内容抜粋 志士の言葉
【西郷隆盛――新日本の創設者】
[朗読試聴]
「天の道を行うものは、世のなかすべてが非難しても卑下せず、世のなかすべてが口をそろえて褒め称えてもおごりはしない」
「天を相手にして、人を相手にするな。何ごとも天のために行え。人をとがめず、己の誠の足りないところを探せ」
「人は自分に克つことによって成功し、自分を愛することによって失敗する。八分どおりうまく行きながら、最後の二分で失敗する人が
多いのはなぜか。それは、成功が見えてくるにつれて、自分を愛する心が育ってくるからである。警戒心が去り、
安楽を求める気持ちが戻ってきて仕事が煩わしくなり、そして失敗する」
「機会には2つの種類がある。求めずして来る機会と、自ら作り出す機会である。世のなかで機会と呼ばれるのは往々にして求めずして来る機会である。
しかし真の機会は、理に従って行い、時勢に従って動くことによって生まれる。重要な局面では、機会は自分の手で作り出さねばならない」
「どんなに手段や制度を論じても、それを行う人がいなければ何もならない。人がまずあって、その後に手段が来る。人こそが一番の宝であり、われわれは皆そんな人間になれるよう心がけなくてはならない」
SAIGO TAKAMORI - A FOUNDER OF NEW JAPAN
【BOOK】
I -THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION OF 1868 （第1章 1868年 日本の維新革命）
WHEN Nippon first, at Heaven's command, arose from the azure main, this was
the charge to the land: "Niphonia, keep within thy gates. Mingle not with the world
till I call thee forth." So she remained for two thousand years and more, her seas
unplowed by the fleets of the nations, and her shores free from their defilement.
That is a most unphilosophical criticism that condemns Japan for her long
seclusion from the world. Wisdom higher than all wisdoms has ordered it so, and
the country was better for having remained so, and the world was, and is, to be
better for her having been kept so. Inaccessibility to the world is not always a curse
to a nation. What benignant father would have his children prematurely thrown
into the world that they might come under its so-called "civilizing influences"?
India with her comparative accessibility to the world became an easy prey to
European selfishness. What did the world with Inca's empires and Montezuma's
peaceful land? They condemn us for our seclusion. We open our gates, and Clives
and Corteses are let loose upon us. Do not armed burglars do the same when they
break into a well-locked house?
Providence was kind therefore in locking us up from the world with seas and
continents on all sides; and when greed more than once tried to force its way into us
before our appointed time came, it was our genuine instinct of self-defence that
refused to open our gates to the world. Our national character was to be fully
formed that the world might not swallow us up when we come in contact with it,
and make of us an amorphous something without anything special to call our own.
Then the world too needed further refinement, before it could receive us into its
membership. I think the Japanese Revolution of 1868 signifies a point in the
world's history when the two races of mankind representing the two distinct forms
of civilization were brought to honourable intercourse one with the other, when the
Prospective West was given a check in its anarchic progress, and the Retrospective
East was wakened from its stagnant slumber. From that time on, there were to be
neither Occidents nor Orients, but all to be one in humanity and righteousness.
Before Japan awoke, one part of the world turned its back to the other. By her and
through her, the two were brought face to face. Japan is to solve, and is solving, the
question of the right relation of Europe with Asia.
So our long seclusion was to end, and men and opportunities were needed to bring
it to an end. China and California on the opposite banks of the Pacific opened at
about the same time, there came a necessity for opening Japan to bring the two
ends of the world together. This was an external opportunity. Internally, the last
and greatest of the feudal dynasties was losing its power, and the nation, tired of
separation and mutual animosities within, felt, for the first time in its history,
importance and desirability of union. But man makes and uses opportunities. I
consider Matthew Calbraith Perry of the United States Navy to be one of the
greatest friends of humanity the world has ever seen. In his diaries we read that he
bombarded the shores of Japan with doxologies, and not with ordnance.* [ See
Narrative of Expedition of the American Squadron to the Chinese Seas and Japan
by Commondore Perry.] His mission was a delicate one of waking up a hermit
nation without doing injury to its dignity, yet keeping its native pride at bay. His
was the task of a true missionary, done with Heaven's gracious help, with many an
invocation to the Ruler of nations. Thrice blessed is the land that had a Christian
commodore sent to it to open it to the world. - To a Christian admiral knocking
from outside, there responded a brave upright general, a "reverer of Heaven and
lover of mankind" from within. The two never saw each other in their lives, and we
never hear of one complimenting the other. Yet we their biographers do know that
despite all the differences in their outward garments, the souls that dwelt in both
were of kindred stuff. Unwittingly they worked in concert, one executing what the
other had initiated. So does the World-Spirit weave his garment of Destiny,
underneath the vision of purblind mortals, yet wonderful to the eye of the
thoughtful historian.
Thus we see that the Japanese Revolution of 1868, like all healthful and
permanent revolutions, had its origin in righteousness and God-made necessity.
