium of our history. It is still a living object of power and beauty among us, and if it assumes no tangible shape or form, it not the less sends the moral atmosphere and makes us aware that we are still under its potent spell. The conditions of society which brought it forth and nourished it, have long disappeared, but as those far-off stars which once were and are not still continue to shed their rays upon us, so the light of Shivalry which was a child of feudalism still illuminates our moral path surviving its mother institution. It is a pleasure to me to reflect upon this subject in the language of Burke who uttered the well-known touching eulogy over the neglected buyer of its European prototype. It argues a sad defect of information concerning the Far East when so erudite a scholar as Dr. George Miller did not hesitate to affirm that Shivalry or any other similar institution has never existed either among the nations of antiquity or among the modern orientals. Such ignorance, however, is amply excusable as the third edition of the good doctor's work appeared the same year that Commodore Perry was knocking at the portals of our exclusivism. More than a decade later about the time that our feudalism was in the last throes of existence Karl Marx, writing his capital called the attention of his readers to the peculiar advantage of studying the social and political institutions of feudalism as then to be seen in living form only in Japan. I would likewise invite the western historical and ethical student to the study of Shivalry in the Japan of the present. Enticing as is a historical disquisition on the comparison between European and Japanese feudalism and Shivalry, it is not the purpose of this paper to enter into it at length. My attempt is rather to relate, firstly, the origin and sources of our Shivalry. Secondly, its character and teaching. Thirdly, its influence among the masses and, fourthly, the continuity and permanence of its influence. Of these several points the first will be only brief and cursory, or else I should have to take my readers into the devious paths of our national history. The second will be dwelt upon at greater length, as being most likely to interest students of international ethics and comparative psychology in our ways of thought and action, and the rest will be dealt with as corollaries. The Japanese word which I have roughly rendered Shivalry is, in the original, more expressive than horsemanship. Bu-shi-do means literally military knight ways. The ways which fighting nobles should observe in their daily life as well as in their vocation. In a word, the precepts of the word, the noblesse oblige of the warrior class. Having thus, given its literal significance, I may be allowed henceforth to use the word in the original. The use of the original term is also advisable for this reason, that a teaching so circumscribed and unique engendered as cast of mind and character so peculiar, so local, must wear the badge of its singularity on its face. Then, some words have a national timbre so expressive of race characteristics that the best of translators can do them but scant justice, not to say positive injustice and grievance. Who can improve by translation what the German gemüt signifies? Or who does not feel the difference between the two words verbally so closely allied as the English gentleman and the French gentilom? Bu-shi-do, then, is the code of moral principles which the knights were required or instructed to observe. It is not a written code, at best it consists of a few maxims handed down from mouth to mouth, or coming from the pen of some well-known warrior or a servant. More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten, possessing all the more the powerful sanction of veritable deed and of a law written on the fleshly tablets of the heart. It was founded not on the creation of one brain, however able, or on the life of a single personage, however renowned. It was an organic growth of decades and centuries of military career. It, perhaps, feels the same position in the history of ethics that the English constitution does in political history, yet it has had nothing to compare with the Magna Charter or the Scorpus Act. True, early in the 17th century, military statues, bouquet hattos were promulgated, but their 13 short articles were taken up mostly with marriages, castles, leagues, etc. and didactic regulations were but meagrely touched upon. We cannot, therefore, point out any definite time and place and say here is its fountain head. Only as it attains consciousness in the feudal age its origin, in respect to time, may be identified with feudalism. But feudalism itself is woven of many threads and Bushido shares its intricate nature. As in England, the political institutions of feudalism may be said to date from the Norman conquest, so we may say that in Japan its rise was simultaneous with the ascendancy of Thomas late in the 12th century. As however in England, we find the social elements of feudalism far back in the period previous to William the Conqueror, so too the germs of feudalism in Japan had been long existent before the period I have mentioned. Again, in Japan as in Europe, when feudalism was formally inaugurated, the professional class of warriors naturally came into prominence. These were known as samurai, meaning literally like the old English night, guards or attendants resembling in character the solduri, whom Caesar mentioned as existing in Aquitania, or the comitati who, according to Tacitus, followed Germanic chiefs in his time, or to take a still later parallel, the Milites medii that one reads about in the history of medieval Europe. A cynical Japanese word Bu-ke, or Bu-shi, fighting knights was also adopted in common use. They were a privileged class and must originally have been a rough breed, who made fighting their vocation. This class was naturally recruited in a long period of constant warfare from the manliest and the most adventurous, and all the while the process of elimination went on the timid and the feeble being sorted out, and only a rude race, all masculine with brutish strength, to borrow Emerson's phrase, surviving to form families and the ranks of the samurai. Coming to profess great honor and great privileges, and correspondingly great responsibilities, they soon felt the need of a common standard of behavior, especially as they were always on a belligerent footing and belonged to different clans. Just as physicians limit competition among themselves by professional courtesy, just as lawyers sit in courts of honor in cases of violated etiquette, so must also warriors possess some resort for final judgment on their misdemeanors. Fair play in fight. What fertile germs of morality lie in this primitive sense of savagery and childhood? Is it not the root of all military and civic virtues? And yet, who does not know that this desire is the cornerstone on which moral structures of mighty dimensions can be reared? May I not go even so far as to say that the gentlest and most peace-loving of religions endorses this aspiration? This is a question that I would like to address. I would like to address the question that is this aspiration? This desire of Tom's is the basis on which the greatness of England is largely built, and it will not take as long to discover that Bushido does not stand on a lesser pedestal. If fighting in itself be it offensive or defensive is, as Quakers rightly testify, brutal and wrong, we can still say with lessing, we know from what failings our virtue springs. In other words, our epithets of the worst opprobrium to healthy, simple natures. Childhood begins life with these notions, and knighthood also, but as life grows larger and its relations many-sided, the early faith seeks sanction from higher authority and more rational sources for its own justification, satisfaction and development. If military interests had operated on without higher moral support, how far short of chivalry would the ideal of knighthood have fallen? In Europe, Christianity interpreted with concessions convenient to chivalry infused it nevertheless with spiritual data. Religion, war and glory were the three souls of a perfect Christian knight, César Martin. End of chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Bushido, the Soul of Japan This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Abaii in November 2009. Bushido, the Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe. Chapter 2 Sources of Bushido In Japan there were several sources of Bushido, of which I may begin with Buddhism. It furnished a sense of calm trust and fate, a quiet submission to the inevitable that stoic composure inside of danger or calamity that disdain of life and friendliness with death. A foremost teacher of swordmanship when he saw his pupil master the utmost of his art told him beyond this my instruction must give way to Zen teaching. Zen is the Japanese equivalent for the diana which represents human effort to reach through meditation zones of thought beyond the range of verbal expression. Its method is contemplation and its purport as far as I understand it to be convinced of a principle that underlies all phenomena and if it can of the absolute itself and thus to put oneself in harmony with this absolute. Thus defined the teaching was more than the dogma of a sect and whoever attains to the perception of the absolute raises himself above mundane things and awakes to a new heaven and a new earth. What Buddhism failed to give Shintoism offered in abundance such loyalty to the sovereign such reverence for ancestral memory and such filial piety as are not taught by any other creed were inculcated by the Shinto doctrines imparting passivity to the otherwise arrogant character of the samurai. Shinto theology has no place for the dogma of original sin. On the contrary, it believes in the innate goodness and godlike purity of the human soul adoring it as the additum from which divine oracles are proclaimed. Everybody has observed that the Shinto shrines are conspicuously devoid of objects and instruments of worship and that a plain mirror hung in the sanctuary forms the essential part of its furnishing. The presence of this article is easy to explain. It typifies the human heart which, when perfectly placid and clear, reflects the very image of the deity. When you stand, therefore, in front of the shrine to worship you see your own image reflected on its shining surface and the act of worship is tantamount to the old Delphic injunction know thyself. But self-knowledge does not imply teaching, knowledge of the physical part of man, not his anatomy or his psychophysics. Knowledge was to be of a moral kind, the introspection of our moral nature. Momsen, comparing the Greek and the Roman, says that when the former