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心機一転 shinki itten Complete Change of Mind

心機一転 (shinki itten) is a complete change of feeling, a fresh start. The four characters are in print by 1888, the oldest dated witness in the National Diet Library's full text. This study follows how a word Meiji writers used for the conversions of Paul and Tolstoy wore down into a fresh start.

Japanese Scroll of Complete Change of Mind (shinkiitten) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Complete Change of Mind心機一転shinki itten

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

心機一転, a complete change of heart, a fresh start, is a Meiji compound with no classical source in the instruments searched: 心機 is old, but the four characters together are found in print by 1888, the oldest dated witness in the National Diet Library's full text, in the translator's commentary to 繋思談, a Japanese version of Bulwer-Lytton's novel Kenelm Chillingly, at the point where its hero's dislike of love begins to give way. Kōda Rohan 幸田露伴's novel いさなとり, which the 精選版日本国語大辞典 dates 1891 and gives as its first citation, uses it for the instant a man who has leapt into a whirlpool to die, thrown up alive by the water, turns from death to life. Meiji writers used it for the turning of Paul on the road to Damascus, of Newman and, though one of them doubted it fit, of Tolstoy, and two English-Japanese dictionaries, Nitobe's of 1911 and Saitō's (first published 1915, read here in its revised edition of 1918), offered it for to get religion and to be born again, while the Japanese-English dictionaries of 1909 and 1918 rendered it as a turn of the mind, a new turn and a sudden turn of mental attitude; the Japanese dictionaries of today define it as a complete change of feeling, on some occasion. In Chinese the same two characters can also mean scheming, and in the Zen classic 碧巌録 心機 is named among the workings of the discriminating mind; the compound is not built on scheming, and in Japanese 心機 had long meant the working of the mind, its spring, as in a poem of about 1010.

Overview

The sense. Today 心機一転 is a fresh start: a complete change of feeling, on some occasion, in the words of the dictionaries quoted under The dictionaries today. Its earliest dated witnesses, in the National Diet Library's full text and in the 精選版日本国語大辞典, use it for a heart that turns: a hero's dislike of love beginning to give way, by 1888, and, in 1891 by the dictionary's date, the instant a man who had leapt into a whirlpool to die turns from death to life; and Kitamura Tōkoku 北村透谷 gave a length to the blank state the turn must pass through: a few seconds. Meiji writers used it for Paul and Newman and Tolstoy, and two English-Japanese dictionaries set it against to get religion, born again and regenerate. Ordinary uses ran beside the religious ones: Mori Ōgai 森鷗外's young man changing the subject in 1910–11, and a minister's nickname, recorded by a slang dictionary in 1919. The Japanese dictionaries of today define it by an occasion and a change of feeling, and say nothing of religion.

The words. 心機, shinki, is the working of the mind, its spring: 心の働き。心の動き。気持ち in デジタル大辞泉, the mind; mental activity [1] in a dictionary of 1909 [2]. 機 is the loom and the trigger, the mechanism that sets a thing in motion. The word is old in Sino-Japanese verse: the 精選版日本国語大辞典's first Japanese citation is a poem of about 1010 by Fujiwara no Kintō 藤原公任, 浅深花錦織心機, the flowers, shallow and deep, weave a brocade on the mind's loom [1], and in the Heian collection 本朝文粹 a go-between's eloquence is followed by Japanese poems, 倭歌, that 彌亂心機之緒, tangle the threads of the heart's loom still further [3]. That sense is Chinese too: the same dictionary sets a poem by 任昉, 答劉居士詩, beside Kintō's for it (任昉, 460–509, a writer of the Six Dynasties who served the Song, Qi and Liang courts), and 字通 gives 心のはたらき and nothing else [1]. But in Chinese the two characters also went another way: the Taiwan Ministry of Education dictionary gives 心思、計謀, scheming, calculation, with 紅樓夢's 心機又極深細, said of a woman no man could match, and the reversed compound 機心 is 莊子's contriving heart [4]. In Zen it is the discriminating mind: in the 碧巌録, Engo 圜悟's commentary twice sets 心機 among the workings of the discriminating mind. On the first case, what Unmon 雲門 points to, like a spark struck from stone, like a flash of lightning, 不落心機意識情想, does not fall into 心機, consciousness, feeling and thought; on the fifth, a master's word or half a phrase is 不是心機意識思量鬼窟裏作活計, not a living made in the ghost-cave of 心機, consciousness and calculation [5]. So a Japanese reader hears the mind's motion, a Chinese reader often cunning, a Zen reader the discriminating mind; the Japanese word is built on the first. 一転, itten, is one turn, a complete change, an about-face. The dictionaries' definition keeps two things a translation must keep: an occasion, きっかけ, and a whole change of 気持ち, the set of the heart, not the reversal of a decision. The reading is settled beyond doubt, しんきいってん in Ōgai's own furigana [6] and in a 1919 dictionary's headword [7]; デジタル大辞泉 warns that 心気一転 is a misspelling [8], and the warning is needed, since 心気 is a different word. 転 is 轉 in every witness before 1946.

