Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/303

Chivalry was not, it was ethically more comprehensive than the latter. Moreover, the term, if rhetorically bad, does no violence to euphony, and bears on its face the impress of its unique origin and character.

True to its name, the morality of Bushido was based on manhood and manliness. As the old Romans made no distinction between valour and virtue, so was Bushido the apotheosis of strong manhood and of all manly qualities, which by no means exclude the tenderer side of our nature. It professes no revelation from above, and it boasts of no founder. Its ultimate sanction lay in the inborn sense of shame at all wrong-doing, and of honour in doing right. It offered no philosophical demonstration for this belief; but it accepted the Kantian teaching of the moral law in the conscience as the voice of heaven.

When I speak of Bushido as a code, I confess I use the term in a loose sense. Samurai-ism was never codified; or, if a few savants made attempts at it, the efficacy of the precepts was not due to their systematic treatment. Their treatises were never used as text-books in schools, nor did they usually grace our household shelves as works of reference. The power of Bushido was more than could be obtained from books and systems. It was carved on the fleshly tablets of the heart. Scant attention did it bestow on the credenda of its followers; its forte lay in controlling their agenda. Long before anything was written upon it, it had existed as a usage—a code of honour among the Samurai. Indeed, it had antedated the establishment of the military order, by and for which it was doubtless developed and named.

At first sight one gets the impression that it is an eclectic system of ethics derived chiefly from Chinese sources, because the terms used are strongly Confucian. Bushido borrowed its forms of expression largely from Chinese classics, from Confucius and Mencius, but even these sages were, if I may be allowed to say so, exploited more to enrich the native vocabulary than to impart, much less inspire, moral sentiments; hence, when we speak of the deep and wide influence of these Chinese teachers, we must bear in mind that their most valuable services consisted in awakening our own inborn ethical consciousness. For example, when Confucius taught of the five moral relations—viz., between parent and child, husband and wife, master and servant, brother and brother, friend and friend—and gave them names, it was the nomenclature, and not the morals themselves, that we adopted.

So much for what we owe to China. There was another source from which the Bushido derived no small nourishment, and that was Buddhism. The beneficent influences of this light