worshipped he raised his eyes to heaven for his prayer was contemplation while the letter veiled his head for his was reflection. Our reflection brought into prominence so much the moral as the national consciousness of the individual. Its nature worship endeared the country to our inmost souls while its anxious the worship tracing from lineage to lineage made the imperial family the fountain head of the whole nation. To us the country is more than land and soil from which to mine gold or to reap grain it is the sacred abode of the gods the spirits of our forefathers. To us the emperor is more than the arch-constable of a Rechtsstaat or even the pattern of a Kulturstaat he is bodily representative of heaven on earth blending in his person its power and its mercy. If what Mr. Butme says is true of English royalty that it is not only the image of authority but the author and symbol of national unity as I believe it to be doubly and trebly may this be affirmed of royalty in Japan. The tenets of Shintoism covered the two predominating features of the emotional life of our race patriotism and loyalty. Arthur May Knapp in feudal and modern Japan very truly says in Hebrew literature it is often difficult to tell whether the writer is speaking of God or of the Commonwealth of heaven or of Jerusalem of the Messiah or of the nation itself. A similar confusion may be noticed in the nomenclature of our national faith. I said confusion because it will be so deemed biological intellect on account of its verbal ambiguity. Still being a framework of national instinct and race feelings Shintoism never pretends to a systematic philosophy or rational theology. This religion or is it not more correct to say the race emotions which this religion expressed. Shintoism roughly imbued Bushido with loyalty to the sovereign and love of country. These acted more as impulses than as doctrines for Shintoism unlike the medieval Christian church prescribed to its votaries scarcely any credenda furnishing them at the same time with agenda of a straightforward and simple type. As to strictly ethical doctrines the teachings of Confucius were the most prolific source Bushido. His enunciation of the five moral relations between master and servant the governing and the governed father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother and between friend and friend was but a confirmation of what the race instinct had recognized before his writings were introduced from China. The calm, benign and worldly wise character of his political ethical precepts was particularly suited to the samurai who formed the ruling class. His aristocratic and conservative tone was well adapted to the requirements of these warrior statesmen. Next to Confucius Mencius exercised an immense authority over Bushido. His forcible and often quite democratic theories were exceedingly taking to sympathetic natures and they were even thought dangerous too and subversive of the existing order hence his works were for a long time under censure. Still the words of this master mind found permanent lodgement in the heart of the samurai. The writings of Confucius and Mencius formed the principal textbooks for youths and the highest authority in discussion among the old. Amira quaintance with the classics of these two sages was held however in no high esteem. A common proverb ridicules one who has only an intellectual knowledge of Confucius as a man ever studious but ignorant of analects. A typical samurai calls a literary servant a book-smelling sort. Another compares learning to an ill-smelling vegetable that must be boiled and boiled before it is fit for use. A man who has read a little smells a little pedantic and the man who has read much smells yet more so. Both are alike unpleasant. The writer meant thereby that knowledge becomes really such only when it is assimilated in the mind of the learner and shows in his character. An intellectual specialist was considered a machine. Intellect itself was considered subordinate to ethical emotion. Man and the universe were conceived to be alike, spiritual and ethical. Bushido could not accept the judgment of Huxley that the cosmic process was un-moral. Bushido made light of knowledge as such. It was not pursued as an end in itself but as a means to the attainment of wisdom. Hence he who stopped short of this end was regarded no higher than a convenient machine which could turn out poems and maxims at bidding. Thus knowledge was conceived as identical with its practical application in life and the Socratic doctrine found its greatest exponent in Chinese philosopher Wan Yang Ming who never worries of repeating to know and to act are one and the same. I beg leave for a moment's digression while I am on this subject in as much as some of the noblest types of Bushi were strongly influenced by the teachings of this sage. Western readers will easily recognize in his writings many parallels to the New Testament. Making allowance for the terms peculiar to either teaching the passage seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. Convays a thought that may be found on almost any page of Wan Yang Ming. A Japanese disciple Miwa Shisai of his says the Lord of Heaven and Earth of all living beings dwelling in the heart of men becomes his mind Kokoro. Hence a mind is a living thing and is ever luminous and again the spiritual light of our essential being is pure and is not affected by the will of man. Spontaneously springing up in our mind it shows what is right and wrong it is then called conscience. It is even the light that proceeded from the God of Heaven. How very much do these words sound like some passages from Isaac Pennington or other philosophic I am inclined to think that the Japanese mind as expressed in the simple tenets of the Shinto religion was particularly open to the reception of Yang Ming's precepts. He carried his doctrine of the infallibility of conscience to extreme transcendentalism attributing to it the faculty to perceive not only the distinction between right and wrong but also the nature of psychical facts and physical phenomena. He went as far as, if not further then, Berkeley and Fichte in idealism denying the existence of things outside of human ken. If his system had all the logical errors charged to solipsism it had all the efficacy of strong conviction and its moral import in developing individuality of character and equanimity of temper cannot be gainset. Thus, whatever the sources, the essential principles which Bushido imbibed from them and assimilated to itself were few and simple. Few and simple as these were, they were sufficient to furnish a safe conduct of life even through the unsafest days of the most unsettled period of our nation's history. The wholesome, unsophisticated nature of our warrior ancestors derived ample food for their spirit from a sheaf of common place and fragmentary teachings that gleaned as it were under highways and byways of ancient thought and stimulated by the demands of the age formed from these gleanings a new and unique type of manhood. An acute French savant Monsieur de la Masaliere thus sums up his impressions of the 16th century. Toward the middle of the 16th century all is confusion in Japan, in the government, in society, in the church. But the civil wars, the manors returning to barbarism, the necessity for each to execute justice for himself, these formed man comparable to those Italians of the 16th century in whom Tain praises the vigorous initiative, the habit of sudden resolutions and desperate undertakings, the grand capacity to do and to suffer. In Japan as in Italy, the rude manners of the middle ages are made of man as superb animal, wholly militant and wholly resistant. And this is why the 16th century displays in the highest degree the principal quality of the Japanese race that great diversity which one finds there between minds, as prise, as well as between temperaments. While in India and even in China men seem to differ chiefly in degree of energy or intelligence, in Japan they differ by originality of character as well. Now individuality is the sign of superior races and of civilizations already developed. If we make use of an expression dear to Nietzsche, we might say that in Asia to speak of humanity is to speak of its planes in Japan as in Europe one represented above all by its mountains. End of chapter 2 Chapter 3 of Bushido, the Soul of Japan This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Avae in November 2009 Bushido, the Soul of Japan by Inazo Nittobee Chapter 3 Rectitude or Justice To the pervading characteristics of the men of whom Monsieur de la Maselier writes let us now address ourselves. I shall begin with Rectitude or Justice the most coagent precept in the Code of the Samurai Nothing is more loathsome to him than underhand dealings and crooked undertakings. The conception of rectitude may be erroneous it may be narrow A well-known Bushi defines it as a power of resolution Rectitude is the power of deciding upon a certain course of conduct in accordance with reason without wavering a samurai when it is right to die to strike when to strike is right another speaks of it in the following terms Rectitude is the bone that gives firmness and stature as without bones the head cannot rest on the top of the spine nor hands move nor feet stand so without rectitude neither talent nor learning can make of a human frame a samurai with it the lack of accomplishments is as nothing Mencius calls Benvolens men's mind and rectitude or righteousness his path How lamentable he exclaims is it to neglect the path and not pursue it to lose the mind and not know to seek it again but men's fowls and dogs are lost they know to seek for them again but they lose their mind and do not know to seek for it Have we not here as in a glass darkly a parable pounded 300 years later in another climb and by a greater teacher who called himself the way of righteousness through whom the lost could be found but I stray from my point righteousness according to Mencius is a straight and narrow path which a man ought to take to regain the lost paradise even in the later days of feudalism when the long continuance of peace brought leisure into the life of the warrior class and with it dissipations of all kinds and gentle accomplishments the epithet Gishi a man of rectitude was considered superior to any name that signified mastery of learning or art the 47 faithfuls of whom so much is made in our popular education are known in common parlance as the 47 Gishi in times when cunning artifice was liable to pass for military tact and downright falsehood for Rues de Guerre this manly virtue frank and honest was a jewel that shown the brightest and was most highly praised rectitude is a twin brother to valor another martial virtue but before proceeding to