The proverb in English. There is no translation lineage for a word of this kind; the bilingual dictionaries are its reception, and they run in two directions. The Japanese-English ones render the word: His mind took a new turn (1909) [2], a sudden turn of mental attitude (1918) [9], change one's mind; turn over a new leaf; become a new man (Kenkyūsha's, in its printing of 1939) [10], changing one's mind (Nelson's character dictionary, first published 1962) [11]. The English-Japanese ones offer it for English words of religion: to get religion (1911) [12], born again, regeneration, a revolution of the spirit (Saitō's, in its revised edition of 1918) [13]. The English proverb collections from Buchanan 1965 to Galef 2012 do not carry it. EDRDG today: changing one's attitude; turning over a new leaf; getting a fresh start [14].

The historical record

1885 to 1888. 繋思談, the Japanese Kenelm Chillingly, middle volume, p. 397. Fujita Mokichi 藤田茂吉, the journalist who wrote as Meikaku 鳴鶴, translated Bulwer-Lytton's novel with 尾崎庸夫, and the book came out in volumes, which the library's record dates 1885 and 1888. At the end of the fourth chapter of its fifth part, a commentary in kanbun signed 鳴鶴 says that the hero, 景子 in the translation, dislikes love because it lies close to ordinary human feeling; that 戀愛動心之機, the spring by which love moves the heart, has already been set off inside his eccentric thoughts and strange arguments, 僻想奇論; and it ends 而景子心機一轉之事。始近實相矣, and the turning of his heart now first comes near to the real. The sentence before it is 布置結搆如此, the plot being so built, so the real here is the turn made credible in the story. It is the oldest dated witness in the National Diet Library's full text, three years or more before Rohan, and the turn it names is toward love [15].

1891 by the dictionary's date, in book form 1892. Kōda Rohan, いさなとり, chapter 84. A father, 彥右衞門, resolved to die, ties a great stone to his sash, takes his small son 新太郞 in his arms and leaps from the rock into the whirlpool. Heaven does not yet kill a man: the sash he had tied to die comes loose the instant he strikes the water, the current lifts him, 身は水力に押しあげられ、思はず浮びて再度また浮世の風に吹かれし刹那、狼狽愕く其中に心機一轉、ゑゝ死ぬまじと思ひし事やら思はずしてやら, his body was pushed up by the force of the water, and in the instant he floated, unbidden, and the wind of the floating world blew on him once more, startled and dismayed, his heart turned right round: whether he thought "I will not die after all," or did so without thinking it. The furigana read しんき…てん. This is the 精選版日本国語大辞典's first citation, which it dates 1891; the volume read here, the book's second part, is dated 1892 in its colophon; and its turn is from death to life in a single second [16].

