geable religious convictions. But
remembering these facts, and recalling the persecutions of Buddhists
by each other, of Christianity by the state, and knowing to-day many
earnest, self-sacrificing and persistent Christians, I am convinced
that such a judgment is mistaken. There are other and sufficient
reasons to account for this appearance of changeableness in religion.

I close this chapter with a single observation on the religious
history just outlined. Bearing in mind the great changes that have
come over Japanese religious thinking and forms of religion I ask if
religious phenomena are the expressions of the race nature, as some
maintain, and if this nature is inherent and unchangeable, how are
such profound changes to be accounted for? If the religious character
of the Japanese people is inherent, how is it conceivable that they
should so easily adopt foreign religions, even to the exclusion of
their own native religion, as did those who became Buddhist or
Confucian or Christian? I conclude from these facts, and they are
paralleled in the history of many other peoples, that even religious
characteristics are not dependent on biological, but are wholly
dependent on social evolution. It seems to me capable of the clearest
proof that the religious phenomena of any age are dependent on the
general development of the intellect, on the ruling ideas, and on the
entire conditions of the civilization of the age rather than on brain
structure or essential race nature.

XXVII

SOME RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS

The conceptions of the common people in regard to deity are chaotic.
They believe in local spirits who are to be worshiped; some of these
are of human origin, and some antedate all human life. The gods of the
Shinto pantheon are "yaoyorodzu" in number, eight thousand myriads;
yet in their "norito," or prayer rituals, reference is made not only
to the "yaoyorodzu" who live in the air, but also to the "yaoyorodzu"
who live on earth, and even to the "yaoyorodzu" who live beneath the
earth. If we add these together there must be at least twenty-four
thousand myriads of gods. These of course include sun, moon, stars,
and all the forces of nature, as well as the spirits of men. Popular
Buddhism accepts the gods of Shinto and brings in many more,
worshiping not only the Buddha and his immediate "rakan," disciples,
five hundred in number, but numberless abstractions of ideal
qualities, such as the varieties of Kwannon