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天は自ら助くる者を助く ten wa mizukara tasukuru mono o tasuku Heaven Helps Those Who Help Themselves

天は自ら助くる者を助く (ten wa mizukara tasukuru mono o tasuku) is the old Western maxim that opens the first chapter of Samuel Smiles's Self-Help. Nakamura Masanao's translation of 1870–71 gave Japan its words. The maxim books and the schoolroom gave it the spelling the dictionaries write now.

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Japanese Scroll of Heaven Helps Those Who Help Themselves (ten wa mizukara tasukuru mono o tasuku) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Heaven Helps Those Who Help Themselves天は自ら助くる者を助くten wa mizukara tasukuru mono o tasuku

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

天は自ら助くる者を助く, ten wa mizukara tasukuru mono o tasuku, Heaven helps those who help themselves, is the Japanese maxim that Heaven helps the one who works on his own, without leaning on others [1]. It is a translation, and the dictionaries say so: the English line opens the first chapter of Samuel Smiles's Self-Help (1859), and Nakamura Masanao 中村正直 put it into Japanese at the head of his translation, the Saigoku risshi hen 西國立志編 of 1870–71 [1][2]. Smiles did not write the line and did not claim it: he called it a well-worn maxim in 1859 and a well-tried maxim from 1866 [3][4], and English print carries it, in one shape or another, from Taverner's Erasmus of the sixteenth century through Herbert (1640), Sidney (1698) and Franklin's Way to Wealth; in Japan the words held from Nakamura on, but the spelling did not. Nakamura wrote モノ in kana in every issue read, from 1870–71 to 1909, and the 者 the dictionaries write today is the form of the maxim books from 1874 and of the national ethics textbook of the 1920s, which set it for sixth-graders under the life of Benjamin Franklin; by the 1890s Japanese books credited it to a Western proverb, to Poor Richard, to Smiles, to the English and to Nakamura's book, and a survey of one Kyoto school in 1912 found it third among the textbook maxims the pupils named.

Overview

The sense. The dictionaries give it as 天は、他人に頼らずにひとりで努力する者を助けて幸福を与える, Heaven helps the one who works alone, without depending on others, and grants him happiness (the Digital Daijisen デジタル大辞泉), and 天は他人の助けを借りないで自身で努力する者を助けて成功させる, … and makes him succeed (the Nihon kokugo daijiten 精選版 日本国語大辞典), both with the English Heaven helps those who help themselves beside the headword [1]. The Nihon kokugo daijiten marks the line as the translation of that English; the Kotowaza o shiru jiten ことわざを知る辞典 calls it 西洋の古いことわざを翻訳したもの, a translation of an old Western saying, quoted at the opening of the 西國立志編, whose 初訳がそのまま定着しました, first translation took root as it stood [1]. Of the words that is what the witnesses read here show; of the spelling it is not (The spelling, below).

The words. 天, ten, Heaven, is the subject, where much English has God. 自ら, mizukara, is oneself, by one's own hand. 助くる, tasukuru, is the classical attributive of the verb 助く, to help, so the line is written in the literary language; 者, mono, is the one who, those who. Word for word, Heaven helps those who help themselves: the Japanese follows Smiles's English closely, Heaven included. 者 and もの (or モノ) are one word, read mono; the witnesses differ in how they write it, not in what they say, and an 1879 maxim book prints 者 with the ruby もの to say so on the page [5].

The text in English. The English line is older than Smiles by three centuries and in two shapes. Taverner's Englished Erasmus has Dii facientes adiuuant. The Goddes do helpe the doers, glossed the heauenly power is an ayde and helpe, not to loyterers and idle persons, but to laborious and paineful folke [6]; George Herbert's Outlandish Proverbs (1640) has the imperative Helpe thy selfe, and God will helpe thee [7]; Algernon Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government (1698) has God helps those who help themselves [8]; Franklin's Way to Wealth has God helps them that help themselves, as Poor Richard says [9]; and Smiles's Heaven helps those who help themselves stands in Samuel Warren's novel Ten Thousand a-Year, which the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs dates 1841 [10][11]. The Latin behind Taverner is Erasmus's adage Dii facientes adiuvant, which he quotes from Varro and which his English translator renders The gods help those who help themselves [12]; another of his adages gathers a line of Aeschylus, φιλεῖ δὲ τῷ κάμνοντι συσπεύδειν θεός, God is wont to speed the man who toils, and the fable of the carter [13]; the French is La Fontaine's Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera, the moral of the carter stuck in the mud [14].

