Quoted from Inazo Nitobe, Bushido: The Soul of Japan, originally published in 1905

Confucianism and Bushido

As for ethical doctrines, the teachings of Confucius were the most prolific source of Bushido. Next to Confucius, Mencius exercised an immense authority over Bushido. His forcible and often quite democratic theories were fetching to sympathetic natures, and they were even thought dangerous to, and subversive of, the existing social order, hence his works were for a long time under censure.

 

Giri primarily meant no more than duty. In our conduct, say, toward our parents, though love should be the only motive, lacking that, there must be some other authority to enforce filial piety. Giri thus understood is a severe taskmaster with a birch rod in his hand to make sluggards perform their part. I deem it a product of the conditions of an artificial society in which accident of birth and unmerited favor instituted class distinctions.

In such a system of social and ethical doctrine, as in the Confucian doctrines from China that brought it about, the family was the social unit, in which seniority was of more account than superiority of talent, in which natural affections had often to succumb before arbitrary man-made customs. Because of this very artificiality, Giri in time degenerated into a vague sense of propriety repeatedly evoked to explain this and sanction that.

 

How often Confucius and Mencius repeat the highest requirement that a ruler of men consist in Benevolence. Confucius: “Let but a prince cultivate virtue, people will flock to him; with people will come lands; lands will bring forth wealth; wealth, the benefit of right uses. Virtue is the root and wealth, an outcome.” Again: “Never has there been a case of a sovereign loving benevolence, and the people not loving righteousness.”

Mencius follows close at his heels: “Instances are on record where individuals attained to supreme power in a single state without benevolence, but never have I heard of an empire falling into the hands of one who lacked this virtue.” Also: “It is impossible that any one should become ruler of the people to whom they have not yielded the subjection of their hearts. Both defined this rule by asserting, “Benevolence [Jen] — benevolence is Man [jen].”

 

Confucianism and other doctrines in Japanese cultural history