Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Watsuji Tetsurō

I

Stood in the desolate autumn wilds.
The stars surrounded the moon's throne; the moon purely illuminated the earth's flowers.
The flowers bloomed red, scented yellow, and glowed purple, adorning the autumn field.
Beneath the moon hovering over flowers, harmonizing with the murmuring stream, the autumn maestro's mysterious voice resounded—his techniques exhausted, his artistry perfected.
When a wanderer stood dazed in this realm, there lay immeasurable sorrow within their breast.
What did this unbearable sorrow grieve, what did it pity?
The chirping of insects, the hues of flowers, all the beauty of the cosmos—they were not nothingness, not nothingness at all. What meaning lay in this sorrow enveloped beneath "beauty"?

They walked through Ginza’s streets.
Hundreds of streetcars streaked past each other in the blink of a flint-spark.
Hundreds upon thousands of men and women moved like a swarm of locusts said to cover Egypt’s fields.
If you asked why they walked，they said it was because they had business; if you asked why they had business，they answered，＂I’m working—I’m not idling about.”
Business exists for money，and money exists for desire．
No one is satisfied merely by living．
They must fulfill all desires; desire manifests limitlessly．
Before limitless instinctual desires，finite “human life” is futile．
Were the people of Ginza walking in futility?

Life was complex; it was a difficult problem.
It had been a problem since the Sphinx first glared its eyes into existence, since humans became two-legged beasts without wings.
Even today, when Mr. Takahashi’s "View of Life" had solved life and Mr. Kuroiwa’s Theory of Heaven and Humanity had unveiled the mystery between heaven and humankind, it remained difficult.
Precisely because it was difficult, Mr. Fujimura stood upon rocky precipices; tens of thousands succumbed to neurasthenia; even Dr. Nitobe suffered neurasthenia—this was no problem to be solved by smacking one’s lips over tuna sashimi.
The fishmongers at the market transcended this problem with their headbands tied at the back, while scholars transcended it with their dictionaries.
Some people hid behind the small shield of 'iki' and called this anguish 'uncouth,' while others sank into the trenches of 'ideals' and labeled this distress 'morbid.'

The problem of life lay at the foundation of all history.
The person who fell into a well while counting stars, the person who had silently pondered until becoming skin and bones—they were not mere monuments of history.
Yet humanity’s path over thousands of years had never permitted a single day’s respite from this problem.
Saigyō developed sturdy legs for this purpose; Nobunaga performed his uncouth dance.
Shennong, Socrates, Kant, Lancelot, Elaine—even Osome Hisamatsu—had all touched upon this problem.
Shakyamuni and Jesus solved it and saved many souls.
But did these saved beings ever manifest true life?
Should not those who remained unsaved—those who ought to have wailed in hell’s nine circles, like Alexander the Great and Napoleon I—have instead revealed life’s ultimate truth?
This remained an unresolved problem.
When I declared my ideal—to be saved through religious faith, become aware of the Almighty’s presence in ethereal moments, and charge forward living *Im schönen, Im guten, Im ganzen*—a certain person mocked it.
For me, this was the clearest and most rational belief.
That person called it a laughable ideology.
Viewed impartially, it amounted to nothing but a futile debate.
When socialism waved its red flags with fervor, imperialism coldly conducted its warship launchings.
The fare-dodging inventor and semi-agrarianists ate the same rice.
When those who satisfied all carnal desires in meltingly sensual realms were envied, the moralist teacher glared at people with disgust.

Which was good? Which was evil? The human world remained incomprehensible.
Those born into this human world who sought to act as “humans” with their foremost purpose had to reach life’s critical juncture at least once.

II

One cast their gaze upon all aspects of life.
The luminous surface enveloped dark evil.
In the darkness dwelt rich people you’d want to hurl fragmentation bombs at and scholars you’d force to eat horse dung.
All things were merely phenomena of attachment to material.
On the reverse side of attachment lay transcendence.
Those who clung to wine transcended steamed buns; those who clung to the flesh transcended the spirit.
These two created countless ripples—now long, now short—and human affairs were but an embroidery woven from these ripples.

