 The Meiji period, however, soon involved a profound turn away from traditional patterns and toward more distinctively Western ones. This was true in philosophy as well, resulting in the relative atrophy of Confucian studies. However, it is significant that most of the Meiji leaders who promoted Western philosophical ideas had backgrounds in Confucian studies. Nishi Amane (1829–1897), often referred to as the father of western philosophy in Japan, read Ogyū Sorai’s philosophical works before turning to the study of the ideas of Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill. During the people’s rights movement of the 1870s and early 1880s, advocates such as Nakae Chōmin (1847–1901) often cast their understandings of liberty, equality, and natural rights in terms of notions drawn from Confucian discourse.