Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/127

Rh This modification is found in a compilation of the customs and traditions of old Japan, iwhich was promulgated in the fifty articles of Teiyei era (1232 A. D.). This is something like the Justinian Roman laws compiled in the reign of Emperor Justinian. This period we call the era of adaptation in our legal evolution.

No doubt an American audience will be much interested to know that as long ( ago as the year 1232 A. D. a Japanese statesman made the laws in touch with the popular feeling, for by the laws of the Teiyei era he established a council of state with twelve judges, the same number as the English jury. These twelve judges sat in the council chamber, before whom all litigation was brought for investigation and decision. The plaintiff and defendant had their spokesmen, who argued and defended the case ; and afterward the twelve judges retired into a closed chamber, where an oath was administered to them as follows:

"During the deliberation of a case, and the decision afterward between right and wrong, neither family con- nections, nor sympathy with or antipa- thy against, the party shall influence. Fear not a powerful family, or favor not a friend, but speak in accordance with the dictates of truth. Should there be a case decided wrong and redress re- fused to a man, we shall be punished by all the gods and goddesses of the realm. Thus, we swear and affix our signatures."

This is the oath they take before they deliberate and examine the case. Here we have the law, whose spirit and prin- ciple are exactly the same as the Anglo- Saxon common law. Again, in 1336 A. D. the laws of the Kenbu era were promulgated by the Asikaga dynasty. This era, combined with that of the Hojo dynasty, might be called the stage of adaptation ; but the era of origination begins later on with the Tokugawa dy- nasty, because the Shogunate of that family made for the first time the distinc- tion of the laws between the sovereign de jure and sovereign de facto by pro- mulgating "The Seventeen Articles for the Imperial Family " and " The Eigh- teen Articles for the Military Ruler," and then again they made the laws for the people, which were denominated as "The One Hundred Articles of the Tokugawa Regime." Thus the laws — imperial, military, and common — were executed throughout the whole country without an intermission until the impe- rial restoration in 1868. With this theory of the characteristics of the Jap- anese people in our minds, we will find the same three stages of evolution throughout the whole course of our national progress in arts, architecture, industry, commerce, etc.

Therefore, when we were confronted at the time of the imperial restoration, in 1868, with a new type of civilization, the western civilization, we were fully equipped by our individual strength and national power to assimilate the foreign civilization with our own, for we had gone through many hard and persevering struggles — religious, social, and political — for many centuries, and without fear could welcome the modern culture and science.

Here I might refer to one fact, that the Japanese are a little different from the western people in regard to their respect for the past, for they adore the past and the history of their ancestors much more than occidental people do.