My Individualism and the Philosophical Foundations of Litera. Natsume Soseki

the intermediary who informed me of the secret plans of the Ministry, said, “It is they who make the assessment. It isn’t up to you to assess yourself. In any case it’s best for you to go.” So, as I had no reason to refuse, I obeyed the Minister’s order and went to England. But as I had expected, I had nothing to do there.

      To explain this to you, I must tell you what I did before I went abroad. The story I am going to tell you is part of the lecture I am giving today and I ask you to listen carefully.

      At university I specialized in English literature. Perhaps you are going to ask me exactly what I mean by “English literature.” For me, after three years of study, it was as hazy as a dream. Dixon3 was my professor: he made us read poems and prose extracts aloud in class; he made us write essays; he snarled at us when we forgot articles, and got himself into a temper when we made mistakes in pronunciation. In the examination he asked us for the dates of the birth and death of Wordsworth, the number of pages in Shakespeare’s manuscripts, and even a chronological list of the works of Walter Scott. That is the only type of question he set for us.

      However young you may be, you can doubtless understand what I am saying. When I wondered what English literature was, and when I wondered first what literature itself was, temporarily leaving aside English literature, I of course had no answer to the question. If I had been told “You only have to read it yourself to understand!,” I would have retorted that that would be like a blind man looking through a fence. I could not find anything in the library that caught my eye, however long I browsed over the shelves. This was not simply because of a lack of willingness on my part, but also because the available resources were poor in the field of English literature. In any case, I studied for three years, and at the end of it I had understood nothing about literature. And I am forced to admit to you that this was the source of the torments I was to suffer.

      I set out on my working life with this ambivalent attitude. Rather than say that I became a teacher, it would be better to say that circumstances led me into that profession. By good luck, as my linguistic skills were not strong, the different subterfuges I used every day managed to keep me out of trouble. However, in my heart I had a profound sense of emptiness. In fact, if it had been genuine emptiness, I would have been able to deal with it, but the deep dissatisfaction I felt, tainted with irresolution and ambiguity, was unbearable; to crown it all, I was not in the least interested in my adopted profession of teacher. From the outset I knew that I did not have the right temperament to be a teacher. Teaching in class already bored me. How could I help it? I felt turned in on myself, as if I were getting ready to disappear into my own world. But did that world exist, yes or no? No matter in which direction I looked, I didn’t dare disappear anywhere.

      “Since I was born into this world, I must do something in it,” I told myself, but I had not the faintest idea of what was good for me. I remained paralyzed, like an isolated being surrounded by mist. I expected at least one ray of sunshine to penetrate the darkness, or, even better, I would have liked to have a searchlight so that I could see clearly before me. But a single ray would have been enough. Unfortunately, no matter where I looked, everything was indistinct, confused. I had the impression of being trapped in a bag which I could not get out of. “If I had a gimlet I could make a hole in this bag and escape from it,” I thought, impatient in the extreme to get out of it. But, alas, no one gave me a gimlet and I was incapable of finding one myself. I spent dark days within myself speculating on what was to become of me.

      In the grip of this anguish, I graduated from the university. Spurred on by it, I moved from Matsuyama to Kumamoto and then I left Japan with the same anxiety. As soon as you begin to study outside your own country you become aware of new responsibilities. I worked as hard as I could and did my utmost to achieve something. But, whatever book I read, I never managed to come out of the bag. However much I paced the city of London in search of a gimlet to rip the bag, I would never have discovered one, I believe. In my room in the boarding house, I began to reflect. The situation was absurd. “There is no point in reading all these books,” I told myself, and then I gave up. I no longer saw any reason to read the books.

      At that moment, I understood for the first time that I had no hope of finding salvation if I did not formulate my own basic concept of what literature was. Until then I had floated at random, like a rootless aquatic plant, relying entirely on the opinions of others. At last I became aware that I had reached an impasse. When I say that I based myself on the opinions of others, I mean that I was an imitator, like someone who makes others drink his liquor, then asks them their opinion on it and makes it his own, even if it is wrong. It must seem odd to you when I put it like this, and you may doubt that there are such imitators in reality. In fact, there really are.

      Recently, Westerners have been talking a great deal about Bergson4 and Eucken.5The Japanese also, behaving like Panurge’s sheep,6 are making a good deal of fuss about them. In my time, it was even worse. If you came across any suggestion from a Westerner, whatever it might be, you adopted the point of view blindly and with great affectation. Whatever the occasion, people littered their speech with foreign words, recommended them to their neighbors, and considered themselves very intelligent in so doing. Everyone, or almost everyone, wanted to do the same thing. I am not maligning other people: in fact, I have behaved like this myself. For example, if I read a critique by a Westerner of a book written by a Westerner, I would spread the ideas all over the place, whether or not I understood them, not thinking at all about the proper merits of the judgement. I would stroll around arrogantly talking about some subject which was foreign to me, which was not in any sense my own, deriving from my own being. It did not worry me that I had swallowed it whole, and if I acquired knowledge mechanically, that did not bother me either.

      Nevertheless, however much people praised me because I was strutting around wearing other people’s clothes, deep down inside me were the early stirrings of anxiety. I wore peacock feathers easily and strutted around proudly, but I began to understand that if I did not abandon the borrowed plumes, that if I did not go back to something more authentic, the anxiety within me would never disappear.

      For example, a Westerner may well say that a poem is magnificent, that the style is remarkable, and that is his opinion as a Westerner, even if I happen to mention it. If I did not agree, I was not obliged to adopt his ideas. I was an independent Japanese. I was never the servant of England. As part of the Japanese nation, I owed it to myself to make my own judgement. Besides, from the moral perspective—in which honesty is central and a virtue that is prized by all the countries in the world—I had to stay faithful to my personal opinion.

      That, however, does not prevent me from specializing in English literature. I found that I generally became annoyed when I disagreed with the ideas of a native English critic. I had to ask myself what was the cause of the disagreement. Was it due to a difference in customs, feelings or habits? If we went deeper into it, we would attribute this disagreement to national character. But the average scholars, confusing literature and science, would conclude that what suits country A could not but give his admiration in country B, and would be seriously mistaken. I must say that I myself was mistaken on this point. If I find it impossible to reconcile myself with English critics, I must be able to explain why. Simply by formulating this explanation, I can throw some light on the world of literature. At the period I am speaking of, I understood this for the first time. That was extremely late. But it is the straight truth, and I will not distort the facts for you.

      From that moment, in order to support my positions in relation to literature—in fact, it would be better to say in order to develop new convictions—I began to read works which had nothing to do with great literature. In short, I ended up pondering on the expression “self-centered”7 and, to test this concentration on myself, I plunged into the reading of scientific and philosophical works. Now times have changed, and people who have any sense at all must understand the problem I have been talking about. But at that time, I had the intellectual level of a child and the world around me was hardly more advanced. In fact, I had no other way out.

      I gained a great deal of strength from this period of introspection and it prompted me to ask who these Westerners were. In fact, this concentration on myself set me in motion—I who up to then had remained stuck in one place, disorientated— and pointed out the way to me.

      I must admit that this marked a new