Japan in World History by George Sansom

Author:George Sansom [Sansom, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Asia, Japan, Reference, General
ISBN: 9780415585392
Google: KiY_mAEACAAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2010-09-08T15:53:19+00:00

IV

So far, in my attempt to discover in Japanese history material of use in comparative studies, I have dealt mainly with early periods, and have not paid much attention to the modern age which I assume to have begun in Europe round about 1600.

I suppose it is not far from the truth to say that the history of the Tokugawa régime is the history of an attempt to resist the impact of the modern age upon Japan. Ieyasu and successive Shguns strove to freeze Japanese life in one pattern and to guard against change. The attempt, as we know, was unsuccessful, though it was made with great determination and, it must be granted, with considerable skill. The question arises: Where can we in world history find a parallel to the failure of the Tokugawa rulers? I had the advantage of consulting Professor Toynbee on this point, and he suggested that it might be found in the history of the Roman Empire after Diocletian. This is a long way to go back, for Diocletian reigned in the third century, a melancholy period, with which I am not familiar. I will try to find some more convenient illustration in comparatively recent times.

May I impose on your patience by some brief reference to the evolution of political institutions in Western Europe?

It is sometimes forgotten by the citizens of democratic states that autocratic centralized government, for all its abuses, has played an important part in the history of human development. There is, it is true, a tyranny of misgovernment but there is also a tyranny of chaos, of conditions where government is weak and irresolute or worse still, where there is no government at all. Most men will prefer even harsh government to anarchy. You have only to study European history from the Dark Ages onward to see that, just as feudalism is better than no government at all, so absolute monarchy is better than unstable feudalism; and absolute monarchy was a stage, an inevitable and indeed a beneficent stage, in the growth of modern societies. When, in Europe, the breakdown of feudal particularism led to the growth of nation-states, the people in general were not only not opposed to absolute monarchy, but positively welcomed it. Its rule might be oppressive but it was designed to produce order and some measure of security in the state, because the King must, not only in theory, but also in practice if he were prudent, consider the well-being of the nation as a whole in his own interest. He might himself be an oppressor, but in his effort to draw all power to himself he at least tended to prevent oppression by others. For such reasons as these, absolute monarchies were for a time a popular institution in Europe. The theory of the Divine Right of Kings was, no doubt, a convenient rationalization of absolute, hereditary power; but it was not regarded with abhorrence by the subject, and in England it was often supported with vigour not

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