iterally, "The way of the gods")
belief of the Japanese people. This belief, a compound of mythology
and ancestral worship, was about the first century largely encrusted
by Confucian doctrines or maxims, mostly ethical, imported from China.
Of the precise doctrines of Shintoism but little is even now known. It
has apparently no dogmas and no sacred book. I am aware that there are
the ancient Shinto rituals, called Nurito, and that in reference to
them a vast amount of more or less erudite commentary has been
written. The result, however, has not been very enlightening. I think
that Kaemfer succinctly summed up the Shinto faith in reference to the
Japanese people when he remarked, "The more immediate end which they
propose to themselves is a state of happiness in this world." In
other words, if this assertion be correct, Shintoism preaches
utilitarianism. As to the origin of this religion there is very much
the same uncertainty and quite as large an amount of theorising as is
the case in reference to the Japanese race and language. The most
generally received opinion is that Shintoism is closely allied with,
if not an offshoot of, the old religion of the Chinese people prior to
the days of Confucius. Originally Shinto was in all probability a
natural religion, but, like all religious systems, it has developed or
suffered from accretions until the ancient belief is lost in
obscurity. The author of a now somewhat out-of-date book, entitled
"Progress of Japan," asserts that the religion of the Japanese
consists in a "belief that the productive ethereal spirit being
expanded through the whole universe, every part is in some degree
impregnated with it and therefore every part is in some measure the
seat of the Deity; whence local gods and goddesses are everywhere
worshipped and consequently multiplied without end. Like the ancient
Romans and Greeks they acknowledge a supreme being, the first, the
supreme, the intellectual, by which men have been reclaimed from
rudeness and barbarism to elegance and refinement, and been taught
through privileged men and women not only to live with more comfort
but to die with better hope." Such a religion, however it may be
described, seems to me to be in effect Pantheism.

When Buddhism was introduced into Japan the Buddhist priesthood seems
to have made no difficulty about receiving the native gods into their
Pantheon. Gradually the greater number of the Shinto temples were
served by Buddhi