The land that had been obstinately closed against greed, opened itself freely
toward justice and equity. Self-sacrifice of the rarest kind, based upon a voice from
the innermost depth of soul, did Bins open its doors to the world. They therefore
sin against the height of the heavens who seek self-aggrandizement in this nation,
as do they also who mistake its high-calling, and allow it to be trampled by the
mammon of this world.
II -BIRTH, EDUCATION, AND INSPIRATION （第2章 生い立ちと教育、そして天の声）
"The Great Saigo," as he is usually called, both for his greatness and to
distinguish him from the younger Saigo, his brother, was born in the 10th year of
Bunsei (1827) in the city of Kagoshima. A stone-monument now marks the spot
where he first saw light, now far from the place where his illustrious colleague,
Okubo, was born two years later, which is also so marked. His family had no
hereditary fame to boast of; only "below middle" in the large han of Satzuma. He
was the eldest of six children, - four brothers and two sisters. In his boyhood there
was nothing remarkable about him. He was a slow, silent boy, and even passed for
an idiot among his comrades. It is said that his soul was first roused to
consciousness of duty by witnessing one of his distant relatives committing
harakiri in his presence, who told the lad just before he plunged a dagger into his
belly, of the life that should be devoted to the cause of his master and country. The
boy wept, and the impression never left him through his life.
He grew up to be a big fat man, with large eyes and broad shoulders very
characteristic of him. "Udo," the big-eyed, was the nickname they gave him. He
rejoiced in his muscular strength; wrestling was the favourite sport with him, and
he liked to roam in the mountains much of his time, a propensity which never left
him till the very end of his life. His attention was early called to the writings of
Wang Yang Ming, who of all Chinese philosophers, came nearest to that most
august faith, also of Asiatic origin, in his great doctrines of conscience and benign
but inexorable heavenly laws. Our hero's subsequent writings show this influence
to a very marked degree, all the Christianly sentiments therein contained testifying
to the majestic simplicity of the great Chinese, as well as to the greatness of the nature
that could take in all that, and weave out a character so practical as his. He also delved
a little into the Zen philosophy, a stoic form of Buddhism, "to kill my too keen sensibilities,"
as he told his friends afterward. So-called European culture he had absolutely none.
The broadest and most progressive of Japanese, his education was wholly Oriental.
But whence came the two dominant ideas of his life, which were (1) the united
empire, and (2) reduction of Eastern Asia? That Yang Ming philosophy, if logically
followed out, would lead to some such ideas is not difficult to surmise. So unlike
the conservative Chu philosophy fostered by the old governments for its own
preservation, it (Yang Ming philosophy) was progressive, prospective, and full of
promise. Its similarity to Christianity has been recognized more than once, and it
was practically interdicted in the country on that and other accounts. "This
resembles Yang-Ming-ism ; disintegration of the empire will begin with this." So
exclaimed Takasugi Shinsaku, a Choshu strategist of Revolutionary fame, when he
first examined the Christian Bible in Nagasaki. That something like Christianity
was a component force in the reconstruction of Japan is a singular fact in this part
of its history.
His situations and surroundings too must have helped him in forming his great
projects of life. Situated in the south-western corner of the country, Satzuma stood
nearest to the European influence, then coming all from that direction. Its
proximity to Nagasaki was a great advantage in this respect, and we are told of
foreign commerce actually carried on on some of its dependent islands, long before
formal permission was given thereto by the central government.
But of all outward influences, two living men had most to do with Saigo. One was
his own feudal master, Saihin of Satzuma, and the other was Fujita Toko of the
Mito han. That the former was no common character, no one can doubt.
Self-possessed and far-sighted, he early saw the inevitable changes that were
coming upon his country, and introduced reforms into his dominion to prepare for
the crises that were near at hand. It was he who fortified his own city of
Kagoshima, which cost so much for the English fleet to break down in 1863. It was
also he, who, notwithstanding his strong anti-foreign sentiments, received with
great respect Frenchmen who visited his shore, against the remonstrance of his
turbulent subjects to the contrary. "A pacific gentleman who avoided not war if
necessary," he was a man after Saigo's own heart, and the subject ceased not in
after years to express his dues to his great and farseeing master. The relation
between the two was that of two intimate friends, so near came they to each other
in their views as to the future of their country.
But the chief and greatest inspiration came from master spirit of the time. In
Fujita Toko of Mito,"the spirit of Yamato had concentrated itself." He was Japan
etherialized into a soul. Sharp in outlines and acutely angled, the farm was that of
the volcanic Fuji, with the soul in it of all sincerity. An intense lover of
righteousness, and an intense hater of the Western Barbarians, he drew around
him the rising generation; and Saigo, hearing of his fame at a distance, lost no
opportunity of seeing and feeling the man when he was in Yedo with his lord. No
two more congenial souls ever met together. "Only that young man shall carry to
posterity the plans that I now store in my bosom," said the master of the pupil.
