LAMPE
JAPANESE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
ENH
723
L23

NIVERSITY OF MIC
NIVERSITY OF MIC
HIGAN
THE
ERI
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THE JAPANESE SOCIAL
ORGANIZATION
Hi!
I
723
BY
WILLIAM EDMUND LAMPE, PH.D.,
MEMBER OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF JAPAN

Printed by
Princeton University Press
Princeton, N. J.

Copyright 1910
by
William Edmund Lampe
GEN
PREFACE.
This dissertation, presented to the Faculty of Princeton
University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy, is based upon a study of Japan
and the Japanese people during a residence of seven years in
Japan and one year in Princeton. It would not have been
undertaken except for the encouragement of several members
of the Faculty, particularly of Professor Walter A. Wyckoff,
who also suggested the subject. I am under especial obliga-
tions to Professor W. M. Daniels, who has advised me at each
step and has given me the benefit of helpful criticisms and
suggestions.
May 1, 1908.
iii
Ꮀ
..
THE JAPANESE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION.
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.-THE SOCIAL HISTORY.
The Origin of the Japanese.
I.
The Japanese in their earliest history.
2.
A mixed race.
Untrustworthiness of much of the early "history".
The "Records" and the "Chronicles".
The help of archaeology.
a.
The making of the nation.
Military organization of society.
A new language and a new religion.
b. The family.
C.
State of civilization and plane of living.
Agriculture and industry.
Food, clothing, dwellings.
Morality.
The Great Reform-7th century.
a. Social classes.
b. Contact with Korea and China.
C.
Chinese civilization.
Buddhism.
The effect on Shinto.
Resultant changes.
3. Development and assimilation.
a.
Chinese civilization and culture.
The upper classes.
Religion and ethics.
Arts and literature.
The lower classes.
Agriculture, trade, and industry.
b. Rise of the military class.
4. The Shogunate and Feudalism.
a.
Reverence for the emperor.
Civil wars.
Culture, refinement, and luxury.
Feudalism.
Agriculture and industry.
Literature, learning and art.
PAGE Vii
.PAGE I
V
Religion's waning power-Buddhism and Shinto.
Ethics and philosophy-Bushido.
b. Politics.
Relations with foreign nations.
Christianity interdicted.
The country closed.
The shogun's power supreme in 1603.
After 1650 a social standstill.
CHAPTER II.-THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE..
Classes of Society.
The family.
1. The emperor and the kuge.
Ed
Feudal society.
C.
a.
Shogun.
b. Daimyo.
Samurai.
Origin as a distinct class.
PAGE 43
·
Exponent of lofty principles-The upper middle class of
society.
Inevitable decay.
d. "Common people".
e.
I. Farmer.
2.
Attitude of government towards.
As producer and sharer in the fruit of his labor.
Artisan and artist.
3. Merchant.
Outcasts.
Despised by the other classes.
Feudal cities.
3. Buddhist priests.
CHAPTER III.-THE CHANGING SOCIAL ORDER..
I. Changes due to the opening of the country.
Recapitulation.
2.
The levelling process.
Abolition of class dictinctions.
3. Japan's industrial future.
Her supremacy in the east-Asian carrying trade.
4. Estimate of the stability of the present social order.
Problems and factors in their solution.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
PAGE 68
PAGE 82
vi
INTRODUCTION.
So far as I know this is the first essay dealing with any sub-
ject relating to Japan presented by a Western student to a
University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Japan has
been open now for half a century but we know less about the
Japanese than about any other important group of the human
family. Until quite recently the Japanese had not studied their
own country from the standpoint of Western scholarship and
for this reason they were unable to give us of the West the data
we desired. This is, however, no longer true, for in the last
few years the methods of the West have been used by certain
of the younger generation of Japanese scholars and they have
given us valuable results. For a third of a century a small
group of mature Occidental scholars, who have resided in
Japan, have been at work and they have made important sci-
entific contributions to our knowledge of the country.
glance at the bibliography will reveal our indebtedness to them.
A foreign student has one advantage over the Japanese investi-
gator, custom has not blunted his perceptions and he is un-
consciously struck by what is unique.
We devote much attention to the social conditions of Europe
in past ages, but it may really be that we shall profit almost
as much from a study of the social system and social conditions
of the Island Empire on the other side of the globe. Her ter-
ritory is small, but Japan has as large an area as have many of
the nations of Europe and for many centuries she has been
fully as populous as the greatest European Powers. Noting
what seems to be her marvelous progress we turn to a study
of her institutions and find them almost essentially different
from our own.
vii
Nothing but lack of knowledge concerning this people, so
long segregated from the remainder of the race, can account
for the great variety of opinions held concerning them. Some
fail to recognize that they are people fundamentally like our-
selves. For example, Knapp says: "Japan is unquestionably
the unique nation of the globe,—the land of dream and enchant-
ment, the land which could hardly differ more from our own
were it located on another planet, its people not of this world".*
But in my opinion Shylock's utterance as to the identity of hu-
man nature in Jew and Gentile might as truthfully apply to the
essential likeness of the Japanese and ourselves. Others would
have us believe that it is "impossible for foreigners to under-
stand the operation of the mind of the Japanese and equally
difficult for them to understand ours",† as if there were some
convolutions in their brains that are not in ours. The truth is
that Japan existed before we discovered it and the Japanese
have worked out some important problems independently of
the West, but just as Darwin's studies led him to see more
clearly "the close similarity of the mind of man, to whatever
race he may belong", so study of the Japanese shows that they
have been and are now grappling with the same problems as
we are. After all, "man is always and everywhere the same".
Relatives who have long been separated and whose develop-
ment has been different have again met face to face.
If we are ever to have a complete social theory we need the
data furnished by Japan's social history. Hearn is one of
those who would say that we are not yet ready for this: “No
work fully interpreting that life, no work picturing Japan
within and without, historically and socially, psychologically
and ethically, can be written for at least another fifty years".‡
This contention is that it is useless at present to attempt to
really understand Japan. The better opinion seems to me that
of Knox, who says: "Japan is known to those who would
* Feudal and Modern Japan, Vol. 1, p. 1.
† G. G. Hubbard, The Japanese Nation, Smithsonian Report for 1895,
p. 673.
Japan: An Interpretation, p. 3.
viii
study it as it has never been known to its own people in the
past. It would seem then an affected humility to profess that
the West cannot understand the East, for .... there is nothing
inscrutable, nothing even mysterious, nothing to lead us to
conclude that the Japanese are other than men of like pas-
sions with ourselves but formed in a different environment and
educated in a different atmosphere".*
This study aims to set forth the fundamental characteristics
of the Japanese social structure. It is not a prophecy, nor is it
primarily an exposition of the forces now at work; its purpose
throughout is to elucidate the elements of essential strength and
weakness in the social organization.
The Japan of to-day owes much to China, and to understand
Japanese institutions some knowledge of China is necessary.
Again, in Japan many of the social ideas of China, political, in-
tellectual, and religious, have been worked out, but in a different
environment. Thus, what I have written may throw some
light on general social conditions in the East outside of Japan.
* Japanese Life in Town and Country, p. 5.
$
ix
"
CHAPTER I.
THE SOCIAL HISTORY.
THE ORIGIN OF THE JAPANESE.
Were we able to speak with assurance regarding the origin of
the Japanese people¹ many steps in their social evolution would
be more easily and better understood. The oldest traditions
are that "the divine ancestors descended from heaven to the
earth". The facts in the case seem to be that there were sev-
eral streams of immigration from the west and south to the
land we now call Japan. Those who passed through Korea on
their way thither came from their ancestral home somewhere in
the north of Central Asia,2 while a second stream, of South-
Asian immigrants, were drifted to Japan by the "Japan Cur-
rent". When these people of Mongolian and Malay origin ar-
rived they found the Ainu there before them.
According to the Ainu tradition, when their forefathers came
from the northeast islands (Kuriles) they found the land al-
ready inhabited by the Koropok-guru, a numerous people who
This question has been examined from many different points of
view. Siebold has studied it from an archæological standpoint; Milne
has drawn important conclusions based on geological research; Blackis-
ton has pointed out "zoological indications of ancient connection of
the Japanese Islands with the Continent"; Baelz has used the anthro-
pological method; and Parker and Chamberlain have approached it
from the the philological side. The results of the studies of these
and other scholars working along similar lines are to be found for the
most part in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.
* F. Brinkley, Japan in History, Literature, and Art, Vol. I, p. 18.
Ethnologists are agreed that the predominant element of the Japanese.
race came to Japan by way of Korea from that part of Asia which lies
north of China. W. G. Aston, Shinto, p. I.
The new-comers were a "Mongolian race resembling the Chinese and
Koreans".
I
lived in conelike huts, built over holes dug in the earth. The
Ainu have no written language, but their oral tradition is cor-
roborated by the Japanese chronicles which speak several times
of "earth-spiders", or people living in the earth. The Ainu
claim that they exterminated these pit-dwellers.*
3
Who the Ainu were is not known. About fifteen thousand
of them still live in Hokkaido. A comparison of the Ainu and
Japanese languages shows that they have nothing in common.
Physically they are sturdier than the Japanese and they are
probably the hairiest race in the world. Scholars are generally
agreed that they came from the north, probably by way of
Saghalin, which at Lat. 52° N. is separated from the mainland
of Asia by a distance of only about five miles. In the course
of time the Ainu peopled the entire territory now known as
Japan. Before the Japanese could make the islands their
home it was necessary for them to conquer these Ainu. At
first the Ainu bravely resisted the invaders but they were
driven northward by degrees. Marriage certainly took place
between conquerors and conquered and this resulted in an in-
fusion of Ainu blood into Japanese veins. 6
3
* There seems to be little doubt that ages ago such people lived in
at least northern Japan. There are still to be seen in the northern
island, Hokkaido, what some claim to be the remains of the living
places of these pit-dwellers. On the whole it is more easy to believe
than to question that there were such "pigmies" living in Japan in
early ages. E. g., it would be difficult to explain otherwise the bits of
pottery occasionally found, for the Ainu did not know the art of
pottery. For fuller discussion of this subject see the writings of Prof.
Koganei, of Tokyo University, and chaps. I and 2 of the Political Ideas
of Modern Japan by Kiyoshi Kawakami.
4
* They are believed to be represented to-day by the inhabitants of
Saghalin, the Kuriles, and southern Kamschatka. Brinkley, Vol. I, p.
35.
5
Griffis maintains that they were Aryans, but he stands almost alone
in his contention. Cf. The Japanese Nation in Evolution, p. I. “The
Ainu, a white race of people, speaking an Aryan tongue," ibid., p. 48.
It is more likely that if the Japanese have any Aryan blood it came with
the people from the south.
"A migrating race is a conquering race. In all migrations the
2
In the early centuries of the Christian era, Korean and
Chinese scholars and artisans came to Japan, occasionally in
great numbers. These were absorbed into the Japanese race,
leaving on it some faint traces of the amalgamation. Some of
the best families of Japan are proud to be able to trace their
lineage to some remote Chinese or even Korean ancestor.
The one thing that is clear is that the Japanese are not a
pure race. In them is a mixtures of Malay, Mongolian, Ainu,
and perhaps other blood. After a stable racial amalgam had
been produced, from time to time new and different branches.
were grafted upon this parent stock. The result has been the
production of an improved race, for the Japanese are only one
example shown by history of the good effect produced by the
mixture of racial units which are somewhat alike intellectually
and physically.⁹
males of the conquering race cross with the females of the conquered
race, and not vice versa". Giddings, Principles of Sociology, p. 233.
Certainly there is nothing to justify such statements as that of Griffis,
"the mass of the Japanese people to-day are substantially of Ainu
stock". Mikado's Empire, p. 35.
Prof. Chamberlain says that "so far as blood is concerned the
Japanese have been little, if at all, affected by Ainu influence". Things
Japanese, p. 18.
"The basic stock of the Japanese is without doubt Mongolian”.
Kawakami, Political Ideas, p. II.
'Brinkley, Vol. I, p. 38.
“The offspring of a mixed race obey the tendency, first demon-
strated by Galton in his studies on heredity, to revert to the parent
types and not to form middle types." Giddings, Principles, p. 233.
Among the Japanese to-day there are several distinct types. It is
frequently remarked that the present Emperor is of a striking Malay
type. At first glance it is not easy even for those who have spent
many years in the Orient to distinguish certain of the Japanese from
Chinese.
"The crossings of varieties that are not too unlike is often bene-
ficial. Mixed races, after natural selection has eliminated the weak-
lings, are taller, stronger, more prolific, and more adaptable than pure
races. Anthropologists differ in regard to the limits within which
cross breeding is advantageous". Giddings, Principles, p. 324.
3
THE JAPANESE IN THEIR EARLIEST HISTORY.
The earliest Japanese knew nothing of the art of writing and
the events of thirteen centuries were preserved solely by oral
tradition. Japanese investigators are disposed to think that the
use of writing was imported from China one or two centuries
prior to the Christian era; Western scholars almost without
exception place this date at least three centuries later. At any
rate, the earliest historical records suffered almost total destruc-
tion by fire at the time of the downfall of the Soga family in
A. D. 645, and do not seem to have exercised any appreciable in-
fluence upon subsequent annals. Our reliance for informa-
tion about the history of Japanese antiquity has to be placed
upon the Kojiki and Nihongi.¹
10
The Kojiki, or "Records of Ancient Matters", was dictated
by one Hide-no-Are and was completed in A. D. 711 or 712.
This, the earliest Japanese document, has preserved for us more
fully than any other book the mythology, the manners, the
language, and the traditional history of ancient Japan. Its
"history" stops at the year A. D. 628.
The Nihongi, or "Chronicles of Japan", second only in value
to the "Records", was completed in A. D. 720 and carries the
history down to A. D. 700. Yasumaro, to whom Hide-no-Are
dictated the "Records", was one of the compilers or authors of
the "Chronicles". The "Records" wisely has no chronology,
but the "Chronicles" pretends to give the exact month and day
for nearly every event recorded.
The general scope of the two histories is the same, but the
language of the later one and its method of treating the national
traditions stand in notable contrast to the unpretending simpli-
city of the older work. Soon after the completion of the
"Records", most of the salient features of distinctive Japanese
nationality were buried under a superincumbent mass of
Chinese culture.11 While the "Records" is to a very large ex-
10 Department of Education of Japan, History of the Japanese Em-
pire, p. I.
"B. H. Chamberlain, Introduction to the Kojiki, T. A. S. J., Vol. X,
Supplement, passim.
4
tent pure Japanese the style of the "Chronicles" is completely
Chinese.12 The concessions made to Chinese notions in the
"Chronicles" went far toward satisfying minds trained on
Chinese models, while at the same time the reader had his re-
spect for the old native emperors increased, and was enabled
These
to preserve some sort of belief in the native gods.13
two works are attempts to harmonize a large body of frequently
irreconcilable mythical material in existence in A. D. 720.14
Both of these "histories" purport to give the actual history
of Japan from the year 660 B. C. when the first Emperor,
Jimmu, "having subdued and pacified the savage Deities, and
extirpated the unsubmissive people, dwelt at the palace of Kash-
iwabara".15 "The authenticity of the greater part of
ancient Japanese history down to about A. D. 400
is not acknowledged by Occidental authorities, but it is
affirmed by native historians and has been officially recognized
by the government".16 Nearly all educated Japanese of the
present day are sceptical concerning the old mythology and re-
ject or rather ignore the legends of the gods, but implicitly be-
lieve the legends of the emperors from Jimmu downwards.¹7
Western scholars are almost unanimously of the opinion that
"E. M. Satow, The Revival of Pure Shinto, T. A. S. J., Vol. III,
Appendix, p. 19.
18This, one of the reasons why the "Chronicles" has always excelled
the "Records" in popular favor, is important, but it is not in place to
discuss it here.
14W. G. Aston, Shinto, p. 2.
15
Kojiki, Vol. II, Sec. 50.
16Seiji Hishida, The International Position of Japan as a Great
Power, p. 41.
"The ages of the monarchs from Jimmu down are given in the
'Digest of the Imperial Pedigree', a work published by the Imperial
Japanese Government in 1877, and therefore carrying with it the
weight of authority". Chamberlain, T. A. S. J., Vol. X, p. 368.
17The interval covered by the reigns of the seven sovereigns who
succeeded the second was four hundred and fifty years, but beyond the
fact that they succeeded to the throne the records are almost alto-
gether silent. The early records are only of rulers, and often the
people are not even in the background of the picture.
5
there is no authentic history before A. D. 461, while some who
are most entitled to express an opinion put this date even a cen-
tury or more later. The iconoclasm of Westerners has given
courage to Japanese scholars, a few of whom have dared to
question the credibility of their ancient history as we now have
it. It needs bolstering up at too many points and there is rea-
son to believe that within a few decades, after it has been
studied by native scholars according to the canons of modern
criticism, their earliest "history" will be rewritten.
From early times there had been a hereditary corporation of
reciters, called Katari-Be, and we can be certain that in these
oldest documents we have the earliest traditions of the Japan-
ese race. Even the myths and legends throw a useful light on
the beliefs and institutions of the age when they became cur-
rent. Archaeology, too, contributes to our knowledge of the
earliest Japanese society, and the contents of the barrows, or
mounds of earth heaped over the remains of the dead, and the
dolmens, or stone chambers used at times of burial, throw im-
portant light on the early social history.
The groups of people living in Kyushu in the South, in
Izumo in the West, and in Yamato in the East, probably repre-
sented respectively the immigrations already referred to from
South Asia, and from North Central Asia through Korea, and
the Ainu, whoever they may have been. Although the gen-
eral opinion is that the people in Izumo were earlier it is by not
means certain which of the two streams of immigration first
reached Japan. The warrior-statesman Jimmu Tenno,18 first
subdued the people living in Kyushu, and became their chief
and leader. He then gathered his followers and leading them
northward and eastward,19 conquering a region here and sub-
18This was a posthumous name given to him more than a thousand
years after the date which Japanese historians assign for his decease.
19 At the age of forty-five he addressed his elder brothers and child-
ren saying "....From the date when our Heavenly Ancestor descended
until now it is over 1,792,470 years. But the remote regions do not
yet enjoy the blessings of Imperial rule. Every town has been allowed
to have its lord, and every village its chief, who, each one for himself,
6
* *
duing a chief there, by fifteen years of desperate struggle
carved out for himself an empire which he held together by the
weight of his sword. His territory, which was the "fruit of
conquest pure and simple",2º did not include more than one half
of the area of the main island.21 Even within this territory his
sway was somewhat limited and disputed. One tradition was
that the conquered peoples acknowledged their consanguinity
with their conquerors from Kyushu,22 but this is at best a re-
spectable fiction originated centuries later to explain the unity
of the Japanese people. While we may reasonably doubt if
there was any blood-tie, the outcome was at all events one peo-
ple, and there were no longer several centers of governmental
activity. From this time the "assemblies of the gods":
whether in heaven or on earth, came to an end. These assem-
blies may have been beautified myths of early tribal assemblies
which ceased with the advent of civil government under
Jimmu.24
There is abundant evidence that the process of amalgama-
tion was a slow one. For centuries the groups were held to-
gether only by the military organization of Jimmu and his suc-
cessors. The most that can be said is that these conquerors be-
came dominant and that gathered under them was a confedera-
tion of groups of people more or less unlike. Rival chiefs were
kept in subjection and the authority of the rulers among the
conquerors was at no time seriously disputed by those who were
now consciously amalgamated into a new state.
Meanwhile forces,-language, religion and external pres-
makes division of territory and practices mutual aggression and con-
flict....". Nihongi, Aston's Translation, p. 110. (In Transactions of
the Japan Society of London.)
20 Kanichi Asakawa, The Early Institutional Life of Japan, p. 30.
21 Ibid. p. 45.
22Cf. Brinkley, Vol. I, p. 31.
23 History of Empire of Japan, p. 26.
**Possibly Izumo, Yamato and Kyushu are merely names of the
ancestral homes of the three leading tribes which confederated under
Jimmu and became the Japanese nation.
