Chapter 2

The events which multiply about us, Yoritomo says, ought to be, for each master, an opportunity for awakening in the soul of his disciples a perfect reasoning power, starting from the inception of the premises to arrive at the conclusions of all arguments.

From the repetition of events, from their correlation, from their equivalence, from their parallelism, knowledge will be derived and will be productive of good results, in proportion as egotistical sentiment is eliminated from them; and slowly, with the wisdom acquired by experience, common sense will manifest itself tranquil and redoubtable, working always for the accomplishment of good as does everything which is the emblem of strength and peace.

LESSON II

THE FIGHT AGAINST ILLUSION

Common Sense such as we have just described it, according to Yoritomo, is the absolute antithesis of dreamy imagination, it is the sworn enemy of illusion, against which it struggles from the moment of contact.

Common sense is solid, illusion is yielding, also illusion never issues victorious from a combat with it; during a struggle illusion endeavors vainly to display its subterfuges and cunning; illusions disappear one by one, crusht by the powerful arms of their terrible adversary--common sense.

"The worship of illusion," says Yoritomo, "presents certain dangers to the integrity of judgment, which, under such influence, falsifies the comparative faculty, and sways decision to the side of neutrality.

"This kind of mental half-sleep is extremely detrimental to manifestations of reason, because this torpor excludes it from imaginary conceptions.

"Little by little the lethargy caused by this intellectual paralysis produces the effect of fluidic contagion over all our faculties.

"Energy, which ought to be the principle factor in our resolutions, becomes feeble and powerless at the point where we no longer care to feel its influence.

"The sentiment of effort exists no longer, since we are pleased to resolve all difficulties without it.

"In this inconstant state of mind, common sense, after wandering a moment withdraws itself, and we find that we are delivered over to all the perils of imagination.

"Nothing that we see thus confusedly is found on the plane which belongs to common sense; the ideas, associated by a capricious tie, bind and unbind themselves, without imposing the necessity of a solution.

"The man who allows himself to be influenced by vague dreams," adds the Shogun, "must, if he does not react powerfully, bid farewell to common sense and reason; for he will experience so great a charm in forgetting, even for one moment, the reality of life, that he will seek to prolong this blest moment.

"He will renounce logic, whose conclusions are, at times, opposed to his desires, and he will plunge himself into that false delight of awakened dreams, or, as some say, day-dreams.

"Those who defend this artificial conception of happiness, like to compare people of common sense to heavy infantry soldiers, who march along through stony roads, while they depict themselves as pleasant bird-fanciers, giving flight to the fantastic bearers of wings.

"But they do not take into account the fact that the birds, for whom they open the cage, fly away without the intention of returning, leaving them thus deceived and deprived of the birds, while the rough infantry soldiers, after many hardships, reach the desired end which they had proposed to attain, thus realizing the joys of conquest.

"There they find the rest and security, which the possessors of fugitive birds will never know.

"Those who cultivate common sense will always ignore the collapses which follow the disappearance of illusions.

"How many men have suffered thus uselessly!

"And what is more stupid than a sorrow, voluntarily imposed, when it can not be productive of any good?

"Men can not be too strongly warned against the tendency of embellishing everything that concerns the heart-life, and this is the inclination of most people.

"The causes of this propensity are many and the need for that which astounds is not the only cause to be mentioned.

"Indolence is never a stranger to illusion.

"It is so delightful to foresee a solution which conforms to our desires!

"For certain natures, stained with moral atrophy, it is far sweeter to hope for that which will be produced without pain.

"One begins by accelerating this achievement, so earnestly desired, by using all the will-power, and one becomes accustomed progressively to regard desires as a reality, and, aided by indolence, man discounts in advance an easy success.

"False enthusiasm, or rather enthusiasm without deliberate reflection, always enters into these illusions, which are accompanied by persuasion and never combatted by common sense.

"Vanity is never foreign to these false ideas, which are always of a nature to flatter one's amour propre.

"We love to rejoice beforehand in the triumph which we believe will win and, aided by mental frivolity, we do not wish to admit that success can be doubted.

"The dislike of making an effort, however, would quickly conceal, with its languishing voice, the wise words of common sense, if we would listen momentarily to them.

"And, lastly, it is necessary to consider credulity, to which, in our opinion, is accorded a place infinitely more honorable than it deserves."

And now the sage, Yoritomo, establishes the argument which, by the aid of common sense, characterized these opinions.

According to him, "It does not belong to new and vibrating souls, as many would have us believe.

"When credulity does not proceed from inveterate stupidity, it is always the result of apathy and weakness.

"Unhappiness and misfortune attend those who are voluntarily feeble.

