In the work entitled Moral Science by the American named Francis Wayland [1796–1865], there is a discussion of the freedom of the human mind and body. The general point of this book is that each individual constitutes an independent person who is the master of his own affairs, uses his own mind and does his own necessary business. Therefore:
a) Every person has a physical body through which he comes in contact with external things which he uses to meet his own needs. For example, he can plant seeds to grow rice, or make clothes from cotton.
b) Every person has an intellect through which he can discover the principles of things to guide him in doing things. For example, he can devise methods of fertilization for rice cultivation, or design a loom to weave cotton thread. These are functions of intelligence and discernment.
c) Every person has desires, through which he activates the functions of mind and body. By satisfying these desires he can achieve happiness. For example, every human being loves fine clothes and delicious foods. Still, these things are not natural products of the earth. Men must work to make them. Therefore, human action arises from the spur of human desires, which are the necessary catalysts for action. These actions, in turn, are the indispensable conditions for attaining happiness. It may be said that such persons as Zen priests have neither actions nor happiness.
d) Every person has a conscience, which controls his desires, turns his tendencies in the right direction, and decides where to curb them. For example, human desires are limitless. It is difficult indeed to set limits on the pursuit of fine clothes and delicious foods. But if one were to neglect his necessary business in an exclusive pursuit of his heart’s desires, he would inevitably try to profit at the expense of others. This cannot be called a truly human course of action. At such a time it is the honest conscience that distinguishes between desires and the truth, and prompts man to live within the truth.
e) Every man has a will, through which he can decide to act. For example, things cannot be accomplished by chance. Good and evil are the results of the striving of the human will.
The above five characteristics are indispensable for being a true man. A person must freely employ them to attain personal independence. When I say independence, it may seem that I am talking about some kind of eccentric and strange people who live in isolation from society. But this is hardly so. To live in the world as a human being one must have friends. But these friends in turn seek relationships with me, just as I seek their company. Therefore our relations are mutual. But when a person employs the above five qualities of mankind, the most important is to obey the laws established by Heaven, without overstepping his limit and capacity. By limit and capacity I mean that neither I nor another should use these qualities to infringe upon the activities of each other. Thus one will neither be blamed by other people nor punished by Heaven if he can pass his life without overstepping his limits as a human being. This is what the rights of man are about.
The above argument sets down the principles whereby a man can conduct himself in freedom, as long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others. He can go or stay as he pleases, work or play, engage in some business, study hard day and night or, if that does not agree with him, loaf around the whole day long. Provided these actions do not affect others, there is no reason for men to censure them from the sidelines.
Now, let us suppose that there are some persons who oppose the above ideas. Their opinion may be that one should act in obedience to the will of others, irrespective of the right or wrong of things, and that it is not good to express one’s own mind. How reasonable is this kind of argument? If it were reasonable, it should be universally valid for all men in the world. Let me illustrate. Since the emperor has greater dignity than the shogun, he should have been able to tell the shogun what to do, how to act, when to eat and sleep, etc., in a quite arbitrary manner as he so wished him to do. The shogun in turn should have coerced the daimyos below him; he should have freely dealt with them according to his own pleasure. The daimyos should have done the same to their house elders, these house elders to their attendants, these attendants to their low-ranking samurai, these low-ranking samurai to the ashigaru, and the ashigaru to the peasants, all the way down the line. But this argument is somewhat nonplussed when it comes to the peasants, for there are none below them. Yet it was supposed to be universally valid from the beginning, like the principle of the revolving rosary of One Million Recitations of the Nenbutsu that must always revolve full circle. The peasants are as much human beings as the emperor. Therefore what if the peasants do not hesitate to treat the emperor at will according to their own pleasure? For example, suppose they tell the emperor to stop when he wants to visit some place; they tell him to go back when he wants to go to his villa. Or suppose that the emperor’s daily life was controlled by the arbitrary directives of the peasants, who deprive him of his fine clothes and substitute boiled barley for his delicious foods. In that eventuality, the Japanese would be a people who had the right to control others, but not to control themselves. It would be as if a person’s body and mind were two completely different entitites and the body were a place to lodge another’s soul; perhaps a strong drinker’s soul in a non-drinker’s body, or an old man’s soul in a child’s, or a robber’s soul in Confucius’s body, or a hunter’s soul in Śākyamuni’s. It would be as if a non-drinker had a good time drinking sake, while a strong drinker were satisfied in drinking warm sugared water; or an old man enjoyed climbing a tree, while a child walked with a stick and meddled in other people’s business; or Confucius led his pupils to commit robbery and Śākyamuni carried a gun and went out hunting. The results would be incongruous indeed! They would be strange, and unimaginable.
