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sentiments. How much more must this be true of Japan, where feudalism was only abolished thirty years ago! As a matter of fact, Chivalry is still the dominant moral power amongst us. It has survived all the wrecks of feudalism, and however marred and mutilated it may be, its potency cannot be doubted. It is in its might that we live, move, and have our being.

The statement that Japan has cut off all connection with the past is only partially true. Such a statement has reference only to laws and politics, but not to moral ideas. We have put our hands to a plough ‘made in Germany’ or ‘made in America,’ as the case may be, and though we have not given them up, we have received an impulse from behind by what are sometimes called the antiquated moral notions begotten of Chivalry, and I dare say the furrows we are making will show the character of the motive power.

Let me state here, then, that whatever charges may be made against our people as immoral—and it must be remembered that the same charge can be, and is, actually made against any country, England not excluded, by travellers, since it is usually the worst, the lax, side of life to which a foreigner is first introduced, such as cafés, theatres, etc., instead of a family or church—we are far from being unmoral.

If I were to designate in English the ensemble of Japanese ethical ideas, I would use, as I have been doing all along, the term Chivalry, this coming nearest to what is known among us as Bushido (pronounced Boo-she-doh). The literal significance of Bushido is Fighting-Knight-Ways, and we may more freely translate it as Teachings of Knightly Behaviour, or Precepts of Knighthood, or perhaps even the Code of Honour. Some prefer the term of Shido, omitting the prefix Bu (military), thereby extending its meaning. Whichever term is chosen, it makes little difference in substance, since gentlemen and warriors were practically identical. Warriors in times of peace were gentlemen, and gentlemen were warriors in time of war. Though Shido has at once the advantage and the fault of what logicians call definiendo latior, it may be well to use Bushido, if for no other reason than that it is the term most in vogue. As Bushido was the noblesse oblige of the Samurai class, and as this word has lately become quite domiciled in the English vocabulary, we may go so far as to coin the term Samurai-ism as an equivalent of the subject we are discussing. Though Chivalry is no doubt the most appropriate rendering of Bushido, it will be advisable to retain it in the original, as the two conceptions are not exactly the same. For instance, Bushido was not an institution, which Chivalry was, and hence the latter means more than the former; still, as Bushido was a moral code through and through, which