Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic

by Sidney Lewis Gulick

The theory that all authority resides in the Emperor is also enforced by recent history. For the constitution was not wrung from an unwilling ruler by an ambitious people, but was conferred by the Emperor of his own free will, under the advice of his enlightened and progressive councilors.

As an illustration of some of the preceding statements let me quote from a recent article by Mr. Yamaguchi, Professor of History in the Peeresses' School and Lecturer in the Imperial Military College. After speaking of the abolition of feudalism and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, he goes on to say: "But we must not suppose that the sovereign power of the state has been transferred to the Imperial Diet. On the contrary, it is still in the hands of the Emperor as before.... The functions of the government are retained in the Emperor's own hands, who merely delegates them to the Diet, the Government (Cabinet), and the Judiciary, to exercise the same in his name. The present form of government is the result of the history of a country which has enjoyed an existence of many centuries. Each country has its own peculiar characteristics which differentiate it from others. Japan, too, has her history, different from that of other countries. Therefore we ought not to draw comparisons between Japan and other countries, as if the same principles applied to all indiscriminately. The Empire of Japan has a history of 3000 [!] years, which fact distinctly marks out our nationality as unique. The monarch, in the eyes of the people, is not merely on a par with an aristocratic oligarchy which rules over the inferior masses, or a few nobles who equally divide the sovereignty among themselves. According to our ideas, the monarch reigns over and governs the country in his own right, and not by virtue of rights conferred by the constitution.... Our Emperor possesses real sovereignty and also exercises it. He is quite different from other rulers who possess but a partial sovereignty.... He has inherited the rights of sovereignty from his ancestors. Thus it is quite legitimate to think that the rights of sovereignty exist in the Emperor himself.... The Empire of Japan shall be reigned over and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal. (Constitution, Art. LXXIII.) ... The sovereign power of the state cannot be dissociated from the Imperial Throne. It lasts forever, along with the Imperial line of succession, unbroken for ages eternal. If the Imperial house cease to exist, the Empire falls."

In a land where adopted sons are practically equivalent to lineal descendants (another instance of the "yumei-mujitsu" type of thought), and where marriage is essentially polygamous, and where the "yumei-mujitsu" spirit has allowed the sovereignty to be usurped in fact, though it may not be in name, it is not at all wonderful that the nation can boast of a longer line of Emperors than any other land. But when monogamy becomes the rule in Japan, as it doubtless will some day, and if lineal descent should be considered essential to inheritance, as in the Occident, it is not at all likely that the Imperial line will maintain itself unbroken from father to son indefinitely. Although the present Emperor has at least five concubines besides his wife, the Empress, and has had, prior to 1896, no less than thirteen children by them, only two of these are still living, both of them the offspring of his concubines; one of these is a son born in 1879, proclaimed the heir in 1887, elected Crown Prince in 1889, and married in 1900; he is said to be in delicate health; the second child is a daughter born in 1890. Since 1896 several children have been born to the Emperor and two or three have died, so that at present writing there are but four living children. These are all offspring of concubines.[^[R]]

In speaking, however, of the Japanese apotheosis of their Emperor, we must not forget how the "divine right of kings" has been a popular doctrine, even in enlightened England, until the eighteenth century, and is not wholly unknown in other lands at the present day. Only in recent times has the real source of sovereignty been discovered by historical and political students. That the Japanese are not able to pass at one leap from the old to the new conception in regard to this fundamental element of national authority is not at all strange. Past history, together with that which is recent, furnishes a satisfactory explanation for the peculiar nature of Japanese patriotism. This is clearly due to the nature of the social order.

