9, 414; Vol. IV.,
pp. 121, 152.]

[Footnote 11: American Executive Document, Diplomatic Correspondence,
Part 3, 1864-65, p. 486, 3d Sess. 38th Cong.]

[Footnote 12: Principles of Sociology, p. 540.]

CHAPTER II.

THE RESTORATION.

In the last chapter we have noticed what a commotion had been caused
in Japan by the sudden advent of Commodore Perry, how the councils of
Kuges and Daimios were called into spontaneous life by the dread
of foreigners and by the sense of national weakness, and how the
bombardments of Kagoshima and Shimonosheki tested these fears and
taught the necessity of national union. I have remarked that free
government is not necessarily the sole heritage of the Aryan race, but
that the presence of foreigners, the change of the military form of
society into the industrial form, the increase in importance of
the individual in the community, are sure to breed a free and
representative system of government.

In the following chapter we shall see the downfall of the Shogunate,
the restoration of the imperial power to its pristine vigor, and the
destruction of feudalism.

"The study of constitutional history is essentially a tracing of
causes and consequences," says Bishop Stubbs, "not the collection of
a multitude of facts and views, but the piecing of links of a perfect
chain."

I shall therefore not dwell upon the details of the events which
led to the downfall of the Shogunate, but immediately enter into an
inquiry concerning the causes.

Three causes led to the final overthrow of the Shogunate:

I. The Revival of Learning. The last half of the eighteenth and
the first half of the present century witnessed in Japan an unusual
intellectual activity. The long peace and prosperity of the country
under the rule of the Tokugawa dynasties had fostered in every way the
growth of literature and art. The Shoguns, from policy or from taste,
either to find a harmless vent for the restless spirit of the
Samura or from pure love of learning, have been constant patrons of
literature. The Daimios, too, as a means of spending their leisure
hours when they were not out hawking or revelling with their
mistresses, gave no inattentive ear to the readings and lectures of
learned men. Each Daimioate took pride in the number and fame of her
own learned sons. Thus throughout the country eminent scholars arose.
With them a new era of literature dawned upon the land. The new
literature changed its tone. Inst