Society has its beautiful aspects.
However, the forces of evil that seek to defile this are exceedingly strong.
The aesthetic life of a single playboy becomes the desolation of a household, a mother’s tears, and a wife’s despair.
Children raised in cold households have no glimmer of hope for the future.
Behold again the base desires clinging to comfort.
Studying is detestable.
Teachers who force studying plunder students’ pride and joy.
Having dictionaries thrust upon them during hours meant for storytelling halls may be recognized as an insult to their very selves.
Thus indulging in morning sleep, they come to view school as a prison.
To save the self, they flee school.
Friends clamor; mothers weep.
The guarantor turns bright red and shouts.

Attachment to life brought great discord to human existence.
The terrifying curse left upon the world by those who departed it in love’s resentment and died with bitter defiance.
A living ghost born of single-minded obsession.
Just as Mr. Fujimura Misao’s spirit had once led over a hundred souls to Kegon’s rocky precipice, attachment to life created an uncanny resonance in the hearts of ordinary people who had forgotten “life” and lost their sense of “self.”
From small chest to chest it propagated—counting three, seventy, nine hundred, up to ten million.
These ripples became legend, became myth, became oral tradition, enduring forever.
The attachment to life, changing form and transforming its appearance, continually manifested itself in daily life.
Whether one spoke of courage or fortitude, all were phenomena divorced from this attachment.

Flesh!
What constitutes the existence of flesh?
Attachment to material disregarded spirit’s authority and made base submission before carnal desires.
The body nourished by rice, meat, and vegetables became mere swine when lacking this revered spirit—kin to oxen roaming wild fields.
When dust-born and dust-bound mortal forms harbored spirits brimming with radiance, and when perfect harmony between flesh and spirit manifested, wingless biped beasts evolved into dignified “humans.”
Flesh served as a sack; spirit as jewels within.
Should the sack be cast into water, the jewels too must sink together.
Yet even when soiled by dirt or torn by rocks, those jewels retained their shine—this light held true worth.
That masses would discard jewels into nine-ren depths while clinging to sacks’ superficial safety revealed ignorance’s extremity.
Still more pitiable—nay, wretched—were those blind to these jewels’ value we safeguard: souls forfeiting inner life and parching spiritual yearnings merely to preserve fleshly existence and sate carnal hunger—this marked true calamity.
Observe laborers advancing among these wretches!
Having abandoned precious inner lives, their desperately clutched lifelines snapped strand by strand until teetering at despair’s precipice.
Socialism’s cry resounded instantly:
“Pity our fraying lifelines! Grant thick ropes to secure safety!” they clamored.
Cold-hearted society explained this through past-life karma and fate’s workings, serenely despising pitiful laborers—
Cruelty incarnate!
In darkness where nearby objects stayed unseen, they’d never grasped how frail this salvation-clutching cord truly was.
To cry rescue upon perceiving peril became nature’s dictate—
Yet watching their peril while leisurely puffing Egyptian cigars defied nature: wickedness reaching inhumanity’s zenith.

The valiant laborers standing face-to-face with “despair” felt rage upon seeing the heartless people of the world.
They cared not if the lifelines snapped.
To those people who let cold smiles drift upon their lips—they wanted to hurl violent explosive bombs at their heads.
To repay that mockery, they dared stake thousands of brothers’ blood; our anger thirsted for blood.
“Life is nihilism—only this anger remains. Come, brothers! What attachment could we have to this nihilistic existence?”
When they abandoned spirits to the earth for aristocrats filled with vanity and bestiality, and further perceived mortal danger, France’s revolution arose with one voice.
Anger beheld blood and cried triumph.
There, life carved out dazzling ripples—the backlash of attachment is a dreadful thing.

