Chapter 2: LANGUAGE OF ANIMAL

rushed out of his house in order to kill the prince with his own hand. It was in this paroxysm of passion that my master post him. Like all impulsive people, he was full of his subject, and joining the perception of the insult to the judgment of t. which his instinct had immediately dictated to him, he did not conceal his murderous intentions. My master by means of a strategy. succeeded in dissuading him from accomplishing his revenge that day. He persuaded him that the prince was absent and would only return to town upon the following day. The man believed him, and allowed himself to be taken to the house of lang ho. But it was in vain that lang ho unfolded all his most subtle arguments. Neither the fear of punishment, nor the hope of pardon, could conquer the obstinacy which can always be observed in Impulsive people when their resolution has not accomplished its purpose. It was then that my mester employed a ruse, whose fantastic character brings a smile, but which however, demonstrates a profound knowledge of the human heart when acting under the influence of common sense. During the sleep of his guest. lang ho took off his robe, replacing it by a garment made of two materials. One was golden yellow, the other a brilliant green. After attacks of terrible anger, in spite of the solicitation of his impulsive nature which incited him to go out. he did not dare to venture into the streets in such a costume. That which the most subtle arguments had been unable to accomplish was obtained through fear of ridicule. Two days passed; his fury was changed into great mental exhaustion. because impulsive people can not withstand the contact with obstacles for any length of time. It was this moment which may master chose to undertake the cure, in which he was so vitally interested. With the most delicate art, he explained to the impulsive man all the chain of sentiments leading from perception to judgment. He caused common sense to intervene so happily that the man was permeated by it. My master kept him near by for several weeks always using very simple arguments to combat the instinctive resolutions which were formulated in his brain many times a day. Common sense, thus solicited, wes revealed to the impulsive one, and appeared like a peaceful counselor. The ridiculous and odious side of his resolution was represented to him with such truth that he embraced lang ho, saying: now, master. I can go away, and your mind can be at rest about me. The arguments of common sense have liberated me from bondage in which my lack of reflection held me. I return to my home, but I beg of you, allow me to take away this ridiculous costume which was my sector. I wish to hang it to may home to the most conspicuous place. that, from the moment my nature incites me to obey the commands of impulse. I may be able to look at once upon this garment, and thus recall your teachings, which have brought sweetness and peace into my life. All those who are inclined to set by instinct should follow this example, not by dressing up in a ridiculous robe half green and half yellow, but by placing obstacles in the way of the accomplishment of impulsive acts, which the dictates of common sense would not sanction. For those whose mind possess a certain d'elicacy, again says the old master these obstacles will be of a purely moral order, but for those who voluntarily allow themselves to be dominated by a diseased desire for action, obstacles should adopt a tangible form the difficulty in conquering anything always makes impulsive people reflect a little. Under the Immediate Impression of the perception of an act they are ready for a struggle to the death: but this ardor is quickly extinguished, and inerti become an impulse, makes them throw far away from them the object which determined the effort. In proportion as they encounter obstacles, which they have taken the precaution to raise, the encroachment of the impression will make itself less felt. The mere fact of having foreseen will become a matter for reflection for them. The feeling of the responsibilities will be roused in them, and they will understand how difficult it is to escape the consequences of impulsive acts. Would one not say that these lines had been written yesterday more than ever our age of unrest makes us the prey of impulses, and to the majority of our contemporaries, the robe. half green and half yellow, but by placing obstacles in the way of the accomplishment of impulsive acts, which the dictates of common sense would not sanction. For those whose mind possess a certain d'elicacy, again says the old master these obstacles will be of a purely moral order, but for those who voluntarily allow themselves to be dominated by a diseased desire for action, obstacles should adopt a tangible form the difficulty in conquering anything always makes impulsive people reflect a little. Under the Immediate Impression of the perception of an act they are ready for a struggle to the death: but this ardor is quickly extinguished, and inertia, in its turn. having become an impulse, makes them throw far away from them the object which determined the effort. In proportion as they encounter obstacles, which they have taken the precaution to raise, the encroachment of the impression will make itself less felt. The mere fact of having foreseen will become a matter for reflection for them. The feeling of the responsibilities will be roused in them, and they will understand how difficult it is to escape the consequences of impulsive acts. Would one not say that these lines had been written yesterday more than ever our age of unrest makes us the prey of impulses, and to the majority of our contemporaries, the robe. half green and half yellow by recalling to them the worship of common sense will become a fetish more precious then all the amulets with which superstition loves to adorn logic, or to incorporate fantastic outline in the classic setting of beautiful jewels. Lesson the dangers of sentimentality the shogun says: there are sentimentalities of many kinds, some present less dangers then others, but from every point of view they are prejudicial to the acquisition and