the other hand, it has to manage restive steeds at home, where
ancestral ideas and habits clash with new dangers arising from
an alien material civilisation hastily absorbed.

Down to the year 1888, the line of cleavage between governors
and governed was obscured by the joyful ardour with which all
classes alike devoted themselves to the acquisition of
European, not to say American, ideas. Everything foreign
was then hailed as perfect--everything old and national was
contemned. Sentiment grew democratic, in so far (perhaps
it was not very far) as American democratic ideals were
understood. Love of country seemed likely to yield to a humble
bowing down before foreign models. Officialdom not unnaturally
took fright at this abdication of national individualism.
Evidently something must be done to turn the tide.
Accordingly, patriotic sentiment was appealed to through the
throne, whose hoary antiquity had ever been a source of pride
to Japanese literati, who loved to dwell on the contrast
between Japan's unique line of absolute monarchs and the
short-lived dynasties of China. Shinto, a primitive nature
cult, which had fallen into discredit, was taken out of its
cupboard and dusted. The common people, it is true, continued
to place their affections on Buddhism, the popular festivals
were Buddhist, Buddhist also the temples where they buried
their dead. The governing class determined to change all this.
They insisted on the Shinto doctrine that the Mikado descends
in direct succession from the native Goddess of the Sun, and
that He himself is a living God on earth who justly claims the
absolute fealty of his subjects. Such things as laws and
constitutions are but free gifts on His part, not in any sense