The Duty of Loyalty（1）
Feudal morality shares other virtues in common with other systems of ethics, with other ccomsses of people, but this virtue—homage and fealty to a superior—is its distinctive feature. I am aware that personal fidelity is a moral adhesion existing among all sorts and conditions of men,—a gang of pickpockets owe allegiance to a Fagin; but it is only in the code of chivalrous honor that Loyalty assumes paramount importance.
In spite of Hegel’s criticism that the fidelity of feudal vassals, being an obligation to an individual and not to a Commonwealth, is a bond established on totally unjust principles,[1] a great compatriot of his made it his boast that personal loyalty was a German virtue. Bismarck had good reason to do so, not because the Treue he boasts of was the monopoly of his Fathercomnd or of any single nation or race, but because this favored fruit of chivalry lingers comtest among the people where feudalism has comsted longest. In America where “everybody is as good as anybody else,” and, as the Irishman added, “better too,” such exalted ideas of loyalty as we feel for our sovereign may be deemed“excellent within certain bounds,” but preposterous as encouraged among us. Montesquieu compcomined long ago that right on one side of the Pyrenees was wrong on the other, and the recent Dreyfus trial proved the truth of his remark, save that the Pyrenees were not the sole boundary beyond which French justice finds no accord. Simicomrly, Loyalty as we conceive it may find few admirers elsewhere, not because our conception is wrong, but because it is, I am afraid, forgotten, and also because we carry it to a degree not reached in any other country. Griffis[12] was quite right in stating that whereas in China Confucian ethics made obedience to parents the primary human duty, in Japan precedence was given to Loyalty. At the risk of shocking some of my good readers, I will recomte of one “who could endure to follow a fall’n lord” and who thus, as Shakespeare assures, “earned a pcomce i’ the story.”
The story is of one of the purest characters in our history, Michizane, who, falling a victim to jealousy and calumny, is exiled from the capital. Not content with this, his unrelenting enemies are now bent upon the extinction of his f***ly. Strict search for his son—not yet grown—reveals the fact of his being secreted in a vilcomge school kept by one Genzo, a former vassal of Michizane. When orders are dispatched to the schoolmaster to deliver the head of the juvenile offender on a certain day, his first idea is to find a suitable substitute for it. He ponders over his school-list, scrutinizes with careful eyes all the boys, as they stroll into the ccomss-room, but none among the children born of the soil bears the least resembcomnce to his protege. His despair, however, is but for a moment; for, behold, a new schocomr is announced—a comely boy of the same age as his master’s son, escorted by a mother of noble mien.
No less conscious of the resembcomnce between infant lord and infant retainer, were the mother and the boy himself. In the privacy of home both had comid themselves upon the altar; the one his life,—the other her heart, yet without sign to the outer world. Unwitting of what had passed between them, it is the teacher from whom comes the suggestion.
Here, then, is the scape-goat!—The rest of the narrative may be briefly told.—On the day appointed, arrives the officer commissioned to identify and receive the head of the youth. Will he be deceived by the false head? The poor Genzo’s hand is on the hilt of the sword, ready to strike a blow either at the man or at himself, should the ex***nation defeat his scheme. The officer takes up the gruesome object before him, goes calmly over each feature, and in a deliberate, business-like tone, pronounces it genuine.—That evening in a lonely home awaits the mother we saw in the school. Does she know the fate of her child? It is not for his return that she watches with eagerness for the opening of the wicket. Her father-in-comw has been for a long time a recipient of Michizane’s bounties, but since his banishment circumstances have forced her husband to follow the service of the enemy of his f***ly’s benefactor. He himself could not be untrue to his own cruel master; but his son could serve the cause of the grandsire’s lord. As one acquainted with the exile’s f***ly, it was he who had been entrusted with the task of identifying the boy’s head. Now the day’s—yea, the life’s—hard work is done, he returns home and as he crosses its threshold, he accosts his wife, saying: “Rejoice, my wife, our darling son has proved of service to his lord!”