7
sure, were at work unifying all the elements of the popula-
tion. The speech of the people became uniform.25 There is
not even the faintest trace of any earlier language. Whatever
lingual divergencies there may have been disappeared entirely
or became part of the new tongue."
At some point in this development of a common speech a new
religion became prevalent. This indigenous religion, called
Shinto, became the religion of the people who formed the new
nation and remained their only religion for many centuries.
It is perhaps too much to say that the origin of Shinto was due
to the political necessity of glorifying the ruler by claiming his
divine descent, but this cult, a combined nature and ancestor
worship, has always been closely connected with this political
theory, now upholding it and in turn upheld by it.
As the nation grew stronger and more unified the unsubjuga-
ted aborigines were gradually pushed farther and farther north-
ward. Certainly this pressure from without of opposing peo-
ple, not fully subdued for many centuries, was one of the most
important factors in holding together this early empire.27
It is but natural that this early society,28 whose birth was syn-
2ºLanguage always tends toward closer union. "Identity of language
and custom and tradition tends always to create identity of race."
Giddings, Principles of Sociology, p. 254.
26 So far it has not been possible to assign a definite place to the Japa-
nese language in any family of languages. It is usually included in the
so-called Altaic group. D. Thompson (The Probable Origin of the
Japanese Language, Japan Evangelist, Vol. X, pp. 336-343) points out
strong resemblances between Japanese and the Semitic languages.
There are not and have not been any dialects in Japan, although here
and there there are marked differences of pronunciation. The lan-
guage early became definite and fixed, and pure Japanese has under-
gone very little change during the ages that have followed.
27 Cf. Fairbanks, Introduction to Sociology, p. III.
25 We are not dealing with a people of the antiquity of China or even
of Korea, for the first society of Japan of which we have any real
knowledge does not much antedate the beginning of the Christian era.
Of course it is to be kept in mind throughout that we are discussing
Japanese society, without reference to the customs or institutions of
the tribes or races who united and became the Japanese people. The
8
chronous with military conquest and victory and whose very
existence depended upon its ability to maintain itself by mili-
tary force, was very unstable. The personal bond between
many of its members must have been very loose indeed. There
was as yet no family and relations between the sexes were ir-
regular and transient. There were no wedding ceremonies and
for centuries cohabitation alone constituted matrimony. Mar-
riage was subjected to few restrictions.29 Mistress, wife and
concubine were almost synonymous terms. A husband incur-
red no obligations toward the wife and he might form as many
different unions as fancy prompted. A married couple lived
apart, the husband simply paying periodical visits to the home
of the wife. As the children were brought up by the mother,
who also gave them their names, it was possible for one house-
hold of a man to remain in entire ignorance of another's exis-
tence.30 Strange unions were sometimes formed. Only
children of the same mother might not intermarry. To be
sons of the same father carried no obligation of friendship or
sympathy. In the course of time there came about an ar-
rangement by which one wife was singled out of several as the
legitimate wife, but it was not until the Code of 701 that wife
and concubine were distinguished. 31
Women played a very important part in this era of Japanese
history. A number of the rulers were women32 and women
chieftans are often mentioned. But, despite certain prac-
importance of such factors is by no means overlooked, but it is not
likely that much light will ever be thrown upon them.
29History of Empire of Japan, p. 65.
Brinkley, Vol. I, pp. 61 seq.
31 On this point cf. Chamberlain's Introduction to the Kojiki, p. 40,
and Asakawa, Early Institutional Life, pp. 51-55.
Concubinage still exists and is indirectly sanctioned by the new Civil
Code, Arts. 827 and 728. Cf. Clement, Handbook of Modern Japan,
pp. 181 seq.
32
Since the close of the eighteenth century no empress has sat upon
the throne. The Constitution provides in Article 2 that the "Imperial
Throne shall be succeeded to by Imperial male descendants".
9
33
tices characteristic of matriarchal society, we are not justi-
fied in saying that the Japanese passed through matriarchal to
patriarchal society. It is true that at first patria potestas was
lax and society was only quasi-patriarchal in form; but the
control of his family, or families, was always³± in the hands
of the husband.
As might be inferred from what has been said, the Japanese
appeared upon the stage as a people already civilized. They
were not only acquainted with primitive agricultural methods
but immediately became an agricultural nation. Rice was
cultivated in prehistoric times,85 and even in the legendary
history, when Susanoo quarreled with his elder sister, the
Sun-Goddess, he laid waste several of her rice fields. Al-
though depending somewhat upon hunting and fishing for
subsistence, as has been the case throughout their whole his-
33 E. g., Separate residence and the rearing of children by the mother.
v. supra.
Probably it is their zeal in defence of a particular theory of the
development of society which has led some sociologists to say that sep-
arate residence is the most important relic of the transitional state
from the maternal to the paternal family. Asakawa, Early Institutional
Life, is confronted with this difficulty in the case of Japan when he
states (p. 57) that "the husband and his wives all lived apart from one
another" and explains by saying (p. 58) that "matriarchy had left its
traces here later than is usual in a patriarchal community". "The
social life of Japan in A.D. 500 was patriarchal from top to bottom,
from state to family, but at the same time fiction had made inroads
into it far and deep." p. 60.
Even to-day it is provided by law that a man may enter the family
of his wife, taking her name and keeping up the succession of her
family.
34In the story of creation the creator required the creatress to make
amends for having spoken first.
35 Nihongi, pp. 48, 49, 86.
"The discovery of the cereals suitable for food was hardly less im-
portant than the discovery of animals which could be domesticated;
and it marked an immense advance beyond the latter discovery, because
it encouraged a settled life, and removed man still farther from sub-
jection to the vicissitudes of nature.... Cereal food is really the basis
of civilization." Fairbanks, Sociology, pp. 79, 80.
IO
tory, there is no reason to think that they passed through a
hunting stage. Nor were they ever a pastoral people; domes-
ticated animals do not figure in their early life; cattle were
introduced late in the history, and sheep, goats and swine have
always been almost altogether unknown. The case of the
Japanese confirms the view of Büchers that we must shake off
the idea that "every people shall have been hunters or nomads
before passing over to settled agriculture".
37
While they were essentially an agricultural people certain in-
dustrial arts had already been highly developed. They knew
how to work in metals, to make pottery, and to build ships and
bridges. The origin of the art of brewing intoxicating drinks.
dates back to time immemorial. Before real history began
there were hereditary corporations, essentially branches of the
government, of shield and sword makers, jewellers, clay-work-
ers, and other artisans. Indeed so much importance was at-
tached to industrial occupations and so many handicrafts are
enumerated that "history seems to indicate that the early
settlers, the progenitors of the Japanese proper, were an in-
dustrial people rather than an agricultural".38
Although the family had not yet taken on fixed form, there
was more or less division of labor among the men and wo-
men.39
While both took part in the work of tilling the ground
the men brought in flesh and fish for food and the women
prepared the food and made clothes of woven material.*
The several garments worn by the "deities", probably tribal
ancestors, are mentioned in the earliest records. The ancient
Japanese were well clothed. Wearing apparel was made of
hempen cloth, and of fibre made of the inner bark of the paper
36Industrial Evolution, p. 152.
ST
Nihongi, pp. 52, 56.
ss Brinkley, Vol. VII, p. 69.
39 "The stability of the family increases as the division of labor
between the sexes becomes perfect." Giddings, Principles of Sociology,
P. 266.
40 "The people were prosperous; and tribute, or tax, on the produce
of the chase was levied upon the males and on domestic handiwork
upon the females.” Kojiki. Sec. LXVII, p. 182.
II

42
41
43
mulberry. As substitute for articles unprocurable in certain
districts for offering at the shrines, cloth was used and thus
was in a sense the currency of the day. Each official rank
had its distinct costume. Straw rain coats and broad-brimmed
hats to protect against the inclemencies of the weather were in
use amongst the peasants. They were more fond of orna-
ments than their descendants of later generations, for jewels
and precious stones are found in their graves. Habits of
personal cleanliness existed in germ in the earliest. times.
Mention is made of the bathing women of one of the emperors
while he was an infant. Frequent reference is made to the
people bathing in rivers** and of putting on fresh garments.
They did not live in towns or villages but in small groups,
and many isolated dwellings. That there were separate build-
ing for special purposes and that houses were abandoned
after a person had died in them is evidence that their houses.
were the rudest kinds of structures. Stone was never used
and what was put together of wood was of extreme simplicity.
As late as the middle of the fifth century the upper classes
were content to live in log huts tied together with wild-vine
ligatures. Even the palace of the sovereign was a wooden
hut, the whole frame-work of which was tied together with
cords.+7 It is important for us to note here that the architec-
ture of these earliest buildings, of which good descriptions
41
46
Aston, Shinto, p. 213.
45
42 Chamberlain's Introduction to the Kojiki, pp. 30, 31.
3D. Murray, The Story of Japan, p. 88.
#From the myth which represents the creator as washing in the sea
the inference that the Japanese have always been cleanly in body is
perhaps justified. Bodily cleanliness is ceremonial and religious rather
than physical.
"The virtue of cleanliness received practical acknowledgement among
even the lowest classes." Brinkley, Vol. I, p. 65.
45 "Nuptial huts", Shinto, p. 90 and "parturition huts", ibid. p. 113.
There were also "mourning huts", especially constructed, in which dead
bodies were kept for ten days.
46
* Brinkley, Vol. I, p. 84.
Satow, T. A. S. J., Vol. IX, Pt. 11, pp. 191, 192.
12
have come down to us, was Japanese in every way. "The
Japanese house is as thoroughly a product of Japan as is that
of the Chinese, the Korean, the Malay a product of those re-
spective peoples, and differs from all quite as much as they
differ from one another. A few features have been introduced
from abroad, but these have been trifling."48
A hu-
Order was in direct relation to the strength of the ruler.
Property rights were ill-defined. Morals were low and the
record made at the time of "a general purification of the land"
reveals a shocking state of affairs.49 The most cruel punish-
ments were dealt out to enemies and wrong doers.50
mane emperor made an attempt to put an end to the practice of
burying alive servants with their dead masters¹ by ordering
that clay images52 be substituted, but the practice was not for
a long time done away with, for as late as the year A. D. 646
(which was in the historical period) the reigning emperor
found it necessary to issue regulations concerning useless
slaughter of this very kind.53
The first century or two of real history seems to have been
a period of gradual retrogression rather than of advance.
"The fifth century may justly be called the blackest era in the
history of Japanese imperialism and of course the moral con-
dition of the inferior classes was not better than that of the
Court."54
The nation offered a striking example of well-
developed civilization side by side with most rudimentary mor-
ality.5
49
55
Morse, Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings, p. 334.
* About A. D. 200. V. Kojiki, Sec. XCVII.
50 Chamberlain's Introduction to the Kojiki, p. 40.
52
Satow, T. A. S. J., Vol. VIII, pp. 328-332.
Such clay images are being found to-day here and there on the
opening of ancient burial mounds.
53 "Let there be complete cessation of all such ancient practices as
strangling one's self to follow the dead, or of strangling others to make
them follow the dead, or of killing the dead man's horse." Nihongi,
bk. 25.
Brinkley, Vol. I, pp. 85, 86.
Ibid. p. 88.
13
THE GREAT REFORM-SEVENTH CENTURY.
During the prehistoric ages down until the fifth century,
when real history began, the process of the amalgamation of the
originally heterogeneous elements had been going on and the
product was a distinct type, worthy of being called Japanese,
which showed marked improvement, both physically and men-
tally, over the original types.
Society, which had been military from the beginning, was
governed by the emperor, the military head of the nation, and
his advisers, the generals or chiefs under him.56 The divine
descent of the emperor and his own divinity were the cardinal
articles of religion and principles of government. He was at
once king and high priest.5 Under him there was not the
usual division into the two classes of priests and warriors, but
gradually the nobles were differentiated as civil and military
officials, the court nobility and the nobility of the sword. The
peasants and other non-military members of society were des-
pised, and looked up in subservience to their rulers. It is
likely that it was the progenitors of the Japanese proper who
formed the ruling and industrial classes, while the agricultur-
alists were the subjugated aborigines and the social outcasts of
the Japanese.58 Even the artisans, whose value to society was
The ancient Mikado had gone to war in person. "He managed civil
and military affairs personally." Kawakami, Political Ideas, p. 35.
Brinkley (Vol. I, p. 173) calls the period prior to A. D. 645 the patri-
archal age "when the sovereign was only the head of a group of tribal
chiefs, each possessing a hereditary share of the governing power”.
57 He was "at the same time high priest and king. There was no
well-marked distinction between secular and religious ceremonies. The
functionaries who performed the latter had no specially sacerdotal
character and no distinctive costume." Aston, Shinto, p. 200. "There
was no priest.... The prieshood in Shinto has never been completely
differentiated. The priest is essentially a layman with certain added
functions for religious occasions. There is no trace in our sources of
the head of the family as priest,—a very significant omission." G. W.
Knox, The Development of Religion in Japan, p. 27.
It is fair to assume that many of the aborigines remained attached
to the soil which their fathers had cultivated and it is also likely that
some of the inferior individuals among the invaders had been made to
14
recognized, received little public consideration. They gener-
ally formed part of a noble's household, and occupied a posi-
tion not greatly better than that of vassals in whom their pa-
trons enjoyed a right of property. It was not until shortly be-
fore the period now under consideration that they were re-
leased from this state of bondage and granted the status of or-
dinary subjects.59
The theory had been early developed that the throne be-
longed to the one reigning family and that everything was
ultimately under its ownership.60 The right to hold office had
descended generation by generation in the same family. Great
importance naturally attached to questions of genealogy and
rank. In the fifth century, intermixture and confusion of
families was becoming a source of trouble, and accordingly
the reigning Emperor gave command that all who laid claim
to noble birth should submit to the ordeal of dipping their
hands into pots of boiling water. Those whose hands were
injured were pronounced deceivers while those who stood the
trial unhurt were recognized as of noble lineage. From this
time dates a marked distinction between the upper and lower
classes.
The common people, the agricultural and industrial classes,
were not slaves or even serfs, according to any acknowledged
rendering of those terms, but beneath them were the "despised
people" who were practically slaves. A man might be reduced
to this condition for any one of six causes; even those of
good birth were sometimes thus degraded. About five per
cent. of the total population belonged to this class. Although
they were almost without exception well treated, some of
them differing little from ordinary subjects, they were some-
do service. It is interesting to note here that it was not until the
modern era that it was possible for these plebians to rise to patrician
rank. Below them were the "despised people" mentioned infra.
59
61
61
Brinkley, Vol. VII, pp. 69, seq. passim.
Asakawa, pp. 126, 127.
Probably two millions by this time. In the middle of the eighth
century it was 3,694,331.
15
times sold, their value being62 fifty or sixty dollars each, ex-
pressed in the currency of our day.
The country had early been divided among noble families
which by the beginning of the seventh century had become
large groups or communities occupying large tracts of land,6³
and paying tribute, often irregularly, to the emperor. There
was thus already in existence a rudimentary form of feudalism,
the natural outcome of which was that the power of the
central government was weakened.
62
63
The heads of several of these great families,64 who had be-
"Eight hundred sheaves", or about forty bushels of rice.
"Looking as far back as history throws its light, it is seen that the
Crown's right of eminent domain was an established doctrine, but
that, during the era of patriarchal government, large tracts of land
came into the possession of the great governing families, and remained
their property until the fall and virtual extermination of the last of
these families in the early part of the seventh century." Brinkley,
Vol. I. pp. 115 seq.
The subject of clans, tribes, etc., in Japan is a most tempting one,
but as full treatment of it would carry us beyond the limits of this
essay, a conscious effort is made to avoid such words in the text.
The meaning of the words would be different in the several periods of
Japanese history. These terms have at least five different connota-
tions according as they are employed to describe groups in different
periods of Japanese social organization: (1) There were tribes or
races in Japan which were fused together and became the first Japan-
ese, but of their organization nothing is and probably nothing ever will
be known. Moreover, as has been stated, they antedated Japanese so-
ciety and so do not fall within the scope of our discussion. (2) The
original population was divided into three classes, the divine branch,
which consisted of the descendants of the gods; the imperial branch
which included the descendants of the imperial families; and the for-
eign branch, comprising descendants of naturalized foreigners. Each
of these three branches was divided again into many sections, each
of which had a distinctive name, "Uji", or "Kabane”. Japanese
scholars who have studied in the West have translated “Uji”
and "Kabane" by clan, for they assert that both these terms
have the idea of a common ancestor, and therefore community of
blood. The aggregation of families did not form a clan, but when
the clan disintegrated families or houses began to form units of so-
ciety. (3) The great families which held the administrative power
16
come the depositories of administrative power by monopoli-
zing the principal offices of state as hereditary rights, had
grown more and more arrogant and now despised the laws and
even defied the authority of the sovereign. In their breasts
was the desire for greater power, and they were deterred only
by the fact that none felt strong enough to wrest the imperial
power and maintain himself against those who would have be-
come his opponents. The stability of the throne being threat-
ened it was all too evident that it was urgently necessary to
crush the power of these noble families.
The times were ripe for change and indeed a change was
absolutely necessary. Culture and morality were on different
planes. Superstition had invaded every domain of life. There
Great
no religion and no morality worth the name.
families had become so powerful that the state was threatened
with disruption.
was
The social upheaval which followed is known as the "Taikwa
Reformation". What brought about the change was con-
tact with the civilizations of Korea and China.65 It is hoped
of the government in the few centuries of the historic period just
preceding the "Great Reform" are often referred to as tribes, and the
"quasi-tribal" organization of society is a term in constant use. The
same plan is followed, but with less uniformity, in speaking of the
great families which later became prominent and practically took into
their hands the reins of the government, and held them until the
twelfth century. (4) The hereditary corporations, "Be", are often
spoken of as clans, but there was no tie of blood relationship
between the various corporations or between the members comprising
the same corporation. They were rather guilds, except that the same
duty or occupation descended from father to son. (5) The groups
under the fuedal lords, even down until 1868, are often designated
clans in the absence of a better term. Ancestor-worship, practically
universal among the people from prehistoric times until to-day, fur-
ther complicates the problem. The whole subject is worthy of the
careful study of trained sociologists. The Japanese who have greatest
interest in it, almost without exception, are those who have studied in
the West, and much of what they have written has been printed in
English or other European languages.
Much is made of the relation of a people to their physical environ-
ment and certainly the climate and soil of Japan, the numerous vol-
17
that enough has been said to show that before the influence
of the continent was felt there was already in Japan a distinct
Japanese civilization, rudimentary though it may have been,
whose institutions had been evolved on Japanese soil with-
out the aid of and apart from the interference of other nations.
Korea and China were known to the Japanese not only
through the immigrants who came from those countries,
usually never to return to their native homes, but the annals of
all three lands tell of intercourse between them. The Japanese
claim of having subjugated Korea early in the Christian era
must not be taken seriously.66 Presents were sometimes ex-
changed between the rulers but the Japanese are not justi-
fied in construing this as the sending of tribute to their sover-
eign by a subject people. The Chinese history, which in this
matter can certainly be relied upon, makes definite record of
three visits of Japanese envoys to the Chinese court during
the opening of the Christian era. China had not only reached
a position of national greatness but had also attained a high
degree of civilization and culture. The splendor of that civili-
zation was dazzling to the eyes of the less-advanced Japanese.
A Korean named Wani, who came to Japan early in the fifth
century and was afterward naturalized, was appointed tutor
in Chinese to a Japanese crown prince. "He was the first of
a succession of teachers from that country whose instructions
paved the way for a revolution in Japanese institutions and
manners.' In the same century the policy of specially im-
canoes and frequent earthquakes, have exerted a great influence in the
development of the people and their national character. Of even
greater importance was their practical isolation, due to the fact that
theirs was an island home.
1967
66 This armed invasion of Korea under an empress constitutes one
of the most celebrated and at the same time one of the most disputed
incidents of Japan's history. "The Japanese never set foot at all in
that part of Korea subject to immediate Chinese influence, except for a
few months during Hideyoshi's invasion, towards the end of the six-
teenth century. The Japanese never ruled directly any part of Korea.”
