sense of responsibility to his ancestors and to Heaven. He was a father
to his subjects, whom Heaven entrusted to his care. In a sense not
usually assigned to the term, Bushido accepted and corroborated paternal
government--paternal also as opposed to the less interested avuncular
government (Uncle Sam's, to wit!). The difference between a despotic and
a paternal government lies in this, that in the one the people obey
reluctantly, while in the other they do so with "that proud submission,
that dignified obedience, that subordination of heart which kept alive,
even in servitude itself, the spirit of exalted freedom."[8] The old
saying is not entirely false which called the king of England the "king
of devils, because of his subjects' often insurrections against, and
depositions of, their princes," and which made the French monarch the
"king of asses, because of their infinite taxes and Impositions," but
which gave the title of "the king of men" to the sovereign of Spain
"because of his subjects' willing obedience." But enough!--

[Footnote 8: Burke, _French Revolution_.]

Virtue and absolute power may strike the Anglo-Saxon mind as terms which
it is impossible to harmonize. Pobyedonostseff has clearly set before us
the contrast in the foundations of English and other European
communities; namely that these were organized on the basis of common
interest, while that was distinguished by a strongly developed
independent personality. What this Russian statesman says of the
personal dependence of individuals on some social alliance and in the
end of ends of the State, among the continental nations of Europe and
particularly among Slavonic peoples, is doubly true of the Japanese.
Hence not only is a free exercise of monarchical power not felt as
heavily by us as in Europe, but it is generally moderated by parental
consideration for the feelings of the people. "Absolutism," says