Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/267

 into existence. Thus the painter, the sculptor, the architect, the lacquerer, and the worker in metals, all were recipients of honour, patronage, and even rank, and in that way was laid the foundation of a class of men who gave to their country many beautiful works, and ultimately won for her the distinction of being as richly dowered with the art instinct and with competence to give it faithful expression as was even ancient Greece in her best days.

Brief allusion has already been made to the semmin, or "despised people," who did not belong to the agricultural, the industrial, or the trading class, being regarded as social outcasts. Since some affinities may be traced between their condition and occupations and those of the Roman servi, the term "serfs" has been applied to the semmin in these pages, and the facts relating to them may conveniently be set down here.

It has been postulated by ethnologists that slavery never constitutes a vital element of any social system in which a theocratic organisation is established. Communities where the military order has obtained the ascendancy are the natural home of caste divisions which relegate the industrial and agricultural functions to serfs and slaves. A partial vindication of that theory is traceable in the story of the Japanese, among whom the tiller of the soil, the mechanic, and the trader ranked as plebeians, or commoners, in comparison with the military patricians. But if the polity of