if there be no other religious cult among the people, the philosophy, the ethical policy and the customs, which make up this important element of the civilization and the national life, are as truly tantamount to a religious cult as any form of faith and practice which all men agree to call religion.

3. Origin and Relative Age of the People. The main body of the Japanese people are believed to have migrated in old times from the northern central part of Asia, and to have worked their way eastward into Korea, and thence into the islands of Japan. They expelled or subjugated the aborigines of the country, and made themselves masters of the great islands and the inland and surrounding seas. But their origin and early history are involved in dense obscurity. They doubtless brought with them from their earlier dwellings in Asia various myths, legends, and traditions, and these grew and strengthened amid the simple habits of life which they adopted in their new island-world. According to a writer[2] in the Westminster Review of July, 1878, Japan is yet, in more senses than one, a young country. Their language and their institutions "show us a people still in a very early stage of development." W. G. Aston holds that the earliest date of accepted Japanese chronology is A. D. 461, and he says that Japanese history, properly so called, can not be said to exist previous to A. D. 500. He regards Korean history more trustworthy than that of Japan previous to that date.[3] According to Satow, "everything points to the descent of the Japanese people in great part from a race of Turanian origin, who crossed over from the continent by way of the islands Tsushima and Iki, which form the natural stepping-stones from Korea to Japan."[4]

But the last twenty-five years have witnessed a most remarkable advance in the use of modern inventions, and more than any other nation of the far East have the Japanese displayed both a willingness and an ambition to improve their condition by means of the ideas and usages of Western civilization. The war with China in 1894, and that with Russia in 1904-1905, displayed a wisdom, tact, and energy which were a great surprise to the world. The self-poise, the generosity, the far-sighted statesmanship exhibited in her concluding terms of peace with her haughty but defeated enemy, have commanded universal admiration. These facts make the study of this people's ancient religious cult, which is still a powerful element in the popular life, a matter of no little interest at the present time.[5]

4. Meaning of the Word Shinto. The word Shinto means the "way of the gods." It came into use when Buddhism was introduced into Japan, and designates the old, ancestral worship as a way of the gods distinct from the way of the Buddhists, or of any other rival way of religious life. The Japanese name is Kami no michi. In its essential elements it is a commingling of Animism and ancestor-worship. Not only are the spirits of departed ancestors reckoned among the gods, but there are innumerable deities of other kind and character. The mountains and valleys, the rivers and the seas, the trees, the wind, the thunder, the fire, all moving things and objects of sense are supposed to have each a deity within. And these deities seem for the most part to have been regarded as beneficent powers, and their worship is of a joyous kind.

5. Sources of Information. The sources of our knowledge of this ancient cult are quite numerous, but not as accessible to English and American students as is desirable. The oldest existing monument of Japanese literature is known as the "Ko-ji-ki," the text of which would make a book about the size of our four Gospels. It contains 180 short sections or chapters. The word Ko-ji-ki means a "Record of Ancient Matters," and appropriately designates this oldest known record of the mythology, history, and customs of the people of Japan. It is the nearest approach to a sacred scripture of the Shinto cult which we possess. It has been translated into English, and supplied with a learned introduction and many explanatory notes by Basil H. Chamberlain,[6] a distinguished scholar, who has made the Japanese language, literature, and archæology a subject of extensive and minute research.

Another and much larger work, comprising thirty books, and containing a record of much of the same mythology and history as the Ko-ji-ki, is called the Nihongi, or "Chronicles of Japan."[7] It is a composite of various elements derived from numerous different sources, and while it reports in substance the myths and stories of the gods as they are found in the Ko-ji-ki, it makes no mention of that older work and omits some things which the older work records. It gives, however, a number and variety of reports of the myths and traditions, informing us how, in one ancient writing, it is so and so recorded; in another writing, it is somewhat differently told. This feature enhances its value for purposes of comparison among the varying traditions.

This later production lacks the simplicity and originality of the Ko-ji-ki, and bears abundant evidence of the Chinese influences under which it was composed. It is written for the most part in Chinese, and exhibits numerous examples of the learning and philosophical cast of thought peculiar to certain well-known Chinese writings. As a specimen of this rationalistic type of construing the ancient myths of creation, we here cite the opening sentences from the first book of the Nihongi:

"Of old, Heaven and Earth were not yet separated, and the In and Yo [or Yin and Yang, female and male principles] not yet divided. They formed a chaotic mass, like an egg, which was of obscurely defined limits and contained germs. The purer and clearer part was thinly drawn out and formed Heaven, while the heavier and grosser element settled down and became Earth. The finer element easily became a united body, but the consolidation of the heavy and gross element was accomplished with difficulty. Heaven was therefore formed first, and Earth was established subsequently. Thereafter Divine Beings were produced between them. Hence it is said that when the world began to be created, the soil, of which lands were composed, floated about in a manner which might be compared to the floating of a fish sporting on the surface of the water. At this time a certain thing was produced between Heaven and Earth. It was in form like