s that
helped to undermine Knighthood and Chivalry in and after the Middle Ages
are as surely working for the decline of Bushido.

One remarkable difference between the experience of Europe and of Japan
is, that, whereas in Europe when Chivalry was weaned from Feudalism and
was adopted by the Church, it obtained a fresh lease of life, in Japan
no religion was large enough to nourish it; hence, when the mother
institution, Feudalism, was gone, Bushido, left an orphan, had to shift
for itself. The present elaborate military organization might take it
under its patronage, but we know that modern warfare can afford little
room for its continuous growth. Shintoism, which fostered it in its
infancy, is itself superannuated. The hoary sages of ancient China are
being supplanted by the intellectual parvenu of the type of Bentham and
Mill. Moral theories of a comfortable kind, flattering to the
Chauvinistic tendencies of the time, and therefore thought well-adapted
to the need of this day, have been invented and propounded; but as yet
we hear only their shrill voices echoing through the columns of yellow
journalism.

Principalities and powers are arrayed against the Precepts of
Knighthood. Already, as Veblen says, "the decay of the ceremonial
code--or, as it is otherwise called, the vulgarization of life--among
the industrial classes proper, has become one of the chief enormities of
latter-day civilization in the eyes of all persons of delicate
sensibilities." The irresistible tide of triumphant democracy, which can
tolerate no form or shape of trust--and Bushido was a trust organized by
those who monopolized reserve capital of intellect and culture, fixing
the grades and value of moral qualities--is alone powerful enough to
engulf the remnant of Bushido. The present societary forces are
antagonistic to petty class spirit, and Chivalry is, as Freeman severely
criticizes, a class spirit. Modern society, if it pretends to any unity,
cannot admit "purely personal obligations devised in the interests of an
exclusive class."[35] Add to this the progress of popular instruction,
of industrial arts and habits, of wealth and city-life,--then we can
easily see that neither the keenest cuts of samurai's sword nor the
sharpest shafts shot from Bushido's boldest bows can aught avail. The
state built upon the rock of Honor and fortified by the same--shall we
call it the _Ehrenstaat_ or, after the manner of Carlyle, the
Heroarchy?--is fast f