speak of valor let me linger a little while on what I may term a derivation from rectitude which at first deviating slightly from its original became more and more removed from it until its meaning was perverted in the popular acceptance I speak of Giri literally the right reason but which came in time to mean a vague sense of duty which public opinion expected an incumbent to fulfill in its original and unalloyed sense it meant duty pure and simple hence we speak of the Giri we owe to parents to superiors to inferiors to society at large and so forth in these instances Giri is duty for what else is duty then what right reason demands and commands us to do should not right reason be our categorical imperative Giri primarily meant no more than duty and their dare say its etymology was derived from the fact that in our conduct say to our parents though love should be the only motive lacking that there must be some other authority to enforce filial piety and they formulated this authority in Giri very rightly that they formulated this authority Giri since if love does not rush to deeds of virtue we course must be had to man's intellect and his reason must be quickened to convince him of the necessity of acting a right the same is true of any other moral obligation the instant duty becomes onerous right reason steps in to prevent our shirking it Giri thus understood is a severe task master with a bird shroud in his hand to make sluggards perform their part it is a secondary power in ethics as a motive it is infinitely inferior to the Christian doctrine of love which should be the law I deem it a product of the conditions of an artificial society of a society in which accident of birth and unmerited favor constituted class distinctions in which the family was the social unit in which seniority of age was of more account and superiority of talents in which natural affections had often to succumb before arbitrary man-made customs because of this very artificiality Giri in time degenerated into a vague sense of propriety called upon to explain this and sanction that as for example why a mother must need be sacrifice all her other children in order to save the firstborn or why a daughter must sell her chastity to get funds to pay for the father's dissipation and the like starting as right reason Giri has in my opinion often stooped to casuistry it has even degenerated into cowardly fear of censure I might say of Giri what Scott wrote of patriotism that as it is the socialist so it is often the most suspicious mask of other feelings carried beyond or below right reason Giri became a monstrous misnomer it harbored under its wings every sort of sophistry and hypocrisy it might easily have been turned into a nest of cowardice if Bushido had not a keen and correct sense of courage the spirit of daring and bearing to the consideration of which we shall now return to the end of chapter 3 chapter 4 of Bushido the soul of Japan this lip-revox recording is in the public domain recording by Avae in November 2009 Bushido the soul of Japan by Inazo Nittobee chapter 4 courage the spirit of daring and bearing courage was scarcely deemed worthy to be counted among virtues unless it was exercised in the cause of righteousness in his analects Confucius defines courage by explaining as is often his want what its negative is perceiving what is right he says and doing it not argues lack of courage put this epigram into a positive statement and it runs courage is doing what is right to run all kinds of hazards to jeopardize one's self to rush into the jaws of death these are too often identified with valor and in the profession of arms such Russian as of conduct what Shakespeare calls a vela misbigot is unjustly applauded but not so in the precepts of knighthood death for a cause unworthy of dying for was called a dog's death to rush into the thick of battle and to be slain in it says a prince of Mito is easy enough and the nearest churl is equal to the task but he continues it is true courage to live when it is right to live and to die only when it is right to die and yet the prince had not even heard of the name of Plato who defines courage as the knowledge of things that a man should fear and that he should not fear a distinction which is made in the west between moral and physical courage has long been recognized among us what samurai youth has not heard of great valor and the valor of a villain valor, fortitude, bravery fearlessness, courage being the qualities of soul which appeal most easily to juvenile minds and which can be trained by exercise and example were so to speak the most popular virtues early emulated among the youth stories of military exploits were repeated almost before boys left their mothers breast does a little booby cry for any ache the mother scolds him in this fashion what a coward to cry for a trifling pain what will you do when your arm is cut off in battle what when you are called upon to commit harakiri we all know the pathetic fortitude of a famished little boy prince of Sendai who in the drama is made to say to his little page see as though those shiny sparrows in the nest how their yellow beaks are opened wide and now see there comes their mother with worms to feed them how eagerly and happily the little ones eat but for a samurai when his stomach is empty it is a disgrace to feel hunger anecdotes of fortitude and bravery abound in nursery tales though stories of this kind are not by any means the only method of early imbuing the spirit with daring and fearlessness sternness sometimes verging on cruelty set their children to tasks that called forth all the pluck that was in them bears hurled their cubs down the gorge they said samurai's sons were let down the steep valleys of hardship and spurred to sissifus like tasks occasional deprivation of food or exposure to cold was considered a highly efficacious test for enuring them to endurance children of tender age were sent to utter strangers with some message to deliver were made to rise before the sun and before breakfast attend to their reading exercises walking to their teacher with bare feet in the cold of winter they frequently, once or twice a month as on the festival of a god of learning came together in small groups and passed the night without sleep in reading aloud by turns pilgrimages to all sorts of uncanny places to execution grounds to houses reputed to be haunted were favorite pastimes of the young in the days when decapitation was public not only were small boys sent to witness the ghastly scene but they were made to visit alone the place in the darkness of night and there to leave a mark of their visit on the trunkless head thus this ultra spartan system of drilling the nerves strike the modern pedagogist with horror and doubt doubt whether the tendency to be brutalizing nipping in the bud the tender emotions of the heart let us see what other concepts Bushido had of valor the spiritual aspect of valor is evidenced by composure calm presence of mind tranquility is courage in repose it is a statical manifestation of valor as daring deeds are a dynamical a truly brave man is Eva Serene he is never taken by surprise nothing ruffles the equanimity of his spirit in the heat of battle he remains cool in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind earthquakes do not shake him he laughs at storms we admire him as truly great who in the menacing presence of danger or death retains his self-possession who for instance can compose a poem under impending peril or hum a strain in the face of death such indulgence betraying no tremor in writing or in the voice is taken as an infallible index of a large nature of what we call a capacious mind yo-yu which far from being pressed or crowded has always room for something more it passes current among us as a piece of authentic history that is Ota Dokan the great builder of the castle of Tokyo was pierced through with a spear his assassin knowing the poetical predilection of his victim accompanied his thrust with his couplet ah how in moments like these our heart doth grudge the light of life whereupon the expiring hero not one wit downed by the mortal wound in his side added the lines had not in hours of peace it learned to lightly look on life there is even a sportive element in a courageous nature things which are serious to ordinary people maybe but play to the valiant hence in all the warfare it was not at all rare for the parties to conflict to exchange repartee or to begin a rhetorical contest combat was not solely a matter of brute force it was as well an intellectual engagement of such character was the battle fought on the bank of the Kuromo river late in the 11th century the eastern army routed its leader, Sadato, took to flight when the pursuing general pressed him hard and called aloud it is a disgrace for a warrior to show his back to the enemy Sadato reigned his horse upon this the conquering chief shouted an impromptu verse turn into shreds is the warp of the cloth Kuromo scarcely had the words escaped his lips when the defeated warrior and this maid completed the couplet since age has worn its threads by use his bow had all the while been bent suddenly unstrung it and turned away leaving his prospective victim to do as he pleased when asked the reason of this strange behavior he replied that he could not bear to put to shame one who had kept his presence of mind while hotly pursued by his enemy the sorrow which overtook Anthony and Octavius at the death of Brutus has been the general experience of brave men Kenshin who fought for 14 years with Shingen when he heard of the latter's death wept aloud at the loss of the best of enemies it was this same Kenshin who had set a noble example for all time in his treatment of Shingen whose provinces lay in a mountainous region quite away from the sea and who had consequently depended upon the Hojo provinces of the Tokaido for salt the Hojo prince wishing to weaken him although not openly at war with him had cut off from Shingen all traffic in this important article Kenshin hearing of his enemy's dilemma and able to obtain his salt from the coast of his own dominions wrote Shingen that in his opinion the Hojo lord had committed a very mean act and that although he Kenshin was at war with him Shingen he had ordered his subjects to furnish him with plenty of salt adding I do not fight with salt but with the sword no more than a parallel to the words of Camillus we Romans do not fight with gold but with iron Nietzsche spoke for the samurai heart when he wrote you are to be proud of your enemy then the success of your enemy is your success also indeed valor and honor alike required that we should own as enemies in war only such as proof worthy of being friends in peace End of chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Bushido