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94 continuous dynasty in the world, and can probably boast an "unbroken line" of eighteen or twenty centuries.

1. "Divine Ages." 2. Prehistoric Period [660 —400 (?) A. D.].

Dr. Murray, in "The Story of Japan," following the illustrious example of Arnold in Roman history, treats these more or less mythological periods in a reasonable way. He says: "Yet the events of the earlier period[s] are capable, with due care and inspection, of furnishing important lessons and disclosing many facts in regard to the lives and characteristics of the primitive Japanese." These facts concerning the native elements of civilization pertain to the mode of government, which was feudal; to food, clothing, houses, arms, and implements; to plants and domestic and wild animals; to modes of travel; to reading and writing, as being unknown; to various manners and customs; to superstitions; and to "religious notions," which found expression in Shintō, itself not strictly a "religion," but only a cult without a moral code. "Morals were invented by the Chinese because they were an immoral people; but in Japan there was no necessity for any system of morals, as every Japanese acted rightly if he only consulted his own heart"! So asserts a Shintō apologist. And from the fact that so many myths cluster around Izumo, it is a natural inference that one migration of the ancestors of the