Shall we call this heavenly principle and human nature? Or civilization and enlightenment? Even a child of three could answer. The duties of both high and low expounded by the scholars of Chinese and Japanese Learning from time immemorial have served to install someone else’s soul into one’s own body. They have been teaching this kind of thing, even admonishing people with tears, and they have gradually borne fruit in these degenerate days. As it has become customary for the strong to control the weak, the scholars too are showing faces of pride. The divinities of the Age of the Gods and the sages of the Zhou must be resting happily in their graves. Let me take up one or two of their so-called meritorious teachings below.
I shall not repeat here my position in regard to the argument that a strong government should dominate over weak subjects. Let me here take up the question of the relations between men and women. In the first place, they are both born as human beings. Because both man and woman have roles indispensable for life, without them the world cannot endure even a day. Their capabilities are about the same, but men are generally stronger than women. If a strong man fights a woman he will always win. In society, a person who steals by force or who puts another to shame is called a criminal, and is punished. Why, then, is it that a man may openly put others to shame within the family without even being reproached for it?
In a book called “Onna daigaku” (The Great Learning for Women) there is enunciated a principle of “triple obedience” for women: a) to obey her parents when young, b) to obey her husband when married, and c) to obey her children when old. It may be natural for a girl to obey her parents when she is young, but in what way is she to obey her husband after marriage? I am curious about that! The book says that even if the husband is a drunkard or is addicted to sensual pleasures, or abuses and scolds her, and thus goes to the extreme of dissipation and lechery, the wife must still be obedient. She must respect her dissolute husband like Heaven, and only protest to him with kind words and soft countenance. This is as far as the book goes. It says not a word about the outcome after this. It would therefore seem that its teaching is that as long as one has become a husband, his wife must obey him, even if he is dissolute or an adulterer, and no matter what her disgrace. She can only remonstrate with him with a gentle countenance, contrary to her real mind. The dissolute husband may follow her remonstrances or not. She is forced to consider her dissolute husband’s mind as her fate. A Buddhist scripture says that “Women are full of sins.” Indeed, from this point of view, women are from birth no other than criminals who have committed great crimes. At the same time, the book severely criticizes women and gives seven reasons for divorcing a wife. It clearly states its reasons, and says that if she is lustful, it is grounds for divorce. This is very convenient for men. But it is entirely one-sided. In the last analysis, it is a teaching that sets up moral obligations between high and low, i.e. between men and women, on the basis of might makes right. For men are stronger than women.
The above-cited passages refer to adulterers and wanton women, but the book also has a discussion of concubines. By nature’s decree, the number of male and female births seem to be about equal. According to some statistics in the West, more males are born than females, the proportion being twenty two males to every twenty females. Accordingly, it is clearly against the law of nature when one husband has two or three wives. We should not hesitate to call such men beasts. Those who have a common father and mother are called brothers and sisters, and the place where parents and children live is called a home. But here there are brothers who have a common father but different mothers. There is only one father but a group of mothers. Can we call this a truly human home? It is not worthy of that name. Even if the house is many-storied and lofty, and the rooms are all beautiful, it is to me more like a shed for animals than a home for human beings. From ancient times we have never heard of a harmonious home with a plurality of wives. Even if a man keeps a secret mistress, she is a human being just the same. A person who uses a human being like a beast just for the pleasures of the moment, who disturbs the customs of the family and harms the education of his children and grandchildren, who spreads evils all over the country and leaves poison to future generations, must indeed be called a criminal.
