Bushidō philosophy is, therefore, a true hybrid of Confucian, Buddhist, Shintō, and European parentage. Ideologically it claimed to have been a philosophy of the Japanese people harking back to ancient times but its parentage is clearly nineteenth century. Because of its hybridity, however, its history was occluded and its tenets were couched in terms deemed traditional but often given nuances they had not had previously. Hence, bushidō was almost impervious to philosophical critique, especially