Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/75

 have been tolerable in a society less subservient to military officialdom. The rōnin and the kōmuso were natural products of Japanese civilisation in feudal times, when the privilege of carrying arms being monopolised by a small oligarchy, a mood of unreasoning submissiveness became instinctive among the bulk of the nation, and abuses were tamely endured which, under other circumstances, must have provoked violent resentment.

The legislative theory of feudal Japan down to the Tokugawa era was that knowledge of the laws need not be possessed by any save their administrators. It sufficed that the people should be instructed in the general principles of right and wrong. On the ruling class alone devolved the duty of determining whether a certain act violated those principles. This doctrine, based on the old Confucian precept, "Make the people obey, never make them know" (Tami wo shite yorashimu beshi shirashimu bekarazu), had not been recognised in ante-feudal days. The Taihō Code, promulgated in the eighth century, embodied rules sufficiently explicit for the guidance of rulers and ruled alike. Further, it was applicable to the whole nation, whereas under military feudalism each fief legislated independently for its own vassals. Had the lawgivers of Japan performed their task with anything like the measure of textual precision and respect for details deemed essential by Western jurisconsults, the result must have been a mass of