Love, the Law of Life

Similar statements may be made regarding the subject of beauty. In Darwin’s Descent of Man we find the story of the evolution of the beauty of the pheasant’s tail. Since the whole universe changes, beauty too must vary. The man who today prefers the woman with oval face tomorrow likes the one with round face. Beauty too is relative. The wings of the butterfly were not always things of beauty. A study of the “eyes’’ in the peacock’s tail affords us knowledge of the evolution of beauty. Thus the knowledge that beauty is capable of evolution leads to the development of the economics of beauty. By a study of the principles of this power of beauty to vary, we may learn that it is the indication of an inner evolution.

In the next place there is the economics of the will. Although we cannot, on logical grounds, give our approval to the principle of the English utilitarians of “the greatest happiness of the greatest number,”

we may approve it on economic grounds. For if from one power a hundred powers may be developed, the utilitarian doctrine is not necessarily in error. The principle is one derived from the values of growth.

Next arise the economics of character and of imperfect religious or utilitarian faith. These have economic significance, but the faith referred to here is not fullorbed, but the utilitarian, partial variety of faith. Lenin’s rejection of this form of institutionalized religion was, if directed against this kind of faith, quite justifiable and not in error. Hakuson Kuriyagawa’s dictum, that ‘Religion is the seed of demons,’’ may also be true, if he had in mind this partial kind of faith.

From such considerations it may be seen that economics enters by degrees into the physical, the psychic, and the spiritual. And values of many kinds and forms emerge, but they are partial, and not the values of the complete life. The next question for us is, are economics and morality in present-day commercial transactions quite different things? In the content of value there are, as has been stated, three elements, the powers of variation, selection, and growth. The so-called values of the present are based upon growth: if one thing grows to one hundred, there is a profit of ninety-nine. Land rent, interest, etc., are centered in the principle of growth, a fact which needs to be known. At times growth and selection are opposed to each other, and economics and morality may appear divorced from each other. The merchant’s taking of profit may be thought to be due to the factor of growth, since by his selling he is conferring a convenience upon others and considers that he is justified in taking a large profit. If, however, there are certain social variations, A, B, and C, occurring without creating greater results for society, then the taking of profit becomes an error. From the ordinary point of view, growth alone produces utility: one power produces a thousand powers—this is the basis of the utilitarian economics. Capitalism is founded upon profit and interest. It threatens the existence of morality, presses for mere partial utility, and even though it blocks the ’ course which complete life must follow, still thinks only of partial growth and ignores well-rounded development. Thus has sprung up the modern materialistic economics, bringing on the struggle between capitalism and socialism.

When we reason thus, the distinction between materialistic economics and life economics becomes clear: it is the moral values which, through selection, promote life upon the basis of inner evolution. Morality and economics are not fundamentally opposed to each other —in the complete life there is no distinction between them. Values are the elements which promote human | growth. Economic values are those which develop. upon the basis of utility.

Passing to the consideration of religion, we may describe it as that which man gives back to the world as the result of the stimuli received from objective life and from Nature. When life excites the movement of expression, three processes are observable: (1) the increase in the content of variation, (2) addition of the power of selection, and (8) addition of the power of growth. Thus expression is made to the objective order, and there is a beginning of the life of human values. Wherefore, the more the religious life is stimulated, the richer becomes the content of life, until the whole cosmos is comprehended within it. Through the psychic powers all the external order is given impetus in a definite direction. Wherefore, every religious activity becomes an economic activity and all religious life is inextricably bound up with economic life.

Religious festivals furnish a good illustration. They are the result of the demand of the human heart that the offering of the whole of life be given expression. The procession of the samurai, the religious dance, the votive pictures, the festival cars, the display of fireworks—all these are modes of expression; all the varied objects of sight economics are brought forth. In the realm of sound the variations presented in the noise of firecrackers and fireworks, and in the dramas, are offered up before the deity. Hence, in these festivals large outlays of money are required. Magnificent churches and cathedrals are built. In the construction of the temple at Jerusalem tens of millions were expended, and to build St. Paul’s Cathedral required 150 years and the investment of a million pounds. It is regarded, then, as entirely proper to spend vast sums of money for religious economics. Religious enterprises absorb an enormous amount of energy. There are, however, instances of religious economics colliding with the ordinary economics. If the latter were the economics of the complete life, there would be no collision; but because religious emotion alone leads men to expend such tremendous economic forces, religion appears to the economics of production to appropriate an undue amount of effort. It is, then, in the realm of the economics of consumption.

There is no great difference between the economics of life and the economics of production; but the recurring conflicts between the two result from the. moulding of the religious feeling in a certain form. The religious festival is an expression of life. Life is ever expressing itself. Labor is a perennial festival, an expression of God. By creating organized consumption it promotes the content of economics. In other words, it brings about the evolution of the content of life. Therefore, when arousing activity in the sphere of expression, economic action and religious action are identical. But since we are living in a relative order, life’s activity is repressed by external conditions and regulations, and becomes mechanical and accidental; the individual can no longer be selfdirecting, and his psychic powers are made to writhe in agony. The demolishing of these oppressions was termed by Marx ‘“‘revolution,”’ by others, “evolution.” The destruction of external limitations by internal effort is, in other words, the art of life. Since the aim of life is the attainment of the realm of freedom, economics and religion harmonize precisely. Wherefore, we reach the conclusion that economic truth and religious truth are identical.

