CopyRight YANABU Akira
CopyRight YANABU Akira
§８． 権利 （kenri, right）
−権 (ken) means right, 権 (ken) means power
'Right' which was translated as kenri in Japan today seemed very difficult to put into Japanese, in the age of Dutch studies and English studies, it may have been hard to understand.
In "Eiwa taiyaku shuuchin jisho (English-Japanese portable dictionary)" (1862) which was widely used in the beginning of the Meiji era, right was rendered only as 'honesty, management, right hand ', there was no word corresponding to kenri of today there. In "Futsugo meiyo (French-Japanese elucidation)" (1864), droit was translated only as 'the law, a rule, politics'.
"Oranda jii (Dutch dictionary)" translated perhaps at first 'regt' in Dutch into Japanese. The translating words of regt were as: 'politics or the law, a code, a court, management, public affair, straight, true, just in front of, quite so', in which there was no word equivalent to kenri of today, there were however between 'public affair' and 'straight', though not written translating words, several examples after 'als (as follows)', for instance:
Ergens regt toe hebben of toegeregtigd zijn.
aru koto ni shu to narubeki suji o motte iru
(to have reason which is naturally the lord of something)
This 'shu to narubeki suji * (reason which becomes naturally the
lord) corresponded to 'regt', of which the author Katsuragawa Hoshu seemed not so much assured, and may have not write it as a translating word, this was however, I believe, fairly good translation. This suji (reason) was succeeded thereafter as a translating word corresponding to kenri of today.
Tsuda Shinichirou # translated, I believe, regt as honbun $ when he
studied in the Netherlands with Nishi Amane. He translated memorandums given by Vissering by whom he was taught at Leiden University in 1862.
In which translation, there were the following:
tennen no honbun natsuuru reguto (natuurregt)
minjin no honbun foruken reguto (volkenregt)
'natsuuru reguto' was written in Japanese kana, which meant natural law of today. Regt means law in addition to right in English, which he may have misunderstood, and thought it as natural right in English, which he translated, I believe, into Japanese as 'tennen no honbun'. And the following 'foruken reguto (volkenregt)' which meant international law may have been misunderstood too. He misconstrued volken as people, and regt as kenri of today, then may have rendered it as 'minjin no honbun'. Honbun can mean either kenri (right) or obligation, which seemed to have shown the difficulty of the translation of 'right'.
Fukuzawa Yukichi realized keenly 'right' and liberty are words of quite importance and difficulty with translating. He wrote in "Seiyo jijyo (the Western circumstances) 2nd volume" (1870) as follows:
Raito means by origin honesty. Chinese people translated it as sei * (correct), or opposing it against hi * (not good), put it as a phrase zehi * (good versus not good). It means obeying good reason, doing one's duty and being infallible.
And changed from these meanings, it is sometimes used as the meaning of ri * (rationality) that should be searched for. Translated into Chinese, it is written in Chinese characters 達義 or 通義 (justice) which are still difficult. Ri that should be searched for means by origin, to be expected to demand or to ask for, for instance, people say that without proper standing one cannot request, namely, unless one does what he has to do, he ought not demand of others.
And it means ken * (competence) to do something, for example it is ken of the police to arrest criminals.
It means also hazu * (expectation) which one deserves to have,
namely, tsuugi * of possession means tsuugi expected to have one's own things. That one has no tsuugi to things out of reason is he ought not take unreasonable things. That liberty of life is tsuugi signifies that a person was born independent, she/he has no cause to be restricted by others and has douri * (propriety) being able to be free.
Let us take out the point of saying above as noun forms, these are; 'honesty, correctness, good, reason, justice, competence, expectation, moral'. At a glance, we notice here are arranged words showing moral righteousness. And 'right' had also originally the meaning of moral righteousness.
Fukuzawa particularly in his early works, said repeatedly the explanation of 'right', in the same book above:
For example in my translation I often used jiyuu (liberty), tsuugi (right), these words however do not enough express the original meanings.
