「制度」と「人心」

―田口卯吉『日本開化小史』の秩序像―

抄録

  This paper focuses on the “Nihon Kaika Shoshi” (or Short History of Japan's Civilization); the masterpiece of Taguchi Ukichi (1855-1905), and tries to reconstruct the appropriate context in which this text should be placed.
  When, in Part Five of the book, Taguchi discussed the decline and fall of Tokugawa government, one of the contexts he was attempting to address clearly was the row among his contemporaries over the institution of parliament.
  Unlike early Fukuzawa Yukichi before “Minjo Isshin”, Taguchi understands Parliament as one of the tools for channeling passions and interests of the people. Although he maintained that self-love is an indivisible feature of human nature, he did not think market should be the final arbiter between self-loves, not because market is imperfect, but because passions of self-love take various forms in various historical circumstances. Altruistic ideologies (such as Confucianism or Bushido) also represent transformations of self-love. These ideologies Taguchi consequently described as political passions which destroyed the Pax Tokugawa.
  Parliament is another kind of market, a place of exchange not only of interests but of political passions, and it is a necessary safety valve for maintaining stability and peace in government.