[Footnote 8:  Burke, French Revolution.]

Virtue and absolute power may strike the Anglo-Saxon mind as terms which it is impossible to harmonize.  Pobyedonostseff has clearly set before us the contrast in the foundations of English and other European communities; namely that these were organized on the basis of common interest, while that was distinguished by a strongly developed independent personality.  What this Russian statesman says of the personal dependence of individuals on some social alliance and in the end of ends of the State, among the continental nations of Europe and particularly among Slavonic peoples, is doubly true of the Japanese.  Hence not only is a free exercise of monarchical power not felt as heavily by us as in Europe, but it is generally moderated by parental consideration for the feelings of the people.  “Absolutism,” says Bismarck, “primarily demands in the ruler impartiality, honesty, devotion to duty, energy and inward humility.”  If I may be allowed to make one more quotation on this subject, I will cite from the speech of the German Emperor at Coblenz, in which he spoke of “Kingship, by the grace of God, with its heavy duties, its tremendous responsibility to the Creator alone, from which no man, no minister, no parliament, can release the monarch.”

We knew Benevolence was a tender virtue and mother-like.  If upright Rectitude and stern Justice were peculiarly masculine, Mercy had the gentleness and the persuasiveness of a feminine nature.  We were warned against indulging in indiscriminate charity, without seasoning it with justice and rectitude.  Masamune expressed it well in his oft-quoted aphorism—­“Rectitude carried to excess hardens into stiffness; Benevolence indulged beyond measure sinks into weakness.”

Fortunately Mercy was not so rare as it was beautiful, for it is universally true that “The bravest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring.” “Bushi no nasake”—­the tenderness of a warrior—­had a sound which appealed at once to whatever was noble in us; not that the mercy of a samurai was generically different from the mercy of any other being, but because it implied mercy where mercy was not a blind impulse, but where it recognized due regard to justice, and where mercy did not remain merely a certain state of mind, but where it was backed with power to save or kill.  As economists speak of demand as being effectual or ineffectual, similarly we may call the mercy of bushi effectual, since it implied the power of acting for the good or detriment of the recipient.

Priding themselves as they did in their brute strength and privileges to turn it into account, the samurai gave full consent to what Mencius taught concerning the power of Love.  “Benevolence,” he says, “brings under its sway whatever hinders its power, just as water subdues fire:  they only doubt the power of water to quench flames who try to extinguish with a cupful a whole burning wagon-load of fagots.”  He also says that “the feeling of distress is the root of benevolence, therefore a benevolent man is ever mindful of those who are suffering and in distress.”  Thus did Mencius long anticipate Adam Smith who founds his ethical philosophy on Sympathy.