The existence of anger and supplication is a phenomenon that occurs after recognizing the existence of the "self."
Those who live serenely, rejoicing in heaven and delighting in earth without knowing their own misfortune, are even more worthy of pity.
Search for human traces in the deep mountains; the people of antiquity leaped about eating nuts.
Robin Hood wore a bearskin and burned fallen leaves; in their breasts lay neither attachment nor good nor evil—only dull emotion.
Their bodies moved as emotions stirred; when flowers scattered and slumbering birds chirped, they leaped up.
The poet John Keats sang of his longing for this life.

No, the bugle sounds no more,

And twanging bow no more;

Silent is the irony shrill

Past the heath and up the hill;

There is no mid-forest laugh,

Where lone echo gives the half

To some wight amazed to hear

Jesting deep in forest drear.

On a spring night, when wandering through the forest beneath Nikko crowned with seven stars, a fierce hatred toward this evil-filled present world arose in Keats's breast. Eventually, he found himself yearning for the ancient carefree forest-dwellers. Ah, how he longed to become one of those people of that era. However, now under that night's moon, no bugle sounded. Keats directed his yearning gaze toward the moon.

Whatever Keats might say, these "mountain people" lacking this "self" were pitiable beings.
When the spiritually vital poet donned the mountain people's garments deep in the mountains, the mountain people acted with primal purpose as "humans."
Having transcended all things, the mountain people ultimately transcended even spirit itself.
Having drawn closest to deer and wild boars, they had fallen into the Tenth Principle.
When Keats clothed himself in the mountain people's garments, Wilhelm Tell appeared bearing bow and arrows.
Tell was the primal ideal person born from the poet's aspirations.

Even among those who knew the authority of the spirit and possessed some degree of inner life, there were those who still wallowed in vanity, placing themselves in a pitiable state. Vanity was endless sand letters. To forgive those who wished not to have their "self" misunderstood was permissible; but when one came to advertise their "self" beyond its true worth and presumed to surpass all others, this revealed the most grotesque and cowardly form of character. The personification of vanity at times intimidated people and inspired feelings of reverence. The personality revered as being near to god was at times empty. The truly great were great without adornment. Those who rolled their eyes at superficial solutions had to cast off the mask of vanity; when standing upon high ground and perceiving all, vanity revealed itself as an absurd farce too pitiful to laugh at. Women who made ornamenting beauty and competing in allure their life’s purpose; men who ruined their households over collar heights—We wanted to spit in their faces; there were those who bought feather shawls while neglecting their meals. There were those who destroyed their households in pursuit of slim trousers. The education required to make a child who smoked in the outhouse and obsessed over hat styles into a “human being” was truly the hardest of difficulties; ah, thus did vanity lure people into demonic realms, guiding them toward the sunken reefs of corruption—a Lorelei’s siren song.

Life was chaos.
Whether called attachment to flesh or attachment to life's vanity—all were demonic paths that disrupted human existence.
Hundreds of millions of humans glared fiercely at one another with hundreds of millions of white-rimmed eyes.
Having glared their fill, they began to bite.
Threading through the waves of this hell-resembling chaotic sea ran a single beam of light—"morality."
We now turned our gaze toward modern morality.

III

Modern conventional morality and mechanical education imposed a mold upon our personalities.
As "human beings" without any spiritual self-awareness, they moved right and left as they were commanded.
Thus both loyalty and filial piety became meaningless physical activities.
When there existed no foundational source that should lie at the root of virtue, they called this good and that evil—thus were the filial piety of feeding parents in old age and the three-branch ceremony proclaimed as life’s primary principles.
To be compared to crows and doves was our disgrace.
We desired to be filial as self-aware “humans.”
Filial piety without love is nothing but cold formalities.
Faith without the resonance of character is like words written on water.
Loyalty without a spirit of sacrifice is hypocrisy.

