On Stubborn Endurance and Other Essays

When should a defeated government keep fighting, and what does a leader owe the people who followed him? In On Stubborn Endurance, Fukuzawa Yukichi considers the surrender of Edo Castle and the final resistance at Hakodate, praising courage while questioning the honors later accepted by Katsu Kaishū and Enomoto Takeaki.

Six further supplied texts broaden the inquiry. An address to the Mita Speaking Society distinguishes national self-respect from insulting foreigners. Essays on physics and political economy argue that sound judgment grows through knowledge, observation, and study. Two versions of a preface recount the recovery and preservation of a lost manuscript on the beginnings of Dutch learning. A critique of an ethics textbook questions whether government authority can command moral trust.

This complete collection preserves the author’s forceful arguments, historical recollections, and difficult judgments. Thirty-one notes explain names, allusions, institutions, calendar conventions, and textual discrepancies. Together these writings offer a direct encounter with a major Meiji thinker’s views on education, loyalty, public life, and the responsibilities of national independence.