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Shuzo * Kuki and Jean-PaulSartre

Influence And Counter-Influence In TheEarly History Of Existential

Phenomenology

ByStephen Light

IncludingThe Notebook "Monsieur Sartre"

And Other Parisian Writings Of Shuzo Kuki

Edited and TranslatedBy

Stephen Light

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Foreword by Michel Rybalka

Published forThe Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc.

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESSCarbondale and Edwardsville

title:

Shåuzåo Kuki and Jean-PaulSartre : Influence andCounter-influence in theEarly History of ExistentialPhenomenology Journal ofthe History of PhilosophyMonograph Series

author:Light, Stephen.; Kuki,Shåuzåo

publisher:Southern Illinois UniversityPress

isbn10 | asin: 0809312719print isbn13: 9780809312719

ebook isbn13: 9780585033723language: English

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subject

Kuki, Shåuzåo,--1888-1941,Sartre, Jean Paul,--1905- ,Existential phenomenology,Time.

publication date: 1987lcc: B5244.K844L53 1987eb

ddc: 181/.12

subject:

Kuki, Shåuzåo,--1888-1941,Sartre, Jean Paul,--1905- ,Existential phenomenology,Time.

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For Tetsuo Kogawa and Osamu Mihashi

Copyright © 1987 by The Journal of the Historyof Philosophy, Inc.All rights reservedPrinted in the United States of AmericaEdited by Curtis L. ClarkDesigned by Cindy SmallProduction supervised by Natalia Nadraga

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicationData

Light, Stephen, dateShuzo Kuki and Jean-Paul Sartre: influence andcounter-influence in the early history of existen-tialphenomenology.(The Journal of the history of philosophy mono-graph series)"Including the notebook 'Monsieur Sartre' andotherParisian writings of Shuzo Kuki, edited andtranslatedby Stephen Light."Bibliography: p.Includes index.1. Kuki, Shuzo *, 1888-1941.2. Sartre, Jean Paul,1905- 3. Existential phenomenology. I. Kuki,Shuzo, 1888-1941. II. Title. III. Series.B5244.K844L53 1987 181'.12 86-11861ISBN 0-8093-1271-9 (pbk.)

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CONTENTS

The Journal of the History of Philosophy Monograph Series vii

Foreword

Michel Rybalka

ix

Preface

Richard H. Popkin

xiii

Acknowledgments xv

Part OneShuzo Kuki and Jean-Paul Sartre: Influence and Counter-Influence in the Early Historyof Existential Phenomenology

Stephen Light

1

Part TwoConsiderations on Time: Two Essays Delivered at Pontigny During the Décade of 8-18August 1928

Shuzo * Kuki

The Notion of Time and Repetition in Oriental Time 43

The Expression of the Infinite in Japanese Art 51

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Part ThreePropos on Japan

Shuzo * Kuki

Bergson in Japan 71

Japanese Theater 75

A Peasant He Is 77

The Japanese Soul 79

Time Is Money 81

In the Manner of Herodotus 83

Subject and Graft 85

Geisha 87

Two Scenes Familiar to Children 89

General Characteristics of French Philosophy 91

Part Four"Monsieur Sartre": A Notebook

Shuzo Kuki

99

Bibliography 145

Index 149

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THE JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OFPHILOSOPHYMONOGRAPH SERIES

THE JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF Philo-sophy Monograph Series, consisting of volumesof 80 to 120 pages, attempts to accommodateserious studies in the history of philosophy thatare between article length and standard booksize. Editors of learned journals have usuallybeen able to publish such studies only by trun-cating them or by publishing them in sections.In this series, the Journal of the History ofPhilosophy will present, in volumes publishedby Southern Illinois University Press, suchworks in their entirety.

The historical range covered by the Journal ofthe History of Philosophy Monograph Serieswill be the same as that covered by the Journalitselfthe range from ancient Greek philosophy tothat of the twentieth century. We anticipate in-cluding extended studies on given philosophers,ideas, and concepts, as well as analyses of textsor controversies and new documentary findingsabout various thinkers and events in the historyof philosophy.

The editors of the Monograph Series, RichardH. Popkin and Richard A. Watson, will drawupon the directors of the Journal of the Historyof Philosophy and other qualified experts toevaluate submitted manuscripts.

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We believe that a series of studies of this sizeand format will fulfill a genuine need of schol-ars in the history of philosophy, and we hope topresent important new studies and texts to thescholarly community.

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Page ix

FOREWORD

IT WAS GENERALLY KNOWN, THROUGHSimone de Beauvoir and Fernando Gerassi, thatJean-Paul Sartre had had substantial talks in thelate twenties with an unnamed Japanese philo-sopher who had just met Heidegger in Germany,and that, later on, Sartre had tried unsuccessfullyto obtain an assistantship in Japan. In 1966, dur-ing Sartre's stay in that country, it was learnedfrom him that his interlocutor was indeed thephilosopher Shuzo * Kuki, also known as BaronKuki because of his aristocratic descent. Thisintriguing East-West encounter remained,however, a mystery; when I investigated it inFrance a few years ago, I was unable to come upwith any precise information.1

Then, a miracle of research happened: StephenLight, a young American scholar from Berkeley,helped by his knowledge of French, by hisJapanese wife, and by his passion for philo-sophy, gained access, thanks to Professor AkioSato, to Kuki's papers, among which was a note-book marked "Monsieur Sartre." This notebookcontained a series of brief notes on Frenchphilosophy, and lo and behold! one page was inthe handwriting of Sartre himself, thus giving anunforeseen dimension to the whole document.

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In his well-researched introduction, StephenLight provides all necessary information aboutthe life and works of Baron Kuki and states thatKuki had weekly talks with Sartre during twoand a half months in 1928, very likely fromSeptember to November. These dates can beconfirmed from what we know of Sartre's sched-ule: in June 1928, he took the strenuous examin-ations for the agrégation de philosophie andfailed because he had attempted to develop aline of thinking which was considered too per-sonal; he had some vacations with his friendNizan in August, and returned to Paris towardsthe end of the summer, being thus free for histalks with Kuki.

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We know from the notebook what Sartre, moreor less, said to Kuki, or at least we are able toread what Kuki found useful to jot down in asometimes faulty French. It is likely that the ex-perienced Kuki asked the young Sartre (whowas then twenty-three) to tell him about thepresent state of French

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philosophy, and that Sartre, fresh from the com-prehensive preparation needed for agréga-tion,was happy to oblige, happy to make somemoney and to communicate his own personalideas and preferences. Sartre, for instance, men-tions an article by his former professor of philo-sophy at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Colonnad'Istria, and introduces remarks on communistsand radical-socialists. The presence of nameslike Proust, Valéry, and Breton associated withnames like Nietzsche, Alain, and Bergson showsclearly the importance that Sartre was alreadyattributing to the connection between philo-sophy and literature. Several pages are devotedto Descartes, Pascal, Valéry, but no mention ismade of Freud or Marx.

A comparison of Kuki's notes with his ratherpositivistic texts (to be found later in thisvolume) on the general characteristics of Frenchphilosophy or on Bergson clearly reveal, in myopinion, the difference between the Japanesephilosopher and Sartre. It is striking, for in-stance, that the page in Sartre's handwriting in-sists on negation and proposes, as it appears, adialectical approach to the problem of being andnothingness. The words "Première solution: Es-thétisme" linked to "pessimisme" refer alreadyto a major theme in Sartre's literary philosophy,and especially to his studies of Baudelaire, Gen-et, Mallarmé, and Flaubert.

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Kuki's notes can certainly be read as an abbrevi-ated text by Sartre (or as an interview), but itwould be difficult to find in them a central uni-fying vision or a clear delineation of whatSartre's philosophy will become later. In this re-spect, texts written by Sartre in 1927-28such ashis diplôme d'études supérieures thesis on theimage, such as his novel Une défaite (whereSartre sees himself in the situation of Nietzschein his relationship with Richard and CosimaWagner), such as the recently discovered essay"Er l'Arménien," based on book 10 of Plato'sRepublicprovide a much richer, a more explicitand more original material. 2

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Was there a meaningful dialogue between Sartreand Kuki? Was Sartre influenced by Kuki? Tomy knowledgebut this is to be verifiedthere isno written trace in Sartre's manuscripts of hisencounter with the Japanese philosopher. In hismature life, Sartre repeated time and again thathe thought that discussions among philosopherswere futile and unproductive and that inventionin philosophy could be achieved only throughwriting. The difference of age and of culture, thelanguage barrier, the apparent respect withwhich Kuki treated "Monsieur Sartre" wereprobably not conducive to an open exchange ofideas. We can surmise, however, that Kuki ex-plained to Sartre what he had heard about phe-nomenology in Germany and that this explana-tion had some importance in Sartre's furtherdevelopment.

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It is obvious today that the discovery of phe-nomenology by Sartre is not the simple affair re-lated by Simone de Beauvoir in her memoirs.Much before the famous meeting (in 1932) withRaymond Aron in front of a peach cocktail,Sartre displayed in several of his early writingsa strong predisposition to phenomenology andan acute sensitiveness to what will be definedlater as "existentialist" themes. On the otherhand, we know that the painter Fernando Ger-assi, who had studied philosophy in Germanuniversities, had told Sartre specifically aboutphenomenology and about Husserl and Heideg-ger when he met him in 1929. Thus, Shuzo *Kuki is without a doubt an early and importantlink in Sartre's progress toward a philosophy offreedom: through Kuki's notebook, we learn thatin 1928 already people were in a "triste et neur-asthénique" state of mind, but that finally, "ilfaut croire à la liberté."

It would be unjust (some would say europo-centric) to limit Kuki to his encounter withSartre. He is obviously a major figure in Japan-ese philosophy, and we should be grateful toStephen Light for introducing us to his work.

MICHEL RYBALKA

Notes

1. The extensive biography of Sartre by AnnieCohen-Solal, published in October 1985 by Gal-limard, does not mention this episode at all.

2. The text of Une défaite and of "Erl'Arménien," edited by Michel Contat and me,will be published in 1986 by Gallimard in avolume entitled Les Ecrits de jeunesse deSartre.

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Page xiii

PREFACE

WHEN STEPHEN LIGHT FIRST TOLD MEof the relationship between Jean-Paul Sartre andShuzo * Kuki, and of the existence of Kuki'snotebook of conversations with Sartre, I thoughtit was an interesting historical curiosity that de-served to be explored, and I encouraged him todo so. (Light is married to Naoko Haruta, aJapanese artist, and through her he was able tomake contact with the Japanese academicianswho have given him Kuki's notebook, plusmuch additional information.) When he sent methe first draft of his paper, along with a photo-copy of the notebook, I was truly amazed at thecross-cultural relationships involved, and at therole Baron Kuki of Japan, studying in Germanyand France, played in bringing Sartre first intocontact with Heidegger's and Husserl's thought,and then introducing Sartre to Heidegger. Later,when Light sent me copies of the talks and writ-ings Kuki produced in France at the time, I real-ized there was more here than could be

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contained in one article. Yet it all had to be readtogether to appreciate the picture of an intellec-tual explosion taking place as a result of theSartre and Kuki meeting in 1928.

The conclusions that flow from Light's accountseemed to me so revolutionary and importantthat I suggested he send his original draft to sev-eral specialists in existentialist and phenomeno-logical thought for their reaction. They all ex-pressed amazement and excitement about whathe had found. My colleague, Michel Rybalka,who has devoted so much time and energy toSartre scholarship, then agreed to write aforeword.

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In considering what form of publication to re-commend to Light, I realized the material he hadput togetherhis article, the Kuki-Sartre note-book, and Kuki's French talks and writings of1928was too much for a single journal article,yet too little for a conventional book. It occurredto me that sometimes scholars cannot condensetheir findings to 30-40 pages of journal printingand would be stretching their material to expandit to the conventional 200 pages for a book.What was needed was something between these

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Page xiv

two extremes: a monograph size roughly 80 to120 pages for certain kinds of presentations. Atthe 1984 meeting of the Board of Directors ofthe Journal of the History of Philosophy,Ipresented a plan for such a monograph series toinclude Light's work, a study on Hume that willfollow, and other such writings. The Boardagreed to commence such a series, and so I amhappy to present its first volume.

This particular study, presenting an importantdiscovery about the history of modern philo-sophy, provides an excellent beginning for theJournal of the History of Philosophy Mono-graph Series. Not only is it a fine piece of workin its own right, it also should make us aware ofcurrents of influence that do not fit into precon-ceived modes. We are too used to studying de-velopments of philosophical movements primar-ily in terms of antecedents within their own cul-tures, or in terms of influences of adjacent cul-tures. Stephen Light's findings should make usaware that more distant cultural meetings canand do occur, and may have significant con-sequences in the history of thought. Perhapsonce we assimilate the significance of the taletold by Light, we can explore what has obvi-ously been happening through European colon-ization and imperialism and through the disloca-tion of intellectuals caused by wars, revolutions,and tyrannies, as well as by the spirit of

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adventure, and find many more cases in whichsuch unexpected cross-cultural fertilization hasoccurred. It is a genuine pleasure to have beenable to encourage Stephen Light and to workwith him and with my colleagues Richard A.Watson and Michel Rybalka in arranging thismonograph series and bringing this volume tofruition.

RICHARD H. POPKINWASHINGTON UNIVERSITY,ST. LOUIS

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NAOKO HARUTA, PROFESSOR AKIOSATO * and Professor Richard Popkinwithoutthem this book could not have appeared. Thank-ful that Shuzo* Kuki can today come before anew audience, I am gratefully indebted to them,and especially to Professor Richard Popkin forhis gracious interest and efforts on behalf of thisvolume.

The notebook ''Monsieur Sartre" is reproducedwith the kind permission of the Shuzo KukiArchive at Konan* University (Kobe*, Japan)and of its director, Professor Akio Sato.

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PART ONESHUZO * KUKI AND JEAN-PAULSARTREINFLUENCE AND COUNTER-INFLUENCE IN THEEARLY HISTORY OF EXISTENTIALPHENOMENOLOGY

ByStephen Light

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IN JAPAN IT HAS LONG BEEN SAID THATTHE Japanese philosopher Shuzo * Kuki(1888-1941) while in France in the 1920s hadengaged a French student as a language tutor.This student was said to have been a philosophystudent at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, oneJean-Paul Sartre.1 The interest in this matterhas, of course, rested on the role Kuki, longversed in phenomenology and fresh from meet-ings with and studies on Husserl in Freiburg andstudies with Heidegger in Marburg, might haveplayed in turning Sartre's attention towards Ger-man phenomenology.2 The question has been ofall the more interest because Simone deBeauvoir's second volume of memoirs, La Forcede l'âge,has always been taken as a definitiveaccount of Sartre's early philosophical develop-ment, recounting as it does that Sartre's interestin phenomenology was first sparked in 1932 byRaymond Aron, who, back from studies at theFrench Institute in Berlin, had spoken in a café

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on the rue Montparnasse to Sartre of Husserland phenomenology. Sartre, eager to informhimself on the subject, rushed out to purchaseEmmanuel Levinas's book on Husserl and"leafed through the volume as he walked along,without even cutting the pages."3

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In fact, Kuki did meet Sartre in Paris, but notexactly in the context of having engaged a lan-guage tutor. Rather Kuki, desiring a partner withwhom to discuss French philosophy, was direc-tedmost probably by Emile Bréhier(1876-1952), then professor of philosophy at theSorbonneto the student Sartre4. Sartre himself,when he was in Tokyo in 1966, confirmed thisin an interview with Takehiko Ibuki. In responseto Ibuki's query about his encounter with Kuki,Sartre replied that when he had been in his thirdor fourth year at the Ecole Normale, he andKuki had met weekly for the two and a halfmonths Kuki had been in Paris and had dis-cussed French philosophy from Descartes toBergson. Sartre also confirmed the fact thatKuki had

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in the course of their discussions brought up thesubject of Heidegger and phenomenology, not-ing that "Kuki . . . was very enthusiastic aboutHeidegger." 5

Clearly then, Kuki, a number of years beforeAron, had articulated for Sartre the nature of thenewly emergent German philosophy. In fact, theJapanese philosopher Takehiko Kojima hasnoted that when Sartre, impelled by Aron, ar-ranged to succeed Aron at the French Institute inBerlin in 1933, he traveled to Germany bearinga letter of introduction to Heidegger from Kuki.6

We have, thus, in this meeting between Shuzo*Kuki and the then youthful Jean-Paul Sartre, aremarkable circumstance, one all the more inter-esting, as familiarity with Kuki will soon show,because of a series of striking similaritiesbetween Kuki and Sartre. Who then was ShuzoKuki? the Western reader will ask. Kuki wasborn in Tokyo in 1888, the fourth son of Ryui-chi* Kuki, later Baron Kuki, one time memberof the Japanese delegation in Washington, D.C.Kuki began his higher education in German law,although he had earlier exhibited an interest inbotany (an interest he would sustain throughouthis life). Upon entering Daiichi Kotogakko*(First Higher School)the Japanese equivalent ofthe (at that time) French lycée Henri-IV or lycéeLouis-le-GrandKuki changed over to the hu-manities (bunka).7 Kuki completed his studies atDaiichi Kotogakko in 1909 and in the fall of thatsame year entered the philosophy department atTokyo University. There he studied with

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Raphael von Koeber (1848-1923), "Koeber Sen-sei,"a Russian of German extraction who hadbeen teaching in Japan since 1893 and who hadexerted influence on an entire generation ofJapanese philosophy students. Graduating in1912, Kuki began graduate studies in philo-sophy in the same year, subsequently finishingat Tokyo University in 1917. In 1918 he marriedhis brother's widow, and in 1921, under the aus-pices of the Japanese Department of Education,he and his wife left for Europe. There he wouldspend the next eight years, studying first atHeidelberg, then at the Sorbonne, and later atFreiburg and Marburg.

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In October of 1922 Kuki attended the neo-Kan-tian Heinrich Rickert's lectures "From Kant toNietzsche: An Historical Introduction to theProblem of the Present" at HeidelbergUniversity, and at the same time engaged Rick-ert as a private tutor in order to read Kant's Cri-tique of Pure Reason.8In addition, he also stud-ied Kant with Eugen Herrigelhimself laterknown for his short book based on his experi-ences in Japan, Zen in the Art of Archeryattend-ingthe German philosopher's lectures on "Kant'sTranscendental Philosophy."

After a trip to Switzerland and to Dresden in thespring of 1923, Kuki

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returned to Heidelberg in May 1923 and onceagain attended Rickert's lectures, this time thesummer lectures bearing the title "Introductionto Epistemology and Metaphysics," and parti-cipated in Rickert's seminar on "The Concept ofIntuition." Kuki, it should be noted, was not theonly Japanese philosopher in Heidelberg at thistime. He had been joined by his friend Teiyu *Amano (1888-1980), and, in addition, Jiro*Abe* (18831959), Hyoe* Ouchi* (1888-1966),Mukyoku Naruse (1885-1958), Goro* Hani(1901-), and Kiyoshi Miki (1897-1945) all werein attendance at Heidelberg.9 In fact, the Ger-man philosopher Hermann Glockner, thenRickert's assistant, would later in his memoirsspeak of various Japanese philosophers in resid-ence in Heidelberg in the early 1920s: "One dayRickert surprised me with the news that he hadnow decided to take on a Japanese visitor inprivate study: an extremely well-to-do samurai,who had asked to read the Critique of Pure

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Reason with him. This gentleman, of unusuallydistinguished bearing, appeared entirely differ-ent from his fellow countrymen: of tall, slenderfigure, he had a somewhat small face, an almostEuropean nose, and hands of extremely delicateproportion. His name was Kuki. . . ." Kuki'sprivate study with Rickert was not without influ-ence, albeit an indirect one, on Rickert himself.Occasioned to once again take up the later Kant,Rickert, Glockner writes, ''daily made new dis-coveries." "Compared to Kant," Rickert anim-atedly tells Glockner, "Plato is only a beginner-and Hegel and Schopenhauer have much toocarelessly thrown over the fundamentals of Kan-tianism. All recent philosophers, insofar as theyare of any use, return to Kant."10 (I cannot helpbut note parenthetically that Kuki, never a par-tisan of neo-Kantianism, would not have en-tirely agreed with this reassertion of the neo-Kantian motto.)

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Kuki left Heidelberg in August 1923 andtraveled to the Alps. His botanical interests hav-ing remained with him, he spent much time col-lecting plants, thus joining a tradition of whichRousseau and Goethe are the better knownnames. In the autumn of 1924 Kuki journeyed toParis.11 There he would remain until the springof 1927, engaged in the study of French philo-sophy (he would begin attending lecture coursesat the University of Paris in October 1925), inthe preparation of two philosophicalmanuscripts later to become two of his most im-portant works, and in the composition of a seriesof poetic manuscripts which he would beginsending to Japan for publication.

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Thus it was that Kuki in April 1925 sent a seriesof tankastraditional Japanese short poemsbear-ing the title Pari Shinkei (Spiritual Views ofParis) to the Japanese journal Myojo*where theywould later be published. During the course of1925 and 1926 Kuki sent three other series ofpoems,

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this time poems in open form, to the same journ-al, series bearing the respective titles Pari noMado (Window on Paris), Pari Shinkei (Spiritu-al Views of Paris), and Pari no Negoto *(ParisSleep-Talking).12

In December 1926 Kuki finished a manuscript,Iki no Honshitsu (The Essence of Iki), the firstdraft of what would later become his classicwork Iki no Kozo* (The Structure of Iki), firstpublished in 1930.13 Before leaving Paris forFreiburg in April 1927 Kuki also completed an-other manuscript, Oin* ni Tsuite (On Rhyming),a manuscript which would subsequently becomeanother key work in his oeuvre, Nihonshi no Oin(Rhyming in Japanese Poetry).14

In Freiburg Kuki studied phenomenology withOskar Becker and was able to meet a number oftimes with Edmund Husserl. It would be atHusserl's home that he would meet MartinHeidegger.15 Thus, in November 1927 Kukimoved to Marburg in order to attendHeidegger's lectures, "Phenomenological Invest-igations of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason,"aswell as Heidegger's seminar, "Schelling's Treat-ise on the Essence of Human Freedom."In thespring of 1928 Kuki attended Heidegger's lec-tures on "Leibniz' Logic" and Heidegger's sem-inar, "Phenomenological Studies: Interpretationsof Aristotle's Physics."If Heidegger's philosophyfound an admirer in Kuki, Kuki in turn left alasting impression on Heidegger.16 Years laterHeidegger would pay Kuki lasting homage andwould recount the discussions in which the twohad engaged at his, Heidegger's, home, discus-sions in which Kuki had attempted to convey toHeidegger the results of his philosophical

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investigations on iki.17 It was in Marburg toothat Kuki became friends with another philo-sopher, Karl Löwith, then Heidegger's assistant.Later, in 1936, Kuki would be responsible forsecuring Löwith a post at Tohoku ImperialUniversity in Sendai, a position Löwith wouldhold from 1936 to 1941.18

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Kuki returned to Paris in June of 1928. InAugust he was invited by the French writer andscholar Paul Desjardinsmember along withHenri Bergson and Jean Jaurès of the famedpromotion of 1878 at the Ecole NormaleSupérieure and founder and organizer of thefamous décades held at Pontignyto participate ina philosophical décade on "Man and Time. Re-petition in Time. Immortality or Eternity."19Here at Pontigny on August 11 and on August17, 1928, Kuki delivered two lectures, one on"The Notion of Time and Repetition in OrientalTime," the other on "The Expression of the In-finite in Japanese Art." These two lectures sub-sequently constituted Kuki's book Propos sur letemps,published in Paris in 1928.20

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The first décade of the summer of 1928: we canimagine the setting. In the audience are Gide,Martin du Gard, the German Curtius, the Russi-an Berdyaev, the Englishman Strachey; hostingare Desjardins and du Bos; on

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hand to make presentations are Dominique Par-odi, Emile Namer, Alexandre Koyré, VladimirJankélévitch, and fresh from success in theagrégation, (a success his "petit camarade"Jean-Paul Sartre had not found), the youthfulRaymond Aron. At the head of the room aspeaker from a foreign land, in immaculatedress, is reciting in French a celebrated Japanesepoem: " ' . . . where those who know and thosewho do not know each other meet. . . .'" Thepoem concluded, the speaker pauses, and thenbegins a commentary: "Again, an example of'time lost' and of 'time remembered.' It is that in-stant when two roads meet. . . . It is the momentof a present of infinite plentitude. . . . It is theblessed moment when one soul interrogates an-other soul. . . . It is also this moment which wepass here in this salon in Pontigny, here where Ispeak to you of a verse of Semimaru, where wewonder if we might not have lived this momentbefore, if we might not live it again. . . Let us

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leave it to our venerable blind Semimaru tomeditate on the problem of chance and circulartime. Let us pray that he now takes up his biwaand plays us an ancient Yamato air."

At Pontigny Kuki himself offered up the har-monies of the Yamato air, presented two superbdiscussions of Japanese culture, discussionsbearing the imprint of an erudition ranging overmany aspects of Japanese art and literature; of aphilosophical conception of time marked byGerman phenomenology that, if here onlytouched upon, must nevertheless have markedone of the very first, if not the first, public dis-cussions in France of Heidegger's recent reflec-tions on temporality in Sein und Zeit;and of anappreciation for and a mastery of just that liter-ary culture represented by La Nouvelle RevueFrançaise and that musical culture representedby French impressionism constituting the pre-dominant orientation of his audience at Pon-tigny. 21

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In the first essay of Propos sur le temps,Kukiaims not at a sustained analysis of time. Rather,the discussion of time aims at the vindication ofthat 'will' found in Bushido*(as I shall have oc-casion to discuss in more detail below), aims atthe derivation of an ethic on the basis of contin-gent existence. Thus, given the ethical context,it is quite natural that Kuki finds in"anticipation" the "most important characteristicof time."22

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Kuki speaks of "anticipation" in time with refer-ence to Guyau and Heidegger (and HermannCohen). Guyau (1854-1888), a moral philosoph-er of great talent whose life was cut short at theage of thirty-three, saw in time the growth of ex-perience. Countering the Kantian notion inwhich time was the condition of experience,Guyau saw in time the result of that very experi-ence. Thus, time, being considered in this philo-sophy of life the "concrete order of our experi-ence," must be analyzed not in relation to theoutward world of motion, transformation, andevent, but in terms of mem-

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ory, imagination, and will. 23 If then Kuki, at-tempting to vindicate the will in Bushido*attent-ive,thus, to notions tying time to the willhas feltthe impact not only of Guyau's critique of Kant,but of Bergson's as well (of Bergson's critique oftime as empty and homogeneous milieu), it isquite natural that he will find congenial the re-cent Heideggerian notion whereby in a triadicstructure of ekstases past, present, and futureconstituting time, the essential moment of tem-porality is located in the future. As will becomeapparent more fully below, elemental in the eth-ic here to be derived is the motto "Let not yourencounters take place in vain!"

Appropriate Western notions surveyed, Kukiturns to those oriental notions in which time isconsidered dependent on the will, notions foundprimarily in Indian texts. Thus, Kuki begins hisdiscussion of time by writing: "If one has theright to speak of 'oriental time,' it seems it canbe a question of nothing other than the time oftransmigration."24 Periodic time, the "time oftransmigration," poses liberation from "thewheel of time," liberation from the endless cycleof reincarnated births, as a goal. And this ques-tion of the liberation from time gives Kuki theopportunity of setting Buddhism and Bushido inopposition, an opposition which, however, is setup only in terms of "their basic tendencies."''There cannot be the least question," Kukiwrites, "of denying the great value ofBuddhism." "We owe an eminent part of ouroriental civilization to Buddhism." With this inmind, Kuki, to the nirvana*of Indian inspira-tion, to deliverance from repetitive time by

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means of the intellect, by means of the denial oftime, to this Buddhistic intellectualism, Kuki of-fers the voluntarism of Bushido: a moral ideal-ism, an immanent, not transcendent, liberationfrom timean unconcern with time "in order tolive, truly live, in the indefinite repetition of thearduous search for the true, the good, the beauti-ful."25

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With the beautiful we move to the second essaycontained in Propos sur le temps,"The Expres-sion of the Infinite in Japanese Art." The beauti-ful, liberation par excellence from time: in mov-ing from moral idealism to the absolute idealismof Japanese art, "the inward art of Yamato,"Kuki moves from the infinite striving of thegood will found in Bushido,to the sensuous ex-pression of the infinite, from eternal striving tothe "beautiful image of eternity." Here in theaesthetic realm Kuki is no longer concernedwith viewing Buddhism and Bushido from thestandpoint of their opposition; rather, in takingup a Japanese art of pure spirituality, he takes upan art whose nature derives from a triple source,the mysticism of Indian religion (Buddhism),the pantheism of Chinese philosophy, andBushido, the "cult of the absolute spirit."

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In referring to this "triple source," an under-standing of which alone enables an understand-ing of Japanese art,26 Kuki, as the openingquotation

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of his essay shows, follows the analyses of Kak-uzo * Okakura's sagacious introduction ofJapanese art to the West, The Ideals of theEast,a study, written directly in a fine and lyric-al English, which appeared in 1905.27 HereOkakura poses Indian religion and Chinesephilosophy as the twin pillars of one single edi-fice, Asian culture: Asia is one. And in this per-spective it became the privilege of Japan to real-ize with especial clearness this "unity-in-com-plexity" of Asian culture. Kuki, of course, is nothere concerned with the question of the unity ofAsian culture. But he is concerned with the util-ization of an idealist heritage. Thus, his quota-tion from Okakura: "The history of Japanese artbecomes the history of Asiatic ideals."28

Okakura had written: "Japanese art ever sincethe days of the Ashikaga masters, though sub-jected to slight degeneration in the Toyotomiand Tokugawa periods, has held steadily to theOriental Romantistic idealthat is to say, the ex-pression of the spirit as the highest effort in art.This spirituality, with us, was not the asceticpurism of the early Christian fathers, nor yet theallegorical idealisation of the pseudo-renais-sance. It was neither a mannerism, nor a self-re-straint. Spirituality was conceived as the essenceor life of a thing, the characterisation of the soulof things, a burning fire within."29 The rise ofthe Ashikaga shoguns to power in the middle ofthe fourteenth centuryinitiating, thus, the Mur-omachi period (1392-1573)represents an import-ant turn: Japan's reopening of intercourse withChina and the concomitant influence uponJapanese art of Sung culture and of Zen; the de-velopments in ink painting represented above allby Sesshu*; the rise to maturity of a national

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music as well as the development of No* drama.The aesthetic ideal of the period: "Beauty . . . orthe life of things, is always deeper as hiddenwithin than as outwardly expressed, even as thelife of the universe beats always underneath in-cidental appearances. Not to display, but to sug-gest, is the secret of infinity."30

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What for Kuki is the meaning of Japanese art? Itis "the idealist expression of the infinite in thefinite."31 And in his discussion of Japanese artin Propos sur le temps,Kuki in a series of de-tailed analyses finds in all the realms of Japan-ese art techniques perfectly suited for the ex-pression of just that metaphysical and spiritualexperience lying at the bottom of these arts, theliberation from space and time to be found in In-dian mysticism and Chinese pantheism. The lib-eration from time is everywhere accomplishedin Japanese poetry and music. The liberationfrom space is accomplished in the plastic arts,above all in ink painting, an ink paintingwherein a taste for simplicity and a nostalgia forthe infinite serve in the perfect realization of thevery "aesthetic of suggestion" characteristic ofthe "inward art."

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In Kuki's little Parisian volume, then, are dis-played, even in a language not his own, senti-ments whose flavor will be apparent in all hissubsequent

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works, an "I-know-not-what" flavor which willeverywhere give the reader the feeling of havingbeen truly and genuinely charmed.

While in Paris Kuki also authored a number ofshort pieces akin in theme to Propos sur letemps.With these pieces we find similarity to thepropos of the French philosopher Alain (nom deplume of Émile Chartier [1868-1951]), a genrecreated by him. Early in his career Alain beganwriting a series of short entries for a French pro-vincial newspaper in Rouen. Limiting himself totwo pages, Alain wrote almost without stop andalmost without correction. Anecdotal, aphorist-ic, at once philosophic and literary, the proposcould be called an essay in miniature, if it werenot that the very use of the word "essay" wouldalready encroach on the sui generis character ofthe propos.Genre unto itself, the propos wouldbe improperly translated if rendered "remarks,"or even if rendered more formally as "considera-tions." In Alain's work each propos became aworld unto itself, and yet each propos could be-come the part of a greater whole. The proposbecame the building block of this genuis of

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French prose, the building block of each of hismarvelously lucid and unified works. For Alain,"whose richness [was] thought," the propos wasan ideal form, enabling him to ''spread [histhought] everywhere" (Valéry).

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Kuki, consummate master of a French culture ofwhich Alain was an essential part, found hisown thoughts flowing with marvelous ease intothis form par excellence, the propos.Thus, wewill find his propossome of which, the one on"Théâtre Japonais," for example, seeming tohave been written with inclusion in Propos surle temps in mindserving as prisms throughwhich the thoughts of Propos sur le temps(where, however, Propos signified only "re-marks") are spread in renewed refraction. Thepiece on "Japanese Theater" carries Kuki's ana-lysis of the expression of the infinite in Japaneseart into the realm of theater; the pieces on the"Japanese Soul," and on "Two Pictures Familiarto Children," take up Kuki's discussion of moralidealism; the piece entitled "Geisha" alreadyhints at Kuki's analysis of iki.

