KUMAMOTO, June, 1894.
DEAR HENDRICK,-- ... We were chatting last time about the morality of
business. Now let me tell you how the question strikes an intelligent
Japanese student.
"Sir, what was your opinion when you first came to our country about the
old-fashioned Japanese? Please be frank with me."
"You mean the old men, who still preserve the old customs and
courtesy,--men like Mr. Akizuki, the Chinese teacher?"
"Yes."
"I think they were much better men than the Japanese of to-day. They
seemed to me like the ideals of their own gods realized. They seemed to
me all that was good and noble."
"And do you still think as well of them?"
"I think better of them, if anything. The more I see the Japanese of the
new generation, the more I admire the men of the old."
"But you must have, as a foreigner, also observed their defects."
"What defects?"
"Such weaknesses or faults as foreigners would observe."
"No. According as a man is more or less perfectly adapted to the society
to which he belongs, so is he to be judged as a citizen and as a man. To
judge a man by the standards of a society totally different to his own
would not be just."
"That is true."
"Well, judged by that standard, the old-fashioned Japanese were perfect
men. They represented fully all the virtues of their society. And that
society was morally better than ours."
"In what respect?"
"In kindness, in benevolence, in generosity, in courtesy, in heroism, in
self-sacrifice, in simple faith, in loyalty, in self-control,--in the
capacity to be contented with a little,--in filial piety."
"But would those qualities you admire in the old Japanese suffice for
success in Western life--practical success?"
"Why, no."
"The qualities required for practical success in a Western country are
just those qualities which the old Japanese did not possess, are they
not?"
"I am sorry to say they are."
"And the old Japanese society cultivated those qualities of
unselfishness and courtesy and benevolence which you admire at the
sacrifice of the individual. But Western society cultivates the
individual by a competition in mere powers--intellectual power, power of
calculating and of acting?"
"Yes."
"But in order that Japan may be able to keep her place among nations,
she _must_ adopt the industrial and financial methods of the West. Her
future depends upon industry and commerce; and these cannot be developed
if we continue to follow our ancient morals and manners."
"Why?"
"Not to be able to compete with the West means ruin; yet in order to
compete with the West, we must follow the methods of the West,--and
these are contrary to the old morality."
"Perhaps--"
"I do not think there is any 'perhaps.' To do any business on a large
scale, we must not be checked by the idea that we should never take
any advantage if another be injured by it. Those who are checked by
emotional feeling, where no check is placed upon competition, must fail.
The law of what you call the struggle for existence is that the strong
and clever succeed, and the weak and foolish fail. But the old morality
condemned such competition."
"That is true."
"Then, sir, no matter how good the old morality may seem to be, we can
neither make any great progress in industry or commerce or finance,
nor even preserve our national independence, by following it. We must
forsake our past, and substitute law for morality."
"But it is not a good substitute."
"It seems to me that it has proved a good substitute in Western
countries--England especially--if we are to judge by material progress.
We will have to learn to be moral by reason, not by emotion. Knowledge
of law, and the reasons for obeying law, must teach a rational morality
of some sort at last."
Pretty good reasoning for a Japanese boy, wasn't it? He goes to the
university next month,--a splendid fellow. Later the Government is to
send him abroad.
Ever faithfully,
LAFCADIO HEARN.