Someone may counter that if a man supports a number of mistresses, there will be no violation of human nature if he treats them properly. This is the opinion of Confucius himself. If what he says were true, a woman should be allowed to support a number of husbands. She should be able to call them male concubines, and give them lower-ranking positions in the household. What then? If a woman could manage her household under such conditions without violating the great principle of social relations, I will stop my chattering arguments once and for all.
Men throughout the whole land should look into their own hearts. But someone may say that “It is to acquire an heir that one supports a mistress.” According to Mencius, there are three kinds of impiety to one’s parents, and not to have an heir is the most impious. To this I reply that any one who advocates ideas contrary to the natural law, even if he be Mencius or Confucius, should unhesitatingly be called a criminal. What a shame to marry a woman, and to call her most impious if she does not bear a child! Even if it is only a pretext, is it not terrible? What person with a human heart could believe this wild talk of Mencius?
In the first place, lack of filial piety means to do something that is against reason which displeases one’s parents. Of course, the old are happy to have grandchildren, but this is no reason to call a person unfilial if a grandchild’s birth is late. To the parents of the whole country I ask: when your son marries a good wife, do you get angry at her because she does not bear a child, and do you beat your son and wish to disown him? In this wide world there would be no queerer kind of parents. But these are all empty theories from the first, which are not worth answering. People can find the answers to these questions in their own hearts.
It is natural for a human being to be dutiful to his parents. Even strangers treat old persons with politeness. Much more should a son love his parents. He should be filial to his parents, not for the sake of profit or name, but out of natural sincerity, simply because they are his parents. There are many stories in Japan and China from ancient times that encourage filial piety, beginning with the story of the Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety. But when we look at these stories, eight or nine out of ten encourage things which are too difficult to do, or things which are too foolish and ridiculous. Even worse, they sometimes praise things which are irrational as acts of filial piety. To lie on the ice in midwinter with no clothing on, and wait for the ice to melt—as one story has it—is impossible for a human being. Or instead of pouring sake over one’s body on a summer evening to attract the mosquitoes away from one’s parents—as another story has it—would it not be wiser to buy a paper mosquito net for the price of the sake? Or the man who buried his innocent child alive because he had no way to support his parents must have had the heart of a devil or viper. Such persons violate natural law and human nature.
We just saw that Mencius says there are three kinds of unfiliality, and that the most filial impiety is not to have an heir. Now we read that a man, out of filial piety to his parents, tries to bury his child alive. Which is the real instance of filial piety? Or are they both not false theories and self-contradictory? In the last analysis, such theories which endeavor to clarify the duties between parents and children, and high and low, and to establish rank relationships end up forcibly devaluing the child. They give such reasons as that the child has been a source of pain to the mother during pregnancy and childbirth, or that it cannot be separated from its parents for three years after birth. They therefore say that it owes a great debt of gratitude. But not only human beings but even the birds and the beasts all bear young and support them. The only difference is that human parents must educate their children and teach them the ways of social life in addition to providing daily necessities.
Parents give birth to children easily enough, but they do not know the principles of educating them. The father indulges in dissipation, gives a bad example to his children, and drags the family down into poverty and disgrace. He becomes stubborn as his spirit gradually declines and the family fortune shrinks away to nought. He then forces his son to be dutiful. What kind of a shameless scene is this? He is now craving after his son’s money. The mother-in-law torments the heart of her daughter-in-law. Both elder parents control their son and his wife according to their own desires. The unreasonable parents are always right, the protests of the son are always wrong. The daughter-in-law has no freedom the whole day through, as if she were in a hungry devil’s hell. Whenever she does anything contrary to her husband’s parents’ wishes, she is called an impious daughter. People may think this is unjust, but since it does not involve them personally, they side with the unreasonable parents. Or some persons advise the son to deceive his parents, regardless of right and wrong. Can we really call this the correct principles of family living? I once said that the mother-in-law should look back upon her younger days when she was a daughter-in-law and make it a good lesson. She ought to recall her own younger days, instead of tormenting her daughter-in-law.
I have given above two examples of the evil which results from the doctrine of subordination between high and low and noble and base—first, in regard to the husband-and-wife relationship, and secondly, between parents and children. These evils are widespread in society. They seep into every aspect of human social relations. I shall give further examples of these abuses in the next section.