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English translations of Propos sur le temps andKuki's propos pieces appear in the presentvolume, along with translation of one otherpiece, Kuki's "Caractères généraux de la philo-sophie française," originally a lecture deliveredin both Japanese and French in Japan in 1930 atthe Japanese-French Cultural Society. 32

Kuki's charm, his unique sensibility, can serveto highlight the sui generis place occupied byKuki in the world of modern Japanese philo-sophy and letters. When Kuki ultimately re-turned to Japan in 1929 he received a post atKyoto University.33 There he joined on thephilosophical faculty Kitaro* Nishida(1870-1945), whom Kuki in an article onBergson had already

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referred to as "perhaps the most profoundthinker in Japan today," and Hajime Tanabe(1885-1962). 34 But even though the relationsbetween Nishida, Kuki, and Tanabe were thoseof the highest mutual esteem, Kuki never be-longed to the Kyoto School. Kuki, like Nishida,had assimilated Husserlian phenomenology, butunlike Nishida, he remained distant from Hegel-ian phenomenology. Professor HisayukiOmodaka in speaking of the intellectualism ofNishida and the voluntarism of Tanabeand thusof the strains of speculative Indian philosophy inNishida and Chinese practical philosophy inTanabemarks off Kuki's philosophy by the im-portance there given affectivity.35 Omodakamakes particular reference to Kuki's concernwith those aspects of Japanese culture such asiki and furyu*.

Mention has, of course, already been made ofthe element of detachment in iki. Furyu,a wordmade up of the characters fu*(wind) andryu*(flowing) and designating refined elegance,also signifies a form of detachment. In a studyof furyu Kuki describes the transcendent charac-ter of the "free person of furyu"as that of a "cur-rent of wind" (kaze no nagare).36But it is im-portant to emphasize that this is not a questionof an other-worldliness, nor is it a question ofthe extreme aestheticism of, for instance,Huysman's Des Esseintes. We do not have herethe detachment of the mystic or eremite, ratherwe have the detachment of the flâneur.And inthe flâneur we have in many respects Kuki him-self: "I wish to contemplate (shisakusuru),to feel(kankakusuru),to yearn (shokeisuru),wandering,with a few readers, the little path between philo-sophy and literature, seeking fervently the etern-al tranquility of truth and beauty."37 Philosoph-ical flâneur,Kuki took the "little path.'' Thus, as

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the Japanese philosopher Tetsuo Kogawa hasnoted: "too liberal for those adhering to theNishida-Tanabe line of Japanese idealism, . . .too artistic for those of Marxist circles, . . . henever belonged to any mainstream, right orleft."38

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A philosophical flâneur upon the "little path"butmistake should not be made as to the nature ofthis flneur's contemplations. And here I may citethe rigor of thought characteristic of an earlierstroller, the original Peripatetikos*.We have inKuki a rare combination, one in which "delicateand passionate sentiments are linked to a calmand rigorous reason." Kuki held it a "crime tofashion a veil of grey philosophy." "I am too tor-mented by my passions," he writes, "to live inthe grey world of abstractions."39 Partisan of theBergsonian critique of abstract rationalism ("Toseize the palpitation of life, to feel the shiver oflife, that is philosophy," Kuki writes), Kuki isthe author of a philosophy of which may be saidexactly what has elsewhere been said ofBergson's, that it "submits itself to the exigen-cies of language whose exactitude require acomplete analysis in order to translate preciselythat which resists analysis."40 Dialectical rigor,meticulous and precise, will

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animate Kuki's works, works woven with a lan-guage whose gossamer-like purity will carry inits threads the marvelous clarity of his ideas.Sublime aesthetic sentiment, the rigor of philo-sophical calmthese will be found forever unitedin the "passages" of Kuki's ouevre.

In the autumn of 1928 Kuki once again visitedHenri Bergson, whom he had come to knowduring his first visit in Paris. At Bergson's homehe met Frédéric Lefevre of Les Nouvelles Lit-téraires,to which Kuki would subsequently con-tribute an article on the occasion of Bergson's1928 reception of the Nobel Prize for literature.The article Kuki contributed, "Bergson au Ja-pon"also included in the present volumecan incertain respects be considered a philosophicalself-portrait, revealing the unique developmentwhereby Japanese philosophy was led from neo-Kantianism to Husserlian phenomenology byway of the Bergsonian intuition. 41

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With Kuki's return to Paris, we return to his en-counter with Sartre. When did they in fact meet?Several different dates have been proposed:1925, 1926, and 1928.42 Sartre, as noted earlier,spoke of the meeting as having taken place dur-ing his "third or fourth year at the Ecole Nor-male," which would correspond to the academicyear of either 1926-27 or 1927-28. The date oftheir meeting is important because if Kuki metSartre in 1928, rather than during his earlier stayin Paris, the meeting would have been after thepublication of Sein und Zeit and after Kuki'sstudies in Freiburg and Marburg on and withHusserl and Heideggerin other words, afterKuki's full assimilation not only of Husserlianphenomenology but also of the new hermeneut-ical variation represented by Heidegger.

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That the date of their meeting was 1928, some-time after Kuki's return to Paris in June of 1928,is, however, something that can be determined.In Kuki's private library, unexamined until itwas organized by Professor Akio Sato* in 1976during the preparation of the Shuzo* KukiArchive at Konan* University in Kobe*,43 anotebook of Kuki's (approximately eight by sixinches in size) with brown cover bearing theheading Sarutoru-shi,that is to say, "MonsieurSartre," was discovered. This notebook con-tained notes (primarily in French with a fewscattered jottings in Japanese) on what were ob-viously the various topics Kuki and Sartre dis-cussed during their weekly meetings referred toby Sartre in his 1966 interview in Tokyo. Whatis more, one of the pages of the notebook was inSartre's own hand! Here was happy confirma-tion of, and hitherto unsuspected insight into,the nature of the Kuki-Sartre encounter.44

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The notebook, however, carried no date on anyof its pages. Indeed, outside of a few seeminglypersonal reminders in Japanese"which book,""typewriter," and so forth (the most interestingof which reminders was an entry, on the ninthpage of the text, reading "Chartier's address,"leading

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one to wonder when and if Kuki met the Frenchphilosopher Alain)there were only the thirty-fivepages of entries on the philosophical discus-sions. Thus, it seemed that the exact date ofKuki and Sartre's meeting would as yet remainunknown. But already on the first page ofentries a reference to Julien Benda's La Trahisondes clercs,published in 1927, can be found, andon the fourth page of text there is reference toAndré Breton's Nadja.Thus, the riddle can besolved, for an excerpt of Nadja appeared in LaRevolution Surréaliste (no. 11) in March 1928,the book itself appearing later that year. Sartreand Kuki must, then, have met sometimebetween Kuki's return to Paris in June 1928 andhis subsequent departure for Japan in December1928.

It was noted earlier that Sartre in his interviewwith Takehiko Ibuki said that he and Kuki hadmet weekly for the "two and a half months Kukiwas in Paris." The remark is, of course, inaccur-ate as regards Kuki's stay in Paris, for Kuki wasin Paris for more than two and a half months.Yet, perhaps not so inaccurate as all that. Kukiand his wife returned to Paris, as MadameKuki's journal shows, on the evening of May 31,1928. From August 11, Kuki was at Pontignyfor the philosophical décade and returned toParis, after vacationing at the French seaside, onSeptember 6, 1928. Kuki and his wife then de-parted for Japan on December 9, 1928. Thus,either the period from Kuki's return to Paris thelast day of May until his departure for Pontignyin August or the period from his return to Parisin September until his departure for Japan inDecember could correspond to Sartre's "two anda half months Kuki was in Paris." Which ofthese periods to choose then? Perhaps, having

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just returned from fourteen months in Germany,Kuki was anxious to brush up on his Frenchconversation skills. This would account forEmile Bréhier's remark, previously cited, imply-ing that Kuki was, in part, looking for practicein employing his French. But in view of Kuki'slanguage skills, his previous three-year stay inParis, and Sartre's denial that he had served as alanguage tutor, this does not seem altogetherlikely. It is more likelyand this, again, merely toattempt to give a reason for choosing the firstperiod referred to aboveKuki simply sought toonce more immerse himself in French philo-sophy (such version would not be inconsistentwith Emile Bréhier's remark). On the otherhand, in the "Monsieur Sartre" notebook, refer-ence is made to Georges Friedmann and PierreMorhange, members of a group of young left-wing philosophers to which Sartre's lycée andnow Ecole Normale companion Paul Nizan alsobelonged. 45 And written beside Friedmann's

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name is a parenthetical note reading ''camaradede Jankélévitch." As we noted earlier, VladimirJankélévitch, substituting for his former teacherLéon Brunschvicgdetained in Pariswas, alongwith Kuki, one of the participants in the August1928 philosophical décade at

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Pontigny. 46 May we take this to mean thatKuki's notebook and, thus, his meetings withSartre date from after Kuki's appearance at Pon-tigny? We might do so only if we knew for cer-tain that Kuki had not met or come to know ofJankélévitch prior to his, Kuki's, participation atPontigny, and if we knew whether the parenthet-ical note was a note of Kuki's or a note based ona remark of Sartre'swhich is to say, if we knewthat which cannot be fully known. Thus, we areleft with the choice between the period beforeand the period after Kuki's visit to Pontigny.

Nonetheless, with the discovery of Kuki's"Monsieur Sartre" notebook, we are givenKuki's confirmation of Sartre's account of theirmeetings on French philosophy, as well as ac-cess, muffled though it may be, to these verymeetings. Many of the entries in this notebook-listings of articles and books, listings of variouswriters and philosophers, notes on aspects ofthese, and so forthhave all the appearance ofnotes jotted down during an ongoing conversa-tion (the entry in Sartre's hand indicates this),while others could well have been written inpreparation for, or following upon, a discussion.There is, of course, no definitive way of inter-preting all of the various entries in the notebook,which is to say, no definitive way of giving thecontent of the discussions in question. It fol-lows, then, that there is also no definitive way ofdetermining in every case to what (or whom) theentries ought be attributed, to a remark of

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Sartre's or to a thought of Kuki's (this for thoseentries appearing to come from a conversation).

Of course, each entry determines its own rangeof possible interpretations. Here the way inwhich one positions the speakers in the discus-sion in question is crucial in determining an in-terpretation. How weigh the differences in ageand intellectual development? Kuki was forty,Sartre twenty-three. How weigh Kuki's positionas foreign visitor? Is this or that entry a functionof Kuki making inquiry of, or statement to,Sartre in regard to an aspect of French philo-sophy or culture, or a function of Sartre seekingto inform his foreign visitor of something he,Sartre, might have felt important? Such ques-tions could be multiplied.

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Best, it seems, to imagine the several possibilit-ies in each case; then, discarding and altering asmay be necessary, arrive at an approximate pic-ture. I shall not, of course, take up here the taskof giving content to all of the discussions andentries. (And one must remember that there isno way of determining whether and how manydiscussions might have been omitted from entrycoverage.) Rather, I would like to focus on thosemoments in the discussions of particular interestin regard to the significance of Kuki and Sartre'sencounter.

The notebook is devoted to French philosophy.And it is important, at the outset, to mention thateven though French philosophy had by nomeans

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been ignored in JapanBoutroux, Bergson, andothers having been assimilated before WorldWar Inevertheless, French philosophy was notpaid the attention of its German counterpart. Itwould be Kuki, in part through his lecturecourses at Kyoto University on French philo-sophy, who upon his return to Japan, would beresponsible for increasing Japanese attention inregard to this traditionlectures that can well beseen as quintessential examples of the transmis-sion of a philosophical and cultural heritage.And in this context Kuki's notebook, with itsentries on such philosophers as Brunschvicg,Alain, and Blondel, can be viewed as directlypreparatory to these very lectures. 47

Sartre, as noted before, spoke of discussions onFrench philosophy from Descartes to Bergson.And the notebook, particularly with a number ofpages containing listings of readings on, for ex-ample, Descartes, Pascal, Comte, and Maine deBiran, gives evidence of this; but the notebookalso, primarily, gives significant attention tothen contemporary French philosophy. Thus,and it would have been hard to imagine it other-wise, the early part of the notebook is devoted totwo of the leading figures of post-World War IFrench philosophy, Léon Brunschvicg(1869-1944) and Alain.48 Brunschvicg was atthat time, after Bergson, the most importantphilosophical presence in France, his majorwork, the two volume Le Progrès de la con-science dans la philosophie occidentale,havingappeared the year previous to Kuki and Sartre'smeeting. Given his position as a professor, theprofessor, at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, itwas with Brunschvicg's philosophy that all the

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normaliens of the time had to come to terms,positively or negatively as the case may havebeen. Paul Nizan's Les Chiens de garde,as evenhis Aden-Arabie before it, was of course theclassical negative account, scathing and mord-ant, albeit from the politico-existential, notphilosophical, standpoint.49 Be that as it mayand in spite of our position retrospective to thedevelopments in French philosophy initiated inpart by one Bruschvicg pupil, Sartre, the remarkof another distinguished pupil, Jean Hyppolite,is not without application: "Even when we re-acted against his thought or sought in differentdirections a renovation of our intellectual per-spectives, it could not escape our recognitionthat we had been profoundly marked by him andthat beyond certain formulas, there was a spiritof Brunschvicgian philosophy to which we re-mained ever faithful."50 As for Alain, he wasone of the central figures of French intellectualand literary life in the period between the two

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wars and was a not unimportant influence on theyoung Sartre.51

Kuki and Sartre appear to have discussed Brun-schvicg and Alain in detail. As part of this, thetwo French philosophers are found compared toone another in the notebook. On the first page ofthe notebookbeneath a

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figure in which the names Parodi and Le Senneare bracketed beside that of Hamelinis a refer-ence to Brunschvicg's important essay 52"L'Orientation du rationalisme," which had ap-peared in La Revue de Métaphysique et de Mor-ale in 1920. The article was Brunschvicg's re-sponse to Dominique Parodi's 1919 work LaPhilosophie contemporaine en France.There,Parodi, specifically targeting Brunschvicg'sphilosophy as exemplified, for instance, in the1912 volume Les Etapes de la philosophiemathématique,asks: "Must contemporarythought definitively draw back before the task ofa properly philosophical systematization ofnature?"53 He gave his response by way ofpresenting Octave Hamelin's 1907 Essai sur leséléments principaux de la représentation as thatrepresentational form of idealism that could sur-mount what for Parodi was the reticent idealism,the idealism of judgment, of Brunschvicg. In"L'Orientation du rationalisme," an entry into

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the orientation of Brunschvicg's rationalism andthus an excellent place to take up discussion ofBrunschvicg's philosophy, Brunschvicgoppos-ing Hamelin and behind him the finitist positionof Renouvier's neo-criticism,54 the conceptual-ism in the Aristotelian il faut s'arrêter quelqueparteverywhere opposes concept and synthesisin the name of judgment and analysis. Thus,Brunschvicg states elsewhere, in a 1921 discus-sion of the Société Française de Philosophie de-voted to just this issue between Parodi andBrunschvicg:

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"For the dialectician of categories who has con-structed a finite and discontinuous tableau, thediscovery of a new species of number, of a newkind of space, of a new model of mechanics, willresult only in putting the equilibrium of the doc-trine in peril. He will employ all his patience andall his ingenuity to preserve his ideal essencesfrom dangerous contact with the diversity of thenotion's aspects in order to reduce these aspectsto the rank of secondary, derived forms. If, onthe contrary, number and space, time and cause,are not frameworks forever fixed, but laws of in-definitely progressive activity, rational idealismwill say so much the better there where syntheticidealism will say so much the worse."

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For our purposes it is interesting that in just thisparticular discussion of the Société Française dePhilosophie Gabriel Marcel takes issue withBrunschvicg, arguing that if Hamelin attemptsto construct being, Brunschvicg eliminates be-ing altogether. Seeking to defend ontology onthe one hand, the particular on the other, Marcelpolemicizes against Brunschvicg by arguing that"what counts is to know if there is a hierarchy ofplanes of thought or modes of experience or cat-egories . . . [and] if to this question one holds itnecessary to respond negatively, then there canbe no metaphysics, I would even say no philo-sophy. . . . Thought denies itself there where it

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denies being. . . ." The validity of Brunschvicg'sripostethat "to a hierarchy of concepts unfoldingexterior to consciousness, as if on a painted can-vas, I for my part oppose the progress of livingthought, immanent to the soul in which it hastaken root and which it carrys along within it-self" 55cannot be our concern here. Rather, wemight wonder to what degree the question of on-tology, the question of being, seized upon byMarcel, might not also have emerged for Kukiin this context, leading him to bring up withSartre just that philosophy which had so recentlyplaced the question of being at its center. ThatSartre was dissatisfied with the rationalism rep-resented by Brunschvicg's philosophy andsought a way beyond it has already been noted.Was it here that he was first given an idea as tothe philosophical tools with which he wouldeventually fashion his philosophical liberation?

There is, of course, little doubt thatBrunschvicg's philosophy came under fire inKuki and Sartre's discussions. The sudden refer-ence in Kuki's notebook, in the midst of thenotebook's remarks on Brunschvicg, to theaforementioned Friedmann-Morhange group(Nizan, Politzer, Guterman), as well as to sur-realism and André Breton's Nadja, must haverepresented a break in the discussion of Brun-schvicg, a break initiated by this very discussionand devoted to oppositional currents in Frenchintellectual life. It does not seem inappropriateto attribute this reference to a remark ofSartre's.56 Nizan, as I have mentioned, playedan important role in this philosophes group ofyoung Marxist philosophers; his political choiceserved as significant reference for the youngSartre. Furthermore, surrealism together withCéline's 1932 Voyage au bout de la nuit wouldserve Sartre in his liberation from the classicalprose style of an Alain or Valéry evident in

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Sartre's early work La Légende de la vérité.Inany case, it is not surprising to find reference tooppositional currents. Brunschvicg's absolutelysupple thoughtNizan characterized Brunschvicgas a thinker having the "precision of a watch-maker . . . the sleight-of-hand of a conjurer . .."57was the other side of a philosophy of culture,of a humanism of culture, which for all its mag-nanimity could not have represented, even in thenon-Marxist Sartre's eyes, anything but an offi-cial culture.

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The notebook's reference to oppositional cur-rents in French culture is sign of a surprisingpolitical leitmotif that runs throughout thenotebook's entries on both Brunschvicg andAlain. Thus, when Kuki and Sartre turn atten-tion to Alain, it is to his Mars ou la guerre jugéeand to his Eléments d'une doctrine radicale.Mars ou la guerre jugée,Alain's brilliant con-demnation of the war, appears to have been dis-cussed quite extensively by Kuki and Sartre.The frequent references to Alain's politicshisradicalism (liberal variant) and socialismas wellas a notebook entry charting all positions alongthe political spectrum, show that it was in apolitical, and not

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only ethical, context that Alain's texts were dis-cussed. These references, together with a note-book entry detailing two forms of radicalism(now in its generic usage), one artistocratic, theother anarchistic, are all the more interestinggiven the relative absence of a political reflec-tion in Kuki and given the young Sartre's stud-ied, nuanced distance from the left-wing optionsto which he was, after all, inclined. We cannot,of course, find an answer to the intriguing ques-tion: How would Baron Kuki and the iconoclast-ic young Sartre have discussed these two formsof radicalism, aristocratic and anarchistic? Butwe should be reminded of what is alreadyknown: that Sartre's political history only par-tially lends itself to the view, thus schematic, ofan apolitical young Sartre, a political post-World War II Sartre. 58

In regard to Brunschvicg and Alain, it shouldalso be mentioned that Sartre's undoubted op-position to their center-left politics and his evid-ent dissatisfaction with their rationalisms ofjudgment ought not serve to obscure the influ-ence, alluded to before, of Brunschvicg's philo-sophy, which for all that it was a philosophy ofintelligence was by this very fact a philosophyof liberty; ought not obscure a more importantfact, that the distinct stoic dimension in L'Etre etle néant was derived, in part, from the stoicism,however much mediated by its Cartesian andSpinozistic variants, of that stoic sage par excel-lence, Alain.

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If for Sartre a polemical relation to Brunschvicgand Alain was in certain respects the other sideof an undeniable influence,59 in the case of Kukithe fact of an already achieved intellectual inde-pendence, underscored by Kuki's implantationin another culture, would not have entailed thebreaking of influences. Indeed, everything con-spired to make of Alain a figure of affinity forKuki. Kuki's valorization of the voluntarist ele-ment in Bushido* would lead him to an especialappreciation of Alain's stoic ethic, and Kuki'saesthetic sensibility could not but deepen hisfeeling of affinity with this philosopher who, parexcellence, was un écrivain,with the author ofSystème des beaux-arts.

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Indeed, Kuki and Sartre took up discussion ofSystème des beaux-arts,perhaps the centerpiecein Alain's oeuvre. Worth nothing here are thespecific references in Kuki's notebook tochapters 1 and 5 of the first section of Alain'swork, chapters on the imagination. These specif-ic references are worth noting precisely becausethey deal with chapters that Sartre would critic-ally analyze in his first published book, the 1936L'Imagination,a book in which Alain's theory ofthe imagination is analyzed (as a concluding ex-ample in a historical overview of theories of theimagination) and superceded by means ofHusserl. That this 1936 work was the revisedversion of Sartre's thesis, written for his diplômeat the Ecole Normale, offers the

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opportunity to wonder what type of discussionKuki and Sartregiven Kuki's familiarity withHusserlian phenomenologyengaged in with ref-erence to Alain's text.

Concluding their discussions of Brunschvicgand Alain, Kuki and Sartre turned their attentionto another leading figure of then contemporaryFrench philosophy, the Catholic MauriceBlondel (1861-1946), giving themselves over toa reading of Blondel's 1893 work L'Action.60This choice is noteworthy; for these two fu-ture exponents of existential phenomenology totake up the reading of a work that in its depic-tion of action as, to use Louis Lavelle's phrase,"an elan by which being strives to surmount itsown insufficiency" has been seen by some tohave prefigured (albeit in a Catholic contextwhere faith is the goal) notions in French exist-entialism. Thus, we have Blondel's "Condemnedto life, condemned to death, condemned toeternity, how, and by what right, if I haveneither known nor willed this?"61

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The notebook contains a listing of a number ofchapters of Blondel's book, presumably chaptersto be read and discussed, but the notebook'spage references refer only to the openingchapters of the work. Here Blondel carries outan intense polemic against a nihilist position,now dubbed aestheticism, now dubbed dilettant-ism, that would attempt to evade the problem ofaction, the condemnation to action, by "willingthe nothingness of man and his acts." This solu-tion is shown to break down because beneathevery negation a love of negation is found; deni-al entails the constitution of denial, has a posit-ive resolution. The nihilist's "nolonté" itself"dissimulates a subjective end." '''I do not wantto will,' nolo velle,is immediately translated inthe language of reflection into these words, 'Iwant not to will,' volo nolle."It is in this context,Blondel's discussion of the aesthetic-nihilistsolution, of this "volonté de néant," that we finda page of the notebook in Sartre's own hand, a

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schema of the aesthetic/pessimist solution andof the contradiction found at its base between, asBlondel terms it, "two divergent movements, theone bearing the will towards a grand idea, to-wards a noble love of being, the other giving itup to the desire, the curiosity, the obsession forthe phenomenal."62 The existence of a notebookpage in Sartre's hand isbeyond the immediatelyevident reasonsimportant, for it bears out the no-tion that certain of the notebook's entries werejotted down during an ongoing discussion. Thatjust here, in the context of Blondel's critique of a"volonté de néant," a page in Sartre's own handappears is more than likely merely a matter ofchance. But there is reason to wonder. In thecourse of his entries on Blondel, Kuki jotteddown the phrase, "on nothingness, as inBergson." Kuki had in mind, of course,Bergson's critique of the "deification of nothing-ness" in L'Evolution créatrice.63Nothingness,nihilism, negationKuki, it should be noted, was

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at just this time working on a paper, "Negation,"begun during his participation the year before inHeidegger's seminar. 64 Would not this contexthave especially invited Kuki to introduce hisyouthful French partner to the new existentialvariant of phenomenology?

The discussion of Blondel gives way in thenotebook to the aforementioned pages wherelistings of readings on Descartes, Pascal, Mainede Biran, Comte, and others are found. Variousinformal notes scattered among the listingsof thenature, for example, "bad translation" and "verygood,"give one the feeling that Kuki may haveconsulted or perhaps even constituted these listswith Sartre. Following these lists the notebookmoves on to Paul Valéry. Earlier in the note-book, amid pages devoted to Alain, there arereferences to Eupalinos, L'Introduction à laméthode de Leonardo di Vinci,and La JeuneParque.In the latter part of the notebook, Kukiand Sartre give close attention to the pieces inValéry's Variété I. And here, in the context ofValéry, is another intriguing feature of the Kuki-Sartre encounter, for it is probable that in dis-cussing this writer in whose poetics the positionof the Muse was held by the Mistress Chance,Kuki and Sartre were led to a discussion of

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contingency. It need hardly be mentioned theplace contingency would hold in LaNauséetheearly draft of which Sartre had re-ferred to as Factum sur la contingence65aswellas in L'Etre et le néant.The young Sartre con-sidered contingency his central philosophical in-tuition, as is illustrated by Simone de Beauvoir'sdescription of Sartre's purchase of Levinas'sbook on Husserl: "[Sartre's] heart missed a beatwhen he found references to contingency. Hadsomeone cut the ground from under his feetthen? As he read on he reassured himself thatthis was not so. Contingency seemed not to playany very important part in Husserl's systemofwhich in any case Levinas only gave a formaland decidely vague outline."66

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Contingency had, of course, been central toSartre from the time of his days at the EcoleNormale. In a series of discussions with Simonede Beauvoir held in 1974 Sartre recounted thathe had in his student years begun entering re-flections on contingency into a notebook he hadchanced (!) upon while riding the metro. Films,Sartre recalled, had been the occasion of his dis-covery of contingency. Exiting a movie theater,he had been struck by the contrast between thenecessity of the events in films and the contin-gency of the comings and goings of people inthe street. Contingency existed. So too, Sartrecame to feel, existed an elective affinitybetween himself and this notion: "I found thatthe notion had been neglected. . . . All Marxistthought culminated in a world of necessity;there was no contingency, only determinism,dialectics; there were no contingent

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facts. . . . I thought that if I had discovered con-tingency in films and exits into the street, it wasbecause I was meant to discover it. 67

We need not linger over this re-entry of neces-sity by way of destiny. Contingency and finalitycan be reconciled. Rather, what is so very inter-esting is that contingency occupied a centralplace in Kuki's own philosophy; indeed, his wasprecisely a philosophy of contingency.68Contingency had been the topic of his 1932 doc-toral dissertation, Guzensei*(Contingency), ofwhich his 1935 work Guzensei no Mondai (TheProblem of Contingency) was the considerableelaboration.69 Kuki's interest in contingency,however, well predated these works. He had, forexample, delivered an important lecture on con-tingency in 1929 at Otani* University shortlyafter his return from Europe. And the notion wasin evidence in his 1928 Propos sur le temps.Inthe first essay of this book, Kuki is concerned,as was noted earlier, with the derivation of anethic on the basis of contingent existence. Set-ting off, in contradistinction to linear time, anoriental time, a "time of transmigration," Kuki

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notes that, if the supreme evil for Buddhism liesin the perpetual repetition of the will, this is thesupreme good for Bushido*. "Bushido is the af-firmation of the will, the negation of the nega-tion. The infinite good will, which can never beentirely fulfilled, which is destined always to re-main deceived, must ever and always renew itsefforts." Bushido says: "Let us confront transmi-gration fearlessly, valiantly. Let us pursue per-fection with a consciousness well aware that itwill remain ever deceived. . . ." Partisan of thevoluntarism in Bushido,Kuki takes issue withwhat he sees as the Greek tendency to see in themyth of Sisyphus, for example, a myth of dam-nation. For Kuki there is no tragedy here, ratherthe possible foundation of a moral attitude:"Everything depends on the subjective attitudeof Sisyphus. His good will, a will steadfast in al-ways beginning anew, in ever rolling the rock,finds in this repetition itself a complete ethic,and, consequently, all its happiness."70

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It is precisely these analyses that will reappear anumber of years later and form part of Kuki'ssystematic treatment of contingency in Guzenseino Mondai (The Problem of Contingency). Anaccount of this book cannot be given here. But Ishall note that after a sustained analysis of con-tingency in its three modalitiescategorical, hy-pothetic, and disjunctivean analysis in whichcontingency is revealed as the metaphysical ab-solute, the arrival point of the work becomes thederivation of an ethic, the "interiorization ofcontingency." And here is why Kuki in Proporssur le temps valorized that Heideggerian tem-porality in which the meaning of time is foun-ded on "the future as coming towards the selfand passing, thereby, into the already existingpast," that Heideggerian temporality in which "ifpossibility [is] a

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coming towards,"it is so "because the logicalnature of possibility [lies] in the future"for in re-gard to the "interiorization of contingency" Kukiwrites: "[That] 'nothing takes place in vain' sig-nifies my future possibility of interiorizing thevery thou (nanji)conditioning me. The almostimpossible tiniest possibility (gokubi no kanosei*)becomes reality in contingency, and this con-tingency, ever giving rise to new contingencies,leads on toward necessity. Here lies the salva-tion of man. . . . A sense of eternal destiny canbe given to contingency, containing nothingnessin itself and whose destiny is ever to lose itself,only by vitalizing (ikashimuru)the present bymeans of the future." Thus, Kuki could bringGuzensei* no Mondai to close: "When reality isconfronted with nothingness, unable to restrainour surprise we cry out with Milanda: Why? . . .To the 'why' of Milanda we can only respondthat contingency is an inevitable condition ofconcrete reality in the domain of theory, but that

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in the domain of action it is, perhaps, possible tofill the lacuna of theory if we give ourselves thisorder: Let not your encounters take place in vain(oute munashiku suguru nakare)."71Here in thisconcluding command, taken from the BuddhistJodoron*,we find precisely that good will previ-ously rendered to Sisyphus.

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The author of a philosophy of contingency,Kuki was also the author of an aesthetic of con-tingency, fashioning a poeticsof which the firsttext was his 1927 Oin* ni Tsuite (On Rhym-ing)in which contingency holds central place.What, in this regard, is the function of rhyme? Itis to "make of the poetic form a place of contin-gency, a place where, fugitively, words meetand sounds respond to one another; it is in po-etry to signify symbolically the pulsation of life.. . . Thus, the full force of poetry is found whereone knows how to make manifest in a precari-ous and fragile aesthetic form that sense of con-tingency which is at the heart of one's faith inlanguage, in the spirit of words." And with con-tingency and rhyme we return to Kuki's note-book, for in fashioning his work on the poeticsof rhyme, Kuki was influenced precisely by thepoetics of Paul Valéry: "From the point of viewof form Paul Valéry considers poetry as the pure

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system of the destiny of language and speaks ofthe philosophical beauty possessed by rhyme."72

By what destiny, then, by what chance, thismeeting between these two philosophers of con-tingency? We cannot, of course, know for cer-tain whether Kuki and Sartre discussed the ques-tion of contingency, but in view of the attentionpaid Valéry in Kuki's notebook, it seems likely.And if they did, it would carry all the more sig-nificance given Sartre's feeling of elective affin-ity with the philosophy of contingency and giv-en the fact that they very certainly did discussthe philosophy of existence. Sartre, of course,could not later have read Guzensei noMondai.Thus, only Kuki could have known ofthe subsequent reflections on contingency of hisphilosophical discussion

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partner. But a search of Kuki's library did notturn up La Nausée nor any of Sartre's other pre-war works. Kuki's knowledge of Sartre's sub-sequent development is not thereby ruled out,but it cannot, obviously, be demonstrated. 73 Inany case, this "contingent" parallel remainsarresting.

As for other parallels, they have already beenwell in evidence. Thus, if Sartre was to becomethe leading exponent of existential phenomeno-logy in France, Kuki was to occupy a similarposition in Japan. And Kuki's aforementioned1933 work on Heidegger, his 1934 Jitsuzon noTetsugaku (The Philosophy of Existence), andhis 1937 Ningen to Jitsuzon (Man and Exist-ence) were not only works representative of theexistential phenomenological current in Japan,they were works that also made entry of thiscurrent into Japan possible in the singular waythat in them a portion of the vocabulary of exist-ential phenomenology, previously not existentin Japanese, was coined. Jitsuzon (existence),for example, was a word created by Kuki.74And, then, a remaining parallel: Kuki and Sartreboth divided their time between philosophy andliterature, Sartre in the novel and drama, Kuki inpoetry.

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It remains, then, to consider Kuki's influence onSartre, to consider the significance of their en-counter. At the time of their meeting Sartre wasa twenty-three-year-old student, one year awayfrom passing the agrégation in philosophy.75 Ifin contingency he had already seized upon oneof the central notions of his subsequent maturephilosophy, he would not be in a position to sys-tematically develop his intuitions until he hadcompleted his apprenticeship in Husserl, Heide-gger, and Hegel. Kuki, on the other hand, wasforty years old, possessor of an enormous cul-ture and, now having meditated on the lessonsof German phenomenology, beginning an inde-pendent philosophical production that wouldmake him one of the outstanding talents in mod-ern Japanese philosophy. Sartre in his 1966 in-terview in Tokyo noted that if Kuki had intro-duced him to Heidegger's phenomenology, he,Sartre, as yet only a student, had not been in aposition to take up Heidegger. As regards

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Heidegger and phenomenology, then, it wasKuki's distinct role to have turned Sartre's atten-tion to Heidegger and phenomenology, to havegiven Sartre an agenda,no matter that it couldnot be immediately attended.