Modern morality had transcended its spiritual foundation and encouraged hypocrisy.
Those who inscribed themselves as "incarnations of reason" upon their aloof countenances forced this hypocrisy upon society and attempted to purify human life through these empty formalities.
Life was rigorous.
Human improvement required earnest effort.
To cover fleshly remains from which the essence had been extracted with a mask and attempt to deceive was the height of ugliness.
Even in bloodless marble statues there existed sublimity and voluptuous beauty.
The cold yet blood-endowed "Rational Incarnation" authorities contended with toads and economic depression.
The educationalism built upon this morality imprisoned pure celestial beings in prisons of hypocrisy.
Not the light of personality, nor the spark of spirit—the color that adorned life’s dawn in the eastern sky was the pollution of disease.

The creed that the Japanese people proudly upheld was 'loyalty to the sovereign'—comparing life to a hair’s weight and dying before their lord’s steed.
The primary condition of bushido—the azure annals of two thousand five hundred years—left traces of this splendid rippling across every page.
You possessed absolute authority—before which there existed neither human equality nor freedom of thought.
Even those madly clinging to flesh and gold transcended these attachments 'for your sake.'
Therein arose righteous individuals.
Yet those molded by conventional morality becoming trench-filler through habit differed not from pigs roasted whole for feasting.
We refuse reverence toward this meaningless 'loyalty.'
If we equally exist as humans in this world, our spiritual origin remains singular—spirits bearing equal authority before God.
Monarchs elevated and slaves debased were bound by custom’s fetters—one set before roses, another cast into thorns; our mutual hierarchy was determined solely by inner life’s beauty or ugliness.
Those great in spirit became heroes.
To purify millions of spirits and guide their fleshly dwellings from defilement required sacrificing our mortal frames through sincere fervor.
'Patriotism' stood upon this foundation.
'Patriotism' had warped into loyalty toward sovereigns.

In Lüshun, where blood was shed in loyalty to sovereigns and patriotism flowed, a murder of crows symbolizing ominous change circled a mountain of bones.
Tagosaku and Hachikō left behind attachments to the flesh and became patriots.
The crows cawed while extolling their achievements; We only wished that Tagosaku and Hachikō—lamenting their misfortune and swallowing their resentment for life—departing this world would never be known to the crows.

Filial piety was the foundation of Eastern ethics; both gods and people praised it.
It was said that if someone were to lie naked on ice on a cold night, even carp would be so impressed as to leap up.
A certain young man who frantically strove to comfort his elderly mother left behind in his hometown transcended Ejishou and cafés through sheer will.
On an evening when cherry blossoms of departing spring fluttered down, Kikuchi Shintaro stood before his deceased father’s grave and saw the flash of a dagger from his beloved mother’s bosom.
That ice-like light did not leave Kikuchi-kun’s head for a single moment.
Eventually, this light became the light of the Imperial Gift Clock.
This beautiful emotion was the spiritual excitement of human existence that rested upon “love.”
We placed weight on “love”: the young lord of a ducal house took his mother for an automobile stroll through Ueno, while the mountain charcoal burner committed theft to bury his father’s corpse.
Which one was the filial child? Present-day society could not tell.
If a woman who abandoned her chastity and forsook her spirit for her parent’s liquor money was deemed a filial child, then We would rather curse “filial piety.”

The Hakkenden contains passages like "Hamaji sneaking to Shino's place"—when such sections are excluded, they say it becomes a work conforming to Tolstoy's artistic philosophy. The ideal of modern moral education too reaches the realm of the Hakkenshi warriors. This ideal is good. Undeniably good—yet those who through this ideal cry "Overturn vanity from its very roots!" incur censure as extremists. Should one declare "Expel immoral people from society," they receive reprimands for presumption. Those who shout "Smash all injustice and return society to primitive purity!" find themselves branded madmen. Petty ideologies! Educators wallowing in complacency! Behold—is not this human world you've fashioned but a mass of hypocrisy, attachment swaddled in vanity's skin? In essence, modern morality in its true meaning demands: "Judge yourself through material transcendence and spiritual attachment." To rephrase—it consists in casting off "selfishness," standing upon spiritual self-awareness, and fulfilling your duty. Yet morality manifested outwardly has been transmitted through form and convention, its spirit forgotten.