The historical record

1859 and 1866, Smiles quotes a maxim. Samuel Smiles's Self-Help opens with an Introduction, and its first chapter opens, after two mottoes from Mill and Disraeli: "Heaven helps those who help themselves" is a well-worn maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience, read at the page image of the first edition of 1859 [3]. The new edition of 1866 has the same sentence with one word changed, a well-tried maxim [4], and so does a printing of 1869 [15]. In neither does Smiles say the line is his; he says it is old.

1868, the gift. Nakamura Masanao (1832–1891) went to England in 1866 as a supervisor of the shogunate's students and came home in 1868, when the shogunate fell [16]. His friend Humphrey William Freeland (1814–1892), a former Liberal member of Parliament for Chichester, gave him a copy of Self-Help as a farewell present; Nakamura's first biographer, Ishii 石井民司, wrote in 1907 that it was a copy printed in London the year before. Who Freeland was had been established by Matsuzawa 松沢弘陽 in 1975, as Fujii Yasushi 藤井泰 records in his account of Freeland's life of 1992; the reading of the facsimile inscription in the Shizuoka issue as H. W. Freeland is Takahashi Toshiaki's, which Fujii confirmed on another copy [17]. The National Diet Library's copy carries that facsimile, Professor Nakamura with H. W. Freeland's kind regards [18].

1870–71, 西國立志編. The title leaf of the first issue, read at the page image, prints two dates: 官許 明治庚午初冬新刻, newly cut, by official permission, in the early winter of 1870, on the inner title, and 明治四年辛未七月新刻, newly cut in the seventh month of 1871, on the outer, and it names its source as 一千八百六十七年倫敦出版, published in London in 1867, and its publisher as Kihira 木平謙一郎 of the Shizuoka domain [18]. The Nihon kokugo daijiten says Nakamura finished the translation in 1870 and it was published the next year; the other dictionaries give 1870–71 or 1871 [2]. The first chapter opens, read at the page image [19]:

天ハ自ラ助クルモノヲ助クト云ヘル諺ハ。確然經驗シタル格言ナリ。僅ニ一句ノ中ニ。歷ク人事成敗ノ實驗ヲ包藏セリ。

The saying that Heaven helps those who help themselves is a maxim surely proven by experience; in a single phrase it holds the whole experience of success and failure in human affairs. The line is marked character by character with circles, and the head margin prints Smiles's English in a cursive roman hand, Heaven helps those who help themselves. Nakamura calls it 諺, a saying, and 格言, a maxim, as Smiles did; and he writes モノ, in kana. The 1867 printing his title page names is not read here; the printings of 1866 and 1869 on either side of it both have well-tried [4][15].

1871 to 1909, Nakamura keeps モノ. In five later issues of his text read at the page image, a typeset of 1876, the issues of 1886 and 1887, the revised issue of 1894 and the issue of 1909, the line reads 天ハ自ラ助クルモノヲ助ク, with モノ in kana, and Smiles's English stands in the head margin each time [20][21][22][23][24]. The Nihon kokugo daijiten quotes his sentence, with もの, as the first example under the headword it writes with 者 [1].

