 Edo-period Confucianism’s reliance on ancient texts seemed out of synch with the demands for modernization. In response, increasing emphasis was placed on the acceptance of Western philosophical theories along with Western technologies and social institutions. The Japanese were particularly impressed with positivism’s rejection of religious metaphysics in favor of empiricism. As for utilitarianism, they admired its consequentialist ethics that used an empirically derived cost-benefit analysis to determine what would bring maximum happiness or pleasure for society as a whole. The popularity of Rousseau and Mill’s On Liberty enthused a generation about the prospect for a Japanese democracy in the form of a constitutional monarchy. The intellectuals proudly referred to their time as the “Meiji Enlightenment.” There were powerful forces contravening against this movement toward liberal democracy, however, and they were based in the ideologies behind the events that had led to the Imperial Restoration of 1868 itself.