the watchful eye and firm hand of the Edo government have left an indelible mark upon the people. The bellicose, adventurous Japanese of the sixteenth century became by the nineteenth century a docile people looking meekly to their rulers for all leadership and following without question all orders from above. They grew accustomed to firmly established patterns of conduct. A thousand rules of etiquette, supplementing instructions from their rulers, governed all their actions.
As a result of this rigid regimentation of society, the Japanese have become a people who live together in their cramped islands with relatively few outward signs of friction. Nowhere in the world is proper decorum more rigorously observed by all classes in all situations than in Japan, and nowhere else is physical violence less in evidence. At the same time, few people are more dependent upon orders from above and on long established rules of conduct. The Japanese when thrown on their own judgment away from their normal environment seem to be more at a loss than peoples accustomed to greater freedom of action at home. They are as emotionally excitable as any people, and when they meet a situation to which their accustomed patterns of courteous conduct no longer apply, they are likely to react more violently than other people. This may be one explanation for the amazing contrast between the courtesy and docility of the modern Japanese at home and his cruelty and excesses as a conqueror abroad.
The long peace of the Tokugawa era was, of course, in many ways a blessing to the land. Yet by holding back the wheels of normal social and economic progress and fixing on the nation an antiquated political and