1874 to 1882, the maxim books write 者. Three years after Nakamura, a book of Western anecdotes translated from Robert Chambers, Taisei seisetsu 『泰西世説』 (1874), tells the fable of the carter stuck in the mud who prays to the god of strength, 力ノ神, and is told to strive himself, since the god does not help those who do not, and ends it 古語ニ曰ク天ハ自ラ助クル者ヲ助クト, an old saying has it: Heaven helps those who help themselves, with 者; the line is also the story's title in the contents [25]. A book of Western maxims of 1879, Seitetsu kakugen shō 『西哲格言鈔』, lists 天は自ら助くる者を助くるなり under 立志勉業, setting one's aim and working at it, labeled 西諺, a Western proverb, with the ruby もの on 者 [5]; a book of 1880 copies the entry with the same neighbors [26]. The two spellings stood side by side: a book of educational maxims of 1882, Kyōiku kakugen 『教育格言』, writes 天ハ自ラ助クルモノヲ助ク, labeled 西語, a Western saying [27].

1882, a third spelling. Nakamura Akika 中村秋香, a scholar of Japanese literature and a poet, retold the first three parts of the 西國立志編 in 1882 in plain Japanese for children and women, and his first chapter opens, read at the page image, 自ら其己を助くる人を助くと云へる諺は, the saying that Heaven helps the person who helps his own self, its first word, 天, half under a library seal, and with 人, person [28][29].

1887, Franklin's God. A Japanese translation of Franklin's The Way to Wealth, Ichiryū senkin rizai no tanemaki 『一粒千金理財の種蒔き』 (1887), read at the page image, has 嘗て好人リシャールか其千七百三十三年暦に「神は自ら助くる者を助く」と曰へるか如し, as good Richard once said in his almanac for 1733, "God helps those who help themselves", with 神, God, and 者; a head note adds that the French have it too, 汝ヲ助ケヨ天汝ヲ助ク可シ, help yourself and Heaven will help you [30]. The English Franklin printed is God helps them that help themselves: a printing of 1774 gives it as Poor Richard says, with no year [9], and one of 1797 as poor Richard says, in his Almanack for 1733, read at the page image [31]. The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs dates the line to Franklin's almanac for June 1736 [11]; neither almanac is read for this history.

The 1890s, five credits. By the 1890s Japanese books give the line to five different sources, each read at the page image except where marked. A collection of maxims of 1890 sets プーア、リチヤード曰 天ハ自ラ助ル者ヲ助ク, Poor Richard says, between the Han emperor Guangwu and Zhu Xi [32]. A compendium of 1891 gives 天ハ自ラ助クル人ヲ助ク to スマイルス, Smiles, with 人, between a line it gives to Sophocles and La Fontaine's 自ラ助ケヨ然ラバ天亦汝ヲ助クベシ [33]. A self-help book of 1892 has it 天自から助くる者を助く。(英國確言), an English saying, read at the page image, where a library seal crosses 自 and the text layer reads 盲 [34]. In a play printed in Osaka in 1896, a merchant giving capital to a man who had resolved to die says 西國立志編と云飜譯書に天は自ら助くる者を助くと載せしは人間一生用ひ盡しても猶餘りある貴い聖語, what the translated book called 西國立志編 prints, Heaven helps those who help themselves, is a precious holy word that a man could not use up in a lifetime [35]. And a collection of ten thousand proverbs of 1891 calls it simply 西諺, a Western proverb, with モノ, in the Library's text layer [36].

1904 to the 1930s, the schoolroom. The first national ethics textbooks made it a lesson maxim: a teacher's guide of 1904 lists 天ハ自ラ助クルモノヲ助ク, with モノ, as the 格言 of a lesson in the second year of the higher elementary course [37], and in the second period of the national textbooks the sixth-grade book set it, with モノ, under a lesson on Franklin called 自立自營, standing on one's own and making one's own way, in the Library's snippet view of a 1990 facsimile [38]. In the third period the spelling changed: the Ministry of Education's own account of the revision of the sixth-grade book of the Jinjō shōgaku shūshinsho 尋常小学修身書, 『尋常小学修身書巻六修正趣意書』 (1923), read at the page image, lists lesson 11, 自立自營, its example フランクリン, the source of the story フランクリン自敍傳, his autobiography, and its maxim 天ハ自ラ助クル者ヲ助ク, with 者 [39]. A teacher's manual of the same year, read at the page image, calls it 西洋の諺, a Western proverb, gives Smiles's English as its 原文, its original, and explains it 天は自分で自分の仕事に精を出す人にのみ助けを與へるものである, Heaven gives help only to those who apply themselves to their own work [40]. The pupil's book of 1931 prints 格言 天ハ自ラ助クル者ヲ助ク under the Franklin lesson, in snippet view [41]; in the fourth period the lesson 自立自營 tells the life of Shibusawa Eiichi, and the sixth-grade book of 1939, as far as its snippet view shows, no longer carries the maxim [42].

