such attentions [409] on the part of the parents by contributing to the girl's wedding outfit. The relation, it will be observed, is entirely between families, not between individuals; and it is a permanent relation. Such a relation, in feudal ages, might continue through many generations. The patriarchal conditions which these survivals exemplify helped to make existence easy and happy. Only from a modern point of view is it possible to criticise them. The worst that can be said about them is that their moral value was chiefly conservative, and that they tended to repress effort in new directions. But where they still endure, Japanese life keeps something of its ancient charm; and where they have disappeared, that charm has vanished forever. There remains to be considered a third form of restraint,--that exercised upon the individual by official authority. This also presents us with various survivals, which have their bright as well as their dark aspects. We have seen that the individual has been legally freed from most of the obligations imposed by the ancient law. He is no longer obliged to follow a particular occupation; he is able to travel; he is at liberty to marry into a higher or a lower class than his own; he is not even forbidden to change his religion; he can do a great many things--at his own [410] risk. But where the law leaves him free, the family and the community do not; and the persistence of old sentiment and custom nullifies many of the rights legally conferred. Precisely in the same way, his relations to higher authority are still controlled by traditions which maintain, in despite of constitutional law, many of the ancient restraints, and not a little of the ancient coercion. In theory any man of great talent and energy may rise, from rank to rank, up to the highest positions. But as private life is still controlled to no small degree by the old communism, so public life is yet controlled by survivals of class or clan despotism. The chances for ability to rise without assistance, to win its way to rank and power, are extraordinarily small; since to contend alone against an opposition that thinks by groups, and acts by masses, must be almost hopeless. Only commercial or industrial life now offers really fair opportunities to capable men. The few talented persons of humble origin who do succeed in official directions owe their success chiefly to party-help or clan-patronage: in order to force any recognition of personal ability, group must be opposed to group. Alone, no man is likely to accomplish anything by mere force of competition, outside of trade or commerce.... It is true, of course, that individual talent must in every country encounter many forms of opposition. It is likewise true that the malevolence of envy and the brutalities of class-prejudice [411] have their sociological worth: they help to make it impossible for any but the most gifted to win and to keep success. But in Japan the peculiar constitution of