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 learnt and admitted as a fact, that the earth moves round the sun, and was therefore considerably ahead of Hatori, who preferred to believe what he saw with his eyes, and only cursorily mentions the theory of the earth’s movement as a matter of indifference to his views of the cosmogony. Hirata of course assumed the truth of all ancient Japanese traditions, but saw that they were sometimes inconsistent with each other, and with actual fact, and he hoped by reconciling these contradictions to prove that Shintô contains all the knowledge necessary to man. He is therefore not to be implicitly depended on for a correct view of the ancient belief about the origin of things.

Diagram 1 in both books is a large circle containing three black spots in its upper part. This is intended to represent the existence of Ame-no-mi-nuka-nushi, Taka-mi-musubi and Kamu-mi-musubi in space, before the sun, earth and moon were formed. The circle means nothing; it is merely introduced to give the reader a definite idea of what is meant by space, but as it is dispensed with in the third and succeeding Diagrams, when the reader is requested to look on the blank part of the page as representing space, it seems hardly necessary even here. Hatori quotes the Kojiki, which says that these three gods came into existence in Takama no hara in the beginning of heaven and earth (ame tsuchi), while Hirata quotes his own Koshi to the effect that they ‘came into being in Heaven’s Sky’ (Amatsu mi sora). At a later period, in publishing his commentary entitled Koshi-Den, he reverted to the old reading Takama no hara. A great deal of ingenuity has been expended by pure Shintô-ists to prove that Takama no hara does not mean ‘the plain of high heaven,’ as its evident etymology would suggest. Motoöri is perhaps not unreasonable in explaining it to mean a region above the sky. Hatori says that “Takama no hara did not exist at this period which was antecedent to all material existence, but the region wherein these three gods originated afterwards became Takama no hara.” The theory that this name signifies ‘space’ is