The doctrine of Confucius inculcated reverence toward Heaven, respect for ancestors, loyalty to the sovereign, love of the people, and discharge of the duties of filial piety. On the other hand, Buddhism proved an ennobling influence upon the mind of the nation. Hitherto the people naïvely attributed every happy or unhappy event, every fortunate or unfortunate incident, to the will of the gods, whom they appeased by offerings and sacrifices that evil might be averted. The gods looked and acted like men. Highest among them stood the celestial and terrestrial gods; lowest were certain wild animals and venomous snakes, which also were propitiated by worship. Gods were near men, and some of the latter were conceived as scions of the former. This primitive notion of a deity was not materially affected by the introduction of the Confucian philosophy, the tenets of which offered no contradiction to the ancient idea. Buddhism, on the contrary, told of a past and of a future; announced the doctrine that virtue would be rewarded and vice punished in a future state; and taught that the Buddha was the supreme being and that whosoever had faith in him should receive unlimited blessings at his hands. No longer were the deities the only objects of fear and reverence, for now a being of supreme wisdom and power loomed upon the mental horizon of the people. Even the sovereign himself was seen worshiping Buddha, whose servant he was pleased to regard himself. Prejudices at court against the Hindu doctrine were dispelled by the growing light shed by the deeper knowledge of Buddhism, while the golden images of Buddha and the imposing structures enshrining them, as well as the gorgeous paraphernalia of the temples and the solemnity of the rites performed therein, allured the common folk into the faith. At the same time, the people's reverence for the ancient gods of the nation remained unshaken, so that Shintōism, Confucianism, and Buddhism existed side by side, supplying the defects of one another and answering different moral needs of the race.