Note Return to text — EXTRINSIC SIGNIFICANCE OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT IN JAPAN.

I. If it be argued that the Asiatic people are conspicuously characterized by the conservative spirit, that they seem well satisfied with their present social and political organizations, such as they are, it must be remembered at the same time, that this was also the appearance which the French people presented, before their attention was called to the political superiority of England. "In general," says Lecky, "there runs through the great French literature of the seventeenth century a profound content with the existing order in Church and State, an entire absence of the spirit of disquiet, scepticism, and innovation that leads to organic change."[7]