There is much that is false in the realm of belief, and much that is true in the realm of doubt. We need only consider how stupid people believe in other people’s words, books, novels, rumors, the gods and Buddha, and fortunetellers. On the advice of a masseur they use grasses and herbs to cure a parent’s mortal illness. At the time of the marriage negotiations over their daughter, they believe a fortune teller’s analysis of the “physiognomy” of a suitor’s house, and thus lose a good husband. Their faith in Amida prompts them to intone the nenbutsu instead of calling a doctor when they have a high fever. Because of their faith in Fudō Myō-ō they die after a twenty-one-day fast. In these cases, the quantity of truth is small indeed. But where truth is sparse, falsity cannot help being proportionately great. For even though these people believe in something or other, they are believing in false facts. Hence I say that there is much that is false in the realm of belief.
The progress of civilization lies in seeking the true facts both in the physical and the spiritual affairs of mankind. The reason for the West’s present high level of civilization is that in every instance they proceeded from some irritation of doubt. Galileo [1564–1642] discovered that the earth is a planet by doubting the old theories of astronomy. Galvani [1737–98] discovered electricity in animals when he doubted the causes of convulsions in frogs’ legs. Newton [1642–1727] discovered the principle of gravity when he saw an apple falling from a tree. Watt entertained doubts concerning the properties of steam when he was experimenting with a boiling kettle. In all these cases, they attained to the truth by following the road of doubt.
Leaving behind the investigations for natural laws, let me now turn to human progress. It was Thomas Clarkson [1760–1846] who put an end to a source of great social misery for later generations by calling into question the justice of the law of buying slaves. It was Martin Luther [1483–1546] who reformed the Christian faith through doubting the false teachings of the Roman religion. The French began the French Revolution by calling into question the authority of the ancien régime. The American colonists achieved their independence by calling into question the laws set up over them by England.
Even today the reason that the great persons of the West lead people along the path to higher civilization with ever-advancing theories is that their purpose is entirely to refute the once firm and irrefutable theories of the ancients, and to entertain doubts concerning practices about which common sense had never doubted before. For example, although it seems to be an almost natural human division of labor that the man should work outside the house and the woman keep order within it, John Stuart Mill [1806–73] wrote a book on women which attempted to destroy this custom which had been fixed and immovable since time immemorial. Many English economists advocated the doctrine of laissez faire, and its adherents believe it to be a universal law of economics. But American scholars proposed protective tariff laws. In fact, each country proposes its own economic theory. For every theory gives rise to a counter-theory, and disputes between rival theories never cease. In contrast to this ferment of ideas, the peoples of Asia have uncritically believed in foolish teachings, have been credulous of the gods and Buddhas, or have listened to the sayings of the so-called sages. They have not come under their influence only temporarily; they have been unable to escape from these ideas after thousands of generations. The quality of their deeds, the depths of their courage of mind and will, are incomparably less than the peoples of the West.
Pursuit of the truth when there is a conflict of different opinions is like sailing a boat against the wind. The boat’s course must tack to the right and to the left. The high waves and strong winds may force it to sail through several hundred ri of water, while its straight-line course would come to no more than three to five ri. It is also possible to sail with a following breeze, but this is never so in human affairs. The course to the truth lies only by a zigzag course through the disputations of rival theories. And these theories all arise from doubt. Hence I have said that there is much truth in the realm of doubt.
Yet if it is true that we should not lightly believe things, we should also not uncritically doubt things, either. We must have insight into when to believe and when to remain skeptical. The essence of learning lies in clarifying this kind of discernment. Even in Japan, the sudden change in men’s minds since the opening of our ports, the reforms in government, the overthrow of the nobility, the development of the school system, opening of newspapers, the new railroads, telegraph, military conscription, industries, etc.—the reform of a hundred old practices in a very short period of time—can all be said to have been the accomplishment of those who endeavored to effect these changes after calling into doubt customs which had been observed since time immemorial.
But still, such ancient customs have been called into question only since Japan has been opened to intercourse with the West. The reformers saw the superiority of Western civilization, and tried to imitate it. Therefore they were not motivated by self-originated doubt; they only believed in the new through the same faith with which they once believed in the old. The focus of men’s minds that used to prevail in the East has only been redirected toward the modern West, but we have no guarantee that a truly critical choice has been made concerning present beliefs and doubts. I regret, of course, that due to my as yet shallow learning and limited experience I cannot enumerate in each and every case the rightness or wrongness of what is being accepted and discarded. But surveying the general trend of the changes in human life, it can be clearly shown that human mindedness tends to ride along with the times. Those who believe and doubt each go to extremes; neither side knows how far to go in believing or questioning the old or the new. Let me discuss the point further below.
East and West have had different customs, and especially different sentiments, for thousands of years. Even when their relative merits and demerits are clear, ancient customs cannot suddenly be interchanged from one country to another. This is all the more true in things whose merits and demerits are not yet clearly known. Our judgment as to the acceptance or rejection of these customs can only be made after their nature has been clarified through countless considerations over the course of years. But nowadays the somewhat better educated people of the middle class and above—those who are called “teachers of enlightenment”—are constantly declaiming the excellence of Western civilization. When one of them holds forth, ten thousand others nod their heads in approval. From teachings about knowledge and morality down to government, economics, and the minute details of daily life, there are none who do not applaud emulation of the ways of the West. Even those as yet barely informed about the West seem to be entirely abandoning the old in favor of the new. How superficial they are in uncritically believing and doubting things!
Now, the superiority of Western over Japanese civilization is certainly very great, but Western civilization is hardly perfect. I could never begin to enumerate all its defects. Its ways and customs are not all beautiful and credible; our customs are not all ugly and open to question. Let us consider the analogy of a young man who becomes a great admirer of his teacher. Wanting to emulate his teacher’s manners, he quickly reforms his own mind, buys books and writing materials, and works hard day and night at his desk. This is, of course, commendable. But if he excessively imitates his teacher’s ways, even the latter’s bad habit of talking late into the night and rising late in the morning, thus ruining his own health in the bargain, shall we still call him intelligent? This youth regards his teacher as the complete scholar; regardless of his good and bad points, he imitates them all, and thereby brings himself to grief. There is an ancient Chinese proverb about imitating the eyebrows of Sei-shi.† The knitted brows of Sei-shi were attractive in themselves; therefore, it may still not be blameworthy to imitate her. But what good can there be in the old scholar’s late rising? Late rising is what it is, the vice of laziness and the neglect of health. To imitate another even to the point of his vices is surely the height of folly. Yet not a few of the proponents of enlightenment nowadays are like this young scholar.
Let us further probe, on the hypothesis that the customs and practices of East and West were reversed, what comment these teachers of enlightenment would give to each of the following cases. Imagine that Westerners bathed every day, while the Japanese barely once or twice a month; the teachers of enlightenment would exclaim that the people who are civilized and enlightened are always clean, stimulate their skin, maintain the laws of hygiene, etc., but the uncivilized Japanese do not understand these principles! If the Japanese kept a small chamber pot in their bedrooms at night, or did not wash after going to the bathroom, while the Westerners rose even in the middle of the night to go to the toilet and each time washed their hands, the proponents of enlightenment would declare that the enlightened Westerners place a high value on cleanliness, while the unenlightened Japanese do not know the meaning of the word, that they are like infants who are still too immature to distinguish cleanliness from filth! They would declare that the Japanese must imitate the beautiful customs of the West by advancing to the level of modern Western civilization. Or suppose that it was the Westerners who had the practice of using disposable paper handkerchiefs, while the Japanese used cloth ones which they used again after washing them. The proponents of enlightenment would exercise their wits and contrive clever sophistries about the great principles of economics, saying that in a country whose capital is low, the people naturally and unconsciously follow the principle of frugality. They would say that if the Japanese imitated the Western practice of using paper handkerchiefs to blow their noses, it would be wasting the country’s resources. Therefore they endure this uncleanliness of using cloth handkerchiefs to be frugal, since they are pressed for lack of capital. Or if Japanese women hung gold rings from their ears, wore girdles, and pinned jewels on their dresses, the proponents of enlightenment would cite a bit of biological theory and raise serious objections about the terrible unenlightenment of the Japanese. They would say that not only do Japanese women not discern principles and follow nature, they are even damaging their health by hanging luggage from their ears. They would say that Japanese women are torturing their waists, which is the most important part of a woman’s body, by making it like the waist of a wasp. They would further say that this prevents the chance of pregnancy and increases the dangers of childbirth, the calamity of which would bring sorrow to a family on a small scale, and damage the breeding of the nation’s population on a large scale. And although Westerners barely use locks within and without the house, and although when they go on trips they hire porters to carry their luggage, which, while never locked, is never robbed, or although they order carpenters and plasterers to repair their homes without need of detailed contracts, but rarely go to court concerning breach of contract on a later day—if the Japanese on the other hand locked every room within the house, and put locks even on small chests by their side, and if they disputed and recorded every word on a contract, and yet things were still robbed and there were many cases of broken contracts brought to trial—the proponents of enlightenment would again sigh, saying how wonderful the holy teaching of Jesus Christ, and how pitiable the pagans outside of the Christian faith! It would look as if we Japanese lived in a den of thieves! Certainly, Japan cannot hold a candle in comparison with the customs of freedom and honesty in the West! Indeed, the countries in which the Holy Bible is preached would be exactly like the proverb says: so honest that people do not even pick things up off the roads. If the Japanese rolled and smoked cigarettes, while the Westerners used long pipes, they would declare that the Japanese lacked skill in making instruments and that was why they had not yet invented such pipes. If the Japanese wore shoes and Westerners wore geta, they would say that the Japanese did not know how to use their toes in wearing geta. If miso soup was brought on foreign vessels, it would not be thought of so lightly, as it is now. If tōfu [bean curd] was also found on the tables of the Westerners, its reputation would increase tenfold. Such dishes as baked eel or chawanmushi [thick custard-like soup made with egg] would be praised as among the world’s superlative dishes. I could enumerate these things endlessly. But let me go on to the more elegant matter of religious teachings.