1912, what children knew. Professor Tanimoto 谷本富 asked 193 boys and girls in the fourth to sixth grades of one Kyoto elementary school to write down the maxims they knew; the report of his survey in the journal Shinri kenkyū 心理研究, a note in the third person (同教授は, the professor), read at the page image, gives: of the thirty-four maxims in the ethics textbooks then and before 1901, the most named were 油斷大敵 (56%), 玉磨かざれば光なし (36%) and 天は自ら助くるものを助く (24%); and it singles out two maxims for the older pupils alone: this one, named by 70% of them, and 人事を盡して天命を待つ, by 34%. A line like 「天は自ら助くるもの……」, the report adds, does not go into a young child's head, and is not taught to young children [43]. The report writes it with もの.

The Chinese 天助自助者. The five characters 天助自助者 are a rendering of the Western line, not a classical Chinese phrase, as far as the instruments run: in the National Diet Library's full text they appear first in Japanese kanbun, in 1876, labeled 西語 [44], and in 1879 as Smiles's 古諺, old saying [45], then in Chinese, in the Qingyi bao 清議報, printed in Yokohama, in 1899 [46], and in Liang Qichao 梁啓超's Yinbingshi ziyou shu 飮氷室自由書 of 1902, labeled 西諺, a Western proverb [47]. These are read in snippet view (Notes).

The dictionaries. Inouye's Japanese-English dictionary of 1909 gives it, with もの, as its example of 西諺, a Western proverb [48], and Kenkyūsha's, in its printing of 1939 as Harvard reproduced it in 1942, under tasukeru and ten, with もの [49]. Daniel Crump Buchanan's Japanese Proverbs and Sayings (1965) calls it a direct Japanese translation of the English proverb [50]. The three dictionaries on kotobank write it with 者 [1].

天は自ら助くる者を助く in English

The book that carried it. Japan Quarterly in 1955 called the 西國立志編 the translation of Samuel Smiles's Self Help (1867), made by Nakamura Masanao in 1870, and said the proverb that it expounded — "Heaven helps those who help themselves" — exercised a great influence on the young people of the times [51]. An English-Japanese conversation book of 1897 pairs 天は己を助くる者を助く with God helps those who help themselves, in the Library's text layer [52].

Before Smiles. Taverner's Proverbs or Adages, read in the 1569 printing of a book the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs dates first to 1545, has The Goddes do helpe the doers [6][11]; Herbert, 1640, Helpe thy selfe, and God will helpe thee [7]; Sidney, 1698, on a nation's defense, God helps those who help themselves; and men are by several reasons … induced to succour an industrious and brave People [8]. The French translator of Self-Help, Talandier, put La Fontaine's line in Smiles's place in 1865: « Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera » est une maxime d'une valeur éprouvée [53]; Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera was also the motto of a French political society founded in 1824 [54].

