Great Construction

FIVE CLASSES OF INTELLIGENCE (2nd version)

　　Though we speak simply of "intelligence," there in reality are various classes of intelligence. Now let me try to classify them. First, the highest class is divine intelligence, and next as follows in order, mystical intelligence, intelligence par excellence, apparent intelligence, and crafty intelligence; thus, they are roughly divided into five classes. I call them as a whole "five classes of intelligence." I will explain these one by one.

　　Divine intelligence is the supreme class, and it cannot be found in common people. It is the intelligence which an exceptional person receives from God, for such a person has been entrusted with some mission of vital importance. From ancient days, it has been said, "The ability to know through learning is human intelligence, while the ability to know without learning is divine intelligence." This gives the essence in the shortest words.

　　Mystical intelligence is sometimes referred to as the power of Kannon mystical intelligence, so it should be regarded as intelligence of buddha in contrast with divine intelligence. We can say that if the divine intelligence is masculine, the mystical intelligence is feminine. Well then, the original Japanese translated into English "mystical intelligence" is "Myochi," which consists of two Chinese characters "妙智"; "妙 myo" corresponds to "mystical" and "智 chi" to "intelligence," so I find it interesting that the left-hand radical of "妙" is "女," the meaning of which is woman or feminine.

　　Intelligence par excellence is the intelligence characteristic of a wise person, and it indicates "wisdom of spiritual awakening" or simply "wisdom" in Buddhist terms. However, even those who have the ability to exert this type of intelligence are very few in this present world. Of course, that is because evil intentions make it difficult to judge things correctly. Let me take an example of this. Experts in any field as well as politicians today, many of such people have a conference about some matter, and cannot arrive at the conclusion without beating their brains for hours, no matter how small the matter is. When it comes to a little bigger problem, more than a dozen or tens of people put their heads together, push their claims fiercely and assemble many times for many days, only to get nowhere. All this shows how slow their minds work.

　　Give it a moment's thought; no matter what the matter may be, there is only one conclusion and cannot be more. Nevertheless, seeing that it takes many brains and many days, I really have no word to say but miserable. This is why they fall short of the intelligence par excellence, the cause of which is that their brains are clouded, and the cause of their brains' being clouded is that they have evil intentions, and the cause of their having evil intentions is that they believe in materialism, and further, the cause of their believing in materialism is that they do not recognize the real existence of God, and eventually the cause of this is that there is no religion which has the power to convince them of the existence of God; therefore, the religion which can make people know truly that God exists must be a really living religion. That I have to explain in this long-winded way shows exactly that the intelligence of people today has become dull.

　　Seen in this light, a man of intelligence par excellence would be able to find the solution in a few minutes or several tens of minutes whatever problem he may be confronted with. More specifically about this, I tell my staffs, whatever matter they deal with, to first limit their discussion to thirty minutes up to reaching a conclusion, and if it takes more than an hour, to suspend the meeting to reopen it some other day, or to come to consult me in person.

　　I hesitate to talk about myself as to this point, but I can find the solution to any difficult problem in a few minutes. Though once in a while I cannot reach a conclusion on the spot, in such a case I do not force myself to find an answer but suspend it for a whole. Then, after a short time, the solution surely springs from some inspiration into my head.

　　The next is apparent intelligence; this is a shallow thought looking merely at the surface, as everyone knows. So even if it goes well temporarily, as time advances, it is inevitable to fail or lose credit. In other words, it can be referred to as dull intelligence or dim intelligence.

　　Crafty intelligence is, self-explanatorily, evil intelligence, so it is serpentine wisdom. This type of intelligence too prevails among people, what's more, quite a lot among intellectuals and leaders; this is why our society cannot be better by any means. Therefore, it is not until there disappears such evil intelligence among the Japanese that fair society will emerge and Japan will become a great country. In that case, is there any means by which we can eliminate this crafty intelligence? The answer is very easy to find. It is to totally destroy the birthplace where the serpentine wisdom comes into being. And the way to realize this is none other than the religious activity which is mighty enough to make people believe in God.

Jikan's Thoughts on the New Philosophy of Life (Jikan Library Book XII),
January 30, 1950 (the 25th year of Showa)
The first version: Hikari, No.23, August 20, 1949 (the 24th year of Showa)