It may overwhelm all existing things like a wave. Some call it Progress, others Democracy, but, whatever it be, it is evident that every existing institution is to get such a shaking that only the things that cannot be shaken will stand. All national institutions having, or pretending to have, order, will probably have to undergo this trial; and when it comes the whole remains of the feudal system will be tested: monarchies, the peerage, tenures of land, orders in the Church, and, above all, the question of primogeniture, cannot fail to be put on trial. The different sections in the religious and political world seem gradually separating themselves into two large parties, the one standing for the _vox Dei_, the other holding the _vox populi_ to be the _vox Dei_--the one believing that power comes from above, the other that power comes from below. The leaven is working in the minds of men, whether they will it or not; and no nation will feel the effects of this fermentation more than Japan. Above all nations, she to this hour retains her feudal system intact. She must learn, as others have in past times and may have to learn again, at the expense of revolution and blood. The people are already being stirred, and dare to question. The nobles are beginning to quake, they know not why, in the face of changes which are being forced upon them. The very throne of the emperor is being searched and shaken. In order to understand where the weakness of a building lies, or how it is likely to fall down, it is first necessary to know how it is constructed; and in order to comprehend the changes which events may bring about in Japan, some idea must be formed of the government of the country. Without some knowledge of the framework of the constitution, it is difficult to understand the relative position of men, or to appreciate the operation of external agents upon the system of the empire, whether that operation work by a slow process of leavening from within, or by a violent concussion from without. The aim of the author in the following pages has been to give some idea of the framework of the constitution of Japan. Having resided for some little time in the country, he was enabled to get what seemed to him a clearer glimpse of the working of the different parts of the machinery of State than was to be gained from any of the able works published on the subject. The time at his command was too short, and his knowledge of the language too limited, to enable him to do more than prepare a sketch which may serve a temporary purpose, before works of greater research and fuller information are produced.