A reading

The line belongs to no one, and the witnesses read here show how it came to be called Smiles's. Smiles set it at the head of his first chapter as an old maxim and said so; Nakamura translated his sentence whole, the saying … is a maxim surely proven by experience, and so brought it into Japanese as a saying and not as Smiles's thought. What made it Smiles's in Japan was its place: it is the first sentence of the first chapter of a book the encyclopedias call a best seller, read through the Meiji years [2], and the 1891 compendium names Smiles for it, the 1896 play names the book, and the dictionaries now quote the book. The schoolroom remembered it by Franklin, because the textbook told Franklin's life under it. Its Japanese wording has held since 1870; its spelling settled later, and not by Nakamura's hand: the 者 of the maxim books and the 1920s textbook is the form the dictionaries now head their entries with. I read Nakamura's 確然經驗シタル格言, a maxim surely proven by experience, as a translation of well-tried, the word Smiles chose in 1866 in place of well-worn; the French translator had made the same choice in 1865 with éprouvée, and nothing read here says Nakamura saw the French. The 1923 teacher's manual glosses the line with のみ, only, which the English does not say: in that schoolroom Heaven helps only those who help themselves, a sterner line than Smiles's. The words are Nakamura's; the 者 is the maxim books' from 1874, and the national schoolbook's in the 1920s.

Notes

The spelling. モノ in Nakamura's text in every issue read, 1870–71, 1876, 1886, 1887, 1894 and 1909 [19][20][21][22][23][24]; モノ in 1882 (教育格言), 1891 (西諺), 1904 and the second-period textbook [27][36][37][38]; もの in Inouye 1909, Tanimoto 1912 and Kenkyūsha's printing of 1939 [48][43][49]; 者 in 1874, 1879, 1880, 1887 (Way to Wealth), 1890, 1892, 1896 and the third-period textbook [25][5][26][30][32][34][35][39]; 人 in Nakamura Akika's paraphrase of 1882 and the 1891 compendium [28][33]. The National Diet Library's full-text index reads Nakamura's small okurigana as absent (自ラ助ルモノヲ助) and finds the 1870–71 book only under that broken form, so a search for the modern form puts its oldest hit in 1874; any first in these instruments is a fact about the index.

The readings. The romanized titles of the Meiji books are the National Diet Library catalogue's readings; for the 西國立志編 it gives サイゴク リッシヘン, and the dictionaries split, さいごく in the Digital Daijisen, the 世界大百科事典, ニッポニカ and two dictionaries of Japanese history, さいこく in the Nihon kokugo daijiten and ブリタニカ [2].

The Chinese. A full-text search of the Chinese Buddhist canon in CBETA finds 天助自助 only in a modern Chinese translation of the Bhagavad Gītā; the premodern Chinese corpus at ctext.org was not searched. 自助者天助, the word order modern Chinese uses, appears in the National Diet Library's full text from 1933.

The undated manuscript Nihon jidō kenkyū shiryō 日本児童研究資料 (compiled by 村尾節三, 1873–1928, by the National Diet Library's record) gives the same percentages as Tanimoto in snippet view; his survey is the source the history cites.

The almanac year. The 1887 Japanese and the 1797 printing give Poor Richard's almanac for 1733; the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs gives June 1736. The Way to Wealth is the preface Franklin wrote for his almanac for 1758, as the 1797 title says, and it gathers Poor Richard's sayings of earlier years.

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Heaven Helps Those Who Help Themselves (ten wa mizukara tasukuru mono o tasuku) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
天は自ら助くる者を助くVB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of Heaven Helps Those Who Help Themselves (ten wa mizukara tasukuru mono o tasuku) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
天は自ら助くる者を助くVC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of Heaven Helps Those Who Help Themselves (ten wa mizukara tasukuru mono o tasuku) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (jiun)
天は自ら助くる者を助くVD5JJiun
Japanese Scroll of Heaven Helps Those Who Help Themselves (ten wa mizukara tasukuru mono o tasuku) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
天は自ら助くる者を助くVS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

