ists a ponderous superstructure of metaphysical speculation. Soon groups of thinkers grew up in opposition to the orthodox Edo school, representing various unorthodox schools of Confucianism which rejected the rigid interpretations of the twelfth century masters. One of the best results of this scholarly interest in Confucianism in Tokugawa Japan was the development within the samurai class of a body of trained students and thinkers who as statesmen contributed greatly to the efficient administration of the Tokugawa and as teachers helped keep Japan intellectually alive, despite the stultifying effects of the basically reactionary political and social system.
The long period of interest in Confucianism also served to imbue the people as a whole with many of the high ethical and moral standards of this Chinese philosophy. Buddhism remained the dominant religion of the masses and enjoyed a status of official patronage, but Confucianism slowly became the strongest intellectual and ethical force in Japan. Buddhism began to show signs of slow inner decay, which has in modern times robbed it of much of the vigor it possessed in the Ashikaga period, but Confucianism grew in influence and strength. It became perhaps the dominant philosophy in Japan and a major source for the unwritten ethical code of the samurai, which recent scholars have described in romantic terms as Bushido, the “way of the warrior.”
Perhaps the most drastic measures taken by the Edo government in order to insure political stability were in the field of foreign relations, which, with the coming of Europeans to Far Eastern waters, assumed more