Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/207

 contempt attached to the latter as compared with the former.

It has been shown in these pages that the continuous growth of the provincial nobles tended to deepen the above line of cleavage, so that, from the middle of the tenth century, the term samurai or bushi acquired a special significance, being applied to themselves and their followers by the magnates, whose power tended more and more to eclipse even that of the Throne. Finally, in the twelfth century, when the Minamoto brought the whole country under the sway of a military organisation, the privilege of bearing arms was restricted to the bushi. Thenceforth the military class entered upon a period of administrative and social superiority which lasted, without serious interruption, until the middle of the nineteenth century. But it is to be observed that the distinction between soldier and civilian, samurai and commoner, was not of ancient existence, nor did it arise from any question of race or caste, victor and vanquished, as is often supposed and stated. It was an outcome wholly of ambitious usurpations, which, relying for success on force of arms, gave practical importance to the soldier and invested his profession with factitious honour. Hence, when Bushi-dō, or the "warrior's way," is spoken of, there should be understood a moral cult, not the special property of one section only of the nation, but representing the development that Japanese char-