Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/268

Rh and Yōdō of Tosa deservedly rank among the illustrious statesmen that prepared the way for the radical change of later days, or took an active part in promoting it. But it would be most erroneous to suppose that the Revolution of 1867 and all the reforms growing out of it were conceived, initiated, or furthered by the feudal chiefs. Among their immediate authors and promoters, numbering in all about threescore, not more than half a dozen names of great territorial magnates are to be found, and even these half-dozen acted a subordinate part. The makers of new Japan were samurai of comparatively low rank, men of extraordinary courage and almost reckless daring; swayed by a passionate desire to see their country take an honourable place among the nations, but not uninfluenced by motives of personal ambition and not hampered by hostages already given to fortune. The only sense in which the nobility can be said to have assisted the Revolution was that their intellectual helplessness rendered them practically indifferent to their own selfish interests, and thus prevented them from opposing changes which certainly did not make for their advantage. Yōdō of Tosa belonged to the very small minority of feudal chiefs who saw clearly whither events were tending; yet he, too, owed much of his progressive ideas to the influence of ardent young reformers among his vassals.