"There is none to be feared under heaven except one, and that one is Master Toko,"
said the pupil of the master. The united empire, and the extension of its dominion
over the continent "so as to enable the land to stand on equal terms with Europe,"
and the practical ways of leading the nation thereto, seem to have taken final
shapes in Saigo's mind by the new influence he came under. He had now distinct
ideals to live up to, and his life since then was one direct march toward the mark
thus laid before him. The Revolution had its seed-thought sown in Toko's
vehement mind; but this needed transplanting to a less intense and more equable
soul like Saigo's, that it might bring forth an actual revolution. Toko died in the
earthquake of 1855 at the age of fifty, leaving his illustrious pupil to carry out the
ideals first conceived in his mind.
Shall we also deny to our hero a voice direct from Heaven's splendour, as he
roamed over his favourite mountains, oftentimes for days and nights in succession?
Did not a "still small voice" often tell him in the silence of cryptomeria forest, that
he was sent to this earth with a mission, the fulfillment of which was to be of great
consequence to his country and the world? Why did he mention Heaven so many
times in his writings and conversations if he had not such visitations? A slow,
silent, childlike man, he seems to have been mostly alone with his own heart,
where we believe he found One greater than himself and all the universe, holding
secret conversations with him. What cares he if the modern Pharisees call him a
heathen, and dispute as to the whereabouts of his soul in the future existence! "He
that follows the heavenly way abases not himself even though the whole world
speaks evil of him; neither thinks he himself sufficient even though they in unison
praise his name." "Deal with Heaven, and never with men. Do all things for
Heaven's sake. Blame not others; only search into the lack of sincerity in us." "The
law is of the universe and is natural. Hence he only can keep it who makes it his
aim to fear and serve Heaven. ........Heaven loves all men alike. So we must love
others with the love with which we love ourselves." Saigo said these things and
much else like them, and I believe he heard all these directly from Heaven.
III -HIS PART IN THE REVOLUTION （第3章 維新において西郷が果たした役割）
To write out in full Saigo's part in the Revolution would be to write the whole
history of the same. In one sense we may say, I think, that the Japanese
Revolution of 1868 was Saigo's revolution. Of course no one man can rebuild a
nation. We will not call New Japan Saigo's Japan. That certainly is doing great
injustice to many other great men who took part in this work. Indeed, in many
respects, Saigo had his superiors among his colleagues. As for matters of economic
rearrangement, Saigo was perhaps the least competent. He was not for the details
of internal administration as Kido and Okubo were, and Sanjo and Iwakura were
far his superiors in the work of the pacific settlement of the revolutionized country.
The New Empire as we have it now, would not have been, were it not for all these
men.
But we doubt whether the Revolution was possible without Saigo. A Kido or a
Sanjo we might not have had, and yet the Revolution we would have had, though
perhaps not so successfully. A need there was of a primal force that could give a
start to the whole movement, a soul that could give a shape to it, and drive it in the
direction ordered by Heaven's omnipotent laws. Once started and directed, the rest
was comparatively an easy work, much of it mere drudgeries, that could be done by
smaller men than he. And when we connect the name of Saigo so intimately with
the New Japanese Empire, it is because we believe him to be the starter and
director of a force generated in his big mind, and afterward applied to the course of
events then running in the society of his time.
Soon after his return from the Shogun's capital, after the all-important meeting
with Toko, Saigo identified himself with the anti-Tokugawa party then gaining
force in the western part of the country. His episode with Gessho, a learned
Buddhist priest and a warm advocate of the imperial cause, marks the point in his
career when his avowed aim began to be known to the public. Unable to shelter the
fugitive priest, with whose custody he was entrusted, from the hot pursuit of
Tokugawa men, Saigo proposed death to his guest and was accepted. They two
went to the sea on a moon-lit night, "drew maximum consolation from autumnal
view," and then hand in hand, the two patriots plunged into the sea. The splash
called the attention of the attendants then asleep, and search for the lost began at
once. Their bodies were secured, Saigo revived, but Gessho did not. The man who
had a new empire upon his shoulders thought not his life to be too precious to be
given away for his friend as a pledge of his affection and hospitality! It was this
weakness, - the weakness of "too keen sensibility" which he tried "to kill" by his
Zen Philosophy, - that brought upon his final destruction, as we shall see
afterward.
For this and other complicities in anti-Tokugawa movements, he was twice exiled
to south-sea islands. Returning to Kagoshima after its bombardment by the British
fleet in 1863, he at once resumed his old course, though this time more cautiously
than before. By his advice a pacific settlement was made between Choshu and the
Tokugawa Government; but a year later, when the latter forced unreasonable
demands upon the former, and their flat refusals called forth so-called Choshu
Invasion, Satzuma under Saigo's direction declined to send its quota of troops to
join the expedition. This policy of Satzuma was the beginning of the famous
coalition effected between it and Choshu, of so momentous import in the history of
the Revolution. The total discomfiture of the invading force, and the evident
imbecility of the old government in its dealings with foreign affairs, precipitated its
downfall much earlier than was expected; and on the same day when the coalition
secured an imperial decree for the upsetting of the tottering dynasty, the Shogun
out of his own free-will, laid down his authority of three centuries' standing, and
the rightful sovereigns was reinstated in power seemingly without any opposition.