exercise of common sense. To cultivate sentiment over which the will has no control is always to be regrettad. Sentimentality is multiform. It presents itself at times, under the aspect of an obscure appeal to sensuality and brings with it a passing desire of the heart and of the senses, which produces an art artificial appreciation of the emotion felt. In this first cats sentimentality & an unconscious manifestation of egotism, because. outside of that which provokes this outward manifestation, everything is alternated and becomes indistinct. The incidents of existence lose the true proportion, since everything becomes relative to the object because of our preoccupation. The Impulse reigns supreme there when sentimentality establishes itself and the desire of judgment. If It makes itself apparent. Is quickly shunned to the profit of illusory reasons. In which pure resson does not intervane. This sentimentality amalgameting the springs of egotism bereaves the souls longing of all its greatness. The anxiety to attribute all our Impressions to emotion is intangible, like the air we breathe. Like the air we breathe, it is necessary to our existence. It surrounds us. envelops us. and is indispensable to the harmony of our mental life. To acquire this precious gift many conditions are obligatory, the principles ones being sincerity of perception. Art of the situation. Attention. Approximation. Experience. Comparison. Analysis. Synthesis. Destination. Direction. And lastly the putting of the question. It is very clear that without exactness of perception we could not pretend to judge justly: it would then be impossible for us to hear the voice of common sense. If we did not strive to develop it. Perception is usually combined with what they call to philosophical language adaptation. Otherwise it is difficult when recognizing a sensation, not to attribute it at once to the sentiment which animated it at the time of its manifestation. The first condition then, in the acquiring of common sense is to maintain perfection in all its pristine exactress by abstracting the contingencies which could influence us. If we do not endeavor to separate from our true selves the suggestions of sense consciousness, we shall reach the point where perception is transformed into conception, that is to say, we shall no longer obtain reality alone, but a modified reality. With regard to perception. If we understand its truthfulness: It will be a question for reawakening It. of placing ourselves mentally in the environment where it was produced, and of awakening the memory, so as to be able to distinguish without mistake, the limits within which it is narrowly confined. The art of situation consists in reproducing mentally. past facts, allowing for the influence of the surroundings at that time. compared with the present environment. One must not fail to think about the influences to which one has been subjected since this time. It is possible that life during its development in the aspirent to common sense may have changed the direction of his first conceptions either by conversation or by reading or by the reproduction of divers narrations. It would then be a lack of common sense to base an exact recollection of former incidents on the recent state of being of the soul without seeking to reproduce the state of mind in which one was at the spoch when those incidents occurred. Activity of mind. stimulated to the utmost, is able to give a color to preceding impressions, which they never have had, and, in this case again, the recollection will be marred by inexactness. The art of situation requires the strictest application and on this account it is a valuable factor in the sequirement of common sense. Attention vitalizes our activity in order to accelerate the development of a definite purpose toward which it can direct its energy. It could be analyzed as follows: first, to see: secondly, to hear. The functions of the other senses come after ward, and their susceptibility can attract our attention to the sensations which they give us. such as the sense of smell of touch, of taste. These purely physical sensations possess, however, a moral signification. from which we are permitted to make valuable deductions. The first two have three distinct phases: first degree, to see. Second degree, to look. Third degree, to observe. If we see a material. Its color strikes us first and we say: I have seen a red or yellow material and this will be all. Applying ourselves more closely, we look at it and we define the peculiarities of the color. We say: it is bright red or dark red. In observing it we determine to what use it is destined. The eye is attracted by: the color. The movement. The form. The number. The duration. We have just spoken of the color. The movement is personified by a series of gestures that people make or by a series of changes to which they subject things. The form is represented by the different outlines. The number by their quantity. The duration by their langth: one will judge of the length of time it takes to walk a road by seeing the length of it. The act of listening is divided into three degrees. First degree, to hear Second degree, to understand. Third degree, to reflect. If some one walking in the country hears a dog bark: he perceives first a sound: this is the act of hearing. He will distinguish that this sound is produced by the barking of a dog: this is the act of understanding Reflection will lead him than to think that a house or a human being is near for a dog goes rarely alone. If the things which are presented to our sight are complex, those which strike our ears are summed up in one word sound which has only one definition, the quality of the sound then follow the innumerable categories of sound that we distinguish only by means of comprehension and reflection, rendered so instinctive by habit that we may call them automatic, so far as those which relate to familiar sounds. The example which we have just given is a proof of this fact. Let us add that this habit develops each sensitive faculty to its highest degree. The inhabitants of the country can distinguish each species of bird by listening to his song: