The samurai grew to be the beau ideal of the whole race.  “As among flowers the cherry is queen, so among men the samurai is lord,” so sang the populace.  Debarred from commercial pursuits, the military class itself did not aid commerce; but there was no channel of human activity, no avenue of thought, which did not receive in some measure an impetus from Bushido.  Intellectual and moral Japan was directly or indirectly the work of Knighthood.

Mr. Mallock, in his exceedingly suggestive book, “Aristocracy and Evolution,” has eloquently told us that “social evolution, in so far as it is other than biological, may be defined as the unintended result of the intentions of great men;” further, that historical progress is produced by a struggle “not among the community generally, to live, but a struggle amongst a small section of the community to lead, to direct, to employ, the majority in the best way.”  Whatever may be said about the soundness of his argument, these statements are amply verified in the part played by bushi in the social progress, as far as it went, of our Empire.

How the spirit of Bushido permeated all social classes is also shown in the development of a certain order of men, known as otoko-date, the natural leaders of democracy.  Staunch fellows were they, every inch of them strong with the strength of massive manhood.  At once the spokesmen and the guardians of popular rights, they had each a following of hundreds and thousands of souls who proffered in the same fashion that samurai did to daimio, the willing service of “limb and life, of body, chattels and earthly honor.”  Backed by a vast multitude of rash and impetuous working-men, those born “bosses” formed a formidable check to the rampancy of the two-sworded order.

In manifold ways has Bushido filtered down from the social class where it originated, and acted as leaven among the masses, furnishing a moral standard for the whole people.  The Precepts of Knighthood, begun at first as the glory of the elite, became in time an aspiration and inspiration to the nation at large; and though the populace could not attain the moral height of those loftier souls, yet Yamato Damashii, the Soul of Japan, ultimately came to express the Volksgeist of the Island Realm.  If religion is no more than “Morality touched by emotion,” as Matthew Arnold defines it, few ethical systems are better entitled to the rank of religion than Bushido.  Motoori has put the mute utterance of the nation into words when he sings:—­

    “Isles of blest Japan! 
       Should your Yamato spirit
     Strangers seek to scan,
       Say—­scenting morn’s sun-lit air,
     Blows the cherry wild and fair!”

Yes, the sakura[28] has for ages been the favorite of our people and the emblem of our character.  Mark particularly the terms of definition which the poet uses, the words the wild cherry flower scenting the morning sun.