"It seems that the ideology of sacred kingship was created, restored, and reinforced in Japan at the time of national crisis. The second half of the seventh century was exactly such a period. Japan faced a national crisis again in the second half of the nineteenth century when, according to its internal logic, the ideal of the ritsu-ryō state with its sacred kingship ideology woke up from its long sleep and was reestablished with some inevitable modifications. In this respect, I hold that the conceptions of state and kingship in ancient Japan have provided for Japanese society a structural continuity that has never been lost, though the society has undergone various historical changes and transformations from archaic times down to the present."