Hirakawa Sukehiro 平川祐弘, 『天ハ自ラ助クルモノヲ助ク：中村正直と『西国立志編』』, 名古屋大学出版会, 2006. The standard study of Nakamura and his translation, titled with his モノ; not held here.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard for 1733 and 1736, in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 2, and at Founders Online. Neither could be opened from here.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 天は自ら助くる者を助く, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A4%A9%E3%81%AF%E8%87%AA%E3%82%89%E5%8A%A9%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8B%E8%80%85%E3%82%92%E5%8A%A9%E3%81%8F-577398
  2. 西国立志編, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典, 山川 日本史小辞典 改訂新版 and 旺文社日本史事典 三訂版, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%A5%BF%E5%9B%BD%E7%AB%8B%E5%BF%97%E7%B7%A8-67886
  3. Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct, John Murray, 1859, p. 1 (chapter I). https://archive.org/details/smiles-1859-self-help
  4. Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character, Conduct, and Perseverance, a new edition, John Murray, 1866, p. 1 (chapter I). https://archive.org/details/smiles-1866-self-help
  5. 内藤伝右衛門 編, 『西哲格言鈔』, 1879, scan 14. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/757498/1/14
  6. Richard Taverner, Proverbs or Adages by Desiderius Erasmus, Gathered out of the Chiliades and Englished, 1569, facsimile, Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1956, fol. 54.
  7. George Herbert, Outlandish Proverbs, London, 1640, no. 537, sig. C4. https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_outlandish-proverbs-sele_herbert-george_1640
  8. Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government, London, 1698, chapter II, section XXIII, p. 166. https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_discourses-concerning-go_sidney-algernon_1698
  9. Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth, 1774 (text layer). https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-way-to-wealth-as-cl_franklin-benjamin_1774_0
  10. Samuel Warren, Ten Thousand a-Year, at Project Gutenberg (a later edition, vol. 2). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41332
  11. W. G. Smith and F. P. Wilson, The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, 3rd ed., Clarendon Press, 1970, p. 310.
  12. Erasmus, Adages I vi 1 to I x 100, trans. R. A. B. Mynors, Collected Works of Erasmus 32, University of Toronto Press, 1989, I vi 17.
  13. Érasme, Les Adages, vol. II, Les Belles Lettres, 2013, no. 1181.
  14. Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, livre VI, fable XVIII, Le Chartier embourbé, at Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56327
  15. Samuel Smiles, Self-Help, a new edition, John Murray, 1869, chapter I (text layer). https://archive.org/details/selfhelp0000unse_t4s7
  16. 中村正直, デジタル大辞泉, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%AD%E6%9D%91%E6%AD%A3%E7%9B%B4-17115
  17. Fujii Yasushi 藤井泰, 「中村正直にSelf-Helpを贈った人物 — フリーランドとは誰か」, 英学史研究 25, 1992, pp. 15–16 and the English abstract. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jeigakushi1969/1993/25/1993_25_15/_article/-char/ja/
  18. スマイルス 著, 中村正直 訳, 『西國立志編 原名自助論』 第1冊, 木平謙一郎 蔵版, 1870–71, scan 3 (the title leaf) and scan 4 (the Freeland inscription). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1080981/1/3
  19. スマイルス 著, 中村正直 訳, 『西國立志編 原名自助論』 第1冊, 1870–71, 第一編, scan 28. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1080981/1/28
  20. 中村正直 訳, 『西国立志編』, 1876, scan 40. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/755558/1/40
  21. 中村正直 訳, 『西国立志編 原名自助論』, 1886, scan 25. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/755559/1/25
  22. 中村正直 訳, 『自助論 一名西国立志編』, 1887, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/755637/1/22
  23. 中村正直 訳, 『改正 西国立志編』, 1894, scan 42. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/755564/1/42
  24. 中村正直 訳, 『自助論 一名西国立志編』 上, 1909, scan 14. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/755640/1/14
  25. チェムブル 著, 中川将行 訳, 『泰西世説』 巻之一, 河内屋喜兵衛, 1874, scan 33 (and the contents, scan 10). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/893524/1/33