The similar sort of warning were sometimes said by intellectuals of the day, Fukuzawa's sense of language as the instrument for thinking was however acute in particular.
Soon the time came when translating words were thought to 'enough express the original meanings.' Once right was translated as kenri, the word kenri itself was thought to have naturally the same meaning as right. Not a few people might of course say 'no' while they were asked if the translating words enough express the original meaning, but the process of words being used actually surpassed the consciousness of their users. Because the structure of language which is controlled by translating word functions as if the translating word enough expressed the original meaning.
In "Waei gorin shuusei (Japanese-English dictionary)" (1867) by Hepburn, right was rendered as follows:
RIGHT n. Douri; michi; ri; gi; zen * ; suji; hadz # ; beki *
namely, they are in English; propriety, way, rationality, obligation, good, reason, expectation, being proper. Where is then the word corresponding to kenri of today?
The noun right has three main meanings; moral righteousness, right hand side and the one translated into Japanese as kenri of today. Dutch 'regt' and French 'droit' imply the law which English right does not imply.
The author of "Waei gorin shuusei" Hepburn ought to have known well the importance of the meaning kenri of today, namely the legal meaning. The knowledge of which must have been different from many English scholars in Japan of the day. He must have surely intended to translate it here. Then, which words are the meaning of moral righteousness and which are those of the legal righteousness here? It seems to be able to divide that the first five douri, michi, ri, gi, zen are the former, and suji, hazu, beki are the latter. Is this right?
Gi was in a saying tsuugi used by Fukuzawa as the same meaning of kenri of today. Gi, suji and beki imply much the meaning of moral, while michi and ri have both meanings, for instanace ri which was a term of Shushigaku (the teachings of Chu-Tzu (朱子)) was much common with suji, and meant the fundamental being of universe.
The translating words of Hepburn's dictionary had a tendency to have searched Japanese words corresponding to original words rather than to have adopted the words intended by Japanese. That is, in the words Hepburn arranged here 'douri, michi, ri, gi, zen, suji, hazu, beki', it is difficult to distinguish which are the meaning of moral or that of law.
Let us look at the third edition to the same dictionary in 1886, right was rendered as:
RIGHT n. Dori, michi, ri, kougi * , koudou * , ken, kenri, gi, zen, suji, sujiai * , hazu, beki
These are in English, propriety, way, rationality, public obligation, public way, power, kenri, obligation, good, reason, fitness for reason,expectation, being proper. How were they distinguished moral meaning or legal meaning? If they were divided in sequence order, after ken should have been put together, since ken and kenri were used as legal terms in those days. What did gi mean then? How were kougi and gi distinguished?
In a word, even here, or rather than the first edition, the two meanings of right were not distinguished.
Hepburn must have understand such two meanings of right had derived from a word right. Because in the history of the Western ideas since natural law, these two had divided from the one root. And at the same time these two must have been thought to be clearly divided two.
On the other hand, Japanese traditional thinking of the day did not distinguished these righteousness of moral and of law. Hepburn might be perplexed before such a language. After all it was unreasonable to intend to distinguish what had not been distinguished. Here I notice that the translating words by Hepburn were fairly similar to those by Fukuzawa. I reconsider hence the significance of Fukuzawa's saying 'these words however do not enough express the original meanings.'
And now, there is a word common with Hepburn's third edition and Fukuzawa's translating words, and clearly different to the others not implying the meaning of moral righteousness. It was ken.
Ken was a word of quite difference from the moral predominance system in Japan of the day. Seeing from this point of view, it was suitable for accepting the word of a new imported evaluation system.
The heterogeneousness and the freshness of ken was however different to those of right against the meaning of morality in Western languages.
The legal meaning of right, kenri of today succeeded the moral meaning of right at least as legitimacy or legality. On the other side Japanese ken was rather against to such rightfulness, it meant power.
