Bushido, the Soul of Japan, by Inazo Nitobe, [1905], at sacred-texts.com
CHAPTER VII
VERACITY AND SINCERITY
WITHOUT veracity and sincerity, politeness is a farce and a show.
"Propriety carried beyond right bounds," says Masamuné, "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,
without prayer of thine the Gods will keep thee whole." The apotheosis
of Sincerity to which Confucius 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-enduring nature, 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 Neo-Platonic doctrine of Logos--to such height does the sage soar in his unwonted mystic flight.
Lying or equivocation were deemed equally cowardly. The bushi held
that his high social position demanded a loftier standard of veracity
than that of the tradesman and peasant. Bushi no ichi-gon--the word of a samurai, or in exact German equivalent, Ritterwort--was
sufficient guaranty for the truthfulness of an assertion. His word
carried such weight with it that promises were generally made and
fulfilled 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 ni-gon, 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 honour. 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 emphasise our words a practice was sometimes resorted
to of literally sealing with blood. 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.
Peery 1
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).
[paragraph continues]
Lowell tells us that Wordsworth could not distinguish between truth and
fact, and an ordinary Japanese is in this respect 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 and 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" (kyo-rei) and "deception by sweet words."
I own I am speaking now of the Bushido idea of veracity: but it may
not be amiss 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 blot 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 farther 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 abhorred. We know the wisdom of this social arrangement.
Montesquieu has made it clear that the debarring of the nobility from
mercantile pursuits was an admirable 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 to engage in
trade, 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 thief 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 Hugh 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 a code of morals. Our merchants
of the feudal period had one among themselves, without which they could
never have developed, as they did in embryo, such fundamental
mercantile institutions as the guild, the bank, the bourse, 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 opened 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 stay the current of commercial dishonour? Let us
see.
Those who are well acquainted with our history will remember that
only a few years after our treaty ports were opened to foreign trade,
feudalism was abolished, and when with it the samurai's 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 reform the old abuses?" Those who had eyes to see could not weep
enough, those who had hearts to feel could not sympathise enough, with
the fate of many a noble and honest samurai who signally and irrevocably
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 eighty per cent. of the
business houses fail 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
recognised 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 honour. In
what respects, then, were they different?
Of the three incentives to veracity that Lecky enumerates, viz., the
industrial, the political, and the philosophical, the first was
altogether lacking in Bushido. As to the second, it could develop little
in a political community under a feudal system. It is in its
philosophical and, as Lecky 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 it 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 tradesman will readily accept it. Lecky has very truly remarked
that veracity owes its growth largely to commerce and manufacture; as
Nietzsche puts it, honesty is the youngest of the virtues--in other
words, it is the foster-child 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, nay, a profitable virtue to practise. 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 inter alia, apparent both as to quality and
quantity." Nowadays we hear comparatively little of German carelessness
and dishonesty in trade. In twenty years her merchants have learned that
in the end honesty pays. Already our merchants have found that out. For
the rest I recommend the reader to two recent writers for well-weighed
judgment on this point. 1
It is interesting to remark in this connection that integrity and
honour were the surest guaranties 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
dishonourable. As a matter of fact, the idea of honesty is so intimately
blended, and its Latin and its German etymology so identified with
honour, that it is high time I should pause a few moments for the
consideration of this feature of the Precepts of Knighthood.
Footnotes
63:1 Peery, The Gist of Japan, p. 86.
70:1 Knapp, Feudal and Modern Japan, Vol. I., ch. iv.; Ransome, Japan in Transition, ch. viii.