But what of the role given Raymond Aron in Si-mone de Beauvoir's La Force de l'âge? Clearly,Aron could not have introduced Sartre to phe-nomenology.76 But doubtless Sartre's 1932 con-versation with Aron was important. That Sartrewas thus impelled to make arrangements tostudy in Germany attests to that fact and showsthat Aron had quickened the urgency of Sartre'sagenda. Sartre's receptivity to phenomenologyhad surely increased in the years subsequent to,indeed by very virtue of, his encounter

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with Kuki. He was now better placed to hearthat which Aron had to tell him. And today, withthe seemingly ever-present journals of the drôlede guerre,Sartre himself provides us insight intothe nature of this receptivity and, what is more,offers us a way of discussing the significance of,as well as just that aforementioned destiny in,Sartre's encounter with Kukifor there at the headof an entry (of February 1940) is found: "If Iwant to understand the share of liberty and des-tiny in what is called 'undergoing an influence,' Ican reflect on the influence Heidegger has exer-cised on me." 77

In this entry Sartre gives in a way not availablebefore, the chronology and significance of hisencounter with Heidegger. Sartre had journeyedto Berlin in the fall of 1933 with the intention ofreading "the phenomenologists." Taking up firstwith Husserl, he plannedhaving purchased acopy of Sein und Zeit in Decemberto readHeidegger the following spring. However, hefound upon commencing with Heidegger that hewas "saturated with Husserl." The intense studyof Husserl had exhausted him that year forphilosophy. Of Sein und Zeit he was only able toread fifty pages, the difficulty of the vocabulary,in any case, putting him off.78 Sartre would findthat his apprenticeship with Husserl would re-quire four years, carrying well into 1937 thetime of his composition of the never-to-be com-pleted La Psyche (of which only the section onthe emotions would ever be published). If Sartrebroke off writing this work, it was because hisdissatisfactions with it revealed to him his

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dissatisfactions with Husserl: with, for instance,the passivity entailed by the sensationalismrooted in the Husserlian hylé (the hyletic datathrough which intentional objects were given);with his, Sartre's, inability to find satisfaction inHusserl's treatment of the problem of the other'sconsciousness, the treatment of which problemnecessitated for Sartre assurance that "two dis-tinct consciousnesses perceive the same world";and finally with Husserl's refutation of sol-ipsism, "inconclusive and weak."79

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Dissatisfaction with Husserl now impelledSartre to turn to Heidegger "in order to evadethe Husserlian impasse." Thus, Sartre notes,"one sees that I could not have studied Heideg-ger earlier than I did." But if the reason delayinghis engagement with Heideggerthe necessity ofhis truly passing through Husserlhad been of anobjective naturethis very reason now coincidedwith another set of objectivities: the historicalsituation. "History,"Sartre writes, led him "toseek out a philosophy which would not only bea contemplation, but a wisdom, a heroism, asaintliness, anything at all in fact that would al-low me to come to grips with the situation." It isHeidegger as sage. Sartre writes: "I was in theexact situation of the Athenians, who, after thedeath of Alexander, turned away from Aris-totelian science in order to take up the more bru-tal, the more totalitarian doctrines of the Stoicsand

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Epicureans, doctrines which could teach themhow to live." 80In Heidegger Sartre felt he hadfound his Zeno, his Epicurus: "This influencenow appears to me providential since it taughtme about authenticity and historicity just at thatmoment when the war rendered these notions in-dispensible to me. If I try to imagine what Iwould have made of my thought without thesetools, I am taken with a retrospective fear. Howmuch time I had gained."81

An impasse with Husserl and a period of histor-ical crisis provided Sartre with Heidegger.Sartre reflects: "Sufficiently detached fromHusserl, seeking out a philosophy of pathos (unephilosophie 'pathéthique'), I was ripe to under-stand Heidegger." Yet what is there to say ofchance, of the fortuitous appearance of Corbin'stranslation of Heidegger's Was ist Metaphysik?Chance not at all Sartre writes, for "the publica-tion of Qu'est-ce que la métaphysique was a his-toric event in whose production I had for mypart justly contributed a share."82

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Sartre had heard speak of the phenomenologists,had found his curiosity raised in regard to phe-nomenology. He had read "a few rare Frenchworks" on the subject and later had gone to Ber-lin. Returning with some degree of familiarity,he taught what he had learned and thus "aug-mented this inquisitive public" of which he sawhimself a part. Subsequently, this public grew. Ifthen Corbin's book appeared, it was, Sartre ar-gues, precisely because a public had come to de-mand this book: "Corbin had produced his trans-lation for us.All that had been necessary wasthis first curiosity. . . . Thus, if Corbin had trans-lated Qu'est-ce que la métaphysique,it was be-cause I (among others) had freely constitutedmyself as public awaiting this translation and inso doing had assumed my situation, my genera-tion, and my epoch." Thus, after speaking of thecircumstance whereby Heidegger and notHusserl was first translatedwhich circumstanceSartre explained with reference to the greater

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attraction a philosophy of pathos, notwithstand-ing its incomprehensibility to the general public,would have, and in which circumstance he sawthe dictation of the aforementioned inquisitivepublicSartre could conclude: "In other words itwas my epoch, my situation, and my freedomwhich had determined my encounter withHeidegger. And in this there had been neitherchance nor determinism, but historical conveni-ence."83

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Yet one necessity: for the Corbin translation tohave appeared "all that had been necessary wasthis first curiosity." And so we are returned toKukito him who would provide Sartre this firstcuriosity; indeed, to him who by virtue of his in-tercouse with French philosophical circles inParis and at Pontigny would serve as one of thevery first in the transmission of the new Germanthought to France; to him who would thus servein the augmentation of that very public that, tofollow Sartre, would lead to the possibility ofphenomenology's naturalization in France.

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Of the notions of phenomenology, Sartre couldwrite in his notebook: "I dreamed of these no-tions which I knew but poorly and about which Idesired to know more. " 84 And we can, in thisregard, think of Merleau-Ponty's later declara-tion to the effect that "if we so readily wel-comed phenomenology it was because it waswhat we had everywhere dreamed about for solong." Kuki, then, provided Sartre that very spe-cial kind of curiosity, that type of expectancy forthe needed, for the necessary as yet hidden,scarcely known: that internal tropism of thoughtand taste that can lead one day to the discoveryof an elective affinitythere seemingly from thevery starthappily found. "Influence," this provi-sion? Provision certainly, and one at that so veryfelicitous. Thus, by way of conclusion: Kuki, byword and in his person itself, exposed Sartre tohis, Sartre's, very own future, added to his pre-disposition for it.

Notes

1. A footnote gives brief mention of this in Y.Nitta, H. Tatematsu, and E. Shimomisse*,"Phenomenology and Philosophy in Japan," inAnalecta Husserliana,vol. 8, ed. Anna-TeresaTymieniecka (Dordrecht, 1979), p. 17, n. 24.

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2. The Japanese philosopher Kitaro* Nishida(1870-1945) initiated Japanese discussion ofHusserl in an article of 1911. The first Frencharticle on Husserl appeared in 1910. However, ifdiscussion of Husserl as phenomenologist com-menced in earnest in Japan in the early 1920s,such discussion did not truly begin in France tillthe late 1920s and early 1930s. For the Frenchreception of phenomenology see HerbertSpiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement:A Historical Introduction,vol. 2 (The Hague:Nijhoff, 1960), pp. 401-8.

3. Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life,trans.Peter Green (New York: Meridian 1962), p.112.

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4. The philosopher Yasumasa Oshima*, in anarticle on Kuki, has recounted that when his eld-er colleague Yasutaro* Awano was in Paris in1934, Awano asked Emile Bréhier if Bréhiercould provide him a partner for purposes of dis-cussing French philosophy and thus employinghis French. Bréhier, exclaiming, "that was justKuki's request!" introduced Awano to a younglycée professor, Maurice Merleau-Ponty! Oshi-ma takes the remark as sign that it was probablyBréhier who had earlier directed Kuki to Sartre.(See Yasumasa Oshima, "Kuki Shuzo* toGuzensei* no Mondai"[Shuzo Kuki and TheProblem of Contingency], Chuo Koron*82[September 1967]: 394.) Toshihito Naito* alsocites Bréhier as having provided Kuki introduc-tion to Sartre. (See Toshihito Naito, "Kuki toSarutoru" [Kuki and Sartre], Geppo*12 [March1982]: 7-9 [insert in supplementary volume(Bekkan)of Kuki Shuzo Zenshu*(The CollectedWorks of Shuzo Kuki), 11 vols. and

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supplementary volume (Tokyo: Iwanami:Shoten, 1980-1982), ed. Hisayuki Omodaka,Akio Sato*, and Tetsuji Ishigaki)]. Referencesto Kuki Shuzo Zenshu will hereafter be cited asKSZ.It should also be noted that in Japanese thesurname is given first. To avoid confusion,however, I have chosen not to follow this order.All names are, thus, given in English order. Ex-ception is made for names appearing in Japanesepublication titles.)

5. The text of Ibuki's interview appeared in thenewspaper Sankei Shinbun,October 6, 1966.Relevant passages can be found in Oshima,"Kuki Shuzo to Guzensei no Mondai,"p. 394,and Naito, "Kuki to Sarutoru," p. 7. Sartre indic-ates that he did not serve as a language tutor in apassage quoted in Oshima (p. 394).

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6. According to Kojima, Heidegger in the courseof a discussion with Kojima (in Germany in1955) remarked: "Did you know that Sartrecame to me (watashi no moto ni yattekita)with aletter of introduction from Kuki. While a studentat the University of Paris Sartre served Kuki as atutor and was surprised to learn from Kuki ofthe developments in German philosophy. Sartrethought these developments originated with meand, therefore, came to seek me out (watashi otazunete kitandayo)."Kojima adds that he,Kojima, had not heard this story before. (SeeTakehiko Kojima, "Boden * kohan ni Haide-gga* o Otonau" [Visiting Heidegger alongBöden Lake], in Sekai Nippo*[World Daily Re-port], Feb. 13, 1981. Naito*, citing Kojima, alsospeaks of such a letter.) Madame Simone deBeauvoir, however, informs me in a letter thatSartre did not possess such a letter. It is known,of course, that Sartre almost certainly did notmeet Heidegger during his 1933-34 stay in

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Germany, meeting Heidegger but one time, inFreiburg in late November or early December of1952. In addition, no letters between Kuki andpossible European correspondants seem to beextant.

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Kojima was not, however, the only recepientof Heidegger's information. Professor TetsuoKogawa remarked to me in discussion thatcommencing in the early 1950s Heideggerspoke to all his Japanese visitors about Kuki.This can also be gathered from the testimonyof Professor Tomio Tezuka (see footnote 16below). Putting aside for the moment thequestion of the letter of introduction, Heide-gger is thus one of the sources (perhaps thesource) for the story in Japan regardingKuki's meeting with Sartre, a story that, asToshihiko Naito notes, had always a fabledtone about it (isshu densetsutekinairoai).Furthermore, Professor HerbertSpiegelberg, the historian of the phenomen-ological movement, in a letter to me writesthat he had first heard Kuki spoken of duringan interview he held with Heidegger in Ger-many in 1953. Heidegger spoke of Kuki as"his [Heidegger's] source of information

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about Sartre." In addition, Professor Spiegel-berg in a note forwarded to me by ProfessorRichard Popkin writes: "When, according tomy notebook of interviews with varied wit-nesses of the phenomenological movement("Scrapbook"), I visited Heidegger at his skihut near Todtnasberg on 15 September 1953,he mentioned in answer to my inquiriesabout his contacts with Sartre: Sartre hadstudied Heidegger's Sein und Zeit at the sug-gestion of a Count Kuki, a gifted Japanesewho had studied with Heidegger inMarburg."

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All this would seem to lend support to thenotion that either Sartre possessed a letter ofintroduction to Heidegger from Kuki orandthis is the more likely event given that Sartredid not meet Heidegger in 1933-34that Kukihad written directly to Heidegger regardingSartre. For to whatever degree Heidegger'stestimony about a letter must be viewed withcaution (and it must be), his testimony is ac-curate in that Kuki and Sartre did meet whileSartre was a student.

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How then account for Heidegger's testi-mony? One possibility: Kuki had in 1933written a letter of introduction directly toHeidegger for a young French lycée profess-or, who, however, did not come to call uponHeidegger. Subsequently, after the war andthe rise to prominence of this professor (andthe recommencement of Japanese visitors toHeidegger), Heidegger was reminded of theletter he had received from Kuki. His testi-mony twenty years later would then merelyhave confused the manner in which he re-ceived the letter. It is one possibility. Thereis another. In a memoir of Heidegger, HansA. Fischer-Barnicol notes that Kuki duringhis stay in Paris had sent Heidegger an edi-tion of Descartes' works. (See Hans A.Fischer-Barnicol, "Spiegelungen-Ver-mittlungen," in Erinnerung an MartinHeidegger,ed. Günther Neske [Pfüllingen:Neske, 1977], p. 102.) Might Kuki in a letter

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accompanying the Descartes works havementioned to Heidegger his meeting with aFrench student of philosophy? Perhaps thisstudent had informed Kuki as to a suitableedition to purchase. And, again, after thewar the letter took on meaning for Heideg-ger. And there is still another possibility.Heidegger's testimony seems to commencein the early 1950s. Could it have been theresult of his meeting with Sartre in 1952?Perhaps in the course of their conversationHeidegger mentioned Kuki with the resultthat Sartre then spoke of his own relationswith Kuki.

7. It is worth mentioning that at this time othersto become subsequently famous, such as thewriter Junichiro* Tanizaki and the philosophersTetsuro* Watsuji and Teiyu* Amano, the latterto

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become Kuki's devoted and lifelong friend,were also in attendance at Daiichi Ko-togakko *. For more on Watsuji and Amanosee notes 15 and 9 respectively.

8. There is a discussion of Kuki in Heidelberg inKeizo Ikimatsu, "Haiderubergo no KukiShozo*" (Shuzo Kuki in Heidelberg), Geppo*1(Nov. 1980): 3-6 (insert in KSZ,vol. 2[Tokyo,1980]).

9. All of these men came to occupy importantplaces in Japanese intellectual life upon their re-turn to Japan. Amano, as we noted earlier,Kuki's devoted friend, became a leading Kantscholar, as well as the author of a number of eth-ical works. Hani and Ouchi* became importantMarxist historians; Naruse, also a friend ofKuki's, authored works on the question ofcontingency.

Jiro* Abe* and Kiyoshi Miki, however,played the most important roles. Abe,primarily an aesthetician, influenced by Ger-man romanticism, had already attainedprominence with works such as the 1916philosophical diary Santaro* no Nikki (TheDiary of Santaro), the 1917 Bigaku (Aesthet-ics), and the 1920 Jinkakushugi (Personal-ism). Kiyoshi Miki, a student of Kitaro*Nishida and Seiichi Hatano (1877-1950) atKyoto University, in Heidelberg in 1923 de-livered a lecture, "Wahrheit und Gewis-sheit," attended by his Japanese colleagues.He also in that year contributed an appreci-ation of Rickert, "Rickerts Bedeutung für dieJapanische Philosophie," to the FrankfurterZeitung.(Both of these essays can be foundin Miki Kiyoshi Zenshu*[The CollectedWorks of Kiyoshi Miki], vol. 2 [Tokyo,1966], pp. 15-26 and 43-49 respectively[note should be taken that Japanese books

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read from right to left; the foreign languagematerial in the volume here cited has,however, been printed in Western order andcarries separate pagination]). Miki,whosefirst book, published in 1925, was devoted tothe subject of man in Pascal, authored im-portant works in the areas of social philo-sophy, the philosophy of history, and philo-sophical anthropology. His philosophical en-terprise assimilated Heidegger (whose sem-inar he attended while in Germany) on theone hand and the Hegelian Marxism ofLukács on the other. Arrested and im-prisoned for a short time in 1930, Miki wasonce again arrested in 1945 and died in pris-on that same year, two months after thewar's conclusion.

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The Western reader can find an outline ofmodern Japanese philosophy in Gino K.Piovesana, Recent Japanese PhilosophicalThought, 1862-1962 (Tokyo: Sophia Univ.Press, 1968).

10. Hermann Glockner, Heidelberger Bilder-buch: Erinnerungen von Hermann Glockner(Bonn: H. Bouvier 1969), p. 232. Glockner re-counts that Rickert referred to Kuki as "BaronNeunteufel," Kuki himself having indicated thisas the meaning of his name (the two characterscomprising his name, ku and ki,signify 9 anddevil respectively).

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11. Kuki's movements in Europe can easily befollowed owing to listings of arrivals and depar-tures in a diary-journal kept by Madame Kuki. Iam indebted to Professor Akio Sato* of Konan*University, director of the Shuzo Kuki Archiveat Konan University, for graciously providingme with relevant excerpts from Madame Kuki'sdiary.

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12. Myojo*(Morning Star) was founded in 1900by the poet Tekkan Yosano, whose second wifewas the famed poetess Akiko Yosano. Thejournal was the organ of Yosano's group Shin-shisa (New Poetry Society). The most influen-tial review of its time, (during its pre-WWI peri-od), at the center of the modern movement andthe tanka revival, attentive to the visual arts andWestern poetry, Myojo attracted many of themost able Japanese poets of the day and wascrucial in establishing modern Japanese po-etry.(See Theodore W. Goosen, "Myojo," in TheKodansha Encyclopedia of Japan,vol. 5 [Tokyo:Kodansha, 1983], p. 290.)

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Kuki's manuscripts were published in Myojounder the initials S. K. or, as in the case ofPari no Negoto*,under the pseudonymRokozo Komari. In 1938 Kuki under hisown name published excerpts from theseries Pari Shinkei.In 1942, a year after hisdeath, the entire series of Paris poems werecollected (with the addition of one newseries, "Kyo* no Fuyu" [Kyoto Winter]) andpublished, along with an afterword byTeiyu* Amano, under the title PariShinkei.This volume was later included inKSZ,vol. 1 (Toyko, 1980), pp. 109-218.

13. Iki no Kozo*was first published in the journ-al Shiso*(Thought) in the early part of 1930

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and appeared in book form later that year.Iki no Honshitsu and Iki no Kozo *are in-cluded in KSZ,vol. 1, pp. 89-108 and 3-83.In addition, a notebook of Kuki's containingpreparatory notes for Iki no Kozo has beenpublished under the editor's title Iki ni Tsuite(On Iki)in the supplementary volume ofKSZ,pp. 3-35.

Iki was an aesthetic and moral ideal specificto the middle classes of Edo (Tokyo's namebefore 1868) during the Bunka-Bunsei peri-od (1804-1830). A person holding this idealsought to live a refined, tasteful life. If in-clined to wealth, he or she scorned attach-ment to money; if inclined to amorous pleas-ure, he or she resisted being carried away bydesire. Not ignorant of the details of theeveryday world, indeed living decidedly inthe world, the person of iki sought to main-tain a form of detachment. (See MakotoUeda, ''Iki and Sui," in The Kodansha En-cyclopedia of Japan,vol. 3, pp. 267-68.)Thus, in Iki no Kozo Kuki can contrast ikiwith the blind intoxication characteristic ofStendhalian amour-passion. Iki carries a re-jection of exclusive attachment; detachmentis sought "in order to live far from this worldin the transparent atmosphere of amour-goût" (KSZ,vol. 1, p. 23).

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Kuki, man of iki himself, was acting as if byelection in selecting iki as a subject for ana-lysis. Iki,a cultural form and phenomenon ofconsciousness specific to Japan, is, as Kukishows in the opening methodological (andetymological) chapter of Iki no Kozo,an un-translatable termthe French "chic" and theEnglish "elegant" carrying only one-sidedmeanings of the termand finds its model rep-resentative in the geisha.The ideal of thegeisha is at once "moral and aesthetic . . . iki. . . a harmonious unity of voluptuousnessand nobility." At the base of iki a sexual re-lation to another is implied. Thus, iki turnsout to be a form of coquetry modified bytwo other elements, on the one hand ikiji,acertain spirit of rebelliousness and pluck,boldness and worldliness (iki originallymeant "spirit" or "heart"), derived from theethic of Bushido*, "the way of the bushi"(or,in Western parlance, "the way of the

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samurai"), and on the other hand byakirame,resignation or renunciation, derivedfrom the Buddhist experience of the imper-manence of life. (See KSZ,vol. 1, pp. 16 ff.)Thus, "iki . . .is that coquetry acting as a ma-terial cause . . . modified by the formalfactors of Bushido's moral idealism and theBuddhist notion of the impermanence of theworld, by the two main characteristics ofJapanese civilization." A nuanced complexby which a system of moral and aestheticvalues finds expression, iki is in fact funda-mentally a form of charm,a charm "carryingan infinite authority" and playing "a signific-ant part in Japanese culture," a charm andauthority evident in the late Edo period(1603-1868) saying, quoted by Kuki, "Ah,[her] iki spirit (ikina kokoro),leading me totake as truths what I knew to be lies"(ibid.,p. 23).

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In Iki no Kozo the phenomenological influ-ence of Husserl and Heidegger is immedi-ately apparent, both from the structure of thework as a whole and from the methodologic-al cautions Kuki sets forth at the opening ofthe work, where he warns against question-ing "the essentia (honshitsu)of iki beforequestioning the existentia (sonzai)ofiki"(KSZ,vol. 1, p. 13). Hermeneutical(kaishakuteki)understanding is counterposedto a mere formalist (keisoteki)understanding.Thus, the book will analyze iki first as acomprehensive structure, then as an extens-ive structure, before moving on to an analys-is of the natural as well as aesthetic mani-festations of iki.In these latter two chapters,marvelous analyses of various aspects ofJapanese culture abound, and we can findhere an aesthetic of iki,which is to say, incertain respects, Kuki's own aesthetic.

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14. Nihonshi no Oin*deals not only with Japan-ese poetry, but ranges over many of the world'smajor poetries. It (as well as Kuki's poetry itself)played an influential role among several Japan-ese poetic movements and groups, particularlythe "Matinée Poetique" group, during the 1940s.A version of the work was first published in1931 in the lecture series Nihon Bungaku(Japanese Literature) of the publisher IwanamiShoten. Another, shorter version was publishedin the same year in the newspaper Osaka AsahiShinbun.Kuki remained occupied with this sub-ject throughout the 1930s, reworking his 1931manuscript (as was his wont with many of hismanuscripts) several times before preparing in1941 a fully revised version containing substan-tial new additions to be included in a volume ofwritings on literature he was putting together forpublication. The volume, Bungeiron (LiteraryStudies), appeared in 1941

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shortly after Kuki's death. It now makes upvol. 4 of KSZ (Tokyo, 1981). The 1931 ver-sions of the work are included in KSZ,vol. 5(Toyko, 1981), pp. 264-270 and 271-471respectively.

15. In a letter of October 22, 1927, to Husserl,Heidegger, in a passage recounting his ownwork and upcoming lectures, refers to Kuki. Theinformality of the reference indicates that Kukiis no stranger to Hussers (and Heidegger's)circle: ". . . with the lectures and the two studiesand the talks in Köln and Bonn and in additionKuki" ([Brief an Edmund Husserl], in EdmundHusserl, Phänomenologische Psychologie,Husserliana,ed. Walter Biemel [The Hague:Nijhoff, 1962], band 9, pp. 600-601).

After World War I, Japanese philosophersbegan traveling to Freiburg in order to studywith Husserl. As a result they had come toknow Hussers assistant, Heidegger. In Japanthese visits became known as the Furaiber-ugu Mode (Freiburg Pilgrimage). This"Freiburg Pilgrimage" continued into the1930s and recommenced after World War II,augmented by the vogue Heidegger and ex-istentialism knew after the war.

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Heidegger had become known in Japan asearly as 1921 when a transcript of one of hisseminars was brought back to Japan by sev-eral Japanese participants, Hajime Tanabeamong them. (See the remarks of TomioTezuka in Martin Heidegger, "Aus einemGespräch von der Sprache, zwischen einemJapaner und einem Fragenden," in Heideg-ger, Unterwegs zur Sprache [Pfüllingen:Neske, 1959], pp. 83-155.) Tanabe's article"Genshogaku-ni * okeru atarashiki tenko-Haidegga*-no sei-no genshogaku" (A NewTurn in Phenomenology: Heidegger's Exist-ential Phenomenology), published inShiso*(Thought) in Oct. 1924, was one ofthe earliest articles devoted to Heidegger, allthe more significant in that it appeared sev-eral years before Sein und Zeit.

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The Japanese presence in Germany in the1920s resulted in an interesting historicalcircumstance: the first foreign philosophicalculture to feel the impact of Heidegger'sphilosophy was the Japanese. And in this re-gard there may be cited an interesting, albeitindirect, result of this impact: the philosoph-er Tetsuro* Watsujias noted before, a class-mate of Kuki's at Daiichi Kotogakko*readSein und Zeit while in Berlin in the summerof 1927. Impressed with the description giv-en temporality in human existence, Watsujifelt that Heidegger had neglected the exist-ential dimension of space. Thus, Watsujiwould author his Fudo (Climate and Cul-ture), a philosophico-anthropological analys-is of the relation between climate and humanexistence (climate here writ large, that is tosay not limited to its meteorological sense,but rather seen as a total physico-culturalframework). An English translation of the

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work is available as A Climate,trans. G.Bownas (Tokyo: Print Bureau of the Japan-ese Govt., 1961). Watsuji was, of course, amajor figure in modern Japanese philo-sophy. Among the works in his vast oeuvreare his numerous works on Japanese as wellas European culture and his important three-volume ethics. English readers will profitfrom the sagacious study of ProfessorRobert Bellah, "Japan's Cultural Identity:Some Reflections on the Work of WatsujiTetsuro," Journal of Asian Studies,24, no. 4(1965): 573-94.

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16. Kuki began publishing on Heidegger asearly as 1929, the year of his return to Japan.His study "Jikan no Mondai: Berukuson toHaidegga" (The Problem of Time: Bergson andHeidegger) appeared in Tetsugaku Zashi (TheJournal of Philosophy) in May 1929. His 1933study Haidegga no Tetsugaku (The Philosophyof Heidegger), published in the Iwanami Shotenlecture series Tetsugaku (Philosophy), was oneof the very first full-length accounts ofHeidegger's philosophy in any language. It andthe earlier study on time are included inKSZ,vol. 3 (Tokyo, 1981), pp. 199-271 and pp.295-337. Kuki's book-length set of lectures onHeidegger, delivered at Kyoto University in1931-32, can be found in KSZ,vol. 10 (Tokyo,1982), pp. 1-257.

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Heidegger held Kuki in highest esteem. Pro-fessor Tomio Tezuka in an article in thevolume containing his Japanese translationof Heidegger's dialogue from Unterwegs zurSprache remarks on the warmth with whichHeidegger spoke of Kuki and notes that pri-or to his own visit to Heidegger in March of1953, Heidegger had asked another Japanesevisitor, Keiichi Uchigaki, for pictures ofKuki's gravestone. Subsequently Uchigakihad these pictures sent to Heidegger fromKyoto. Tezuka says that Heidegger showedthese pictures to him during his

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visit. (See Tomio Tezuka, "Haidegga * tonoIchijikan" [An Hour with Heidegger], inMartin Heidegger, Kotoba ni tsuiteno Taiwa[Dialogue on Language], trans. TomioTezuka, [Tokyo: Risosha*, 1968], pp.159-60.) In his 1957 preface to the posthum-ous publication of Kuki's lectures on Frenchphilosophy, Gendai Fransu Tetsugaku Kogi(Lectures on Modern French Philosophy),Teiyu* Amano notes that Heidegger in 1957had remarked to Koichi* Tsujimura, thenstudying with Heidegger, that he was happyto see the publication of Kuki's lectures andthat he would like to write a preface for aGerman edition of one of Kuki's works(Teiyu Amano, Jo [Preface] to KSZ,vol. 8[Tokyo, 1981], p. iii). In actuality Amano'spreface does not directly name such a Ger-man edition, merely that Heidegger desiredto write a preface for one of Kuki's works.However, in a letter to the present author

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Professor Hisayuki Omodaka, editor ofKuki's lectures on French philosphy, kindlyprovides clarification of this matter, namelythat Heidegger anticipated that KoichiTsujimura would translate one of Kuki'sworkseither Iki no Kozo*or Guzensei* noMondai,or possibly the lectures on Frenchphilosphyinto German and that he, Heideg-ger, very much desired to provide a prefacefor such German edition. Unfortunately, theplanned translation was never undertaken.(For more on Kuki's lectures on Frenchphilosophy see note 47 below.)

17. See Heidegger, "Aus einem Gespräch vonder Sprache." Madame Kuki's diary notes thesevisits, as well as farewells to Heidegger uponthe Kukis' departure for France.

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18. Löwith's widow, Madame Ada Löwith, re-counts in a memoir the importance of this post,coming as it did during the Löwiths' exile inItaly, and spoke of Kuki's graciousness as host,of the pleasant times spent in conversation dur-ing visits to Kuki's home ("Kuki Kyoju* noOmoide" [Remembrances of Professor Kuki],trans. Akio Sato*, Geppo*6 [April 1980]: 6-8[insert in KSZ,vol. 5]).

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19. Three décadesonedevoted to literature, oneto philosophy, one to politicswere held eachsummer from 1910 to 1939 (with the exceptionof the years 1915-1921) at a twelfth-century ab-bey purchased by Desjardins in 1906 when theCatholic Church, secularizing its holdings, put itup for auction. These décades soon after theirinstitution in 1910 became the gathering placeeach summer for some of the most distinguishedintellectuals and writers of France and of othercountries. The Russian philosopher NicolaiBerdyaev, in attendance at many of the décadesat Pontigny, left this description: "Of all theforms of intercourse with French and, gener-allyspeaking, foreign circles in which I havetaken part the most interesting were the décades...at Pontigny. It was there that I really came toknow French culture and French life, and not theleast the Frenchman's attitude to foreigners.[These décades were] also attended by a greatnumber of intellectuals from abroad: English,

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Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Americans, Swiss,Dutch, Swedes, and Japanese" (Dream andReality: An Essay in Autobiography,trans. Kath-erine Lampert, [New York: Macmillan, 1951],pp. 267-68).

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20. Propos sur le temps was published by Phil-lipe Renouard. Both of its two essays, were alsopublished separately: the first essay, on time, ap-pearing in Correspondance de l'union pour lavérité (Mar.-Apr. 1929), the second, on Japan-ese art, appearing in Cahiers d'Etoile (Jan.-Feb.1929). In addition, the first essay appeared inJapanese under the title "Toyoteki* Jikan niTsuite" (On Oriental Time) in 1937 in the journ-al Zengaku Kenkyu*(Studies on Zen). Finally,Propos sur le temps was included, along with aJapanese translation, in KSZ,vol. 1. (Note shouldagain be taken of the right to left printing formatin Japan. Foreign language material is, however,printed in Western order. Thus, the Japanesetranslation appears in regular pagination, pp.399-434, whereas the original text of Propos surle temps,in addition to carrying the volume'sregular pagination, here corresponding to pp.296-263, also carries separate pagination, givenin parentheses [pp. 54-86]. A final note: the text

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in the KSZ is the same as that in the originalvolume except that the KSZ edition carries oneadditional editorial page identifying those ofKuki's quotations unidentified by him in the firstedition.)

Kuki sent a copy of Propos sur le temps toProfessor Kitaro* Nishida of KyotoUniversity, already at that time acclaimedthe first intelligence in modern Japanesephilosophy. Nishida, in a letter of December21, 1928, wrote to his former student, nowhis colleague at Kyoto

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University, the philosopher Hajime Tanabe:"Shuzo * Kuki has sent me a little book,Propos sur le temps,which he has just pub-lished in France. Here is a man of realBildung.It would be good to have him hereat Kyoto as a lecturer" (Nishida quoted inKSZ,supplementary volume, pp. 293-94.)

21. Master of his own culture, Kuki was also themaster of others. If like many other Japanesephilosophers of his and other generations, Kukistudied in Germany and thoroughly imbibedGerman culture, at the very same time he com-pletely assimilated French culture. If Germanphenomenology ultimately played a very signi-ficant role in his philosophical investigations, incultural matters French culture was closest to hisheart (bracketing, of course, Japanese culture), afact not contradicted by the predominance ofFrench over German culture in his private lib-rary. (See Akio Sato*, "Kuki Shuzo Bunko niTsuite" [On the Shuzo Kuki Archive], Geppo*1[Nov. 1980]: 6-8 [insert in KSZ,vol. 2].)

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Also: if Kuki, obviously, knew the principalclassical and modern European languages,he also knew Chinese and Sanskrit. Thus,the access here given a supreme philosoph-ical intelligence to the three major worldcivilizations could not but deepen the natureof all Kuki's comparative investigations.