Even in modern times there existed something comparatively pure—for example, the “family”. Gathered around that large stove，Grandfather—surrounded by grandchildren—took delight in recounting tales of old．The husband and wife forgot weariness from the day’s tales and exchanged smiles with each other．It was precisely because there existed a joyful household that they worked from morning till evening without pause．A warm household was filled with love．Where love abounds，there all virtues exist．Conscious of the universe’s first principle，they roused the courage to charge further toward truth，goodness，and beauty．This realm is the utopia of the present world．Dickens’s *A Christmas Carol* is a fascinating novel．The savage Scrooge—devoid of love，emotion，blood，and flesh，clinging solely to gold—was dragged about by ghosts of past，present，and future and in a single night was made to keenly witness the home’s joys of yore like a dream，the cruel present，and the dark realm of death looming near．

The next morning was Christmas.
Scrooge was somehow unbearably cheerful.
Even when a dog tumbled, it seemed amusing; even when a child passed by, it brought joy.
Scrooge shed his attachment to gold and took a step into a perfect life of love and peacefulness as in Dante.
In modern times, the only pure thing is the household.
Those who possess warm and harmonious households are people who hold some sympathy for life, savor the essence of sorrow, and have attained self-awareness.
Many wealthy individuals and aristocratic families do not possess those they can truly call “households.”
From the standpoint of economics, they are the jewels of society.
From the perspective of spiritual observation, they are society’s malice.
Superficial formalistic morality is most easily broken by “the wealthy.”
The wealthy ultimately stray from humanity.
We rather consider the precious nature of self-aware, peaceful farmer households.

Thus, barring one or two exceptions, modern morality was all chaos, all murk—possessing the most lamentable aspect.
As civilization advanced, carnal desires swelled ever greater, while the thirst for vanity grew ever fiercer.
We wished to discover the true spirit beneath shallow surfaces.
We had to ignite revolution in the zeitgeist and discern a new era’s radiance upon the far shore.
“We must absolutely transcend matter and absolutely cleave to spirit.”
This we named Spiritual Instinctivism.

IV

This fleeting world was difficult to inhabit.
Amid crowds of clamorous fools and simpletons where villains prowled, to attempt living earnestly meant succumbing to neurasthenia.
Chogyū declared “We must absolutely transcend modernity,” stringing ropes against neurasthenia.
Yet contrary to all designs, his intricate schemes crumbled before tuberculosis’ assault, compelling him toward unflinching sincerity.
The anguish of his twilight years sprang from this crucible.
From this soil grew religion’s imperative.
Though proclaiming since youth “I shall spend my days scorning the world to its bitter end,” Chogyū nonetheless bequeathed five volumes of collected works to that very world—such was this paradox.
Even if his spiritual strivings left no mark upon our souls, they wielded undeniable force over those very “juveniles” he had derided.
This spiritual attachment’s obverse bore violent torment—the birth pangs of material transcendence.

“The painter from *The Grass Pillow* calls this world ‘a land difficult to inhabit.’”
The painter intended to make this world more livable through art and rescue the multitudes of this transient world from neurasthenia.
On a spring day—softly warm and pleasant in spirit—he gazed at the spring sea, contemplated spring mountains, and sat dazed amidst quince blossoms to compose an egoless poem within an egoless realm.
The painter had first saved himself.
He had transcended all material human affairs.
Were this painter to stride forth with grand resolve and valor—for spirit’s authority, for humanity’s sake, indeed for cosmic beauty’s sake—we would gladly welcome him as a warrior of Spiritual Instinctivism.
Were he to exert slightly more vigor in creating masterworks and mock the clamorous world with redoubled fervor, we would wish to embrace him with both hands.
The painter had to maintain a state of mind—serenely slumbering amidst quince blossoms—even amid turbulent human affairs’ whirlpool.
To cure others’ neurasthenia, one first had to freely maneuver patients bearing gloomy countenances.