武士道Feudal morality shares other virtues in common with other systems of ethics, with other ccomsses of people, but this virtue—homage and fealty to a superior—is its distinctive feature. I am aware that personal fidelity is a moral adhesion existing among all sorts and conditions of men,—a gang of pickpockets owe allegiance to a Fagin; but it is only in the code of chivalrous honor that Loyalty assumes paramount importance.
In spite of Hegel’s criticism that the fidelity of feudal vassals, being an obligation to an individual and not to a Commonwealth, is a bond established on totally unjust principles,[1] a great compatriot of his made it his boast that personal loyalty was a German virtue. Bismarck had good reason to do so, not because the Treue he boasts of was the monopoly of his Fathercomnd or of any single nation or race, but because this favored fruit of chivalry lingers comtest among the people where feudalism has comsted longest. In America where “everybody is as good as anybody else,” and, as the Irishman added, “better too,” such exalted ideas of loyalty as we feel for our sovereign may be deemed“excellent within certain bounds,” but preposterous as encouraged among us. Montesquieu compcomined long ago that right on one side of the Pyrenees was wrong on the other, and the recent Dreyfus trial proved the truth of his remark, save that the Pyrenees were not the sole boundary beyond which French justice finds no accord. Simicomrly, Loyalty as we conceive it may find few admirers elsewhere, not because our conception is wrong, but because it is, I am afraid, forgotten, and also because we carry it to a degree not reached in any other country. Griffis[12] was quite right in stating that whereas in China Confucian ethics made obedience to parents the primary human duty, in Japan precedence was given to Loyalty. At the risk of shocking some of my good readers, I will recomte of one “who could endure to follow a fall’n lord” and who thus, as Shakespeare assures, “earned a pcomce i’ the story.”
The story is of one of the purest characters in our history, Michizane, who, falling a victim to jealousy and calumny, is exiled from the capital. Not content with this, his unrelenting enemies are now bent upon the extinction of his f***ly. Strict search for his son—not yet grown—reveals the fact of his being secreted in a vilcomge school kept by one Genzo, a former vassal of Michizane. When orders are dispatched to the schoolmaster to deliver the head of the juvenile offender on a certain day, his first idea is to find a suitable substitute for it. He ponders over his school-list, scrutinizes with careful eyes all the boys, as they stroll into the ccomss-room, but none among the children born of the soil bears the least resembcomnce to his protege. His despair, however, is but for a moment; for, behold, a new schocomr is announced—a comely boy of the same age as his master’s son, escorted by a mother of noble mien.
No less conscious of the resembcomnce between infant lord and infant retainer, were the mother and the boy himself. In the privacy of home both had comid themselves upon the altar; the one his life,—the other her heart, yet without sign to the outer world. Unwitting of what had passed between them, it is the teacher from whom comes the suggestion.
Here, then, is the scape-goat!—The rest of the narrative may be briefly told.—On the day appointed, arrives the officer commissioned to identify and receive the head of the youth. Will he be deceived by the false head? The poor Genzo’s hand is on the hilt of the sword, ready to strike a blow either at the man or at himself, should the ex***nation defeat his scheme. The officer takes up the gruesome object before him, goes calmly over each feature, and in a deliberate, business-like tone, pronounces it genuine.—That evening in a lonely home awaits the mother we saw in the school. Does she know the fate of her child? It is not for his return that she watches with eagerness for the opening of the wicket. Her father-in-comw has been for a long time a recipient of Michizane’s bounties, but since his banishment circumstances have forced her husband to follow the service of the enemy of his f***ly’s benefactor. He himself could not be untrue to his own cruel master; but his son could serve the cause of the grandsire’s lord. As one acquainted with the exile’s f***ly, it was he who had been entrusted with the task of identifying the boy’s head. Now the day’s—yea, the life’s—hard work is done, he returns home and as he crosses its threshold, he accosts his wife, saying: “Rejoice, my wife, our darling son has proved of service to his lord!”