The oldest book of Japanese history which has come down to us is called _Kojiki_,(29) or _Records of Ancient __ Matters_. This work was undertaken by the direction of the Emperor Temmu (A.D. 673-686), who became impressed with the necessity of collecting the ancient traditions which were still extant, and preserving them in a permanent record. Before the work was ended the emperor died, and for twenty-five years the collected traditions were preserved in the memory of Hiyeda-no-are. At the end of that time the Empress Gemmyō superintended its completion, and it was finally presented to the Court in A.D. 711. By a comparison of this work with _Nihongi_, or _Chronicles of Japan_, which was completed A.D. 720, only nine years after the other, we are convinced that the era of Chinese classicism had not yet fallen upon the country. The style of the older book is a purer Japanese, and imparts to us the traditions of Japanese history uncolored by Chinese philosophical ideas and classic pedantry which shortly after overwhelmed Japanese literature. But in many particulars these two works, almost equally ancient, supplement and explain each other. The events given in the two are in most respects the same, the principal difference being that the _Chronicles_ is much more tinctured with Chinese philosophy, and the myths concerning the creation especially show the influence of that dual system which had been introduced to give a philosophical aspect to the Japanese cosmogony. The _Kojiki_(30) has been translated into English, to which have been added a valuable introduction and notes. The _Nihongi_ (_Chronicles of Japan_) has never been translated entire into English, but has been used by scholars in connection with the _Kojiki_. Among the Japanese it has always been more highly esteemed than the _Kojiki_, perhaps because of its more learned and classical style. Besides these two historical works the student of early times finds his chief assistance in the Shintō rituals(31) contained in a work called _Yengishiki_ (_Code of Ceremonial Law_). They have been in part translated by Mr. Satow, who for many years was the learned Japanese secretary of the British legation, and who read two papers on them before the Asiatic Society of Japan, and afterward prepared an article on the same subject for the _Westminster Review_.(32) It will be apparent from these circumstances that the knowledge of the earlier events, indeed of all preceding the ninth century, must be derived from tradition and cannot claim the same certainty as when based on contemporaneous documents. Not only the whole of the so-called divine age, but the reigns of the emperors from Jimmu to Richū, must be reckoned as belonging to the traditional period of Japanese history, and must be sifted and weighed by the processes of reason.