1894. Kitamura Tōkoku, on the monk Mongaku 文覚's conversion. The essay is 心機妙變を論ず, On the wondrous change of the mind's spring, as its running head names it in the 1894 collection. 渠の心機一轉の摸樣を論ずるの榮を得む, I would have the honor of describing the shape of his shinki itten (p. 86); and later in the essay, how long the turn's blank lasts (p. 91): この境を過ぐるは心機一轉に缺くべからず、而してこの境は石火なり流星なり、數秒時間なり, passing through this state is indispensable to the turning of the heart, and the state is a flint-spark, a shooting star, a few seconds [17]. The state is the one he has just described, between the death of the old ideal and the birth of the new: 無心無知の境, a state of no mind and no knowing, like deep sleep.

1899 to 1911. The essayists: a turn back; Paul, Newman and Tolstoy; and a doubt. Takayama Chogyū 高山樗牛, setting out Eduard von Hartmann's aesthetics of the tragic in 1899, uses it for a turn back: a man may for one instant wander in the transcendent world, 然れども是れ一刹那の間のみ、心機一轉すれば忽ち元の現象世界に復歸す, but only for that instant: his heart turns, and at once he is back in the world of phenomena [18]. Anesaki Masaharu 姉崎正治, the comparative religionist, in a lecture printed in 1900, and again in a lecture text the library's record dates 1901, uses it for Paul on the road to Damascus: by the heavenly light, for which he gives the Greek doxa, 心機一轉せり, his heart turned [18]. Tsubouchi Shōyō 坪内逍遥's history of English literature of 1901 says that Newman, travelling in southern Europe with Hurrell Froude, 此の漫遊中心機一轉し, had his heart turn on this journey, and on his return left St Mary's and Oxford [18]. And Nobori Shomu 昇曙夢, writing on Tolstoy in 1911, uses the word and doubts it in one breath: 伯の心機一轉なるものは嚴密な意味に於ての心機一轉ではなかつた。それは特種な智性的乃至倫理的の危機であつた, what is called the Count's shinki itten was not a shinki itten in the strict sense. It was a particular crisis, of the intellect or of ethics, one that came on as he aged; and a page later, 是れが所謂トルストイ伯の心機一轉の心理的經過である, this is the psychological course of Count Tolstoy's so-called shinki itten [18]. His sentence takes for granted that the word has a strict sense, and that a crisis worked out as a man grows old does not meet it.

1909. Inoue Jūkichi 井上十吉, 和英辞典. Shinki (心機), n. The mind; mental activity. With the example 心機一轉したのです, His mind took a new turn [2].

1910. Fujii Otoo 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典. Absent at the シンキ position: the proverb dictionary, which sources its sayings, does not have this one [19].

1910 to 1911, in book form 1913. Mori Ōgai, 青年. 純一は心機一轉して、丁度持て來た茶碗蒸しを箸で掘り返し始めた, Jun'ichi, his heart turned right round, began to dig with his chopsticks into the steamed custard that had just arrived, with the furigana しんきいってん. The word for a young man changing the subject: already worn to everyday size [6].

1911 to 1918. The English-Japanese dictionaries give it for conversion. Nitobe Inazō 新渡戸稲造's English phrase dictionary of 1911 has it for to get religion, (colloq.) 心機一轉する; 信心深くなる [12]; Ueda Kazutoshi 上田萬年's ローマ字びき国語辞典, first printed in 1915 and read here in its nineteenth printing of 1916, glosses 心機 as こころの, はずみ. 氣の持ちぐあひ. 心のはたらき., in English Mind, and lists the idiom [20]; Saitō Hidesaburō 斎藤秀三郎's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, first published in 1915 and cited here in its revised edition of 1918, uses 心機一轉 to render birth (a new), born again, convert, regenerate and revolution (of the spirit): To be born again (=regenerated). (洗禮などにて)生れ變る。(又)心機一轉する [13]. The Japanese-English dictionary of the same years keeps to the mind: Takenobu Yoshitarō 武信由太郎's of 1918 has 心機一轉 a sudden turn of mental attitude and 彼は心機一轉した, His mind has taken a sudden turn [9].

