etc., and it is more restricted as it omits minor injuries. But there is a profound difference between the motives which prompted the two prohibitions. It is the crime of taking away human life which is condemned in the Decalogue: the Ohoharahi objects to wounds as nasty, unsightly things, unmeet for a God to look upon or to be in any way associated with. Self-inflicted wounds, the cutting of dead bodies, or wounds inflicted by others, caused uncleanness just as much as the wounding of others. Justifiable homicide required absolution equally with felonious murder. In a word, the Japanese offence was ritual, the Jewish moral. [2] See his _Shintoisme_, p. 15, _note_. There are moral elements in the Ohoharahi, but they are scanty, and M. Revon greatly overestimates their importance. Not only does it contain no explicit mention of any of the sins of the Decalogue—which is all that I contended for—but it has hardly anything which even implicitly condemns them. Shintoists do not deny this feature of their religion, but claim that the absence of a code of ethics is a proof of the superior natural goodness of the Japanese nation. It needs no such artificial aids to virtuous conduct. =Purity.=—But if ethics are conspicuously absent from Shinto, the doctrine of uncleanness holds a prominent position. Actual personal dirt was obnoxious to the gods, as is evidenced by the frequent mention of bathing and putting on fresh garments before the discharge of religious functions. Sexual acts of various kinds, such as the consummation of a marriage, incest (within narrow limits), interference with virgin priestesses, menstruation and child-birth, were accompanied with disabilities for the service of the gods. Curiously enough, adultery, though cognisable by the courts of justice, did not entail religious uncleanness. Disease, especially leprosy (as in the Mosaic legislation), wounds and sores involved various degrees of pollution. The death of a relative, attendance at a funeral, touching a dead body, pronouncing or executing a capital sentence, all incapacitated a man temporarily for the discharge of religious duties. Lafcadio Hearn thought that the _miya_ or shrine was a development of the _moya_ or mourning house, where the dead bodies of sovereigns and nobles were deposited until their costly megalithic tombs could be got ready. This view harmonises nicely with Herbert Spencer’s well-known theories, but an ancient Shintoist would have considered it not only erroneous, but blasphemous. As in ancient Greece, the gods had nothing to do with such a polluting thing as death. Shinto funerals, of which we have heard a good deal of late, were unknown in ancient Japan. They date from 1868. Shinto shrines have no cemeteries attached to them. Eating flesh was formerly not considered offensive to the gods, but later, under Buddhist influence, it fell under prohibition. The fire with which impure food was cooked also contracted impurity. To avoid the