the soul of Japan this lip-revox recording is in a public domain recording by Avae in November 2009 Bushido the soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe Chapter 5 Benvolence the feeling of distress when valor attains this height it becomes akin to Benvolence the feeling of distress love, magnanimity affection for others sympathy and pity which were ever recognized to be supreme virtues the highest of all the attributes of the human soul Benvolence was deemed a princely virtue in a twofold sense princely among the manifold attributes of a noble spirit princely as particularly befitting a princely profession we needed no Shakespeare to feel though perhaps like the rest of the world we needed him to express it that mercy became a monarch better than his crown that it was above his sceptred sway how often both Confucius and Mencius repeat the highest requirement of the ruler of men to consist in Benvolence Confucius would say let but a prince cultivate virtue people will flock to him with people will come to him lands lands will bring forth for him wealth wealth will give him the benefit of right uses virtue is the root and wealth an outcome again never has there been a case of a sovereign loving Benvolence and the people not loving righteousness Mencius follows close at his heels and says instances are on record where individuals attained to supreme power in a single state without Benvolence but never have I heard of a whole empire falling into the hands of one who lacked this virtue also it is impossible that anyone should become ruler of the people to whom they have not yielded a subjection of their hearts both defined this indispensable requirement in a ruler by saying Benvolence Benvolence is man under the regime of feudalism which could easily be perverted into militarism it was to Benvolence that we order deliverance from despotism of the worst kind an utter surrender of life and limb on the part of the governed would have left nothing for the governing but self-will and this has for its natural consequence the growth of that absolutism so often called oriental despotism as though there were no despots of occidental history let it be far from me to uphold despotism of any sort but it is a mistake to identify feudalism with it when Frederick the Great wrote that kings are the first servants of the state jurists thought rightly that a new era was reached in the development of freedom strangely coinciding in time in the backwoods of north-western Japan Yosan of Yonezawa made exactly the same declaration showing that feudalism was not all tyranny and oppression a feudal prince although unmindful of owing reciprocal obligations to his vassals felt a higher sense of responsibility to his ancestors and to heaven he was a father to his subjects whom heaven entrusted to his care in a sense not usually assigned to the term Bushido accepted and corroborated paternal government paternal also as opposed to the less interested avuncular government Uncle Sam's to wit the difference between a despotic and a paternal government lies in this that in the one the people obey reluctantly while in the other they do so with that proud submission that dignified obedience that subordination of heart which kept alive even in servitude itself the spirit of exalted freedom the old saying is not entirely false which called the king of England the king of devils because of his subjects often insurrections against and their positions of their princes and which made the French monarch the king of asses because of their infinite taxes and impositions but which gave the title of the king of men to the sovereign of Spain because of his subjects willing obedience but enough virtue and absolute power may strike the Anglo-Saxon mind as terms which it is impossible to harmonize Popiodonostev has clearly said before us the contrast in the foundations of English and other European communities namely that these were organized on the basis of common interest while that was distinguished by a strongly developed independent personality what this Russian statesman says of the personal dependence of individuals on some social alliance and in the end of ends of the state among the continental nations of Europe and particularly among Slavonic peoples is doubly of the Japanese hence not only is a free exercise of monarchical power not felt as heavily by us as in Europe but it is generally moderated by parental consideration for the feelings of the people absolutism says Bismarck primarily demands in the ruler impartiality, honesty devotion to duty, energy and inward humility if I may be allowed to make one more quotation on this subject I will cite from the speech of the German Emperor Koblenz in which he spoke of kingship by the grace of God with its heavy duties its tremendous responsibility to the creator alone from which no man, no minister, no parliament can release the monarch we knew Ben-Volens was a tender virtue and motherlike if upright rectitude and stern justice were peculiarly masculine mercy had the gentleness and persuasiveness of a feminine nature we were warned against indulging in indiscriminate charity without seasoning it with justice and rectitude Mazamune expressed it well in his oft quoted aphorism rectitude carried to excess hardens into stiffness Ben-Volens indulged beyond measure sinks into weakness fortunately mercy was not so rare as it was beautiful for it is universally true that the tenderest, the loving are the daring Boushin no nasa ke the tenderness of a warrior had a sound which appealed at once to whatever was noble in us not that the mercy of a samurai was generically different from the mercy of any other being but because it implied mercy where mercy was not a blind impulse but where it recognized due regard to justice and where mercy did not remain merely a certain state of mind in fact with power to save or kill as economists speak of demand as being effectual or ineffectual similarly we may call the mercy of Boushin effectual since it implied the power of acting for the good or detriment of the recipient priding themselves as they did in their brute strength and privileges to turn it into account the samurai gave full consent to what Manches taught concerning the power of love Ben-Volens he says brings under its sway whatever hinders its power justice waters subdues fire they only doubt the power of water to quench flames who try to extinguish with a cupful a whole burning wagon load of faggots he also says that the feeling of distress is the root of Ben-Volens therefore a Ben-Volens man is ever mindful of those who are suffering and in distress thus did Manches long anticipate Adam Smith who founds his ethical philosophy on sympathy it is indeed striking how closely the code of nightly honor of one country coincides with that of others in other words how the much abused oriental ideas of morals find their counterparts in the noblest maxims of European literature if the well-known lines hey tibi erunt artes pacisque imponere morem pacere subiectis et de bellare superbos were shown a Japanese gentleman he might readily accuse the Mancheon bard of plagiarizing from the literature of his own country Ben-Volens to the weak the downtrodden order vanquished was ever extolled as peculiarly becoming to a samurai lovers of Japanese art must be familiar with the representation of a priest riding backwards on a cow the rider was once a warrior who in his day made his name a byword of terror in the terrible battle of Sumano Ura 1184 Anodomini which was one of the most decisive in our history he overtook an enemy and in single combat had him in the clutch of his gigantic arms now the etiquette of war required that on such occasions he could not hold unless the weaker party proved to be a man of rank or ability equal to that of the stronger the grim combatant would have the name of the man under him but he refusing to make it known his helmet was ruthlessly torn off when the sight of a juvenile face fair and beardless made the astonished knight relax his hold helping the youth to his feet in paternal tones he made the stripling go off young prince to thy mother's side the sword of Kumagaya shall never be tarnished by a drop of thy blood hasten flee over yon pass before thy enemies come in sight the young warrior refused to go and begged Kumagaya for the honor of both to dispatch him on the spot above the hoary head of the veteran gleams the cold blade which many a time before has sundered the courts of life but his stout heart quails their flashes a thwart his mental eye the vision of his own boy who this self same day marched to the sound of bugle to try his maiden arms the strong hand of the warrior quivers again he begs his victim to flee for his life finding all his entreaties vain and hearing the approaching steps of his comrades he exclaims if thou out overtaken thou mayest fall at a more ignoble hand than mine O thou infinite receive his soul in an instant the sword flashes in the air and when it falls it is red with adolescent blood when the war is ended we find our soldier returning in triumph but little cares he now for honor of fame he renounces his warlike career shaves his head dons a priestly garb devotes the rest of his days to holy pilgrimage never turning his back to the west where lies the paradise when salvation comes and with it a son hastes daily for his rest critics may point out flaws in this story which is casuistically vulnerable let it be all the same it shows that tenderness pity and love were traits which adorned the most sanguinary exploits of the samurai it was an old maxim among them that it becomeeth not the fowler to slay the bird which takes refuge in his bosom this in a larger measure explains where the Red Cross movement considered peculiarly Christian so readily found a firm footing among us for decades before we heard of the Geneva Convention Bakin our greatest novelist has familiarized us with the medical treatment of a fallen foe in the principality of Satsuma noted for its martial spirit and education the custom prevailed for young men to practice music not the blast of trumpets or the beat of drums those clamorous harbingers of blood and death stirring us to imitate the actions of a tiger but sad and tender melodies and the Biva a musical instrument resembling the guitar soothing our fiery spirits drawing our thoughts away from scent of blood and scenes of carnage Polybias tells us of the constitution of Arcadia which required all youths under 30 to practice music in order that this gentle art might alleviate the rigors of that inclement region it is to its influence that it attributes the absence of cruelty in that part of the Arcadian mountains nor was Satsuma the only place in Japan where gentleness was inculcated among the warrior