E. H. Parker, Race Struggles in Korea, T. A. S. J., Vol. XVIII, p. 158.
Aston, Nihongi, Vol. I, p. xii.
67
18
porting skilled aid direct from China was inaugurated, and
large bodies of female weavers and embroiderers were invited
to settle in Japan. Marked progress in many of the essentials
of civilization was made after this great wave of Chinese
and Korean immigration.68
Of greater importance than the appearance of the externals
of material civilization was the advent of Buddhism in the
year 552. Confucianism had made its appearance earlier, but
had shown itself utterly powerless to raise the moral standards
or change the lives of the people.69 The progress of Buddhism
was most rapid. Members of the court became believers, and
within a century the whole land was converted to the alien
faith.
The native religion, or cult, almost entirely disappeared.
Original Shinto was primarily the worship of nature. Sub-
sequently, to give stability to the imperial power, worship of
the imperial family was added, and in time reverence for the
emperor, descended from the gods and himself a god, became
its fundamental idea.70 The political changes which took
place in this period, strengthening the hold of the imperial
line upon the throne, were of the utmost importance to Shinto.
It escaped extinction," but henceforth it was a religion whose
68 The Japanese, always ready to learn from others, have, from a
period which may be called prehistoric, at various times invited Korean
artists to settle in this country, and several schools of pottery are said
to have been founded by these immigrants." E. Satow, The Korean
Potters in Satsuma, T. A. S. J., Vol. VI, Pt. II, p. 193.
69 It has in fact been blamed for the decline of morality in the fifth
century already referred to. As Shinto was not a religion in the strict
sense, this was an opportunity to demonstrate its power in a land where
there was no religion, but this time it proved a complete failure.
70
About this central idea Shinto developed a system of ancestor-
worship which has continued to this day. The emperor as the de-
cendant of the imperial ancestors, embodying in himself all their virtues
and all their rights and duties, is the central figure of the whole system
of ancestor-worship. "The worship of the Imperial Ancestors is the
national worship." Nobushige Hozumi, Ancestor-Worship and Japan-
ese Law, p. 21.
71"This political motive, the theoretical establishment of the Imperial
19
core was essentially political.72
Occasional pestilence and famine had swept away large
numbers of people, but enjoying peace and prosperity the popu-
lation had steadily increased. This increase of population,
with greater division of labor, and territorial expansion made
necessary a more complicated governing organization. In
645 the power of the last of the great families which had
threatened the throne was annihilated. Those who had held
administrative power as hereditary rights, and in practical
independence of the sovereign, were compelled to restore
it.73 The sovereign became the real emperor and was no
longer separated from the people by nobles who usurped his
authority. The emperors before this time had usually been
in sympathetic touch with the people, but now they felt more
than ever that it was necessary to have popular support."
The constitution promulgated in 645 embodied the principles
of constitutional monarchy. The government was reorgan-
ized and the administrative system remodelled. "Eight De-
partments of State were created, and the organization of the
government was brought to a fairly perfect state."75
74
The ideas as to the organization of the state had been im-
ported almost bodily from China, but Japan had developèd
regime, saved Shinto from extinction. Otherwise it would have dis-
appeared in Buddhism." Knox, Development of Religion, p. 64.
72 "Its noblest mission could not rise higher than its enunciation of the
theory of the Imperial succession." Asakawa, Early Institutional Life,
P. 128.
73 "People were declared the direct subjects of the monarch, and all
lands were restored to the central government." Kawakami, Political
Ideas, p. 39.
4"A Rescript of the Emperor Kotoku (A. D. 645-654) says:-'He
that is the Sovereign of a country and that rules its people, would
do well not to govern by himself alone: he should avail himself of
the assistance of his functionaries'." Prince Hirobumi Ito, Commen-
taries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, p. 85.
75 Op. cit., pp. 21-22. This strongly centralized government, with the
accompanying bureaucracy, which was developed and given shape be-
tween 645 and 701, is with some modifications the official organization of
the Japanese Empire to-day. V.op. cit., p. 22.
20
her own doctrine regarding the imperial authority.76 This
political revolution has been broadly described as the result
of the introduction of Chinese civilization through the medium
of Buddhist priests. What the Koreans brought was Chinese,
Korea owing to her geographical position being only the
intermediary. While the Japanese accepted Buddhism and
made it the national religion," they adapted it so that it be-
came a religion almost essentially different from that brought
by the priests from the mainland. The political changes, too,
were due to the contact with the continent; but the ideas were
assimilated and applied to Japan. Thus while Japan appro-
priated much in religion and politics, everything was made
to conform to Japanese ideals.
DEVELOPMENT AND ASSIMILATION.
The Taikwa Reformation was accomplished in the year 645,
but the way had been prepared for it forty years before. The
principles of the Reform reached their consummation in 701,
when the Taiho Code was promulgated.78
Officials were divided into ranks, each of which had its
distinctive costume. Strict rules of etiquette were observed
at court. Regulations were made for the taking of the census
at certain intervals, measures relating to taxation were adopted,
and rules for the organization of the army were instituted.
All land was now in possession of the state and registered
as public property, but much of it was distributed among the
people for limited periods of years.79 For purposes of con-
76 "The principles of the Reform were partly Chinese and partly Jap-
anese; Chinese as to the organization of the State, and Japanese as far
as the theory of sovereignty was concerned." Asakawa, Early Institu-
tional Life, pp. 323, 327.
Not however as a union of church, or religion, and state. In
so far as such union may be said ever to have obtained in Japan this
honor has always been reserved for Shinto.
7 This was a comprehensive Code, which first reduced to written
terms the entire body of law including specifically a criminal code with
provisions for appeal.
79 Private sales of land were interdicted. Lands loaned by the State
21
venience the empire was divided into fifty-eight provinces
with over five hundred sub-divisions, in each of which there
was a certain amount of local self-government.
Although, because of political differences, amicable rela-
tions with Korea had ceased and the number of Korean im-
migrants had become less, there was no decrease in the
number of Chinese. The latter were welcomed and often
given official positions. Nor can this political preferment
be wondered at, for there were not qualified Japanese to as-
sume charge of all the bureaux of the reorganized govern-
ment. Nearly all who came to remain were naturalized and
mingled their blood with that of the composite Japanese
race.
The two cultures, previously different from each other.
both in degree and in kind, were fused into one which was
not a copy of the Chinese nor was it any longer purely Japan-
ese. Japan had turned to China at a time when she felt the
need of political ideas and a higher civilization. The Middle
Kingdom proved to the Island Empire all that Greece and
Rome were to the nations of Europe. Japan had drunk
deep at the fountain of Chinese civilization and the Budd-
hist religion and there was a distinct change in the national
character. Now she felt that it was necessary for her to ex-
amine her new-found possessions, and, while adopting and
assimilating them, to make them truly her own. Relations
with Korea had already ceased before the close of the last
were to be returned every six years for the purpose of redistribution.
History Empire of Japan, pp. 72-73, passim.
80
80 "There is no department of Japanese national life and thought
whether material civilization, religion, morals, political organization,
language, or literature, which does not bear traces of Chinese influence
We must not, however, forget the native genius of the Japanese
nation, which, in spite of numerous external obligations, has yet retained
its originality. The Japanese are never contented with simple borrow-
ing. In art, political institutions, and even religion, they are in the habit
of modifying extensively everything which they adopt from others, and
impressing on it the stamp of the national mind." Aston, Japanese´
Literature, PP. 3, 4.
22
period. In the eighth century the Chinese were in the ascen-
dancy, but before the ninth century ended there was a cessa-
tion of intimate relationship with the Chinese Empire. Dur-
ing the succeeding four hundred years communication be-
tween Japan, China and Korea was rare and couched in for-
mal terms.81 Japan was secluded from the outside world.
These were centuries of peace and prosperity. In this per-
iod of seclusion Japan reached what from some points of view
has been called her "golden age".
In a land where the sovereigns were held in such high re-
spect that they were worshipped, their acceptance of a for-
eign religion at a time when they were in closest touch with
and had greatest hold upon the masses must have had a great
moial effect upon the common people. In Japan innovations
have usually moved from above downwards, and the case of
the Buddhist religion was not only not an exception but was
one of the most conspicuous examples of this tendency.
Japanese historians say that nothing could exceed the devo-
tion of the imperial house to the Buddhist religion. At the
capital a magnificent temple was built, and a little later an
enormous bronze image of Buddhas2 was cast and overlaid
with gold. After those at court had become adherents of the
new faith, the sovereign commanded every house to have a
Buddhist altar, and images to be made for governors of
provinces, temples to be built for priests and nuns, and for-
bade the slaying of animals and the eating of flesh.88 Mem-
bers of all classes of society acquiesced. Ignorant folks, see-
ing the gorgeous paraphernalia of the temples and the solem-
nity of the rites performed there, were awed into faith. But
here and there were those who were loath to renounce alle-
giance to the native gods. The national pride of some was
$2
Asakawa, Early Institutional Life, p. 333.
82 This Daibutsu, or Gigantic Image of Buddha, at Nara was cast in A.
D. 749.
It is in sitting posture, with the legs crossed, and is the
largest in Japan, the height of the image being fifty-three feet.
Newton, Japan: Country, Court, and People, pp. 64 seq.,
23
hurt. To them the national acceptance of the Indian religion
which had come by the way of China meant the supplanting of
the native faith by a foreign creed. Their hesitancy caused a
cunning priest to give careful thought to the matter, and he
made the fortunate discovery that the Sun Goddess, the an-
cestor of the first emperor, was herself an incarnation of
Buddha, and all the gods in the Shinto pantheon manifesta-
tions of Buddha.8* This pleased the people, and now nothing
stood in the way of Buddhism's progress.
85
As the Buddhist doctrines could not be comprehended with-
out a mastery of Chinese, this was studied diligently and it
became the language of scholarship. Buddhist priests, who
were the leaders in spreading learning and the arts, were of
course the teachers. But the Chinese classics consisted of the
teachings of Confucius,86 and thus these became known to
"Buddhism has ever shown an adaptability to the circumstances in
which it has found itself, and therefore in the study of any particular
phase of Buddhism we shall be studying the characteristic idiosyncracies
of the nation which professes it." J. Summers, Buddhism, and
Traditions concerning its Introduction into Japan, T. A. S. J., Vol. XIV,
P. 77.
"In the ninth century the Shinto gods were declared to be incarnations
of Buddha, and a composite religion, Ryobu Shinto, was formed. But
while the name was Shinto its substance was Buddhism." Knox, Re-
ligion in Japan, p. 67, n. 2.
85 The power of Buddhism was never so strong again in Japan as in
this period. "Never did any alien faith find warmer welcome in a for-
eign country." Brinkley, Vol. I, p. 97.
86 Confucianism had not at first made a good impression. "When
Confucianism was first introduced into Japan, the simple-minded na-
tives, deceived by its plausible appearance, accepted it with eagerness,
and allowed it to spread its influence everywhere. The consequence
was civil war." The native scholar, Mabuchi, quoted by Satow, T. A. S.
J., Vol. III, App. 11, p. 13. But, as Satow hints, the strictures of
Mabuchi are probably too severe.
"Japan gradually declined under the moral drought that at first fol-
lowed the introduction of Confucianism, and sank rapidly for centuries.
It was not until her true national impulses, making their way again
through a powerful organism, which had been severely shaken, but not
destroyed, led her to change her course and engraft upon her own stock
I
24
scholars. Buddhism had absorbed into itself much of the
philosophy of the great sage of China, but the immediate study
of his principles later gave to Japan the basis of her morals
and ethical system.87
Chinese civilization and culture swept everything before
them. The conversion of the land to Buddhism and the
changes in the administrative departments of the government
were only the first, although the most important, of the
changes brought about. The very appearance of the country
was altered, for in addition to the native Shinto shrines Budd-
hist temples now sprang up everywhere. Fine residences and
spacious mansions were built according to the models of
Chinese architecture, and landscape gardeners added beauty
to the surroundings.ss Skilful weavers turned out silk cloth
and brocade of excellent quality, and seamstresses and em-
broiderers produced silk garments of wondrous beauty. The
very best robes were still imported from China. In all there
were two hundred and sixteen varieties of dress. The Chi-
nese fashion of adorning the person with jewels, however,
failed to take deep hold and did not long survive.89
Koreans had been the first teachers of Japanese sculptors
and painters, but they had cultivated only the taste of their
pupils for appreciation of the higher art of China.90 The
the principles of foreign origin,-from which combination sprang the
civilization peculiar to herself,-that she at last found the prosperity
and happiness she had in vain looked for in the mere copy of the
Chinese government and ethics." "A native moralist", quoted by Le
Gendre, Progressive Japan, pp. 2, 3.
$7
ST It was really the good points in the Confucian system, taught by
the Buddhist priests, which first gave a high moral tone to the Japan-
ese national life. Confucianism grew in favor and in the next period
was a more potent factor in moulding the national character than was
Buddhism.
An edict required that all roofs must be tiled. Few things in Japan
to-day are the cause of as much aesthetic enjoyment as the work of the
landscape gardener's art.
89
Chinese customs were adopted almost in toto, but many were re-
jected after trial.
Chinese painters devoted themselves to religious subjects. "Japanese
25
artists who came over from the peninsula to teach the art of
pottery also found apt pupils. The art of lacquer manufac-
ture was introduced from China, probably in the train of
Buddhism. The teaching of foreign music was encouraged.
Medicine too was introduced by Chinese physicians. Sword
makers were held in high honor and they forged excellent
blades of steel. The Japanese had learned how to manufac-
ture paper and ink. Printing was done with wooden blocks,
and several specimens of printing done in the year 770 are
still extant.91 The several classes of artisans were distributed
throughout the land so as to extend the range of the several
arts and industries.
The art of writing, introduced from China through Korea,
was slavishly copied. A native priest92 invented a syllabary
for the fifty sounds, but all else was Chinese. Literature
flourished and a person who could not compose poems was be-
neath notice. This was the golden age of belles-lettres.93
pictorial art is permeated with Chinese affinities. The one is indeed the
child of the other, and traces of this close relationship are nearly always
present in greater or less degree..... It may, indeed, be fairly claimed
for the Japanese that in some branches of painting their modifications de-
serve to be regarded as efforts of original genius, and that, speaking
generally, their work is superior to that of the Chinese in tenderness,
and, above all, in humor. But, for the rest, they sit at China's feet.
Korea should also be included among their masters, for there is evidence
that Korean influence preceded Chinese." Brinkley, Vol. VII, p. 16.
Satow, History of Printing in Japan, T. A. S. J., Vol X, p. 49.
Satow possesses a copy of a treatise printed in 1248. Ibid. p. 52.
91
92 Kobo Daishi, the most famous priest in Japanese history.
93 "This was the brilliant age of Japanese classical literature, which
lived and moved and had its being in the atmosphere of an effeminate
court." Chamberlain, Things Japanese, p. 213.
Those who believe that in early society the poetical temperament
finds its highest perfection will find little support for their views in the
case of Japan. The earliest literature, the "Records" and "Chronicles",
has preserved for us about two hundred songs or poems, but their merit
as literature is small. Japanese poetry was a later development and was
less influenced by China than prose has been. Cf. Aston, Japanese Liter-
ature, pp. 7-9, passim.
1
26
94
Brinkley says that in this period Japan passed "from a com-
paratively rude condition to a state of civilization as high as
that attained by any country in the world, from the fall of
the Roman Empire to the rise of modern Occidental nations”.
But, as he would probably admit, high as the civilization was,
it could not be said to secure in a high degree the material wel-
fare of the masses. If the contentment of the people be the
standard, it may rightly be said that Japan had reached a high
plane of civilization, for the people, joyous and light-hearted,
and willing to work, were contented and easy to rule.
While luxury had crept into the life of the court and of
those who formed the upper classes of society, the mass of
the people were overburdened with onerous taxation and their
lot was hard indeed. One of the taxes exacted from every
male over twenty-one years of age was the performance of
ten days public work each year, but, as such service could be
commuted for one piece of cloth, this corvée fell ultimately
only on the lower classes. The implements used in agriculture
were most primitive. All labor was done by hand and there
was almost no live-stock on the farms.95
It is little more than a guess to say that trade by barter was
probably carried on here and there, for there is no one point
on which the records, by this time full and complete on other
subjects, are as silent as this. Just at the close of the fifth
century some foreign coins had been brought in by immi-
grants, but they did not get into general circulation. Gold
and silver were not valuable in the eyes of the Japanese and
they made no use of them before this.96 Even copper coins
⁹ Vol. I, p. 98.
95 As to agricultural methods, England was not in 1700-1760 far in
advance of the Japan of eight centuries earlier. Cf. A. Toynbee, The
Industrial Revolution, pp. 43-44.
96 Indeed they never used the precious metals to any extent as coins,
but rather to make idols, bells and works of art. "Although gold and
silver were known in China from the earliest times, the first Japanese
gold was found and melted in A. D. 749, and the first Japanese silver
in the year 674. It is a remarkable fact that the discovery of these
27
}
like the cash in use in China were not cast in Japan until the
eighth century, and after they were struck the people did not
know how to use them as media of exchange, and much effort
was necessary to get them to use the coins.97 Surely we are
justified in inferring that exchange by any name did not play
any considerable or important part in the national life. Each
family aimed to be economically independent. The nobles
and great families had laboring for them groups of artisans
who formed classes resembling guilds. But what they pro-
duced was not for sale, or even primarily for exchange.
Trade with other nations was hardly dreamed of.98 Occa-
sional presents from Korea and China served to keep the Jap-
anese informed as to the progress of industrial arts in those
lands, and each new article was eagerly copied, but usually so
modified that it became something new and distinctively Jap-
anese.
In theory the centralized bureaucracy was an ideal govern-
ment for Japan, but in reality the Japanese were not prepared
for it. The governors of the provinces were sent out from
the central government and were amenable to it. The heads
of Departments were responsible to the throne. Every citi-
metals, which were known to the Egyptians, the Chinese and old
Greeks, and of which Moses and Homer already speak very distinctly,
was not made in Japan at an earlier period." J. A. Geerts, Useful
Minerals and Metallurgy of the Japanese, T. A. S. J., Vol. III, p. 3.
"In order that the people might be more readily inclined to re-
ceive coined money, an edict was issued, granting titles to those who
stored more than a certain amount. The emperor seemed to think
that if the people once had it in their possession there would be no
further question of its circulation." Y. Kinoshita, Past and Present of
Japanese Commerce, p. 39.
.
98 "Foreign commerce was considered a government monopoly, if not
in fact a government function . . . . Individuals were not permitted to
trade directly with foreign merchants, and foreign commerce assumed
the character of official business. Inasmuch as there were no free tran-
sactions between foreigners and the people, all imports were brought
in by the foreigners. The imports were mainly silk textiles, brocades,
embroidered goods, and coin. In regard to exports, Japanese history
is silent." Op. cit., p. 36.
28
"
?
zen was the direct subject of the sovereign, who at the time
might rightly have been called the "father of the people".
But lives of luxury were not calculated to produce strong
rulers. One of the ministers, faithful in office, was favored
by the reigning emperor; and the Fujiwara family, of which
this minister was the head, soon became stronger than any of
the families had been before the Great Reform. All the civil
offices fell into its hands, and all the wives and favorites of
the emperors were taken from among its members. Several
emperors while mere children were compelled to abdicate in
favor of successors who were themselves mere children, and
after abdicating to become Buddhist monks and retire to mon-
asteries. Thus for over four centuries the Fujiwara were the
real regents of the country. Bureaucracy was substituted for
imperialism and the throne was subordinated to the nobility.99
All over the land office bearing again became hereditary and
responsibility to the central government was almost forgotten.
As the Fujiwara gradually became addicted to luxurious habits
their centralized control decayed.100
There was thus a tremendous gulf between the throne and
the people, and a sharp distinction between the upper and lower
classes, the one ruling over the other and in turn supported by
it. After the overthrow of the last of the great houses who
had held the reins of the government before the Great Reform
and the changes in government which accompanied their
99 The interval of forty years at the close of the last period, seventh
century, may be regarded as the only time in all the long history of
Japan prior to modern times when the emperor ruled with undivided
authority.
