Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/249

 made heir, a son was born to the wife, and intrigues at once commenced to obtain the succession for the legitimate offspring. Such a change seems natural; but in the interval before the birth of the legitimate child, it often happened that the question had been complicated by many newly formed relations of which the concubine took advantage to prevent the deposition of her offspring. Again and again troubles involving large sections of the feudal aristocracy grew out of these complications, and the Taikō, sensible of the necessity of removing such a factor of disturbance, attempted, first, to interdict the keeping of concubines in general, and then had recourse to the less drastic method of declaring two the maximum number. His panegyrists have inferred from this veto a high moral aim. But the Taikō has no title to such praise. When a Christian propagandist preached to him the doctrine of one consort only for one husband, he said, "Relax that restriction and I might believe your teaching." His legislation was dictated by considerations of expediency only. Naturally it proved abortive.

It is a philosophical tenet that the imagination in its first stages concentrates itself on individuals; then, by an effort of abstraction, rises to an institution or well-defined organisation; and finally grasps a moral or intellectual principle. Some analysts of Japanese character maintain that the spirit of the bushi belonged to the first category;