22. KSZ,vol. 1, p. 54.

23. Jean-Marie Guyau, La Genèse de l'idée detemps (Paris: Alcan, 1923).

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24. KSZ,vol. 1, p. 54. The phrase "If one has theright to speak" is important because as Kukiknew, one cannot in fact easily speak of (one)oriental time. It is certainly not possibleandKuki of course in no way attempts thisto definit-ively counterpose an oriental to a Western time,either in terms of the categories "cyclical" and''linear" or in terms of subjective and objectiveconceptions. Thus, Kuki, already in the begin-ning of his discussion, speaks of subjective no-tions of time in the Orient and in the West, andlater speaks of cyclical notions of time in theGreeks. If a distinction is to be posed, it must asJoseph Needham has elsewhere shown be posedin terms of an Indo-Hellenistic notion of cyclicaltime on the one hand, and a Judaeo-Christiannotion of linear time on the other. So too it mustbe kept in mind, as Needham has again shown,that the predominant notions of time in Chinahave been linear, the cyclical notions appearingonly in the Taoist tradition (later influenced by

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Indian Buddhism)"Returning is the characterist-ic movement of the Tao,"says the Tao Te Ch-ingandin neoConfucianism, which, in this re-gard, merely drew on ancient Taoism. (SeeJoseph Needham, Time and Eastern Man [Lon-don: Royal Anthropological Society, 1965].) If,then, linearity dominated in the Chinese mind,conceptions of time as real also predominatedthere. Cyclical and subjective notions (the twodo not necessarily go together) abounded, bycontrast, in India. Entirely consistent with this,Kuki in developing his discussion of periodic,repetitive time relied precisely on Indian textssuch as the Upanishads and on the one Chinesetext, the Tao Te Ching.

25. KSZ,vol. 1, pp. 64-65.

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26. A polemic thread runs through Kuki's dis-cussion, for he aims to overturn the notion,posed in France at the time by those such asAndré Suarès, whom Kuki will later quote atlength, that "Japanese art never turns inward."

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27. Critic and philosopher of art, Okakura(1862-1913) had studied at Tokyo Universitywith Ernest Fenellosa and had pursued studiesof Western art in Europe. An important figure inthe movement to restore and preserve Japaneseart, he became, through a number of journeys tothe United States and Europe, the leading inter-preter for the West of Japanese art both throughworks such as The Ideals of the East, TheAwakening of Japan,and The Book of Tea andthrough work done at Boston's Museum of FineArts (beginning in 1905), first as advisor to andthen as curator of the Chinese and Japanese di-vision there. (See M. William Steele, "Kakuzo*Okakura," in The Kodansha Encyclopedia ofJapan,vol. 6, p. 79.)

In 1937 Kuki wrote a memoir of Okakura,"Okakura Kakuzo shi no Omoide" (Remem-

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brances of Kakuzo * Okakura). It is nowcollected in KSZ,vol. 5. Kuki had met Okak-ura several times at his, Kuki's, mother'shouse (Kuki's parents were separated) duringhis youth. Kuki's relation to the older man, afriend of Kuki's father before Kuki was bornand later a friend of Kuki's mother, was, ashis memoir shows, complicated.

Okakura belonged to that generation ofJapanese intellectualsthe writers Soseki*Natsume and Ogai* Mori can be consideredas among the leading representatives in thisregardreacting much more soberly and saga-ciously to the West than did the immediatelypreceding generation, enamored as it was of"things Western." Such note is added be-cause Michitaro* Tada and Takeshi Yasudain their book Iki no Kozo* o yomu (ReadingIki no Kozo)(Tokyo: Asahi Shinbuusha,1979) speak of Soseki Natsume in literatureand Kuki in philosophySoseki, born 1867,was of the generation preceding Kuki'sasthose two early 20th-century Japanese intel-lectuals who best understood the West(without in any way losing their self-con-scious rootedness in and their profoundcomprehension and appreciation of Japaneseculture).

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28. Kakuzo Okakura, The Ideals of the East withSpecial Reference to the Art of Japan (London:J. Murray 1905), pp. 1-5; KSZ,vol. 1, p. 66.

29. Okakura, The Ideals of the East,pp. 168-69.

30. Okakura, The Ideals of the East,pp. 176-77.It is the art of this Ashikaga period that Okakuraespecially appreciates. This period's aesthetic isalso dear to Kuki, who takes care to advise hisWestern auditors against the notion that in refer-ring to Japanese art he refers to the more popu-lar arts of Edo-period Japan (woodblock printsand so forth).

31. KSZ,vol. 1, p. 68.

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32. The short propos pieces were found amongKuki's papers and published for the first time,along with the article "Bergson au Japon"(which had originally appeared in Les NouvellesLittéraires,December 15, 1928, pp. 1-2), underthe editor's title Choses Japonaises,in KSZ,vol.1, pp. 261-39 (in Japanese page order)."Caractères généraux de la philosophiefrançaise" was subsequently published (inabridged version) in the bulletin of the Japanese-French Cultural Society. The complete versionwas included in KSZ,vol. 3 (Tokyo, 1981), pp.1-9pp. 423-15 in Japanese page order.

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33. Kuki returned to Japan in December of 1928via the United States (in Washington D.C. hemet Paul Claudel with whom he discussed,among other things, Alain's aesthetics). Onboard ship he completed two studies,"Futsudoku tetsugakkai-no genjo* (The PresentSituation of French and German Philosophy)and "Nihon Bunka" (Japanese Culture). TheWestern philosophies he had just assimilated,the Japanese culture he would (under impact of,among other things, these philosophies) so mar-velously analyzeit seems fitting that on a returnvoyage to a Japan he would subsequently neverleave Kuki should concern himself with justthese. Receiving a post as lecturer in Frenchphilosophy at Kyoto University in April of1929, he became an assistant professor in 1932and a full professor in 1935. He remained inKyoto for the rest of his lifeleaving only to visithis family in Tokyoliving for many years nearNanzenji (Nanzen Temple) and then in 1940, a

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year before his death, moving to the outskirts ofKyoto.

34. KSZ,vol. 1, p. 89. Nishida and Tanabe initi-ated an idealist current of philosophy which,after World War II, would become known as theKyoto-ha*,the Kyoto School of philosophy.Nishida's first work, the 1911 Zen no Ken-kyu*(A Study of Good), signaled definitivelythat a period of Japanese reception of Westernphilosophy had been superceded by independentand creative philosophical production. (I notehere, parenthetically, that both Kuki in hisFrench article on Bergson and Miki in his Ger-man article on Rickert alluded to the weight ofNishida's philosophy.)

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A number of Nishida's works are availablein English translation: (1) A Study ofGood,trans. Valdo H. Viglielmo (Tokyo:Print Bureau of the Japanese Govt., 1960);(2) Art and Morality,trans. David Dilworthand Valdo H. Viglielmo (Honolulu: Univ. ofHawaii Press, 1973); (3) Intelligibility andthe Philosophy of Nothingness,trans. RobertSchinzinger (Tokyo: Maruzen,

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1958); (4) Fundamental Problems of Philo-sophy, trans. David Dilworth (Tokyo:Sophia Univ. Press, 1970).

35. Introduction to Le problème de la contin-gence (Tokyo: Université de Tokio, 1966), pp.viii-ix. This is Omodaka's French translation ofGuzensei * no Mondai (Tokyo, 1966).

36. Kuki, "Furyu* ni kansuru Ichikosatsu"(Thoughts on Furyu) in KSZ,vol. 4, p. 82.

37. Kuki, Jo (Preface) to Bungeiron in KSZ,vol.4, p. 4.

38. Letter to the present author. Note should betaken that if Kuki's Iki no Kozo*has become awell-known work, Kuki himself both during hislifetime and in the years following his death wasknown only by the "happy few" as it were. AsProfessor Hisayuki Omodaka remarked in "Re-collections of Professor Kuki," a 1979 discus-sion in Kyoto before the Japanese-French Philo-sophical Society, as well as in his 1980 and1982 discussions "Testimony of the Editor ofShuzo* Kuki's Collected Works" and "After theKuki Shuzo Zenshu*,''Kuki was in the years fol-lowing his death never paid the attention war-ranted by the fascination and brilliance of hisperson and oeuvre. And Professor Omodakanoted that even where he was known it was,generally, only in partiality, only for Iki no Kozohere, only for his literary studies in Bungeironthere. (See Hisayuki Omodaka, "Kuki Shuzo oShinonde," "Kuki Shuzo Zenshu hensha no Ko-toba," and "Kuki Shuzo Zenshu no Henshu* o

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oete," in Omodaka, Waga Shi, Waga Tomo:Sona Shiso* to Ikikata [My Teachers, MyFriends: Their Thought and Their Way of Life](Tokyo: Keizaioraisha*, 1984], pp. 32-39,40-43, and 49-58.) In short, it can be saidecho-ing a line from Bossuet's funeral oration for Nic-olas Cornet ("Thus, the glory of this illustriousman lies in his having remained a hidden treas-ure")that Kuki has, hitherto, been the "hiddentreasure" of Japanese philosophy and letters.With the publication (overdue) of Kuki's Collec-ted Works,with the translation of several of hiswritings, may the word "hidden" be removedfrom the homage.

39. Omodaka, Introduction, p. v; Kuki quoted inOmodaka, Introduction, p. v.

40. Henri Gouhier, Introduction to HenriBergson, Oeuvres,ed. André Robinet (Paris:PUF, 1959), p. viii.

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41. It was Henri Gouhier who made request ofKuki for a contribution on Bergson, Gouhierhaving himself been asked by Frédéric Lefevreto put together this special Bergson issue. Gouh-ier had come to know Kuki when Kuki hadcalled upon him, presenting Gouhier at that timea copy of Propos sur le temps.(At Bergson'shome Kuki had also presented Bergson a copyof Propos sur le temps inscribed "A MonsieurHenri Bergson de Académie française, ce re-spectueux hommage de ma reconnaissance.") Ina letter graciously written to the present author,Gouhier recounts: "I was at once most charmedby his person and I found remarkable the studieson time which he had had the kindness to offerme. That is why I immediately thought of himwhen Frédéric Lefevre charged me with prepar-ation of the pages on Bergson for Les NouvellesLittéraires."(Here note should be made that inthe editorial chronology contained in the supple-mentary volume of KSZ indication is given that

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Kuki may have met Gouhier at Bergson's homeand that either Gouhier or Lefevre asked thecontribution of Kuki. Gouhier's testimony nowgives us a better picture of this sequence.) Asconclusion to his letter, Gouhier writes that hevery much regretted "not having undertaken acorrespondence with this remarkable man [ofwhom] I had news . . . through his pupils and[whose] death pained me." That Gouhier contin-ued to receive word of Kuki through his, Kuki'sstudents (Professor Hisayuki Omodaka, for one,traveled to Europe in the 1930s) is intriguing.But we have not yet been able to make precisethe nature of Kuki's ties with Europe after his re-turn to Japan. (In a letter to the present author,Professor Omodaka indicates that he, Omodaka,did not meet Gouhier while in Paris.)

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Of Kuki's piece on Bergson, Gouhier, in thepreviously mentioned letter, writes: "He had,of course, himself chosen his subject, but Iwas myself eager to have articles on the in-terest awakened in various countries forBergsonism. 'Bergson au Japon' particularlyinterested me because in the course of ourdiscussions Kuki had told me that the Japan-ese spirit could more

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easily enter into Bergsonism than could theWestern spirit. He sought here, I believe, tomake allusion to a certain sense of fluidity,of becoming, more familiar to Japanese thanto Cartesian thought." Once again, I wish toexpress my gratitude to Professor Gouhierfor having kindly provided me recollectionof Kuki.

42. See Y. Nitta, H. Tatematsu, and E.Shimomisse *, "Phenomenology and Philosophyin Japan"; the editorial chronology in KSZ,sup-plementary volume; and Toshihito Naito*,"Kuki to Sarutoru."

43. In his will Kuki bequeathed his library to hisfriend, the philosopher Teiyu* Amano, then aprofessor at Kyoto University. Shortly afterKuki's death, Amano became the principal atKonan* Higher School (now Konan University)in Kobe*, taking Kuki's library with him.However, two years later Amano was appointedprincipal at Daiichi Kotogakko*, and for a vari-ety of reasons, including the war, Kuki's librarywas left at Konan. Thus the library was left un-touched until the organization of the Shuzo*Kuki Archive in 1976. (See Akio Sato*, "KukiShuzo Bunko ni Tsuite" [On the Shuzo KukiArchive], and Akio Sato, "Kuki Shuzo Bunkono Koto" [On the Shuzo Kuki Archive],Shiso*628 [October 1976]: 121-26.)

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44. The notebook contains lined pages, the firsttwo of which are blank on both sides. Entrieswere made in pencil and the back sides of eachof the pages were left blank with the exceptionof (1) four pages carrying the section headingsBrunschvicg, Alain, Blondel, and Valéry; (2)several pages in the middle of the entries con-taining listings of readings on Descartes, Pascal,Maine de Biran, Comte, etc.; and (3) the page,which unlike all the other pages is in black ink,in Sartre's hand. Following upon the entries theremaining pages in the notebook are blank. I amindebted, once again, to professor Akio Sato forhaving so very kindly allowed me to examinethis notebook.

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45. The reference to Friedmann and Morhangeis listed under reference to the group's journalEsprit (not to be confused with the Catholic re-view of the same name), by this time defunctbut soon to find a successor in the famous LaRevue Marxiste.Paul Nizan, friend of bothSartre and Friedmann, would give a portrait ofthis group (and time) in his novel LaConspiration.

Friedmann, born in 1902, was several yearsahead of Sartre and Nizan at the Ecole Nor-male. He passed the agrégation in 1925 andwent on to author a number of philosophico-sociological studies of the modern labor pro-cess and of its relation to contemporarycivilization. He did not, however, abandonphilosophy, authoring, for instance, thesagacious study Leibniz et Spinoza (Paris:Gallimard, 1946).

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46. A photograph of the speakers at this décadeshows Parodi and Jankélévitch standing to theleft and right respectively of Aron, Namer,Koyré, and Kuki, all gathered on a picturesquespot on the grounds of Pontigny and seated inascending order on a short series of stone steps.

Sartre was himself not a stranger to thedécades at Pontigny, having been contribut-or, along with Louis-Martin Chauffier, RenéPoirier, Jean Baruzi, M. Gatteau, andCharles du Bos, to the 2d décade of 1926(August 15-25), the décade carrying as itstitle, of all things, "The Christian Imprint.By what recognition? Could it disappear?"

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47. Thus, of particular note: on the 11th page ofnotebook entries Kuki has jotted down a cardin-al motto of the ever-Cartesian rationalism andintellectualism of Alain, "The real Hegel is thetrue Hegel." And then immediately following,Kuki quotes from Alain's Souvenirs concernantJules Lagneau (Alain's volume in homage to theman he honored above all others, his own teach-er Jules Lagneau [1851-1894]) another maximfrom the rationalist pedagogy of Lagneau-Alain:"Neither Athenian, nor accidental, nor moment-ary Plato, but the true Plato." In Kuki's lectureon Alain in his lectures on French philosophywe find once again the Hegel maxim and onceagain (with the same reference to p. 87 ofSouvenirs concernant Jules Lagneau)the "truePlato" (KSZ,vol. 8, p. 244).

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The lectures devoted to "Modern FrenchPhilosophy," as noted earlier, were first pub-lished in 1957. Kuki's lectures on the "His-tory of Modern Philosophy" first appeared intwo volumes

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(1944 and 1948) and now make up vol. 6and 7 of KSZ (both Tokyo, 1981). The lec-tures on "Modern French Philosophy" makeup vol. 8. Vol. 9 (Tokyo, 1981) is composedof lectures on "Trends in Modern Philo-sophy," and vol. 10, as already noted, con-tains lectures on Heidegger, as well asKuki's own reading notes on Husserl,Bergson, Descartes, Leibniz, and Boutroux.

The lectures on "Modern French Philo-sophy" were edited with the great care andattention of Kuki's former student, ProfessorHisayuki Omodaka, to whom readers of thatvolume are much indebted, the volume hav-ing been 4 years in preparation. The volumeis based on transcribed lecture notes. Hereand there Professor Omodaka made revi-sions and, where necessary, additions. In anafterword Professor Omodaka notes thatKuki's lectures, composed in a careful andclear language, would not have been pub-lished by Kuki himself, who would haveconsidered them too reflective of the con-strictive format of the lecture. The lecturesthemselves essentially cover French philo-sophy from Descartes to the immediate post-World War I period (with a brief survey ofthe medieval period), but the greater part ofthe volume is given over to the period fromComte to Bergson. In regard to Kuki's role

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in the transmission of French philosophy toJapan, it is noteworthy that at the conclusionof a series of lectures giving an overview ofthe subject as a whole, Kuki quotes a longpassage from Alexander Gunn's 1922 Eng-lish volume Modern French Philosophy thatconcludes: "The history of thought inFrance, especially in the period betweenComte and Bergson has remained in sadneglect. This can and should be speedilyremedied" (KSZ,vol. 8, p. 35). In Japan,thanks to Kuki, who as Teiyu * Amanonoted, was with French philosophy "truly inhis element," it was.

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48. Brunschvicg and Alainpupils respectively ofthose exemplary teachers of philosophy,Alphonse Darlu and Jules Lagneau (Brun-schvicg at the lycée Condorcet where MarcelProust was two years behind him)esteemed andadmired one another, but as the writer PierreBost noted, "did not particularly like oneanother."

49. Nizan would have denied this distinction; in-deed, such distinction was the object of hisbook's criticism.

50.Jean Hyppolite, Introduction to MarcelDeschoux, La Philosophie de Léon Brunschvicg(Paris: PUF 1949), p. vii.

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51. Sartre, of course, had not been one of Alain'spupils. Interestingly enough, one of Alain's pu-pils, the writer Pierre Bost, elder brother ofSartre's own lycée pupil-to-be, Jacques-LaurentBost, recounts in a memoir of Alain, that he be-lieves ("Je crois savoir [Je dis: je crois]") thatSartre had specifically chosen not to becomeone of Alain's pupils, choosing to carry out thekhâgne at the lycée Louis-le-Grand rather thanat the lycée Henri-IV. Sartre, the elder Bostnotes, was thus one of the first non-pupils ofAlain to recognize and honor in Alain the teach-er,even, or just by, feeling the necessity of "re-fusing him" (Bost's memoir in the special issueHommage à Alain of La Nouvelle RevueFrançaise [Sept. 1952], p. 39). In Sartre's re-cently published letters, a letter of 1926 to Si-mone Jollivet quotes with enthusiasm a passagefrom Alain's Propos sur le bonheur.(See Lettresau Castor et à quelques autres, 1926-1939 [Par-is: Gallimard, 1981], p. 13.)

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52. Octave Hamelin (1856-1907), DominiqueParodi (1870-1955), and René Le Senne(1882-1954) all descended from the neocriticismof Charles Renouvier. Kuki in his lecturesgrouped them under the heading "Idéalisme dia-lectique," itself a section within the largergrouping "La Philosophie rationaliste." Alainand Brunschvicg were also discussed within thelatter grouping, under the headings "Rational-isme éthique" and "Rationalisme critique" re-spectively. Hamelin's major work, Essai sur leséléments principaux de la représentation,dis-cussed at great length by Kuki in his lectures,was written under the direct influence of Renou-vier and Hegel. In Parodi and Le Senne onefinds a rationalist ethics, Le Senne's decidedlythe more interesting of the two. Thus seeParodi's Le Problème moral et la pensée con-temporaine (Paris: Alcan, 1909) and Le Senne'sLe Devoir (Paris: Alcan, 1930), Le Mensonge et

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le caractère (Paris: Alcan, 1930), and Obstacleet valeur (Paris: Aubier, 1934).

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53. Parodi quoted in Léon Brunschvicg,"L'Orientation du rationalisme," in BrunschvicgEcrits philosophiques II (Paris: PUF, 1954), p.2.

54. With Charles Renouvier (1815-1903) it wasa question of the French "return to Kant." Thus,under inspiration of Kant and Comte (withwhom he had studied) his neocriticism was ex-pounded in the four-volume Essais de critiquegénérale (Paris, 1854-1864; rpt., 3 vols., Paris:A. Colin, 1912).

55. Marces discussion appears in Léon Brun-schvicg, "L'Intelligence est-elle capable de com-prendre," in Brunschvicg, Ecrits philosophiquesII,pp. 292, 306.

56. In his recently published journals writtenduring his mobilization at the beginning ofWorld War II, Sartre in a passage of self-analys-is makes reference to "the reviews Esprit andPhilosophie (of Friedmann and Morhange)"(Les Carnets de la drôle de guerre, Novembre1939-Mars 1940 [Paris: Gallimard 1983], p.108). Doubtless this tells us little, but it is inter-esting that among the several members of theFriedmann-Morhange (Nizan, Politizer, Guter-man) group it is the names of Friedmann andMorhange that appear both in Kuki's notebookand in Sartre's journal.

57. Paul Nizan, Aden-Arabie (Paris: Maspéro,1971), p. 59.

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58. Sartre would again take up a reading ofMars ou la guerre jugée during his mobilizationin Alsace in 1939. Thus, in a letter of 20 Octo-ber 1939 he writes to Simone de Beauvoir:"Don't forget to send Mars in the next batch ofbooks. . . . "On 26 October 1939 he againwrites: "Don't forget to buy a copy of Mars oula guerre jugée for me . . ." (Lettres au Castor,1926-1939,pp. 365, 378). And in a journal entryof 29 November 1939, an entry listing books hehas read since 2 September, we find Mars ou laguerre jugée (Les Carnets de la drôle deguerre,p. 83).

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59. Here I can do no more than allude to this in-fluence. Thus, with reference to Brunschvicgand Alain I use the word influence in generalfashion. Influence is, after all, nothing otherthan a relation, the content of which does notexist outside its intellectual construction.HerbertSpiegelberg's "Towards a Phenomenology of In-fluence: Its Nature and Its Varieties" providesan excellent and incisive discussion of this ques-tion. (See Phenomenology in Psychology andPsychiatry [Evanston: Northwestern Univ.Press, 1972], pp. xxxviii-xli.)

60. Kuki's lectures on French philosophy con-clude with a section on religious philosophy inwhich brief discussion of L'Action is found.

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61. Louis Lavelle, La Philosophie françaiseentre les deux guerres (Paris: Aubier, 1942), p.130; Maurice Blondel, Action: Essai d'une cri-tique de la vie et d'une science de la pratique(Paris, 1893; rpt. Paris: PUF, 1950), p. vii.

62. Ibid.,pp. 12, 30

63. Bergson, L'Evolution créatrice inOeuvres,ed. André Robinet (Paris: PUF, 1959)pp. 725-47.

64. See Naito *, "Kuki to Sarutoru."

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65. In their The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre(Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1974),vol. 1, Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka referto this fact. And now with the publication ofSartre's letters we can find in a letter of 9 Octo-ber 1931 to Simone de Beauvoir: "I lunched at arestaurant . . . one across from the station in thisquarter of Le Havre that I love so much andwhich I have decided to include in the factumsur le Contingence"(Lettres au Castor,1926-1939, p. 45). Naito also refers to theFactum.

66. De Beauvoir, The Prime of Life,p. 112.

67. Quoted in de Beauvoir, La Ceremonie desadieux, suive de Entretiens avec Jean-PaulSartre (Paris: Gallimard, 1981), pp. 181-82.Contat's and Rybalka's The Writings of Jean-Paul

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Sartre includes reference to a 1926 lettermentioning contingency. Again, publicationof Sartre's letters gives us the following (in aletter to Simone Jollivet): "Here the weatheryou love so: rain and wind. Excellent forwriting on Contingency" (Lettres au Castor,1926-1939,p. 28).

68. Professor Hisayuki Omodaka in his 1979tribute to Kuki, "Kuki Sensei o Keiboshite" (InAdmiration of Professor Kuki), placed the philo-sophy of contingency (Guzensei * no tetsugaku)at the heart of Kuki's philosophical enterprise.(See Omodaka, Waga Shi, Waga Tomo,pp.28-29.)

69. These two works, as well as other writingson contingency, such as "Guzenka* no Ronri"(The Logic of Contingency) and "Guzensei noKisoteki Seikaku no Ichi Kosatsu" (Reflectionson the Basic Character of Contingency), are in-cluded in KSZ,vol. 2.

70. Kuki's original statements (in French) can befound in KSZ,vol. 1, pp. 62-63.

71. KSZ,vol. 2, pp. 207-8, 259-60.

72. Ibid.,p. 220.

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73. In a letter of 25 January 1940 to Simone deBeauvoir Sartre writes: "Know that a Japanesereview has written me requesting 8 typed pagesfor which they will pay accordingly, given thatmy 'works are much admired in Japan.' I will notwrite the 8 pages, but as you can imagine, I wasstirred to read this." And the following day, a 26January 1940 letter to de Beauvoir contains:"There is a Japanese review which requests mycollaboration, but I have courteously declined . .." Lettres au Castor et à quelques autres,1940-1963 [Paris: Gallimard, 1981],pp. 58,60).Of what journal and of which works could ithere have been a question? "Kabe,"the Japanesetranslation (by Yu Ichikawa) of Sartre's shortstory "Le Mur," had appeared in the January1938 issue of the journal Jiyu*.''Le Mur" wouldalso appear (in the translation of DaigakuHoriguchi) in the January 1940 issue of ChuoKoron*.In addition, the December 1938 issue ofthe journal Serupan had contained an article by

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Ryu Sekimizu (pseudonym of Saku Sato*),"Hakike: J. P. Sarutoru," summarizing LaNausée. And the April 1939 issue of the journalBuntai had contained Saku Sato's article"Gendai Fransu Shosetsu Oboegaki" (Notes onthe Contemporary French Novel) in which asummary and discussion of La Nausée couldalso be found. This was the extent of Sartre'spublic reception in Japan at the time of Sartre'sJanuary 1940 letters to de Beauvoir, althoughthe June 1940 issue of the journal Bunka-hyoronwould contain Saku Sato's article "Sarutoru niTsuite"(On Sartre). It seems likely to surmisethat Sartre's Japanese correspondent had beenSaku Sato, but given Sato's collaboration with anumber of journals, one would simply have tochoose, most likely among Jiyu, Serupan,andBuntai as to the journal in question. The import-ant question is, of course: Might Kuki have seenthese reviews and, most particularly, Sato's sum-mary of La Nausée?

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74. Professor Tetsuo Kogawa has in a letterprovided me this information.

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75. In Sartre's journals of the drôle de guerre wecan find description of his intellectual-philo-sophical stance during his years at the EcoleNormale. In a passage in which he refers to an"existential" shading given philosophical prob-lems by other students, Sartre writes: "Againstthem . . . we [Nizan, Aron, and I] placedourselves under the sign of Descartes becauseDescartes was an explosive thinker. Nothingcould displease us more than this grey thought,these transmutations, these evolutions and meta-morphoses, these languid shivers. Phrases suchas 'become what you are' set our teeth to gnash-ing. We passed the time, on the contrary, isolat-ing concepts in order to render them incommu-nicable, closed tightly in on themselves, as Des-cartes had done, separating soul and body sosuccessfully that no one could subsequently suc-ceed in rejoining them" (Les Carnets de la drôlede guerre,p. 111). This passage is of interest be-cause in his lectures on French philosophy Kuki

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would in a section devoted to Alain speak of arenewal of interest in Descartes on the part of anumber of students at the Ecole Normale duringthe 1920s (See KSZ,vol. 8, p. 243). Sartre's pas-sage allows us to surmise that Kuki received thisinformation from Sartre. It also allows us tosituate Sartre philosophically at the time (orclose to the time) of his meetings with Kuki.

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76. Excluding even our present knowledge ofKuki's role, we can find in Sartre's journals ofthe drôle de guerre,in a passage referring toHenri Corbin's 1938 translation of Was ist Meta-physik?,the following statement: "In fact[Corbin's translation] was not my first meetingwith Heidegger. I had heard him spoken of longbefore leaving for Berlin"; to which statementSartre himself adds the note: "I had read Qu'est-ce que la métaphysique without understanding itin 1930 in the review Bifur" (Les Carnets de ladrôle de guerre,p. 225). (Actually the issue ofBifur to which Sartre refers appeared in 1931).

77. Sartre, Les Carnets de la drôle de guerre,p.224.

78. Sartre adds in this journal entry that thequestion of vocabulary was, however, insignific-ant. Without his German having improved, henotes, he was later, in 1939, able to read Seinund Zeit.

79. Sartre, Les Carnets de la drôle de guerre,pp.226-27.

80. Ibid.,p. 227.

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81. Sartre, Les Carnets de la drôle de guerre,p.227. Sartre's reading of Corbin's translation ofWas ist Metaphysik? and his subsequent readingin the spring of 1939 of Sein und Zeit providedhim final impetus for the composition of Etre etle néant.Thus Etre et le néant appears in Sartre'sdrôle de guerre journals in statu nascendi.Anabundance of entries can be found there onnothingness, on the consciousness of the other,on temporality, on anguish, on freedom; entriesthat already reveal the vocabulary, indeed, thevery ontology that will be found in Etre et lenéant.

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And just this concept of nothingness, at bot-tom of the theory of consciousness, at bot-tom of the dualistic ontology of being-in-it-self and being-for-itself to be found in Etreet le néant,is here found fashioned in directrelation, indeed, opposition to Heidegger'stheory of the nothing. Thus, in a letter to Si-mone de Beauvoir of 15 January 1940 Sartrewrites: "This morning I re-read Heidegger'sQu'est-ce que la métaphysique and I havebeen occupied throughout the day 'taking upa position' in relation to him on the questionof nothingness. I have a theory of nothing-ness although it is as yet not well developed.. . ." In a letter of the following day, again tode Beauvoir, just those problems pivotal inSartre's dissatisfaction with Husserl appearto have been solved: precisely through thistheory of nothingness: "At first to elaboratethis theory of nothingness that you willsurely admire, since 1) it suppresses Hussers

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recourse to the hylé2)it explains the unicityof the world for a plurality of conscious-nesses and 3) it permits one to transcendonce and for all realism and idealism." Aletter of 22 February 1940 (to de Beauvoir)shows us (as do his drôle de guerre journalsof the same time) that he now felt quitehappy with elaboration of his notion: "Thistheory of nothingness bears fruit, I am quitecertain.'' And he briefly elaborated a theoryof consciousness as founded on lack, as it-self a nothing. Then, on 5 June 1940, Sartrewrote to de Beauvoir that the loss of some ofhis notebooks must be of no great matter, thetheory of nothingness remains in his headand "will be the object of a book." On 22July 1940, Sartre, now a prisoner-of-war,concludes a letter to de Beauvoir with theline: "I have begun writing a metaphysicaltreatise: Etre et le néant"(Lettres au Castor,1940-1963,)39, 40-41, 87, 268, 285.

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82. Sartre, Les Carnets de la drôle de guerre,p.227.

83. Ibid.,pp. 228, 229.

84. Ibid.,p. 228.

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PART TWOCONSIDERATIONS ON TIMETWO ESSAYS DELIVERED ATPONTIGNYDURING THE DÉCADE OF 8-18AUGUST 1928

ByShuzo * Kuki

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The Notion Of Time And Repetition InOriental TimeThus spoke Yajnavalkya: "Give me your hand Art-abhaga, friend, this knowledge is given only to the twoof us. Not a word down there among the people."Brihad-aranyaka * Upanishad

IF one has the right to speak of "Oriental time,"it seems it can be a question of nothing otherthan the time of transmigration. This time is atime that repeats itself, periodic time. However,before considering this conception of time, it isfirst necessary to characterize time in general.What is time? Time is of the will. I say that timeis of the will because time does not exist so longas there is no will. For a table, for a chair, thereis no time. If time exists for them, it is becauseconsciousness, as will, has given them a time.Time exists for them only in relation to the will,to consciousness.

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We can, for example, find such a conception oftime in Guyau. Time for him is the disparitybetween the will and its goal, "the distinctionbetween wanting and possessing," "an interiorperspective that goes forward toward the fu-ture." Thus, the most important characteristic oftime lies in its "anticipation."1 Similarly, Her-mann Cohen conceives of time as above all anti-cipation or Vorwegnahme.He says that the ideaof the series supposes ordering activity. Thisactivity in turn poses the series as its goal.Hence, the series creates succession assomething "which must follow,'' Folgensol-lendes.What follows is anticipated. Thus, "anti-cipation is the fundamental characteristic oftime."2 And just recently M. Martin Heideggerhas said that "the primordial phenomenon" oftime is the future, that future corresponding tothe Sich-vorweg-sein (Being-ahead-of-itself) of"care."3 All these conceptions are in accord inenvisioning time as constituted by the will. The

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pure durée of M. Bergson would not be an ex-ception. The development of his ideas from hisEssay on the Immediate Givens of Conscious-ness to Creative Evolution testifies to this.

In the Orient, time is also considered as being, atbottom, of the will. Several ancient metaphysic-al conceptions of time already prove this. Thus,we can read in the Svetasvatara* Upanishad:"Several masters speak to us of nature, othersspeak to us of time. But they are deluded. It isby the

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omnipotence of God that the wheel of Brahmanrevolves in the universe." 4 Time is born fromthe omnipotence of God, from his will. And inthe Bhagavad Gita*Krishna declares: "I am lim-itless time." And from yet another point of view,the Milanda-panha says: "Of past, present, andfuture duration the root is ignorance; from ig-norance come the dispositions of the will."Thus, from ignorance comes the will and fromthe will time. Later we read: ''What has pre-ceded ignorance has not existed at all; such ananterior limit cannot be discovered." "Withoutbeginning, without end, the circle is closed."What is this closed circle? What is the wheel ofBrahman? Both designate nothing less thantransmigration.

