SHINTOISM — KANOKOGI. 609 



Shinto underwent a certain, if small, development; in the eighteenth 

 century, following its renaissance, Shinto assumed a pronounced 

 color and definite form and characteristically pure spirit. Some 

 foreign investigators overlook this fact and include every supersti- 

 tion as it accumulates in popular life under the name of Shinto. By 

 treating Shintoism in this manner one can never hope to reach its 

 core and find its real significance. Suppose an enlightened China- 

 man, educated in the positivistic Confucian philosophy, was travel- 

 ing for his education in Europe, and without any knowledge of 

 Christian theology or European philosophy and science, should 

 merely peep into the churches and overhear people talk on the street. 

 He would hear many a superstition and see many strange, magically 

 conceived actions. If this Chinaman should group all these super- 

 stitions, mystical rites, and magical actions together and bestow upon 

 them all the name of " Christianity " and on that account refuse it as 

 a religion, would he be right ? Certainly not. But that was done by 

 a writer who with great pains collected every crude superstition in 

 Japan and incorporated them in his work without order or system 

 and without distinguishing between the noble and the base, the 

 essential and the apparent, the permanent and the transitory. We 

 shall, therefore, here try to bring out the essence, the kernel, of 

 Shintoism, referring to the superstitions only in so far as they stand 

 in any relation to the central part. 



3. THE RELIGION OF SHINTO. 



The background of Shintoism is nature religion. In this sphere 

 there is hardly any distinction between nature and man, between man 

 the gods. Mankind is nothing more than a part of nature and nature 

 is but expanded mankind. Mountains, forests, rivers, and the sea, as 

 also the sun and moon, are gods. Even the countries are the off- 

 spring of a divine pair. In the beginning there was a divine couple. 

 Before the gods themselves were born this divine couple had brought 

 forth the Japanese islands; the birth of the gods came afterwards. 

 These gods are mostly nature gods — gods of the winds, the storm, 

 rain, fire, field, fountain, etc. Man beheld a god in everything that 

 struck his childlike, inexperienced, groping eye as strange — in every- 

 thing that appeared to his helpless state as great and powerful, that 

 in his hard struggle for existence was helpful. It was probably after 

 a long period that man learned to distinguish between the indwelling 

 spirit and the external object. The Japanese word for god is Kami, 

 which merely means " above," " the above one." Thus, the chief of a 

 small clan calls himself " a god of the land." All princes and rulers 

 call themselves kami ; that is, gods. 



Already in this stage of religious development it is seen how inti- 

 mately religion is connected with life^ with its preservation and 

 44863°— SM 1913 39 