class a prince of Shirakawa jots down his random thoughts and among them is the following though they come stealing to your bedside in the silent watches of the night drive not away but rather cherish these the fragrance of flowers the sound of distant bells the insect humming of a frosty night and again though they may wound your feelings these three you have only to forgive the breeze that scatters your flowers the cloud that hides your moon and the man who tries to pick quarrels with you it was ostensibly to express but actually to cultivate these gentler emotions that the writing of verses was encouraged our poetry has therefore a strong undercurrent of pathos and tenderness a well-known anecdote of a rustic samurai illustrates a case in point when he was told to learn versification and the warblers notes was given him for the subject of his first attempt his fiery spirit rebelled and he flung at the feet of his master this uncouth production which ran the brave warrior keeps apart the ear that might listen to the warblers song his master, undaunted by the crude sentiment, continued to encourage the youth until one day the music of his soul was awakened to respond to the sweet notes of the uguizu and he wrote stance the warrior, male than strong, to hear the uguizu song wobbled sweet the trees among we admire and enjoy the heroic incident in Kerner's short life when, as he lay wounded on the battlefield, he scribbled his famous farewell to life incidents of a similar kind were not at all unusual in our warfare our pithy, epigrammatic poems were particularly well suited to the improvisation of a single sediment everybody of any education was either a poet or a poet-taster not infrequently a marching soldier might be seen to halt take his writing utensils from his belt and compose an ode and such papers were found afterward in the helmets or the breastplates when these were removed from their lifeless wearers. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of Bushido, the soul of Japan This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Avae in November 2009 Bushido, the soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe Chapter 6 Politeness What Christianity has done in Europe toward browsing compassion in the midst of belligerent horrors love of music and letters has done in Japan. The cultivation of tender feelings breeds considerate regard for the sufferings of others. Modesty and complacence actuated by respect for others feelings are at the root of politeness that courtesy and urbanity of manners which has been noticed by every foreign tourist as a marked Japanese trait politeness is a poor virtue if it is actuated only by a fear of offending good taste whereas it should be the outward manifestation of a sympathetic regard for the feelings of others. It also implies a due regard for the fitness of things therefore due respect to social positions for these letter express no plutocratic distinctions but were originally distinctions for actual merit. In its highest form there is almost a protest love we may reverently say politeness suffereth long and is kind envyeth not wanteth not itself is not puffed up does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own is not easily provoked taketh not account of evil Is it any wonder that Professor Dean in speaking of the six elements of humanity accords to politeness in such position in as much as it is the ripest fruit of social intercourse while thus extolling politeness far be it from me to put it in the front rank of virtues if we analyze it we shall find it correlated with other virtues of higher order for what virtue stands alone while or rather because it was exalted as peculiar to the profession of arms and as such esteemed in a degree higher than its desserts there came into existence its counterfeits Confucius himself has repeatedly taught that external appurtenances are as little a part of propriety as sounds are of music when propriety was elevated to the scenic one-on of social intercourse it was only to be expected that an elaborate system of etiquette should come into vogue to train youth in correct social behavior how one must bow in accosting others how we must walk and sit were taught and learned with utmost care table manners grew to be a science tea serving and drinking were raised to a ceremony a man of education is of course expected to be master of all these very fitly does Mr. Weblin in his interesting book theory of the leisure class called the quorum a product and an exponent of the leisure class life I have heard slighting remarks made by Europeans upon our elaborate discipline of politeness it has been criticized as absorbing too much of our thought and in so far a folly to observe strict obedience to it I admit that there may be unnecessary niceties in ceremonious etiquette but whether it partakes as much of folly as the adherence to ever changing fashions of the west is a question not very clear to my mind even fashions I do not consider solely as freaks of vanity on the contrary I look upon these as a ceaseless search of the human mind for the beautiful much less do I consider a elaborate ceremony as altogether trivial for it denotes the result of long observation as to the most appropriate method of achieving a certain result if there is anything to do there is certainly a best way to do it and the best way is both the most economical and the most graceful Mr. Spencer defines grace as the most economical manner of motion the tea ceremony presents certain definite ways of manipulating a bowl, a spoon a napkin etc to a novice it looks tedious but one soon discovers that the way prescribed is after all the most saving of time and labor in other words the most economical use of force hence according to Spencer's dictum the most graceful the spiritual significance of social decorum or I might say to borrow from the vocabulary of the philosophy of clothes the spiritual discipline of which etiquette and ceremony are mere outward garments is out of all proportion to what their appearance warrants us in believing I might follow the example of Mr. Spencer and trace in our ceremonial institutions their origins their moral motives that gave rise to them but that is not what I shall endeavor to do in this book it is the moral training involved in strict observance of propriety that I wish to emphasize I have said that etiquette was elaborated into the finest nice tees so much so that different schools advocating different systems came into existence but they all united in the ultimate essential and this was put by a great exponent the best known school of etiquette the Ogasavara in the following terms the end of all etiquette is to so cultivate your mind that even when you are quietly seated not the roughest ruffian can dare make onset on your person it means in other words that by constant exercise in correct manners one brings all the parts and faculties of his body into perfect order and into such harmony with itself in its environment as to express the mastery of spirit over the flesh what a new and deep significance the French word bien séance comes thus to contain if the premise is true that gracefulness means economy of force then it follows as a logical sequence that a constant practice of graceful deportment must bring with it a reserve and storage of force fine manners therefore mean power and repose when the barbarian Gauls during the sack of Rome burst into the assembled senate and dared pull the beards of the venerable fathers we think the old gentlemen were to blame in as much as they lack dignity and strength of manners is lofty spiritual attainment really possible through etiquette why not all roads lead to Rome as an example of how the simplest thing can be made into an art and then become spiritual culture I may take cha no you the tea ceremony tea sipping as a fine art why should it not be in the children drawing pictures on the sand or in the savage carving on a rock was the promise of a Raphael or a Michelangelo how much more is the drinking of a beverage which began with the transcendental contemplation of a Hindu anchorite entitled to develop into a hand made of religion and morality that calmness of mind that serenity of temper that composure and quietness of demeanor which are the first essentials of cha no you are without doubt the first conditions of right thinking and right feeling the scrupulous cleanliness of the little room shut off from sight and sound of the madding crowd is in itself conductive to direct one's thoughts from the world the bare interior does not engross one's attention but the innumerable pictures and bric-a-brac of a western parlor the presence of cacaimono hanging scrolls which may be either paintings or ideograms used for decorative purposes calls our attention more to grace of design than to beauty of color the utmost refinement of taste is the object aimed at whereas anything like display is banished with religious horror the very fact that it was invented by a contemplative close in a time when wars and the rumors of wars were incessant is well calculated to show that this institution was more than a pastime before entering the quiet precincts of the tea room the company assembling to partake of the ceremony laid aside together with their swords the ferocity of the battlefield or the cares of government there to find peace and friendship cha no you it is a fine art it is poetry with articulate gestures for rhythm it is a modus operandi of soul discipline its greatest value lies in this last phase not infrequently the other faces preponderated in the mind of its votaries but that does not prove that its essence was not of a spiritual nature politeness will be a great acquisition if it does not more than impart grace to manners but its function does not stop here for propriety springing as it does from motifs of Benvolens and modesty and actuated by tender feelings toward the sensibilities of others is ever a graceful expression of sympathy its requirement is that we should weep with those that weep and rejoice with those that rejoice such didactic requirement when reduced into small everyday details of life expresses itself in little acts scarcely noticeable or if noticed is as one missionary lady of 20 years residence once said to me awfully funny you are out in the hot glaring sun with no shade over you a Japanese acquaintance passes by you accost him and instantly his head is off while that is perfectly natural but the awfully funny performance is that all the while he talks with you his parasol is down and he stands glaring sun also how foolish yes exactly so provided the motive were less than this you are in the sun I sympathize with you I would willingly take you under my parasol if it were large enough or if we were familiarly acquainted