Let us, then, deepen this conception of the timeof transmigration. Transmigration is indefiniterebirth, the perpetual repetition of the will, theendless return of time. Now the most remark-able and striking case of transmigration conceiv-able is the one in which a man becomes again,in perpetual repetition, the same man. The cater-pillar passing from one leaf to another finds al-ways the same leaf. The embroideress creating anew pattern finds that the new one is but the old.In the final analysis, however, such case is notan exceptional one. Transmigration in general issubmitted to the law of causality, to the se-quence of causes and effects. Man passes fromone existence to another, but the latter is determ-ined by the former. A deceased is reborn as aman on account of a good act, another is rebornas a woman on account of a bad act. Others be-come worms, locust, mosquitos. In appearancethere is change here, but, at bottom, there isnone at all. "As he was here, so will he be there;

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as he acts so will he become; doing good, he be-comes good, doing bad, he becomes bad"; thussays the Upanishad.And Buddhism teaches:"These inner dispositions he has nourished andencouraged lead him to be reborn in just such anexistence. Such is, 0 disciples, access; such isthe path which leads to rebirth in such an exist-ence." A woman reborn as a man already pos-sessed the virtue of a man, she was a womanonly in appearance; at bottom she was a man. Aman reborn as a woman was already a woman inthe weakness of his morals. People who becomeworms already led the life of worms. In the no-tion of karma,that is to say, works and moral re-tribution, the conception of identity is necessar-ily included. What reigns here is inexorablefatality. In general, causality aims at and resultsin identity. And the doctrine of transmigration issubject to the principle of identity: A is A. Thus,the case of transmigration, wherein man be-comes the same man, is not the exceptional but

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rather the typical case. Everything particularhere is only part of a more consequential logic, amore profound abstraction. Hence, by enlargingthe horizon and, at the same time, by followingthis logic out to its conclusion, we end up withthe conception that all men, in their concrete re-lations with one another, in the

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ensemble of their concrete circumstances, peri-odically return.In a word, the worldin its state ofidentityperiodically returns. "What it produced,it reabsorbed . . . in order to begin its creationanew," says the Svetasvatara * Upanishad.Andin the Bhagavad Gita*we read: "All beings, Oson of Kunti, at the end of the kalpa re-enter mycreative power; at the beginning of the kalpa Ionce again emit them." The kalpa is preciselythe cosmic period about which it is said else-where: "The world perishes, but its forces re-main, and they are the roots from which it is re-born anew; if not we would have an effectwithout a cause. Now, productive forces, oldand new, cannot be any different. Thus, despiteever recurring cosmic interruptions, there re-mains for the order of the universe, for the vari-ous orders of living beings (gods, animals, andmen), and for the different states of castes, ac-rama*,duties, and recompenses . . . a rigorousdetermination."5

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Now it is here that we find the notion of anidentical time repeating itself in perpetuity.Alongside lived time and measurable time per-haps, a third conception of time can be distin-guished. This conceptionthe conception of theGreat Yearhad been adopted in Greece by thePythagoreans and above all in the stoic eschato-logy. It was said that the world would reproduceitself in exactly the same details. Socrates wouldbe born in Athens, would marry Xanthippe,would die by drinking hemlock, and all thiswould be repeated indefinitely. A Great Year,periodically repeating itself, can thus be con-sidered, if I may be permitted to employ the ter-minology of M. Husserl, the realization of an ei-detische Singularität,an "eidetic singularity," an"ideal singularity." All the Great Years areidentical, absolutely identical among them-selves. Their characters consist only in being ex-emplars of an eidos; no matter how many timesthese Great Years recur, they all remain

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perfectly identical among themselves. The GreatYears do not have, strictly speaking, the charac-ters of individualities. Thus, they remain outsidethe domain where the Leibnizianprincipiumidentitatis indiscernibilium reigns. This is whytheir absolute identity is in no way opposed totheir numerical multiplicity. Consequently, eachinstant, each present is an identical moment ofdifferent times. Time is conceived as a circle in-stead of as a straight line. Instead of having theform of an arrow, it has the form of a "wheelturning on itself."6 What is of the past can be ofthe future, what is of the future can be of thepast. Time in this conception containssomething of reversibility. Perhaps this concep-tion of time is imaginary; if you want, the coun-terpart of the Klein-Clifford notion of space. Inany case it is the time of the poet-philosopherNietzsche. Zarathustra, while hearing a doghowl, remembers a time far offlong, long agoa

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time when he heard the same howl of the samedog. It was long ago, when he was not yet born.7

This notion of an identical, of an ever renewedtime, what relation does it

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have with normal time? The word "ecstasis" hasrecently been employed to characterize the onto-phenomenological structure of time. Time hasthree modes of "ecstasis," of being ''outside it-self": the future, the present, the past. The char-acter of time consists precisely in the integralunity of its "ecstases," in its "ecstatic unity." 8

Ecstasis in this sense is, as it were, horizont-al.Now, it could be saidapropos of the time oftransmigrationthat there is yet another ecstasis,one which is vertical.Each present has identicalmoments, in the future as well as in the past.Each is an instant whose thickness is of infinitedepth. However, this ecstasis is no longer phe-nomenological,rather it is mystical.The word ec-stasis reassumes here something of its formersignification. Now, the difference between aphenomenological and a mystical ecstasis oftime consists principally in two points. Whereasin the former the continuity of constitutive ele-ments is essential, in the latter, on the contrary,

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there is a discontinuity of elements connectedonly by a kind of attraction at a distance. In theformer, then, the elements manifest a pure het-erogeneity and, consequently, time is irrevers-ible. In the latter the elements of ecstasis are ofan identical homogeneity,are thus interchange-able; time is in this sense reversible. By admit-ting these essential differences we could say: thehorizontal plane represents the ontologico-phe-nomenological ecstasis, the vertical plane themetaphysicomystical ecstasis. The crossing ofthe two planes is, then, nothing other than thespecial structure of time with its two faces, theone real and the other imaginary.

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It could, perhaps, be objected that there is noth-ing extraordinary in this conception of periodictime. The fact that the Great Years arenumbered first year, second year, third year,etc., testifies that the Great Years succeed oneanother. They bear ordered numbers; they arenot reversible since it is necessary to admit aspectator who counts them. It seems to me,however, that as soon as one insists on thispoint, one involuntarily abandons the initial hy-pothesis. The Great Years no longer remainidentical among themselves. Socrates married toXanthippe is no longer the same Socrates, nor isXanthippe the same Xanthippe. Both would agewith each successive Great Year. In their faces alittle more melancholy would each time be dis-cerned. Now the notion of "Great Years," con-sistently thought, implies, rather, an independentbeginning and an absolute renewal of every oneof the years. We could, perhaps, say again thatthe identity that is supposed is only the identity

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of the content of different Great Years. TheGreat Years themselves are not and cannot beidentical among themselves. But can one ima-gine a time having no content? Can a notion oftime be maintained in abstraction from all of itscontent? Does not time retain all the character-istics of its content? When it is said that time isnot reversible, is it not because

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its content is not reversible? Now it is true thatwe cannot separate time from its content, and ifwe are not hesitant in submitting to all the exi-gencies of the dialectic, the notion of GreatYears comes to imply precisely the paradoxicalcharacter of the absolute identity of one timewith another time. The time of transmigration,more exactly the time of the Great Years, hasthis "something" of reversibility; it is a timewhich is not entirely time.

To be more precise, the problem is found, aboveall, in the passage from one Great Year to anoth-er, in the link binding the different Great Years."As a man swaying above a pit on a cord sus-pended to a tree," so one Great Year embarks onanother Great Year. Is this man a fool passivelyswayed by time? Is he an infant in need ofsomeone to watch over him? Or is he not, rather,a clever magician himself creating time everanew? We established at the outset that time isof the will and that it does not exist there wherethere is no will. Therefore, this magician in ab-solute solitude is a true demon, one capable of atrue feat of strength, or rather, a feat of the will,the power to terminate his existence and to bereborn anew. Doubtless, between his death andhis rebirth his will does not exist virtually,but itdoes not exist any the less potentially.The prob-lem is concentrated in this notion of the "will topower." The entire paradox in the notion of theGreat Year was born, perhaps, from the

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ambiguity of thought concerning this actualityand potentiality of the will, but it was a fecundand happy ambiguity, one that permitted thebirth of a grandiose metaphysical speculation. 9

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Another possible objection could be raised by a"positivist" mind. It considers the time of theGreat Years as a kind of "agrarian time" or "ca-nonical time." It says that in noncivilizedpeoples the notion of time is above all periodic:the time between the epochs of sowing andreaping, the time between spring and autumnfestivals. This time repeats itself periodicallyeach year. It is in this way that the positivistmind thinks itself able to explain the notion ofGreat Years. But between agrarian or canonicaltime and the time of the Great Years there areessential differences. Whereas the Great Yearssuppose an absolute identity in all their details,agrarian or canonical time requires no absolutehomogeneity of times among the fixed periods.Certainly the differences between these two no-tions of time can be reduced in this regard to aminimum, but their relation resembles thatbetween zero and number. An insurperableabyss will always exist between the two. When

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this abyss is crossed the positivist is no longertrue to his own principle.

And then, agrarian or canonical time leaves in-tactor even supposesa conscious continuity ofthe aging self. It is always the aging self whichcounts on the return of the agrarian or canonicalcycle. In the time of transmigration, on the con-trary, the self is submitted to the law of rebirthand re-death;

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it always recommences its life anew in order tofinish anew. A continuity of the self exists hereonly in an imaginary wayit is a continuity whichreveals itself only in mystical moments, the pro-found moments of a "profound enlightenment,"moments in which the self takes recognition ofitself with an astonishing shudder. "The self ex-ists" at the same time that the "self does not ex-ist." We are always obliged to rewrite ourselvesthe dialogue of Saint Nagasena * with KingMilinda: "O great king, if a man lights a flame,would it not burn the entire night?Yes, Master,it would burn the entire night.Now then, O greatking, is the flame during the first part of nightidentical to the flame during the middle part ofnight?No, Master.And the flame during themiddle part of night, is it identical to the flameduring the last part of night?No, Master.Wellthen, O great king, is the flame during the firstpart of night one flame, the flame during themiddle part of night another, and the flame

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during the last part of night another one still?No,Master, the flame burned the entire night by at-taching itself to the same wick.'' Thus, the meta-physical notion of the time of the Great Yearscannot be reduced to the agrarian or canonicaltime of comparative sociology. In any case a ge-netic and empirical explanation does not touchupon the essence of the notion of metaphysicaltime.

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I have already explained the notion of time ori-ginating in the Orient. How, then, is the problemof the emancipation from time to be posed andhow is it be resolved? The time in question isthe time of transmigration, a time on account ofwhich "more tears have been shed than there iswater in the four great oceans." It is necessary toliberate oneself from this time. Now Buddhisticpessimism sees in the will the cause of all evil,all grief. To be "delivered," it is necessary, quitesimply, to deny the will. "Annihilation isbeatitude." This annihilation is what is callednirvana*"extinction," "the suppression of theworld," the negation of that will conceiving thisworld. Perhaps someone would object to the useof the word will. The employment of the worddesire in place of the word will might be pro-posed. In this regard allow me to make appeal toa suggestive example. In Japanese Buddhism wesometimes find tendencies which consider thesatisfaction of desire, even when carried to

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excess, permissible. Desire is nothing when onelearns to envisage it as a phantom. As soon asthe will is conquered and attachment to the illu-sion of the ego vanquished by the intellect, byknowledge, the desire which has been satisfiedbecomes something unreal. Nirvana consists indenying the will in generalwhich is ignorance;particular desire can exist for the "one whoknows," for "the enlightened one," merely as akind of phantom or shadow. But what is thissubject which denies the will? As I just said, it isthe intellect. It will be objected that the intellect,at the very moment that it denies the will, is thewill itself. We would have here a vicious

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circle. But it could also be said that the intellectpossesses something active, a minimum activity,and that is why I say that nirvana *is the nega-tion of the will.10 And since time is of the willone can in this way liberate oneself from time."The torrent of being is stopped."11

In Japan during the feudal period another moralideal, Bushido*"theway of the bushi"wasde-veloped alongside Buddhism. Rectitude, Vali-ance, Honor, Charity: these are the cardinal vir-tues of Bushido. Bushido is the affirmation ofthe will, the negation of the negation, in a sensethe abolition of nirvana.12The will concerns it-self only with its own perfection. Thus, the per-petual repetition of the will, the supreme evil forBuddhism, now becomes the supreme good. "Ofall that it is possible to conceive in the world,and in general even outside the world, there isnothing that could without restriction be held forgood, nothing that is except a good will," Kantsaid.13 It is this very idea that Bushido affirms.The infinite good will, which can never be en-tirely fulfilled, and which is destined always tobe deceived, must ever and always renew its ef-forts. For Bushido it is the good will in-itselfwhich has an absolute value. And it does notmatter if it is an unsatisfied will, an unrealizable

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idealthe life of misfortune and sadness, "the dis-consolate empire of thirst and grief," in sum,that "time lost" perpetually repeating itself. Con-front transmigration without fear, valiantly. Pur-sue perfection while maintaining a clear con-sciousness as to its "deception.'' Live in perpetu-al time, in Endlosigkeit,to use Heges terms. FindUnendlichkeit in Endlosigkeit, infinity in the in-definite, eternity in succession without end.

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That the Greeks saw damnation in the myth ofSisyphus has always appeared superficial to me.Sisyphus rolls a rock almost to the summit of ahill, only to see it tumble back down again. Andhe is, thus, set to perpetually beginning anew. Isthere misfortune, is there punition in this fact? Ido not understand. I do not think so. Everythingdepends on the subjective attitude of Sisyphus.His good will, a will firm and sure in ever be-ginning anew, in ever rolling the rock, finds inthis very repetition an entire system of moralsand, consequently, all its happiness. Capable ofa repetition perpetually unsatisfied, Sisyphuswould be compelled to happiness. He is a manimpassioned by moral sentiment. He is not inhell, he is in heaven. Everything depends on thesubjective attitude of Sisyphus. Let me give anexample. We commenced construction of theTokyo subway just after the great earthquakewhich five years ago destroyed almost half ofTokyo.14 At that time I was in Europe. People

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asked me: "Why do you build a subway destinedto be destroyed by one of these earthquakes youperpetually have every hundred years?" Ianswered: "It is the enterprise itself which in-terests us, not the goal. We are going to con-struct it anew. A new earthquake will

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destroy it once again. Ah well, we will alwaysrecommence. It is the will itself we esteem, willto its own perfection."

To sum up: the time which could be called ori-ental is the time of transmigration, that is to say,that time which repeats itself, periodic andidentical time. There are two methods, twomeans of liberating oneself from this time: (1)transcendent, intellectualist liberation and (2)immanent, voluntarist liberation.Transcendent,intellectualist liberation is the nirvana *of thereligion of Indian inspiration. Immanent, volun-tarist liberation is Bushido*, the way of thebushi,the moral ideal of Japan. The first consistsin denying time by means of the intellect in or-der to live, or rather to die, in nontemporal "de-liverance," in "eternal repose." The second con-sists in an unconcern with time, in order to live,truly live, in the indefinite repetition of the ardu-ous search for the true, the good, and the beauti-ful. One is the consequence of that hedonismwhich seeks to escape from misfortune; the oth-er is the expression of moral idealism, alwaysvaliantly determined to put itself in the service

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of the God within us, struggling without respiteand, thus, transforming misfortune into happi-ness.15

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The Expression Of The Infinite In Japan-ese ArtThe height of virtue appears as a valley.Lao TzuTao Te Ching

OKAKURA said very justly that "the history ofJapanese art becomes the history of Asiaticideals. 1 Japanese art reflects oriental thought ina good many ways. Now if in the West it wasGreek philosophy and the Jewish religionwhich, while being either in harmony or in op-position, fixed the course of European civiliza-tion, in the Orient it was Indian religion andChinese philosophy which conditioned the routeof our Asiatic civilization. Indian philosophyfinds its highest expression in the Buddhist mys-tic, Chinese philosophy in the pantheism of theschool of Lao Tzu. Mysticism and pantheism,are they not, perhaps, only the expression of thesame spiritual experience, on the one hand in re-ligion, on the other in philosophy: the expres-sion of the liberation from time and space.

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The ideal of Buddhism is nirvana*.Bodhid-harma, the founder of the Dhyana*or Zen sect,remained seated for nine years, legs crossed,face to the wall, plunged in meditation. It is saidthat because of this he lost his legs, but that inhis ecstatic meditation he arrived at the absoluteintelligence which embraces nirvana,at that su-preme beatitude wherein the world is abolishedin emptiness. When the Chinese emperor ofSouth Wu asked him: "In what lies the meaningof the sacred truth?" Bodhidharma responded:"In the indefinite giveness of profane things."Then the emperor asked: "Who speaks withme?I do not know," replied the great master andleft the country. For the one who has elevatedhimself to these supreme heights, the distinctionbetween sacred and profane, between Bodhid-harma and the emperor Wu, vanishes. Truth isnirvana and nirvana is Buddha. One daySakyamouni Buddha picked a flower and thenfell silent. His disciple Kasyapa* smiled. He had

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understood nirvana,Buddha. To discover in one-self nirvana is to become Buddha; for thiswords are not needed. Seizing Buddha in the ab-solute void of nothingness, seizing Buddha asby a leap, here is the Zen mystic. For Lao Tzu,the Tao is the essence of things. The

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Tao has no beginning. It penetrates everything;all things depend on it. The Tao precedes thebirth of heaven and earth. The Tao is "the moth-er of the world." 2 But "the Tao that can bedefined is not the eternal Tao" (TTC,1). Theeternal Tao "has no name" (TTC,32). It is a''form without form" (TTC,14). It is as big as itis small. It is both Being and non-Being, essenceand void. "A great square with no angles, a greatvoice having but an imperceptible sound"(TTC,41). Chuang Tzu, the great dialectician,dreamed once that he was a butterfly, a flutter-ing butterfly. When he awoke he wondered: wasit Chuang Tzu who dreamed he was a butterfly,or was it a butterfly who dreamed he wasChuang Tzu? Chuang Tzu and the butterfly, per-haps, at bottom, they are one and the same; thereis nothing else in the world except the one Tao.

Japanese art developed under the influence ofthis Indian mysticism and this Chinese panthe-ism. And Bushido*,"the way of the bushi,"wasnot an obstacle in its development. On the con-trary, Bushido deepened the conception of art.Bushido,ethic of Japan, is the cult of the abso-lute spirit, contempt for what is material. Itsideal consists only in living and dying as the"cherry blossom, exhaling its perfume in themorning light." It is from this triple source thatthe "inward art" of Yamato is born. It is in thisspiritual atmosphere that it attains its fullflowering. Consequently, without knowingsomething of these conceptions of life and worldit becomes almost impossible to understandJapanese art. Its meaning, the idealist expressionof the infinite in the finite, will go unexplained.Therefore, there are in Europe very few peoplewho truly understand Japanese art. Does notJapanese art for most Europeans consist inwoodblock prints of women and landscapes, or

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in the tea ceremony with its multicolored porcel-ain. Yet for the most part these things are ratherinsignificant. The truly great works of art ha-bitually remain unknown.

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I will speak at first of painting. In order to studythe expression of the infinite in Japanese paint-ing I will not, however, describe the subjects ofseveral masterpieces of art, Buddhist for ex-ample. Doubtless this would be very interesting,but it would not lead us very far. I would like,rather, to speak of something which from theaesthetic point of view is more important, that isto say, of the painting techniques themselves,for it is in the techniques themselves that thedominant tendency of Japanese art together withits essential preoccupations manifests itself: toaid the finite in the expression of the infinite.Painting is an art expressing itself in space.Metaphysical and moral idealism, searching forabsolute infinity, can find its artistic expressionin painting only by destroying the banal concep-tion of space. With what concrete methods isthis destructive as well as constructive idea real-ized in Japanese art?

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Perspective played a very important role inWestern art, at least up until recently. Orientalart, on the contrary, and I understand here itsidealist school, wants above all to destroy thegeometric structure of space. What it searchesfor is the essence, the infinity underlying thewhole. What is the meaning of "near?" What isthe meaning of "far?" God is often nearer usthan is our own self. The distant mountain is of-ten nearer to us than the trees beside us. Often"we are standing in water yet searching for wa-ter." 3 And everyone knows the anecdote inwhich it is recounted how the sixth Zenpatriarch, Hui-neng, resolved the quarrel of twomonks regarding the subject of a flag waving inthe wind. One insisted, "It is the flag thatmoves"; the other insisted, "It is the wind thatsets the flag in motion.'' Hui-neng said: "Neitherwind nor flag moves, it is your spirit thatmoves." The world of mathematics and physicsis relative. The spirit alone is absolute. In any

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case, the artist is always at liberty to reconstructa geometric perspective if and in so far as he de-sires, but he is, doubtless, more an artist if he re-places mathematical perspective with metaphys-ical perspective.4

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Furthermore, the forms which visible thingspossess are forms relative to action; they are notabsolute forms. Art must force itself to seize theabsolute. Thus, it is necessary for it to destroyand break the natural forms, decorated withnames, in order to create aesthetic and absoluteforms. Thereby arises the arbitrary composi-tion.Instead of an entire tree, a painting will of-ten represent only a tree trunkwithout top orbottom-and in the background, for example, atemple will be represented. Another paintingwill show one or two branches, a black birdabove them. A bridge will be represented onlyby its pillars, boats flowing between them. Of ahouse only a roof will appear; in the distanceone will see mountains.5 What, then, is the aes-thetic function of the arbitrary composition?"That which is incomplete will be entire, thatwhich is empty will be filled" (TTC,22), saidLao Tzu. Absolute and aesthetic forms are mostoften incomplete and empty forms, forms

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without form. The spectator is, thus, placed in asituation in which he must exercise the spon-taneity of his spirit, in order that he may himselfreproduce the natural forms of things. It is inthis involuntary activity that the spectator findshis happiness. Here could be placed a psycholo-gical analysis of the enjoyment of art. We wouldfind, it seems to me, that aesthetic value mostoften consists in the value of suggestion.6

We have, then, a further point: the habitual rep-resentation of things in their static states. Thus,an arrow portrayed no longer flies; a horse nolonger gallops. However, the infinite, the Tao,is"the door of all spiritual things," is "the mysteri-ous female," is always "in flux" (TTC 1, 6, 25).Thereby arises the importance Japanese artgives to the line.The line is dynamic. It can holdthe future within the present; it can hold onespace

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within another; it can move. It can, therefore, beemployed to express the power of the absoluteand the elan of the infinite. The life of the infin-ite and of the absolute must be rendered visibleby the rhythm and expression of the line. That iswhy the talent of a painter is often judged by hisability or inability to sketch a powerful and au-dacious line. It is said that the horse depicted bya great artist takes flight. I am sure that it is ahorse created with bold and rigorous lines. 7

Finally, several words on colors.Red, blue,green, yellow, violetthese are colors for chil-dren, for people. "Colors render the eyes of menblind," says the Tao Te Ching (TTC,12). Trueartists live in the infinite. They live only in thesimple colors of black and white, colors at onceopposed and in harmony, as light and darkness.In these colors, which, strictly speaking, are notcolors, artists find nothing less than the meansof "coloring": by graduating the intensities ofthe black ink on the white paper, they createwith several pleasing brushstrokes a world ofnuances and tonalities. "All beings move fromyin to yang,they are harmonized by the breath ofthe void" (TTC,42). Yin is darkness, black; yangis light, white. The breath of the void, it is thebrushstroke. Here wreathed in haze a mountainbrings itself to life; there a river gleams; here isa dreaming moon; there a cloud hiding all. Thetaste for simplicity and for fluidity arises from

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nostalgia for the infinite and from the effort toefface differences in space.8

I have enumerated four characteristics of Japan-ese painting: the absence of exact perspective,the arbitrary composition, the importance of theline,and the preference for ink painting.All areexpressions of a pantheist idealism. All aremethods for gaining liberation from space. Evena painter as Europeanized as Fujita retains, inmy opinion, at least two of these technical char-acteristics: the dominating line and the taste forblack and white.

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I would like to add one more word on this sub-ject. The infinite is everywhere; there where it isnot, there is nothing. Chuang Tzu once ex-claimed: "The Tao is in this excrement!" If theinfinite is in all things, all things, without excep-tion, must be beautiful. Everything depends onknowing how to look at them. And the task ofthe artist justly consists in searching for andfinding beauty, even in things physically andmorally ugly. We are all naive children, we allflee the dark night. It is the artist who reveals tous the light in the very heart of night. At everystep he reveals to us the realm of beauty. Hetells us: here is the beautiful monster! here is thebeautiful demon! One of the ancient makimono(scrolls) of the Kamakura period (1200-1400A.D.)depicts all species of physical illness, un-pleasant and disgusting. An astonishing love oftruth and beauty! Shameful and repugnantthings from the moral point of view were some-times the subject of prints during the

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Tokugawa period (1600-1850). 9 With whatpure and serene ardor were they treated! Thus,for several centuries we see practiced a theoryof art for art's sake, a theory of absolute idealismin art.

Japanese sculpture and architecture are alsocharacterized by this same effort of liberationfrom space expressed in the predominance ofthe line and in the taste for simplicity and thevoid. These characteristics are found most re-markably in wood sculptures. Several Buddhiststatues of Unkei (circa 1150-1220), as well asthe masks of No* drama, manifest in the mostingenious way this aspiration for the infinite. Inarchitecture, the lines of roofs, straight or delic-ately curved, are almost always loyal interpret-ers of this same thought. The special cult givento the "pillar of the tokonoma,"10honored placein the house, is only the cult of the line. The em-ployment of bamboo as construction materialalso testifies to this. As for simplicity, thelargest temple, as the smallest tea room, bothpresent in their interiors, the one as well as theother, the same expression of the idea of thevoid.

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Turning now to Japanese poetry, we may beginwith this: if the infinite is everywhere, then avery small thing contains the infinite just asmuch as does a thing of great dimensions. "Thesmallest is equal to the largest," says the Scentof Faith of the third Zen patriarch, Seng-ts'an*.In the Song of the Experience of Truth,anothermaster of the same sect says, "One cannot, whilelooking at the blue sky through the end of aflute, call it small." This shows why with us themost cultivated type of poetry is a very shortpoem, a tanka,for instance, having thirty-onesyllables, or the haiku,having seventeen syl-lables. We could say that it is the infinite whichhere liberates itself from time: a short timecomes to be seen as containing much more thancontains a long time. The Manyoshu*,datingfrom the eighth century, one of the oldest antho-logies of Japanese poetry, collects poems from aperiod between the second half of the seventhcentury and the first half of the eighth century.

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In it one finds three types of poetry: thechoka*,or "long poem''; the sedoka*,or "head-repeated poem"; and the tanka,or "short poem."The tanka was at first only the hanka,a sort of"envoi" of the choka.In the beginning of theninth century the imayo-uta*was developed,"poem in the fashion of the day." Of relativelyrecent origin is the haiku,created in the sixteenthcentury. It is also called hokku,"initial verse," in-dicating that the haiku was the initial tercet ofthe tanka.The development of the tanka as anindependent formhaving once been a part of thechokaandof the haiku,once part of thetanka,testifies to the aesthetic exigency of creat-ing brief forms. Thus, the tanka and haiku rep-resent the most refined phases of our poetry,which otherwise still cultivates the "long poem"and modern forms beside that of the "shortpoem" and the "initial verse."

Secondly: the symmetric form has something ofthe rigid and finite about

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it. The expression of the infinite, "the supremelife" and "the formless form," only realizes itselfin an asymmetric and fluid form. 11 Thus, therhythmic unity of Japanese poetry is formed ori-ginally from the union of a pentasyllable and aheptasyllable, or vice-versa.12 The choka*andimayo-uta*are composed according to this met-ric system. The tanka and haiku,the two kinds ofshort poetry, have, as it were, relaxed the linksin the legitimate union of pentasyllable and hep-tasyllable. These two forms, having acquiredgreater independence and freedom, do not fail tomake use of it. A tanka is divided exactly intofive lines of five, seven, five, seven, and sevensyllables. For example:

Shi-ra-tsu-yu moShi-gu-re- mo i-ta-kuMo-ru ya-ma waShi-ta-ba no-ko-ra-zuI-ro-zu-ki ni ke-ri

A haiku is divided into three lines of five, seven,and five syllables. For example:

Ho-ro-ho-ro-toYa-ma-bu-ki chi-ru kaTa-ki no o-to

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This series of five, seven, and five syllables in ahaiku,as well as in the initial tercet of thetanka,reveals its original beauty in the possibil-ity of different subjective combinations, both infive-seven and in seven-five. The overly harmo-nious union of five-seven is disturbed by thepresence of a third term. The heptasyllable ofthe middle line, while preserving its function offollowing the pentasyllable of the first line, ac-quires at the same time the function of preced-ing the concluding pentasyllable. Thus, this me-dian part proceeds with slow steps from the pre-ceding pentasyllable, yet in the transitionhastens with bounding step towards the versewhich follows. The irresistable beauty of therhythmic melody of the haiku consists preciselyin this changing fluidity, in this enchantingcoquetry.13 And in this asymmetrical and fluidform, the idea of liberation from measurabletime is realized.

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Thirdly: the elan and the dynamic nature of theinfinite can be expressed in poetry not only byan asymmetric and fluid form, but also by theemployment of suggestive expression whichoutstrips time in a kind of anticipation. It is notnecessary to express and disclose everything; itis only necessary to indicate with several essen-tial lines and leave the rest to the active play ofthe

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imagination. The poet is the man who knowshow to remain silent; silence can be more elo-quent than eloquence itself. He takes up in hishand several green leaves and in a subduedvoice says: Inhale all the fragrance of this forest."A grand eloquence is as if silent" (TTC,45),says Lao Tzu. In a word, the poetry of the infin-ite must truly be "poetry," and not "literature."The presence of this quintessential characteristicof poetry is the fundamental trait of the haiku ofBasho * (1643-1694), one of our greatest poets.Here is an example:14

Nara of seven hedges,Temple of seven chapels,Cherry blossoms of eight folds.15

Instead of describing the splendor of Nara, theancient capital, the poet indicates with the words"temple of seven chapels" the grandeur of theBuddhist religion, and then by these otherwords, "cherry blossoms of eight folds," thedazzling beauty and the licentious delights ofthe court. Nothing but substantives and adject-ives, no verbs. Alliteration and the concordanceof graphic signs contribute in giving this verse asumptuous luxury. Another example:

And the dried salmon,And the gaunt monk Kuya*,Both in cold winter.

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This verse compares dried salmon with thegauntness of the monks of the Kuya sect. Driedsalmon is eaten in winter; the Kuya lead thelives of beggars, above all in winter. The twosymbols employed are both expressions of anascetic ethic of which the poet was himself apartisan. Once again, not a single verb. The em-ployment of alliteration gives great firmness tothe writing. Drawn with several brushstrokescarrying all the richness of ink-tones, it is a pic-ture of incommensurable bearing.

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Passing now to the subjects of poetry, a few re-marks. It goes without saying that as in the po-etry of other countries, there is in Japanese po-etry just as much of the expression of profoundreligious and moral sentiment as there is theeternal voice of "Psyche in love." It is sufficientto mention the titles under which the poems areclassed in the Kokinshu*(circa 905 A.D.) andShin-Kokinshu (1205 A.D.) anthologies: Spring,Summer, Autumn, Winter, Separation, Travels,Love, Shinto Poems, Buddhist Poems, etc. Al-though it would be useless to give examples, Iwould like, however, to present several other ex-pressions, habitually ignored, of the infinite inour poetry.

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Thus, fourthly: pantheistic thought, the idea ofthe essential identity of the whole, underlies thehaiku of Basho *.

O octopus jar,Ephemeral dream,The summer moon.

An octopus is caught in a jar; the octopusdreams always of the joy of life, of the heavenabove, of the clear moon. The fisherman whohas caught the octopus, the octopus sleeping inignorance of the fate awaiting him, the moonsurveying them both with nonchalant omni-scienceall these are in cosmic sympathy.

O paulownia leaf,Won't you come visitMy solitude?

Paulownia is the name of a tree. The poet ad-dresses a falling leaf and prays to it to consolehim in his solitude. Tranquil silence of autumn.We hear the voices of leaves. We hear a heartbeating.

Now, a fifth point. The taste for white and forsubdued colors, in a word, the taste for simpli-city, this is also found manifest in the content ofthe poems. The infinite is something simple,containing and surpassing multiplicity.

O, dawn,White shirauo,A touch of white.

The shirauo is a very small white fish. The sen-timent of dawn, the limpidity of a sky growingwhite, these are rendered by this verse.

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Yellow chrysanthemums, white chrysanthem-ums:O, how I wish that there could beNo other names than these!

This haiku,carrying the title "On a HundredGathered Chrysanthemums," was composed byRansetsu, pupil of Basho. We find here a man oftaste, but also a man drunk with the infinite, aman whose sole desire is that of simplification.

Sixthly: as in painting, so in idealist-pantheistpoetry, the negative aspect

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of things finds positive place. The poet appreci-ates life's dissonances, employs them in order tocreate a harmonious melody.

There's the nightingale,Its droppings on rice cakesOn the veranda.

A country life in the bright afternoon of a springsun is evoked by a magician's wand. Exquisitelittle picture.

A swaying willowGently touchedMy abscess!

