In a word, the contention of
Professor Kumi is, that the ancient religion of at least a portion of
the Japanese and especially of those in central Japan, was a rude sort
of monotheism, coupled, as in ancient China, with the worship of
subordinate spirits.
It is needless to say that such applications of the higher criticism to
the ancient sacred documents proved to be no safer for the applier than
if he had lived in the United States of America. The orthodox
Shint[=o]ists were roused to wrath and charged the learned critic with
"degrading Shint[=o] to a mere branch of Christianity." The government,
which, despite its Constitution and Diet, is in the eyes of the people
really based on the myths of the Kojiki, quickly put the professor on
the retired list.[25]
It is probably correct to say that the arguments adduced by Professor
Kumi, confirm our theory of the substitution in the simple god-way, of
Mikadoism, the centre of the primitive worship being the sun and nature
rather than Heaven.
Between the ancient Chinese religion with its abstract idea of Heaven
and its personal term for God, and the more poetic and childlike system
of the god-way, there seems to be as much difference as there is
racially between the people of the Middle Kingdom and those of the Land
Where the Day Begins.
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