Misao Fujimura

Japanese: 藤村操 - ふじむら・みさお

Year of death: May 22, 1903 (Meiji 36)
Year of birth: 1886 (Meiji 19)
A first-year student at First Higher School, aged 16 years and 10 months, committed suicide by jumping into Kegon Falls in Nikko. Carved out of a large tree at the base of the waterfall, on May 22nd, 1903, he wrote the following in ink: "Feelings from the top of the cliff. The vast heavens and the vast past and present. Trying to grasp this vastness with my small five-foot body. Does Horatio's philosophy really merit any authority? The truth of all things is explained in a single word. He says, 'Incomprehensible.' I harbored this resentment and was troubled until I finally decided to die. Now that I have reached the top of the cliff, I feel no anxiety whatsoever. I realize for the first time that great pessimism is consistent with great optimism." A great number of boys memorized this short passage, and this continued until the Great Showa War. The impact on First Higher School alumni was particularly strong, and there was a boarding house known as the "Cave of Screams" where First Higher School students (Hayashi Hisao, Watanabe Tokuo, Iwanami Shigeo and others) would gather and spend their days crying instead of going to school. This was the source of one of the series of philosophical books published by Iwanami Shoten. If, as Meilendel and Camus preached, the only problem in philosophy is how not to commit suicide, then Fujimura Misao clearly explored this problem and presented it to the intellectuals of his time. Naka Michiyo's nephew, Kuroiwa Ruiko's Tenjinron (The Theory of Tenjin) (1904) was written in response to this impact.

(Tsurumi Shunsuke)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：明治36.5.22(1903)
生年：明治19.7(1886)
満16歳10カ月の一高1年生が,日光の華厳の滝に投身自殺した。滝の落ち口の大樹をけずり,明治36年5月22日次のように墨書してあった。「巌頭之感。悠々たるかな天壌,遼々たるかな古今,五尺の小躯をもってこの大をはからむとす。ホレーショの哲学ついに何等のオーソリチーを価するものぞ,万有の真相は唯一言にして悉す。曰く『不可解』。我この恨みを懐いて煩悶終に死を決するに至る。既に巌頭に立つに及んで,胸中何等の不安あるなし。はじめて知る,大なる悲観は大なる楽観に一致するを」この短い文章をそらんじた少年はたいへんな数にのぼり,昭和の大戦争までつづいた。ことに一高同窓生にあたえた衝撃ははげしく,「悲鳴窟」と呼ばれる下宿があって,そこに集まる一高生(林久男,渡辺得男,岩波茂雄ら)は学校にいかずそこで泣いてくらした。岩波書店の哲学書の系列のひとつの源流はここにあった。マイレンデルやカミュの説いたように,どうして自殺しないかが哲学のただひとつの問題であるとすれば,藤村操はこの問題を同時代の知識人に対してはっきりとそれをさぐりあてて示した。那珂通世の甥。黒岩涙香『天人論』(1904)はその衝撃を受けとめて書かれた。

(鶴見俊輔)

出典　朝日日本歴史人物事典：（株）朝日新聞出版朝日日本歴史人物事典について　情報

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