=4. Meaning of the Word Shinto.= The word Shinto means the "way of the gods." It came into use when Buddhism was introduced into Japan, and designates the old, ancestral worship as a way of the gods distinct from the way of the Buddhists, or of any other rival way of religious life. The Japanese name is _Kami no michi_. In its essential elements it is a commingling of Animism and ancestor-worship. Not only are the spirits of departed ancestors reckoned among the gods, but there are innumerable deities of other kind and character. The mountains and valleys, the rivers and the seas, the trees, the wind, the thunder, the fire, all moving things and objects of sense are supposed to have each a deity within. And these deities seem for the most part to have been regarded as beneficent powers, and their worship is of a joyous kind. =5. Sources of Information.= The sources of our knowledge of this ancient cult are quite numerous, but not as accessible to English and American students as is desirable. The oldest existing monument of Japanese literature is known as the "Ko-ji-ki," the text of which would make a book about the size of our four Gospels. It contains 180 short sections or chapters. The word _Ko-ji-ki_ means a "Record of Ancient Matters," and appropriately designates this oldest known record of the mythology, history, and customs of the people of Japan. It is the nearest approach to a sacred scripture of the Shinto cult which we possess. It has been translated into English, and supplied with a learned introduction and many explanatory notes by Basil H. Chamberlain,[6] a distinguished scholar, who has made the Japanese language, literature, and archæology a subject of extensive and minute research. Another and much larger work, comprising thirty books, and containing a record of much of the same mythology and history as the _Ko-ji-ki_, is called the _Nihongi_, or "Chronicles of Japan."[7] It is a composite of various elements derived from numerous different sources, and while it reports in substance the myths and stories of the gods as they are found in the _Ko-ji-ki_, it makes no mention of that older work and omits some things which the older work records. It gives, however, a number and variety of reports of the myths and traditions, informing us how, in one ancient writing, it is so and so recorded; in another writing, it is somewhat differently told. This feature enhances its value for purposes of comparison among the varying traditions. This later production lacks the simplicity and originality of the _Ko-ji-ki_, and bears abundant evidence of the Chinese influences under which it was composed. It is written for the most part in Chinese, and exhibits numerous examples of the learning and philosophical cast of thought peculiar to certain well-known Chinese writings. As a specimen of this rationalistic type of construing the ancient myths of creation, we here cite the opening sentences from the first book of the _Nihongi_: