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BUSHIDO
BUSHIDO
The Soul of Japan
INAZO NITOBÉ
W
Wisehouse Classics
Inazo Nitobé
Bushido: The Soul of Japan
W
Wisehouse Classics
© 2020 Wisehouse Publishing | Sweden
All rights reserved without exception.
ISBN 978-91-7637-736-9
Contents
PREFACE TO THE TENTH AND REVISED EDITION
COURAGE, THE SPIRIT OF DARING AND BEARING
BENEVOLENCE, THE FEELING OF DISTRESS
EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF A SAMURAI
THE INSTITUTIONS OF SUICIDE AND REDRESS
THE SWORD, THE SOUL OF THE SAMURAI
THE TRAINING AND POSITION OF WOMAN
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 waste 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 Blougram’s Apology
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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 honor.
—Hallam, Europe in the Middle Ages
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Chivalry is itself the poetry of life.
—Schlegel, Philosophy of History
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PREFACE
About ten years ago, while spending a few days under the hospitable roof of the distinguished Belgian jurist, the lamented M. de Laveleye, our conversation turned, during one of our rambles, to the subject of religion. “Do you mean to say,” asked the 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 analyze the different elements that formed my notions of right and wrong, did I find that it was Bushido1 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 prevail in Japan.
In my attempts to give satisfactory replies to M. de Laveleye and to my wife, I found that without understanding feudalism and Bushido, the moral ideas of present Japan are a sealed volume.
Taking 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 Satow 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 allusions to religious subjects and to religious workers be thought slighting, I trust my attitude toward 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. Hartshorne for many valuable suggestions and for the characteristically Japanese design made by her for the cover of this book.
INAZO NITOBÉ
Malvern, Pa., Twelfth Month, 1899.
PREFACE
TO THE TENTH AND