And that ken was soon come to stay as the translating word of right was able to think owing to such meaning gap. That is, it was not only because of being heterogeneous against the traditional moral predominance, but I believe, because of being quite heterogeneous against the original meaning of right. I will think of such circumstances in the following.
Since the translation of Nishi Amane in the last days of the Tokugawa era, right was frequently rendered using character ken, such as ken, kenri, kengi * , then I will consider the meaning of ken in Japanese
language.
In the first edition of "Waei gorin shuusei (Japanese-English dictionary)", ken was rendered as:
KEN n. Power, authority, influence, −wo furuu, to show one's power. −wo toru, to hold the power, to have the authority. −wo hatte mono wo iu, to talk assuming an air of authority.
Namely, it meant at first power.
After nineteen years in the third edition, these contents were nearly the same. In those days ken and kenri were widely used."
"Nihon dai jirin (Japanese general dictionary)" by Mozume Takami
in 1894, ken was put as 'chikara * (power), tedate * (a means) ikioi * (energy)'. About that time, right was rendered as ken, but more often rendered as kenri. That is, during the period when ken was mainly used
as the translating word of right, it meant in a word, power.
While how was another translating word of right, kenri? Outsuki Fumihiko's "Genkai (The Sea of words)" (1891) * put as follows:
kenri the power which can manage matters, within the limit of oneself. (opposite to obligation)
Although interpreted with seeming legal terms, after all it was explained as 'power'.
Right was however in the history of Western thought, rather strictly opposite meaning word to power. It was Hobbes in the middle of the seventeenth century who had become conscious of and pointed out the meaning of right. He explained in "Leviathan" on right and law that right was the liberty to do or not to do something, while law decided and restricted either of the two. After this famous indication, right took the place of natural law since ancient times. Natural law was the law which belongs to another order against the artificial law as I mentioned in the preceding chapter. Right succeeded this natural law through the thinking of Hobbies, Locks and Rousseau.
The jurisprudence which Nishi Amane studied in Dutch under Vissering was natural law, in the thinking of which right was strictly opposed to and distinguished from power. The jurisprudence of natural law was studied in Japan in the beginning of the Meiji era, soon after about 1880's, legal positivism which was dominant in Europe became the main current in Japanese legal scholars. Grounded on this theory, right does not signify to transcend power. Right is thought to be intention or profit given by law. Based on this thinking, right might be said to be power given by law, At least it is not at first power however.
Nishi Amane's early work, "Bankoku Kouhou (International Law)" (1868) was translated from the note of the lecture by Vissering. The beginning of this translation was as follows:
International law is a part of law, and it deals with ken which nations can toru * (take) each other, and duties which they should
perform.
Here, ken was opposed to duties, hence it meant kenri of today. And toru meant to seize power, which meaning Nishi Amane who was well read in Chinese classics ought to have known.
In the preceding year, Nishi had proposed to Tokugawa Yoshinobu the institution reform which would have been to meet the new ages. In the writing of this proposition, he wrote:
Summarizing my proposition, there are three points, the first is the ken of the Imperial court, the second is the ken of government and the third is the ken of feudal lords.
These ken were naturally all Chinese character 権 which meant power or authority. Why did Nishi render 'regt' as this word liable to be misunderstood?
Nishi said that he referred to "International Law" translated into Chinese by William Martin which was published and read in Japan. In this book Chinese character ken was already used. And in "Eika Jiten (English-Chinese Dictionary)" (1866-68), the author Lobsheid wrote in the description of right:
There were previous instances in Chinese translations.
Why did Nishi followed them? Did he carelessly follow the mistranslation? I do not think so. I think there were reasons that ken was used as the translating word of right, or that he was led to mistranslation.
That is, in the first place, regt was the term of public law. And the second, regt in Dutch, I believe, differently from right in English, had the meaning of law.
Let us look at the original text in Dutch corresponding with Nishi's translation mentioned above:
Volkenregt is dat gedeelte der regtswetenshap waarin de
wederzijdsche regten en verpligtingen tusschen de volken behandeld worden.
