"Of old, Heaven and Earth were not yet separated, and the In and Yo [or _Yin_ and _Yang_, female and male principles] not yet divided. They formed a chaotic mass, like an egg, which was of obscurely defined limits and contained germs. The purer and clearer part was thinly drawn out and formed Heaven, while the heavier and grosser element settled down and became Earth. The finer element easily became a united body, but the consolidation of the heavy and gross element was accomplished with difficulty. Heaven was therefore formed first, and Earth was established subsequently. Thereafter Divine Beings were produced between them. Hence it is said that when the world began to be created, the soil, of which lands were composed, floated about in a manner which might be compared to the floating of a fish sporting on the surface of the water. At this time a certain thing was produced between Heaven and Earth. It was in form like a reed-shoot. Now this became transformed into a god, and was called _Kuni-toko-tachi no Mikoto_ ["Land-eternal-stand-of-august thing"]. Next there was _Kuni-no-sa-tsuchi_ ["land-of-right-soil"], and next, _Toyo-kumu-nu_ ["rich-form-plain"]--in all, three deities. These were pure males, spontaneously developed by the operation of the principle of Heaven" [the Yo, male principle]. The _Ko-ji-ki_ was written about 712 A. D., and the _Nihongi_ in 720 A. D., and they are both remarkable for the naïve and peculiar manner in which they unite together in their narratives matters of traditional mythology and of history without apparent consciousness of any noteworthy differences between the two. Besides these remarkable books there is a Code of ceremonial laws, in fifty volumes, known as the _Yengishiki_, which was published A. D. 927. It includes a large number of ancient Japanese rituals, called _Norito_, of which several have been translated into English and provided with a commentary and learned notes by Ernest Satow and Karl Florenz.[8] There is also an interesting collection of ancient poems, called the _Manyoshu_, "Collection of Myriad Leaves," which furnishes numerous pictures of the life of the early Japanese, both before and after the time of the compilation of the _Ko-ji-ki_ and the _Nihongi_. There are also the voluminous writings of the three famous Shinto scholars, Mabuchi, Motowori, and Hirata, who flourished between the middle of the eighteenth and the middle of the nineteenth century, and effected an intellectual revolution and a remarkable revival of the Shinto cult.[9] =6. Japanese Cosmogony and Mythology.= Our study of Shinto may well begin by a brief notice of Japanese cosmogony as presented at the very beginning of the _Ko-ji-ki_: