Now that the ancestral territory cannot be preserved, what good is it to maintain the ancestral institutions?Īlthough there is a desire to reform, yet if the national policy is not fixed and public opinion not united, it will be impossible for us to give up the old and adopt the new. Furthermore, institutions are for the purpose of preserving one’s territories. To say that they are the ancestral institutions is an insult to the ancestors. In fact, they are the products of the fancy writing and corrupt dealing of petty officials rather than the original ideas of the ancestors. Moreover, our present institutions are but unworthy vestiges of the Han, Tang, Yiian, and Ming dynasties they are not even the institutions of the ancestors. Therefore there are no institutions that should remain unchanged for a hundred years. If the institutions are old, defects will develop. It is a principle of things that the new is strong but the old weak that new things are fresh but old things rotten that new things are active but old things static. This can only result in having a fever or getting oneself drowned.

In an age of competition between states, to put into effect methods appropriate to an era of universal unification and laissez-faire is like wearing heavy furs in summer or riding a high carriage across a river. Our present trouble lies in our clinging to old institutions without knowing how to change. If Your Majesty and his ministers investigate the source of the disease, you will know that this is the right prescription.

Indeed if we can make a complete change, we shall become strong, but if we only make limited changes, we shall still perish. If Your Majesty, with your discerning brilliance, observes the trends in other countries, you will see that if we can change, we can preserve ourselves but if we cannot change, we shall perish. The consequences of clinging to the past and the effects of opening up new ways are thus obvious. “A survey of all states in the world will show that those states that undertook reforms became strong while those states that clung to the past perished.

Older japanese model