 One of the philosophical minds behind the Meiji restoration, at least insofar as several of the anti-Tokugawa, pro-Meiji samurai leaders were concerned, was the Confucian scholar, Yoshida Shōin (1830–1859). He was a hereditary master, in the Chōshū domain, of the Confucian teachings of Yamaga Sokō. Philosophically, Sokō is best known for his Essential Records of the Sagely Teachings (Seikyō yōroku), a brief but pointed critique of orthodox Neo-Confucian thinking. It advocated instead Sokō’s own understanding of the Analects. As transmitted to Shōin through the Yamaga line of scholarship, and then embodied by Shōin’s students such as Itō Hirobumi (1841–1909), a Chōshū revolutionary turned Meiji statesman, the restorationism that was at the core of both Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism was clearly echoed in the spirit of the Meiji restoration.