The Japanese have, they think, suffered much from the misunderstanding of their motives, feelings and ideas; what they want is to be understood fully and to be known for what they really are, be it good or bad. They desire, above all, not to be lumped as Oriental, but to be known and judged on their own account. In the latter half of the 19th century, in fact up to the Chinese War, it irritated Japanese travelling abroad more than anything else to be taken for Chinese. Then, after the Chinese War, the alarm about Japan leading Eastern Asia to make a general attack upon Europe--the so-called Yellow Peril--seemed so ridiculous to the Japanese that the bad effects of such wild talk were not quite appreciated by them. The aim of the Japanese nation, ever since, at the time of the Restoration (1868), they laid aside definitively all ideas of seclusion and entered into the comity of nations, has been that they should rise above the level of the Eastern peoples to an equality with the Western and should be in the foremost rank of the brotherhood of nations; it was not their ambition at all to be the champion of the East against the West, but rather to beat down the barriers between themselves and the West. The intense pride of the Japanese in their nationality, their patriotism and loyalty, arise from their history, for what other nation can point to an Imperial family of one unbroken lineage reigning over the land for twenty-five centuries? Is it not a glorious tradition for a nation, that its emperor should be descended directly from that grandson of "the great heaven-illuminating goddess," to whom she said, "This land (Japan) is the region over which my descendants shall be the lords. Do thou, my august child, proceed thither and govern it. Go! _The prosperity of thy dynasty shall be coeval with heaven and earth._" Thus they call their country the land of _kami_ (ancient gods of tradition). With this spirit, in the old days when China held the hegemony of the East, and all neighbouring peoples were regarded as its tributaries, Japan alone, largely no doubt on account of its insular position, held itself quite aloof; it set at defiance the power of Kublai and routed utterly the combined Chinese and Korean fleets with vast forces sent by him to conquer Japan, this being the only occasion that Japan was threatened with a foreign invasion. With this spirit, as soon as they perceived the superiority of the Western civilization, they set to work to introduce it into their country, just as in the 7th and 8th centuries they had adopted and adapted the Chinese civilization. In 1868, the first year of the era of Meiji, the emperor swore solemnly the memorable oath of five articles, setting forth the policy that was to be and has been followed thereafter by the government. These five articles were:-- 1. Deliberative assemblies shall be established and all measures of government shall be decided by public opinion.