Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/221

Rh that is, the eighteenth—century, this reactionary tendency culminated in what is sometimes called the "Japanese renaissance of the eighteenth century." The scholars like Mabuchi, Motoöri, and Hirata then appeared in succession, whose far-reaching influence must be regarded at least as one of the main causes of the "restoration of 1868," when an end was put to the Shōgunate and the emperor was restored to his proper power and authority. Hence this modern period may be called the "period of the revival of pure Shintō."

It is true that revolution never goes backward. The revived Shintō of this modern period is not that simple and naïve Shintō of the ancient period. In the writings of the chief exponents of this revival we find that speculative or allegorizing spirit which is altogether foreign to the old Shintō; and, moreover, the reason why these men were able to become such exponents was because they were well versed in—not to name other things—the Buddhistic philosophy or the Chinese literature, or both. However, this modern period is the one in which the cry "Return to the things purely Japanese" is emphasized and felt. Especially since the "restoration of 1868" the interest in those things purely Japanese has steadily increased, although not without some temporary hindrances and disturbances.

This knowledge of the fact that Shintō has met these different fortunes and different interpretations, from time to time, is a necessary condition—I might almost say the necessary condition—for a proper understanding of its real nature, and one must keep this fact always before his eyes. Without doing so he is apt to make a big blunder. Sometimes, when one is expected to be talking about Shintō in its primitive state, he is really nothing more than describing its present condition. At other times, and that more often, when one is understood to be explaining the essential nature of Shintō, he is found, even to his own surprise, to be busying himself with the modified Shintō of the mediæval or modern period. The little carelessness of a writer results in the great mistake of many a reader, and such seems to be especially the case with numerous writings of those foreigners who with a positive air sketch in a few strokes "such and such is the real nature of Shintō," notwithstanding the fact that their conclusions are hasty ones based on scanty materials which are gathered from distant and doubtful sources.

As I am very anxious to avoid any such blunder, and yet as I can not, in this short paper, follow through the whole history of Shintō from its beginning to our own times, I will content myself with a brief sketch of the most important characteristics of this old religion—those characteristics which are common not only to the Shintō of all its different sects, but also to the. Shintō of all