(Nov. 14, 1867.) The occupation of the city of Kyoto by the army of the coalition and
its allies, "the Grand Proclamation of the Ninth Day of December," and the
evacuation of the Nijo castle by the Shogun followed in rapid succession. On the 3rd
of January 1868, the war began with the battle of Fushimi. The imperialists were
entirely successful, and the rebels, as the Tokugawa Party was called from that time,
retired toward the east. Two grand armies followed the latter, Saigo commanding
the Tokaido branch. No opposition was met, and on the 4th of April the castle of
Yedo was tendered to the imperialists. The Revolution considering its
tremendous after-effects was the cheapest ever bought.
And it was Saigo who bought it so cheaply and made it so effective, his real
greatness showing itself most conspicuously in these two contrary aspects of
our revolution. "The Grand Proclamation of the Ninth Day of December"
is comparable only to the similar proclamation of the Fourteenth of
July 1790 in the French capital, in its sweeping effect upon old institutions.
His self-possession was the stay of the imperialists when the first battle was
opened at Fushimi. A messenger came to him from the field and said, "Pray
send us a reenforcement. We are only one regiment, and the enemy's fire is hot
upon us." "I will," said General Saigo, "when every one of you is dead upon the field."
The messenger returned, and the enemy was repulsed. The side that had
such a general could not but win. This Tokaido army marched up to Shinagawa, and
the general was met by an old friend of his, Katzu by name, who alone among the
Tokugawa men saw its inevitable end, and would resign himself to
sacrifice the supremacy of his master's house that his
country might live thereby. "I believe my friend is at wit's end by this time," said
the commander of the imperial army to the messenger from the old government.
"Only by placing yourself in my position you can understand where I am," responds
the latter. The general bursts into a peal of laughter; he is amused at seeing
his friend in distress ! His mind is now inclined toward peace. He goes back to Kyoto,
and maintains against all oppositions amnesty toward the Shogun and his
followers, and returns to Yedo with terms very favorable to the beleagured party. It
is said that a few days before he finally made up his mind for peace, Katzu took him
up to the Atago Hill for a friendly walk. Seeing "the city of magnificent dimensions"
under his feet, the general's heart was deeply touched. He turned to his friend and said,
"In case we exchange arms, I believe these innocent peoples will have to suffer on
our account," and was silent for some moment. His "sensibility" moved in him;
he must have peace for those innocent ones' sake. "The strong man is most
powerful when unimpeded by the weak." Saigo's strength had considerable
of womanly pity in it. The city was spared, peace was concluded, and the
Shogun was made to lay down his arms and tender his castle to the Emperor.
The Emperor reinstated in his rightful position, the country united under its
rightful sovereign, and the government set moving in the direction he had
aimed at, Saigo retired at once to his home in Satzuma, and there for several years occupied
himself mostly in drilling a few battalions of soldiers. To him the war did not end,
as it did to others of his countrymen. Great social reforms that were also yet to be
introduced into the country needed force, as that other purpose for which in his eye
the united empire was only a step. Called up to the capital, he filled the
all-important office of Sangi (Chief Councillor) with other men of revolutionary
fame. But time came when his associates could follow him no longer. Hitherto they
had come together because they had an aim in common; but where they wanted to
stop, he wanted to begin, and rupture came at last.
IV-THE COREAN AFFAIR （第4章 朝鮮の議）
Saigo was too much of a moralist to go to war merely for conquest's sake. His
object of the reduction of Eastern Asia came necessarily out of his views of the then
state of the world. That Japan might be a compeer with the Great Powers of
Europe, she needed a considerable extension of her territorial possessions, and
enough aggressiveness to keep up the spirit of her people. Then too, we believe he
had somehow an idea of the great mission of his country as the leader of Eastern
Asia. To crush the weak was never in him; but to lead them against the strong and
so crush the proud, was his whole soul and endeavour. The single fact that his
ideal hero was said to be George Washington, and that he showed intense dislike
toward Napoleon and men of his type, should be enough evidence that Saigo was
never a slave of low ambitions.
Yet with all his high notions of his country's mission, he would not go to war
without sufficient cause for it. To do so would be against Heaven's law that he
made so much of. But when an opportunity presented itself without his own
making, it was very natural that he took it as a heaven-sent one for his country to
enter upon a career assigned her from the beginning of the world. Corea, her
nearest continental neighbor, proved herself insolent to several of the Japanese
envoys sent out by the new government. Moreover, she showed distinct enmity
against the Japanese residents there, and made a public proclamation to her
people highly derogatory to the dignity of her friendly neighbor. Should such go
unheeded? argued Saigo and men of his inclination. The insolence was not yet
sufficient to precipitate war. But let an embassy consisting of a few men of the
highest rank be sent to the Peninsular Court to demand justice for her insolence;
and should she still insist in her haughty attitude, and add insult, and very
possibly, personal injury, to the new embassy, let that be the signal to the nation to
dispatch its troops into the continent, and extend its conquest as far as Heaven
would permit. And since great responsibility and utmost danger would attend such
an embassy, he (Saigo) himself would like to be appointed to that office. The
conqueror will first lay down his life to open a way of conquest to his countrymen!