"The reckless expenditure of the court and of the patrician class
necessitated such heavy rates of taxation that the farmers had to bor-
row money and rice from officials or Buddhist priests, and since they
had nothing to offer by way of security except their lands, it resulted
that the temples and the nobles began to acquire great estates of which
the Government hesitated to resume possession, as prescribed by law,
and the agricultural population gradually fell into a condition of prac-
tical serfdom. So miserable was their plight that many preferred to
embrace the status of slaves, and others turned to highway robbery and
piracy." Brinkley, Vol. I, p. 161.
29
overthrow, there had been left no military class. The bear-
ing of arms had been forbidden. The soldiers lived with the
farmers, from whom they were not distinct. By a permanent
arrangement, instituted during the Reform and already re-
ferred to, certain ones of the "neighboring fives" were to be
prepared to become fighters in case of hostilities against the
aborigines. More or less struggle between these peasant-sol-
diers and the Ainu had developed their military qualities and
they were now the exact opposite of the cultured but effeminate
families living in the capital. Gradually forming two rival
parties these military men struggled for supremacy and then
the stronger wrested the administrative power from the throne
and in 1192 set up a new capital. The leader of this stronger
party did not become emperor, but, receiving the title of Sei-i
Tai Shogun-Barbarian-subduing Generalissimo-from the
sovereign, established a system of military feudalism of which
he was the head. The civil governors of the several provinces
had become autocrats recognizing no authority, but the Shogun
appointed from among his own people military governors who
were responsible to him. Military democracy had triumphed
over imperial aristocracy.101
THE SHOGUNATE AND FEUDALISM.
The shogun, being only the head of the army and obeying
the behests of his master, the emperor, would have been what
the Fujiwara regents had been in theory. But, as has been
shown, the Fujiwara paid little or no attention to the wishes
of the emperors. Their sons held all the high offices of state
and their daughters became the wives or concubines of the
"sons of heaven", who were too exalted personages to rule in
person. But, while the Fujiwara were the real regents, they
lived at the capital and from there ruled the land, until the
power little by little fell from their grasp. When the shogun
established a new capital¹02 the seat of power was transferred
Brinkley, Vol. II, pp. 2-10, passim.
102 Kamakura, which soon became a city of a million or more in-
habitants.
30
}
to it.
Imperial power had faded away, but the divine right
of the emperor was not called into question.103
The period from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century
is by far the most interesting of Japanese history. Among
the great men were many noble characters but their deeds have
little interest for us. One great family after another rose to
power, practically founded a dynasty, became incompetent,
and was overthrown. There were wars and rumors of wars
and for centuries Japan was a military campground. Each
new party fought avowedly to restore the power to the rightful
sovereign but former usurpers were hardly out of the way be-
fore the emperor was forgotten and a new shogun ruling in
his stead. At times the imperial family was without the
means of subsistence and there were occasions when it was
difficult to secure sufficient funds to properly bury emperors.
And yet while all this was taking place the country pros-
pered. Japan's feudal wars were not fought for economic
reasons, though they doubtless had their economic side.
Military prowess was held in higher esteem than great wealth.
Among the common people there was no lack of the necessities
of life, although they were compelled to support the fighting
men and their families, except when by the fortunes of war
they lost their all. From such temporary disasters they were
soon able to recover. 10+
There was always a center of culture,
refinement, and luxury, which usually had ample support.
In the provinces wealth and power fell into the hands of
him who was the strongest. The land belonged to the im-
10s "The over-centralization of the imperial bureaucracy, however,
was the cause of its own decay. Its neglect of provincial administra-
tion led to local disturbances and the creation of baronial estates, over
which the Kioto court exercised no active control. The real authority
thus came into the hands of the strongest baronial power, whose rep-
resentative, vested by the Mikado with the title of Shogun, or com-
mander-in-chief, ruled the country as regent, the Mikado retaining but
a nominal sovereignty over the empire." Kakuzo Okakura, The
Awakening of Japan, pp. 22-23.
104 Convulsions of nature added to the horrows of civil war.
Earthquakes and tidal waves destroyed armies of peaceful inhabitants.
31
perial government, if such existed, but it was regarded as the
legitimate spoil of anyone who could take it. Naturally these
provincial magnates found it necessary, and indeed to their in-
terest, to recognize the authority of anyone who might be
the shogun in power and to furnish whatever help he might
demand. The Buddhist temples held large estates and much
property, for at times great wealth had been showered upon
them. The priests were a power which had to be reckoned
upon,105 and when they could not be conciliated their fierceness
as fighters made them inferior to none. Their possessions
were not at stake, but their interference in politics was
"simply for the worldly ambition of obtaining power”.
There were these three parties:—an effeminate court at the
real capital of the emperor; a military class at the head of
which was the shogun who was nominally the head of the army,
receiving his appointment from the emperor; and the priests,
wealthy, ambitious, defiant. The mass of the people, having
little interest in politics, went about their accustomed duties
almost unaffected by the great questions of the day. Com-
mon interests bound them together into territorial groups more
or less independent of each other. At the time of the Reform
Storms and typhoons laid waste the land. Drought, so severe that
thousands of fir-trees died, brought on famines. The mere mention of
several events in the last twenty years will help us to imagine the
greater disasters of the fifteenth century. The Gifu earthquake in
1891 killed or wounded twenty-two thousand persons and left over a
million homeless. A tidal wave in 1895 killed thirty thousand. A
volcanic eruption in 1888 caused the death of four hundred and sixty-
one. The failure of the rice crop bringing distress to hundreds of
thousands in several provinces only three years ago is still fresh in
many minds.
105 "The power, numbers and wealth, of the Buddhist monasteries had
vastly increased. They threatened to monopolize the land of the
empire; the head of a monastery was equal or superior to one of the
most powerful princes. Not only were the priests themselves living off
these lands, but each of these establishments had a number of re-
tainers and soldiers sufficient to change the tide of success in any en-
gagement." W. Dickson, Japan, pp. 84, 85.
1
32
it had been decreed that civil and military offices should be
distinct and separate, but a new military class had soon sprung
up which finally106 took charge of all civil offices by establish-
ing a military administration, requiring all the military govern-
ors to report to the central government. The office of shogun
was that of an individual appointee, but like all other offices
became hereditary. The same was true of the military govern-
ors, who became feudal lords,-daimyos, with great numbers of
retainers and large holdings of land. The military governor,
or feudal lord, was simply the strongest, most powerful, of the
military class, and the shogun the one able to gain supremacy
over all the rest.107 For this reason, although the office was
hereditary, it did not long remain in the same family. At first
the military party had had nothing to do with the civil offices,
but when they assumed permanent control of the administration
of the government of the purely agricultural population they
instituted a type of feudalism which lasted for seven hundred
years.108
106 That this was inevitable was clear almost a century before it took
place. The reigning emperor, becoming alarmed, tried in vain to
stem the tide by issuing an edict forbidding the fighting men of any
of the provinces from constituting themselves retainers of either of
the two great military families, which soon fell to fighting, the victor
assuming control.
107 Dickson, writing before the Restoration, said, "When the country
is torn by civil war, then he who gets the power may take the title".
10s From one point of view Japan has never had any other than a
feudal form of government. Ancient society, until 645, was feudal,
the military chiefs or local rulers having unlimited authority in their
own districts, although acknowledging some sort of allegiance to the
emperor. For less than a century, at the time of the Great Reform,
when there was a centralized bureaucracy, the emperor was vested with
real authority. Soon the local governors refused to obey the man-
dates of the central government; then followed the organized feudalism
which lasted until 1868, when the system of centralization was revived.
“As in England the political institutions of feudalism may be said
to date from the Norman Conquest, so we may say that in Japan its
rise was late in the twelfth century. As, however, in England, we find
the social elements of feudalism far back in the period previous to
33
Feudalism in Japan was the natural outgrowth of the cir-
cumstances in which the nation had been placed.¹
109 It was not
the result of legislation, nor was its motive the securing of
wealth. The shogun could not become the real emperor, nor
did he aspire to that position. Neither he nor the feudal lords
could own the land outright; for that belonged to the crown.
The majority of the people were engaged in agriculture, the
methods of which had not perceptibly changed from its incep-
tion. The work required to produce a food supply was only
fairly hard, and the conditions under which they labored were
exactly those to which the people seemed adapted. Although
the area of Japan in this era was much smaller than it is to-day,
when it is not equal to that of single states of the American
Union, its population grew to twenty millions by the time the
civil wars ended at the close of the sixteenth century.
The
William the Conqueror, so, too, the germs of feudalism in Japan had
been long existent before." Inazo Nitobe, Bushido, p. 5.
109 A comparison of feudalism in Japan with that of Europe would
be a most interesting study. There are more points of resemblance
than of difference. It is a most striking and significant fact that in
the most widely separated parts of the world two systems so analogous
should have existed in almost the same centuries, the difference as to
time being that Japan's lasted until only a few years ago. For such a
study there is much material at hand.
110 "A great increase of population may be, and generally, is a great
and sure indication of real prosperity." Duke of Argyll, The Unseen
Foundations of Society, p. 484.
The Dutch physician Kaempfer, after several years in the country,
wrote in 1692, "It is scarce credible, what numbers of people daily
travel on the roads in this country, and I can assure the reader from
my own experience, having pass'd it four times, that Tokaido, which
is one of the chief, and indeed the most frequented of the seven great
roads in Japan, is upon some days more crowded, than the publick
streets in any of the most populous town in Europe. This is owing
partly to the Country's being extreamly populous, partly to frequent
journies, which the natives undertake." E. Kaempfer, The History of
Japan, Vol. II, p. 330.
In the census of 1721 some 26,061,830 persons were registered. Be-
tween that year and 1846 the complete census was taken fifteen times,
with the result that the population was shown to be at an absolute stand-
34
effect of feudalism was to check the growth of industry.
Great impetus had been given to industry centuries before by
the Korean and Chinese immigrants,111 but under the feudal
regime each group manufactured only the articles used by itself.
It was a recognized custom that the son should follow the oc-
cupation of his father. Some families thus became exceedingly
skillful in making certain articles and each district became noted
for some one production. Such articles, however, seldom left
the districts where they were made,112 for the spirit of trade
seemed dormant.¹
113
At the time of the Great Reform a system of general educa-
tion had been formed, schools organized in various provinces,
still, for in the latter year the number of people was 26,907,625. Only
one of the censuses made in the intervening years gave less than twenty-
five million and none as many as twenty-seven million inhabitants. See
G. Droppers, The Population of Japan in the Tokugawa Period, T. A.
S. J., Vol. XXII, p. 262. And yet these were years and centuries of pro-
found and unparallelled peace.
"The case of Japan was analagous to that of England at a later date,
when the coming of immigrants from Flanders made possible and
was even the cause of the great and rapid progress of England.
112 Instead of buying goods it was the custom to employ a workman
to make them. "By 1181 the fame of the Kyoto lacquer ware was
such that moneyed persons and those who were fond of handsome
furniture induced numbers of Kyoto workmen to come and settle in
their provinces." J. J. Quin, The Lacquer Industry of Japan, T. A. S.
J., Vol. IX, p. 4.
113 In studying industry and trade under feudalism in Japan we find
almost precisely the same conditions as Gibbins records concerning
England, "The feudal system even in a time of peace did not
tend to any great growth of industry. For it encouraged rather
than diminished the spirit of isolation and self-sufficiency. . . . . . Little
scope was afforded to individual enterprise, from the fact that the
consent of the lord of a manor or town was often necessary for
the most ordinary purposes of industrial life......It may be admitted
also, that though the isolation of communities consequent upon the
prevalent manorial system did not encourage trade and traffic between
separate communities, it yet tended to diffuse a knowledge of domestic
manufactures throughout the land generally, because each place had
largely to provide for itself." H. DeB. Gibbins, Industrial History of
England, p. 32.
35
and a university established at the capital. For a short period
education flourished, but declined again when political power
was transferred to the military class.11 As the only honorable
profession was that of a soldier, learning was lightly es-
teemed.115 The golden age of literature had passed¹¹ and
verse now composed was the light and graceful accompaniment
of convivial parties. The sculptor now found his inspiration
in the stalwart soldier. Painting flourished. At court-or
· more properly at that of the shogun-and among the wealthy
classes politeness and refinement of manners and life became
fixed in a code which has survived and which, until quite
recently, gave an exquisite, though evanescent, charm to
Japanese social life.117
114 See report prepared and translated by the Japanese Department
of Education, reprinted in U. S. Bureau of Education Circulars of
Information, 1885, Vol. V, p. 481.
115
"In 1467 and during the six following years, Kyoto became
the battlefield of the rival retainers of the Ashikaga family, and the
greater part of the city was twice burned to the ground. The loss of
Japanese literature by the destruction of books is said to have been
immense. Apart from the immediate effects of civil war, learning
must necessarily have decayed during a period when the profession
of the soldier was the only honorable calling." E. Satow, Revival of
Pure Shinto, T. A. S. J., Vol. III, App. p. 4 .
116
Aston calls the early part of the shogunate (1186-1332) "The
Decline of Learning" and the next three centuries (1332-1603) “The
Dark Age". Of the former he says, "The rule of a class to whose
very existence a practical knowledge of war and warlike accomplish-
ments was vital, and who necessarily neglected, if they did not despise,
intellectual culture, was not conducive to the production of impor-
tant literary works," and of the latter he writes, "These years were
singularly barren of important literature in Japan." W. G. Aston,
Japanese Literature, pp. 132, 164.
117
"From 1338 to 1565, the Ashikagas ruled Japan as Shoguns.
Their court was a center of elegance, at which painting flourished,
and the lyric drama, and the tea ceremonies, and the highly intricate
arts of gardening and flower arrangement. But they allowed them-
selves to sink into effeminacy and sloth, as the Mikados had done
before them; and political authority, after being for some time ad-
ministered less by them than in their name, fell from them altogether
in 1597.” B. H. Chamberlain, Things Japanese, p. 215.
36
The religion which in earlier days had given to Japan a great
spiritual uplift lost much of its spirituality through the par-
ticipation of its priests in worldly affairs. Holding extensive
eştates, as great if not greater than those of the nobility, and
much other property, for their land-holdings were only one
item of their immense wealth, their time was largely taken up
with managing material things. Piety was forgotten and
temples were places not of worship but of display. The monas-
teries were in many cases castles in which the priests lived in
every kind of luxury, and from which they tyrannized over
the surrounding country. Many a Buddhist abbot rode armed
and equipped at the head of his monks. As they were no
longer mere religionists, they were on the same level as the
political parties of the day and had to take their chances along.
with them on the field of battle. Engagements were often de-
termined according as they threw their strength with one or an-
other party. They aroused the opposition of one of the great-
est generals Japan has ever had,118 because he feared their influ-
ence, and fierce persecution followed. An army of sixty thou-
sand men was insufficient to overcome the priests, and then
for ten years Nobunaga fought to kill not only priests, but
believers as well. The Zen sect, given to contemplation, which
became the sect of the warrior class, remained a depository of
spiritual power; and here and there in the other sects were
to be found a few spiritually-minded persons, but the star of
Buddhism had passed its zenith.
Shinto taught nature-worship, inspiring the people to love
the country, and taught also ancestor-worship, which im-
spired loyalty to the emperor, even though he did not rule the
"Japanese etiquette is rapidly giving way before the powerful
thawing influence of western customs. Its old bloom is gone beyond
recall, for modern Japan is too busy over more important matters
to busy itself with the minutiae of cha-no-yu and other ceremonies. The
conditions of life, too have changed, and even if the people would,
they could not keep alive the elaborate Ogasawara rules of polite con-
duct.." J. M. Dixon, Japanese Etiquette, T. A. S. J., Vol. XIII, pp. 1-2.
Cf. Griffis, The Religions of Japan, p. 312.
118
37
land. The Buddhist priests had taught the ethics of Confucius
along with their own creed, so that the two were hardly separate
for many hundred years; but soon after feudalism was estab-
lished Confucianism was made over again by the Japanese119
and gained popular favor for its own sake. Patriotism and
loyalty, derived from Shinto, calm trust in fate, causing disdain
of life and fearlessness of death, the outcome of the austere
philosophy of the Zen120 sect of Buddhism, and the ethical
teaching of Confucius, jointly producd Bushido, "The Way of
the Samurai". This, though not a religion, crystallized more
nearly than aught else the religious impulses and the higher
aspirations of the upper classes of society.
Early in the thirteenth century the Japanese, who had for
about three hundred years been pursuing the policy of seclu-
sion, were terribly frightened by Kublai Khan, the Mongol.
Having overwhelmed Korea and China, he sent envoys on
several occasions to Japan. Some of these messengers were
expelled and some were killed by the Japanese. The whole
affair covered twelve years, but finally, after immense loss of
life in which a typhoon played an important part, Kublai gave
up the attempt to subjugate Japan. 121 The country remained
closed against trade with other nations, but after this Mongol
invasion had been repelled Japanese pirates infested the seas as
far south as Siam. Official intercourse with Japan was re-
119 Of the five moral relations, the Chinese made that between
father and son central and to them filial piety has always been
fundamental. The Japanese, while emphasizing filial piety, gave the
first place to the relation between master and servant, the govern-
ing and the governed. This harmonized well with Shinto, which in-
culcated reverence for the sovereign on the part of all.
120 "Zen represents human effort to reach through meditation zones
of thought beyond the range of verbal expression." Hearn.
This
121 Since then Japan has never been attacked from without.
attempt of the Mongols hardened the insular prejudice of the Japanese
into a desire for complete isolation from the rest of the world. After
the expulsion of the Christian missionaries several centuries later this
desire became almost identical with the instinct for self-preserva-
tion.
38
·
vived by China and Korea at the end of the fourteenth cen-
tury, but not for the purpose of exchanging courtesies, or for
negotiating treaties, but to make complaints against Japanese
piracy. The usual reply of the Japanese government was that
it was unable to control the pirates; but one of the shoguns,
who appreciated the arts and luxury of China and Korea, took
steps for the suppression of piracy in order, to foster trade with
those countries.122 Thinking that by this method he would be
able to maintain his extravagant mode of life he sent embassies
and priests abroad to engage in commerce. Fifty years later a
commercial treaty was made with Korea, by the terms of which
Japan might send ships to Korea for one hundred thousand
bushels of Korean beans and rice each year. One hundred and
fifty years after this the famous shogun Hideyoshi, "the Napol-
eon of Japan", with dreams of a world-wide empire, organ-
ized an expedition to conquer Korea and then China. His ob-
ject was conquest and not trade. He met with disaster,123 but
the contact with the peninsula was not altogether without good
effects, for the Japanese gained some useful knowledge of cer-
tain industrial arts.
Both the Portuguese and Japanese accounts of the discovery
of Japan by the former in the middle of the sixteenth century
are much confused, but there is no doubt that the Portuguese
were the first Europeans to reach the coasts of Japan. They
brought firearms, woven fabrics, and other luxuries, and intro-
duced tobacco and potatoes; in return they carried away large
quantities of precious metals, chiefly gold bullion.12 Spanish
122 Cf. Hishida, The International Position of Japan, pp. 68, seq.
123 This invasion of Korea, which was absolutely without justifica-
tion, cost Japan more than two hundred thousands lives. Thus ended
relations with Korea, which became the "Hermit Nation". Two wars
are the sequel of Japan's relations with her during the last few decades.
12 Marco Polo had spread the report over Europe that Japan was
a rich country with gold almost as abundant as lead was in Europe.
Japan was really rich, but the stream of gold began to flow outwards,
and millions of dollars left every year. Several hundred million dol-
lars left within a century. On this general subject cf. Nitobe, Inter-
course between the U. S. and Japan, pp. 7-11.
