Page:The constitutional development of Japan, 1853-1881 (IA constitutionalde00iyenrich).pdf/24

20 I believe, with Guizot, that the germ of representative government was not necessarily "in the woods of Germany," as Montesquieu asserts, or in the Witenagemot of England; that the glory of having a free government is not necessarily confined to the Aryan family or to its more favored branch, the Anglo-Saxons. I believe that the seed of representative government is implanted in the very nature of human society and of the human mind. When the human mind and the social organism reach a certain stage of development, when they are placed in such an environment as to call forth a united and harmonious action of the body politic, when education is diffused among the masses and every member of the community attains a certain degree of his individuality and importance, when the military form of society transforms itself into the industrial, then the representative idea of government springs forth naturally and irresistibly. And no tyrant, no despot, can obstruct the triumphal march of liberty.

Whatever may be said about the soundness of the above speculation, it is certain that in the great councils of Kuges and Daimios and in the discussions of the Samurai, which the advent of the foreigners called into being, lay the germ of the future constitutional parliament of Japan.