=Spiritism=.--We now come to Stage IV., or spiritism. The great and obvious difficulties connected with the anthropomorphic conception of deity, even in the modified form of a belief in corporeal beings detached from natural phenomena, led to spiritism, which may be defined as a partial or complete negation of the material properties of the Gods. Spiritism is therefore far from being a "primitive" religious development, as is so often supposed. "Primitive man," it has been said, "thinks that the world is pervaded by spiritual forces." I would rather describe his mental attitude as a piecemeal conception of the universe as alive, just as he looks on his fellow man as alive without analyzing him into the two distinct entities of body and soul. A dog knows quite well the difference between alive and dead; but the distinction between body and soul is far beyond his intellectual capacity. In Japan the process of spiritualizing the Gods has not gone very far. Like the Gods of the Homeric Olympus,[9] the Shinto deities are, on the whole, unspiritual beings. The doctrine of spiritism is associated in Shinto with the word _Mitama_, for which "spirit" is the nearest English equivalent. Strictly speaking, the _Mitama_ is not the God, but an emanation or effluence from him, which inhabits his temple, and is the vehicle of his action at a distance from the place where he himself resides. It therefore corresponds to the Shekinah (that which dwells) of the Jews, and, though in a less marked degree, to the Roman _numen_. The Shekinah, like the _Mitama_, is a later development. Where Habakkuk, ii. 20, says, "The Lord is in his holy temple," the Targums have, "Jehovah was pleased to cause his Shekinah to dwell in his holy temple." I cannot see that the Shekinah and _Mitama_ owe anything to the analogous doctrine of the separability of the human soul and body. The ghost is not the parent of either.[10] The unavoidable assumption that an anthropomorphic God can act at a distance from his own abode in Heaven or elsewhere really involves the doctrine of spiritism, though time and thought are required for its development. It is clearly not the Sun-Goddess herself who lives in Ise. Her true place is in Heaven; but she is present in some way on earth, as is proved by her answering the prayers which are addressed to her at her shrine. The explanation which is ultimately forthcoming is that it is the _Mitama_, or spirit, of the Goddess which resides there. We have here a foreshadowing of the doctrine of the omnipresence of deity.