as I cannot shade you I will share your discomforts little acts of this kind equally or more amusing are not mere gestures or personalities they are the bodying forth of thoughtful feelings for the comfort of others another awfully funny custom is dictated by our cannons of politeness but many superficial writers on Japan have dismissed it by simply attributing it to the general topsy turveness of the nation every foreigner who has observed it will confess the awkwardness he felt in making proper reply upon the occasion in America when you make a gift you sing its praises to the recipient in Japan we depreciate or slander it the underlying idea with you is this is a nice gift if it were not nice I would not dare give it to you for it will be an insult to give you anything but what is nice in contrast to this our logic runs you are a nice person and no gift is nice enough for you you will not accept anything I can defeat except as a token of my good will so accept this not for its intrinsic value but as a token it will be an insult to your worth to call the best gift good enough for you place the two ideas side by side and we see that the ultimate idea is one and the same neither is awfully funny the American speaks of the material which makes the gift the Japanese speaks of the spirit which prompts the gift it is perverse reasoning to conclude because our sense of propriety shows itself in all the smallest ramifications of our deportment to take the least important of them and uphold it as the type and pass judgement upon the principle itself which is more important to eat or to observe rules of propriety about eating a Chinese sage answers if you take a case where the eating is all important and the observing the rules of propriety is of little importance and compare them together why merely say that the eating is of the more importance metal is heavier than feathers but does that saying have reference to a single clasp of metal and a wagon load of feathers take a piece of wood a foot thick and raise it above the pinnacle of a temple none would call it taller than the temple to the question which is the more important to tell the truth to be polite the Japanese are said to give an answer diametrically opposite to what the American will say but I forbear any comment until I come to speak of veracity or truthfulness without which politeness is a farce and a show end of chapter 6 chapter 7 of Bushido the soul of Japan this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Awaii in November 2009 Bushido the soul of Japan by Inazo Nittope chapter 7 veracity or truthfulness propriety carried beyond right bounds ses mas amune becomes a lie an ancient poet has outdone Polonius in the advice he gives to thyself be faithful if in thy heart thou strayest not from truth the prayer of thine the gods will keep thee whole the apotheosis of sincerity to which Tsu Tsu gives expression in the doctrine of the mean attributes to it transcendental powers almost identifying them with the divine sincerity is the end and the beginning of all things without sincerity there would be nothing he then dwells with eloquence on its far reaching and long its power to produce changes without movement and by its mere presence to accomplish its purpose without effort from the Chinese ideogram for sincerity which is a combination of word and perfect one is tempted to draw a parallel between it and the neoplatonic doctrine of logos to such height does the sage soar in his unwanted mystic flight lying or equivocation were deemed equally cowardly the bushy held that his high social position demanded a loftier standard of veracity than that of the tradesmen and peasant bushy no ichigon the word of a samurai or in exact german equivalent ein Ritterwort was sufficient guarantee of the truthfulness of an assertion his word carried such weight with it that promises were generally made filled without a written pledge which would have been deemed quite beneath his dignity many thrilling anecdotes were told of those who atoned by death for negon a double tongue the regard for veracity was so high that unlike the generality of Christians who persistently violate the plain commands of the teacher not to swear the best of samurai looked upon an oath as derogatory to their honor I am well aware that they did swear by different deities or upon their swords but never has swearing degenerated into wanton form and irreverent interjection to emphasize our words a practice of literally sealing with blood was sometimes resorted to for the explanation of such a practice I need only refer my readers to Goethe's Faust a recent American writer is responsible for this statement that if you ask an ordinary Japanese which is better to tell a falsehood or be impolite he will not hesitate to answer to tell a falsehood Dr. Peary in The Guist of Japan is partly right and partly wrong right in that an ordinary Japanese even a samurai may answer in the way ascribed to him but wrong in attributing too much weight to the term he translates falsehood this word in Japanese Uso is employed to denote anything which is not a truth Makoto or fact Honto Lawell tells us that Wordsworth could not distinguish between truth and fact and an ordinary Japanese is in disrespect as good as Wordsworth Ask a Japanese or even an American of any refinement to tell you whether he dislikes you or whether he is sick at his stomach and he will not hesitate long to tell falsehoods an answer I like you much or I am quite well, thank you to sacrifice truth merely for the sake of politeness was regarded as an empty form Kyore and deception by sweet words and was never justified I own I am speaking now of the Bushido idea of veracity but it may not be a miss to devote a few words to our commercial integrity of which I have heard much complaint in foreign books and journals a loose business morality has indeed been the worst plot on our national reputation but before abusing it or hastily condemning the whole race for it let us calmly study it and we shall be rewarded with consolation for the future of all the great occupations of life none was further removed from the profession of arms than commerce the merchant was placed lowest in the category of vocations the knight the tiller of the soil the mechanic the merchant the samurai derived his income from land and could even indulge if he had a mind to in amateur farming but the counter and abacus were appalled we knew the wisdom of the social arrangement Montesquieu has made it clear that the debarring of the nobility from mercantile pursuits has brought social policy in that it prevented wealth from accumulating in the hands of the powerful the separation of power and riches kept the distribution of the latter more nearly equable professor Dill the author of roman society in the last century of the western empire has brought afresh to our mind that one cause of the decadence of the roman empire was the permission given to the nobility and the consequent monopoly of wealth and power by a minority of the senatorial families commerce therefore in feudal Japan did not reach that degree of development which it would have attained under freer conditions the obloquy attached to the calling naturally brought within its pale such as cared little for social repute call one a chief and he will steal put a stigma on a calling and its followers adjust their morals to it for it is natural that the normal conscience as you black says rises to the demands made on it and easily falls to the limit of the standard expected from it it is unnecessary to add that no business commercial or otherwise can be transacted without the code of morals our merchants of the feudal period had one among themselves without which they could never have developed as they did such fundamental mercantile institution as the guild the bank the bores insurance checks bills of exchange etc but in their relations with people outside their vocation the tradesmen lived too true to the reputation of their order this being the case when the country was open to foreign trade only the most adventurous and unscrupulous rushed to the ports while the respectable business houses declined for some time the repeated requests of the authorities to establish branch houses was Bushido powerless to state a current of commercial dishonor? let us see those who are well acquainted with our history will remember that only a few years after our treaty ports were open to foreign trade feudalism was abolished and when with it the summarize fiefs were taken and bonds issued to them in compensation they were given liberty to invest them in mercantile transactions now you may ask why could they not bring their much boasted veracity into their new business relations and so reformed the old abuses those who had eyes to see could not weep enough those who had hearts to feel could not sympathize enough with the fate of many a noble and honest samurai who was vocably failed in his new and unfamiliar field of trade and industry through sheer lack of shrewdness in coping with his artful plebeian rival when we know that 80% of the business houses fell in so industrial a country as America is it any wonder that scarcely one among a hundred samurai who went into trade could succeed in his new vocation it will be long before it will be recognized how many fortunes were wrecked in the attempt to apply bushido ethics to business methods but it was soon patent to every observing mind that the ways of wealth were not the ways of honor in which respects then were they different of the three incentives to veracity that leaky enumerates that is the industrial, the political and the philosophical the first was altogether lacking in bushido second it could develop little in a political community under a feudal system it is in its philosophical and as leaky says in its highest aspect that honesty attained elevated rank in our catalogue of virtues with all my sincere regard for the high commercial integrity of the Anglo-Saxon race when I ask for the ultimate ground I am told that honesty is the best policy that pays to be honest is not this virtue then its own reward if it is followed because it brings in more cash than falsehood I am afraid bushido would rather indulge in lies if bushido rejects a doctrine of quid pro quo rewards the shrewder tradesmen will readily accept it leaky has very truly remarked that veracity owes its growth largely to commerce and manufacture as Nietzsche puts it honesty is the youngest of virtues in other words it is the foster child of industry of modern industry without this mother veracity was like a blue blood orphan whom only the most cultivated mind could adopt and nourish such minds were general among the samurai but for want of a more democratic and utilitarian foster mother the tender