The Development of Religion in Japan #263248

Japan Offers a field for study which has peculiar advantages. Its history is comparatively brief, and the successive moments in its development are well marked. By the aid of historical criticism, the primi tive rites and beliefs can be discerned. These were rapidly supplanted or transformed by the introduction of an alien civilisation — a process which can be traced step by step. The imported system, however, did not remain foreign, but was modified at every point by the genius and needs of the people. Especially in structive is the influence of the rise and development of the feudal system. Finally, in our day, new factors of peculiar potency are introduced, with results which can be understood as yet only in part. Nevertheless, through all, there has been a continuity so marked that The Development of Religion in Japan ex presses the fundamental fact more truly than does the title suggested in the beginning The Religions of Japan.