Priest Saigyō was a man who offered one form of resolution to this matter.
Once realizing the transience of the floating world, he would immediately sever worldly bonds, transcend the material realm, and traverse mountains and ford rivers.
Like white clouds drifting lightly from mountain hollows, he wandered east and settled west.
When intoxicated by nature’s beauty, he perceived boundless sorrow pervading the cosmos; when weeping at nature’s desolation, he contemplated the void of human existence and yearned for the splendor of the afterlife.
The sole desire lingering in his heart was the wish to die beneath flowers in spring.
Saigyō thus attained the pinnacle of transcendence.
However, his spiritual attachment remained tenuous.
The path of humanity he trod truly disregarded responsibility.
Regardless of his faith, lacking both Kūkai’s genius and Nichiren’s fervor reduced his spiritual value to near nothingness.
Even if he affected the poet’s air while hiding behind waka poetry, what value could there be in him who aimed solely at “self”?

We once encountered a most peculiar traveling monk.
He calmly ventured deep into uninhabited mountains bearing hammock and blanket.
At Aso he nearly froze to death suspended in his hammock; at Myōgi passed night in summit-near cave.
Having transcended body and society, he now wanders throughout Japan.
Travel draws people nearer nature; gazing upon Japanese Alps' serpentine peaks makes cosmic solemnity surge in breast.
This beauty and grandeur violently stirs spirit, thoughts careening toward life's earnestness.
Only lament: he shares Saigyō's error.
Hermit sages stand divorced from life yet lack social worth.
No purpose lies in private spiritual satisfaction.
Without faith to bathe vulgarity in sacred waters and cleanse worldly realms, sages become crane-kind creatures.

Absolute attachment to truth, justice, love, and beauty—that is, divine longing and hatred of evil—constituted the supreme requirement for being human.
When all people strove from this self-awareness, life became idealized and humanity advanced.
The moment one transcended beastliness, vanity, and bad habits to yearn for a "complete personality" marked the instant when "personality" took form through a clear heart and clean head.
This formed the starting point from which we advanced toward true socialism's ideal and should reach Dante's paradise.
When all people in the world inclined toward this principle, the realm of *To thee be allman Hero* grew increasingly distinct.
The true meaning of sociality likely resided here as well.
Cherry blossoms—having left worldly dust behind in deep mountains to blaze in full bloom—scattered petal by petal, floated upon clear valley streams, circled mountains, crossed fields, and spread across boundless plains.
The deep mountain cherry blossoms first revealed their true preciousness.
A spirit that had transcended human society and directly intuited cosmic mysteries achieved completion only when transforming masses and enlightening multitudes.
Our hearts dared not wallow in complacency.
We needed to wage every desperate struggle for truth, justice, love, and beauty.
When the spirit clung fiercely to "justice," the notion of sacrifice suddenly spread its wings.
The era of great construction by Newton, Washington, and Luther overflowed with total sacrificial devotion.
The spirit—violently stirred by divine providence's truth, humanity's justice, beauty's love, and cosmic grandeur—completely transcended the material world.
What was life!
What was pain!
My spirit felt no fleshly agony.
It simply moved as it willed, following spiritual instinct.
Behold those fervent martyrs.
Byron had depicted seven heroic brothers in *The Prisoner of Chillon*.

Becoming rust on iron chains in a dim prison, they calmly endured the long span of over a decade for “moral duty.”
This was the manifestation of a solemn spirit.
One brother died; two brothers fell.
Even in that fleeting moment when the light of 'life' was about to vanish from their beloved comrades’ pitiful eyes, they could only exchange glances across two ken.
They wanted to grasp that warm hand just once—Ah, before the thread of life snapped, if only they could reach his lap once more...—and raged like madmen.
The rusted iron chains merely clanked heavily.
Thus, even as tears of resentment and rage flowed upon the brothers’ knees, they resolutely did not lament for the sake of "moral duty."
We know that the footprints of these seven fierce spiritual instinctivists remain at Château de Chillon on the shores of Lake Léman.