child failed to thrive industries advancing veracity will prove an easy a profitable virtue to practice just think as late as November 1880 Bismarck sent a circular to the professional consuls of the german empire warning them of a lamentable lack of reliability with regard to german shipments in taalia apparent both as to quality and quantity nowadays we hear comparatively little of german carelessness and dishonesty in trade in 20 years her merchants learned that in the end honesty pays already our merchants are finding that out for the rest i recommend the reader to two recent writers for well-weight judgment on this point begin footnote knap feudal and modern japan and ransom japan in transition and footnote it is interesting to remark in this connection that integrity and honor were the surest guarantees which even a merchant debtor could present in the form of promissory notes it was quite a usual thing to insert such clauses as these in default of the repayment of the sum lent to me i shall say nothing against being ridiculed in public or in case i fail to pay you back you may call me a fool and the like often have i wondered whether the veracity of bushido had any motive higher than courage in the absence of any positive commandment against bearing false witness lying was not condemned as sin but simply denounced as weakness and as such highly dishonorable as a matter of fact the idea of honesty is so intimately blended and it's latin and it's german etymology also identified with honor that it is high time i should pause a few moments for the consideration of this feature of the precepts of knighthood end of chapter 7 chapter 8 of bushido the soul of japan this lip-revox recording is in the public domain recording by avaii in november 2009 bushido the soul of japan by inazo nitope chapter 8 honor the sense of honor implying a vivid consciousness of personal dignity and worth could not fail to characterize the samurai born and bred to value the duties and privileges of their profession though the word ordinarily given nowadays as the translation of honor was not used freely yet the idea was conveyed by such terms as na name the word originates kwaibun outside hearing reminding us respectively of the biblical use of name of the evolution of the term personality from the greek mask and of fame a good name one's reputation the immortal part of one's self what remains being bestial assumed as a matter of course any infringement upon its integrity was felt as shame and the sense of shame ren chi shin was one of the earliest to be cherished in juvenile education you will be laughed at it will disgrace you are you not ashamed where the last appeal to correct behavior on the part of a youthful delinquent such a recourse to his honor touched the most sensitive spot in the child's heart as though it had been nursed on honor while it was in its mother's womb the most truly is honor a prenatal influence being closely bound up with strong family consciousness in losing the solidarity of families says balzac society has lost the fundamental force which montesque named honor indeed the sense of shame seems to me to be the earliest indication of the moral consciousness of our race the first and worst punishment which befell humanity in consequence of tasting the fruit of that forbidden tree was to my mind not the sorrow of childbirth nor the thorns and pistols but the awakening of the sense of shame few incidents in history excel in pathos the scene of the first mother applying with heaving breast and tremulous fingers her crude needle on the few fig leaves which her dejected husband plucked for her this first fruit of disobedience clings to us with a tenacity that nothing else does all the sartorial ingenuity of mankind has not yet succeeded in suing an apron that will efficaciously hide our sense of shame that samurai was right who refused to compromise his character by a slight humiliation in his youth because he said this honor is like a scar on a tree which time instead of a facing only helps do enlarge menches had taught centuries before in almost the identical phrase what Carlisle has laterally expressed namely that shame is the soil of all virtue of good manners and good morals the fear of this grace was so great that if our literature lacks such eloquence as Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Norfolk it nevertheless hung like Damocles sword over the head of every samurai and often assumed the morbid character in the name of honor deeds were perpetrated which can find no justification in the code of Bushido at the slightest may imaginary insult the quick-tempered braggart took offense resorted to the use of the sword and many an unnecessary strife was raised and many an innocent life lost the story of a well-meaning citizen who called the attention of a bushy to a flea jumping on his back and who was forthwith cut in two for the simple and questionable reason that inasmuch as fleas are parasites which feed on animals it was an unpardonable insult to identify a noble warrior with a beast I say stories like these are too frivolous to believe yet the circulation of such stories implies three things one they were invented to over-all common people two, that abuses were really made of the samurai's profession of honor and three, that a very strong sense of shame was developed among them it is plainly unfair to take an abnormal case to cast blame upon the precepts any more than to judge of the true teaching of Christ from the fruits of religious fanaticism and extravagance inquisitions and hypocrisy but as in religious monomania there is something touchingly noble as compared with the delirium tremens of a drunkard so in that extreme sensitiveness of the samurai about their honor do we not recognize the substraton of a genuine virtue the morbid excess into which the delicate code of honor was inclined to run was strongly counterbalanced by preaching magnanimity and patience to take offense at slight provocation was ridiculed as short tempered the popular adage said to bear what you think you cannot bear is really to bear the great Ieyasu left to posterity a few maxims among which are the following the life of man is like going a long distance with a heavy load upon the shoulders hastenot reproach none but be forever watchful of thine own shortcomings forbearance is the basis of length of days he proved in his life what he preached a literary wit put a characteristic epigram into the mouths of three well-known personages in our history to Nobunaga he attributed I will kill her if the nightingale sings not in time to Hideyoshi I will force her to sing for me and to Ieyasu I will wait till she opens her lips patience and long suffering were also highly commanded by Menchus in one place he writes to this effect though you denude yourself and insult me what is that to me you cannot defile my soul by your outrage elsewhere he teaches that anger at a petty offense is unworthy a superior man but indignation for great cause is righteous wrath to what height of unmartial and unresisting meekness Bushido could reach in some of its votaries may be seen in their utterances take for instance this saying of Ogawa when others speak all manner of evil things against thee return not evil for evil but rather reflect that thou was not more faithful in the discharge of thy duties take another of Kumazawa when others blame thee blame them not when others are angry at thee return not anger joy come with only as passion and desire apart still another instance I may cite from Saigo upon whose overhanging brows shame is ashamed to sit the way is the way of heaven and earth man's place is to follow it therefore make it the object of thy life to reverence heaven heaven loves me and others with equal love therefore with the love were with thou loves thyself love others make not men thy partner but heaven and making heaven thy partner do thy best never condemn others but see to it that thou come is not short of thine own mark some of those sayings and show us how far in practical morality natural religion can approach the revealed not only did these sayings remain as utterances but they were really embodied in acts it must be admitted that very few attained the sublime height of magnanimity patience and forgiveness it was a great pity that nothing clear in general was expressed as to what constitutes the true enlightened minds being aware that it from no condition rises but that it lies in each acting well his part for nothing was easier than for youths to forget in the heat of action what they had learned in mentions in their calmer moments said this sage tis in every man's mind to love honor but little doth he dream that what is truly honorable lies within himself what men confer is not good honor those whom chow the great in nobles he can make mean again for the most part an insult was quickly resented and repaid by death as we shall see later while honor too often nothing hired in vain glory or worldly approbation was prized as the summum bonum of earthly existence fame and not wealth or knowledge was the goal toward which youth set to strive many a lad swore within himself as he crossed the threshold of his paternal home that he would not recross it until he had made a name in the world and many an ambitious mother refused to see her sons again unless they could return home as the expression is to Paris and in brocade to shun shame or win a name samurai boys would submit to any privations and undergo severest ordeals of bodily or mental suffering they knew that honor one in youth grows with age in the memorable siege of Osaka a young son of Ieyasu in spite of his earnest entreaties to be put in the vanguard was placed at the rear of the army when the castle fell he was so chagrined and wept so bitterly that an old counselor tried to console him with all the resources at his command take comfort sire said he at thought of the long future before you in the many years that you may live there will come diverse occasions to distinguish yourself the boy fixed his indignant gaze upon the man and said how foolishly you talk can ever my 14th year come round again life itself was thought cheap if honor and fame could be attained therewith hence whenever a cause presented itself was considered dearer than life with utmost serenity and celerity was life laid down end of chapter 8 chapter 9 of Bushido the soul of Japan this lip-revox recording is in the public domain recording by Avae in December 2009 Bushido the soul of Japan by Inazonitope chapter 9 the duty of loyalty of the causes in comparison with which no life was to dare to sacrifice was the duty of loyalty which was the keystone making feudal virtues as symmetrical arch other virtues feudal morality shares in common with other systems of ethics with other