If we, however, once think of the Italian Renaissance metamorphosed into the German Reformation, when it got northward over the Alps, we need not be much embarrassed to understand the seemingly abrupt transition in our country. It should also be noted that utilitarian studies had not formed the whole of the literary culture of the Tokugawa age. Since the very beginning of the Shogunate down to its fall the humanistic studies handed down by the preceding age had never been entirely swept away from the land. The utilitarian studies above cited had been almost exclusively pursued by those _samurai_ standing directly under the Shogun or under the powerful _daimyo_ whose territories were big enough to be administered as quasi-independent states, and whose governments were on such a scale as to need high statesmanship in order to be well managed. In other words, those who had devoted themselves to the study of the serious sorts of literature had been generally men to whom some opportunities might have been given for allowing them to put into practice what they had learned from books. If these larger territories were to be compared with Prussia and other kingdoms and middle states in the German Confederation, the small states in the same political body would make good counterparts of the petty territories of minor _daimyo_ in Japan. As to those _samurai_ serving the minor _daimyo_, it had been difficult to make them interested in the perusal of Chinese political works, for their sphere of action was not wide enough to require the territorial affairs being conducted according to high and delicate policies emanating from a profound political principle. In this respect they had much in common with their colleagues residing in the domains directly belonging to the Shogunate. As the governor-in-chief and his principal assistants in each domain had not been taken from the residents of each district, but despatched thither from Yedo, the _samurai_ attached to the locality were merely employed to serve the government of their own district as low-class officials, so that they had little or no hand even in local politics. Some of these _samurai_ were landed proprietors, who, being rich and having little serious business to demand their attention, had ample means and time to dip into books, which could hardly have been of the kind causing self-constraint, for their first motive in reading was only for the sake of distraction. The landed gentry, under the _samurai_ in rank, though wealthier, and generally in charge of village affairs and in control of lesser farmers and peasants, were also found numerously in the domains. They too were the sort of people to be classified in the same category as the _samurai_ of the domains. The _samurai_ and gentry gathered in and around second-rate towns in large territories belonging to powerful _daimyo_ may be included also in the same group. It may be, however,