"Their defect deprived them of the joy derived from happy efforts. They will be the prey of duplicity and untruth.

"They are the vanquished in life, and scarcely deserve the pity of the conqueror; for their defeat lacks grandeur, since it has never been aurioled by the majestic strength of conflict."

Following this, the Shogun speaks to us of those whom he calls the ardent seekers after illusion.

One evening he related the following story: "Some men started off for an island, which they perceived in the distance.

"It looked like a large, detached red spot, amid the flaming rays of the setting sun, and the men told of a thousand wonders about this unknown land, as yet untrodden by the foot of man.

"The first days of the journey were delightful. The oars lay in the bottom of the boat untouched, and they just allowed themselves to drift with the tide. They disembarked, singing to the murmur of the waters, and gathered the fruits growing on the shores, to appease their hunger.

"But the stream, which was bearing them onward, did not retain long its limpidity and repose; the eddies soon entrapped the tiny bark and dragged the men overboard.

"Some, looking backward, were frightened at the thought of ascending the river, which had become so tempestuous.

"Escaping the wreckage of the boat as best they could, they entrusted themselves again to the fury of the waters.

"They had to suffer from cold and hunger, for they were far from shore, and as, in their imagination, the island was very near, they had neglected to furnish themselves with the necessities of life.

"At last, after the fatigues which forethought would have prevented, they found themselves one evening, at sundown, at the base of a great rock, bathed in the rosy light of the departing sun.

"This, then, was the island of their dreams.

"Tired out and exhausted from lack of food, they had only the strength to lie down upon the inhospitable rock, there to die!

"The disappearance of the illusion, having destroyed their courage and having struck them with the sword of despair, the rock of reality had proved destructive of their bodies and souls.

"The moral of this story easily unfolds itself.

"If the seekers after illusions had admitted common sense to their deliberations, they would certainly have learned to know the nature of the enchanted isle, and they would have taken good care not to start out on their journey which must terminate by such a deception.

"Would they not have taken the necessary precaution to prevent all the delays attendant upon travels of adventure, and would they have entrusted their lives to so frail a skiff, if they had acquired common sense?"

We must conclude, with Yoritomo, that illusion could often be transformed into happy reality if it were better understood, and if, instead of looking upon it through the dreams of our imagination, we applied ourselves to the task of eliminating the fluid vapors which envelop it, that we might clothe it anew with the garment of common sense.

Many enterprises have been considered as illusions because we have neglected to awaken the possibilities which lay dormant within them.

The initial thought, extravagant as it may appear, brings with it, at times, facilities of realization that a judgment dictated by common sense can alone make us appreciate.

He who knows how to keep a strict watch over himself will be able to escape the causes of disillusion, which lead us through fatal paths of error, to the brink of despair.

"That which is above all to be shunned," said the philosopher, "is the encroachment of discouragement, the result of repeated failures.

"Rare are those who wish to admit their mistakes.

"In the structure of the mind, inaccuracy brings a partial deviation from the truth, and it does not take long for this slight error to generalize itself, if not corrected by its natural reformer--common sense.

"But how many, among those who suffer from these unhappy illusions, are apt to recognize them as such?

"It would, however, be a precious thing for us to admit the causes which have led us to such a sorry result, by never permitting them to occur again.

"This would be the only way for the victims of illusion to preserve the life of that element of success and happiness known as hope.

"Because of seeing so often the good destroyed, we wish to believe no more in it as inherent in our being, and rather than suffer repeatedly from its disappearance, we prefer to smother it before perfect development.

"The greater number of skeptics are only the unavowed lovers of illusion; their desires, never being those capable of realization, they have lost the habit of hoping for a favorable termination of any sentiment.

"The lack of common sense does not allow them to understand the folly of their enterprise, and rather than seek the causes of their habitual failures, they prefer to attack God and man, both of whom they hold responsible for all their unhappiness.

"They are willingly ironical, easily become pessimists, and villify life, without desiring to perceive that it reserved as many smiles for them as the happy people whom they envy.

"All these causes of disappointment can only be attributed to the lack of equilibrium of the reasoning power and, above all, to the absence of common sense, hence we cannot judge of relative values.

"To give a definite course to the plans which we form is to prepare the happy termination of them.

"This is also the way to banish seductive illusion, the devourer of beautiful ambitions and youthful aspirations."

And, with his habitual sense of the practical in life, Yoritomo adds the following:

"There are, however, some imaginations which can not be controlled by the power of reasoning, and which, in spite of everything, escape toward the unlimited horizons of the dream.

"It would be in vain to think of shutting them up in the narrow prison walls of strict reason; they would die wishing to attempt an escape.

