A Western Proverb
Today even employment in government service is open to men of character and talent among the formerly nonsamurai groups. Therefore they must be aware of their own personal dignity and place a high value on it, not acting in a base manner. But again, there are no individuals more pitiable and despicable than the ignorant and illiterate. The height of ignorance is to be shameless. When such people, through their own ignorance, have fallen into poverty and are hard pressed by hunger and cold, they recklessly hate the rich around them instead of blaming their own stupidity. In the extreme, they form cliques and mount rebellion and insurrection to press their demands. Such solutions can be said to be shameless as well as law-defying. If people who relied on the laws of the realm to preserve their own security and to conduct their own businesses were to follow only those laws which suited their purposes while breaking those which did not accord with their selfish ends, would not the former and latter practices be contradictory? In addition, there are cases of people secure in fortune and from respectable families who know how to amass wealth, but do not know how to educate properly their own children. Since their young have not been properly educated, it is no wonder that they are ignorant. They gradually sink into idleness and dissipation, and there are not a few who in short order ruin the family estate of their ancestors.
The method of rational persuasion is useless to control such stupid people. The government is forced to use power to intimidate them. It is because of this that a Western proverb says that there must be a harsh government over stupid people. It is not that the government is harsh; the stupid people have invited this misfortune upon themselves. Conversely, it is reasonable that there should be good government over good people. Therefore in Japan, too, we will have this kind of government if the people are this way. If the morality of the people sinks below its present level and ignorance and illiteracy increase, then the laws of the government must correspondingly become harsher. Conversely, if the people pursue learning, understand the principles of things, and follow the way of modern civilization, then the laws of the government will also become more generous and compassionate. The severity or leniency of the law will naturally be in proportion to the virtue of the people. Who would cherish a harsh government, and dislike a good one? Who would not pray for the wealth and prestige of his own nation? Who would tolerate the contempt of foreign nations? These are ordinary feelings of human nature.