Socialists claim that they are scientific, but not religious. There is a fragment of meaning in the statement, but it cannot be maintained to be entirely correct. Every regularly constituted principle is a self-determination which points to a certain course, chosen from among the multiform activities of life, upon which advance is to be made. In other words, it is faith. Faith is a creation of values; it is that which, through the individual’s own inner creation, tends to draw him onward and upward. Whether it be socialism or anarchism, it is in the end a decision of will, and is therefore faith, Ramsay Macdonald declares that socialism is faith; and Bertrand Russell has said that Bolshevism is a faith that resembles Mohammedanism.

Since economic action is a movement of values, man, when deciding upon a course of action, exercises faith—he practices religion. Hence, economic movements and religious movements do not differ. Economics is always a movement of growth. In ancient times men believed in religious creeds, but today they accept economic articles of faith. From the point of view of the content of life, religious and economic articles of faith are identical.

Ask, and the gift will be yours, seek and you will find, knock and the door will open to you,” is the faith in free self-existence.1 Objectively speaking, economic movements are creations of value, of utility. Economics is objective; religion subjective. In that the two have a common aim—the creation of the values of life itseli—they are one and the same thing.

The important fact to notice at this point is that economic movements are inevitably objective in nature, and that whenever any subjective activity seeks for objective expression it invariably becomes in some sense an economic movement. Therein it is given some material form. And so long as humanity is clothed in material dress, this relation will always persist.

Men always speak to one another, love one another, socially, through things. When love is not expressed materially, it falls short of being true love. “Suppose some brother or sister is ill-clad and short of daily food; if any of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace! Get warm, get food,’ without supplying their bodily needs, what use is that?’’ wrote James the kinsman of Jesus.

Love is clothed in material garments. Love which cannot express itself materially is an impaired love. Where love assumes the material symbol, economics as content of love is born. For this reason economics

1Faith in Kwannon=faith in self-existence. It is a philosophical term. If we use this term, Buddhists can understand it. ‘‘Personality” is like it, but not equivalent.—T. Kagawa.

is erroneously supposed to beget love. As I have remarked, economics is a life activity communicated through materials; but to regard all economics simply as material is a grave error.

True economics must regard life activity as expressed through materials as the thing of real significance, as the art of life. This art of life as outwardly expressed must be a thing of beauty; as inwardly present, it must be love itself.

We are thus led to discern the truth that economics is completely transformed by the chemistry of love, and that society is founded upon love. In other words, where love_is,.a-true.social economics is born. Social economics based upon love is very far removed from the idea of private possession as the essence of wealth. For wealth is itself the crystallization of love, and the individual therefore may not insist upon his right to possess. The moment we awaken to this economics of love, we perceive that economic movements are essentially the same as the movements of love, and so-called socialistic movements are inherently identical with these economic activities of love.

But there are those who would promote these socialistic movements by the use of violence, an entirely wrong strategy, for violence destroys the inner qualities of life. It makes a very insignificant contribution to economics, because it is absolutely unrelated to the essence of economics.

Labor is the one way to express love. It is for this reason that in modern economic movements laboring men have come to be respected as possessors of large power. Capitalism, on the contrary, anticipating the wastage of men’s capacities through the incomplete development of the economics of the senses, demands unrelentingly the provision of speculative capital, and men continue to curse the capitalism which makes profit its sole aim.

Capitalism takes advantage of situations where social organization is lacking, it utilizes the circulating power of money, and affects the réle of creating society. Therefore, in that future period when complex society itself will govern the pluralistic, third-and-fourthdegree-equational society and absorb the present-day society of money standards, capitalistic society will collapse and disappear.?

The capitalists will regret the change, but they will then discover that love is more potent than gold. The only true economic activity, I repeat, is life and its expression, and. love itself is the content of this expression. Every economic activity is to be regarded as the activity of love. Love is the supreme economics, and for it everything is sacrificed. Men spend money

1 Marx’s equation is C—M—C (Commodity—-Money—Capital)—a single straight line. He would solve all problems by this one straightline, simple equation; but I do not believe the world of life can be solved by one straight-line equation, nor by a quadratic. It is more, even, than cubic: it varies in time, in growth, etc. Society is com- plex. Marx cannot solve its questions with mere materialism.— T. Kagawa.

lavishly out of self-love, and the costliness of passionate _ love it is needless to mention. But for the sake of love men will invest with no expectation of profit. For friend, for labor union, for the new society, men will sacrifice life without the slightest hesitation. Here, then, is the ultimate economics: the investment of ‘life in order to create a greater life. Hereby the true economics is originated. Love is charged with the task of linking together its creation and its sacrifice.

Love is the economics of economics. It signifies value, growth, and selection. Love is the ultimate currency of life-economics.

Labor deprived of love becomes a painful servitude. The very earliest labor was for the sake of love. The lover will travel for a thousand leagues; the mother | tenderly nurses her sick child through the whole night. — The first labor demanded no wages but the wages of | love. No weight of gold can repay a mother’s love or a lover’s sacrifice. For these are not commodities. They are life’s art. They transcend remuneration.

Where is the love that does not demand labor? Love ever creates, always expresses; love is eternal effort. Therefore, love which has no desire to labor is counterfeit.

In these days when man is freeing himself from

Nature’s domination and is determined to secure self- - realization, love has come to be absolutely indispensable. When man parted with Nature, he brought into being a new social character and began the endeavor through the power of combination to enter into the life of absolute self-existence. Therein began the emergence of modern capitalistic society. Men began to practice division of labor—some transported provisions, and some did weaving in the mills—creating conditions altogether different from the days when men enjoyed the blessings of fields and gardens. They were compelled to learn the new art of fitting their personalities into the great mosaic. The selfish life of the modern man, so removed from the benefactions of Nature, demands an excessive amount of labor, with the result that labor has become completely mechanized. However, so long as the consciousness of love stirred the hearts of men, all was well. But when this consciousness vanished, labor was turned to pain.