A man suffering from an abscess experiences atthe very moment when a willow branch toucheshim something which is at once joy and ap-peasement. An extremely refined sentiment, amix of the detachment of life and of a love ofnature.

Finally: I would like to add that the idea of re-petitive time is found in our poetry.

O, tachibana blossoms!When? It was in the fields.Listen, the cuckoo!

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Basho * inhales the fragrance of the tachibanablossoms. He remembers that long ago he hadinhaled the same fragrance from the same blos-soms while hearing a cuckoo in the fields. Al-low me to present a commentary on this: "Butlet a sound already heard or an odor caught inbygone years be sensed anew, simultaneously inthe present and in the past, real without being ofthe present moment, ideal but not abstract, andimmediately the permanent essence of things,usually concealed, is set free and our true self,which had long seemed dead but was not deadin other ways, awakes, takes on fresh life as itreceives the celestial nourishment brought to it.A single minute released from the chronologicalorder of time has re-created in us the human be-ing similarly released from the order of time. . .."16

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O, here is Osaka Gate,Where those going eastAnd those returning part,Where those who know andThose who do not know one another meet.17

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This is a tanka by the celebrated poet-musicianof the ninth century, the blind Semimaru. Again,an example of "time lost" and of "time re-membered." Osaka Gate, "portico with twofaces," whose ''name, found inscribed on thepediment, is the instant."It is the instant inwhich two roads meet: 18 the past and the fu-ture. It is the moment of a present of infiniteplenitude, the eternal moment in whichZarathustra speaks with the dwarf, "withlowered voice, because he fears his ownthoughts and his hidden motives"; it is the sac-red moment when Yajnavalkya says to Art-abhaga: "Give me your hand, friend, this know-ledge is given only to the two of us." And it isthe blessed moment when one soul interrogatesanother soul: "The ginko leaf, was it one andthen two? Or was it two and then one?" It is alsothis moment we pass here in this salon in Pon-tigny, where I speak to you of a verse of Semi-maru and where we wonder if we might not

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have lived this moment before, if we might notlive it again, if we might not have already be-come acquainted an indefinite number of times,if we might not become acquainted anew. Let usleave it to our venerable blind Semimaru tomeditate on the problem of chance and circulartime. Let us pray that he now takes up his biwaand plays us an ancient Yamato air.

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As for Japanese music, I will not speak of it atany great length. I will assume that you knowalmost nothing about it. It is difficult to speak ofmusic in an abstract manner. I will limit myselfto indicating several European melodies whichcome closest to approximating our music. Oneof the best examples is the Children's Corner ofDebussy, and above all "Golliwogg's CakeWalk," a thoroughly Japanese melody. We canfeel the cords of the shamisen vibrating. I onceremember having seen this music set to dance. Itwas in Paris-Plage, in summer. The dancer wasclothed as in the Japanese Shishi-mai (dance ofthe lion), and this costume harmonized perfectlywith the dance and music. "The Girl with FlaxenHair" also has something of the Japanese aboutit, in the free succession of its melodies and inthe perfection of the imperfect. The prelude,played "very calm and softly expressive," andthen "murmured and restrained little by little,"has always made me think of our

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utazawa,19intimate and fully suggestive music.And, in fact, Debussy was a great devotee ofJapanese art. I will take the liberty of citingfrom the memoirs of one of his friends: "Thelarge table at which Debussy composed his mas-terpieces was covered with Japanese objects inthe best style, among them a porcelain toadwhich he called his fetish and which he carriedwith him during his travels, claiming not to beable to work without it under his eyes. . . . Inthis room I also remember a Hokusai print, de-picting a gigantic wave breaking. Debussy had aparticular dilection for this work; he was in-spired by it while he composed La Mer; heasked us to

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have it reproduced on the cover of the printedcopy of this work." 20 Aside from these worksof Debussy the Jeux d'eau of Ravel can also becited. We could say that here the playing of thekoto can be heard.

Now in what does the fundamental characterist-ic of Debussy and his school consist? Doubtless,on the one hand, in the effort to be liberatedfrom stereotypic time, liberated in a fluidity inwhich "the music completely fills every mo-ment," and in which "all parts are united, runsoftly into one another";21 on the other hand, inthat simplification in which all the orgies ofsound are abolished, bringing about, thus, a"delicate sobriety . . . enveloping everything insilence."22 And this is justly the characteristic ofJapanese music, as well as of Japanese art ingeneral. Among several European testimonies Ican cite, for example, Albert Maybon, who says:"The music of the shamisen has something ofthe nebulous, of the indefinite, of the unequal,"and, then, doubtless with some exaggeration,adds: "no light, only flashes!"23 In memoirs of ajourney to Japan, Charles Vildrac tells us: "Isaw two pilgrims wearing wrinkled clothing,their faces hid under large conical hats. They

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could guide themselves only by looking at theirfeet. They stopped in front of the threshold ofevery shop and one of the pilgrims would holdout a little bowl for alms while the other wouldalways play the same tune on a small woodenflute, a tune which was, O prodigal! exactly theone of Golaud in 'Pelléas et Mélisande.'"24About shamisen music he says: "The same nos-talgic and delicate phrase serves as the basis ofall the airs of the shamisen and is sufficient toevoke for me all of Japan. According to the vari-ations one draws and the rhythm one gives it, itis now meditation, now romance, nowdance."25 Another Western traveler, having hadthe occasion to sing a European tune before aJapanese listener, stated: "As I sang, suddenlythe air and the melody appeared to me barbarousin comparison with the refinement of the partic-ular character of a Japanese song, and for thefirst time I sensed something of the beauty andart of Japanese music and of the Japanese

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air."26 These words are all of the more signific-ant in that this "stroller" comes from the samecountry as Wagner, antipode of Debussy.

Thus, there is hardly the need to say that a musicwhose dual character consists in the liberationfrom measurable time and in this simplicitywherein all multiplicity is founded, can be con-sidered as that art mode most expressive of pan-theistic mysticism. Furthermore, the word im-pressionism has too often been thoughtlesslyemployed. Man is not a mechanism passivelyreceiving impressions; his spontaneity neverslumbers. Thus, the wave of Hokusai is as muchan example of expressionism as it is of impres-sionism, it is just as much mundi intelligibilisforma as mundi sensibilis forma.In the sameway, what has in music been called, sometimesabusively, impression-

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ist, what has been thought to be only a fleeting,"momentary impression," is very often the ex-pression of an eternal and mystic voice comingfrom the depths of the soul.

And his song, and his danceAre the voices of truth

says the hymn of Hakuin, Japanese Zen monk.27

The most eminent characteristic of Japanese artin general is, thus, from the objective point ofview, the expression of the infinite. This charac-teristic is manifest, as we have seen, above all inthe liberation from space found in the plasticarts and in the liberation from time found in po-etry and music. And, then, what is the subjectivefunction of art? What relation does Japanese art,as an element of spiritual life, have with the in-finite? Spiritual life's plane of action is time.Man, enclosed in time, aspires to liberate him-self from time. Hence, he searches for thosethings eternal: truth, morality, beauty. And thefunction of art does not, therefore, consist somuch in the immortalization of a fleeting mo-ment of time, as in the creation of eternity. Atrue artist takes hold of eternal infinity; beauty,it is of that which he takes possession. In this,and in this alone, he is the educator of humanity.He teaches man to liberate himself from time, tolive in that which is eternal, beauty. But he does

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not model himself on the unpracticed educatorwho takes pleasure in showing off his ideas, thebetter to tyranically require their passive accept-ance. He acquaints himself with the truth of theTao Te Ching:

The greatest perfection must appear imperfect,The better to be infinite in its effect.The greatest abundance must appear empty,The better to be inexhaustible in its effect.(TTC, 45)

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Hence, he believes in the value of suggestion, inthe power of the imagination. He knows how tobring about an active spontaneity on the part ofspectators. Thus it is that he gives indicationonly of those points of view in which the lattermay place themselves; he only traces lines andonly points out directions in order that the spec-tators may themselves follow these. Doubtless itis his divine hand which unveils eternal beautyand, thereby, gives the spectators vertigo, butthe task of the spectators remains intact: it is in-cumbent upon them to make the great leap, toenter into depthless metaphysical abysses and tobe overwhelmed there. Thus, twice is art liber-ated from time: once in the artist who creates in-finity, once in the

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spectators who participate, as it were, in thiscreation by their contemplation of works of art.

André Suarès, in the preface to his small collec-tion Western Haiku,eulogizes the great aestheticvalue of the brief form of the Japanese haikuand tanka.But in regard to the depth of such po-etry, in regard to the question of "all Japaneseart," he affirms that the Japanese only pay atten-tion to the object, to the fugutive instant, affirmsthat they ignore the aspiration to the infinite, toeternity. He says: "Here we live only so as tolive always. Seemingly, our sole desire is to en-dure always. This desire to be eternal forms onebody with our perishable condition. . . . Overthere, on the contrary, in the Empire of theRising Sun, such appetite is unknown . . . Thespirit of man is the locus of all space and time.On one condition, however: that it has created ametaphysics from which a mathematics hasbeen able to follow. The Far East remains totallyforeign to this. Their art and poetry is, therefore,founded on principles opposed to ours. All isspatial in these spirits. . . . Their art never turns

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inward, even disdains this. The geometric pointmust be transformed into an instance of thoughtand must know itself as such: that is the goal ofconsciousness in the West. All this has no mean-ing for Orientals (les hommes jaunes)." I believeI have shown to what extent such considerationsare wrong and to what extent André Suarès ismistaken in this regard. Already the famous pre-face to the Kokinshu *,written by Ki-no-Tsuray-uki (883-946), said that "the human heart is theseed of the poetry of Yamato from whichsprouts, like leaves, a myriad of words. In thislife men are occupied with many things: theyexpress the thoughts of their heart by means ofthe objects which they see or hear.'' Infinity andeternity only exist in the heart, in thought. "In-ward art" objectivates them, no matter whetherit be plastic, poetic, or musical art. All our art isimpregnated with immateriality. It is in no wayan external art, indeed, it is this it disdains;every object of our art is testament to this. And

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he who has not seized upon this character willhave understood nothing of Japanese art. Thus,we can conclude that almost everything belong-ing to the object or thing in Japanese art must beconsidered as fugitive and finite symbol of theinfinite and of the eternal.

Notes

The Notion of Time and Repetition in OrientalTime

1. Jean-Marie Guyau, La Genèse de l'idée detemps (Paris, 1923), pp. 33-39.

2. Hermann Cohen, Logik der reinen Erkenntnis(Berlin, 1922), p. 154.

3. Martin Heideger, Sein and Zeit (Halle, 1927),pp.327-29.

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4. Existing English translations differ, at timessignificantly, from Kuki's own translations fromSanskrit and Chinese texts such as The Upan-ishads and the Tao Ching. Thus, I have every-where translated into English Kuki's ownversion.

5. The problem of the relation between transmi-gration and cosmic period, between samsaraand kalpa,does not especially interest us here.The kalpa is, perhaps, only cosmic transmigra-tion. In any case, the notion of periodic time weare analyzing here is common to both samsaraand kalpa.

6. "As someone traveling quickly in a vehicleand contemplating the wheels from above, thusdid he contemplate day and night from above"(Kaushutaki * Upanishad)."The thera traced acircle on the ground and said to the king: 'Doesthe circle have an end?"' (Milanda-panha).''Thiswheel reddened by fire, inflamed, the flame ofmy life" (Avadanasataku*).

7. "Yes, when I was a child, in the most distantchildhood" (Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathus-tra).One sees clearly from the context that thissignifies anterior life. Similarly the Milanda-panha,posing the question "The one reborn, ishe the same or another?" responds, albeit in arather lame "comparison": "I was an infant andam now a man." [I have used WalterKaufmann's translation of Thus Spoke Zarathus-tra (New York, 1966, p. 159) to render Kuki'squotation from Nietzsche.Trans.]

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8. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit,p. 329.

9. It is certain that the stoics were aware of thiscapital difficulty in the notion of the Great Year.The proof is that instead of having Socrates re-born in person, they were content with"someone not different from Socrates": a subtleconception, but disastrous for the theory ([HansFriedrich von Arnim], Stoicorum veterum frag-menta [Leipzig, 1903-1924], vol. 2, no. 626).

10. From this point of view one can, perhaps,also justify the employment of the word will inSchopenhauer.

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11. There is, doubtless, a contradiction betweenthe notion of karma and the idea of nirvana*, atleast there where one carries these conceptionsout to their logical consequences. One impliespredetermined identity, the other, on the con-trary, intellectual liberty. But this difficulty, as-suredly very great, is only the difficulty com-mon to almost any kind of determinism. It istrue, on the other hand, that in order not to fallinto this contradiction, one must often evadepursuing in the notion of karma a conception ofidentity. However, from the logical point ofview, once the notion of karma is admitted, therefusal to accept identical transmigration cannotescape the reproach of dialecticalinconsequence.

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12. In placing Buddhism and Bushido*in oppos-ition I take into account only their basic tenden-cies. The development of positive elements inthe thought of Mahayana* Buddhism, on theone hand, and the influence of Buddhism on cer-tain particular aspects of Bushido,on the otherhand, are incontestable. There cannot be theleast question of denying the great value ofBuddhism. We owe an eminent part of our Ori-ental civilization to Buddhism.

13. This quotation can be found in ImmanuelKant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Mor-als,tr. Lewis White Beck (New York, 1959), p.9. Translation emended in accordance withKuki's version.Trans.

14. Kuki refers to the earthquake of 1923.Trans.

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15. I would like, in order to be clear, to say that,personally, I do not believe in Buddhist transmi-gration, no more than in life after death in theChristian sense. I have sought only to establishthe possibility of imagining transmigration.There is neither more nor less of the imaginaryin the conception of transmigration than in theconception of the future life in Christianity. Ihave, thus, indicated and developed a problem,one of Oriental origin, the

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problem of periodic and identical time. Andwhat I have said about Bushido *concerningtransmigration is only the eventual applica-tion of the ethic of the "bushi"to this imagin-ary domain.

The Expression of the Infinite in Japanese Art

1. K. Okakura, Les idéaux de l'Orient,tr. Ser-ruys, (Paris, 1917), p. 36.

2. Tao Te Ching,paragraph 25. As previouslynoted, I have translated Kuki's own translationsfrom the Chinese. Hereafter, all references tothis work will be given in the text itself asTTC.Trans.

3. Hakuin, Zazen Wasan (Hymns ofMeditation).

4. Soami* (circa 1450-1530), landscape painter,was one of the greatest masters of "metaphysicalperspective." On the other hand, Korin*(1661-1716) knew how to resolve, in magnifi-cent fashion, another, more particular problem:the transition from metaphysical to decorativeperspective. Regarding this ideal of beauty, "atonce decorative and expressive," Maurice Deniswrites: "It has been habitual for quite some timeto consider the truth of art solely from the pointof view of imitation. There is, on the contrary,no paradox in holding that trompe l'oeil is a syn-onym for lying with the intention to deceive. Apainting conforms to its truth, to the truth, whenit says well what it must say and when it fulfillsits ornamental role" (Nouvelles théories,p. 182).

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5. There is something very Japanese to be foundin the room of Claude Monet at the Musée deOrangerie. The canvases portray at right and atleft the great trunks of willows with neithersummit nor base, and in the middle a pool withnymphs can be found. One could very well be ina Japanese room surrounded by byobu*(foldingscreens). Kano Eitoku (1543-1570) or Okyo*(1733-1795) could surely furnish examples.

6. As Bergson wrote: "The object of art is . . . tolead us to a state . . . in which we grasp the ideathat has been suggested to us" (Essai sur lesdonnés immédiates de la conscience,p. 11).

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7. Hokusai (1760-1849) said: "I would like mypersonages and animals to appear as if leapingout from the paper, I would like that everythingbe alive in my art, be it a line, be it a point." VanGogh, initiate in Japanese art, energeticallypracticed the cult of the line. Without doubt, heoften practiced it with pathological exaggera-tion, but he often succeeded, and marvelously,in giving expression to the power of the soul andto the movement of nature.

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8. It should be clear that in regard to color Ithink here, above all, of the school of Sesshu*.Yet the technique of the gradation of ink has al-ways held important place in almost all Japanesepainters. Brush "painting" and drawing do notsignify the same thing. The ink monochromepossesses in addition to a graphic manner, apictorial manner, in addition to line, tonality.And if it is true that in drawing, "it is the judg-ment which speaks to the judgment" (Alain, Sys-tème des beaux-arts [Paris, 5th ed.], p. 278), inink painting it is ecstasis which speaks to ecstas-is. It would be difficult to find an artistic meansmore efficacious for expressing the significationof the coincidentia oppositorum.

9. Kuki has here given only approximate dates.The actual dates: Kamakura period (1192-1331)and Tokugawa (Edo) period (1603-1868).Trans.

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10. The tokonoma is an alcove in the zashiki(drawing room) of a Japanese house. Thetokonoma has a wooden base about six incheshigh, and within the tokonoma one generallyplaces a hanging scroll, an okimono (decorativeobject), and a flower arrangement.Trans.

11. The absence of symmetry is not a character-istic of Japanese poetry alone; to a certain de-gree it could be said to characterize Japanese artin general.

12. Since this unity is composed of twelve syl-lables, it could be compared to an alexandrine.

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But the essential difference consists in this,that a caesura breaks an alexandrine intotwo hemistiches, equal and symmetrical,while, on the contrary, the typical unity ofthe poetry of Yamato is divided into two un-equal and asymmetrical parts, five-sevenand seven-five. It is true that the "Invitationau voyage" of Baudelaire is a compositionof pentasyllables and heptasyllables. Never-theless, two pentasyllables following eachother have the metric value of only onedecasyllable divided into two symmetricalhemistiches and carrying an internal rhyme.

Mon enfant, ma soeur,Songe à la douceurD'aller là-bas vivre ensemble!Aimer à loisir,Aimer et mourirAu pays qui te ressemble!

13. This fluidity is produced in a purelyrhythmic way without any relation to the mean-ing of the verse. This should not be confoundedwith an enjambement,which consists in the non-coincidence of a metrical articulation with a lo-gical articulation. The rhythm of the haiku issometimes imitated by French poets.

J'ai fait un beau rêve.Ce matin j'ai sur mes levrèsUn gout de baiser.(René Maublanc)

[A beautiful dream.This morning my lips glazed withThe taste of a kiss.]

It is difficult for me to judge whether it is pos-sible to reproduce perfectly the melody of thehaiku by mechanical imitation in a foreignlanguage.

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14. The formula of Mallarmé, "To suggest in-stead of to say," and in several respects the "Artpoétique" of Verlaine, can be found perfectlyaccomplished in the haiku of Basho *, asalready in the tanka of Hitomaro* (end of theseventh century). But in the case of short poemssuch as the haiku and tanka,translation destroysalmost all of their beauty, a beauty consisting,above all, in the color, sonority, and odor ofwords, in their symphonic harmony, in their ca-denced rhythm, all the artistic effects which, asis their nature, cannot be rendered in translation.

15. In order to preserve the unity of Kuki'stranslations and commentary I have everywheregiven literal translations of Kuki's own Frenchversions of various haiku without attempting tosupply finished English poems.Trans.

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16. This quotation can be found in MarcelProust, Remembrance of Things Past,tr. F. Blos-som, vol. 2 (New York, 1932), p. 996Trans.

17. Here too it is a question of a literal transla-tion.Trans.

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18. Ousaka-no-seki*,here translated as "OsakaGate," was a place name, literally "Customs(Gate) of Osaka." The two characters compris-ing Ousaka, Ou and Saka,mean "to meet" and"hill" respectively. All those traveling east fromKyoto or returning to Kyoto from the east had tostop here. Ousaka-no-seki,place of parting,place of meeting, was, therefore, often used insongs. We may note, also, that one factor in therichness of Chinese and Japanese poetry is thereadiness with which some characters lendthemselves to dual and manifold meanings. Thisis a factor, evidently, in the difficulty of translat-ing Chinese and Japanese poetry. Too often, asthe poet and translator Kenneth Rexroth oncenoted, translators in the West have spelled outall the meanings contained in a character and,consequently, the translated poem has carried allthe less the resonances of the original.Trans.

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19. A type of song falling under the more gener-al name kouta,the kouta being popular songs ofthe late Edo period sung with the accompani-ment of the shamisen. The kouta were derivedfrom the hauta,a type of popular song also ac-companied by the shamisen and favored by thechonin *(town-dwellers) of the Edo peri-od.Trans.

20. Jacques Durand, Quelques souvenirs d'unéditeur de musique (Paris, 1925), pp. 92-93. Ro-main Rolland also made reference to the rap-prochement obtaining between the music of De-bussy and the art of Japanese painting (cf. Musi-ciens d'aujourd'hui [Paris, 12th ed.], p. 205). Weknow also that the Prints ("Pagodas," etc.) andthe Images ("Golden Fish," etc.) exhibit an Ori-ental, if not specifically Japanese inspiration.And with these begins, to follow Alfred Cortot,the most characteristic period of Debussy's pi-ano music (cf. Alfred Cortot, "La Musique pourpiano de Claude Debussy," in Revue Musique,1December 1920, pp. 134, 136). La Mer wasalso composed in this period, 1903-1905.Pelléas et Mélisande was completed in 1902.Daniel Chennevière states on this subject: "De-bussy introduced the Orient into music." "He re-generated music; he impregnated it with Orient-al youthfulness; he gave it air, light, life''(Claude Debussy et son oeuvre,pp. 15, 45).

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21. Jacques Rivière, Etudes (Paris, 10th ed.), p.156.

22. Romain Rolland, Musiciensd'aujourd'hui,pp. 204, 206.

23. Albert Maybon, Le Théâtre japonais (Paris,1925), p. 89.

24. Charles Vildrac, D'un voyage au Japon (Par-is, 1927), p. 36.

25. Ibid.,p. 63.

26. Bernhard Kellermann, Ein Spaziergang inJapan (Berlin, 1922), p. 152.

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27. Thus, in Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoonof a Faun we find as much the expression ofnaturalistic desire and pantheistic dream as theimpression of a suffocating and weary after-noon. It would, certainly, be very interesting toestablish a parallelin all domains of artbetweenthe technique of the "inward art" of Japan andFrench symbolism.

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PART THREEPROPOS ON JAPAN

ByShuzo * Kuki

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Bergson In Japan

JAPAN, completely isolated in the middle of thePacific Ocean, was constrained to open its portssixty years ago by the arrival of American gun-boats. The Western civilization introduced inthis way was only Anglo-American civilization.At that time "Western philosophy" signified forus "philosophy in the English language." Theutilitarianism of Stuart Mill and Spencer was thefirst Western philosophy we knew. Fortunately,the Japanese spirit was not such as to fully ac-cept this genre of thought. We turned away fromit without having found any satisfaction. Thus,when much later this same utilitarianism, nowdisguised under the name of pragmatism, triedto introduce itself to us, we knew how to po-litely close our ports.

German philosophy entered Japan around 1885.The first among Western philosophers, Kant, in-spired in us profound respect. His principalworks were translated and discussed. His doc-trine was made the object of numerous writings."Kantian evenings" were even created in orderto discuss from time to time the transcendentalphilosophy. Fichte and Hegel were equally es-teemed. We also knew an extremely distinctneo-Kantian movement. The Marburg School aswell as the Heidelberg School was ardentlystudied. Hence, Hermann Cohen and HeinrichRickert possessed among us a very eminentprestige.

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It was at this moment, when criticism and logicalmost exclusively represented Western philo-sophy in Japan, it was at this very moment thatthe name of M. Henri Bergson suddenly ap-peared. It was around 1910. At first CreativeEvolution was translated, then Matter andMemory,and then the Introduction to Metaphys-ics.Of his Essay on the Immediate Givens ofConsciousness we possessed only an abridgedtranslation. His principal role was that of givingus a taste for metaphysics. Our spirit, dessicatedby the critical formalism of German neo-Kan-tianism, received "celestial nourish-

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ment" from the Bergsonian metaphysical intu-ition. (M. Bergson saw as the fundamental errorof Kantianism its too sharply drawn distinctionbetween the content and the form of knowledge.Thereby arose the idea of the "thing-in-itself,"thereby arose the placing in doubt of the abso-lute value of our knowledge. M. Bergson ad-vised us not to remain content with "the manu-factured clothing of ready-made concepts." Heshowed us the "necessity of working to meas-ure." He kept us from remaining satisfied with''translation"; he encouraged us to go directly tothe "original." His philosophy proposed "to takehold as much as it is possible of the original it-self, to deepen life, and by a kind of intellectualauscultation to feel the soul palpitate." To philo-sophize consisted in placing oneself, by an ef-fort of intuition, in the interior of concrete real-ity. To the same degree that M. Bergson com-bated Kantianism, philosophical thought inJapan removed itself from the neo-Kantian

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theory of knowledge. M. Bergson made us "re-vive the absolute.") And the philosophy ofNishida, perhaps the most profound thinker inJapan today, presents itself as an effort to syn-thesize the transcendental philosophy andBergsonism. It is this synthesis which is alreadyindicated by the titles of his principal works:Discursive Thought and Vital Experience, Intu-ition and Reflection in Self Consciousness.Wecould say that in general his meditations, whileaccepting the intuition of the pure durée,have asa goal the safeguarding of the a priori values.

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It is necessary to also point out two secondaryeffects produced by Bergsonism, which charac-terize in a precise way the present state of thestudy of Western philosophy in Japan. In thefirst placeand it is quite a curious phenomenonitwas through the intermediary of Bergsonianphilosophy that we learned to appreciate Ger-man phenomenology. It was Husserl at first, al-though not so much the Husserl of the first part,rather of the second part of Logical Investiga-tions,not so much, then, the "pure logician" as,rather, the "phenomenologist." And then it wasMax Scheler, philosopher of life, and very re-cently Martin Heidegger, author of Being andTime.Among the points in common betweenBergsonian philosophy and German phenomen-ology, what seems most characteristic to us isjust that which distinguishes them both from theneo-Kantian philosophy: on the one hand theBergsonian requirement of abolishing a tooclear cut distinction between the content of

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knowledge and its form, on the other hand theidea of "intentionality" in Husserl and the notionof "Being-in-the-world" in Heidegger. Thispoint in common is, perhaps, only a commonresult of the method of intuition. In any case, wehave in Japan been led from neo-Kantianism to"phenomenology" by means of Bergsonianphilosophy.

The second effect of Bergsonism was a muchmore natural one: we were taught to appreciateFrench philosophy in general. The little Frenchphi-

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losophy that we had previously known consistedonly in the Montesquieu of The Spirit ofLaws,the Jean-Jacques Rousseau of The SocialContract,and the Comtean sociology. Now webegan to examine Boutroux, Ravaisson, Mainede Biran. We sought to find in the philosophy of"contingency," in the notion of "habit," and inthe method of "immediate apperception'' theprincipal current of French philosophy. In addi-tion, we wondered what relation the brilliantphilosophy of M. Bergson sustained, on the onehand with Descartes, and on the other hand withPascal. The one had deepened the meaning of"meditation," the other had appreciated the "es-prit de finesse."We learned to recognize the fruitfrom the tree. (And I am sure that the study ofFrench philosophy will be cultivated by us inthe near future with an intensity much greaterthan today.)

Now why is it that we have had an instinctiveaversion to utilitarianism? Why has Kant exer-cised such a great influence on us? Why is M.Bergson so highly esteemed in Japan? Some-times the puerile reproach has been madeagainst us that we are clever "imitators." Whenone civilization is confronted with another civil-ization a reciprocity of influence is nothing outof the ordinary. But the acceptance of an ideadoes not signify imitation. What is produced isan assimilation according to choice. And themode of choice itself always reveals the spon-taneity and activity characteristic of the subjectwho chooses. Now, in us there are two predom-inant currents of thought: Shintoist thought inthe form of Bushido *,and Buddhist thought inthe form of Zen. Bushido,"the way of thebushi,"is the cult of the absolute spirit, contemptfor what is material. It is an idealist ethic of the"good will." Therefore, it had to be the sine quanon of the acceptance of Kantianism in Japan.

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Kantianism, if, perhaps, not so much as a theoryof knowlege, at least as a "foundation of themetaphysic of morals," could, once imported,never die in the country of Bushido.On the otherhand, Zen, or Dhyana*,or "meditation," consistsin an effort to seize the absolute by intuition.And it is precisely this which has in Japanesethought opened the way to the philosophy of M.Bergson.

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The Bergsonian method is "simple and indivis-ible intuition of the spirit," "taking direct posses-sion" of the durée.Bergson says: "The duréecannot be rejoined by means of a detour; it isnecessary to install oneself in it straightaway."A Zen monk would say the same thing. M.Bergson writes: "We are going to demand ofconsciousness that it isolate itself from the ex-ternal world and, by a vigorous effort of abstrac-tion, become itself once again." This is also themethod of Zen meditation. Speaking of thedurée,M. Bergson says: Its "representation . . .although clear for that thought having returnedinto itself, cannot be translated into the languageof common sense." For the same reason, Zenscorns the word and language. Certainly

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the religion of Zen and Bergsonian philosophyare not the same thing. Yet there is a spirit soevidently common to both that we cannot fail torecognize their essential affinity. (All Japanesewithout exception can feel a kind of "intellectualsympathy" for this French philosophy.)

Not just in method, but in content as well,Bergsonian philosophy displays great resemb-lance to Buddhist thought. We will mention buttwo principal points: (1) the Bergsonian idea ofthe durée,expressing itself in the image of"flowing water," is precisely the fundamentalidea of Buddhism: the ceaseless flight of things,a watery flux; (2) when Bergsonism admits thepossibility of at the same time, and on the sameterrain, "accepting the thesis and antithesis ofantinomies," it is very near the paradoxical truthenunciated by Zen: Nirvana *is Buddha, Noth-ing is Being. This resemblance is result of thefact that Bergsonism and Zen are both served byanalogous, albeit independent, methods of intu-ition. And the fascinating attraction thatBergsonism exercises consists precisely in thefact that it shows us this affinity in all its origin-al spontaneity. By contrast, there are inSchopenhauer and in Nietzsche, no matter theadmiration they inspire in us, too many oriental

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reminiscences for us in the Orient to regardthem as truly Western philosophers. M. Bergsonremains in the limits of occidental genius and,therefore, appears all the more attractive to us.

Now progress, in whatever sense one under-stands it, is in no way conceivable if it is notsolidly united with tradition. Whoever says pro-gress, says, thereby, tradition. Our orientalthought, although willing to study Westernthought, will never achieve true progresswithout abundant nourishment from its own tra-dition. It is, therefore, necessary that we followour own tradition in order to transcend it. It isnecessary to pursue it in order to surpass it."Progress, carrying on the past, nibbling away atthe future, swells up, yet all the while ad-vances." Herein is progress defined, herein theBergsonian durée is defined.

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Japanese Theater

. . . TO SAY THAT A MUSIC, WHOSE FORMconsists in fluidity, can be considered as an ex-pression of pantheist mysticism.

And his song and his danceAre the voices of truth

says the hymn of Hakuin, Japanese Zen monk.

The choreographic and scenic art of Japan dis-play the same characteristics as the other kindsof Japanese art, above all the taste for simplicityand the predominance of suggestion, both beingbut expressions of the infinite. In dance eachgesture of the hand, each cadence of step, has asymbolic sense, reflecting the profound life ofthe soul and the rhythm of sentiments. A Frenchobserver says: "A slow and trembling droppingof the hand signifies autumn leaves impercept-ibly collecting on the ground. Hands shading theeyes will make one think of a mountain land-scape. A swinging of the arms gives the imageof the sea or of a river. It suffices for a younggirl to nibble the edge of her kimono, to raise toher lips the lengthy sleeve, in order to expresssentiments like shame, timidity, modesty, or toexpress, as if in a whisper, an acknowledgment.As far as the interpretation of thoughts and sen-timents by mime, the knowledge of the Japaneseschool is inexhaustible." 1 In a word, artistic

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expression, always loyal to the principle of sug-gestion and simplicity, is reduced to its essentialcontours, everything superfluous being categor-ically forbidden.

In theater, suggestion of the infinite finds ex-pression not only in the ingenious simplicity ofthe "mute art," but also in the original techniqueof the hanamichi,"flower paths." Hanamichi areextensions of the stage out into the auditorium,two walkwaysat stage levelcrossing the theaterpit

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at right angles. 2They are, as it were, dynamiclines giving indication of eternity. They enablethe spectators to be freed, first from the theatric-al limits of space and time, and then from cos-mic limits. Action on a platform, facing thespectators, can only be played in two dimen-sions. In spite of all the activity, it remains forthe static hanamichi to instill a dynamic sense.At first they give to the action a third dimension,and then a fourth, time, and finally an infinitedimension, the metaphysical. When some super-human advances from the stage on one of thehanamichi,when he passes behind and thenagain before us, we often feel a shudder. He hascome from a faraway and unknown world. Hereindicated, here suggested, is the infinite. Whenan old and devoted vassal, fallen into disgracethrough too much rectitude and sincerity, leav-ing his young and licentious lord among theladies of the gay quarters, goes along thehanamichi with heavy step, tears in his eyes, our

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souls are led along the same path and with thesame heavy steps, steps we repeat so often inlife at every occasion of separation, a separationat once and always temporal and eternal. Andsometimes, when two despairing lovers are go-ing to die together, who is the spectator whodoes not want to strew their path with flowers,hoping with all his heart that this "flower path"will become a path leading the lovers to thehappy land of the lotus of Amitabha? Thanks tothese hanamichi,indicators of the infinite, thespectator plunges into the sweet plenitude ofeternity and aspires to the spiritual light thatcomes from beyond.