Nishi translated this supplementing with 'toru (take)', 'International law is a part of law, and it deals with ken which nations can toru each other, and duties which they should perform.' while in the original text, these 'law' and 'ken' are both expressed in a word 'regt'. Then if Nishi's translation is paraphrased leaving 'regt' only in Dutch:
International regt is a part of regt, and it deals with regt which nations can toru each other, and duties which they should perform.
'International regt' was based on nations' 'ken', which meant power, thereby 'regt' of 'regt which nations can toru each other' was suitable for expressing 'ken' − if Nishi thought thus, which seemed not so unnatural misunderstanding.
Nishi Amane used kenri as the translating word of right thereafter, at the same time he also used ken. For instance let us see "A Draft of the Constitution * " written by him a little later. Oukubo Toshiaki # who is the editor of "The complete works of Nishi Amane $ " (1951) said
this was written about 1970's. In which there were phrases like 'kenri of Japanese people', 'kenri and duties of people', while there were everywhere phrases like 'public ken and private ken of people', 'ken of possession' and 'ken of association and assembly'. On the other hand, there were terms of ken clearly different from the translating word of right, such as 'administrative ken' or 'legislative ken' etc.
Such way of using ken is nearly similar to today's way of using ken, except that there were one character word 'ken' a little more than today.
He wrote thus somewhere 'ken of possession' and about at the same time in the other place, wrote 'administrative ken'. People may say that he distinguished these two sorts of ken, namely saying 'ken of possession', it meant kenri of today, and 'administrative ken' meant power.
I believe however, that he was not conscious of such distinction, at least he could not be clearly conscious. Even though he was good at Dutch and studied in Holland, the Western language of his inner world must have been lesser than his mother tongue.
Before that time, in 1870, he made his student Nagami Hiroshi * write his political opinion, and published it entitled "Touei Mondou # (the
conversation under the lamp)", in which was written the followings:
In general, although every personal being has ken of liberty, if one became self-indulgent as she/he pleases, the government becomes nothing. People once elected their ruler and made their government, they should respect it. People once respect her/him and put her/him up for a ruler, they should entrust her/him with a part of divided ken that each of them has. Since they have entrusted the ruler, each of them should obey the ruler's order, not violate it and not let her/him-self free. The ruler, since she/he has kept a part of ken entrusted, she/he should make clear the rights and wrongs and not make people violate the law, this is the substance of the government.
The thinking 'people … entrust him with a part of divided ken that each of them has' and 'The ruler … has kept a part of ken entrusted' seems to be at a glance similar to the social contract theory by Hobbes and Rousseau, but completely different. 'Ken that each of them (people) has' must have been 'right'. Right as 'ken of liberty' however, cannot be entrusted to the ruler, and the ruler cannot take charge of it. Generally speaking, the ken entrusted and the ken took charge of are equal is when the ken toward the third party or toward property. If ken which was took charge of is thought to be right, it is ken restrict others or govern them, which are just opposite to ken of liberty.
Here, it was a Chinese character ken (権) that concealed the logical contradiction and made hold this funny logic. In this ken, the traditional meaning of power and the meaning of translating word, right were mixed, ken of 'each of people' was the latter, and ken of 'The ruler … kept a part of ken entrusted' was mainly the former. And the translating word ken concealed the mixture of both meaning, and Nishi himself who was speaking this was not conscious of it.
The word 'minken', I believe, seemed to have been misunderstood. In this word, two meanings were mixed, which people were not conscious of and used this word.
It began since "Jiyuu no ri (0n Liberty)" (1872) by Nakamura Masanao. In the title of the first chapter of this book was 'Long ago, rulers and people struggled for ken'. Namely, it can be understood that he thought rulers and people struggled only one ken. For instance, in this text the author wrote:
I will ask then, ken of people's independence and ken of government control, how are these two to be disposed of? And how are they to be arranged for?