Never in History was conquest undertaken in this fashion.
The slow, silent Saigo was all fire and activity when the question of the Corean
embassy was discussed in the cabinet. He implored his colleagues to appoint him
as the chief envoy, and when it was fairly settled that his request would be granted,
his gladness was that of a child leaping for joy possessed with the object of its
heart's desire. Here is a letter which he wrote to his friend Itagaki (now count) by
whose special endeavour the appointment was privily settled in the court.
"Itagaki Sama,
I called upon you yesterday, but you were absent, and I was sent back without
expressing my thanks to you. By your effort I am to have all I wished. My illness is
all gone now. Transported with gladness, I new through the air from Minister
Sanjo's to your mansion; my feet were so light. No mire fear of 'side thrust' I
suppose. Now that my aim is secured, I may retire to my residence in Aoyama and
wait for the happy issue. This is only to convey my gratitude to you.
Saigo."
At this juncture, Iwakura returned with Okubo and Kido from their tour around
the world. They saw civilization in its centre, its comfort and happiness. They no
more thought of foreign war than Saigo did of Parisian or Viennese ways of living.
So, resorting themselves to duplicities and ambiguities of all kinds, they in concert
did all in their power to overthrow the decision reached in the cabinet council
during their absence, and taking advantages of Minister Sanjo's illness, they
succeeded at last in carrying their ways through. The Corean Embassy Act was
repealed, Nov. 28, l873. Saigo, who to all outward appearances had known no
anger thus far, was now wild over the measures of the "long-sleeved," as he called
the coward courtiers. That the act was repealed was not what offended him most;
but the way in which it was rescinded, and the motives that led thereto, were
objectionable to him beyond his power of forbearance. He made up his mind that he
would do nothing with the rotten government, threw his written resignation upon
the cabinet-table, gave up his residence in Tokio, and retired at once to his home in
Satzuma, never again to join the government that was set up mostly through his
endeavour.
With the suppression of the Corean Affair ceased all the aggressive measures of
the government, and its whole policies since they have been directed toward what
its supporters called "internal development." And agreeably to the heart's wish of
Iwakura and his "peace-party," the country has had much of what they called
civilization. Yet withal also came much effeminacy, fear of decisive actions, love
of peace at the cost of plain justice, and much else that the true samurai laments.
"What is civilization but an effectual working of righteousness, and not
magnificence of houses, beauty of dresses, and ornamentation of outward
appearance." This was Saigo's definition of civilization, and we are afraid
civilization in his sense has not made much progress since his time.
V-SAIGO AS A REBEL （第5章 逆賊・西郷）
We need say but very little about this last and most lamentable part of Saigo's life.
That he turned a rebel against the government of his time was a fact. What motive
led him to take that position has been conjectured in many ways. That his old
weakness, "too keen sensibility," was the main cause of his uniting with the rebels
seems quite plausible. Some five thousand young men who worshipped him as the
only man in the world, went into an open rebellion against the government,
seemingly without his knowledge, and much against his will. Their success
depended wholly upon his lending his name and influence to their cause. A
strongest of men, he was almost helpless before the suppliant entreaty of the needy.
Twenty years ago he had promised his life to his guest as a pledge of his
hospitality; and now again he might have been induced to sacrifice his life, his
honour, his all, as a pledge of his friendship to his admiring pupils. This view of
things is taken by many who knew him best.
That he was strongly disaffected with the government of his time needs no
controversy; but that he a level-headed man should go to war for the mere sake of
enmity is hard to conjecture. Are we mistaken when we maintain, that in his case
at least, the rebellion was a result of disappointment in the grand aims of his life?
Though not directly caused by him, it found him in unspeakable anguish of soul,
because the revolution of 1868 produced the result so contrary to his ideal. Should
the rebellion chance to be a success, might he not realize yet the great dreams of
his life? Doubtingly, yet not entirely without some hope, he united with the rebels
and shared with them the fate he seemed to have instinctively foreseen. But
history may wait a hundred years more before it can settle this part of his life.