and the hermits. the wanderers those who live with society on a perpetual war footing perceive sounds which would not strike the sat of civilized people. Approximation is also one of the stones by whose aid we construct the edifice of common sense. Concerning the calculations of probabilities, the application of approximation will allow us to estimate the capacity or the probable duration of things. We can not say positively whether a man will live a definite number of years but we can affirm that he will never live until he is two hundred There are for approbation, certain known limits which serve as a basis for the construction of reasoning inspired by common sense. It can be affirmed. In a positive way, that. If the trunk of a trees were floating easily, without sinking to the bottom of the water. It would not float the same If thirty men were to ride only a way of intensifying it for our personal satisfaction, at the expense of a sentiment far deaper and more serious, whichnever blossoms under the shadow of egotism and of frivolous sentimentality. Never will common sense have the chance tomanifest itself in those who permit such sphemeral and enfeebling impressions to implant themselves in the souls. Howeverthey must be pitied because their artificial enotion often results in a sorrow which is not lessened by repetition, but whosemanifestation is none the less prejudicial to the peace of the being. All those who do not harmonize common sense and theemotions of the heart become passive to the investiture of a sentimentality which does not wait to know if the object beworthy of them before it exists in consciousness. From this state of mind arise disillusions and their recurrence entails a defectin the conception. Man who are often deceived in allowing themselves to feel a sorrow which is only based on the longingsof sentimentality become pessimists quickly and deny the existance of deep and enduring affection judged from its superiorexpression. The superior expression of sentiment is freed from all personality and such judgment which differentiates it fromother sentiments. If we wished to appeal to common sense we should acknowledge, too often, that in the search for expansionwe have only recognized the opportunity to satisfy the inclination which urges us to seat for pleasure. Sentiment ressons, andis capable of devotion. Sentimentality excludes reflective thought and ignores generosity. We are capable of sacrificingourselves for sentiment. Sentimentality exects the secrelics of others. Therefore, profiting by the principles already developedhe who cultivates common sense will never fail to reason in the following manner opening the symbolic fan. he willencounter, after perfection, the memory which will suggest to him the recollections of personal and strange experiences andhe will record this fact: abegation is rarely encountered. The inclination of our thoughts will suggest to us the difficulties thereare in searching for it. Deduction will acquaint us with the temerity of this exaction, and precaution will attract our thoughtsto the possibility of suffering which could proceed from disillusion. Following this. reasoning and judgment will intervene inorder to hesten the conclusion formulated by common sense. It follows then that, abnegation being so rare, common senseIndicates to me that it would be imprudent for me to allow my happiness to rest upon the existence of a thing so exceptionalFor this reason this sentimental defect will find common sense armed against this eventuality. There is another form orsentimentality not less common. It is that which extends itself to all the circumstances of life and transforms true pity into afalse sensibility, the exaggeration of which deteriorates the true value of things. Those who give publicity to this form ofsentiment are agitated or imagine themselves to be agitated as profoundly on the most futile of pretexts as for the mostimportant cause. They do not think to ask themselves if their ardor is merited: also every such experience, taking out of themsomething of their inner selves. leaves them enfeebled and stranded. Every excursion into the domain of sentimentality isparticularly dangerous, for tourists always fail to carry with them the necessary coinage which one calls common sense. Afterhaving put ourselves on guard against the surprizes of mental exaggeration, yoritomo wans us of a kind of high respectablesentimentality which we possess, that is none the less censurable because under en exterior of the purest tenderness itconceals a profound egotism. It concerns paternal love from which reasoning and common sense are excluded Nothing saidhe, seems more noble than the love of parents for their children, and no sentiment is more sugust when it is comprehendedin all its grandeur. But how many people are apt to distinguish it from an egotistical sentimentality. I have seen some mothersoppose the departure of their sons, preferring to oblige them to lead an obscure existance near to them, rather than Imposeupon themselves the sorrow of a separation. These women do not fail to condemn the action of others who, filled with asublime abnegation, allow their children to depart, hiding from them the tears which they shed, because they have theconviction of seeing them depart for the fortune and the happiness which they feel themselves unable to offer them. Whichof these are worthy of admiration those who condemn their children to a life of mediocrity in order to obey an egotisticalsentimentality, or those who with despeat in their hearts. renounce the joy of their presence, and think only of the grief in order to build upon it the happiness of that dear ones. The common sense of this letter class inspiring in them thismagnificent sentiment, and forcing them to set aside a sentimentality which is. in reality, only the caricature of sentiment, haspermitted them to escape that special kind of egotism, which could be defined thus the translation of a desire for personalcontentment. Ought we than to blame others so strongly it is necessary, above all to the most frequent and the least excusabls. There are, he tells us a number of people who, without knowingthat