inconvenient, he would cast them away light-heartedly, with the remark that "it was not a civilised method." Of course, a great change like the one we have made can only be carried out under such circumstances as those, accompanied necessarily by great sacrifices. Without doubt, it would not do if the same thing went on endlessly. Fortunately we have managed to tide over that transitory state, and have produced the Japan of the present day.' --'Whatever may have been the social aspects of your great change,' said the duchess, 'one thing is undeniable, and that is, that its best results have been brought about by the unification and continuity of the _pouvoir_--I mean, authority. But by saying this, I must not be misunderstood, especially in this country, as saying that a continuity of authority is necessarily to be connected with heredity, for I maintain, for instance, that the Catholic religion is a specimen of continuity in the person of the Pope. But, baron, was there any outcry for "Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité" at the time of your great change?' --'No, not exactly,' I replied. 'Our struggle was not one of the lower classes _en masse_ against the upper classes. Besides, our lower classes were not in such a desperate condition as those of France in her troubled days.' --'You know already,' proceeded the duchess, 'that those three terms contradict each other if carried out literally.' --'That is true. But by similar reasoning, all terms of virtue are contradictory if carried out to the letter. Thus, the extremity of patience makes one a fool; that of bravery, foolhardy; that of charity, lavish; and that of extensive love of all things, makes one a sentimental weeper. Forgive me if I am a little polemic. However, there is one thing that I think I have not told you, and that is this: Although there was no definite cry for the three "té's" during our great change, some vague notion of them was observable during that event and some time after. It was during that transition period that the French notion of personal right based upon the civil law got into the Japanese mind a little too strongly in opposition to the idea of public laws based upon the principles of State and common good. Thus, for instance, a man did not scruple to cut down whatever forests belonged to him, no matter whether or not by doing so irreparable public injury should be occasioned; his notion being that his proprietary right of the forests stood over any other right. In other words, the notion of private laws was not reconciled with that of public laws. We have had to bring about an amelioration, and to enact fresh laws to regulate the forest question, much on the same lines as the old regulations which had previously existed in many parts of the country. There have been many other matters much similar to this. I may also add that proper respect between inferior and superior, and younger and elder, was also slackened