untried virtues may often fail to assert themselves against the influence of the depravity which can find its way more easily into public than into private life. Such was the case with the warriors of the Kamakura age. Through their ascendency the martial spirit of the nation, which had languished somewhat under the rule of the Fujiwara nobles, was once more revived, but their descendants at the end of that Shogunate could not be so brave and simple-hearted as their forefathers were. The extinction of the Minamoto family, too, relieved these warriors of their duty as hereditary liegemen of the Shogun, for henceforth both the Shogun, who was now of a different family from that of the Minamoto, and the Hojo, the real master of the Shogunate, were to them superiors only in official relations. This disappearance of the object on which the fidelity of the warriors used to concentrate, made fidelity itself an empty virtue. At least among the circle of warriors in the age in which fidelity was everything and all other virtues were but ancillary to it, this loss must have been a great drawback to the improvement of the morality of the nation. The demoralisation of the influential class had thus set in since the latter part of the Kamakura age. No wonder that during the civil war which ensued many of the prominent warriors changed sides very frequently, almost without any hesitation, obeying only the dictates and suggestions of their private interests. That this civil war, which ended without any decisive battle being fought, could drag on for nearly a century, may be best understood by taking this recklessness of the participants into consideration. The inconsistency in their attitude or the want of fidelity towards those to whom they ought to be faithful was not restricted to their transactions in public affairs only, but extended also to the recesses of their family life. Parents could no more confide in their own children, nor husband in his wife, and masters had always to be on guard against betrayal by their servants. After the civil war there were many periods of intermittent peace in the first half of the Ashikaga regime, but that was not a result of the firm and strong government of the Shogun. They were rather lulls after storms, brought about by the weariness felt after a long anarchy.