"To these we can prescribe the dream under its most august form, that of science.

"Each inventor has pursued an illusion, but those whose names have lived to reach our recognition, have caught a glimpse of the vertiginous course they were following, and no longer have allowed themselves to get too far away from their base--science.

"Yes, illusion can be beautiful, on condition that it is not constantly debilitated.

"To make it beautiful we must be its master, then we may attempt its conquest.

"It is thus that all great men act; before adopting an illusion, as truth, they have assured themselves of the means by the aid of which they were permitted first to hope for its transformation and afterward be certain of their power to discipline it.

"Illusion then changes its name and becomes the Ideal.

"Instead of remaining an inaccessible myth, it is transformed into an entity for the creation of good.

"It is no longer the effort to conquer the impossible, which endeavor saps our vital forces; it is a contingency which study and common sense strip of all aleatory principles, in order to give a form which becomes more tangible and more definite every day.

"We have nothing more to do with sterile efforts toward gaining an object which fades from view and disappears as one approaches it.

"It is no longer the painful reaching out after an object always growing more indistinct as we draw near it.

"It is through conscious and unremitting effort that we attain the happy expression of successful endeavor and realize the best in life, for slow ascension in winning this best leaves no room for satiety in this noble strife.

"We must pity those who live for an illusion as well as those whose imagination has not known how to create an ideal, whose beauty illumines their efforts.

"It is the triumph of common sense to accomplish this transformation and to banish empty reveries, replacing them by creating a desire for the best, which each one can satisfy--without destroying it.

"The day when this purpose is accomplished, illusion, definitely conquered, will cease to haunt the mind of those whom common sense has illumined; vagaries will make place for reason and terrible disillusion will follow its chief (whose qualities never rise above mediocrity) into his retreat, and allow the flower of hope to blossom in the souls already filled with peace--that quality which is born of reason and common sense."

LESSON III

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE REASONING POWER

When reading certain passages in the manuscripts of Yoritomo, one is forcibly reminded of the familiar phrase: "Nothing is definitely finished among men, for each thing stops only to begin again."

He says, "That many centuries before the great minds constructed altars to the goddess of Reason, they were in search of a divinity to replace the one they had just destroyed.

"If it were proposed to me to build temples which would synthesize my devotion with certain sentiments, my desire would be that those dedicated to the Will and to Reason should dominate all others, for then they would be under the protection of powers for good."

In a few pages further on he insists again and again upon the necessity of developing the worship of reason.

"Reasoning," he continues, "is a divinity, around which gravitate a whole world of gods, important but inferior to it.

"Among this people of these idols, so justly revered, there is one god which occupies a place apart from the others.

"This god is Common Sense, which gave birth to Reason, and has always been its faithful companion.

"It is, in reality, the controlling force exercising its power to guard reason against the predominating character and nefarious tendencies created by self-interest.

"Common sense compels reason to admit principles whose justice it has already recognized, and, at the same time, incites reason to reject those whose absurdity it has demonstrated.

"Common sense allies itself with reason, in order to make that selection of ideas which personal interest can either set aside entirely or modify by illogical inference.

"Reason obeys certain laws, all of which can be united in one sentiment--common sense."

This statement could be illustrated symbolically by comparing its truth to a fan, whose blades converge toward a central point where they remain fixt.

Applying the precept to the picture, the old Shogun gives the design which we are faithfully copying.

"In this ideal fan," explains Yoritomo, "not only the true reproduction of the qualities directing the progress of knowledge must be perceived, but the symbol of their development must be traced.

"All of these qualities are born of common sense, to which they are closely allied, unfolding and disclosing a luminous radiance.

"Altho each one may have its autonomy, they never separate, and, even as a fan from which one blade has disappeared can only remain an imperfect object little to be desired, even so, the symbolic fan of reasoning, when it does not unite all the required qualities, becomes a mutilated power, which can only betray the destiny originally attributed to it.

"Consequently, starting from common sense as the central point of reasoning, we find, first, perception.

"This is the action by which exterior things are brought near to us.

"Perception is essentially visual and auditory, altho it influences all our senses.

"For example, the fact of tasting a fruit is a perception.

"The seeing of a landscape is equally one.

"The hearing of a song is also a perception.

"In a word, everything which presents itself to us, coming in contact with one of our senses, is a perception; otherwise, the inception of an idea.

"This is the first degree of reasoning.

"Immediately following is memory, without which nothing could be proved.

"It is memory, which, by renewing the motive power of reason, allows us to judge of the proportion of things, grasped by the senses in the present as related to those which come to us from the past.