He remained a passive figure all through the war, Kirino and others looking
after all the manoeuvers in the field. They fought from February to September,
1877, and when their hopes were all shattered, they forced their way back to
Kagoshima, there to be buried in their "fathers' grave-yard." There beleaguered in
the Castle Hill, all the government forces gathered at its foot, our hero was playing
go in the best of spirit. Turning to one of his attendants he said, "Aren't you the one
the latchet of whose wooden shoes I mended one day, as I was returning from my
farm, drawing my packhorse behind me?" The man remembered the occasion,
confessed his insolence, and sincerely asked for forgiveness. "Nothing!" replied
Saigo, "Too much leisure made me to poke you a little." The fact was, the General
did yield once to the impudent demands of two youths, who, as was the custom in
Satzuma, used the right of the samurai to have his wooden-shoes mended by any
farmer he happened to meet. The farmer in this case happened to be the great
Saigo, who without a word of complaint, did the menial service, and went away in
all humility. We are exceedingly thankful for this piece of reminiscence given of
him by the very man who attended upon him in his last hours. Saint Aquinas was
not more humble than this our Saigo.
On the morning of 24th of September l877, general assault was made upon the
Castle Hill by the government force. Saigo was on the point of rising with his
comrades to meet the enemy, when a bullet struck his hip. Soon the little party
was annihilated, and Saigo's remains fell into his enemy's hand. "See that no
rudeness is done to them," cried one of the enemy's generals. "What a mildness in
his countenance!" said another. They that killed him were all in mourning. In tears
they buried him, and with tears his tomb is visited by all to this day. So passed
away the greatest, and we are afraid, the last of the samurai.
VI-HIS WAYS OF LIVING AND VIEWS OF LIFE （第6章 その生活と人生観）
History has yet to wait for the just estimate of Saigo's public service to his
country; but it has enough materials at its command for forming right views of the
kind of man he really was. And if the latter aspect of his life will help much to clear
up the former, I believe my readers will pardon me for dwelling at some length
upon his private life and opinions.
First of all, we know of no man who had fewer wants in life than he. The
commander-in-chief of the Japanese army, the generalissimo of the Imperial
Bodyguard, and the most influential of the cabinet-members, his outward
appearance was that of the commonest soldier. When his monthly income was
several hundred yen, he had enough for his wants with fifteen, and every one of his
needy friends was welcome to the rest. His residence in Bancho, Tokio, was a
shabby-looking structure the rent three yen a month. His usual costume was
Satzuma-spun cotton stuff, girdled with a broad calico obi, and large wooden clogs
on his feet. In this attire he was ready to appear at any place, at the Imperial
dinner-table, as anywhere else. For food he would take whatsoever was placed
before him. Once a visitor found him in his residence, he and several of his soldiers
and attendants surrounding a large wooden bowl, and helping themselves to
buck-wheat macaroni cooled in the receptacle. That seemed to be his favorite
banquet, eating with young fellows, himself a big child of the simplest nature.
Careless about his body, he was also careless about his possessions. He gave up a
fine lot of land in his possession in the most prosperous section of the city of Tokio
to a national bank just then started, and when asked its price, he refused to
mention it; and so it remains to this day in the possession of the said corporation,
worth several hundred thousand dollars. A large income from his pension was
spent wholly for the support of a school which he started in Kagoshima. One of his
Chinese poems reads,
"Does the world know our family law?
We leave not substance to our children."
And so he left nothing to his widow and children; but the nation took care of them,
though he died a rebel. Modern Economic Science may have much to say against
this "carelessness" of his.
He had one hobby, and that was the dog-kind. Though he accepted nothing else
that was taken as a present to him, anything that related to dogs he received with
all thankfulness. Chromos, lithographs, pencil-sketches of the canine tribe were
always very pleasing to him. It is said that when he gave up his house in Tokio, he
had a large boxful of pictures of dogs. One of his letters to General Oyama was very
particular about collars for his hounds "Many thanks for the specimens of the
dog-collars you kindly sent me," he writes. "I think they are superior to imported
articles. Only if you could make them three inches longer, they would fit my
purpose exactly. Make four or five of them, I beseech you. And once more, a little
broader and five inches longer, I pray, etc." His dogs were his friends all through
his life. He often spent days and nights with them in the mountains. The loneliest
of man, he had dumb brutes to share his loneliness.
He disliked disputings, and he avoided them by all possible means. Once he was
invited to an Imperial feast, at which he appeared in his usual plain costume. As
he retired, he missed his clogs left at the palace-entrance, and as he would not
trouble anybody about them, he walked out barefooted; and that in a drizzling rain.
When he came to the castle-gate, the sentinel called him to halt, and demanded of
him an explanation of his person, - a doubtful figure he appeared in his commonest
garb. "General Saigo," he replied. But they believed not his words, and allowed him
not to pass the gate. So he stood there in the rain waiting for somebody who might
identify him to the sentinel. Soon a carriage approached with Minister Iwakura in
it. The barefooted man was proved to be the general, was taken into the minister's
coach, and so carried away. - He had a servant, Kuma by name, a well-known
figure in his modest household for many years. The latter, however, once
committed an offence grave enough to have his position forfeited. But the
indulgent master was solicitous about his servant's future if discharged from his
service. So he simply kept him in his house; but for many years he gave him not a
single order to be executed. Kuma survived his master many years, and was one of
the deepest mourner for the ill-fated hero.
