extent took his place as adviser to the Shōgunate. The Shōgun Yoshimune (1716–1751) esteemed him highly and consulted him continually. Kiusō died in 1734 in his seventy-seventh year.
Kiusō is best remembered by his Shundai Zatsuwa (1729),[1] a work of his old age. The title means "Miscellaneous Talk on Surugadai." It consists of notes taken of the discourses which he delivered in answer to "those who believed in the Old Man and came to him with questions," and covers a wide variety of subjects. It contains unsparing denunciations of Buddhism, superstition, and heresy from the faith as it is in Chu-Hi; pantheistic philosophy, metaphysics, politics, lectures on the arts of war and poetry, literary criticisms, and so on. Kiusō propounds to the world no original ideas on these subjects. His philosophy is simply that of Chu-Hi in a Japanese garb. But in him, as in Hakuseki, the inner spirit and temper of mind which it fostered in Japan is seen at its best. Some Christian ideals are wanting. Forgiveness of one's enemies is not to be found there, nor is a chivalrous consideration for the weak and for women very conspicuous. But a noble enthusiasm for lofty ideals and high achievements with a scorn of meanness and duplicity pervades all the utterances of this Socrates of Surugadai. Loyalty to friends, devotion to duty, and a high-souled contempt for cowardice, dishonesty, and self-seeking, are their unfailing characteristics.
Kiusō, like the other seventeenth and eighteenth century expounders of Chinese philosophy, had a
- ↑ Partly translated by Dr. Knox in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 1892. But a more complete and accurate translation is desirable.
