Part 38

It is easy to reply that lawsuits are rarely instituted by men of common sense; they leave this burden to people of evil intent, who imagine thus to make a doubtful cause triumph.

It must be conceded that this means succeeds at times with them, when they are dealing with timid or irresolute persons; but those who have contracted the habit of reasoning, and who never undertake anything without consulting common sense, will never allow themselves to be drawn into the by-paths of sophistry.

If they are forced to enter there temporarily, in order to pursue the adversary, who has hidden himself there, they will leave these paths as soon as necessity does not force them to remain there longer and with delight regain the broad road of rectitude.

A few pages further on we find a reflection which the Shogun, always faithful to his principles of high morality, specially addresses to those who make a profession of humility.

"Obedience," he says, "ought to be considered as a means; but, for the one who wishes to succeed, in no sense can it be honored as a virtue.

"If it be a question of submission to law, that is nothing else but the performance of a strict duty; this is a kind of compact which the man of common sense concludes with society, to which he promises his support for the maintenance of a protection from which he will be the first to benefit.

"This obedience might be set down as selfishness were it not endorsed by common sense.

"There are people, it is true, who, even altho wishing to support their neighbor when called upon to do so by the law, seek to evade this duty if left to themselves.

"These are pirates who have broken completely not only with the spirit of equity, but also with simple common sense.

"It is always foolish to set the example of insubordination, for, if it were followed, it would not be long before general disorder would appear.

"Some men were sitting one day on the edge of an inlet and were trying with a net to catch fish, whose playful movements the men were following through the limpid water.

"According to their character, their perseverance, their cleverness, and the ingenuity of the means employed, they caught a proportionate number of fish; but those who caught the least had one or two.

"This success encouraged them, and they began again in good earnest, each one in his own way, when a stranger appeared; he was armed with a long branch of a tree, which he plunged in the pond, touching the bottom and stirring up the mud, which, as it scattered, rose to the surface of the water.

"The limpidity of the water was immediately changed; one could no longer see the fish, and the fishermen decided to discontinue their sport.

"But the man only laughed at their discomfiture and, brandishing a large net, he threw it in his turn, chaffing them at the patient cunning by which they had, he said, taken such a poor haul.

"He brought up some fish, it is true, but at each haul he was obliged to lose so much time in removing the impurities, the débris, and the weeds of all kinds from the net that very soon the fishermen had the satisfaction of seeing him punished for his mean conduct.

"What he took was scarcely more than what the smartest among them had taken, and his net, filthy from the mud, torn by the roots that he was unable to avoid, was soon good for nothing."

Might it not be from this fable that we have taken the expression, "to fish in troubled waters," of which without a doubt the good Yoritomo furnished the origin many, many centuries ago?

His prophetic mind is unveiled again in the following advice that not a business man of the twentieth century would reject.

"Common sense," he says, "when it is a question of the relations of men as to what concerns business or society, ought to adopt the characteristic of that animal called the chameleon.

"His natural color is dull, but he has the gift of reflecting the color of the objects on which he rests.

"Near a leaf, he takes the tint of hope.

"On a lotus, he is glorified with the blue of the sky.

"Is this to say that his nature changes to the point of modifying his natural color?

"No; he does not cease to possess that which recalls the color of the ground, and the ephemeral color which he appropriates is only a semblance, in order that he may be more easily mistaken for the objects themselves.

"The man who boasts of possessing common sense, altho preserving his personality, ought not to fail, if he wants to succeed, to reflect that of the person whom he wishes to aid him in succeeding."

Let it not be understood for a moment, that we advise any one to act contrary to the impulses of justice.

But cleverness is a part of common sense in business, and assimilation is essential to success.