1919. 上田景二, 模範新語通語大辞典, a dictionary of slang and new words. 【シンキイッテンコジ】心機一轉居士 渡邊國武: a nickname for Watanabe Kunitake, finance minister in the Itō cabinet, who 財政問題にて辭職せんとせしが、後ち心機一轉したりとて居据はれる, meant to resign over a question of finance, but later, saying his heart had turned, stayed in his seat. The word is common enough to be a joke [7]. The nickname is older than the dictionary: by the library's full-text search, a column in 中央公論 of 24 November 1900 already lists it beside Hoshi Tōru and Hayashi Yūzō; the issue itself is served only on the library's premises [21].

What is not a source. There is no classical source. The four characters are in no Chinese text the ctext full-text search holds [22], in no entry of the Taiwan dictionary [4], in none of the bilingual dictionaries before 1909, Hepburn's of 1872 among them [23], and not in the 1910 proverb dictionary [19]. 心機 is classical, in a Heian poem, and 一転 an ordinary word; the compound is a Meiji word, made in Japan, and the Chinese sense of 心機, scheming, is not behind it, nor the Zen one, in which Engo's commentary on the 碧巌録 twice names 心機 among the workings of the discriminating mind (cases 1 and 5) [5]: in its Japanese witnesses 心機 is the working of the mind, the sense of the Heian poem [1].

The dictionaries today. デジタル大辞泉: 何かをきっかけにして、気持ちがすっかり変わること. 精選版日本国語大辞典: ある事をきっかけに、気持がすっかり変わること、また、変えること. 四字熟語を知る辞典: 「心機」は心の動き・働き、気持ち。「一転」はがらりと変わること, with Abe Kōbō 安部公房 in 1964 as a modern use [8]. Among the public-domain books of the National Diet Library's next-generation search there are two in the early 1890s, eight in the late, ninety-six in 1900 to 1904 and two hundred and thirty-two in 1905 to 1909; by 1910 the word is everyone's [24].

Today. In the Japanese-English dictionaries read here, change one's mind stands beside the word from Kenkyūsha's printing of 1939 on [10] (Inoue 1909 and Takenobu 1918 do not give it [2][9]; Kenkyūsha's edition of 1931 was not read), and Nelson's character dictionary gives nothing else [11]; in English the phrase most often means a decision reversed, and no Japanese definition speaks of a decision. Nearer are the 1939 entry's own next phrases, turn over a new leaf and become a new man [10], EDRDG's a fresh start [14], and the older change of heart, which is what the Meiji meant. What a rendering must keep: the heart rather than the mind, the occasion, and the whole change.

A reading

In Chinese the same two characters can mean scheming, and in the 碧巌録 心機 is named among the workings of the discriminating mind; the Japanese word did not turn that sense around but took the other one, the mind's working, its spring, and 心機一転 is that spring released.

