The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881
Excerpt
The power which destroyed Japanese feudalism and changed in that country an absolute into a constitutional monarchy was a resultant of manifold forces. The most apparent of these forces is the foreign influence. Forces less visible but more potent, tending in this direction, are those influences resulting from the growth of commerce and trade, from the diffusion of western science and knowledge among the people, and from the changes in social habits and religious beliefs. The truth of the solidarity of the varied interests of a social organism is nowhere so well exemplified as in the history of modern Japan. Her remarkable political development would have been impossible had there been no corresponding social, educational, religious, economic and industrial changes. In order to trace the constitutional development of New Japan, it is therefore necessary:
