Yet it must be borne in mind that the old Japanese religion of loyalty, which found its supreme manifestation in those three terrible customs of [299] junshi, harakiri, and kataki-uchi, was narrow in its range. It was limited by the very constitution of society. Though the nation was ruled, through all its groups, by notions of duty everywhere similar in character, the circle of that duty, for each individual, did not extend beyond the clan-group to which he belonged. For his own lord the retainer was always ready to die; but he did not feel equally bound to sacrifice himself for the military government, unless he happened to belong to the special military following of the Shogun. His fatherland, his country, his world, extended only to the boundary of his chief's domain. Outside of that domain he could be only a wanderer,--a ronin, or "wave-man," as the masterless samurai was termed. Under such conditions that larger loyalty which identifies itself with love of king and country,--which is patriotism in the modern, not in the narrower antique sense,--could not fully evolve. Some common peril, some danger to the whole race--such as the attempted Tartar conquest of Japan--might temporarily arouse the true sentiment of patriotism; but otherwise that sentiment had little opportunity for development. The Ise cult represented, indeed, the religion of the nation, as distinguished from the clan or tribal worship; but each man had been taught to believe that his first duty was to his lord. One cannot efficiently serve two masters; and feudal government practically [300] suppressed any tendencies in that direction. The lordship so completely owned the individual, body and soul, that the idea of any duty to the nation, outside of the duty to the chief, had neither time nor chance to define itself in the mind of the vassal. To the ordinary samurai, for example, an imperial order would not have been law: he recognized no law above the law of his daimyo. As for the daimyo, he might either disobey or obey an imperial command according to circumstances: his direct superior was the shogun; and he was obliged to make for himself a politic distinction between the Heavenly Sovereign as deity, and the Heavenly Sovereign as a human personality. Before the ultimate centralization of the military power, there were many instances of lords sacrificing themselves for their emperor; but there were even more cases of open rebellion by lords against the imperial will. Under the Tokugawa rule, the question of obeying or resisting an imperial command would have depended upon the attitude of the shogun; and no daimyo would have risked such obedience to the court at Kyoto as might have signified disobedience to the court at Yedo. Not at least until the shogunate had fallen into decay. In Iyemitsu's time the daimyo were strictly forbidden to approach the imperial palace on their way to Yedo,--even in response to an imperial command; and they were also forbidden to