=Chinese Learning.=—The civilisation of Japan during the Tokugawa dynasty of Shōguns (1603-1868) was modelled on Chinese originals. Its moral ideals were drawn from the writings of the ancient sages Confucius and Mencius, and the sceptical philosophy of the Sung dynasty (960-1278). But in the eighteenth century a patriotic reaction set in, which strove to establish more purely national standards of ethics and principles of government and religion. This movement, known as the ‘Revival of Pure Shinto,’ was first revealed to Europeans by a paper contributed by Sir E. Satow to the _Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan_ in 1875. The principal promoters were Motoöri and his pupil Hirata, two earnest, able, and stupendously learned writers who devoted their lives to an endeavour by oral teaching and in a series of voluminous works to the dethronement of the established Chinese ethics and philosophy in favour of a Shinto purified from Buddhist and other foreign adulterations of later times. They succeeded to some extent in this object. It was no doubt partially owing to their teachings that the Mikado was restored in 1868 to his sovereign position as the descendant of the Sun-goddess, the Shinto shrines purified from Buddhist ornaments and practices, and the monks expelled from them. In reality Motoöri and Hirata’s movement was a retrograde one. The old Shinto, which they wished to restore, could not possibly hold its own as the national faith of a people familiar with the far higher religious and moral ideas of India and China, not to speak of civilised Europe. Without a code of morals, or an efficient ecclesiastical organisation, with little aid from the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, and with a sacred literature scanty and feeble compared with those of its foreign rivals, Shinto is doomed to extinction. Whatever the religious future of Japan may be, Shinto will assuredly have little place in it. Such meat for babes is quite inadequate as the spiritual food of a nation which in these latter days has reached a full and vigorous manhood. SELECTED WORKS BEARING ON SHINTO 1. _History of Japan_, by Engelbert Kaempfer, 1727-1728. Worthless for Shinto. 2. _Nippon Archif._, 1897 (new edition), by P. F. von Siebold. Good when first published, but superseded by later works, in so far as Shinto is concerned. 3. _Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan._ (_a_) A series of papers on ‘The Revival of Pure Shinto’ and ‘Ancient Japanese Rituals,’ by Sir Ernest Satow. 1874-81. The serious student may safely neglect all that precedes these epoch-making articles. (_b_) The _Kojiki_, translated by B. H. Chamberlain, 1883. Accurate, indispensable for myth. (_c_) _Ancient Japanese Rituals._ The _Ohoharahi_, with translation and notes by Dr. Karl Florenz, 1899. Valuable. 4. _Transactions of the Japan Society._ the _Nihongi_, Translated By W. G. Aston, 1896. Similar in Scope To The _Kojiki_.