National Independence Through Personal Independence
As I have just said, all nations are equal; but when the people of a nation do not have the spirit of individual independence, the corresponding right of national independence cannot be realized. There are three reasons for this, which I shall develop below.
I) Persons without the spirit of personal independence will not have deep concern for their country.
Independence means to manage one’s own personal affairs and not to have a mind to depend upon others. The person who can himself discern the right and wrong of things, and who does not err in the measures he takes, is independent of the wisdom of others. The person who makes his own livelihood through his own physical or mental labors is independent of the financial support of others. If people do not have these independent qualities of mind and are merely reliant on the power of others, the entire nation will be dependents and there will be no one to support them. It will be like a procession of blind men without a guide. Would this not be absurd? Some may say that “the people should be kept in a state of dependence and left uninformed” [Analects]; or that for every thousand blind men there are equally a thousand with sight. Thus, they say, let the wise control the masses from above; let the masses obey the will of their superiors from below. This argument is in fact from the school of Confucius. But it is a great error in actual fact. ...
Suppose that the great majority could be controlled by the talent and virtue of the wise minority, who would love them as children or tend them as sheep. They could, by both kind and severe measures, show them the direction the government is to take. The result might be that the masses would unconsciously obey the orders of their superiors. There would be no incidents of robbery and murder, and there would be peace and good government throughout the land. But essentially this is not the case. This hypothetical nation’s people are divided into masters and guests. The masters are the one thousand intelligent persons who direct the affairs of the state. The rest are ignorant guests. Being only guests, they have few real concerns. They rely entirely on their masters without taking any initiative themselves. Therefore their solicitude for their country will not be as great as their masters’. Their attitude will indeed be like that of strangers. As long as we are talking about the internal affairs of the nation, they may be bypassed. But if war should break out with a foreign country, the absurdity of this arrangement will become clear. The ignorant and powerless masses may not betray their country, but there will be many who will desert the cause, saying that “since we are only guests, sacrificing our lives is uncalled for.” Thus the population of the country is nominally a million strong, but when it comes to defending the nation is considerably less in actual count. It would be quite impossible for such a nation to maintain its independence. ...
In the Sengoku Period, when Imagawa Yoshimoto of Suruga led an army of several tens of thousands against Oda Nobunaga, he was ambushed by Nobunaga at Okehazama. Nobunaga then routed Yoshimoto’s headquarters and beheaded him. The army of Suruga scattered like frightened spiders. They fled without a clash of arms. The then prestigious government of Imagawa of Suruga collapsed in a day and disappeared forever. Two or three years ago, the French emperor Napoleon III was captured by Prussia at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war. But the French not only did not abandon hope, they fought back with even greater spirits. They fought with their very blood and guts. After holding firm for several months, a treaty was finally signed, and France had survived. Her fate was entirely different from that of Imagawa. What is the reason for this difference? It is because the people of Suruga were entirely dependent upon Yoshimoto alone. Their status was that of guests who did not regard Suruga as their own native province. In France there were many patriotic citizens, each of whom took the responsibility of the nation’s crisis upon himself and fought for his own land without needing to be persuaded by others. This made the difference between ancient Suruga and modern France. Judging from this case, we can infer how, in a crisis calling for national defense, those who have the spirit of independence will exhibit deep concern for their country, in contrast to those who have not.
II) Those without the spirit of independence within themselves will also be unable to exercise their right of independence when in contact with foreigners outside.
Those who lack the spirit of independence necessarily rely on others. Those who rely on others fear them. Standing in fear of others, they must fawn upon them. Their fear and subordination gradually become habitual; they come to wear faces of brass. They know no shame, and do not speak out on questions which call for discussion. In confrontation with others, they only know how to bow to the waist. When this becomes habitual nature, it is not easily changed. For example, family names and horse riding have now been permitted the common people, and the law courts have modernized their ways. Therefore the official status of the commoners is equal to that of the ex-samurai families. Yet their old habits are not changing with equal rapidity. Their basic nature as commoners remains the same as in the days of old. Their speech and dealings with others are still those of inferiors. They cannot utter a single coherent phrase before superiors. When told to stand, they stand; when told to dance, they dance. Their subservience is like that of hungry dogs raised in a house. They truly are spiritless and powerless with faces of brass.
In the ancient period of national seclusion under the rigid administration of the Tokugawa shogunate, the people were already spiritless. Not only did this not interfere with government practices, it was in fact advantageous. The shogunate purposely perpetuated their ignorance and subservience—indeed, the officials took pride in doing so. But now that Japan has formal relations with foreign nations, the lingering harm from such a policy is evident. For example, if a merchant from a rural area plucks up enough courage to dare to engage in trade with the foreigners at Yokohama, he will first be frightened at their physical size, then at the amounts of their money, the size of their trading houses, the speed of their steamships. He may utterly lose heart. If in the course of time he comes forward to do business with them, he will be boggled by their business techniques. When the foreigners press some unreasonable negotiation, he will not only be dazzled, but will shudder at their power and prestige. While he knows that their demands are unreasonable, he will end up taking huge losses as well as suffering great personal humiliation. ...
This absurd spirit of the townsmen is the result of the fact that they have, for generation after generation, not tasted the spirit of independence. They have suffered under the samurai and been abused by the law courts. Even when they met with an ashigaru who earned a minimum kind of feudal stipend, the townsmen had to look up to him as a superior. This subservient spirit permeated the very marrow of their bones; it could not be washed away overnight. Thus it is not unreasonable that such cowardly people should lose heart before the bold and intrepid foreigners. And their conduct demonstrates my contention that those who lack personal independence cannot stand up independently before foreigners.
III) Those who lack the spirit of independence rely on the power of others and sometimes perpetrate evil deeds. ...
