Benevolence, the Feeling of Distress（1）（2/2）
《武士道》作者：（日）新渡户稻造 2017-04-14 12:42
s, whom Heaven entrusted to his care. According to the ancient Chinese Book of Poety：“Until the house of Yin lost the bearts of people, they could appear before Hearen.” And Confucius in his Great Learning taught：“When the prince loves what the people love and hates what the people hate, then is he what is called the parent of the people.” Thus are public opinion and monarchicd will or democracy and absolutism merged one in the other. Thus also, in a sense not usually assigned to the term, Bushido accepted and corroborated paternal government—paternal also as opposed to the less interested avuncular government (Uncle Sam’s, to wit!). The difference between a despotic and a paternal government lies in this, that in the one the people obey reluctantly, while in the other they do so with ”that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of heart which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of exalted freedom.[1] The old saying is not entirely false which called the king of England the“king of devils, because of his subjects’ often insurrections against, and depositions of, their princes,” and which made the French monarch the“king of asses, because of their infinite taxes and Impositions,” but which gave the title of the “king of men to the sovereign of Spain ‘because of his subjects’ willing obedience.” But enough!
Virtue and absolute power may strike the Anglo-Saxon mind as terms which it is impossible to harmonize. Pobyedonostseff has clearly set before us the contrast in the foundations of English and other European communities; namely that these were organized on the basis of common interest, while that was distinguished by a strongly developed independent personality. What this Russian statesman says of the personal dependence of individuals on some social alliance and in the end of ends on the State, among the continental nations of Europe and particularly among Slavonic peoples, is doubly true of the Japanese. Hence not only is a free exercise on monarchical power not felt as heavily by us as in Europe, but it is generally moderated by parental consideration for the feelings of the people. “Absolutism,” says Bismarck, “primarily demands in the ruler impartiality, honesty, devotion to duty, energy and inward humility.” If I may be allowed to make one more quotation on this subject, I will cite from the speech of the German Emperor at Coblenz, in which he spoke of “Kingship, by the grace of God, with its heavy duties, its tremendous responsibility to the Creator alone, from which no man, no minister, no parliament, can release the monarch.”
Virtue and absolute power may strike the Anglo-Saxon mind as terms which it is impossible to harmonize. Pobyedonostseff has clearly set before us the contrast in the foundations of English and other European communities; namely that these were organized on the basis of common interest, while that was distinguished by a strongly developed independent personality. What this Russian statesman says of the personal dependence of individuals on some social alliance and in the end of ends on the State, among the continental nations of Europe and particularly among Slavonic peoples, is doubly true of the Japanese. Hence not only is a free exercise on monarchical power not felt as heavily by us as in Europe, but it is generally moderated by parental consideration for the feelings of the people. “Absolutism,” says Bismarck, “primarily demands in the ruler impartiality, honesty, devotion to duty, energy and inward humility.” If I may be allowed to make one more quotation on this subject, I will cite from the speech of the German Emperor at Coblenz, in which he spoke of “Kingship, by the grace of God, with its heavy duties, its tremendous responsibility to the Creator alone, from which no man, no minister, no parliament, can release the monarch.”