"Without memory it would be impossible to make a mental comparison.

"It would be most difficult to determine the true nature of an event, announced by perception, if an analogous sensation, previously experienced, had not just permitted us to classify it by close examination or by differentiating it.

"Memory is a partial resurrection of a past life, whose reconstruction has just permitted us to attribute a true value to the phases of existence.

"It is in preserving the memory of things that we are called upon to compare them and then to judge of them.

"Thought is produced immediately after perception, and the recollection, very often automatic, that it creates within us.

"It is the inception of the idea which it engenders by a series of results.

"Thought permits the mind to exercise its judgment without allowing itself to be influenced by the greatness or humility of the idea.

"By virtue of corresponding recollections, it will associate the present perception with the past representations, and will take an extension, more or less pronounced, according to the degree of intellectuality of the thinker, and according to the importance of the object of its reflections.

"But rarely does the idea present itself alone.

"One thought almost always produces the manifestation of similar thoughts, which group themselves around the first idea as birds of the same race direct their flight toward the same country.

"Thought is the manifestation of the intellectual life; it palpitates in the brain of men as does the heart in the breast.

"It is thought which distinguishes men from animals, who have only instinct to guide them.

"It can be admitted, however, that this instinct is a kind of obscure thought for these inferior beings, from which reflection is eliminated, or, at least, reveals itself only as a vassal of material appetite.

"But with creatures who have intelligence, thought is a superior faculty, which aids the soul to free itself from the bondage of vulgar and limited impressions.

"When perception, memory, and thought unite to form judgment, activity of mind will become necessary, in order to accelerate the production of ideas in extending the field of imagination.

"Moral inertia is the most deplorable of all defects; it retards intellectual growth and hinders the development of personality.

"It is, in this understanding, the enemy of common sense, for it will admit voluntarily a reasoning power, existing per se, rather than make the necessary effort which will set free the truth and constitute an individual opinion.

"Vulgarity is, then, almost always the sign of mental sloth.

"It is not infrequent to see a mind of real capacity fall into error, where an intelligence of mediocre caliber asserts its efficiency. Indifference is the most serious obstacle to the attainment of judgment.

"Common sense demands a keen alertness of understanding, placed at the disposal of a reflection which appears at times slow of action, but which is long in being manifested only because of the desire to surround itself by all the guaranties of truth concerning the object in question.

"The fifth blade of the fan is the quality of deduction--the most solid basis for the judgments which are formed by common sense.

"By deduction we are able to solve all relative questions with perfect accuracy.

"It is by abstracting reckless contingencies, and by relying only upon the relativeness of facts, that we can succeed in discovering the truth that there are too many representations as to these facts.

"Deduction is the great support of mental weakness. It helps in discerning proportions, possibilities, even as it helps in skilfully avoiding the fear of error."

We shall have occasion to speak more at length of deduction, for Yoritomo devotes many pages to it. We shall, then, defer to a future chapter the interesting developments that he discloses on this subject, and we shall continue to study the fan of common sense with him.

"Foresight," he continues, "is rightly looked upon as one of the indispensable elements in cultivating common sense.

"The faculty of foresight always accompanies common sense, in order to strengthen its qualities of skill and observation.

"One must not confound, as many people are tempted to do, foresight and conjecture.

"The first consists in taking great care to prevent the repetition of unhappy facts which have already existed.

"Foresight will exert an influence on future events by establishing an analogy between them and the actual incidents which, of necessity, will lead to the adoption or rejection of present projects.

"It is to be observed that all these faculties are subordinate, one to the other, and, in proportion to the unfolding of the fan, we can prove that all the blades previously mentioned have concurred in the formation of the blade of which we are now speaking.

"In order to foresee disasters it is necessary that the perception--visual or auditory--of said disasters should already have imprest us.

"We have kept intact the memory of them, since it is reconstructed emotion which guides our thoughts.

"These same thoughts, in extending themselves, form groups of thoughts harmonious in character, all relative to the one, which is the object of the debate.

"Our mind becomes more active in recalling the incidents, the remembrance of which marks the time which has elapsed between the old perception and the present state of mental absorption.

"The faculty of deduction, which is born of these different mental conflicts, permits me to foresee that circumstances of the same nature will lead to others similar to those we have already mentioned.

"We have merely sketched rapidly the scale of sensations which follow each other, in order to reach the explanation of how foresight is formed, this faculty of which we are now speaking.

"By assimilating these present facts with those of the past, we are permitted to draw a conclusion, relating to the same group of results, because of the conformity of those past facts to the present questions.

"Foresight is passive; between it and precaution there is the same difference as between theory and practise.