  26. 小池洋次郎 編, 『鴻碩金語玉言鈔』 鼇頭西諺, 1880, scan 12. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/755346/1/12
  27. 林守清 編, 『教育格言』, 1882, scan 39, p. 65. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/808399/1/39
  28. 中村秋香 解述, 『假名讀 改正西國立志編』 第一編, 1882, scan 6. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/755565/1/6
  29. Takahashi Toshiaki 高橋俊昭, 「中邨秋香の『假名読改正西国立志編』」, 英学史研究 22, 1989, pp. 91–101 (text layer). https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jeigakushi1969/1990/22/1990_22_91/_article/-char/ja/
  30. バンジャマン・フランクリン 著, 黒田太久馬 訳, 『一粒千金理財の種蒔き』, 1887, scan 12, p. 6. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/800779/1/12
  31. Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth. Being a Preliminary Address Prefixed to the Pennsylvania Almanack for 1758, 1797, p. 5. https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_the-way-to-wealth-being_franklin-benjamin_1797
  32. 菫花園主人 編, 『金言集 和漢泰西』 正編, 藍外堂, 1890, scan 57, p. 101. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/755166/1/57
  33. 渋江保 編, 『国民錦嚢』, 博文館, 1891, scan 260, p. 497. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/897507/1/260
  34. 鈴木力, 『丈夫の本領：一名・東西立志編』, 1892, scan 8. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/758326/1/8
  35. 勝諺蔵, 『演劇脚本』 第4冊, 1896, scan 99, p. 24 (『怠惰勉強心組織』). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/876839/1/99
  36. 柴垣馥 編, 『金諺一万集』, 1891 (text layer). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/755160
  37. 立柄教俊 編, 『国定修身書教授法』, 1904, scan 51, pp. 92–93. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/811174/1/51
  38. 『国定修身教科書：複刻 第2期』 〔6〕, 1990, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13179042
  39. 文部省 編, 『尋常小学修身書巻六修正趣意書』, 1923, scans 9–10, pp. 13–14 (附錄). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/937676/1/10
  40. 野沢正浩・三浦喜雄, 『尋常小学修身書教授細案 巻6 上』, 1923, scan 162, pp. 312–313. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/938926/1/162
  41. 文部省, 『尋常小學修身書 兒童用 卷6』, 1931, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12901792
  42. 文部省, 『尋常小学修身書』 巻6, 1939, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1278050
  43. 谷本富, 「格言と教育」, 心理研究 2 (12), 1912, pp. 596–598, 雜纂. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjpsy1912/2/12/2_12_596/_article/-char/ja/
  44. 飯島半十郎 編, 『砕玉 附・聯瑾』, 1876, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/755542
  45. 山田養吉 編, 『明治小学』, 1879, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/758380
  46. 『清議報』 33, Yokohama, 1899, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12526498
  47. 梁啓超, 『飮氷室自由書』, 1902, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1911366
  48. Jūkichi Inouye, Inouye's Japanese-English Dictionary, Tokyo, 1909, Seigen (text layer).
  49. Takenobu Yoshitarō, ed., Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, American edition, Harvard University Press, 1942, photolithographed from the Kenkyūsha printing of 1939, under tasukeru and ten (text layer).
  50. Daniel Crump Buchanan, Japanese Proverbs and Sayings, University of Oklahoma Press, 1965.
  51. Japan Quarterly 2 (3), July–September 1955, p. 151, unnumbered (text layer). https://archive.org/details/sim_japan-quarterly_july-september-1955_2_3
  52. Eastlake, 『英和実用会話独修』, 1897 (text layer). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871361
  53. Samuel Smiles, Self-Help, ou caractère, conduite et persévérance, trans. Alfred Talandier, Plon, 1865, chapter I (text layer). https://archive.org/details/selfhelpoucaract00smiluoft
  54. E. Cobham Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, new and enlarged edition (preface dated autumn 1894), a later printing, Aide toi et le Ciel t'aidera (text layer).

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

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

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 天は自ら助くる者を助く (ten wa mizukara tasukuru mono o tasuku)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/ten-wa-mizukara-tasukuru-mono-o-tasuku.