they offend common sense in a most indefansible manner, invoke sentimentality in order to dispense with exercising themost vulgar plty, to the profit of their neighbor. A prince, he continues, possest a large tract of land which he had put under grain. For the harvest. a large number of peasants and laborers were employed and each one lived on the products of his labor. But a prolonged drought threatened the crop: so the prince's overseer dismissed most of the laborers, who failed to find employment in the parched country. Soon hunger threatened the inmates of the miserable dwellings, and sickness, its inseparable companion, did not fail to follow. Facing the conditions the prince left, and had it not been for two or three wealthy and charitable people the laborers would have started to death. This pitiful condition was soon changed, abundance replaced famine, and the master returned to live in his domain. But amatement followed when he addrest his people as follows: here I am, back among you and I hope to remain hare a long time: If I left you. It was because I have so great an affection for all my servants and because even the bare thought of seeing them suffer caused me unbearable sorrow. I am not among those who are sufficiently hard hearted to be able to take care of sick and suffering people and to be a witness of their martyrdom. My pity is too keen to permit of my beholding this spectacle: this is why I had to leave to others. less sensitive the burden of care which my too tender heart was unable to lavish on you. And that which is more terrible is that this men believed what he said. He did not understand the monstrous rent which he made in the robe of common sense. by declaring that he had committed the vilest act of cruelty due to excessive sensitiveness since it represented a murderous act of omission. Examples of this form of sentimentality are more numerous than we think. There exist people who cover the dogs with caresses, gorging them with dainties, and will take good care not to succor the needy. Others faint away at sight of an accident and never think of giving aid to the wounded. One may observe that for people exercising sentimentality at the expense of common sense, the greatest catastrophe in intensity, If it be for away from us. diminishes, while the merest incident, a little out of the critpay, affects them in a most immoderate menner if it be produced in the circle of their acquaintances. It is needless to add that. If it touches them directly. It becomes an unparalleled calamity: it seems that the rest of the world must be troubled by it. This propensity toward pitying oneself unreasonably about little things which relate to one directly and this exaggerated development of a sterile sentimentality are almost always artificial, and the instinct of self preservation very often aids in their extermination. Among my old disciples. pursues the shogun. I had a friend whose son was afflicted by this kind of sentimentality, the sight of blood meds him faint and he was incapable of staing any one whomsoever that which he called his good heart, and which was only a form of egotistical sentimentality, prevented him from looking at the suffering of others. One day, a terrible earthquake destroyed his palace: he escaped, making his way through the ruins and roughly pushing atas the wounded who told about it afterward. I saw him some days after instead of reproaching him severely for his conduct, i endeavored to make him see how false was his conception of pity, since, not only had he not fainted at the sight of those who. half dead, were groaning, but he had found in the egotistical sentiment of self preservation the strength to struggle against those who clung to him, beseeching him for help. I demonstrated to him the evident contradiction of his instinctive cruelty to the sentimentality that it pleased him to make public. I made an appeal to common sense in order to prove to him the attitude which he had until then, assumed, and I had the joy of seeing myself understood. My arguments appealed to his mentality, and always afterward, when he had the opportunity to bring puerile sentimentality and common sense face to face. he forced himself to appeal to that quality, which in revealing to him the artifice of the sentiment which animated him, cured him of false sensibility, which he had displayed up to that time. Sentimentality is in reality only a conception of egotism, under the different forms which it adopts. Yoritomo proves it to us again, in speaking of the weakness of certain teachers, who. under the pretext of avoiding trouble, allow their children to follow their defective inclinations. It is by an instinctive hatred of effort that parents forbid themselves to make their children cry when reprimanding them, said he. If the parents wish to be sincere to themselves, they will perceive that the sorrow in seeing their children's tears flow, plays a very small in their preconceived idea of indulgence. It is in order to economize their own nervous energy or to avoid cleverly the trouble of continued teaching that they hesitate to provoke these imaginary miseries, the manifestation of which is caused by the great weakness of the teachers. Common sense, nevertheless, ought to make them understand that it is preferable to allow the little ones to shed a few tears, which are quickly dried, rather than to tolerate a deplorable propensity for these habits which later in life, will cause them real anxiety. And the philosopher concludes: a very little reasoning could suffice to convince one of the dangers of sentimentality. If the persons who devote themselves entirely to it consented to reflect, by frankly agreeing to the true cause which produces it. They would discover in the false pity the desire not to disturb their own tranquility. They would also perceive that, in order to spare themselves a few unpleasant moments in the present they are preparing for themselves great sorrow for the future. In parental affections. as in freindship or in the emotions of love, sentimentality is none other than an exaggerated amplification of the ego. If It be true that all our acts, even those most worthy of