39
merchants soon followed the Portuguese. Both nations sent
Christian missionaries, but among the Spaniards friars were
more numerous than merchants. Christianity was warmly
welcomed, and within a generation there were hundreds of
thousands of converts. Several feudal lords were baptized and
sent representatives all the way to Rome to receive the blessing
of the Pope. The Christians had the protection of Nobunaga,
the shogun who so fiercely persecuted the Buddhists. Rivalry
between Portuguese and Spaniards125 was most unfortunate in a
land which was so spiritually fertile, for in one way or another
the suspicion was aroused that the ultimate purpose of both was
to gain possession of Japan for the Pope or for some one
else in Europe. An order from the shogun banishing all the
missionaries called forth loud protest from the feudal lords, the
converted and many unconverted ones, on the ground that it
was in violation of the freedom of religious opinion. A few
left, but the edict was not strictly enforced. Persecution later.
followed and the roll of martyrs is a long one. The estimates
vary widely, but in 1605 the number of Christians was between
half a million and a million and a half; possibly there were even
more. Christianity was interdicted and all who did not recant
and trample upon the cross were ordered to be put to death.
With the causes of this we cannot deal here.126 Religion, poli-
Cf. Satow, The Origin of Spanish and Portuguese Rivalry in
Japan, T. A. S. J., Vol. XVIII, pp. 133-156.
126 "It must be admitted that the intolerance which the Jesuits had
taught must bear a great portion of the responsibility......Moreover,
the mutual hostility of the Christian orders, especially after the date
of the arrival in Japan of some Spanish monks from Manila, could
not but prejudice the Christian cause. And again, the unchristian life
and evil example of the foreign traders and seamen at Nagasaki,
Hirado and elsewhere, could not contribute to increase respect for
Christianity itself. Those ports were the rendezvous of the most aban-
doned European adventurers, who delighted in vice of all kinds,…………….
and thus excited the disgust of all the better minded among the Japan-
ese......In the earliest Dutch books about Japan, the chief cause
assigned is the treachery of the Jesuits, who had endeavored to turn
Japan into a Portuguese or Papal province.. The English and
• •
40
tics, and trade were all jointly concerned and the result was that
the missionaries were expelled from the land. The country
was closed and sealed. Only a few Dutchmen were allowed to
remain,127 for the purposes of trade only, on the little artificial
island of Deshima, virtually a prison-house, in the harbour of
Nagasaki. The edict of 1637 forbidding foreigners to land on
the Japanese coast also forbade the natives to leave it, and this
exclusive and inclusive policy was jealously maintained for the
next two hundred years and more.
For more than a third of a millenium half a million men had
been armed, and much of this time there was civil war. To-
kugawa Ieyasu, the greatest of all shoguns, in 1603 reaped the
fruits of the efforts of his immediate predecessors, Nobunaga
and Hideyoshi, almost as great men as himself, and put an end
to the long-prevalent state of warfare. The government was
apparently feudal, but under Ieyasu it became virtually a mon-
Dutch also essentially influenced the decision of Ieyasu and his suc-
cessors, since it was for their commercial interests to drive out the
Portuguese, and they put no restraint on their hatred of the Catholic
Portuguese and Spaniards." Rein, Japan, pp. 309, seq.
"Whatever was the real cause, the years of Hideyoshi and Ieyasu's
domination saw the banishment of native converts, the expulsion of
foreign ecclesiastics, and the summary trials and wholesale slaughter
which rival in horror the fires of Smithfield or the rack of the Inquisi-
tion. These outrages gave rise in turn to the revolt of Shimabara
in 1637, where 30,000 Christian peasants took arms against the perse-
cutors. This revolt was extinguished in the blood of the insurgents,
and Catholicism disappeared from our national life, surviving till the
present era only in some of the retired villages." Nitobe, Intercourse
with Japan, p. 13.
127 The English had been unsuccessful and voluntarily withdrew in
1623. They later tried in vain to open up relations. The Chinese were
not altogether excluded. In 1684 the annual importation of the Chinese
merchants was limited to the same as that of the Dutch, about $840,000.
In 1688 they were confined to a place which "had the horrible aspect
of a strong prison", and for this they paid a yearly rent of over
$2,000. Before this, rich young men from China, "came over to Japan,
'purely for their pleasure', and to spend part of their money with
Japanese women". Cf. Kæmpfer, History of Japan, Vol. II, pp. 248-
253, and Hildreth, Japan as it was and is, Vol. I, pp. 278-281.
4I
archy. To be sure the "Son of Heaven" reigned, although
Ieyasu governed the land. He paid personal homage to the
emperor, for whom he built a palace at Kyoto, and he made
ample provision for the welfare of the imperial family, but, un-
der the guise of the sanctity of the high office of emperor, he
deprived the sovereign of the last remnants of political author-
ity. The feudal lords wielded semi-royal power in their own
dominions but each was controlled more than ever before by
the shogun. The daimyos were so arranged by him on the
political chess board that political combinations between them.
were rendered impossible. All were required to spend half of
the time in the shogun's capital and to leave their families there
as hostages during the other half. They were also made to
maintain there a number of retainers ready at call to do the
bidding of the shogun. A system of espionage kept him in-
formed of even the most trivial acts of the smallest and most
distant daimyo. Thus every element of individual ambition
was crushed out. The peace of two hundred and fifty years
which followed would at least seem necessarily to lead to
stagnation. "The Legacy of Ieyasu" outlined the policy which
was followed by his thirteen successors, all of his family.
Iemitsu, his grandson, perfected the system. Theoretically the
daimyos all stood on an equal footing with the shogun, but he
summoned them to his castle at Yedo (the present Tokyo) and
made them all swear allegiance to him in the same manner as
his own retainers. It was to avoid complications that he
closed the country. Feudalism lasted for more than two hun-
dred years after Iemitsu died in 1615, but social development
had ended. National ideas and ideals had been cast in a
mould, and the people fixed in classes, when the country was
sealed.
Japanese social history by no means ends with feudalism, or
even with the overflow of the feudal system. It is however
well to rest here and now turn to analyze the social structure.
We shall then be able better to understand and estimate the
forces at work in present day society.
42
CHAPTER II.
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE.
Upon examination of the Japanese social structure of a half
century ago we find it substantially the same as it was at the
beginning of the seventeenth century. Indeed in its essentials
there was almost no change in the organization of Japanese
society from the time of the appointment of the "barbarian-sub-
duing generalissimo" in 1192 until the appearance of the
"western barbarians" in 1854. This is not surprising, for every
element of the social order of the Restoration period existed in
germ almost a thousand years before. History does not afford
another example of a society worth the name developing natur-
ally and free from outside disturbance. That external influ-
ences were at work cannot be denied, for the country was not
hermetically sealed, but these were mere perturbations, not
strong enough to effect any change in the social order or to in-
terfere with its evolution.
Pride of rank and division into classes has always been
characteristic of Japanese society. In all ages to be in any
way connected with the imperial line has given the highest rank,
no matter in whose hands the administrative power might be at
the time. The ancient division into descendants of gods, or of
the imperial families, or of naturalized foreigners, has been used.
to confirm the one-tribe theory of the origin of the Japanese
people, including the bulk of them into the second division and
thus connecting them with the imperial line. A strict system of
registration caused faithful record to be kept of the families of
those who had successfully undergone the ordeal which proved
their patrician descent. Pride prevented frequent marriages
with inferiors. For various reasons emperors elevated families,
altogether overlooking their previous position in the social
43
scale; and such families frequently rose to still higher rank
through the influence they were able to exert. Some of the
shoguns who began life as farmers' sons reached almost the
highest eminence. Many of the daimyos occupied their high
positions in society not because of noble blood, but solely by
reason of the fact that by military force they were able to be-
come feudal lords. Again, it was certainly not because of any
connection with patrician families that the samurai in time.
came to be regarded as superior to others. There was usually
a wide gulf between the so-called upper and lower classes,—
patrician and plebian, governing and governed. All of the lat-
ter were not on the same level; but among them, too, there
were grades. There were barriers and restrictions of various
kinds making it almost impossible to rise, but instances are not.
wanting where persons gave proof of signal ability by leaving
behind them the lowly stations in which they were born.
All classes were so definitely fixed that there was almost a
system of caste; it is, however, well not to use that term, for
it is usually employed to designate some distinction based on
religion, whereas in Japan the classes were determined by other
standards.¹ The system of Ieyasu implied a social scale
which summed up the principles according to which division
had been made before his time, and which continued in force.
until a few decades ago.
The basis of Japanese social organization has always been
the family, all the members holding the same social position as
the head. In early times the members of a criminal's house-
hold, if not put to death with him, were reduced to slavery.2
¹ It is possible that the "outcasts" referred to later were such because
the taking of life was concerned, and because this was a crime ac-
cording to Buddhism. Cf. H. Faulds, Nine Years in Nipon, p. 284.
2
² An edict issued as late as 1692 is as follows: "The children of
criminals who have been executed either at the stake or by crucifixion
or by exposure, shall suffer the death of their parent, except when they
are below fifteen years of age and are proved not to have had any
share in the crime. In the latter case they may be entrusted to a rela-
tive until the age of fifteen, after which they shall be exiled." T. A.
S. J., Vol. XXII, p. 279.
44
3
While a woman was never allowed to have more than one hus-
band, the man was permitted to have concubines as well as a
wife, and thus he might be the head of several households,
including the servants. The head of the family had almost
absolute power over its members and also over the property;
but his rights carried with them corresponding responsibilities.
In his family subordinate households related by blood might
be included, and he be thus the head of a group of a hundred
or even a hundred and fifty persons. The connection of
one family with others produced the great families, or houses,
or clans already referred to. The individual members of
a family did not have a separate existence or have
the right to hold property. There was necessity for the
perpetuation of a family; if a man died leaving no male chil-
dren his estate reverted to the state. The greatest reason
for keeping up the family line was that there might be some one
to reverence and worship the family ancestors; the living fam-
ily was only a link between the past and the future. These
3
4
5
Hearn and some others give to the family too wide an extent.
"The Japanese family in early times meant very much more than
'household'; it might include a hundred or a thousand households; it
was something like the Greek yévos or the Roman gens,—the patriar-
chal family in the largest sense of the term.” Hearn, Japan, p. 28.
There was a family between the gens, or clan, and the family as we
understand it.
In this and many other respects the family has been greatly modi-
fied since 1868, but even now it is quite different from what we under-
stand by the word. In former times Japan had the pater familias sys-
tem of Ancient Rome, but to-day some individuality is allowed, and
every member has the right to hold property, although under certain
restrictions. Cf. Baron Suyematsu, Family Relations in Japan,
Transactions of the Japan Society of London, Vol. VI, pp. 391 seq.
"Ieyasu ordered (Legacy, Chap. 46) that persons should marry upon
reaching sixteen years of age. "The family estate of a person dying
without male issue and without having adopted a son, is forfeited with-
out any regard to his relations or connections... "In the event of
""
an infant on the point of death wishing to adopt a child, there is no
objection to his being allowed to prolong his race in the person of one
who is of age." Ibid, Chap. 47.
6
"The patriarchal family was shaped to maintain and to provide for
45
two considerations served to produce an artificial rather than
a natural family. It was possible for a father to abdicate and
give up his position as head of the family to a son. A wicked
son might be sent away and thus debarred from the family.
Younger sons in families where there was already an heir
might be given outright to a family in which there was no male
issue. A childless couple might adopt both a son and a
daughter who should take the parents' name and afterward
marry each other. Marriages were usually arranged by the
family; in any case the family sanction was necessary."
This unity of the family was one of the causes already so
often noticed of the tendency for all offices and honors to
become hereditary. The family has brought Japan some of
her greatest and most difficult problems, but it has also
been the means of preserving the most valuable institutions.
It is central, and its importance can hardly be overestimated.
Here is probably the best place to note the position of
woman. As was pointed out, woman held a high place in
early society. With the advent of Chinese civilization her
position was lowered, for neither Buddhism nor Confucian-
ism gave her as high a status as did purely Japanese ideas.
Bushido, a product of the Japanese, having a large admixture
of Chinese elements, also did little to elevate woman. The
Japanese, however, while never treating woman as man's
equal, have not been willing to relegate her to so low a place
as that to which she is assigned by most Eastern nations.
Children have usually been objects of affection and tender
the cult of its dead, and neglect of which cult was believed to involve
misfortune." Hearn, op. cit., p. 66.
7
Practically the same rule holds true to-day. "A man may not
marry without the consent of his parents until he is thirty, a woman
until she is twenty-five." In ancient times the penalty for marrying
without the consent of the family was fifty stripes with a whip. When
a man marries he seldom goes to a home of his own, but he and his
wife usually go to live with his father's household. The shinruikwai,
or family council, decides practically every important matter pertain-
ing to every member.
46
care; but the occasional testimony of the laws and records
concerning infanticide forbid too sweeping generalizations.
All other features of Japanese society might be and have
been changed in one age or another; one, the most important,
has persisted. The position of the emperor is the key to
Japanese history. He reigns as the head of the nation, the
descendant of the gods. At times his moral power over the
people was altogether wanting, but his sovereign right is not
based on virtue but divine descent. Administrative power was
seized by individuals, and passed on in the same family; but
regents and shoguns all received from him their appoint-
ment.8 Honors conferred by him gave greater distinction
than the highest granted by the greatest of his appointees.
Ieyasu, the greatest shogun, gave unusual homage to his
sovereign. The temporal ruler managed the worldly affairs
of the empire, maintaining that sacred seclusion was befitting
the "Son of Heaven". Common people came even to question
his existence on this earth, but devoutly worshipped him as the
head of the nation. There was thus some justification for the
notion in the West a half century ago that Japan had a sacred
and also a temporal ruler, and it is easy to understand why
foreign powers had for some years to deal with a dual govern-
ment in which authority was divided in some strange way.
9
Prior to the Great Reform Japan had an emperor but no
state. Then the Chinese pattern of government gave the form
of a state, but the political network swallowed up the emperor.
During the succeeding millenium of rudimentary and then
8
“The shogun, the real head of the shogunate, was always ap-
pointed by the emperor, and exercised in his name only the civil and
military administration of the country, which were accredited to him
as the hereditary right of his family. Thus, what are called the 'rights
of sovereignity' have remained uninterruptedly in the person of the em-
peror since the foundation of the Japanese Empire." Japan by the
Japanese, p. 19.
'He provided that the coronation expenses of the emperor should
not be parsimoniously diminished by his successors, and made better
provision for his support than his predecessors had done. Cf. Legacy,
Chap. 95.
47
organized feudalism the institution of the emperor preserved
the continuity of the national life, and when finally he was
restored in 1868 Japan for the first time as a nation had a
state, at the head of which was the emperor. In his person
the nation is united, and he is the inspiration of the national.
greatness. To him and his ancestors 10 all national success is
attributed; and because of him the Japanese people have a
reverence for authority not surpassed in any other nation.
The imperial household law provides for a successor to the
throne, but in the event of failure in the direct line there have
been several princely families from which an heir might be
taken. Bearing in mind the plural wives of each emperor we
understand the large and ever-increasing number of nobles.
The empty life of the court and its surroundings through suc-
cessive generations did not add to their virility. Shortly after
the Reform two hundred and thirteen princes were censured
for their laziness, but their portion of salt and rice was not
withheld from them.11 At that time ability was appreciated,
and rank or office was given only to those of princely blood.
who showed capacity. The families of regents and others.
were added to the nobility, but in theory nobility of blood was
usually more highly accounted than the rank which went with
the most exalted office. Under feudalism certain noble fam-
ilies enjoyed the exclusive right of serving as ministers of state
but this was empty formalism, for the administration was
entirely in the hands of the military government of the shoguns.
The families of these kuge (nobles),12 continued in existence
for hundreds and even a thousand years or more; and received
the respect due them because of their relation to the court.13
10 "The empire of Japan shall be reigned over and governed by
a line of emperors for ages eternal." "The emperor is sacred and
violable." Constitution of Japan, Arts. I and III.
11 Cf. Asakawa, Early Institutional Life, pp. 317-341.
12 It will not be advisable within the limits of this essay to discuss
the various sub-classes of kuge, daimyo, samurai, etc., but each of these
will be spoken of in terms which will apply to the whole class.
13 They resided at the capital of the emperor and not at that of the
48
Their effeminacy and degeneracy were the cause of their
receiving scant support. All were not poor, for a few became
daimyos, and others had other sources of income, but the
majority were compelled to eke out their sustenance by paint-
ing and even by manual employments. These lessons of pov-
erty were not lost on them, and while maintaining a semblance
of dignity they became stronger in every way simultaneously
with the dissipation and loss of vigor of those who controlled
wealth and power under the feudal regime. The political tide
which turned toward the emperor before the Restoration
carried with it a few, although only a few, kuge who had
greater political power than most of the feudal lords.
The emperor, as the fountain of honor, had the sole right
to confer titles and rank. Forced from the sovereign though
it may have been, the shogun prized highly his title of general-
issimo, and he was usually invested with office by an imperial
delegate. He was only a daimyo possessing power and ranked
beneath the kuge. As has been pointed out, feudalism had
begun before the appointment of the shogun and the estab-
lishment of his military government. On the other hand the
military organization of society, then already an accomplished
fact, was not from that moment identical with the feudal order;
but it was inevitable that the military governors appointed to
assist the nominal civil governors should soon sweep them out
of office.¹ No order of the emperor could become law with-
out the approval of the shogun. Those who became feudal
shogun. Of course those who were nominally provincial governors
lived at first in the provinces.
"The bureaucratic government which grew out of the Reform had
a continuous nominal existence, and the retention of this skeleton of
civil organization, the high offices of which the emperor filled with kuge
who as officials were shorn of power, was not without its use. The
emperor, his court, and many of his subjects nourished the hope that
ultimately the power would be restored to him. When that did occur
the machinery of government was ready and what had been nominal
for a thousand years became actual.
As our interest is social and not political no attention will be paid
to the administration of the feudal government.
49
lords were the representatives of the shogun, chosen by him as
his executives in the several districts. Because he was entrust-
ed with the secular administration by the emperor, those taking
part in any insurrection not having the sovereign's approval
would be branded as traitors, and the sagacious shogun, Ieyasu,
took care to arrange that none of the other daimyos might
secure that approval from the sacred being who reigned as
emperor. It was obviously impossible for any family to retain
this high position having nothing but the sword with which to
maintain itself, and with the gradual decay of the whole feudal
system it was inevitable that the institution of shogun should
disappear.
In the tendency of every office, honor, and privilege to be-
come hereditary in Japan, and in the relation of the institution
of the Japanese family to this tendency, we have the explan-
ation of much that otherwise seems anomolous. The regula-
tions instituted at the Reform governing the periodic redistri-
bution of much of the land almost immediately fell into disuse,
and the families holding it came to regard themselves as
practical owners. Although they could not sell it, they could
pass it on to their posterity and as long as the family was
perpetuated the land might remain in its possession, unless
forfeited because of crime or similar reasons. The salary of a
minister was the produce of seventy-five to a hundred acres of
land, and of other officials from two to fifty acres. Public
merit was similarly rewarded, and the favor shown to religion
put the temples and priests into control of large landed estates.
All such land was tax-free. As practically none was ever
restored to the government, and as each new claim to the
emperor's favor added to the non-taxable area, the occupants
of the remaining portions were subject to onerous burdens; but
the opening up of new lands and the ability of the peasants to
produce all that was needed for the entire population prevented
any intolerable hardship.
Most of this tax-free land was not subject to the jurisdiction.
of the provincial governors, and this, coupled with the fact
50
that until the establishment of organized feudalism the central
government was usually so weak as to be unable to exercise
any control in the country districts, gave to the strongest man
in each locality almost sovereign power. In some instances
this person was the civil governor, perhaps a kuge; in others it
was the largest land-owner, or holder; and in still others any
person who could maintain himself against all comers. The
first shogun appointed as military governors his own retainers
or favorites, but time proved that in certain cases a local poten-
tate would attain the ruling power in the district. The shogun-
ate influence was of maximum intensity at the political center
and diminished rapidly until at the outer edge it became almost
zero. This was the cause of the five centuries of continued war-
fare. There was absolutely nothing of national unity except
such as centered around the unseen emperor. These provincial
magnates, without reviewing the steps by which they gained
their power and control, came to be daimyos or feudal lords.
