MIDDLE PERIOD
centre of moral intemperance. But the development of the drama which took place at this epoch, quickly familiarised the citizens of Yedo and even its samurai with the southern conception of love. Romance and emotionalism took the place of martial ideas and soldierly stoicism. The strict sumptuary laws of the Tokugawa, while ostensibly observed, were in reality evaded by the use of costly linings for coats and the wearing of silk undergarments, and the lower classes, emerging from their old position of penury and degradation, seemed to be seeking in a sudden access of voluptuous license compensation for long centuries of social ostracism. All these changes were contemporaneous with the remarkable intellectual awakening alluded to above, which culminated in the almost fanatical philosophy of Itô Jinsai, a man of singular magnetism and burning eloquence, who for forty years never ceased to travel through the country, preaching the Analects of Confucius and the Teachings of Mencius as the only true moral guides, and winning disciples in every part of the Empire except the almost inaccessible province of Hida and the islands of Sado and Iki. Almost on the same level of intellectual capacity and power of moving his fellows was Ogyu Sorai, who taught that morality could not have a psychological basis, but must be founded on the practical side of natural and human life. The original ideas of these two students and their
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