Look further at Luther; look at Christ—when the spirit soared high, enduring material suffering became an easy matter.
Lord Jesus, who spent his life on the salvation of the masses and atonement and shed his blood on the cross, proved our doctrine.
In short, when we transcended the flesh and our spirit—enraptured by cosmic sorrow—grandly touched truth, yearned for justice, became impassioned with love, and entered a selfless state, it reached its climax.
The realm of *Im Schönen, Im Guten, Im Ganzen resolbt zu leben*; the thirst to become whole by being enraptured with God; converging people into omnipotent personalities and step by step approaching the solemn universe’s true essence—this became our ideal.
Those who sank their precious spirit into bodily satisfaction were a type of swine.
We were ashamed to associate with swine.
At the same time, we had to endure shame and cleanse them.
Before we could advance triumphantly, “Love” had to come alive as compassion and “Grandeur” had to act as sacrifice, compelling us to cling to this endeavor.
In this manner, we wished to act in this world as the spirit commanded—this was our doctrine.

V

"The doctrine of 'Transcend material absolutely and cling to spirit absolutely' remains too vague."
Absolute material transcendence led inevitably to death.
We neither refused death nor feared it.
We lived in this world and moved through this realm solely through spiritual attachment.
Thus our lives had to be imbued with the spirit's radiance.
To endure life's hardships without lamentation and resist gold's temptation was beyond those who feared death.
Yet we required sustenance to live; for sustenance existed the obligation to labor.
Should all people become mountain sages and hermits, chaos would ensue.
Count Tolstoy had advocated semi-agrarianism out of expediency—since semi-agrarianism existed already, semi-commercialism became permissible, semi-teacherism acceptable.
No—given capacity, full agriculture or full commerce sufficed.
The essential matter was never losing 'humanity's true calling.'
Beneath this resolve, we swam across the maelstrom's abyss—its whirlpools of vanity, bestiality, and sin—to reach yonder shore.
Young Dante—heart shattered by Beatrice's funeral bells—had leapt into this abyss.
When Florence's gates closed forever against him, he rode still wilder waves of this transient world.
His soul departed the world's defiled multitudes for both paradise and hell.
The corpse housing this unbridled spirit fell into demons' hands within this bitter manifest world.

Yea, thou shalt learn howsalthis food who bdres

Upon another's bread, ― how steep his path

Who treads up and downanother's stairs.

This was the anguished cry the spirit involuntarily raised when encountering fierce persecution.
Yet Dante endured all persecutions.
This very dual life of "unfettered thoughts and bound will" constituted Dante's essence.
In Verona, when wandering deep in forests he envisioned glorious paradise; when walking through streets they would point at him saying, "There goes one returned from hell!"
In these dire straits, the poet conducted profound critiques of human society while resolutely rejecting evil—burying gold and vanity beneath wrathful denunciations.
We yearn for such confidence and conviction.

That which imbues our lives with such conviction is art.
Art delivers us from trivial worldly matters and elevates us to selflessness.
When people abandon the transient world's vexations—shifting endlessly from branch to branch, from detail to minutiae—they first return to their essence.
Those who have returned to their essence behold their own spirit and God, arriving at contemplation of self-improvement's struggle.
That art expresses 'life' through lofty ideals of true justice, love, and solemnity exists for this very purpose.
Through these ideals of true justice, love, and solemnity, we seek to perceive the Complete One.
We long to encounter an Almighty Being.
When standing before Kegon Falls' solemn cliffs rising ten thousand fathoms high, when gazing upon glistening white clouds crowning the majestic Great Lotus Peak piercing heavenward—our breasts feel compressed by a titanic hand.
This is the resonance between fragments of Complete Personality latent within our hearts and its primordial form.
Yet those lacking inner artistic spirit—those devoid of aesthetic sensibility—receive no revelation from nature's grand vistas.
To them, waterfalls remain mere curiosities and mountains simple oddities.
Guiding them into that realm demands spiritual cultivation.
The key to such cultivation lies in art.
Thus does art become what must satisfy our yearning.

