The Creation of the Term Kojin (Individual)

Home , Ansei, Kanbun (era), Kangen, Kansei

Saitō Tsuyoshi

The term kojin 個人 (individual)—meaning that element which gives form to the opposition between state and society, the person who enjoys a freedom and independence that allows for no intrusion by others or state power, and the subject of free and equal rights, among other things—took shape extraor- dinarily late. So far as I have been able to determine, the term kojin was coined to correspond to the European word “individual” in 1884 (Meiji 17). The fact that the word shakai 社會 (society), as I have discussed elsewhere,1 was first employed in the sense that it is presently used in 1875 (Meiji 8) means that 1884 is really quite late. However, kojin and shakai as concepts must have been born in the same period. Before kojin as a word emerged, there is little doubt that kojin as a concept [even if there was no specific word to articulate it] would surely have existed. When I looked for the words that express the concept of kojin, words with which intellectuals from the late-Edo period [1600–1867] through early Meiji [1868–1912] were experimenting, I learned of the long, painful road traveled by them until they struck upon this simple term. This was also something of a major shock.

1 Translation Equivalents for kojin through the Meiji Era

The first Japanese translation given to correspond to “individual” or its equivalent in European languages appears to have been a word matched to the Dutch term individueel. The first head of the Bansho shirabesho 蕃書調所 (Institute of barbarian books) was a man by the name of Koga Masaru 古賀增 (Kin’ichirō 謹一郎, Chakei 茶溪, 1816–1884). The grandson of Koga Seiri 古賀精里 [1750–1817], one of the “three Kansei-era professors” (寬政三博士), he was a Confucian official of the Tokugawa shogunate who served Kawaji Toshiakira 川路聖謨 [1801–1868] in receiving the delegation from

* “Kojin to iu go no seiritsu: ikko no hito, ikkojin, ichi no kojin” 個人という語の成立：一個の人・一個人・一の個人, in Saitō Tsuyoshi 斎藤毅, Meiji no kotoba, bunmei kaika to Nihongo 明治のことば、文明開化と日本語 (Meiji terms, civilization and enlighten- ment and the Japanese language) (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2005), pp. 235–55. 1 Translator’s note. See the next essay in the present volume.

Russia. From 1855 (Ansei 2) to 1866 (Keiō 2), he wrote a miscellaneous collec- tion called the Takujitsu kangen 度日閑言 (Leisurely words from days gone by), which was largely translations into Kanbun [literary Chinese]2 of the main articles in a Dutch magazine entitled Nederlansch Magazijn (known in Japanese as Oranda hōkan 和蘭寶函). It was thus a translated magazine closely related to the Kanban gyokuseki shirin 官板玉石志林 (Record of things good and bad for official use), printed by the Bansho shirabesho, and its original. In it, we find the following curious phrase:

インヂヒヂユヱーレン蓋人間各事、與特拔各殊之人身、一樣罔二

The overall meaning of this phrase is not terribly clear, but the idea of kojin is represented by the five characters: 各殊之人身. The latter part of the phrase, 一樣罔二, seems to be expressing that it is effectively the same as kojin and forms an indivisible unit. The Takujitsu kangen is now held in the National Diet Library [in Tokyo] in thirteen stringbound volumes containing twenty-five fascicles in all. A few fascicles in manuscript are also held in the Tōyō bunko 東洋文庫 [in Tokyo]. After the Siebold Incident,3 the shogunate increased controls considerably on reports concerning overseas information, and perhaps influenced by this, this work continued to circulate in manuscript, eventually seeing the light of day when it was purchased by the Imperial Library during the Meiji era. It was a kind of circulating newspaper, probably copied and circulated among a lim- ited number of people. We can more or less aver this from the fact that the National Diet Library and the Tōyō bunko manuscripts are identical. We turn next to English-Chinese dictionaries which played a major role in the acquisition by Japanese of foreign knowledge. First up is Robert Morrison’s

2 Translator’s note. See the interesting debate over how to translate “Kanbun,” elicited by J. Timothy Wixted, “Kanbun, Histories of Japanese Literature, and Japanologists,” Sino- Japanese Studies 10.2 (April 1998), pp. 23–31; Peter Kornicki, “A Note on Sino-Japanese,” Sino- Japanese Studies 17 (2010), pp. 29–44. Calling it “literary Chinese” (Wixted) excludes the fact that Japanese not only used it but introduced elements not found in literary Chinese by Chinese; but Vietnamese and Koreans also used it (Kornicki) which he argues complicates the picture. 3 Translator’s note. Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866) was a German doctor and scientist who lived and taught in Japan for a time from 1823. He was given some maps by a Japanese colleague, an act strictly forbidden under Japanese law at the time, and the shogunate thus accused him of treason in 1826; he was put under house arrest until being expelled from Japan three years later.