Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/217

 conversant with practical issues that they had no capacity to understand the events of the time. No such explanation presents itself, however, in the case of the samurai of the various fiefs. The clan had always been the first object of their interest and fealty. Their honour was concerned in upholding it, and upon its preservation depended their means of livelihood. That these men should have quietly acquiesced in the surrender of legislative and financial autonomy by their chiefs, was very remarkable. An explanation has been sought in the suggestion that when the clansmen advised or endorsed a course seemingly so opposed to traditional principles and worldly wisdom, they obeyed the promptings of personal ambition, believing that they themselves would find greater opportunities and a wider field under the new regimen. Some such anticipation may not unreasonably be assumed, and was ultimately realised, in the case of the leading samurai of the four southern clans which led the movement. But no forecast of the kind can have been generally operative. The great bulk of the clansmen must have comprehended that to strip the clan of power was to relegate its vassals to comparative insignificance. Probably the true explanation is to be sought in a sphere of higher motives than those usually underlying human actions. The step taken by the four southern clans indicated a course in striking harmony with the spirit of the Restoration,—a course all the