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A Peasant He Is

WE have in Japan the proverb: it is the peasantwho boasts of his country. He who understandsthis proverb will find speaking of his country adifficult task. There where one simply rendersjustice to one's country, one is exposed to a ma-licious interpretation whereby one is depicted inthe colors of vanity. Why then speak of mycountry? Because while I have been living inEurope I have everywhere experienced a lack ofunderstanding in regard to it. I have not been as-tonished by this; it is so far away, beyond Per-sia, beyond India, beyond China. There, amongthe eternal waves of the Pacific, rests the islandof the Rising Sun. The difference between thecustoms of this island's inhabitants and the cus-toms of those in Europe is as great as the dis-tance is far.

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Certainly, there are Europeans who havetraveled to Japan. But how, living in a Europeanstyle hotel, can one understand this country?Even those who remain in Japan several years,leading the life of the Japanese themselves andspeaking passably good Japanese, do not gener-ally know how to read the language. The excep-tions are very rare. The characters at once sym-bolic and phonetic are an enigma sealed withseven seals. How can the soul of a country bepenetrated if one does not have access to its lit-erature, above all when the country has such asingular and complicated civilization? Yet somehave the admirable audacity to transcribe theirimpressions and observations. Mistaken them-selves, they mislead others, all the while passingin Europe as connoisseurs of Japan. A travelerarriving in Japan states frankly: "Aboard thetrans-Siberian express I had leisure enough toprepare myself, and yet each and every particu-larity surprised me to the highest degree. It was

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another world entirely, absolutely foreign." Andhe confesses at the end of his book, while re-counting his departure aboard ship, the islandhaving passed from view: "While I was takenwith nostalgia for this strange country, I per-ceived more and more clearly that I

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had understood nothing at all." He had reasonenough to say so. No need then to repeat why Iam not astonished that in Europe my country islittle understood.

Yet this country is my native land. I love it andam deeply attached to it. Not only does my en-tire being belong to it, but I owe it all the as-pects of my soul, all the nuances of my heart. Iwould hardly pay heed to my country being ig-nored. But I am saddened each time that I runacross false ideas in regard to it. Ah well! I willspeak of my country, I will even risk being apeasant. But it will not be a question of politics,nor of commerce, nor of the army and navy. Letus leave to the side superficial things. I willspeak of that which lies in the depths of us all. Iwill speak of the Japanese soul and of its moralcivilization.

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The Japanese Soul

WHAT IS THE JAPANESE SOUL? LISTEN tothe famous verse of Motoori, scholar of the sev-enteenth century:

If one asksWhat is the Japanese soul?It is the mountain cherry blossomExhaling its perfume in the morning light.

Do you know the cherry blossoms of Japan?They are the color of dew. So soon have theyblossomed, the soft breeze makes them fall.They remain on the trees but several days. Themeaning of this verse, comparing the Japanesesoul to these blossoms, is it not the expressionof the melancholy of life, no less of the world?It signifies that the soul is always ready to offeritself up, and to die for its ideal. The morninglight, it is the moral ideal, that same light aboutwhich Plato speaks in his allegory of the cave.This verse expresses an absolute contempt forall that is material. In short, we have hereidealism.

Traveling by seaMy body under water,Traveling mountainsMy body under grass,Ah, let me dieby the side of my emperor!

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In this verse of the eighteenth-century poet Oo-tomo * no Yakamochi, the same sentiment isfound. The emperor is only a concrete exampleof the ideal. In this epoch the emperor is the in-carnation of the ideal.

Is such moral sentiment extinct in modernJapan? The name of General Nogi is not un-known in Europe. He was the commander-in-chief of the army during the Russo-JapaneseWar of 1904-5. After the war he became the

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president of a school for young nobles andshowed himself a supreme example of the sousnobility. On the day of the Meiji emperor's fu-neral he committed "seppuku," formerly ameans of death reserved for samurai and con-sisting in the opening up of the stomach with asword. Most Europeans will not understand thisevent. 1 They will say it is the barbaric habit ofsacrificing oneself for the emperor. This attach-ment to the emperor will be seen as admirable,but as lacking in any real edification. Somethingignorant and naive will be seen there. Yet, in myopinion, just this negative appreciation is con-fession of ignorance and naïveté. During thesiege of Port Arthur hundreds of men perishedday and night. But the fort had to be taken byany means. The fate of the country depended onit. Two of Nogi's sons, officers, also fell. Re-ceiving such unhappy news, the general waseach time consoled by the thought that he hadoffered to his country his dearest relations. On

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the day of the fall of Port Arthur, the very daywhen the country sang hymns in his praise, Nogidecided to kill himself. He had sent so manysoldiers to their deaths. He was responsible forso many sacrifices. He felt the necessity of alsorenouncing his own life. But two feelings ofduty were at odds within him. The emperor stilllived. Thus, the general decided to postpone hisown death till the day of the emperor's death.

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The condemnation of suicide is a prejudice ofChristianity. The ancient Greeks did not holdsuch a view. Suicide was for them often a ra-tional exit. Christian dogma has penetrated somany European souls that they find themselvesat present unconsciously under the yoke of thisprejudice. Is there not something ignorant andnaive here? Schopenhauer in this respect is arare example. He viewed suicide directly andwithout veil, in spite of whatever other bias hemight have possessed. In the case of GeneralNogi it is often said: If he had continued to con-secrate the rest of his life to the education ofyouth, with the absolute disinterestedness of hischaracter, surely he would have done more forhis country. His conception of duty was entirelywrong. Those who say this ignore the moralforce of the tragic heroism which surpasses me-diocre reasoning. The feeble clarity of reasonvanishes before the great light born from dark-ness. What a profound impression Nogi's suicide

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left to youthful souls! We are happy to have oneNogi instead of thousands of moralists andpriests. Thus we say:

It is the mountain cherry blossomExhaling its perfume in the morning light.

And if European civilization condemns thismoral idea, we for our part will condemn thiscivilization, so long as it remains blind to thenobility and heroism of the human soul.

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Time Is Money

UP until 1868, the year of the Meiji Restoration,we in Japan had four castes: bushi, 1farmers, ar-tisans, and merchants. Our moral ideal was "theway of the bushi,"constituting itself, above all,in valiance, in the nobility of the soul, and ingenerosity. The merchants, last in the rank ofcastes, met with great contempt. To give an ex-ample from literature, Turayuki, tenth-centurypoet and critic, in speaking of verses composedof words at once pretty, but without correspond-ence to their subject, compared them to mer-chants dressed in fine clothing. Doubtless thiscontempt for merchants and for commerce wasfrom all points of view unjust. Yet on the wholeI dare congratulate this caste order once pos-sessed by us, since it clearly served in the form-ation of our country's ideal. And if this caste or-der no longer exists, the moral ideal survives it.Thus, we have been nourished and have grownin an atmosphere removed from that of banksand shops.

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I remember a summer evening several years agoin the lounge of one of the most luxurious hotelsin Deauville. The musicians had just finishedplaying the meditation of Thais, whose melodystill resounded delightfully in my ear, when alady in a gold evening gown addressed me witha marvelously harmonized charm and distinc-tion. She spoke to me, among other things, ofher brother in Chicago, who numbered amonghis friends several Japanese diplomats. He is anengineer, she said, and added: "You know, thatvocation is very prosperous." I also remember awinter sojourn in Nice. On a hotel bus slowlydescending the Boulevard de Cimiez, I was con-templating the sweetness of the mimosas, whenmy dream was brusquely interrupted by an ac-centuated voice: "Very expensive, isn't it?" Alady, sitting facing me, wearing a green outfitand green hat, a bracelet encrusted with emer-alds on her wrist, was speaking with her

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neighbor on I do not know what subject and re-peated once again: "Very expensive!"

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Even with all good will it is difficult for us toimagine this kind of mentality which acts andspeaks always according to the law to thedollar's weight, this necessity of the mind tobring everything down to the level of money.For our taste the ugliest proverb imaginablewould be: Time is money. Nevertheless, it isthis proverb which is adopted and worshipped inall parts of the world. Born in the new world, itvictoriously invades the old. Now, this being thecase, will we too say: Well! Shall we not alsoplay? Ours is a different logic. We would say:We at least shall take a contrary path!

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In The Manner Of Herodotus

I WILL, now, in the manner of Herodotus, relate some trivial things. But who knows if there mightnot be something important in triviality? Just as their sky is different, and just as their rivers are of anature different from other countries, the Japanese in their mores and customs are entirely contrary toEuropeans. For example: in the street women walk behind, men ahead.

Etc., etc. . . .Letter Left right 1 Up downBook Left right Right leftAddress How to get rid of someoneWoman ahead, man behind Woman behind, man aheadShaking of hands Placing of the hands in one's lap

(and a bowing of the head)Decolleté Abundance of clothing To hide the

bodyBread RiceFork Silver nickel Chopsticks Ivory, wood

To decorate with all that one has To decorate but a littleTo eat, standing To eat, not standingTo enter a home with shoes To take off one's shoesWomen It is the men who are more feminine and polite. Womenare represented as army commanders.

Women More feminine and politethan men

The pouring of bird's eggs, milk, and butter over fish (to eat witha mayonnaise not mixed with milk and butter)

raw fish sashimi fragrance of sea-weed fragrance of the sea

Women's clothing Left front Women's clothing Right frontActor A woman often plays a man In the traditional theater a man al-

ways plays a womanContinued on next page

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Continued from previous pageTo kiss in the street so as to show others To kiss at home in secret so as to taste a good thing

intimatelyBlonde is the preferred color Black as lacquerMen Clothing with buttons,to guard against theattack of women

Women Sash,to guard against the attack of men

To shrug the shoulders (shrug the shoulders,Epicurus 181)

To bend the neck

Tepid bath Hot bath What degree?To put sugar in tea, hot water black tea Not to put sugar in tea, tepid water green teaArtichoke Sansho leaves (bamboo shoots) To make a sauce with

little peas (miso)Only women use fans Men use fansName, surname (Victor Hugo) Surname, name (Hugo Victor)Wine (grapes) Sake (rice)Are you not in good health? Yes. 2 Are you not in good health? No.

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Subject And Graft

WHEN in 1549 St. Francis Xavier first broughtthe evangel of Christ to this far away island,Catholicism was greeted with an incomparableardor. Not only were people among the massesbaptized, but so too several daimyo *.1A shorttime later churches were erected. Latin hymnssung. The prohibition of the Christian religionresulted after Spanish missionaries had in a sur-reptitious but banal way mixed themselves up inpolitics and, thus, menaced the peace of thecountry. In order to pursue believers and in or-der to distinguish them from others, the govern-ment produced wooden and metal plaques bear-ing images in relief of Christ and the Virgin.The accused were ordered to step on theseplaques. Those who refused were put to thecross or burned alive. How many Japanese St.Sebastians and St. Cecilias died for this faith! Ifthere were a Christian heaven, would these un-known martyrs be any the less celebrated andadored there than those canonized on earth by

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the papacy? With a severity without equal a pro-hibition against the religion endured for two andone-half centuries. It was the revolution of 1868that provided tolerance and liberty for all reli-gions. Christianity, thought to have been com-pletely uprooted, suddenly reappeared. In Ky-ushu*, the southern island of Japan, severalthousand inhabitants proclaimed themselvesCatholics. Holy images hidden in walls were putup, prayer books concealed under floorboardswere taken out.

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Today one sometimes finds school children withan Imitation of Jesus Christ in their pockets. Theautobiography of St. Theresa is favorite readingin certain circles of young girls from better fam-ilies. One of my school companions,2 a Cathol-ic, chose for his thesis topic at TokyoUniversity, the philosophy of St. Augustine.After having passed his exam brilliantly, hewent to Europe to continue his studies. Neitherthe Sorbonne nor the University of Louvaincould satisfy the desire in his heart. He went toRome

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and became a priest. Christianity in Japan is notas negligible as it might seem.

How can this rather singular fact be explained?To say that it is the grace of God would signifya refusal of explanation. An explanation in theproper sense of the term can only be given bysomeone outside religion, someone able to judgeby means of reason alone. Now in the first placewhat strikes us about this religion is not itsdogma, but its ethic. Dogmawith the mysteriousforce belonging to every religiononly comeslater. At first it is Jesus, dying for his ideal, whocompels our sincere admiration. Then the Ser-mon on the Mount awakens in us a melodiousecho. ''Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salthave lost his savour, wherewith shall it besalted?For I say unto you, 'Except your right-eousness shall exceed the righteousness of thescribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enterinto the kingdom of heaven.'" We hear a voicecondemning categorically the politics of a cer-tain country, a politics which loves to speak ofjustice and peace but which in reality practices

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something resembling it not in the slightest."But when thou doest alms, let not thy left handknow what they right hand doeth: that thinealms may be in secret."

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He who expresses himself in this way has a tastequite different from those who make a show oftheir so-called donations. "Enter ye in at thestrait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is theway, that leadeth to destruction, and many therebe which go in thereat: because strait is the gate,and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life,and few there be that find it!" We see before usa man who urges us to follow upon a path not sovery different from our Bushido *,"the way ofthe bushi."And when we read in The LittleFlowers of St. Francis Assisi that he gave to abeggar all that he possessed, the Holy Bible it-self, this story strikes us by revealing to us theabsolute purity of the soul. We find heresomething true and valiant. To many of ourcompatriots, Christianity appears with fascinat-ing attraction.

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Anatole France wrote: "A beautiful verse is likea bow drawn across the strings of our senses. Itis not his own thoughts, it is ours to which thepoet gives voice." It is the same in the domainof morals. What sounds in our heart faced with anew idea is not always its novelty, but preciselythat part of the idea which we already havewithin us and which we recognize with delightas our own. A horticulturist knows well that inorder to make a good graft it is first necessary tochoose a suitable subject.

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Geisha

IN Europe the demi-mondaines are the "half-dead." They are exiled from the world, hors-mondaines.People are, thus, astonished to learnthat in Japan the geisha play a certain role in so-ciety. They occupy a rank almost like that of thehataerae,courtesans of Ancient Greece. It is saidthat there were hataerae who frequented thegarden of Epicurus. One of them, Leontio, wrotea subtle piece against Theophrastus, peripateticphilosopher. Then, there is this famous dictum:"I cannot at all remember you because I havenever forgotten you." This psychological truth,expressed in an exquisite form, and addressingthe metaphysical problem of truth, we owe to alove letter written by an erudite demi-mondaineof eighteenth-century Edo (Tokyo). Poetessessimilar to Bilitis are not lacking in Japan. It isimportant to know that in order to become ageisha,a rigorous examination in music anddance must be undergone. The ideal of thegeisha,at once moral and aesthetic, that which is

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called iki,is a harmonious union of voluptuous-ness and nobility.

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Christianity condemns the flesh. One of themost unfortunate consequences of this has beenthe pitiable and perverse state into which certainwomen in Europe have fallen. Abandoned, theyare left without hope. Absolute degradation isthe result. And with few exceptions mostEuropeans have lost, it seems, the capacity tojudge these things without prejudice. For Chris-tianity and for those unconsciously undergoingits influence, there is in this regard only the onealternative between heaven and hell. It is fromthis point of view that one judges oneself andothers. But does not true idealism consist in su-pressing hell in order to replace it with purgat-ory? To sell the flesh in sin is an avarice undig-nified of God, as transforming wine into poisonan absurdity undignified of men. To prohibit of-ten means taking the path of abandonment. Toabolish is easy, to accomplish is difficult. Anidealism excluding realism is a pseudo-idealism.It contents itselfwith

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astonishing facilitywith dualism. On the otherhand, sensual pleasure animated by a noble spir-it is testament to a great idealist civilization. It isthe reason why Baudelaire, for example, has somany admirers in Japan. The principle of con-tradiction can claim right only in the domain offormal logic. Instead of the negative judgment,to appreciate in life the positive meaning in thelimitative judgment is the key to a true idealism."Because the depth must act in order that lovemay be." He who understands the meaning ofthese words understands the raison d'être of thegeisha and their social situation. Besides, it is aprofound man who is able to say to Mephisto:Ah, you, sensual and supersensual galant!

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Two Scenes Familiar To Children

IN order to cultivate our aesthetic taste, it is ne-cessary from time to time to contemplate themasterpieces of art we have known since child-hood. They live within us, they grow within us.Each time we return to them, we find they haveacquired new aspects, we find that an unknowndepth has all the while been establishing itselfthere. Thus, we come to admire these pieceswith new astonishment. Masterpieces, however,must need not exist solely in the domain of art.They can also be of a moral nature, those the hu-man heart has painted on the canvas of history.Here, then, are two pieces familiar to all Japan-ese children.

It was in the middle of the sixteenth century, thetime of Japanese feudalism. Kenshin Uesugi andShingen Takeda, mortal enemies, struggledagainst one another without cease. The first pos-sessed Etigo, land extending to the sea, whereasthe latter possessed Kai, a province surroundedby mountains. At the very moment in which Ue-sugi attacked Kai from all sides, Takeda and hissubjects were suffering from a lack of salt, saltin Japan being obtainable only from the sea.Knowing his enemy to be in great misery, Ue-sugi sent him a great quantity of salt. The enemymust be defeated by force of arms, not by othermeans.

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During the "Nine Years War" of the eleventhcentury, Yoshiie, leader of the emperor's partypursued Sadato * Abe, enemy leader. Both rodeon horseback. Sadato, losing ground to his pur-suer, improvised a tanka,wrote it on a piece ofpaper and attached it to an arrow he let fly atYoshiie. The arrow lodged in the armor of thepursuer, Yoshiie, who was able to read theselines:

For yearsSuffering wear

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The entangled threadsAlas, Koromonotate,Come undone: 1

His heart moved to pity, Yoshiie gave up hispursuit.

That things such as this could happen today inthe same way cannot be believed, unless one is aDon Quixote. Yet the material is always there,impatiently waiting to be fashioned by way ofthe creative form. The change in times wouldonly require a few modifications. Can we nothope to find the spirit of Kenshin Uesugi in themilieu of the officer corps of a modern army?Can we not hope to find this noble spirit, op-posed as it is to the dictum of the Jesuits, dictumin which the end justifies the means? And mightit not be desired that a peace treaty piously in-voke the soul of Yoshiie? Can we not hope tofind this sensitive soul, knowing as it does howto pardon an enemy in desperate straits? Thehistory of humanity is a history always thirstingfor love and light. Who says that idealism is achimera. Idealism becomes a chimera only atthat moment in which we allow ourselves tolose hold of our faith in its realization.

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General Characteristics Of FrenchPhilosophy

MESDAMES, MESSIEURS, Permit me, now,to repeat in French in a somewhat abridgedform, what I have just pronounced in Japaneseregarding the general characteristics of Frenchphilosophy.

Philosophy is a form of knowledge whose goalconsists in seizing the truth of the universe. Nowif the truth were one and absolute, philosophicalknowledge would have universal validity, and,consequently, philosophy would be the same forall. However, the subject creating philosophy isan individual. One of course may suppose thattruth is one and unique; nonetheless, the mannerin which it is seized reveals a character specificto the individual. Now the assemblage of indi-viduals, geographically and historically condi-tioned, constitutes the race and nation. A nationhas its own civilization, and the philosophy of anation has its own character. Thus, Indian andChinese philosophy differ by national traits.Thus, German philosophy is distinguished fromFrench philosophy.

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This relation between the universality and par-ticularity of knowledge may be observed inphilosophy as well as in positive science. TheGreeks possessed an especial feeling for theplastic form; they loved to geometricize theirmathematical problems, providing, thus, strikingcontrast with the entirely abstract mathematicsof India. We find the same thing in physics. Thelaw of energy was discovered on the occasion ofa study of heat. The differing ways in whichCarnot, Robert Mayer, and Joule carried outtheir studies permits us to discern clearly thedifferent nationalities of these scientists. In psy-chophysics Fechner's method of minimal modi-fication and Plateau and Delboeufs method ofaverage gradations reveal to us the nationalitiesof these men.

The ideal of knowledge seeks, doubtless, uni-versality. Pasteur said: "Science has no coun-try." Yet I have just presented several examples

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showing that in the research methods of know-ledge something like a national division of laborobtains. And in philosophy, above all, differ-ences in method often do not abstain from im-posing themselves on ideas.

What, then, are the essential characteristics ofFrench philosophy? At first it is inner observa-tion which plays a very great role. Already it isto be found in Descartes, the title of his firstbook, Meditations,serving as indication. Thefirst truth, "Cogito, ergo sum," "I think, there-fore, I am," is not an argument. If it were an ar-gument, the major premise, "All of that whichthinks is, or exists," would have previously beenknown and the first truth would, therefore, havelost its primacy. Descartes's point of departurewas not abstract logic; that which he wanted tosay was simply "Sum cogitans,'' "I am thinking."Descartes himself explained, it is "a thingknown by itself," "a thing seen by a simple in-spection of the mind"; it is an intuition. Des-cartes, at one and the same time the initiator ofmodern philosophy and the initiator of Frenchphilosophy, showed the possibility of foundingphilosophy on inner observation. Pascal wantedto understand that inner life filled with anguish.

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Malebranche, aside from his effort to fashion asystem, exhibited a splendid talent for psycholo-gical observation. Rousseau also excelled inanalyzing the inner life. The ideologists takingleave from Condillac also testified to the sametendency. And then, above all, Maine de Biran,who said of himself, "I am, by my nature, de-voted to inner apperception, and I have, for thatwhich takes place inside me, the kind of certaintact which other men have for external objects."According to him it is necessary to turn awayfrom logical abstraction in order to seize theconcrete truth by means of an "immediate ap-perception." He compared the method of intro-spection to the work of a miner following a mul-titude of subterranean detours, and he hoped thatone day a new inner world would be discoveredby some Columbus of metaphysics. The "primit-ive fact" of his philosophy was "I will, I act,therefore, I exist." Ravaisson also thought itpossible to erect "the intimate intuition of

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ourselves by ourselves" into knowledge of abso-lute reality. Lachelier wrote a book entitled Psy-chology and Metaphysics,and he affirmed that"the highest stage in psychology is but one withmetaphysics." As for M. Bergson, the title of hisfirst book characterizes his method very well:Essay on the Immediate Givens of Conscious-ness.And his work Creative Evolution beginswith these words: "The existence of which weare most assured and of which we know best isincontestably our own, because if we have no-tions which could be judged external and super-ficial of every other object, of ourselves our per-ception is internal, profound. What then do wefind? What is, in this privileged case, the precisemeaning of the word exist? "His manner of pos-ing the problem is entirely Cartesian. What ismore, Bergson consciously avoids all abstract

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and generalizing constructions; he tries to seizereality internally by intuition.

This same penchant for inner observation canalso be found in one particular discipline ofphilosophy: in psychology. In Germany themethod in favor is that of experimental psycho-logy in the laboratory. In France it is, above all,pathological psychology which internally ob-serves morbid phenomena. The gift of inner ob-servation manifests itself here in all its force.

The second essential trait of French philosophycan be found in its alliance with positive sci-ence.Descartes is, of course, testament to this.He is not only the creator of analytic geometry,he is, in fact, founder of modern mechanicalphysics. It is Descartes who initiated the applic-ation of mathematical method to nature in its en-tirety. Omnia, apud me, mathematice fiunt,hesaid. To reduce matter to extension, physics togeometry, such was his ideal. Einstein, it is said,realized this Cartesian ideal in his theory of gen-eral relativity. Pascal distinguished himself atthe same time as mathematician and physicist.In the eighteenth century, French materialismwas nothing less than the consequence of the ex-cessive application of the mathematical method,and numerous philosophers were at this timemathematicians, naturalists, and doctors:D'Alembert, Bonnet, La Mettrie, Cabanis, etc. Inthe nineteenth century, Ampère, who attachedhimself to Maine de Biran, was known as one of

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the great physicists. Auguste Comte, Cournot,Renouvier, were at first mathematicians. Thepositive philosophy of Comte is characterized assystematization of the positive sciences.Cournot unveiled the relation existing betweenthe calculation of probabilities and the philo-sophy of contingency. Renouvier founded hisphilosophy of discontinuity on a critique of in-finitesimal mathematics. And in contemporaryphilosophy Henri Poincaré is a mathematicianof genius. Monsieur Le Roy is also a mathem-atician. Pierre Duhem is a physicist, M. EmileMeyerson a chemist. M. Bergson already in hisyouth distinguished himself by his mathematicaltalent, and his work Duration and Simultan-eity,written in order to criticize the idea of timein the theory of Einstein, testifies to his compet-ence in matters of mathematics. His profoundknowledge of biology and physiology is mani-fested, above all, in Matter and Memory and inCreative Evolution.And many physiologists

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recognize as definitive his studies on aphasia.Other contemporary philosophers, such as Han-nequin, Couturat, and M. Brunschvicg, areequally known for their knowledge of mathem-atics and physics.

In Germany it is often theologians who becomephilosophers, Protestantism, in according themthe occasion to form religious ideas by means offree thought, having given them a taste forphilosophy. In France, on the

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contrary, it is scientists who often become philo-sophers. In any case, on account of this liaisonbetween philosophy and positive science, thereis in France, as nowhere else, a particular discip-line known as the "philosophy of science." Thisphilosophy of science is a reflection upon sci-entific methods, an elucidation of their significa-tion, value, and limits. In this regard the namesof Henri Poincaré, Duhem, and Meyerson areparamount.

A third essential trait is that of the dualist tend-ency. Whereas the first and second traits relateto philosophical method, this third trait touchesthe very foundation of French philosophy. Thephilosophy of Descartes is of the dualist type.Soul and body, thought and extension, natureand libertysuchare the antitheses. Thus Pascalrecognized two organs of knowledge: esprit degeometrie and esprit de finesse.To the one be-longs the domain of abstract logic, to the otherthe domain of sentiment and will. Maine de Bir-an established that the human soul tends to aunion with God at the same time that it tends toa union with the body, and he said that there is"a double tendency which prevents man fromfinding repose in present life, insofar as he is theman that he is. The most elevated, the purestsouls are often dominated by a terrestrial tend-ency, and those who have most completelyabandoned themselves to animal life are mostoften tormented by needs of another nature. . . .

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All creatures moan." His philosophy proposes tounderstand this moral duality and, consequently,places in opposition passive affectibility and vol-untary motility, sensation and perception, pas-sion and action, necessity and liberty.There isalso in Auguste Comte, aside from his positivephilosophy,his religion of humanity; aside fromhis rather negative early philosophy, there is histruly positive later philosophy. And lastly, thephilosophy of M. Bergson is sometimes charac-terized as a modern transformation of Cartesiandualism. Intuition and intelligence, arthropodaand vertebrae, durée and simultaneity, matterand memorywe find here Bergsonian dualism.

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In short, to examine French philosophy throughits great philosophers is almost always to finddualism. A monist system such as the one ofSpinoza or Hegel is unfindable in French philo-sophy, and if, perchance, a philosopher sought amonist solution, it is more than certain that hewould not succeed in France. Alfred Fouillée,for example, tried to reconcile necessity andfreedom by means of the conception of the idea-force; needless to say, he is not highly esteemedin France.

This dualist tendency is rooted, it seems to me,in the fact that French philosophy from the timeof Descartes has striven always and above allfor clear and distinct ideas. Clear and distinctknowledge is typified by the categorical judg-ment in the principle of identity: A is A. And theideal case of the knowledge of causal relationsconsists precisely in proving the identity

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between cause and effect, in expressing this bymeans of an equation. Causa aequat ef-fectum.Consequently, to explain the events ofthe universe by means of causality is only to re-duce all apparent novelties to conditions knownand ancient, to refer all heterogeneity to homo-geneous and identical elements, as for exampleatoms. To explain the universe is, in this sense,to make it vanish by means of its explanation.The ideal pursuit of a clear and distinct know-ledge would, thus, lead to an acosmism. Yet aslong as we keep our eyes open to reality it is im-possible for the universe to vanish before the ad-vance of the principle of identity. In the worldthere is always something new and heterogen-eous which resists arbitrary suppression. Whenone pursues the clarity of ideas to the extreme,one necessarily finds a residue of obscure andincomprehensible things; thus, dualism, is justi-fied: rational and irrational, scientific know-ledge and sentimental postulate.

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In French religious philosophy several repres-entatives of Catholic modernism seek to foundtheir theory on philosophical dualism. For ex-ample, M. Le Roy supports his thought onBergsonian dualism, while the disciples of M.Maurice Blondel like to attach themselves to thedualism of Meyerson.

As a fourth trait, French philosophy strives inseveral ways to be social. Descartes said of hiswork the Discourse on Method that he wantedboth that "women be able to understandsomething of it, and that the subtlest of mindsfind enough material in it to occupy their atten-tion." In effect, women themselves understoodhis philosophy, and philosophy became thecommon good of all. Les femmes savantes ofMoliere is an echo of this.

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The rapprochement of philosophy and social lifeexplains, also, the existence of those writersknown as the "great moralists" in French literat-ure: Montaigne, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère,Vauvenargues, and, perhaps, Alain as a contem-porary writer.

French pedagogy has also given great import-ance to philosophy. In the "philosophy class" inthe lycée,philosophy lessons occupy eight andone-half hours a week. Pupils must be armedwith a philosophical education before makingtheir entry into society.

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Still another important point. In Germany philo-sophers often create new words in consequenceof which philosophy becomes, by the verynature of its form, difficult to understand. Thus,philosophy remains limited to a narrow circle.French philosophers, on the contrary, take up asa task the explication of their thought in termsaccessible to the public. They try to find equi-valents for new ideas in a combination of subtlebut commonly used terms.

And then French philosophy is, very often, so-cial in its very depths. In this regard, we cancompare Nietzsche and Guyau, two eminentphilosophers of

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life. Nietzsche was anti-social, "the great solit-aire." Guyau, on the contrary, was social; in hisverse we can read:

This word so sweet, so dear to heart: Freedom,And yet to it I do prefer another: Solidarity.A gathering, a concert, such is life for me.

His moral ideal was "the most intensive andmost extensive life possible." Extensive, that isto say social. He saw in religion not only anthro-pomorphism, but also sociomorphism. In aes-thetics he maintained that aesthetic sentimentmust be social. He said in his verse:

As virtue, art must be generous:When I see the beautiful, I want to be two.

He wrote a book entitled Art from the Sociolo-gical Point of View.In addition, the aestheticwork of M. Bergson, Laughter,is equally con-structed from the sociological point of view.

Finally, sociology as a particular discipline wasfounded in France, and the "sociological" schoolof Durkheim and his disciples wishes to explainby society alone all spiritual products. It goes sofar as to insist that even logical categories areconditioned in their genesis by society. Doubt-less it is a bold affirmation, but it is only one ofthe manifestations of the French spirit.

Thus far I have enumerated four essential char-acteristics of French philosophy:

(1) inner observation,

(2) the alliance with positive science,

(3) the dualist tendency,

(4) the taste for social life.

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Perhaps these four characteristics could be re-duced to one alone: contact with reality.Thepenchant for inner observation, on the one hand,and the intimate liaison with positive science, onthe other, are only reflections of the need tograsp as much internal and external reality aspossible. And, then, that philosophy takes a du-alist form is often explained by the fact that thisvery duality is found in reality.Finally, the so-cial character of philosophy testifies, above all,to the tendency to esteem concrete reality,pla-cing the individual in society and in relation tosociety instead of making of the individual anisolated being by means of abstraction.

In closing, permit me to make several remarkson the relation of these general characteristics ofFrench philosophy to Japanese philosophy. First

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of all, inner observation is justly the Buddhistmethod, more specifically, the method of Zen.Zen is Dhyana *,that is to say, meditation. Now,Buddhism teaches the eternal flow of things, of-ten employing the image of flowing water. AndBergsonian philosophy is recognized as thephilosophy of the durée,sometimes expressed injust this image of "flowing water." This coincid-ence does not seem to me to be the result ofchance, rather it appears to me to be the com-mon result of analogous methods. In addition,M. Nishida, our contemporary philosopher, ac-cords a very great importance to intuition.

Secondly, in Japanese philosophy, at least upuntil now, one scarcely finds a liaison betweenphilosophy and positive science. Japanese philo-sophy has always been inclined towards eitherreligion or ethics. Of course, it will be interest-ing to observe future developments, because it isnow possible to find thinkers who are at thesame time scientists, or who were at firstscientists.

Thirdly, the Orient is attracted by a dualisticform of comprehension, symbolized in the leafof ourginkgo tree. Buddhismis a dualism posingat the same time flow as form of the domain ofdifference, and nothingness as principle of thedomain of equality. The dualism of yin and yangin the I Ching,as well as the dualism of li and kiin the Sung school, are dear to us. The philo-sophy of M. Nishida often presents itself as adualism of noema and noesis,of scientific know-ledge and the postulate of the will.

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Fourthly, philosophy in Japan is not social, or tobe more exact, is not yet social. To make philo-sophy social remains a common task for ourphilosophers and for our society. Philosophy isnot dessicated and abstract knowledge. To seizethe palpitation of life, to feel the shiver of lifeth-at is philosophy. We must strive, as M. Bergsonsays, "to make philosophy exit from the schoolso as to unite it with life!"

Notes

Japanese Theater

1. Albert Maybon, Le Thâtre japonais (Paris,1925), p. 76.

2. Several years ago, I was delighted to find thetechnique of the hanamichi employed in aParisian music-hall on the Champs Elysees*.Returning there this year I find the "music-hall"transformed into a "dance-hall."