References

  1. 「心機」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版 日本国語大辞典・普及版 字通, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/心機 · 「任昉」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/任昉
  2. 井上十吉『和英辞典 新訳』, 三省堂, 1909, p. 1417. National Diet Library pid 1869465, scan 711. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1869465/1/711
  3. 『本朝文粹』, a movable-type print, 寛永6 (1629) in the library's record (this copy, volumes 1 and 3, carries no colophon). National Diet Library pid 2544426, scan 19. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2544426/1/19
  4. 教育部國語辭典 (Taiwan), 心機・機心. https://www.moedict.tw/raw/心機
  5. 圜悟's commentary in 『碧巌録』卷一, cases 1 and 5, in CBETA's text of the Taishō edition, 大正新脩大藏經 vol. 48, no. 2003, p. 141a20–21 and 145a26–27. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T2003&juan=1
  6. 森鷗外『青年』, 1913 printing. National Diet Library pid 947424, scan 108. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/947424/1/108
  7. 上田景二 編『模範新語通語大辞典』, 松本商会出版部, 1919. National Diet Library pid 958702, scan 201. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/958702/1/201
  8. 「心機一転」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版 日本国語大辞典・四字熟語を知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/心機一転
  9. 武信由太郎『武信和英大辞典』(Takenobu's Japanese-English Dictionary), 1918 (first printing September 1918; read in the ninth, December 1918, by the colophon, scan 1255), p. 1828. National Diet Library pid 925665, scan 916. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925665/1/916
  10. Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, 1939 printing (Harvard University Press American edition, 1942), p. 1684, shinki (心機).
  11. Andrew N. Nelson, The Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary, second edition (revised), Tuttle, 1966, read in its third printing, 1968 (first published 1962), p. 395, 心機一転.
  12. 新渡戸稲造 等監輯『英和俗語熟語故事大辞典』, 実業之日本社, 1911. National Diet Library pid 902975, scan 207. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/902975/1/207
  13. 斎藤秀三郎, Saito's Idiomological English-Japanese Dictionary, S.E.G. Publishing Department, first published 1915; the revised edition of 1918 (改訂版, in the colophon, scan 806), National Diet Library pid 1681530, scans 59, 65, 118, 551 and 564. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1681530/1/65
  14. 「心機一転」, EDRDG, at gokanji. https://new.gokanji.com/word/心機一転
  15. リットン (Bulwer-Lytton), 藤田鳴鶴 (茂吉)・尾崎庸夫 訳『繋思談：諷世嘲俗』中編, 集成社, 1885–1888 (明18,21 in the library's record), p. 397. National Diet Library pid 896825, scan 218. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/896825/1/218
  16. 幸田露伴『いさなとり』, 後編, 青木嵩山堂, 1892 (明治二十五年 in the colophon, scan 103), pp. 125–126. National Diet Library pid 885387, scans 66 and 67. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/885387/1/66 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/885387/1/67
  17. 北村透谷, 「心機妙變を論ず」, in 『透谷集』, 文学界雑誌社, 1894, pp. 86 and 91. National Diet Library pid 871945, scans 50 and 52. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871945/1/50 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871945/1/52
  18. 高山樗牛 編『近世美学』, 博文館, 1899, p. 199 (ハルトマン氏の美學). National Diet Library pid 849477, scan 110. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/849477/1/110 · 姉崎正治『宗教学概論』, 東京専門学校出版部, 1900, p. 290; the same passage in his 『比較宗教学』, 東京専門学校, undated (1901, 明治34, as the library's record supplies it), p. 133 (pid 987918, scan 72). National Diet Library pid 814857, scan 156. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/814857/1/156 · 坪内逍遥『英文学史』, 東京専門学校出版部, 1901, p. 855. National Diet Library pid 871617, scan 443. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871617/1/443 · 昇曙夢『偉人トルストイ伯』, 春陽堂, 1911, pp. 25 and 26. National Diet Library pid 871601, scans 22 and 23. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871601/1/22 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871601/1/23
  19. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910, シンキ position. National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 266. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/266
  20. 上田萬年『ローマ字びき國語辭典』, 冨山房, first printed 1915; the nineteenth printing, 1916 (in the colophon, scan 552), p. 817. National Diet Library pid 1900620, scan 415. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1900620/1/415
  21. 『中央公論』, 24 November 1900. National Diet Library pid 10231819 (on the library's premises only; the sentence is in its full-text search snippet). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10231819
  22. Chinese Text Project, full-text search on 心機一轉, pre-Qin-and-Han and post-Han collections, zero results. https://ctext.org/post-han?searchu=心機一轉
  23. J. C. Hepburn, 『和英語林集成』, 2nd ed., American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1872, SHINKI (新規 only). National Diet Library pid 993689. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/993689
  24. National Diet Library Digital Collections, next-generation full-text search on 心機一転, binned by five years. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-05, citations · gpt-6-astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 心機一転 (shinki itten)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/shinki-itten.