classes of people but this virtue homage and fealty to a superior is its distinctive feature I am aware that personal fidelity is a moral adhesion existing among all sorts and conditions of men a gang of pickpockets or allegiance to a faggin but it is only in the code of chivalrous honor that loyalty assumes paramount importance in spite of Hegel's criticism that the fidelity of feudal vessels being an obligation to an individual and not to a commonwealth is a bond established on totally unjust principles a great compatriot of his made it his boast that personal loyalty was a German virtue Bismarck had good reason to do so not because the Troyer he boasts of was the monopoly of his fatherland or of any single nation or race but because this favored fruit of chivalry lingers latest among the people where feudalism has lasted longest in America where everybody is as good as anybody else and as the Irishman added better too such exalted ideas of loyalty as we feel for our sovereign may be deemed excellent within certain bounds but preposterous as encouraged among us Montesquieu complained long ago that right on one side of the Pyrenees was wrong on the other and the recent Dreyfus trial proved the truth of his remark save that the Pyrenees were not a sole boundary beyond which French justice finds no accord similarly loyalty as we conceive it may find few admirers elsewhere not because our conception is wrong but because it is I am afraid forgotten and also because we carried to a degree not reached in any other country Griffiths was quite right in stating in religions of Japan that whereas in China Confucian ethics made obedience to parents the primary human duty in Japan precedence was given to loyalty at the risk of shocking some of my good readers I will relate of one who could endure to follow a fallen lord and who thus as Shakespeare sure as earned a place see the story the story is of one of the purest characters in our history Michi Tane who falling a victim to jealousy and colony is exiled from the capital not content with this his unrelenting enemies are now bent upon the extinction of his family strict search for his son not yet grown reveals the fact of his being secreted in a village school kept by one Genzo a former vessel of Michi Tane when orders are dispatched to the school master to deliver the head of the juvenile offender on a certain day his first idea is to find a suitable substitute for it he ponders over his school list scrutinizes with careful eyes all the boys as they stroll into the classroom but not among the children born of the soil bears the least resemblance to his protege his despair however is but for a moment for behold a new scholar is announced a calmly boy of the same age as his master's son escorted by a mother of noble mean no less conscious of the resemblance between infant lord and infant retainer where the mother and the boy himself in the privacy of home both had laid themselves upon the altar the one his life the other her heart yet without sign to the outer world unwitting of what had passed between them it is the teacher from whom comes the suggestion here then is the scapegoat the rest of the narrative may be briefly told on the day appointed arrives the officer commissioned to identify and receive the head of the youth will he be deceived by the false head the poor genzo's hand is on the hilt of the sword ready to strike a blow either at the man or at himself should the examination defeat his scheme the officer takes up the gruesome object before him goes calmly over each feature and in a deliberate business like tone pronounces it genuine that evening in a lonely home awaits the mother we saw in the school does she know the fate of her child it is not for his return that she watches with eagerness for the opening of the wicket her father-in-law has been for a long time a recipient of Mijitsana's bounties but since his banishment circumstances have forced her husband to follow the service of the enemy of his family's benefactor he himself could not be untrue to his own cruel master but his son could serve the cause of the grandsire's lord as one acquainted with the exxon's family it was he who had been entrusted with the task of identifying the boy's head now the days yeah the life's hard work is done he returns home and as he crosses its threshold he accosts his wife saying rejoice my wife our darling son has proved of service to his lord what an atrocious story I hear my readers exclaim parents deliberately sacrificing their own innocent child to save the life of another man's but this child was a conscious and willing victim it is a story of vicarious death as significant as and not more revolting than the story of Abraham's intended sacrifice of Isaac in both cases it was obedience to the call of duty utter submission to the command whether given by a visible or an invisible angel or heard by an outward or an inward ear but I abstain from preaching the individualism of the west which recognizes separate interests for father and son, husband and wife necessarily brings into strong relief the duties owed by one to the other but Bushido held that the interest of the family and of the members thereof is intact and inseparable this interest it bound up with affection natural instinctive irresistible hence if we die for one we love with natural love which animals themselves possess what is that for if you love them that love you what reward have you do not even the publicans the same in his great history Sanjo relates in touching language the hard struggle of Shigemori concerning his father's rebellious conduct if I be loyal my father must be undone if I obey my father my duty to my sovereign must go amiss poor Shigemori we see him afterward praying with all his soul that kind heaven may visit him with death that he may be released from this world where it is hard for purity and righteousness to dwell many a Shigemori has his heart torn by the conflict between duty and affection indeed neither Shakespeare nor the Old Testament itself contains an adequate rendering of core our conception of filial piety and yet in such conflicts Bushido never wavered in its choice of loyalty women too encouraged their offspring to sacrifice all for the king ever as resolute as widow wine tam and her illustrious consort trans stood ready to give up her boys for the cause of loyalty since Bushido like Aristotle and some modern sociologists conceived the status and to dating the individual the latter being born into the former as part and parcel thereof he must live and die for it or for the incumbent of its legitimate authority readers of Crito will remember the argument with which Socrates represents the laws of the city as pleading with him on the subject of his escape among others he makes them the laws or the state say since you were begotten and nurtured and educated under us dare you once to say you are not our offspring and servant you and your fathers before you these are words which do not impress us as anything extraordinary for the same thing has long been on the lips of Bushido with this modification that the laws and the states were represented with us by personal being loyalty is an ethical outcome of this political theory I am not entirely ignorant of Mr. Spencer's view according to which political obedience loyalty is accredited with only a transitional function it may be so sufficient unto the day is the virtue thereof we may complacently repeat it especially as we believe that today to be a long space of time during which so our national anthem says tiny pebbles grow into mighty rocks draped with moss we may remember at this juncture that even among so democratic a people as the English the sentiment of personal fidelity to a man and his posterity which the Germanic ancestors felt for their chiefs has as Monsieur Boutmy recently said only passed more or less into their profound loyalty to the race and blood of their princes as evidenced in their extraordinary attachment to the dynasty political subordination Mr. Spencer predicts will give place to loyalty to the dictates of conscience suppose his induction is realized will loyalty and its concomitant instinct of reverence disappear forever we transfer our allegiance from one master to another without being unfaithful to either from being subjects of a ruler that wields the temporal scepter we become servants of the monarch who sits enthroned in the penetralia of our heart a few years ago a very stupid controversy started by the misguided disciples of Spencer made havoc among the reading class of Japan in their zeal to uphold the claim of the throne to undivided loyalty Christians with reasonable propensities in that they avow fidelity to their lord and master they arrayed forth sophistical arguments without the wit of sophists and scholastic tortuosities minus the niceties of the schoolmen little did they know that we can in a sense serve two masters without holding to the one or despising the other rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's the things that are God's did not Socrates all the while he unflinchingly refused to concede one Yota of loyalty to his demon obey with equal fidelity and equanimity the command of his earthly master the state his conscience he followed alive his country he served dying a lack the day when a state grows so powerful as to demand of its citizens the dictates of our conscience Bushido did not require us to make our conscience the slave of any lord or king Thomas Maubray was a veritable spokesman for us when he said myself I throw dread sovereign at thy foot my life thou shalt command but not my shame the one my duty owes but my fear name despite of death that lives upon my grave to dark dishonor's use a man who sacrificed his own conscience to the capricious will or freak or fancy of a sovereign was accorded a low place in the estimate of the precepts satan one was despised as nai shin a cringeling who makes court by unscrupulous fawning or as Choshin a favorite who steals his master's affections by means of servile compliance these two species of subjects were responding exactly to those which Iago describes the one a duchess and knee-croaking knave doting on his own obsequious bondage wearing out his time much like his master's ass the other trimmed in forms and visages of duty keeping yet his heart attending on himself when a subject differed from his master the loyal path for him to pursue was to use every available means to persuade him of his error as Kent did to King Lear failing in this let the master deal with him as he wills in cases of this kind it was quite the usual course for the samurai to make the last appeal to the intelligence and conscience of his lord by demonstrating the sincerity of his words with the shedding of his own blood