Perceived the sorrow lying at the root of all creation in the universe, gained sustenance from art, and placed oneself in the maelstrom of the present world.
If one worked under conviction, the endeavor was noble.
Thus, to carry out a resolute dual life in this twentieth-century present, Spiritual Instinctivism brandished at its forefront the conviction divinely inspired by God and its execution, proceeding with unwavering dignity.
Execution was an activity of the body that naturally manifested through spiritual excitement.
The genius Carlyle whom we revere gazed from his third-floor attic at the distant snake in the barrel while transcending alongside the stars.
Moreover, he possessed the conviction to illuminate the earthly realm alongside the stars.
“First accomplish the duties near at hand and those deemed as such.”
The second duty would immediately become clear.
Spiritual liberation lay here.
Thus, the ideal realm that all people vaguely yearned for and suffered in bewilderment at its unattainability would suddenly open before you.
Thy America existed only here; there was no other.
“Verily, the land where thou now standest is precisely that which should become the ideal homeland.”
This America was the America of the era when Washington savored roasted pork, when Rip Van Winkle fled into the mountains henpecked by his wife.
Carlyle preached with mad intensity that attaining this beautiful utopia became an easy matter when grounded in “self-awareness.”
He preached with desperate combativeness.
Spiritual Instinctivism found its starting point there.

We contemplated our own character and reflected on our own actions, finding ourselves unable to endure lamentation.
However, we would not cease striving under this doctrine.
In our hearts, we embraced the shadow of “the Complete One” embodying true justice, love, and solemnity, and under the reflected light of sacrificial resolve, we intended to accomplish the “duty” spoken of by Carlyle.
Thus, we wished to solemnly tread the path of real society.

We have one further word to add.
Japanese bushido may take various forms of virtue, but its foundation lies in receiving revelation through true justice, love, and solemnity—transcending material existence and attaching itself to spiritual life.
Courage, benevolence, courtesy, sincerity, loyalty, self-discipline—all these are manifestations of this attachment.
However, upon reaching the decadent age, forgetting the true spirit and clinging to formalities, they created a bushido worthy of contempt.
We love the gallant hero Shingen and favor Kenshin.
The continuous peaks of White Horse nurtured heroic solemnity in Kenshin’s breast; the sacred presence of Yatsugatake and Fuji awakened profound solemnity in Shingen’s breast.
The beautiful flower of bushido shines beyond the material.
Yet when they flaunt grandeur through drunken revelry and wild dancing, and when justice arises from narrow-mindedness and brute strength—we curse this.

We believe this example can be applied to the First Higher School’s traditions.
Our Four Principles are the essence of bushido and an aberration of sociability.
However, do those "unbeautiful" things concealed beneath this beautiful name truly not exist?
The history of Kōryō is surely glorious.
Yet behold the evil customs lurking within this shadow!
We venture to take one or two examples.
What, in essence, is that Storm?

On that night when I first became part of Kōryō and heard Professor Imamura’s earnest admonition against alcohol, I could not endure my disgust upon seeing a group disturbing sleep with their reeking drunkenness and clamorous uproar.
Ah, excessive drinking and wild revelry!
People call this the manifestation of vigorous energy.
We do not hesitate to call this the most base expression of carnal attachment.
Furthermore, when we see a group wantonly wielding vulgar language as they roam about, we cannot help but fear for the future of the First Higher School’s traditions.
The evil ideological currents pervading the dark aspect of school traditions are not mere disregard for the gate pass system or upper sandal system—they constitute carnal insults against precious spirits.
We cannot help but pity those who speak of grandeur yet effeminately surrender to the flesh.
We do not find it strange that there are flaws in our alumni’s ideologies, so long as evil does not cease in society.
We simply wish with all our hearts that these evil currents may not defile the glorious Four Principles.