individualistic, democratic organization of society has been introduced resting on a principle diametrically opposed to that of apotheosis, a struggle of most profound importance has been inaugurated.  Does moral or even national authority really reside in the Emperor?  The school-teachers are finding great difficulty in teaching morality as based exclusively on the Imperial Edict.  The politicians of Japan are not content with leaving all political and state authority to the Emperor.  Not long ago (June, 1898), for the first time in Japan, a Cabinet acknowledging responsibility to a political party took the place of one acknowledging responsibility only, to the Emperor.  For this end the politicians have been working since the first meeting of the national Diet.  Which principle is to succeed, apotheosis and absolute Imperial sovereignty, or individualism with democratic sovereignty?  The two cannot permanently live together.  The struggle is sure to be intense, for the question of authority, both political and moral, is inevitably involved.

The parallel between Japanese and Roman apotheosis is interesting.  I can present it no better than by quoting from that valuable contribution to social and moral problems, “The Genesis of the Social Conscience,” by Prof.  H.S.  Nash:  “Yet Rome with all her greatness could not outgrow the tribal principle....  We find something that reveals a fundamental fault in the whole system.  It is the apotheosis of the Emperors.  The process of apotheosis was something far deeper than servility in the subject conspiring with vanity in the ruler.  It was a necessity of the state.  There was no means of insuring the existence of the state except religion.  In the worship of the Caesars the Empire reverenced its own law.  There was no other way in which pagan Rome could guarantee the gains she had made for civilization.  Yet the very thing that was necessary to her was in logic her undoing....  The worship of the Emperor undid the definition of equality the logic of the Empire demanded.  Again apotheosis violated the divine unity of humanity upon which alone the Empire could securely build."[S]

That the final issue of Japan’s experience will be like that of Rome I do not believe.  For her environment is totally different.  But the same struggle of the two conflicting principles is already on.  Few, even among the educated classes, realize its nature or profundity.  The thinkers who adhere to the principle of apotheosis do so admittedly because they see no other way in which to secure authority for law, whether political or moral.  Here we see the importance of those conceptions of God, of law, of man, which Christianity alone can give.