If four hundred years ago a Saint Shinran was born in the West and a Martin Luther in Japan, and if Shinran had reformed the Buddhism practiced in the West and spread the Pure Land Buddhism teaching, while Luther had opposed the Roman religion of Japan and founded Protestantism, the proponents of enlightenment would certainly make the following evaluation. They would say that the great purpose of religion lies, not in killing, but in the salvation of all sentient beings: if this purpose is misconceived to any degree, the rest of its teachings are not worthy of consideration. In the West, Shinran embodied this principle. He slept in the fields with a stone for his pillow. At great cost and suffering he devoted the labors of his lifetime to reform his country’s religion, so that today it is the religious faith of the majority of the people of the nation—so wide has his evangelism reached. And after Shinran’s death, the fact that his disciples neither murdered men of other faiths nor were murdered for religious reasons can be said to have been entirely due to the merit of his teaching. But reflect, they would say, on how Luther came forward to challenge the old teachings of Rome. The Catholics did not easily succumb to his attack. The old and new teachings fought each other like a tiger and wolf, tooth and nail. After Luther’s death, there occurred so many killings of Japanese citizens and so much waste of the nation’s resources because of religious wars destructive of the nation, that they can neither be recorded with the pen nor spoken in words. The barbarous Japanese given to such slaughter visited such great sufferings on the souls of men because of the teachings of “universal salvation” and of “love thy enemy.” As for the fruits of their accomplishments, Luther’s Protestantism cannot be said to have been able yet to convert half of the people of Japan. Such are the differences of the religions of East and West, as would be told by the proponents of enlightenment!
I myself have entertained doubts about these things for a long time. But I still am not sure I have grasped the real causes of the great differences between the religions of East and West. When I ponder the matter privately, the following kind of questions come to my mind. Although Christianity preached in Japan and Buddhism in the West are similar in nature, is it that when practiced in a barbarous land they promote the spirit of killing, but create a spirit of tolerance in an enlightened country? Or do they differ in essence from the start? Or did Luther, the founder of the Japanese Reformation, and Shinran of the West differ greatly in the attainments of their virtue? The proponents of the enlightenment would say that these questions are not to be recklessly and superficially decided, but they defer them to the judgment of the scholars of future generations.
In terms of the above, our present-day reformers, who dislike the old customs of Japan and believe in the things of the West, cannot be said to have entirely escaped the criticism of having their own superficial beliefs and doubts. They believe in the new with the same blind faith with which they once believed in the old. In their excessive admiration of Western civilization, they emulate the vices of the West as well, like the women who imitated the knitted eyebrows of Sei-shi, or the student who imitated his master’s late rising. Even worse, they reject the old even before they have been able to discover the new to believe in. Their persons are empty, as it were, having lost the qualities of spiritual peace and firm resolve. There have even been cases of insanity because of this. What a pity! (According to doctors’ reports, incidents of nervous illness or insanity are on the rise in recent times.)
The civilization of the West is of course to be admired. But it is only recently that we have begun to do so; it would be better not to believe at all than to do so superficially. The West’s wealth and power must truly be envied, but we must not go so far as to imitate the unequal distribution of wealth among her peoples as well. The taxes of Japan are not light, but if we consider the suffering of the poor people of England because of oppression by the landlord class, we should rather celebrate the happy condition of Japan’s farmers. The custom of honoring women in the West is among the finest in the world, but if a wicked wife dominates and plagues her husband, or a disobedient daughter scorns her parents and gives free rein to disgraceful conduct, let us not be intoxicated over those customs.
Therefore, we can ask: Are the things being practiced in present-day Japan achieving their purposes as they are? Are Japanese business methods good as they now stand? Are the forms of government effective as they are now administered? Is the present system of education good as it is? Is the quality of books published now good as it is? Furthermore, are my present methods of research, following the modern way, good as they are? As I ponder these questions, a hundred doubts well up in me. It is as if I were now groping for something in the dark. Living in the very midst of these complex and intertwining problems, is it not difficult to compare things Eastern and Western, to believe and to doubt what should be and accept and reject what should be, with proper discernment? The responsibility of doing so falls today on no others than scholars such as ourselves. We must make every effort. To consider these problems there is nothing better than to study them. If, in pursuit of the truth, we read many books, touch upon many of these questions, and take a keen interest in them without anxiety or prejudice, we shall in due course be able to distinguish the areas of belief and doubt with clarity. Yesterday’s beliefs may become tomorrow’s doubts, and today’s doubts may melt away in tomorrow’s sun. Let us, therefore, make every effort as scholars.