A further fact in this connection is that, in a very real sense, the existence of Japan as a unified nation has depended on apotheosis. It is the method that all ancient nations have adopted at one stage of their social development for expressing their sense of national unity and the authority of national law. In that stage of social development when the common individual counts for nothing, the only possible conception of the authority of law is that it proceeds from a superior being—the highest ruler. And in order to secure the full advantage of authority, the supreme ruler must be raised to the highest possible pinnacle, must be apotheosized. That national laws should be the product of the unvalued units which compose the nation was unthinkable in an age when the worth of the individual was utterly unrecognized. The apotheosis of the Emperor was neither an unintelligible nor an unreasonable practice. But now that an individualistic, democratic organization of society has been introduced resting on a principle diametrically opposed to that of apotheosis, a struggle of most profound importance has been inaugurated. Does moral or even national authority really reside in the Emperor? The school-teachers are finding great difficulty in teaching morality as based exclusively on the Imperial Edict. The politicians of Japan are not content with leaving all political and state authority to the Emperor. Not long ago (June, 1898), for the first time in Japan, a Cabinet acknowledging responsibility to a political party took the place of one acknowledging responsibility only, to the Emperor. For this end the politicians have been working since the first meeting of the national Diet. Which principle is to succeed, apotheosis and absolute Imperial sovereignty, or individualism with democratic sovereignty? The two cannot permanently live together. The struggle is sure to be intense, for the question of authority, both political and moral, is inevitably involved.

The parallel between Japanese and Roman apotheosis is interesting. I can present it no better than by quoting from that valuable contribution to social and moral problems, "The Genesis of the Social Conscience," by Prof. H.S. Nash: "Yet Rome with all her greatness could not outgrow the tribal principle.... We find something that reveals a fundamental fault in the whole system. It is the apotheosis of the Emperors. The process of apotheosis was something far deeper than servility in the subject conspiring with vanity in the ruler. It was a necessity of the state. There was no means of insuring the existence of the state except religion. In the worship of the Cæsars the Empire reverenced its own law. There was no other way in which pagan Rome could guarantee the gains she had made for civilization. Yet the very thing that was necessary to her was in logic her undoing.... The worship of the Emperor undid the definition of equality the logic of the Empire demanded. Again apotheosis violated the divine unity of humanity upon which alone the Empire could securely build."[^[S]]

That the final issue of Japan's experience will be like that of Rome I do not believe. For her environment is totally different. But the same struggle of the two conflicting principles is already on. Few, even among the educated classes, realize its nature or profundity. The thinkers who adhere to the principle of apotheosis do so admittedly because they see no other way in which to secure authority for law, whether political or moral. Here we see the importance of those conceptions of God, of law, of man, which Christianity alone can give.

From patriotism we naturally pass to the consideration of courage. Nothing was more prized and praised in Old Japan. In those days it was the deliberate effort of parents and educators to develop courage in children. Many were their devices for training the young in bravery. Not content with mere precept, they were sent alone on dark stormy nights to cemeteries, to houses reputed to be haunted, to dangerous mountain peaks, and to execution grounds. Many deeds were required of the young whose sole aim was the development of courage and daring. The worst name you could give to a samurai was "koshinuke" (coward). Many a feud leading to a fatal end has resulted from the mere use of this most hated of all opprobrious epithets. The history of Japan is full of heroic deeds. I well remember a conversation with a son of the old samurai type, who told me, with the blood tingling in his veins, of bloody deeds of old and the courage they demanded. He remarked incidentally that, until one had slain his first foe, he was ever inclined to tremble. But once the deed had been done, and his sword had tasted the life blood of a man, fear was no more. He also told me how for the sake of becoming inured to ghastly sights under nerve-testing circumstances, the sons of samurai were sent at night to the execution grounds, there, by faint moonlight to see, stuck on poles, the heads of men who had been recently beheaded.

The Japanese emotion of courage is in some respects peculiar. At least it appears to differ from that of the Anglo-Saxon. A Japanese seems to lose all self-control when the supreme moment comes; he throws himself into the fray with a frenzied passion and a fearless madness allied to insanity. Such is the impression I have gathered from the descriptions I have heard and the pictures I have seen. Even the pictures of the late war with China give evidence of this.

But their courage is not limited to fearlessness in the face of death; it extends to complete indifference to pain. The honorable method by which a samurai who had transgressed some law or failed in some point of etiquette, might leave this world is well known to all, the "seppuku," the elegant name for the vulgar term "hara-kiri" or "belly-cutting." To one who is sensitive to tales of blood, unexpurgated Japanese history must be a dreadful thing. The vastness of the multitudes who died by their own hands would be incredible, were there not ample evidence of the most convincing nature. It may be said with truth that suicide became apotheosized, a condition that I suppose cannot be said to have prevailed in any other land.