One was lord of eight provinces and parts of two others,—per-
haps a fourth of the total area of the empire at that time. In
certain provinces the territory was divided up among several
small daimyos. Daimyates changed frequently, for the sword
was the only recognized title to possession. About the middle of
the sixteenth century these independent feudal barons reached
the zenith of their greatness. When Ieyasu assumed control of
the whole country he recognized four other daimyos as his
equals, and when they visited his castle at Yedo (Tokyo), he
went to the edge of the city to meet them; but his grandson,
Iemitsu, assumed absolute authority and put all under him on.
a level. These two shoguns dispossessed some daimyos and
created others.15 They laid down the principle that the lords
should not remain too long in one fief, and accordingly
occasionally removed them from one place to another.16 They
15 The total number of daimyos of all classes at this time was two
hundred and ninety-two.
"The territories entrusted to the Daimyo, with the exception of
the Kokushiu, shall not be perpetuated to successive generations. They
should be interchanged every year, the territories being apportioned rel-
51
did not, however, lightly interfere with the lords who had great-
est power and influence.
17
19
To understand the samurai we must revert to the military
organization. The Great Reform saw the abolition of a
military class and the prohibition of the bearing of arms.18
An army was, however, provided for by the requirement that
the strongest men in each "neighboring five" should be pre-
pared to fight when necessary.¹ It would seem that the
militant spirit and mere love of warfare caused the estab-
lishment of the military shogunate. There was at that time
no separate samurai class. Soldiers were necessary to guard
a country, and food was necessary for the maintenance of
troops, so that soldiers and farmers were mutually dependent.
Each farmer prepared himself and, selecting from among
those living on his land the men who were physically strongest
and therefore best qualified to become soldiers, trained them
atively. Should the territory entrusted to one Daimyo remain in his
possession for too long a time, he is certain to become ungovernable
and oppress the people." Legacy, Chap. 49. The ostensible purpose of
this was to prevent misgovernment, but it was undoubtedly to prevent
a daimyo from acquiring local influence or possibly uniting with
the neighboring daimyos in rebellion against the shogun.
17 "Since the period of Taiho (701-703 A. D.) armies have been or-
ganized, and young people capable of bearing arms have been called
upon to enlist. In the time of the emperor Jito (687-696) one-fourth of
the young men arriving at majority were enlisted. This is the origin
of the system of conscription in this country. Subsequently, the as-
sumption of the power of the state by military families, led to the
isolation of the military from the farming class, and, all military affairs
having been monopolized by the one class, the old conscription system
was for a long time in a state of extinction." Ito, Commentaries on the
Constitution of the Empire, p. 40.
18 "A general interdict was then issued against the unauthorized pos-
session of arms and armor by private persons, but dwellers in the remote
parts of the east were exempted from this prohibition on the ground
of their liability to attack by the aborigines." History of the Empire of
Japan, p. 78.
19 "In the early ages of Japanese society there was no distinction be-
tween farmers and warriors: all able-bodied farmers were then trained
fighting-men, ready for war at any moment." Hearn, Japan, p. 268.
52
as his retainers. Obviously a small farmer could not defend
himself against aggression, and he accordingly allied himself
to some more powerful person. All land belonging to the
emperor, a strong person had no right to it more than a weak
one; thus the only difference between a samurai-farmer and a
daimyo was that the latter was usually able to secure a title
from the emperor whereas the former stood in feudal rela-
tions with only his feudal lord, whose vassal he became.20
Some daimyos continued to be farmers, letting out the land
to tenants, but in some cases they had under them and gave
protection to farmers who held more land than themselves,
on condition that a certain number of fighting-men be fur-
nished. Sometimes these barons gave up their titles2¹ as
daimyos and became farmers again.22
The daimyo gave his vassals support on condition of mili-
tary service. If anyone was already in control of a piece of
land, large or small, he was usually not disturbed, but dis-
charged his obligations by supplying a proper proportion of
fighting-men, of course going himself if his holding was small,
and if he could not send his son or some one else. Some able-
bodied young man, able to fight and wishing to attach himself
to a daimyo, might have no land. The lord would reward him
with a territory, large or small according to the samurai's
bravery and ability. Or he might give the vassal the right to
20 As the shogun, daimyo and samurai were all military men and
formed part of the same system, all have been put into the same class
as fighting men, and the Japanese themselves in past times occasionally
referred to them all together as samurai. Among the daimyo and the
samurai there were numerous divisions and sub-divisions.
21 There were territorial, and later official titles. Some daimyos had
both titles but some had none at all.
22
Often the military chief, with his adherents, "ceased fighting, with-
drew to his land, and became a farmer, keeping his rank as samurai,
but paying a tax to a daimyo or the shogun like any farmer". Simmons
and Wigmore, Land Tenure and Local Institutions, T. A. S. J., Vol.
XIX, p. 79.
One of the four richest men in Japan to-day is the descendant of
just such a farmer.
53
receive the income of a certain area of land. Where neither
of these methods was followed a grant of a definite amount of
rice to be drawn annually from the income of the lord might
be made. The methods of procedure were not uniform and
varied according to locality and century.
The differentiation of samurai from farmers was gradual23
but in the fourteenth century the former was recognized as a
distinct class to which attached rights and privileges giving
them a position of superiority over the peaceful part of the
population. Ieyasu made them the masters of the lower
classes.24 In some provinces they still continued to farm
while holding samurai rank, but nearly everywhere this was
forbidden, as it was rather beneath the dignity of a samurai to
engage in agriculture.25 After the death of Ieyasu the classes
were so fixed and distinct that it was no longer possible for a
plebian to rise to the rank of samurai.26
23 "It was after feudalism had been ushered in, that a class of pro-
fessional soldiers made their appearance. Both the leaders and their
retainers trained their sons in their own profession which therefore
became a hereditary one.' H. Yamawaki, Japan in the Beginning of
the Twentieth Century, p. 619.
""
"The samurai are the masters of the four classes. Agricultural-
ists, artisans, and merchants may not behave in a rude manner towards
samurai. The term for a rude man is 'other than expected fellow'; and
a samurai is not to be interfered with in cutting down a fellow who has
behaved to him in a manner other than is expected.
The samurai are grouped into direct retainers, secondary retainers
and nobles of high and low grade; but the same line of conduct is
equally allowable to them all towards an 'other than excepted fellow'."
Legacy, Chap. 45.
"It is clear that there was no natural or logical development from
farmer to samurai, or vice versa.
"In 1540 A. D. the demarcation between the samurai, or the warrior
class, and the farmer, or between the samurai and the artisan or mer-
chant, was by no means a strict one. Any plebian that could prove
himself a first-class fighting-man was then willingly received into the
armed comitatus which every feudal potentate was eager to attach to
himself and to his flag....... It was only in the sixteenth century that
the wearing of two swords was confined to the select and privileged
class of the samurai....... Down to the death of Ieyasu in 1616…………..
54
The term samurai applies to the whole of the class whose
privilege it was to carry arms, a long and a short sword.27
These weapons were more to him than all else beside, for they
His
were the symbol of honor and all that made life dear.
family must be disregarded, he himself must be willing to fall
rather than suffer dishonor.28 Sometimes his own short
sword used by and upon himself was the instrument by which
he won undying fame. His life was not his own but belonged
to his lord whose retainer he was. It is easy to see that,
assuming that a military class is desirable, Japan had in this
samurai spirit, coupled with other high ideals which were in
her possession, the basis for a military system second to none
the world has yet seen.
29
Large land-holders, corresponding in many respects to the
yeomen of England, became upper class samurai, a few of
them daimyo, while the smaller farmers, working in the fields
and inured to hardships, filled the ranks. Other able-bodied
persons of menial occupations were attracted by the life of the
soldier and took up arms. These rude men came to feel the
weight of the dignity imposed upon them. To be honorable,
in the fullest and broadest use of the term, they must be
trained in many ways. Swordmanship was supplemented by
any man of ability and of mettle could carve out a career for himself."
J. Murdoch, History of Japan during the Century of Early Foreign
Intercourse, p. 31.
27 "A girded sword is the living soul of a samurai. In the case of a
samurai forgetting his sword, act as is appointed; it may not be over-
looked." Legacy, Chap. 37.
28 This was not mere sentiment, as it too often becomes in the hands
of many Westerners who write about it to-day. To the samurai it was
real, it was life itself. This spirit is by no means dead yet, for when
a few years ago the samurai disappeared as a class it became the
property of the nation. In the late war with Russia it was manifested
not only by soldiers who belonged to the former samurai families but
also by those who came from the farm and the shop.
"In Japan the samurai soul yet pervades in full force the very life
of the nation." A. M. Knapp, Feudal and Modern Japan, Vol. I, p. 51.
"They must originally have been a rough breed who made fighting
their vocation." Nitobe, Bushido, p. 5.
29
55
discipline in other knightly virtues. Knowledge was not to be
prized for its own sake. The ethical code of the samurai-
Bushido-determined the standards of his conduct.30 Con-
fucianism made over by the Japanese under the influence of
Chinese philosophers of the twelfth century, became his
creed.31 During the long peace of two and a half centuries
preceding the Restoration Confucianism was the national
philosophy and, it might almost be said, religion. Buddhism,
which for a thousand years had been in alliance with Con-
fucianism in controlling the national life became antagonistic,
but it waned as Confucianism gained strength. A coterie of
native scholars strove to revive Shinto in opposition to this
foreign philosophy. Confucianism held the field, and has yet
in Japan greater power over the thought and life of the older
persons of the educated class than any other single influence.³2
30 "Their only duty was to make themselves physically and mentally
fit for their lords in time of necessity, and in times of peace to make
themselves as much like gentlemen as possible. In other words physi-
cal training and mental enlightenment, together with the refinement of
their manners and habits, were their sole business-they had no other
occupation." K. Suyematsu, The Ethics of Japan.
31 (0
"Devotion unto death is the chief of virtues for them, and only as
we understand their ideals can we know the life of the people. Con-
fucianism gave these scholars a completed system which made right-
eousness ultimate and supreme; their instincts interpreted and the
history of the past illustrated the teaching,-as Buddhism had incor-
porated the ancient gods in its own beliefs, so did the Chinese philoso-
phy in Japan adopt as its own the heroes of the feudal wars. In both
instances the native element transformed the foreign system." Knox,
Japanese Life in Town and Country, p. 121.
32 "The system which for three hundred years has exercised the
most powerful influence in forming the Japan which now is, was the
teachings of Confucius as set forth by the Chinese philosophers of the
twelfth century A.D. But Confucianism never became the religion
of the multitude, and in the modern era its philosophy has given way
to the learning of the West." Knox, Religion in Japan, p. 3.
A Japanese wrote last year in the Yomiuri Shimbun :-"Up to the
Restoration it was Confucianism that governed ethical thought, the
two religions, Shintoism and Buddhism, having little influence in this
direction. That which is called Bushido, a system of morals unique
}
56
3+
The military spirit permeated the whole of society, and all
that was best found expression in the life of the samurai.
With their families totaling about two millions out of a popu-
lation of about twenty-seven millions,33 the samurai formed
the upper middle class. To maintain this spirit occasional
fighting was necessary. The flower might bloom in an era
of peace but an enduring peace involves its decay. This
actually happened in Japan. The Tokugawa period, lasting
two hundred and seventy years and ending only with the
Restoration, is said to have been the most peaceful era in the
history of mankind.35 Wars were only a memory and the
in the world, had its origin in Confucianism. Other effects of the teach-
ing of Confucius are, the establishment of social ranks, the cultiva-
tion of a proper sense of shame, and the production of a spirit of
indifference to poverty and hardships. We Orientals have reason to be
proud of the fact that we have produced a spiritual and practical civ-
ilization in contrast with the material and formal civilization of the
Occident. The morality of Confucianism transcends utility, experience
and mere bread for the body."
34
33 "Statistics show that some six hundred thousand samurai families
had to be supported out of the revenues of the fiefs, and that a muster
of all military men between the ages of twenty and forty-five would
have produced a force nearly a million strong." Brinkley, Vol. IV, p. II.
Compare the view of Bagehot: "War both needs and generates
certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary
virtues, as valour, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discip-
line. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a
nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advan-
tage, and make them more than likely to stay in the race of nations.
The success of the nations which possess these martial virtues
has been the great means by which their continuance has been secured
in the world, and the destruction of the opposite vices insured also.
Conquest is the missionary of valour, and the hard impact of military
virtues beats meanness out of the world." Physics and Politics, pp. 74-
75.
•
35 The Tokugawa shoguns have been called tyrants, more desirous
of keeping the control of the realm in their own family than of ad-
vancing the interests of the mass of the people. Certainly theirs was
a policy of suppression involving the keeping down of able and ambi-
tious persons who might dispute their right to the control of affairs.
From this standpoint it was an injurious peace.
57
decay of the military system was inevitable. The samurai
began to live in vice and profligacy.36 As great fighters the
samurai would hardly rouse our admiration, and their tactics.
on the field of battle would not by us be regarded as skillful.
It was as an individual, guided by lofty principles, and as part
of a system that the samurai appeals to us, and his spirit is the
precious heritage of the Japan of today.³ When the country
was opened in 1854 the spirit was alive in the nation, but the
samurai was a relic of a bygone day. Thousands of them were
no longer retainers of feudal lords, but unattached and
irresponsible were living on the privileges and dignity of the
class. Foreigners looked on in wonder and disgust.³
38
The farmer has always been respected in Japan, and the
importance of his occupation never overlooked. The provis-
ions made in every era to encourage and help the agricultural
class were sometimes for the purpose of securing more from
them; but even then there was a feeling of gratitude to the
cultivator of the soil. Recognition of the fact that the national
prosperity depended on agriculture enlisted the sympathy
of the upper classes and gave an honored place to the
farmer. Failure of the crops was regarded as a national loss
and the farmer was relieved in large measure from the
incidence of crop failure. Rulers and the upper classes often
adopted strict measures of economy to relieve the loss of the
farmers. On the whole, it may fairly be said that in no land
have the peasants received greater consideration than in Japan.
That most of the samurai came from the farming class kept the
latter high in public esteem. In some places the line of
36 "The loyalty and courage of the samurai, his noble contempt for
money, his simple habits and frugal life had constituted a moral title to
the position which he occupied... Long continued peace deprived
him of his uses and poverty brought him into contempt." Brinkley,
Vol. III, pp. 145, 151.
37
They call it Yamato Damashii, the Japanese spirit.
38 The opinions of several are cited: "The samurai were rapidly
degenerating into a herd of voluptuous imbeciles." "Bushido had gone
to seed." "They are 'swashbucklers'."
58
demarcation never became very distinct, and while a farmer
after the time of Ieyasu might not become a samurai, the latter
might again take up farming. That no degradation attached
to his occupation made the farmer contented and willing to
work for the welfare of his own family and of society. The
proud samurai might live and die for honor's sake but to the
farmer belonged the task of cooperating with nature in pro-
ducing necessary food for all. Beneath him were many
lower classes, and without government permission he could
not if he desired lower himself by becoming a merchant.39
His self-respect was enhanced by the privilege which the
farmers enjoyed of being largely self-governing; the affairs of
state gave them little concern and they were allowed practic-
ally to make their own laws, for any custom of fifty years'
standing was not interfered with by the authorities. 4
40
The chief agricultural product from the beginning has been
rice and, while tilling the fields is not easy labor, it has always
been possible to cultivate a sufficient quantity of this cereal to
support the entire population. If instead of the divisions that
existed because of feudal conditions there had been more of
mutual helpfulness, and a little more foresight in providing
for the future, even the horrors of the famines of former days
might have been materially softened if not altogether
39
Cf. Knapp, Feudal and Modern Japan, Vol. I, p. 80.
*This bears out what has been said regarding the authority of the
shogun becoming nil at the point farthest from his capital. "The laws
for the government of the feudal lords and their retainers (with
which, of course, the people had little or nothing to do) must not be
confounded with those affecting the common people, especially the laws
relating to titles to land, to the collection of taxes, to irrigation and
to the thousand and one questions involving the rights and privileges
of an essentially agricultural community.. In a vast majority
of cases the people themselves, by means of a system of arbitration
which they were encouraged to employ instead of appealing to the
established courts, were the executors of their own rights." T. A.
S. J., Vol. XIX, p. 50. We must, however, not lose sight of the fact
that the heads of the "neighboring fives", after them the heads of the
villages, etc., were at least in theory responsible to those above them
in authority.
59
41
averted. The land, even though not remarkably fertile, is,
under Japanese cultivation, abundantly fruitful.42 More than
two centuries ago Kaempfer said that "no nation understands
the art of agriculture better than the Japanese". In 1775 the
Swedish physician, Thunburg, remarked on the "great state of
perfection to which agriculture was brought, but was dis-
appointed that the fields were kept so free of weeds as to afford
very little chance to botanize". Not even "three acres and a
cow" are necessary to the Japanese farmer, for he can dispense
altogether with the animal, and with his family live pretty
43
"How similar to England during the "golden age of the English
labourer, which lasted all through the fifteenth century. Food was
cheap and abundant; wages were amply sufficient... . . Although it
cannot be asserted that people did not occasionally die of want in
very bad times, yet the grinding and hopeless poverty, just above the
verge of actual starvation, so often prevalent in the present time, did
not belong to mediaeval life. But before the next century was com-
pleted part of the nation was impoverished, the labourers were de-
graded and despoiled, and a long legacy of pauperism and misery
was bequeathed to the country by the wastefulness of Henry VIII.”
Gibbins, Industrial History of England, pp. 79-81.
Toynbee says, "In spite of the ignorance and stupidity of the
farmers and their use of wretched implements, the average produce
of wheat was large. In 1770 it was twenty-five bushels to the acre."
The Industrial Revolution, p. 45.
"But, on the whole, there were none of those extremes of poverty
and wealth which have excited the astonishment of philanthrophists,
and are now exciting the indignation of workmen. The age, it is
true, had its discontents, and these discontents were expressed forci-
bly and in a startling manner. But of poverty which perishes un-
heeded, of a willingness to do honest work and a lack of opportunity,
there was little or none. My studies lead me to conclude, that
though there was hardship in this life, the hardship was a common
lot, and that there was hope, more hope than superficial historians
have conceived possible, and perhaps more variety than there is in
the peasant's lot in our own time." T. Rogers, The Economic Inter-
pretation of History, p. 63.
•
•
42 See an able discussion on this subject giving the views of many
authorities by E. Kinch, The Agricultural Chemistry of Japan, T. A.
S. J., Vol. VIII, pp. 369-414.
43
The wife and daughter share in field-labor. The country-woman
is never idle.
,
60
comfortably on an acre or less. His great industry and even
skill have been favorably commented on by nearly all Western-
ers who have visited the country.
The shogun and each daimyo, notwithstanding the fact that
the title of all the land was vested in the emperor, were in
practical possession of the land in each of the districts, but
in the last analysis the farmer was to all intents and purposes
the owner of the portion he lived upon. He might be a per-
manent tenant but he was forbidden to sell it; however, in case
of need he could borrow from more fortunate neighbors and
thus in a sense mortgage it; or he could lease it. The husband-
man was, however, under the protection of his daimyo and of
the shogun, and on the basis of an average yield from his
fields** he was required to give a proportion to the author-
ities as tax. Land directly under the shogun was taxed one-
half; daimyos demanded six or seven-tenths of the gross pro-
duce.45
If the farmer was a tenant possibly half of the
remainder must be given to the landlord. The farmers in the
shogunate territory were much better off than those under
diamyos. The amount paid, in rice, was usually delivered
without murmuring.47
46
"What Westerners have often taken to be the revenues or incomes
of the daimyos-in some cases amounting to millions of dollars—was
this estimated yearly crop of their districts; it simply furnished the
basis of taxation. This, of course, does not apply to land which
the shogun and daimyos themselves held.