A witness has this to say of Saigo's private life: "I lived with him thirteen years;
and never have I seen him scolding his servants. He himself looked to the making
and unmaking of his bed, to the opening and shutting of his room-windows, and to
most other things that pertained to his person. But in cases others were doing
them for him, he never interfered; neither did he decline help when offered. His
carelessness and entire artlessness were those of a child."
Indeed he was so loathe to disturb the peace of others that he often made visits
upon their houses, but dared not to call for notice from inside; but stood in the
entrance thereof and there waited till somebody happened to come out and find
him!
Such was his living; so lowly and so simple; but his thinking was that of a saint
and a philosopher, as we have had already some occasions to show.
"Revere Heaven; love people," summed up all his views of life. All wisdom was
there; and all un-wisdom, in love of self. What conceptions he had of Heaven;
whether he took it to be a Force or a Person, and how he worshiped it except in his
own practical way, we have no means of ascertaining. But that he knew it to be
all-powerful, unchangeable, and very merciful, and its Laws to be all-binding
unassailable, and very beneficent, his words and actions abundantly testify. We
have already given some of his expressions about Heaven and its Laws. His
writings are full of them, and we need not multiply them here. When he said,
"Heaven loveth all men alike; so we must love others with the love with which we
love ourselves," he said all that is in the Law and Prophets, and some of us may be
desirous to inquire whence he got that grand doctrine of his.
And this Heaven was to be approached with all sincerity; else the knowledge of its
ways was unattainable. Human wisdoms he detested ; but all wisdoms were to
come from the sincerity of one's heart and purpose. Heart pure and motive high,
ways are at hand as we need them, in the council-hall as on the battle-field. He
that schemes always is he that has no schemes when crises are at hand. In his own
words, "Sincerity's own realm is one's secret chamber. Strong there, a man is strong
everywhere." Insincerity, and its great child, Selfishness, are the prime causes of
our failures in life. Saigo says, "A man succeeds by overcoming himself, and fails by
loving himself. Why is it that many have succeeded in eight and failed
in the remaining two? Because when success attended them, love of self grew in them;
and vigilance departing, and desire for ease returning, their work became onerous
to them, and they failed." Hence we are to meet all the emergencies of life with
our lives in our hands. "I have my life to offer," he often uttered when he had
some action to propose in his responsible position. That entire self-abnegation was
the secret of his courage is evident from the following remarkable utterance of his:
"A man that seeks neither life, nor name, nor rank, nor money, is the hardest man
to manage. But with only such life's tribulations can be shared, and such only can
bring great things to his country."
A believer in Heaven, its laws and its time, he was also a believer in himself, as
one kind of faith always implies the other kind. "Be determined and do," he said,
"and even gods will flee from before you." Again he said: "Of opportunities there
are two kinds : those that come without our seeking and those that are of our own
make. What the world calls opportunity is usually the former kind. But the true
opportunity comes by acting in accordance with reason, in compliance with the
need of the time. When crises are at hand, opportunities must be caused by us." A
MAN, therefore, a capable man, he pried above all things. "Whatever be the ways
and institutions we speak about," were his words, "they are impotent unless there
are men to work them. Man first; then the working of means. Man is the first
treasure, and let every one of us try to be a man."
A "reverer of Heaven" cannot but be a reverer and observer of righteousness.
"An effectual working of righteousness" was his definition of civilization. To him
there was nothing under heaven so precious as righteousness. His life, of course,
and his country even, were not more precious than righteousness. He says: "Unless
there is a spirit in us to walk in the ways of righteousness, and fall with the
country if for righteousness' sake, no satisfactory relation with foreign powers can
be expected. Afraid of their greatness and hankering after peace, and abjectly
following their wishes, we soon invite their contemptuous estimate of ourselves.
Friendly relations will thus begin to cease, and we shall be made to serve them at
last." In a similar strain he says: "When a nation's honour is in any way injured,
the plain duty of its government is to follow the ways of justice and righteousness
even though the nation's existence is jeopardized thereby. * * * * * A government
that trembles at the word 'war,' and only makes it a business to buy slothful peace,
should be called a commercial regulator, and it should not be called a government."
And the man who uttered these words was the object of universal esteem by all the
ambassadors of the foreign courts then represented in our capital. None esteemed
him more than Sir Harry Parkes of her Britannic Majesty's Legation, who as an
adept in the art of Oriental diplomacy, was for a long time a shrewd upholder of
the British interests on our shores. "Be just and fear not" was Saigo's method of
running a government.
With such a singleness of view, he was naturally very clear-sighted as to the
outcome of the movements then going on around him. Long before the Revolution,
when the new government was yet a day-dream even to many of its advocates, it
was an accomplished reality to Saigo. It is said that, when, after many years of
banishment, he was sent to in his isle of exile to call him back to his old position of
responsibility, he told the messenger, with diagrams on the beach-sand, all the
manoeuvres he had framed in his mind for the upbuilding of the new empire; and
so true to the situation was the prescience then offered that the listener told his
friends afterwards, that in his view, Saigo was not a man but a god. And we have
seen his perfect self-possession during the Revolution, - a natural result of his clear
vision. When it had fairly begun, there was much anxiety in some quarters as to
the position of the Emperor in the new government, seeing that for well-nigh ten
centuries his real situation had been a very undefinable one. Mr. Fukuba, a
well-known court-poet, asked Saigo on this wise:
"The Revolution I desire to have; but when the new government is set up, where
shall we place our holy Emperor?"
