ABSTRACT
For nearly two hundred and fifty years the country had been tightly shut against foreign intercourse, and every effort had been made to keep its internal conditions static and unchanging. This, of course, is an impossibility in human affairs as events in Japan itself have proved. But the effort at suppression had been like a closed steam vent, holding down the energies of the people. By 1854 a limit had been nearly reached, and the era initiated by the T okugawas had almost run its course. Forces within the nation were moving rapidly and inevitably toward a change, a movement which was simply hastened to its logical conclusion by the coming of the Westerners for the second time.