5 This may at first seem excessive. Out of what the daimyo re-
ceived he supported his retainers not otherwise provided for and im-
proved his district. When in 1871 the daimyos surrendered their
fiefs, at the same time being relieved of the support of their retain-
ers, and were granted pensions amounting to one-tenth of their former
incomes some sank into a state of poverty. The tenant to-day pays
the landlord one-half of the crop as rent.
46
Some daimyos treated the farmers with excessive severity. "Per-
haps it would not be an exaggeration to compare the condition of the
farmers in some provinces with that of the negroes in the United
States under slavery." T. A. S J., Vol. XIX, p. 60.
47 "Taxation as understood or felt by the people of most countries
is a burden imposed, a kind of robbery of the results of hard-earned
61
The details of agriculture were the responsibility of local
officials who advised the farmers about the kinds of seed and
their quality, about improvements and everything pertaining to
the best methods. Stimulus was given by awarding prizes for
the best quality and yield of rice. Thus the sturdy farmer,
forming the middle or lower-middle class of society, had the
respect and encouragement of the aristocracy. He was not left
in ignorance and was not downtrodden, but was a useful and
valued member of society.
That artists and artizans should have a lower place in the
social scale than the farmers seems strange to us, but such was
the case in Japan. This is all the more surprising when we
examine the arts and industries, and remember how these were
appreciated by the Japanese. Among the members of the
hereditary corporations of ancient days were some of great
skill; their successors in feudal days were in no whit their
inferiors. The deliberate policy of the government to foster
petty jealousies and cause less and less intercourse between
the different daimyates arrested the development that might
have taken place, but the people had ample time to cultivate
the arts, and nearly all arts that have made Japan famous
abroad reached their highest development under the feudal
regime. The American expedition under Perry was struck
"with the number and beauty and perfection of the products of
Japanese industry and art". The nation has the aesthetic sense
highly developed. 48 Whether the material be one of the
means of the people; but it was as a rule quite differently regarded
by the people of Japan. The payment of taxes did not seem to be
regarded by the peasants as a burden, but as a loyal duty, in which
they took more or less pride. It was an offering,......a precious
thing not to be defiled." The time of the annual payment of the rice
at the collector's storehouses where each farmer's rice was submitted
to inspection, instead of being an occasion of sorrow and irritation,
was more like a fair where each vied with the other in presenting for
official inspection the best return of rice. Ibid, pp. 58-59.
48 "Whether good or bad, both in design and workmanship, Japanese
art carries with it the taste and the aspiration of the race." Y. Ono,
The Industrial Transition in Japan, p. 48.
62
metals or clay, wood or bamboo, whether the workman be
called an artist or an artisan, the product was a work of art.49
It was art for art's sake; not for a market but for the enjoy-
ment of those able to appreciate it.50 Aritsans enjoyed the
patronage of the daimyos and vied with each other for that
privilege and honor.
Carpenters, blacksmiths, and other workmen belonged to
this same class and ranked higher than the wealthy merchants
by whom they were frequently employed.51 There was no
organized industry and not even the germ of anything
approaching a factory system. And yet, despite the arrested
development due to feudal conditions, the artisan class added
materially to the comforts of life.
Among the three divisions of heimin, or ordinary people,—
farmers, artisans, and merchants,-classes which formed nine-
tenths of the entire population, the inerchant stood lowest in
popular repute. Hardly any fact in Japanese history stands.
out so prominently as this, that the Japanese looked down with
peculiar disdain upon a calling which was universally regarded
as involving gain at the expense of another.52 To them com-
49
"No country in the world beside Japan can boast of a living and
a highly developed art that has numbered upwards of twelve hundred
years of unbroken and brilliant productiveness. It is generally sup-
posed to have reached its culmination in the hands of a group of
great experts who flourished during the second half of the eighteenth
century and the first half of the nineteenth. It was the era of the
artisan artist.” Brinkley, Japan, in Encyclopedia Britannica.
50 "Like the samurai, he had his own ideals, and his own status,
and his own way of life, and with these he was content, not being en-
gaged in a scramble for more money or a higher position." Knox,
Japanese Life in Town and Country, p. 194.
51
Foreign architects and builders who have given attention to the
matter affirm that the Japanese workman is second to none in the
world.
63 0
"We may safely say that as far back as history carries us con-
tempt for the mere business of money-making was a prominent charac-
teristic of the Japanese people. There is hardly an authentic tale of
any length that does not furnish facts proving this. The merchant,
the usurer, the middleman, were regarded as the pariahs of ancient
63
merce and trade had an essentially selfish origin.
Each party
to such a transaction would be seeking his own advantage and
one could supposedly gain only at the expense of the other.
Samurai were taught that it was in bad taste to mention out-
side the family circle matters relating to purchases or sales;
it was a mark of good breeding to be ignorant of the value of
different coins.53 Indeed in almost every province there was
a different system of weights, measures and coins. At the
time of the Restoration there was almost indescribable con-
fusion because of the hundreds of kinds of currency in use
in the different localities. It was not the possession of wealth
nor the use of it, but the very business of making money that
was despised.54
The Japanese cannot be said to have been ignorant of the
advantages of trade. Early intercourse with Korea and
China had shown them that much was to be gained by free
exchange of goods. The Portuguese, Spaniards, English and
Dutch brought them the products of Europe, but they chose to
close the empire and restrict the volume of trade. During the
period of seclusion, when useful information was pouring in
through Dutchmen living on the few acres called the island of
Deshima, the limitations were not removed but on the contrary
the number of vessels permitted to come each year was reduc-
ed from two to one.55 In accordance with this policy of isola-
Japanese society, to the level of whose life the noble samurai would
rather die than descend." Dening, Mental Characteristics of the Jap-
anese, T. A. S. J., Vol. XIX, pp. 23-24.
53 (
"Many of the noble houses also showed their independence of
vulgar commercial restrictions by using measures and weights of
their own for fiscal purposes." Brinkley, Vol. VI, p. 154.
54 "Associated with this absence of sordidness are some noble traits;
a keen sense of honour; great independence; extreme generosity and
unselfishness; and a taste for simplicity of living." Dening, Mental
Characteristics of the Japanese, T. A. S. J., Vol. XIX, p. 24.
55 "The monopoly the Dutch thus secured brought considerable pro-
fits.......Between 1609 and 1858 they are said to have exported over
forty million pounds sterling of gold and silver as well as two hundred
thousand tons of copper. Deshima is now spoken of as a gate through
64
tion the Japanese themselves were forbidden to build sea-going
vessels.
Domestic commerce fared little better. Its history even
today is almost a sealed book. Early attempts to get coins
into circulation had met with almost complete failure. For
more than six centuries there is only one mention of Japanese
coinage, in the early part of the fourteenth century; but this
experiment can hardly be regarded as successful, for the
coins did not circulate as freely as did the Chinese coins al-
ready in use.56 It is difficult to speak with any assurance of
the commercial customs of feudal times before the seventeenth
century. From that time, despite the difficulties he labored
under, the merchant prospered. Being considered a dishonest
and dishonorable person, it is but natural that he was more or
less devoid of a sense of honor. He amassed a fortune and
stood in sharpest contrast to the samurai who lived in penury
and want.58
The Japanese are not the only people in history who have
looked upon the merchant with contempt,59 but it is difficult to
which the wealth of the country flowed away incessantly during two
centuries and a half, and some justice must be conceded to the defini-
tion." Brinkley, Vol. VI, p. 169.
+
50 "The income of feudal lords and the payment of rents were es-
timated in rice as late as the time of the present emperor. ...The
actual 'money economy' of Japan may be reckoned accurately from
the Restoration of 1868." Kinoshita, Past and Present of Japanesė
Commerce, pp. 40-41.
57
Brinkley, Vol. VI, p. 153.
58
5 So recently as 1876 a party of erstwhile samurai issued this
declaration :- "An eagle will never become a seed-eater, but will
rather die of hunger; so also a samurai of honor will never give
himself up to trade or any such occupation; nor to other things which
are contrary to his nature." In proving their sincerity many did
give up their lives. Cf. Rein, Japan, pp. 369-370 passim.
Many samurai who took up some small business, being ignorant
of business methods, lost their all and fell into abject and hopeless
poverty.
"Trade and commerce as we know them were unknown to the
Romans, and they could not have attained any large development un-
65
find the reason for their clinging so tenaciously to the idea
that sordid gain was the root of all trade, and for their failing
to see the mutual benefits to be gained from friendly commerce
and exchange.60
The relation of cities to Japanese social life is most
interesting. The emperor's capital, which for a thousand
years was Kyoto, was and is a flourishing city. Kæmpfer said
in 1690 that it was probably the largest city in the world,
but today it is not more than half its former size. Kamakura,
the first shogun's capital, which at one time had a population
of a million or more, is today a village of ten thousand or less.
Many of the castle towns of feudal days are little more than
historic names. We need not seek far to find the reason
for this. Naturally population and wealth would flow toward
Kyoto where the emperor's court was, and toward Yedo
(Tokyo), the shogun's capital, but many of the towns and
cities were near the daimyos' castles, the sites of which were
der such an organization of society. Such agriculture and manufac-
tures as existed were carried on mainly by slaves, and occupations
connected with them were regarded as unworthy of free men. The
higher classes in Rome looked with contempt upon trade of any kind,
and passed laws forbidding their members to engage therein. It was
the same even in the freest of the Greek democracies." Benjamin
Kidd, Social Evolution, p. 146.
6º Kinoshita puts the blame on Buddhism,-"The spread of Budd-
hism led the people to shun the pursuit of worldly affairs, since the
production of wealth would stimulate the desires. Such a belief put at
the heart of human life could not but have a profound effect upon the
growth of industry, commerce, trade and all the business relations
of life..... The Buddhist priests were educated representatives
of the Chinese civilization which they taught to the people among whom
they lived. The religion they disseminated was hostile to all economic
life and progress, of which it dried up the very fountains. A high
order of economic life and material welfare must be developed in
spite of it and never because of it." Past and Present of Japanese
Commerce, pp. 34, 35. This seems hardly fair, for the Japanese adapted
everything else and could have modified this. The Chinese at one
time looked on the merchant with disfavor but they developed com-
merce and trade despite the influence of Buddhism. This age-long
aversion to trade seems to have been in the Japanese character.
:
66
I
often chosen because of their possibilities for defense. Unlike
the burg in Europe the space inside the wall was occupied by
only the feudal lord and his retainers; the artisans and mer-
chants lived outside the wall below the castle, while the
farmers lived scattered throughout the territory at the most.
convenient places.
The lowest class of society was made up of outcasts. Many
Japanese claim that they were foreigners never admitted into
the nation by naturalization. Possibly the tanners who came
over from Korea in the fifth century were the first of these.
Every person who had to do with skins or leather, with human
corpses, carcasses of animals, etc., all executioners, keepers of
brothels, beggars, some classes of criminals, and many others
were included in this class. One name for a large division of
them was hi-nin, i. e., not human, and the appellation was
appropriate, in that they were treated as if they were not
human. Degraded and polluted they remained outside the
pale of society. They lived in separate villages and formed
no part of the population, for their names and numbers were
not included in the census; when counted at all the numerals
used in counting animals were used. Even to give them food
involved contamination and no Japanese would even walk
through one of their villages. The business of some of these
people was of such a nature that they became enormously
wealthy, but no amount of riches was sufficient to give them
social standing.
Note. Buddhist priests had no social status and hence no
position can be assigned them in the scale. Generally speaking
they had rank about equivalent to that of the samurai.
67
CHAPTER III.
THE CHANGING SOCIAL ORDER.
The Japanese on an area equal to about one-half of the pres-
ent Japanese empire developed an indigenous civilization.
Then contact with outside nations, Korea and China, gave to
Japan a new religion and the pattern of a state. With the
adoption went adaptation, but, although the indigenous civili-
zation was not altogether overwhelmed by the alien elements,
Japanese scholars today are of the opinion that the wholesale
importation of Chinese ideas at that time was somewhat pre-
mature and excessive. An unexpected result of the trans-
planting of the Chinese bureaucratic form of government,
absorbing the power of the emperor and eventually handing it
over to local potentates, was the development of feudalism.
Again, in the sixteenth century Japan came into relation with
the outside world, this time with Europeans. Japan had been
an isolated group of islands in ancient days; then after a few
centuries of intercourse with the continent of Asia she se-
cluded herself from the outside world. Later, after a brief
century of intercourse with the peoples and civilizations of
Europe, she shut herself off from the influences of the West.
Another period of development followed during which Japan
assimilated certain elements of Western culture, a knowledge
of which she had acquired during the century of contact. In
her institutional life the imported elements have in many
instances transcended those which were native; the embryonic
native religion gave way to the more vital system of Buddhism ;
Confucianism filled an ethical void; the Chinese pattern of
bureaucracy supplanted the tribal state; the use of letters, many
of the industrial arts, and their technique, all came from with-
out. Japan's whole career has been one continuous effort to
1
68


tice-
milate; her invariable attitude has been that or
ship. She has twice risen out of a state of decline and started
upon new periods of development. In each instance, however,
traditional Japanese thought was strong enough and yet plastic
enough to undergo the change without national revolution.
The general impression until quite recently was that in
her seclusion Japan was asleep, uninfluenced by and ignorant
of what was going on in the West. We are, however, learning
from the literature of these centuries of supposed isolation
that Japan was fully cognizant of what was transpiring in
Europe. One condition on which the Dutch were permitted to
remain at Deshima was that they should communicate to the
Japanese authorities everything of importance that took place.
It is true that the importation of books generally was forbidden,
but the purpose of this prohibition was to keep out every-
thing which might in any way help the cause of Christianity.
Books of a scientific nature, maps, etc., were imported by
the Dutch, and these few sole representatives of the Occident
disseminated scientific knowledge which was of great help to
the nation at large. A few Japanese, other than those ap-
pointed, and therefore contrary to the government regulations,
dared to study the Dutch language, and thereby imbibed the
ideas of the West. The rulers had an intense interest in what
was going on in the outside world, and were fully aware that
sooner or later the intrusions of Western civilization were
inevitable. The people were kept in ignorance of international
relations, but for a whole century before the country was
finally opened, Occidental influences were at work, and when
the time came the Japanese were prepared, however unwill-
ingly, to break down the barriers they had erected and so long
successfully kept up.
It is idle to speculate as to what would have happened had
not America and the nations of Europe insisted that Japan
should open her gates. The forces of feudalism had reached
their ultimate development and, altogether apart from Western
influence, some change must inevitably have taken place.
69


IV
1
s, however, did force the gates and the who
country on came to be in a state of turmoil. One large
section of the nation was for driving out the foreigners, but
it was soon seen that this could not be done; once removed
the barriers could not be put up again. After fifteen years
of stormy, yet on the whole peaceful, conflict, during which
agitation the seeds of constitutional government were sown,¹
the shogun resigned and the emperor was restored to the
throne. Feudalism and the shogunate fell together, for, only
a few months after the so-called temporal ruler surrendered
the reins of government, the feudal lords gave up their fiefs
and the eight centuries of feudalism came to an end. The
imperial decree of August, 1871 ran: "The clans are abolished,
and prefectures are established in their places." The former
feudal lords for a time continued in their districts as gover-
nors but this was only a temporary arrangement. Here and
there were opposition and civil disturbance, but how well
prepared for the great changes the people were is evident
from the rapidity with which the changes took place. The
pressure from without of the forces which opened the country
served to unify the nation. Under feudalism there had been
no semblance of national unity, but the Restoration, and the
accompanying movements, made the people one. Two months
after the abolition of the feudal fiefs an imperial decree.
emancipated the lowest classes of society by granting citizen-
ship to nearly one million outcasts of different kinds.²
Under feudalism the policy had been that the people should
be governed but not instructed; the masses were kept in
"Had not the foreigners come, the Restoration might have been
effected, fedualism might have been abolished, but the new Japanese
constitution would hardly have seen the day." T. Iyenaga, The Con-
stitutional Development of Japan, p. 9.
"The legal distinction between the eta and other persons of the
lower orders was abolished on October 12, 1871, at which time the
official census gave 287,111 as the number of eta properly so-called,
and 982,800 as the total number of outcasts of all descriptions. Scorn
of the eta has naturally survived the abolition of their legal disabili-
ties." Chamberlain, Things Japanese, p. 147.
70
ignorance of the laws. The coronation oath of the Emperor
declared that all the affairs of state should be guided by public
opinion; that all classes of the people, upper and lower,
should be united for the common good; and that the artificial
and absurd customs of former days should be done away
with, and knowledge sought for throughout the world.
With the abolition of the feudal system the whole struc-
ture of society was changed; in a measure there was a return
to the conditions which preceded the establishment of the
shogunate in the eleventh century. The Japanese realized
that while their country had been standing still the nations
of the West had been making great progress. They recognized
their own deficiencies and realized that it was necessary for
them in a few years, or at least a few decades, to overtake
the West. The insufficiency of the existing social order with
its class distinctions was especially apparent. Japanese
scholars had seen nothing worthy of study beyond Confucian-
ism, which had been instrumental in setting up the barriers
between the classes." One of the chief objects of the pres-
ent educational system, established almost simultaneously
with the restoration of the Emperor, was the levelling of the
different orders in society and the obliteration of all class
distinctions.
4
Many of the daimyos were admitted to the same rank as the
former kuge, court nobles, but as few of them were qualified
to take a prominent part in affairs of state," they practically
3 "Japan discovered her helplessness, she discovered, too, that the
social order of Western peoples was totally distinct from hers. These
discoveries seemed to break down all the remaining sanctions for her
particular type of social order,-Confucianistic feudalism......So long
as the Shinto ideal of nationalism was not interfered with, the nation
was free to adopt any new social order....... The real reason for
the ease with which the individualistic Anglo-Saxon social order has
been introduced has been the collapse of the sanctions for the Con-
fucian order." S. L. Gulick, Evolution of the Japanese, p. 413.
4
* Now one of the best in the world.
'While feudalism was decaying the real power in each district lay
in the hands of able samurai who ruled their masters the daimyos.
71

disappeared from public view. The real actors on the national
stage were prominent samurai, principally from the southern
provinces, who, while restoring the emperor, practically
assumed control of the affairs of state; this control they have
not yet altogether reliquished. Most of the members of
Cabinets and many of the leading statesmen of the past few
decades and of the present day have been the samurai of
former days. The minor offices, even including that of
policeman, have for the most part been filled with men of this
class. The right to become a soldier and fight for the country
is no longer that of the samurai alone. There was opposition.
to admiting plebians into the ranks of the army, but today
every male in the nation without distinction of family or rank
is expected to serve with the colors."
The population has almost doubled in this last half cen-
tury, and there is a steady increase of about one per cent.
each year.
Until quite recently it was felt that the economic
future of Japan lay in the development of her agricultural
resources. As there was almost no other way to invest their
wealth many rich persons bought up land and became capi-
talist farmers. There was a continuous move of the popula-
tion from the former feudal cities to the country. In 1886
only eleven per cent. of the people lived in cities having a
It was the old plan of deputing power to an inferior, who came to be
the real ruler.
"The system of conscription was one of the most important of the
Restoration undertakings. It meant that the 400,000 families of the
samurai had to abondon their hereditary rights and duties as soldiers,
together with their hereditary fees, given in rice. Certain sums were
allotted to them from the national finances in proportion to the amount
of fees which they used to receive..... The people who suffered most
in honor and in interest under the new regime were the samurai."
Japan by the Japanese, p. 106. "Every male adult in the whole country
shall be compelled, without distinction of class or family, to fulfil, in
accordance with the provisions of law, his duty of serving in the
army." Her last two wars have shown that Japan has lost nothing.
by requiring military service of members of all classes of society.
Even the Ainu are enlisted and follow the flag.
72
8
9
population of over twenty thousand.' But the great increase
in population and the lack of large areas of new land capa-
ble of being brought under cultivation has since 1890 brought
about a decided movement from the rural districts to the
cities. More than sixty per cent. of the entire population
is still agricultural. Improvements in methods of farming,
and government encouragement in the way of agricultural
education,10 have advanced her agricultural prosperity, but
Japan is in sight of the limits of her agricultural resources.11
"Cf. Ono, Industrial Transition in Japan, pp. 29 seq. passim.