To which Saigo's very explicit reply was as follows:
"In the new government we shall place the Emperor where he should be; that is
make him personally see to the affairs of the state, and so fulfill his
heaven-appointed mission."
No tortuosities in this man. Short, straight, clear as sunlight, as the ways of
righteousness always are.
Saigo left us no books. But he left us many poems, and several essays. Through
these occasional effusions of his, we catch glimpses of his internal state, and we
find it to be the same as was reflected in all his actions. Pedantry there is not in all
his writings. Unlike many Japanese scholars of his degree of attainment, his words
and similes are the simplest that can be imagined. For instance, can anything be
simpler than this:
"Hair I have of thousand strings,
Darker than the lac.
A heart I have an inch long,
Whiter than the snow.
My hair may divided be,
My heart shall never be."
Or this, very characteristic of him:
"Only one way, 'Yea and Nay;'
Heart ever of steel and iron.
Poverty makes great men;
Deeds are born in distress.
Through snow, plums are white,
Through frosts, maples are red;
If but Heaven's will be known,
Who shall seek slothful ease!"
The following bit of a mountain-song of his is perfectly natural to him:
"Land high, recesses deep,
Quietness is that of night.
I hear not human voice,
But look only at the skies."
We have space here only for a part of his essay entitled, "On the Production of
Wealth."
"In the book of 'Sa-den' it is written: 'Virtue is a source of which wealth is an
outcome.' Virtue prospers, and wealth comes by itself. Virtue declines, and in the
same proportion wealth diminishes. For wealth is by replenishing the land and
giving peace to the people. The small man aims at profiting himself; the great man,
at profiting the people. One is selfishness, and it decays. The other is
public-spiritedness, and it prospers. According as you use your substance, you have
prosperity or decay, abundance or poverty, rise or fall, life or death. Should we not
be on our guard therefore?
"The world says: 'Take and you shall have wealth, and give and you shall lose it.'
Oh what an error! I seek a comparison in agriculture. The covetous farmer sparing
of his seeds sows but niggardly; and then sits and waits for the harvest of autumn.
The only thing he shall have is starvation. The good farmer sows good seeds, and
gives all his cares thereto. The grains multiply hundredfold, and he shall have
more than he can dispose of. He that is intent upon gathering knows only of
harvesting, and not of planting. But the wise man is diligent in planting; therefore
the harvest comes without his seeking.
* * * * *
"To him who is diligent in virtue, wealth comes without his seeking it. Hence what
the' world calls loss is not loss, and what it calls gain is not gain. The wise man of
old thought it as gain to bless and give to the people, and loss to take from them.
Quite otherwise at present.
* * * * *
"Ah, can it be called wisdom to walk contrary to the ways of the sages, and yet
seek wealth and abundance for the people? Should it not be called unwisdom to
walk contrary to the law (true) of gain and loss, and yet devise means to enrich the
land? The wise man economizes to give in charity. His own distress troubles him
not; only that of his people does. Hence wealth flows to him as water gushes from
the spring. Blessings are rained down, and the people bathe in them. All this comes,
because he knows the right relation of wealth to virtue, and seeks the source, and
not the outcome."
"An old-school economy," I hear our modern Benthamites say. But it was the
economy of Solomon, and of One greater than Solomon, and it can never be old so
long as the universe stands as it did all these centuries. "There is that scattereth,
and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth
to poverty." "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness; and all these
things shall be added unto you." Is not Saigo's essay a fit commentary on these
divine words?
If I am to mention the two greatest names in our history, I
unhesitatingly name Taiko and Saigo. Both had continental ambitions, and the
whole world as their field of action. Incomprehensively great above all their
countrymen both of them were, but of two entirely different kinds of greatness.
Taiko's greatness, I imagine, was somewhat Napoleonic. In him there was much of
the charlatan element so conspicuous in his European representative, though I am
sure in very much smaller proportion. His was the greatness of genius, of inborn
capacity of mind, great without attempting to be great. But not so Saigo's. His was
Cromwellian, and only for the lack of Puritanism, he was not a Puritan, I think.
Sheer will-power had very much to do in his case, - the greatness of moral kind, the
best kind of greatness. He tried to rebuild his nation upon a sound moral basis, in
which work he partially succeeded.
参考文献
TOP
[温故知新]、、
武士道（新渡戸稲造）、
茶の本（岡倉天心）、
代表的日本人（内村鑑三）、
学問のすすめ（福沢諭吉）、
自助論（Smiles）、
|
[朗読試聴]