have reached out after wisdom wherever they could find it, have taken home the lessons they have learned and assimilated foreign ideas to Japanese conditions with marvelous rapidity. Under an absolute despotism the spirit of progress has developed with such strength as to rule the rulers.

The labors of progressive Japanese have been recognized and their counsel followed more readily than those of reformers in republican America. Of all the nations of the earth the Japanese have in the last half century been the most progressive, yet the multitude of common people are still extremely poor, and the problems confronting the government and people are now no less complicated and perplexing than heretofore. The basis of this progress it must be clearly apparent did not lie in the genius of their government. Nor can it be attributed to the effect of the teachings of Christians, for in no country has less progress been made. Indeed one of the forms of agitation preceding the new development was for a restoration of the ancient religion, Kami worship or Shintoism. Much of the learning and customs of the Japanese was borrowed from China. The teachings of Confucius had long been studied, and the form of government and organization of society were moulded to a great extent by them. Buddhism had many followers. The constant inculcation in the minds of the children of the duty of obedience to parents till their death and of worshipful submission to the paternal authority of the Emperor, which furnished the foundation of Chinese civilization, seems to have developed happier domestic conditions in the islands than on the continent. Notwithstanding the effort to return to the ancient religion and the ancient form of government, rapid changes followed, resulting in the admission of light on all questions, the emergence of the Mikado from that seclusion in which he had been regarded more as an object of religious veneration than a ruler to be obeyed, to be seen, known, advised and consulted with by his subjects, and in breaking down the barriers which excluded Christianity.

Though there were some violent dissensions in the early years of constitutional government in Japan the trend toward

settled conditions of order has been continuous. During the first twelve sessions of the diet, extending over a period of eight years, there were twelve dissolutions, but during the next thirteen sessions, extending over a period of eleven years there were but two. During the first eight years there were six changes of cabinets; while during the next eleven years there were but five.

Arthur May Knapp:

Authorities

Feudal and Modern Japan.

Wm. E. Griffs: The Mikado's Empire.

Count Okuma: Fifty Years of New Japan.

J. J. Rein: Japan.

Toyokichi Iyenaga : The Constitutional Development of

Japan.

Foreign Constitutions.

CHAPTER XII

TURKEY

The Turkish race, that now dominates the country which was the seat of the early germs of western civilization, made its first appearance, so far as is known to history, in central Asia, where Chinese accounts locate it about 180 B.C. In the time of Justinian the Turks established a large empire with their chief seat in the vicinity of the Altai Mountains. The mode of life of the people was mainly nomadic, and the dominion established was not enduring. In course of time the tribes became scattered, and under pressure from Mongol enemies early in the thirteenth century one of them passed through Persia into Armenia. Having aided the Seljuk emperor in a battle with the Mongols, it was allowed to settle on the Byzantine frontier. On the fall of the Seljuk Empire Osman, chief of this particular tribe, succeeded in extending his power over kindred tribes scattered throughout Asia Minor, and in 1301 began to coin money and to have the public prayers read in his name as monarch. From his accession to power the modern Turkish empire dates. Like most founders of despotisms he was a man of capacity and morals superior to most of his contemporaries, and devoted his energies with singular disinterestedness to the establishment of order and justice, as well as to military operations against his enemies. He combined with the religious zeal of the devout Moslem and its characteristic military spirit great generosity and love of justice. He was devoid of avarice, and on his death his wealth was found to include only two or three suits of clothes, a few weapons, some horses and a flock of sheep. His administration of justice was so far superior to that of the Greek emperor that the subjects of the latter went to him for protection. For a century the Ottoman Empire was vigorously administered and its boundaries extended by the descend

ants of Osman, till the reign of Bayazid I, when the Tartar hosts under Timur overran the empire, annihilated Bayazid's army and took him prisoner in 1403. Timur withdrew and Muhamed, son of Bayazid, who died in captivity, restored the empire. In 1453 Muhamed II besieged and took Constantinople and put an end to the Roman Empire of the east, which had dwindled to a mere shadow. In 1481 a Turkish army crossed the Adriatic into Italy and stormed Otranto, which however they were not able to hold. Under his successor, Bayazid II, the Turks won their first great naval victory off Sapienza over the Venetians. The empire continued to grow until the reign of Suleyman I, under whom it reached its greatest extent and power, but also met with the best organized and most determined resistance. From Constantinople the Sultan ruled in Europe almost to the gates of Vienna; in Asia beyond the Tigris, and in Africa from Egypt to Algiers.

Starting with Osman in 1301 and continuing till the death of Suleyman in 1566 the Turks had a succession of remarkably vigorous and successful rulers. The degeneration and decay, which usually manifests itself so quickly in the progeny of absolute monarchs, did not appear, but Suleyman is given the character of one of the best and most accomplished rulers of his age, and for forty-six years his vast dominions felt the vigor of his untiring energy. Although his reign was sullied by his execution of his brother-in-law, whom he had made grand vizier, and by other arbitrary executions, and by great barbarities committed by his army during the siege of Vienna, such things were characteristic of that age. The Turkish Empire then included all the principal seats except Rome of that ancient civilization which we have inherited. Chaldea, Babylon, Nineveh, Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, Carthage, Palestine, Constantinople, all Asia Minor and most of the Greek islands were subject or tributary to the Sultan. The ruler was descended from a barbarous tribe of central Asia through the male line, intermixed with more polished races through the females. He ruled entirely in accordance with the theory of government established by Mohammed and the Caliphs. He

was absolute in the sense that his orders must be obeyed, and that he could not be called to account for any act by any constitutional authority. The Sultans have in fact at all times exercised arbitrary power, and have put to death without trial such persons as they chose, when they could find instruments to execute their will. In the administration of the government, however, the theory is not arbitrary power but divine law as declared in the Koran. All questions in courts of justice are to be determined by the law declared by the Prophet, when such can be found, and in cases where the Koran furnishes no rule, the precedents established by the Prophet and the early Caliphs are of great authority.

The feudal system, which was already declining in western Europe in the time of Osman, never gained much hold in the territory included in the Turkish empire. As a result of the Crusades it was established and maintained at Jerusalem during the dominion of the Franks, but expired after they were driven out. The spirit of the Koran, following that of the New Testament in this respect, is one of equality, and no order of nobility existed in the empire. Equality however referred only to free males. Slavery was recognized, and women were regarded as inferiors. Polygamy has always been allowed, but in fact is only practiced by a very small number of the people. The teachings of the Koran constantly magnify the value of the future life and the future joys of the true believers who are saved and the frightful torments of the damned. The heaven offered is a sensual one, fitted to the low instincts of the Arabs of his time. Mohammed taught his followers to despise the things of this world, and while he made comparatively little effort to perfect a governmental system, what he did in that line was enjoined as a religious duty and became at once binding as a civil and religious duty. Herein lies a marked contrast between the teachings of Jesus and those of Mohammed. Jesus announced the moral law and the necessity for its observance in order to gain future happiness, but made no attempt to promulgate a code of civil law. Throughout the whole history of the Turkish empire the religious influence has been of prime importance in mould