Rizal obeyed, but not until he had given to the world new evidence of the versatility of a genius to which there is scarcely a companion in human records. We are to remember, first of all, he was a physician that had chosen diseases of the eye for his specialty, [[145]]wherein he stood in a place of distinction before his profession. He was next an artist in sculpture and painting; a poet; a master of terse and nervous prose in Spanish, in his native Tagalog, and in ten other languages. He was next a scientist, distinguished in original research, already honored with the regard of leading European minds in many branches of recondite knowledge. This, it will be admitted, is a most unusual range of pursuits. From them economics might be regarded as far removed and negligible. Yet he now showed that his many-sided mind could enlist its energies in even the “dismal science” and his skill in expression could illuminate it.
Taxes in the Philippines had always been haphazard. They were levied without system or anything akin to system. Only one feature about them could be said to be uniform: everywhere the wealthy evaded their just share of the taxation burden; everywhere the poor bore more than was right for them to bear. The history of Spanish rule was a succession of promises of reform, usually wrenched by an insurrection from the unwilling lips of a governor-general and ignored when the time of danger had passed. In the year of grace 1888 came such a reformatory spasm about taxes. When it reached Calamba it was received with exceptional interest for the reason that the Dominicans, with whom the householders had an ancient feud, owned a great deal of property there and on it paid very little.
This, though outside of Rizal’s studies, was a subject all within the purpose to which he had consecrated [[146]]himself. He was to live for his people; he was to do whatever came to his hand to help them to rise. Here was a poignant illustration of the vast and complicated evils that weighed them down. Since his first interview with Terrero he had been living at Calamba in his mother’s house, practising with brilliant success his profession and lending his influence to every project that seemed to promise good for the Filipinos. His prestige and influence had become great. Despite all the efforts of the Government, knowledge of his book and of its meaning was wide-spread. Copies were continually being smuggled into the country and passed from hand to hand. Often at the approach of officers they were buried in fields or rubbish-heaps and dug up again when the danger was gone. A Filipino that could read was a popular man, then, in his community; he found much employment reading “Noli Me Tangere” to groups that cowered in the brush, maybe, a sentinel posted to give warning of the approach of the Civil Guard. The result of all this could be but one thing. From the mass of the despised Filipinos he was emerging as their natural leader.
He observed now the approach of the taxation issue and, one might say, went forth to meet it. His facile and powerful mind absorbed the whole business. Taxation he studied until he seemed to know more about it than any other man in the Islands. In the manner of the true modern investigator, he sought for facts, not arguments: what the poor man paid upon his small holding, what the rich owner paid upon his great estate. When these had been gathered, he reduced them all to a report that the overburdened taxpayers [[147]]took for their own and presented to the Government impressively signed by their local officers.[14]
He had done more here, very likely, than he himself knew. The document thus prepared became the rallying-point for another of those struggles between the people and the Government that increasingly signaled the downfall of the existing System. Slowly the nineteenth century was closing in upon the sixteenth, democracy upon the autocracy that at the borders of civilization still outlived the date of its normal demise. Rizal’s work on taxation showed the Filipinos what they could do by uniting their efforts. In their country, too, the exploiter held the exploited by fomenting among them envyings, jealousies, and caste; a process that everywhere attends (and usually comprises) the white man’s burden, and whereof India offers the chief surviving example. In the face of every obstacle and discouragement the Filipinos were now learning the lesson of union, and the only shadow union cast forward was revolt.
Rizal’s leadership was a phrase we used in a foregoing paragraph. It is to be noted that he came into that eminence without an effort of his own, without planning or connivance. He was elated to find greatness thus thrust upon him and would not have been human otherwise; yet to be conspicuous had never been any real part of his scheme of life, and when elation was at its height it never obscured the fact that what he really sought was a result for the country and not kudos for himself. But he was the most famous of living Filipinos; knowledge of his place among the [[148]]world’s scientists was now general among his countrymen; those that had not been able to read “Noli Me Tangere” nor to hear it read were becoming aware by common report of the nature of its protest. He was the one man that had been able to make the bitter cry of the Filipinos audible to the world. He had best formulated and expressed the wrongs under which those people suffered. He alone, with this fierce derision, had dared to defy the power of the friars and the brutal fists of the Civil Guards. Naturally, the people turned to him, and the unanimity with which they sought his counsel might have shown the Spaniards again among what fires they were walking; for the spirit that gave rise to the popularity of Rizal was even more significant than anything he said in his book. Before that book was written the spirit had been there; it was growing while the friars debated the best means to suppress the audacious author; it was certain to break out into open revolt—if not under Rizal, then under some one else.
In view of these conditions, Rizal has been subjected to some criticism for obeying the sugar-coated deportation-order of the governor-general and taking himself from the Islands at a time so momentous. The criticism is not now important but, to keep straight the thread of narrative, may be examined here. To say nothing of the obvious fact that, as the power of the governor-general was absolute, hesitation to obey would be followed by an explicit command, other things were to be considered. All Rizal’s instincts strove against the idea of advance by physical violence. He believed in the weapons of the spirit, not [[149]]in the carnal sword. To defy the governor-general’s “advice” meant but one thing. It would be a direct appeal to physical force; it would be followed by revolution and slaughter; and to these he felt he could never consent.
Moreover, he was up to this time not in favor of immediate separation from Spain. On this issue his views have been distorted by controversialists that have selected expressions seemingly favorable to one side or the other of a disputed question. Long after events had wholly changed the face and the substance of Philippine affairs it was the custom of persons opposed to Philippine independence to cite Rizal in support of their arguments. This was unfairly done. Reference to one undeniable fact should be enough to dispose of the fabricated uncertainty about his views on this question. All the reforms he strove for looked to independence and could not look to anything else. It was not for academic satisfaction he desired increase of culture among his people, but that with wisdom and confidence they might take their place among the nations of earth. It was not for the mere sake of teaching that he desired to see them taught, but that they might be taught to be free.
When we recognize this basis, which shows plainly enough in his writings,[15] his attitude toward Spain, otherwise mysterious or contradictory, is consistent enough to suit any taste. He wished Spain to grant reforms, to adopt a system of education that would meet some, at least, of the urgent needs of the people, to unchain the press, to remake the grotesque courts, [[150]]to recognize the people of the Islands as human beings, and to give them something to live for. The effect of these changes, he well knew, would be to release the Filipino mind, and when that should be set free the result could be only one thing. It was darkness and ignorance that enabled Spain to rule; the symbols of all her power were of the night. But he thought the reforms that would allow the Filipino to stand upright before the world Spain itself must grant; to try to wrest them from her, gun in hand, would be to miss them altogether. Spain must grant them. True, she would thereby be lighting her own eventual exit from the Islands, but he was able to make himself believe (for a time) that the Spanish Government could be persuaded, or led by events, to do this thing. This was a lovely dream and possible only to one of faith larger than the average man’s in the innate strength of a cause just and reasonable. It was not really in him inconsistent that all this time he was under no illusion about the bespattered record and reactionary tendencies of the controlling power in Spain; what he thought, apparently, was that by bringing home to that power a sense of the world’s contempt and urging the need of sweeping reforms such agitation would generate its own compulsive and undeniable force. He is not the only man in history in whom the sense of justice was so strong it obscured its total want in others.
But even so, in a way, what confronted him and the Philippines at the moment was beyond choosing. The immediate demand must be for the reforms that lay in Spain’s power to give or to withhold; these were imperative; [[151]]that a start may be made upon the road, let us unite and demand these first reforms.