Here, 'ken of people's independence' and 'ken of government control' were translated from 'individual independence' and 'social control' in the original text, the meaning of which could be said to correspond to 'right' and 'power'. It is remarkable here that Nakamura summarized them as antagonism between people's independence and government control in a ken.
Thus in those days, ken of people which was opposed ken of government began frequently to be used. People understood ken of government, they could not however understand ken of people. In "Yoriai banashi * (The chattering at a meeting)" by Sakakibara Isuke # (1874), the following
was written:
Well, teacher, that rule of mail is also said kendou * . It is strange, like ken of liberty and kendou, why is everything named with ken? In these days out of Mikenotsu is called Sakai ken or Hyogo ken or Shiga ken * , ken is everywhere in Japan, an estate becomes chiken * , the loans of feudal clans become shouken * .
Then, the 'teacher' replied:
Well now, this ken # means a balance. … Today is the time when the government is waiting for everyone of people so as to become heavy weighing about one hundred and fifty kin $ . I don't know
why, however, it seems to me that you are bowing and modest saying that about a hundred kin is sufficient for you.
These chattering described the circumstances that people of the day were suddenly given ken, could not understand it well and frequently spoke of it, in a word, ken was in fashion.
Soon 1970's, jiyuu minken (freedom and civil rights) movement became gaining force. In those days the meaning of right had fairly been understood well, however the fundamental situation that in ken of minken the traditional meaning and that of right were mixed, and that people were not conscious of it was still not so changed.
'Ken wo haru (spread ken)' or 'kenri wo haru (spread kenri)' were often used phrases by writings of the day. In "Minken country song" by Ueki Emori * repeated the phrases: 'Spread kenri country men … spread kenri and stretch freedom … spread and stretch freedom'. In "The history of Liberal Party" by Itagaki Taisuke # ,cited a dodoitsu song:
'a broken paper sliding door and my kenri, I must spread them before the autumn wind'. The phrase 'ken wo haru' was used in many articles of the day. The object of 'haru' is power or authority, and not right.
In Hepburn's dictionary mentioned above, KEN was translated as 'power, authority' and its example − 'wo hatte mono wo iu' was explained: 'to talk assuming an air of authority'.
Ken of Jiyuu minken was at first power rather than right, even if it was not equal to power, it was much similar to power.
Because right was once introduced first as the term of the public law by Nishi Amane in the beginning of modern era, after that its translating word ken must have unexpectedly deeply influenced upon minken movement. Minken campaigners demanded essentially the same ken as ken of government. For instance they demanded first ken of voting and so on to participate politics, such as ken of the fundamental human ken (rights) did not so much matter.
And because what was demanded was much similar to power, it was comparatively easily understood, it may have particularly fascinated descendants of samurai.
This may have concerned with the weakness of minken movement. When the movement was soon suppressed by ken of government, ken of movement had also missed. Or when ken of voting was insufficiently given by the Meiji constitution, ken which was not yet realized was missed. Since right is essentially abstract and invisible idea, even if concrete movement is suppressed, it must remain in the spirit of people. The history of the natural law and the natural rights in the West tells it. Ken which was thus fairly easy understood and even frightened by people meant more power than right. On the other hand however, it is also important that through these matters the meaning of right became understood. That is, people at first received ken, which at the same time implied the unknown meaning of seemingly right. And which became little by little understood. This is the way we Japanese have always received the imported cultures.
Today we use the word kenri, which is often expressed with a character ken, such as the same ken of woman and man, and ken to enjoy sunshine etc. The traditional meaning of ken is, I believe, still living. Right and tsuugi of Fukuzawa Yukichi have some connection with the meaning of moral righteousness, on the other hand our ken has inevitably some sense of thrusting or by force. For instance, when we mention this word in our daily life, we are apt to feel constrained. This word feeling is living in the concrete expression of this word in ordinary use.