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The Japanese Soul

1. In regard to General Nogi's suicide, as well asthe questions of loyalty and seppuku in Japaneseculture, the reader can profit from the historicalfiction of Ogai* Mori, particularly

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from his "The Last Testament of Okitsu Ya-goemon" (for the theme of Nogi) and fromhis "The Incident at Sakai" (both in The In-cident at Sakai and Other Stories,ed. and tr.D. Dilworth and J. T. Rimer [Honolulu,1977]). The theme of Nogi's suicide can alsobe found in Soseki * Natsume's novelKokoro,tr. E. McClellan (South Bend,1977).Trans.

Time is Money

The phrase "Time is money," both in the title ofthis essay and in the text, as well as in all quota-tions, is in English in the original text.Trans.

1. Samurai.Trans.

In the Manner of Herodotus

1. Kuki used both French and Japanese in thewriting of this piece. All italicized words wereoriginally in Japanese, the nonitalicized wordsin French.Trans.

2. In the original version, Kuki here gives a ref-erence to Japon d'aujourd'hui,p. 98.Trans.

Subject and Graft

1. Great feudal nobles.Trans.

2. Kuki's classmate at the Daiichi Kotogakko*,Soichi* Iwashita.Trans.

Two Scenes Familiar to Children

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1. Koromonotate,place name signifying "houseof clothes," and thus "entangled threads" and"come undone." (Even with this explanatorynote the deep resonance of the original does notcome through. There, the play between Koromo-notate, ito-no-midare [entangled threads], andhokorobi [come undone, unsewn] produces amarvelous effect.)Trans.

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PART FOUR"MONSIEUR SARTRE"A NOTEBOOK

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INDEX

A

Abe *, Jiro*, 5

Abe, Sadato*, 89

Action (Blondel), 19, 37n.60

Aden-Arabie (Nizan), 15

Aesthetics:

of simplicity, 9, 54, 55, 57, 58, 61;

of suggestion, 9, 12, 53, 54, 56, 60, 62,66n.14, 67n.27

See also under Art, Japanese; Kuki, Shuzo*;Symbolism, French

Alain. See Chartier, Emile-Auguste

Alembert, Jean Le Rond d', 93

Amano, Teiyu*, 5, 28nn. 7, 9, 31n.16, 35n.43,36n.47

Ampère, André-Marie, 93

Anticipation. See under Time

Architecture, Japanese, 55

Aristotle:

Physics,6

Arnim, Hans Friedrich von:

Stoicorum veterum fragmenta,64n.9

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Aron, Raymond, 38n.75;

and introduction of Sartre to phenomeno-logy, 3, 23-24;

at Pontigny, 7, 35n.46

Art, Japanese:

absence of symmetry in, 56, 65n.11;

absolute idealism of, 8-9, 51-54, 63;

of Ashikaga period, 9, 33n.30;

expression of infinite in, 8-9, 51-63, 65-67;

and French Symbolism, 66n.14, 67n.27;

general characteristics of, enumerated,62-63;

as inward art, 8, 10-11, 52-53, 63;

629/693

liberation from time and space in, 9, 55-56,59-60;

spirituality of, 8-9, 51-53;

triple source of, 8-9, 51-52

See also Aesthetics; Architecture, Japanese;Dance, Japanese; Music, Japanese; Painting,Japanese; Poetry, Japanese; Theater,Japanese

Art from the Sociological Point of View(Guyau), 96

"Art Poétique" (Verlaine), 66n.14

Avadanasataku,*64n.6

Awano, Yasutaro*, 26n.4

630/693

B

Baruzi, Jean, 35n.46

Basho*, 57-59, 66n.14

Baudelaire, Charles, 66n.12, 88

Beauvoir, Simone de, 27n.6, 37n.58, 38nn. 65,73, 39n.81;

account of Sartre's introduction to phe-nomenology of, 3, 20;

La Force de âge (The Prime of Life), 3, 23,26n.3

Becker, Oskar, 6

Being, concept of: in Kuki-Sartre discussions,16-17

631/693

Benda, Julien: La Trahison des clercs,13

Berdyaev, Nicolai, 7, 31n.19

Bergson, Henri, 3, 6, 11, 15, 34n.34, 36n.47, 43;

critique of Kant of, 8, 72;

durée of, 73-74;

inner observation in, 92;

and Kuki, 11-12, 20, 34-35n.41;

philosophical motto of, 97;

reception in Japan of, 71-74;

relation to positive science of, 93;

and Zen Buddhism, 73-74, 97.

Works:

Duration and Simultaneity,93;

632/693

Essay on the Immediate Givens of Con-sciousness,43, 65n.6, 71, 92;

Evolution créatrice (Creative Evolution),20, 43, 71, 92-93;

Introduction to Metaphysics,71;

Matter and Memory,71, 93

633/693

Page 150

"Bergson au Japon" (Kuki), 11-12, 33n.32,34n.34, 34-35n.41

Bhagavad Gita *,44-45

Bifur,39n.76

Blondel, Maurice, 15, 20, 35n.44;

Action,19, 37n.60;

critique of volonte de néant of, 19;

dualism in, 95

Bodhidharma, 51

Bonnet, Charles, 93

Bost, Jacques-Laurent, 36n.51

Bost, Pierre, 36n.51

Boutroux, Emile, 15, 36n.47, 73

Bréhier, Emile, 3, 13, 26n.4

Breton, André: Nadja,13, 17

Brunschvicg, Léon, 14, 17, 19, 35n.44, 36n.48,37n.52;

influence on Sartre of, 15, 18, 37n.59;

relation to positive science of, 93

Works

Les Etapes de la philosophie math-ématique,16;

"Orientation du rationalisme," 16;

Le Progrès de la conscience dans laphilosophie occidentale,15

Buddha, 51

Buddhism, 29n.13, 44, 51;

635/693

and Bushido*, 64n.12, 81;

Indian, 8, 32n.24, 51;

Japanese, 48-49;

Mahayanan*, 64n.12;

similarities with Bergsonism, 73-74;

similarities with French philosophy, 97;

Zen, 9, 51, 53,55, 73-74, 97

Bungeiron (Literary Studies) (Kuki), 30n.14

Buntai,38n.73

Bushido,29n.133, 50, 73, 81;

and Buddhism, 8, 64n.12;

and Christianity, 86;

as source of Japanese art, 8-9, 52;

636/693

and transmigration, 65n.15;

voluntarism in, 8, 18, 21, 49, 50

C

Cabanis, Pierre-Jean Georges, 93

"Caractères généraux de la philosophiefrançaise" (Kuki), 10, 33n.32

Les Carnets de la drôle de guerre, Novembre1939-Mars 1940 (Sartre), 38n.75, 39nn. 76, 81

Carnot, Nicolas Léonard, 91

Céline, Louis-Ferdinand:

Voyage au bout de la nuit,17

Chartier, Emile-August [pseud. Alain], 13, 15,19, 35n.44, 36n.48, 39n.75, 95;

637/693

as influence on Sartre, 16-18, 36n.51,37n.59;

and Kuki, 10, 13, 18, 35-36n.47, 37n.52;

propos of, 10

Works:

Eléments d'une doctrine radicale,17-18;

Mars ou la guerre jugée,17-18, 37n.58;

Propos sur le bonheur,36n.51;

Souvenirs concernant Jules Lag-neau,36n.47;

Système des beaux arts,18, 65n.8

Chauffier, Louis-Martin, 35n.46

Les Chiens de garde (Nizan), 15

638/693

Choka*,55-56

Choses Japonaises (Kuki), 33n.32

Christianity, in Japan, 85-87

Chuang Tzu, 52, 54

Claudel, Paul, 33n.33

Cohen, Hermann, 7, 43

Composition, arbitrary. See under Painting,Japanese

Comte, Auguste, 15, 20, 35n.44, 36n.47, 93-94

Condillac, Etienne Bonnot, 92

Confucianism. See Neo-Confucianism

Contingency:

interiorization of, as ethic, 21-22;

639/693

in philosophy of Kuki, 7, 21-22, 38nn. 68,69;

in philosophy of Sartre, 20-22, 36n.67

Corbin, Henri, 25, 39nn. 76, 81

Cournot, Antoine Augustin, 93

Couturat, Louis, 93

Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 4-6

Curtius, Ernst Robert, 6

D

Dance, Japanese, 75, 97

Darlu, Alphonse, 36n.48

Debussy, Claude, 60-61, 67nn. 20, 27

640/693

Delboeuf, Joseph, 91

Denis, Maurice, 65n.4

Descartes, René, 3, 15, 20, 27n.6, 35n.44,36n.47, 73;

alliance with positive science of, 93;

dualism in, 94;

inner observation in, 92;

and Sartre, 38-39n.75

Works:

Discourse on Method,95;

Meditations on First Philosophy,92

Desjardins, Paul, 6

Dhyana*. See Buddhism: Zen

641/693

Discourse on Method (Descartes), 95

642/693

Page 151

Discursive Thought and Vital Experience(Nishida), 72

Du Bos, Charles, 7, 35n.46

Duhem, Pierre, 94

Duration and Simultaneity (Bergson), 93

Durkheim, Emile, 96

E

Einstein, Albert, 93

Eitoku, Kano, 65n.5

Ekstasis. See Time: ekstases of

Eléments d'une doctrine radicale (Alain), 17-18

Epicurus, 25, 87

Esprit,35n.45, 37n.56

Essais de critique générale (Renouvier), 37n.54

Essai sur les éléments principaux de la re-présentation (Hamelin), 16, 37n.52

Essay on the Immediate Givens of Conscious-ness (Bergson), 43, 65n.6, 71

Les Etapes de la philosophie mathématique(Brunschvicg), 16

Ethics, 49-50, 52, 73

and interiorization of contingency, 21-22

and time, 7-8

Etre et le néant (Sartre),18, 20, 39n.81

Eupalinos (Valéry), 20

644/693

Evolution créatrice (Creative Evolution(Bergson), 20, 43, 65n.6, 71, 92-93

Existence, contingent, 7, 21

Existentialism, French, 19

"The Expression of the Infinite in Japanese Art"(Kuki), 6, 8-9, 11, 31n.20

F

Factum sur la contingence (Sartre), 20, 38n.65

Fechner, Gustav Theodor, 91

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 71

La Force de âge (The Prime of Life) (Beauvoir),3, 23, 26n.3

Fouillée, Alfred, 94

645/693

France, Anatole, 86

Freiburg Pilgrimage, 30n.15

Friedmann, Georges, 13, 17, 35n.45, 37n.56

Fudo (Climate and Culture) (Watsuji), 30n.15

Fujita, Tsuguharu, 54

Furaiberugo Mode (Freiburg Pilgrimage),30n.15

Furyu *,11-12

"Furyu ni Kansuru Ichikosatsu" (Thoughts onFuryu)(Kuki), 11-12

"Futsudoku tetsugakkai-no genjo" (The PresentSituation of French and German Philosphy)(Kuki), 33n.33

646/693

G

Gatteau, M., 35n.48

"Geisha" (Kuki), 10

Gendai Fransu Tetsugaku Kogi (Lectures onModern French Philosophy) (Kuki), 36n.47,36-37n.52, 37n.60

La Genèse de idée de temps (Guyau), 63

Gide, André, 6

Glockner, Hermann, 5, 28n.10

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 5

Gogh, Vincent van, 67n.7

Gouhier, Henri, 34n.40, 34-35n.41

647/693

Great Year, conception of, 45-47, 64n.9

Guterman, Norbert, 17, 37n.56

Guyau, Jean-Marie, 7-8, 43, 95-96;

Art from the Sociological Point of View,96;

La Genèse de l'idée de temps,63

"Guzenka* no Ronri" (The Logic of Contin-gency) (Kuki), 38n.69

Guzensei*(Contingency) (Kuki), 21, 38n.69

"Guzensei no Kisoteki Seikaku no Ichi Kosatsu"(Reflections on the Basic Character of Contin-gency) (Kuki), 38n.69

Guzensei no Mondai (The Problem of Contin-gency) (Kuki), 21-22, 31n.16, 34n.35, 38n.69

648/693

H

Haidegga* no Tetsugaku (The Philosophy ofHeidegger) (Kuki), 23, 30n.16

Haiku,55-56, 66nn. 13, 14

Hakuin, 62, 75

Hamelin, Octave, 36n.52;

Essai sur les éléments principaux de la re-présentation,16, 37n.52

Hanamichi. See under Theater, Japanese

Hani, Goro*, 5, 28n.9

Hanka,55

Hannequin, Arthur, 93

649/693

650/693

Page 152

Hatano, Seiichi, 28n.9

Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich, 23,35-36n.47, 71, 94

Heidegger, Martin, 23, 25, 72;

influence on Japanese philosophy of,30n.15;

influence on Kiyoshi Miki of, 28n.9;

influence on Sartre of, 24-25;

introduction to Kuki of, 6;

knowledge of, of Kuki-Sartre encounter,27-28n.6;

and Kuki, 3-4, 7-8, 12, 22-23, 27-28n.6,29n.13, 30nn. 15, 16, 31nn. 16, 17, 36n.47;

notion of temporality of, 8, 22, 43, 46;

Sartre's letter of introduction to, 4, 27-28n.6;

Sein und Zeit,7, 12, 24, 27n.6, 30n.155,39nn. 78, 81, 72

Herodotus, 83

Herrigel, Eugen, 4

Hitomaro *, 66n.14

Hokku,55

Hokusai, 65n.7

Horiguchi, Daigaku, 38n.73

Hui-Neng, 53

Husserl, Edmund, 20, 23, 45;

Japanese reception of, 26n.2, 72;

652/693

and Kuki, 3, 6, 12, 19, 29n.13, 30n.15,36n.47, 39n.81;

Logical Investigations,72;

phenomenology of, 9, 19;

Sartre's dissatisfaction with, 24-25, 39n.81;

Sartre's reading of, 24-25

Hyppolite, Jean, 15, 36n.50

I

Ibuki, Takehiko, 3, 27n.5

Ichikawa, Yu, 38n.73

Idealism, moral, 10, 50, 52, 79-80, 87-90.

See also Bushido*; Ethics

653/693

The Ideals of the East (Okakura), 9, 33n.27

Iki,6, 11, 29n.13, 32n.24, 87

Iki ni Tsuite (On Iki)(Kuki), 29n.13

Iki no Honshitsu (The Essence of Iki)(Kuki), 6,29n.13

Iki no Kozo*(The Structure of Iki) (Kuki), 6,29n.13, 31n.16, 34n.38

L'Imagination (Sartre), 19

Imayo-uta*,55-56

Impressionism:

and Japanese music, 60-62

Infinity. See under Art, Japanese

L'Introduction à la méthode de Leonardo diVinci (Valéry), 20

654/693

Introduction to Metaphysics (Bergson), 71

Intuition and Reflection in Self-Consciousness(Nishida), 72

"L'Invitation au voyage" (Baudelaire), 66n.12

Iwashita, Soichi*, 98n.2

J

Jankélévitch, Vladimir, 7, 14, 35n.46

"Japanese Soul" (Kuki), 10

"Japanese Theater" (Kuki), 10

Jaurès, Jean, 6

Jesus Christ, 85-86

Le Jeune Parque (Valéry), 20

655/693

"Jikan no Mondai: Berukusan to Haidegga*"(The Problem of Time: Bergson and Heidegger)(Kuki), 30n.16

Jitsuzon no Tetsugaku (The Philosophy of Exist-ence) (Kuki), 23

Jiyu*,38n.73

Jodoron*,22

Jollivet, Simone, 36n.51, 38n.67

Joule, James Prescott, 91

K

Kalpa,45, 64n.5

Kant, Immanuel, 5, 49, 64n.13, 71, 73;

Critique of Pure Reason, 4-6

656/693

Kantianism, 5, 72-73

See also Neo-Kantianism

Karma,44, 64n.11

Ki-no Tsurayuki, 63

Koeber, Raphael von, 4

Kogawa, Tetsuo, 11, 27n.6, 38n.74

Kojima, Takehiko, 4, 27n.6

Kokinshu*,57, 63

Korin*, 65n.4

Koyré, Alexandre, 2, 35n.46

Kuki, Madame:

diary-journal of, 28n.11, 31n.17

Kuki, Ryuichi*, 4

657/693

Kuki, Shuzo:*

aesthetic of contingency of, 22;

aesthetic of iki of, 29n.13;

affectivity in philosophy of, 11;

and Alain, 10, 13, 18, 35-36, 37n.52;

and Teiyu* Amano, 28n.7, 35n.43;

analysis of iki of, 6, 11, 29n.13, 32n.24, 87;

analysis of Japanese art of,

Continued on next page

658/693

Page 153

Kuki, Shuzo * continued from previous page

10-11, 32n.26, 33n.30;

analysis of time of, 7-8, 21-22;

and Oscar Becker, 6;

and Bergson, 11-12, 20, 34-35n.41;

and Claudel, 33n.33;

contingency in philosophy of, 7, 21-22,38nn. 68, 69;

discussions with Sartre of, 3-4, 12-20,22-23, 39n.75;

education of, 4;

and ethic of Bushido*,7-8, 18, 21;

and French culture, 7, 10, 32n.21;

and French philosophy, 5, 15, 33n.33;

and Henri Gouhier, 34-35n.41;

and Heidegger, 3, 4, 7, 8, 12, 22, 27-28n.6,29n.13, 30n.15, 30-31n.16, 31n.17, 36n.47;

and Husserl, 3, 12, 30n.15, 36n.47;

influence of, on Sartre, 23-26;

"interiorization of contingency" as ethic of,21-22;

as introducer of Sartre to phenomenology,3-4, 17, 19, 20, 23-26, 27n.6, 34n.76;

and Kyoto-ha,10, 33n.34;

and Karl Löwith, 6, 31n.18;

and "Matinée Poétique" group, 29n.14;

660/693

meetings with Sartre of, 3-4, 12-14, 22, 23,25, 39n.75;

"Monsieur Sartre" notebook of, 12-22, 35nn.44, 47, 37n.56;

and Kitaro* Nishida, 10-11, 32n.20, 34n.34;

and Kakuzo* Okakura, 9, 33nn 27, 30;

as philosophical flâneur,11;

poetics of, 22, 29n.14;

at Pontigny, 6-7, 14, 35n.46;

position in Japanese philosophy of, 10-11,34n.38;

and Rickert, 4-5, 28n.10;

and Hajime Tanabe, 10-11, 32n.20;

661/693

as transmitter of German philosophy toFrance, 7, 23, 25;

and Valéry, 20, 22

Works:

"Bergson au Japon," 11-12, 33n.32,34n.34, 34-35n.41;

Bungeiron (Literary Studies), 30n.14;

"Caractères généraux de la philosophiefrançaise," 10, 33n.32;

Choses Japonaises,33n.32;

"The Expression of the Infinite in Japan-ese Art," 6, 9, 11, 31n.20;

"Furyu* ni Kansuru Ichikosatsu"(Thoughts on Furyu),11-12;

662/693

"Futsudoku tetsugak-kai-no genjo*"(The Present Situation of French andGerman Philosophy), 33n.33;

"Geisha," 10;

Gendai Fransu Tetsugaku Kogi (Lec-tures on Modern French Philosophy),36n.47, 36-37n.52, 37n.60;

"Guzenka* no Ronri" (The Logic ofContingency), 38n.69;

Guzensei*(Contingency), 21, 38n.69;

"Gusensei no Kisoteki Seikaku no IchiKosatsu" (Reflections on the Basic Char-acter of Contingency), 38n.69;

Guzensei no Mondai (The Problem ofContingency), 21-22, 31n.16, 34n.35,38n.69;

663/693

Haidegga* no Tetsugaku (The Philo-sophy of Heidegger), 23, 30n.16;

Iki ni Tsuite (On Iki),29n.13;

Iki no Honshitsu (The Essence of Iki),6,29n.13;

Iki no Kozo*(The Structure of Iki),6,29n.13, 31n.16, 34n.38;

"Japanese Soul," 10;

"Japanese Theater," 10;

"Jikan no Mondai: Berukuson to Haide-gga" (The Problem of Time: Bergsonand Heidegger), 30n.16;

Jitsuzon no Tetsugaku (The Philosophyof Existence), 23;

664/693

"Kyo* no Fuyu" (Kyoto Winter),29n.12;

"Nihon Bunka" (Japanese Culture),33n.33;

Nihonshi no Oin*(Rhyming in JapanesePoetry), 6, 29n.14;

Ningen to Jitsuzon (Man and Existence),23;

"The Notion of Time and Repetition inOriental Time," 6-7, 10-11, 21, 31n.20;

Oin ni Tsuite (On Ryming), 6, 22;

"Okakura Kakuzo* Shi no Omoide" (Re-membrance of Kakuzo Okakura),33n.27;

Pari no Mado (Window on Paris), 6;

665/693

Pari no Negoto* (Paris Sleep-Talking),6, 28n.12;

Pari Shinkei (Spiritual Views of Paris),5-6, 28-29n.12, 29n.13;

Propos on Japan,10, 33n.32;

Propos sur le temps,6-7, 9-10,31-32n.20;

"Two Pictures Familiar to Children," 10

"Kyo no Fuyu" (Kyoto Winter) (Kuki), 29n.12

Kyoto-ha*. See Kyoto School of Philosophy

Kyoto School of Philosophy, 10, 33n.34

L

Lachelier, Jules:

666/693

Psychology and Metaphysics,92

Lagneau, Jules, 36nn. 47, 48

667/693

Page 154

Lao Tzu, 51, 53, 57;

Tao Te Ching, 51-54, 57, 62

Lavelle, Louis, 19

Lefevre, Frédéric, 12, 34n.41

La Légende de la vérité (Sartre), 17

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 6, 36n.47

Leontio, 87

Le Roy, Edouard, 93, 95

Le Senne, René, 36n.52

Lettres au Castor et à quelques autres,1940-1963 (Sartre), 38n.73, 39n.81

Lettres au Castor et à quelques autres,1926-1939 (Sartre), 36n.51, 38nn. 65, 67

Levinas, Emmanuel, 3, 20

Logical Investigations (Husserl), 72

Löwith, Ada, 31n.18

Löwith, Karl, 6, 31n.18

Lukács, Georg, 28n.9

M

Maine de Biran, 15, 20, 35n.44, 73, 92, 94

Malebranche, Nicolas de, 92

Marcel, Gabriel, 16-17

Mars ou la guerre jugée (Alain), 17-18, 37n.58

Martin du Gard, Roger, 6

669/693

Marxism, 21;

Hegelian, 28n.9

"Matinée Poétique," 29n.14

Matter and Memory (Bergson), 71, 93

Maybon, Albert, 61, 75

Mayer, Robert, 91

Meditations on First Philosophy (Descartes), 92

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 26, 26n.4

Meyerson, Emile, 93-95

Miki Kiyoshi, 5, 28n.9, 34n.34

Milanda-panha,43, 64n.6

Mill, John Stuart, 71

Molière, Jean Baptiste Poquelin:

670/693

Les Femmes savantes,95

Monet, Claude, 65n.5

"Monsieur Sartre" notebook (Kuki), 12-22,35nn. 44, 47, 37n.56

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem, 95

Montesquieu, Baron de:

The Spirit of Laws,73

Morhange, Pierre, 13, 17, 35n.45

Mori, Ogai *, 33n.27, 98n.1

Motoori, 79

"Le Mur" (Sartre), 38n.73

Music, Japanese, 60-62

Myojo*,5, 28n.12

671/693

Mysticism, Indian, 8-9, 11, 51-52

N

Nadja (Breton), 13, 17

Nagasena*, St., 48

Namer, Emile, 7, 35n.46

Naruse, Mukyoku, 5, 28n.9

La Nausée (Sartre), 20, 23, 38n.73

Needham, Joseph, 32n.24

Neo-Confucianism, 32n.24

Neo-Kantianism, 5, 12, 71-72

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 45, 64n.7, 74, 95

672/693

"Nihon Bunka" (Japanese Culture) (Kuki),33n.33

Nihonshi no Oin*(Rhyming in Japanese Poetry)(Kuki), 6, 29n.14

Ningen to Jitsuzon (Man and Existence) (Kuki),23

Nirvana*,11, 48-51, 64n.11, 74

Nishida, Kitaro*, 26n.2, 28n.9, 33n.34, 72, 97;

and Kuki, 10-11, 32n.20, 34n.34

Works:

Discursive Thought and Vital Experi-ence,72;

Intuition and Reflection in Self-Con-sciousness,72;

673/693

Zen no Kenkyu*(A Study of Good),33-34

Nizan, Paul, 13, 17, 35n.45, 36n.49, 37n.56,38n.75

Works:

Aden-Arabie,15;

Les Chiens de garde,15;

La Conspiration,35n.45

Nogi, General, 79-80, 98n.1

"The Notion of Time and Repetition in OrientalTime" (Kuki), 6-7, 10-11, 21, 31n.20

La Nouvelle Revue Française,7

Les Nouvelles Littéraires,12, 33n.32, 34n.41

674/693

O

Oin ni Tsuite (On Ryming) (Kuki), 6, 22

Okyo*, 65n.5

Okakura, Kakuzo*, 51;

The Ideals of the East,9, 33n.27;

and Kuki, 9, 32n.27, 33n.30

Omodaka, Hisayuki, 11, 31n.16, 34n.38, 35n.41,36n.47, 38n.68

Ootomo* no Yakamochi, 79

675/693

Page 155

''L'Orientation du rationalisme" (Brunschvicg),16

Oshima *, Yasumasa, 26n.4

Ouchi*, Hyoe*, 5, 28n.9

P

Painting, Japanese:

arbitrary composition in, 53-54;

colors in, 54, 65n.8;

importance of line in, 53-55;

and ink painting, 9, 54, 65n.8

Pantheism, Chinese, 8-9, 11, 51-52, 54, 58

Pari no Mado (Window on Paris) (Kuki), 6

Pari no Negoto*(Paris Sleep-Talking) (Kuki), 6,28n.12

Pari Shinkei (Spiritual Views of Paris) (Kuki),5, 6, 28-29n.12, 29n.13

Parodi, Dominique, 7, 35n.46, 36n.52;

La Philosophie contemporaine en France,16

Pasteur, Louis, 91

Pascal, Blaise, 15, 20, 28n.9, 35n.44, 73, 92

Perspective: in art, 53-54;

metaphysical, 53, 65n.4

Phenomenology, 3-4, 24-26, 26n.2;

existential, 19-20, 23;

677/693

German, 3, 7, 71;

Hegelian, 9;

Heideggerian, 23;

Husserlian, 7, 12, 19;

Japanese reception of, 26n.2, 72

Philosophie,37n.56

La Philosophie contemporaine en France (Par-odi), 16

Physics (Aristotle), 6

Plateau, Joseph, 91

Plato, 36n.47

Poetry, Japanese, 55-60, 65-66n.12;

absence of symmetry in, 56, 65n.11;

678/693

aesthetic of suggestion in, 56-57;

expression of infinite in, 9, 57, 58, 60;

liberation from time in, 9, 55, 56, 59;

pantheism in, 58;

repetitive time in, 59;

translation of, 66n.18

Poincaré, Henri, 93-94

Poirier, René, 35n.46

Politzer, Georges, 17, 37n.56

Pontigny,

décades at, 13, 31n.19;

Kuki at, 6-7, 14, 35n.46

679/693

Le Progrès de la conscience dans la philosophieoccidentale (Brunschvicg), 15

Propos,10

Propos on Japan (Kuki), 10, 33n.32

Propos sur le bonheur (Alain), 36n.51

Propos sur le temps (Kuki), 6-7, 9-10,31-32n.20

Proust, Marcel, 36n.48;

Remembrance of Things Past,66n.16

La Psyche (Sartre), 24

Psychology and Metaphysics (Lachelier), 92

Q

680/693

Qu'est-ce que la métaphysique? (Heidegger),25, 39nn. 76, 81

R

Ransetsu, 58

Ravaisson, Felix, 73, 92

Ravel, Maurice, 61

Renouvier, Charles, 16, 36n.52;

Essais de critique générale,37n.54

La Revolution Surréaliste,13

La Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale,16

La Revue Marxiste,35n.45

Rexroth, Kenneth, 66n.18

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Rickert, Heinrich, 28n.9, 34n.34;

and Kuki, 4-5, 28n.10

"Rickerts Bedeutung für die Japanische Philo-sophie" (Miki), 28n.9, 34n.34

Rolland, Romain, 67nn. 20, 22

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 5, 92;

The Social Contract,73

S

Samsara,64n.5

Sartre, Jean-Paul, 4, 7, 27-28n.6, 35n.45;

contingency in philosophy of, 20-22,38n.67;

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discussions with Kuki of, 3-4, 12-20, 22-23,39n.75;

dissatisfaction with Brunschvicg of, 15,17-18;

dissatisfaction with Husserl of, 24-25,39n.81;

influence of Alain on, 16-18, 36n.51,37n.58;

influence of Brunschvicg on, 15, 18;

influence of Heidegger on, 24-25;

influence of Kuki on, 23-26;

interview with Ibuki of, 3, 12-13, 23;

introduction to Kuki of, 3, 13, 26n.4;

introduction to phenomenology of, 3-4, 17,19-20, 23-26, 27n.6, 39n.76;

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meetings with Kuki of,

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Page 156

Sarte, Jean-Paul continued from previous page

3-4, 12-14, 22-23, 25, 39n.75;

notation of, in "Monsieur Sartre" notebook,14, 19, 35n.44;

philosophical stance of, at Ecole Normale,38-39n.75;

at Pontigny, 35n.46;

reading of Sein und Zeit of, 24, 27n.6,39n.78;

reception of, in Japan, 38n.73;

similarities with Kuki of, 23;

Works:

Les Carnets de la drôle de guerre,Novembre 1939-Mars 1940,37n.56,38n.75, 39n. 76, 39n.81;

L'Etre et le néant,18, 20, 39n.81;

Factum sur la contingence,20, 38n.65;

L'Imagination,19;

La Légende de la vérité,17;

Les Lettres au Castor et à quelquesautres, 1940-1963,38n.73, 39n.81;

Les Lettres au Castor et à quelquesautres, 1926-1939,36n.51, 38nn. 65, 67;

"Le Mur," 38n.73;

La Nausée,20, 23, 38n.73;

La Psyche,24

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Sato *, Akio, 12, 26n.4

Sato, Saku [pseud. Ryu Sekimizu], 38n.73

Scent of Faith (Seng-ts'an*), 55

Scheler, Max, 72

Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm: Treatise on theEssence of Human Freedom,13

Schopenhauer, Arthur, 5, 64n.10, 74, 80

Sculpture, Japanese, 55

Sedoka*,55

Sein und Zeit (Heidegger), 7, 12, 24, 27n.6,30n.15, 39nn. 78, 81, 74

Sekimizu, Ryu. See Sato, Saku

Semimaru, 7, 60

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Seng-ts'an:

Scent of Faith, 55

Seppuku,80

Serupan,38n.73

Sesshu*, 9, 65n.8

Shin-Kokinshu*,57

Shuzo* Kuki Archive, 28n.11, 32n.21, 35n.43

Sisyphus, Myth of, 21, 49

Soami*, 65n.4

The Social Contract (Rousseau), 73

Socrates, 45, 46, 64n.9

Song of the Experience of Truth, 55

Soul, Japanese, 79-80

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Souvenirs concernant Jules Lagneau (Alain),36n.47

Space:

Klein-Clifford notion of, 45;

liberation from, 9, 51, 54-55;

use of, in art, 52, 53

Spencer, Herbert, 71

Spiegelberg, Herbert, 27n.6, 37n.59

Spinoza, Baruch de, 94

The Spirit of Laws (Montesquieu), 73

Stoicism, 9, 18, 45

Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (Arnim), 64n.9

Strachey, Lytton, 7

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Suarès, André, 26, 63

Surrealism, 17

Symbolism, French, 9;

and inward art of Japan, 67n.27

Système des beaux-arts (Alain), 18, 65n.8

T

Takeda, Shingen, 89

Tanabe, Hajime, 30n.15, 33n.34;

and Kuki, 10-11, 32n.20

Tanizaki, Junichiro*, 28n.7

Tanka,5, 55-56

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Tao,32n.24, 51-54

Taoism, 32n.24, 51-54

Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu), 32n.24, 51-54, 57, 62

Temporality. See Time

Tezuka, Tomio, 27n.6, 30n.15, 31n.16

Theater, Japanese, 75-76

LeThéâtre Japonais (Maybon), 61, 75

Theophrastus, 87

Theresa, St., 85

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Nietzsche), 64n.7

Time:

agrarian, 47;

anticipation as characteristic of, 7, 43;

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canonical, 47;

cyclical, 32n.24, 44;

ekstases of, 8, 46;

Heideggerian notion of, 8, 22, 43, 46;

identical, 45-47, 50, 65n.15;

irreversible, 46;

in Japanese art, 9, 56, 59, 60;

liberation from, 8, 10, 48-51;

linear, 21, 32n.24;

lived, 45;

measurable 45;

mystical, 46;

objective notion of, 32n.24;

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Oriental, 8, 21, 32n.24, 43-45, 63;

periodic, 8, 43-47, 50, 64n.5, 65n.15;

phenomenological, 46;

positivist notion of, 47;

repetitive, 59;

reversible, 45-47;

self in, 47-48;

sub-

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