Consider, for example, the ancient religion of Japan, which we know by an adaptation of two Chinese words as Shin-To, the "spirits' way," or in its native form _kami-no-michi_.[2] Who are the _kami_, or "spirits"? The title of "religion" has sometimes been denied to their cultus on the ground that it contains "no set of dogmas, no sacred book, and no moral code." Greece and Rome might, on the same plea, be described as having no religion. The term _kami_ has for its root-idea the significance of "that which is above." It may be applied in the widest range of relations from the hair which is on the top of the head to the government which rules the people. The _kami_ are, as it were, the "highnesses"; the word is used of big things by land and sea, great rivers, mighty mountains, roaring winds and rolling thunder; then of rocks and trees, of animals like the tiger and the wolf, of metals, and so of innumerable objects in earth and sky. It is not always clear whether these were originally conceived as themselves living, or whether they had been resolved into material body and controlling spirit. The {92} functions of the _kami_, however, are extended and distributed by a kind of fission; the _kami_ of food split into the produce of trees and the parent of grasses; they preside over guilds and crafts, the weavers, the potters, the carpenters, the swordsmen, the boatbuilders; they guide the operations of agriculture; they superintend the household, and watch over the kitchen range, the saucepan, the ricepot, the well, the pond, the garden, and the scarecrow. [2] Chinese culture has probably exerted considerable influence on the exponents of the Shinto revival in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Very different aspects are reflected in the ancient chronicles. But in this vast assembly are included also the spirits of the dead. They likewise become _kami_ of varying rank and power. Some dwell in temples built in their honour; some hover near their tombs; some are kindly, and some malevolent. They mingle in the immense multiplicity of agencies which makes every event in the universe, in the language of the Shinto writer Motowori (1730-1801), "the act of the Kami." They direct the changing seasons, the wind and the rain; and the good and bad fortunes of individuals, families, and States, are due to them. From birth to death the entire life of man is encompassed and guided by the Kami.