There was no Yokohama a half century ago.
Kobe was 13,296 in 1879; in 1903 it was 283,839.
city of a few hundred thousands became a great manufacturing center
with more than a million inhabitants.
8
The population of
Osaka has from a
9"Agriculture, being the occupation of more than sixty per cent.
of the entire population, is indeed the greatest of all Japanese indus-
tries; but in the application of scientific principles to agriculture and in
the proportion of land under cultivation, Japan is far behind the pro-
gressive nations of Europe, and there is still ample room for improve-
ment and development." Sixth Financial and Economic Annual of
Japan, p. 58.
10 There are several hundred agricultural schools. The Sapporo
Agricultural School is almost of University grade.
""She will by and by have to look abroad for supplies of the neces-
saries of life. Rice is the staple diet of the people, and she seems to
have almost reached the potential maximum of her rice-growing area;
for in spite of her genial climate and seemingly fertile soil, the extent
of her arable land is disproportionately small. She has only eleven
and one-half millions of acres under crops, and there is no prospect of
any large extension, or of the yield's being improved by new agricul-
tural processes.". Brinkley, Vol. VI, o. 217.
"Agriculture, however, is still the fundamental basis of Japan's in-
dustrial life. To this industry the country owes its ability to pay its
way, and but for the peasant farmer, who, by a more or less cheerful
acquiescence in the imposition of a land tax, made it practicable for
the newly formed central government to carry on the task of adminis-
tration on a Western model, it is difficult to see where the resources
could have been found for the consummation of so vast a change as
that which has occurred during the last thirty years. But lately there
as been an important shifting from agriculture to the manufacturing
industry." Y. Hattori, The Foreign Commerce of Japan since the
Restoration, p. 68.
73
Further improvement will help matters somewhat; Japan will
be able to feed her present population, and perhaps a few mil-
lions more, from the products of her own soil, but her future
is not agricultural.
When it became clear that the agricultural resources were
not capable of great expansion attention was given to the mining
industries of the country.12 The idea entertained in the West
that Japan is a land of great mineral wealth has been dissipated.
The metallic stocks accumulated during centuries have been
drained away in foreign trade, and there is little encouragement
for those who formerly thought that there was unbounded
mineral wealth still hidden in the earth.
12 (
Everything seems to point to a great industrial future for the
Japanese. They have, or can produce, nearly all of the raw
materials¹³ needed for the factories they have already estab-
lished and for more besides; they are skilled as artists and
artisans and will manufacture in large quantities articles which
will find a ready market throughout the world.14 Every ef-
"Mining, now one of the most important industries in Japan, was
in the first years of Meiji still in a very backward state. The Govern-
ment, being anxious to promote the industry, itself owned several
mines which were worked according to the most recent European
methods; but they mostly proved financial failures, and to avoid fur-
ther losses, a majority of them were after a time sold to private per-
sons, in whose hands they prospered and brought about the general de-
velopment of our mining industry." Sixth Financial and Economic
Annual, p. 69.
13 (
"Japan cannot hope to compete in agricultural productions with
those countries which have immense territory. Hence, Japan must
rely on industrial development rather than on agriculture, and must
strive to excel in the quality of goods produced rather than in quantity,
....Japan possesses all the advantages necessary to make her a great
manufacturing country. Her people possess exceptional skill, and
labor is relatively cheap; coal is abundant, and the raw material is
easily obtainable either at home or in the neighboring countries."
Hattori, op. cit., pp. 78, 79.
14 "Her future lies undoubtedly in industrial enterprise. She has an
abundance of cheap labor, and her people are exceptionally gifted with
intelligence, docility, manual dexterity, and artistic taste." Brinkley,
Vol. VI, pp. 217-218.
+
74
!
1
fort is now being bent toward the development of the various
industries. Factories are springing up everywhere. Manu-
factured goods already form a large proportion of the goods
exported.15 It now seems that Japan's economic future lies.
in the domain of manufacture.16
There has, of late, been a marked rise in the standard of
living among the Japanese. Economy in the matter of expendi-
ture and simplicity of life were formerly regarded as virtues.
The productions of the Japanese themselves as well as large
quantities of goods brought from the outside which until re-
cently by the masses would have been considered luxuries are
now regarded as necessities. The merchant has thus a wide
field. There is no longer any contempt for this class. Some
who had held high rank took to trade as a profession, and as
honest and honorable persons in increasing numbers engaged
in this pursuit¹7 all contempt for the merchant class disap-
peared. Even poor boys who have become rich in business
have been decorated by the Emperor and some of them fill
honorable positions in society.
The prohibition against the building of sea-going ships was
removed in the year after the Restoration, and Japanese pro-
ducts are now carried to all parts of the world in vessels of
Japanese construction. Foreign trade has assumed large pro-
portions, and a large part of the exports and imports are car-
ried in Japanese ships. Not only is this the case but the
15 "The export of manufactured goods, exclusive of raw silk and tea,
is in value about 55% of the total exports." Sixth Financial and
Economic Annual, p. 84.
16 At present the textile industries are most important. There is a
large number of technical schools.
"Honor, integrity, and unwillingness to take advantage of another
went with the samurai contempt for money and have been carried
with them by many who have gone into business. This has been
the means of perceptibly raising the standards of commercial mor-
ality. In former days the merchant could hardly be blamed if he was
not honest.
་
75
carrying trade of eastern Asia is almost altogether in the hands
of the Japanese.18
The levelling process is thus almost complete.19 The Em-
peror, no longer a god but a strong ruler respected and rever-
enced by his subjects, sits upon the throne. Shogun, daimyo,
and samurai have disappeared entirely except in so far as by
their ability they are able to command influence and authority.
The social scale so far as the bulk of the population,―heimin,—
is concerned seems to have been almost inverted. Any person
irrespective of birth or wealth may now rise to a high posi-
tion in society.20
Loyalty to the feudal lord has become love of country. The
doing away with the feudal boundaries, the abolition of all class
distinctions, the development of means of communication, in-
cluding railroads, postal and telegraph systems, together with
the use of a common speech have made the people one. Their
veneration for antiquity has fostered love for the national
ideals. There is a passionate devotion to everything Japanese
which causes a national self-consciousness, so exclusive at times
"At the close of 1903 the country possessed 657,000 tons of steam-
ers and 320,000 tons of sailing vessels, making a total of 977,000 tons for
both descriptions; the tonnage of the steam fleet was then about four
times what it was nine years previously." Fifth Financial and Econ-
omic Annual, p. 175.
19 In 1885 five orders of nobility were however instituted and in the
official records registration of the nominal social rank has been
kept up. In the schools, colleges, and universities announcement is
made at commencement whether the graduate is of the noble, aristo-
cratic, or ordinary standing. In 1903 there were 5,054 of the nobility,
2,167,389 gentry, and 44,547,568 persons formed the remainder of the
popuation. In each case all members of the family are included.
20 In the first House of Representatives (1890), made up of three
hundred members, there were 129 farmers, 110 samurai, 19 merchants,
and I manufacturer. In the sixth session the number of samurai fell
to 79, the farmers increased to 134, and the merchants to 24. Cf.
Brinkley, Vol. VI, pp. 239 seq.
To-day the highest official career is open to the poorest aspirant;
many of the most influential men in public office have sprung from
humble origin.
76
however in its chauvinistic manifestations as almost to inter-
fere with national progress and development. This national
feeling embodying most that is best in the samurai spirit of
feudal days is the greatest moral asset of the Japan of to-
day.21
Japan's intercourse with the West has not resulted in un-
mixed gain to her. Much of the beauty and charm of Japanese
life have been lost forever. The new conditions have brought
about changes as great as were caused in the seventh century
by the influx of Chinese civilization. The Japanese do not
wish to be praised for what they have been, but wish to take
their place alongside of the most advanced nations of the
West.22 Japan is passing through an industrial revolution
which carries with it all of the problems with which we have
to deal in this industrial age in the Occident.23
21 Had this spirit been diffused so as to permeate thoroughly the
whole of society, instead of only the upper one-tenth, Japan would
have been even better prepared to take her place in the family of
nations. Overlooking for the moment her deficiencies it is well before
making a final estimate and forecast to emphasize certain points of
excellence. Varying estimates would be made by competent judges,
but the following from Brinkley is moderate :-"Many phases of
Japan's civilization were superior to the civilization of the West when
she began to assimilate the better parts of the latter. She did not
bring to the examination of the Occidental systems and their products
a mind wholly untrained to distinguish the good from the bad. In her
social conventionalisms, in her refinements of life, in her altruistic
ethics, in many of her canons of domestic conduct, in her codes of
polite etiquette, in her applications of art, she could have given to
Europe lessons as useful as those she had to learn from it." Vol. I,
P. 13.
23 "Why do not Westerners praise us for huge industrial enterprises,
for commercial talent, for wealth, political sagacity, powerful arma-
ments? Of course it is because they cannot honestly do so. They
have gauged us at our true value, and tell us in effect that we are pretty
weaklings." Cf. Chamberlain, Things Japanese, p. 5. The Japanese
accepted the standard of greatness set by the West and in the last
twenty years have largely realized their ambitions along this line.
23 They know that Ruskin said that machinery is a curse, and Car-
lyle's words picturing what he thought to be the condition of England
77
It would seem that Japan is none too well prepared to
cope with these great problems. The situation is full of perils
and it may be questioned if her present social organization
will be able to endure the pressure now being put upon it.24
The strength and weaknesses of the social organization are not
on the surface but are woven through and through the social
fabric. The two greatest problems are industrialism and in-
dividualism. It is not a matter of East or West, for both
have essentially the same problems; but the emphasis is dif-
ferently distributed, and the stages of development and the
in his day are ringing in their ears:-"In no time, since the beginnings
of Society, was the lot of those same dumb millions of toilers so en-
tirely unbearable as it is even in the days now passing over us. It
is not to die, or even to die of hunger, that makes a man wretched.
It is to live miserable we know not why; to work sore and yet gain
nothing; to be heart-worn, weary, yet isolated." Past and Present, p.
250. They are fully alive to the dangers which threaten them as an
industrial nation. "Such transition carries with it possibilities of evil
as well as of blessing. The sudden introduction of labor-saving ma-
chinery on a large scale into a country whose industry has grown
independently of such potential factors, must cause serious disturbances,
and when these disturbances are exaggerated by misgovernment, they
are liable to engender social evils which may make civilization a curse
to the multitude of the people." Ono, The Industrial Transition in
Japan, p. 14. And yet, feeling that "only among industrial people are
free institutions realized" (Ono, op. cit. p .13), and that their path to
greatness must be industrial, they are bravely facing the situation.
The masses are not holding back, but are following their dauntless
leaders.
2 "Into the old, time-worn wine-skin of feudal bondage, isolated re-
pose and military lethargy, was suddenly poured the new wine of in-
dividual liberty, international commerce and industrial activity; who can
wonder if the wine-skin bursts?" Nitobe, Intercourse between the U.
S. and Japan, p. 152. "Never before, perhaps, in the history of human
civilization did any rulers find themselves obliged to cope with problems
so tremendous, so complicated, and so inexorable. And of these prob-
lems the most inexorable remains to be solved. It is furnished by the
fact that although all the successes of Japan have been so far due to
unselfish collective action, sustained by the old Shinto ideals of duty and
obedience, her industrial future must depend upon egoistic individual
action of a totally opposite kind!" Hearn, Japan, pp. 511-512.
78
conditions under which they must be worked out are not the
same. The marvelous growth of Japanese cities calls for the
exercise of the greatest political and social sagacity; factory
labor, especially that of women and children, involves matters
already demanding adjustment.
The foundations on which the social system, with its class
distinctions, was erected have been taken away. The spirit
of loyalty, now patriotism, has survived all superstitions con-
cerning the origin of the sovereign. He performs the tradi-
tional Shinto rites, now more ethnical than religious.25 Na-
tional ancestor-worship, fundamental ideas in the Constitu-
tion and the educational system, began to decay with the down-
fall of feudalism. Confucianism has been found to be sadly
defective and non-adaptable to modern conditions.26 It never
denounced polygamy and concubinage nor respected the rights
of women and children. It sanctioned certain class distinctions
which do not now exist; on the other hand there are new
social relationships not even dreamed of by Confucius.27
There is no recognition of the worth of the individual.
Whatever of personality is not swallowed up in patriotism
tends to be absorbed in other channels. The day of the relega-
tion of human workers to positions analogous to beasts of
burden has not yet altogether passed. History has left us in
25 "A rudimentary religion of this kind is quite inadequate for the
spiritual sustenance of a nation which in these latter days has raised
itself to so high a pitch of enlightenment and civilization..... The
reverence paid to the Mikado is not devoid of a religious quality which
has its source in Shinto..... As a national religion, Shinto is almost
extinct." Aston, Shinto, pp. 376-377.
26 "The influence of the Confucian ethics has been waning in Japan,
because it cannot meet her new conditions, since the introduction of
Western culture. The traditions and customs of olden times, which
were greatly cherished by the Confucian ethics, cannot be altogether
maintained now by the more progressive spirit of modern science and
philosophy." T. Kudo, The Ethics of Confucius, p. 55.
27 "In our social life, there are more than the five relations which
were maintained by Confucius. They are, for instance, the relations
between different nations, betwen capital and labor, between the rich
and the poor." Ibid. p. 50.
79
the dark as to the mass of the people in past ages. There
has been a gradual emancipation and advancement; now even
the eta and the Ainu are recognized as full members of the
nation. Nevertheless nine-tenths of the total population still
occupy an inferior status. All social relations imply acknowl-
edged deference or superiority. Since feudal times there has
been a worse form of slavery than existed ages ago; thousands
of females are actually sold every year for immoral pur-
poses. 28
There are several important factors which will help in the
solution of these momentous problems. After some years of
preparation, Constitutional Government was established in
1890. The people not only share in the government but ap-
preciate the privileges of representative institutions. The
family group still is and may for some time continue to be
artificially constructed, but as a social institution it will make
for stability in great social crises.29 Universal education,—
among a people of more than average ability,-is showing ex-
cellent results and may be counted on more and more. Budd-
hism is once more becoming active and a moral force for good.
The long despised and once expelled religion too offers her
help. This is warmly welcomed and may be of great assistance
to Japan in the solution of her social problems.30
29 It is a debatable question whether the Japanese are any more licen-
tious than other races; it is also worth considering if Japan's method of
dealing with the social evil is not as good as that of any other nation.
But the fact that not only Japan itself but the whole Orient is filled, or
being rapidly filled, with Japanese Yoshiwara shows a radical defect in
her social system.
29 (
"Although every care has been taken to preserve the old family
idea, the integrity of the system cannot possibly continue for many
generations to come. The process of disintegration is already going on
slowly." R. Masujima, The Present Position of Japanese Law and
Jurisprudence.
Christianity has been given credit for making the new Japan.
Doubtless the contact with the so-called Christian nations and peoples
of the West has been of great benefit. As the edicts against Christianity
were still in force until 1872 greater results surely could not possibly
have been expected from the efforts put forth. "Christian missionaries
80
are doing great things for Japan-in the domain of education, and
especially of moral education:-only, the mysterious though not the
less certain working of the Spirit is still hidden in divine secrecy.
Whatever they do is still of an indirect effect. No, as yet Christian
missions have effected but little visible in moulding the character of
New Japan." Nitobe, Bushido, p. 116. There is to-day religious liberty,
such as hardly exists anywhere else. As far as Japan is concerned
the real task of Christianity is still ahead of her.
81

BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Note.-The thirty-four volumes of the "Transactions" of the Asiatic
Society of Japan include the results of the work of scholars on things
Japanese. The best work of the small group who have given to the
world that which is true concerning Japan has in almost all cases
first been read before or presented to the Society. Later, sometimes
after revision, it has been given to the world. In all too many in-
stances one or two truths have been snatched from these volumes by
tourists and along with their own "impressions" have been made into
books on Japan. Such books have been often the most popular ones,
because written by those who had "visited the country". Compara-
tively little real service has been done Japan or the cause of true
scholarship by those who have spent the proverbial "six weeks to six
months" there and then put into print the "information" they had
gathered.
The monumental work of Brinkley in eight volumes has as its basis.
the official publication, "The History of the Empire of Japan", which
is the work of eminent Japanese scholars and which was translated
by him.
Few who know Japan will grant that the general picture Hearn
has drawn is true. His Japan did not and does not exist, but his last
and best work "Japan: An Interpretation" is valuable and must be
included in this list.
The list of books given below contains only works of foreigners
who have resided in Japan, or of Japanese.
Asakawa, K. The Early Institutional Life of Japan. Tokyo, 1903.
Aston, W. G. Japanese Literature. London, 1899.
Aston, W. G. Shinto (The Way of the Gods). London, 1905.
Brinkley, F. Japan, Its History, Arts, and Literature.
London, 1903.
VIII Vols.
Chamberlain, B. H. Things Japanese. Third Edition. Yokohama,
1898.
Clement, E. W. Handbook of Modern Japan. Chicago, 1903.
Clement, E. W. Hildreth's "Japan as it Was and Is". Chicago, 1906.
Department of Education of Japan. History of the Empire of Japan.
Tokyo, 1893.
82

Department of Finance of Japan. Fifth and Sixth Financial and
Economic Annuals of Japan. Tokyo, 1905 and 1906.
Griffis, W. E. The Japanese Nation in Evolution. New York, 1907.
Griffis, W. E. The Mikado's Empire. Tenth Edition. New York,
1903.
Griffis, W. E. The Religions of Japan. New York, 1901.
Gulick, S. L. Evolution of the Japanese. New York, 1903.
Hattori, Y. The Foreign Commerce of Japan Since the Restoration
(1869-1900). Baltimore, 1904.
Hearn, L. Japan: An Interpretation. New York, 1904.
Hishida, S. The International Position of Japan as a Great Power.
New York, 1905.
Ito, Count (now Prince) H. Commentaries on the Constitution of
the Empire of Japan. Tokyo, 1889.
Iyenaga, T. The Constitutional Development of Japan (1853-1881).
Baltimore, 1891.
Kaempfer, E. History of Japan. (The original in Dutch, 1692.)
English Edition. III Vols. Glasgow, 1906.
Kawakami, K. The Political Ideas of Modern Japan. Tokyo, 1903.
Kinoshita, Y. The Past and Present of Japanese Commerce. New
York, 1902.
Knapp, A. M.
Knox, G. W.
1907.
Feudal and Modern Japan. II Vols. Boston, 1897.
The Development of Religion in Japan. New York,
Knox, G. W. Japanese Life in Town and Country. New York, 1904.
Kudo, T. The Ethics of Confucius. Tokyo, 1904.
Morse, E. S. Japanese Homes and their Surroundings. Boston, 1886.
Murdoch, J. in collaboration with Yamagata, I. A History of Japan
during the Century of Early Foreign Intercourse. Kobe, 1903.
Murray, D. The Story of Japan. New York, 1894.
Newton, J. C. C. Japan, Country, Court, and People. Nashville, 1900.
Nitobe, I. Bushido, The Soul of Japan. Tokyo, 1904.
Nitobe, I. The Intercourse between the United States and Japan.
Baltimore, 1891.
Ono, Y. The Industrial Transition in Japan.
Rein, J. J. Japan: Travels and Researches.
London, 1888.
Baltimore, 1890.
Second English Edition.
XXXIV Vols. Yoko-
Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.
hama, 1873-1907. Referred to as "T. A. S. J".
Transactions of the Japan Society of London. VII Vols. London,
1896-1907.
Yamawaki, H. Japan in the Beginning of the 20th Century. Tokyo,
1904.
83
The following have been used in comparative study:—
Bücher, C. Industrial Evolution. Translated from the Third German
Edition. New York, 1901.
Carlyle, T. Past and Present. London, 1843.
Gibbins, H. De B. The Industrial History of England. Eighth Edition.
London, 1902.
Rogers, J. E. T. The Economic Interpretation of History. London,
1888.
Toynbee, A. The Industrial Revolution.
1890.
Third Edition. London,
84

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