<論説>老莊の自由思想

Abstract

自由の思想は西洋においてのみ發展したのでなく、東洋には東洋の自由があつた。私は老莊をもつて中國の自由を現し、ひいてはそれが東洋的自由の在り方を代表するものと思う。老莊思想は、徹頭徹尾ものに随順し、純粹客觀の上に得られる自由の主體を追求する思想である。老莊は個人主義的自由としては最大のものであるが、專制的封建的な格の強すぎる中國にあつて、つねに弱者の環境によつて育てられしために、逸的逃避的性格をもち、それが社會的には官僚から逸脱せる處士逸民と深い關係を有している。しかし宋以後の近世になると、社會の發展にともない、老莊も處士もその逃避的性格を失つて次第に一般化してくる。私は中國史の發表を「格」と「逸」との關係から考え、私の試案としての時代區分の問題に言及した。この小論は六朝時代に中心をおき、中國精神史の立場から、概略的にのべられたものである。

Liberalism is considered as the son of the Western world, but in the Oriental cradle we find a oriental liberalism. I am of the opinion that the thought expounded by Loa-tse (老子) and Chuang-tse (莊子) is a representation of Chinese liberalism. It also represents, to a lesser degree, a liberalism particularly Oriental. Utter submissiveness is the remarkable feature of their thought, and they sought for freedom under submissiveness. Great is their thought as an individualist liberalism, but as it was brought up in the weak under the despotism of the feudal China, it also gave rise to indifferentism to the secular matters, and found its favorable bed among those circles who had escaped fron the despotic beaurocracy of their age. Since the Sung (宋) dynasty, however, with the emergence of modern society, and with the development of these social classes as well, this eremitic feature dropped away from their thought, and found its way into the secular world. I have once analyzed the Chinese history from the viewpoint of this interrelation between despotism and escaptism, and thereby attempted at its periodization. This article centers in the Liuchao (六朝) era and will illustrate some aspects of it by the adaptation of this method.