Those far-seeing rulers of the Meiji era, who disestablished Buddhism to
strengthen Shinto, doubtless knew they were giving new force not only to
a faith in perfect harmony with their own state policy, but likewise to
one possessing in itself a far more profound vitality than the alien
creed, which although omnipotent as an art-influence, had never found
deep root in the intellectual soil of Japan. Buddhism was already in
decrepitude, though transplanted from China scarcely more than thirteen
centuries before; while Shinto, though doubtless older by many a
thousand years, seems rather to have gained than to have lost force
through all the periods of change. Eclectic like the genius of the race,
it had appropriated and assimilated all forms of foreign thought which
could aid its material manifestation or fortify its ethics. Buddhism had
attempted to absorb its gods, even as it had adopted previously the
ancient deities of Brahmanism; but Shinto, while seeming to yield, was
really only borrowing strength from its rival. And this marvellous
vitality of Shinto is due to the fact that in the course of its long
development out of unrecorded beginnings, it became at a very ancient
epoch, and below the surface still remains, a religion of the heart.
Whatever be the origin of its rites and traditions, its ethical spirit
has become identified with all the deepest and best emotions of the
race. Hence, in Izumo especially, the attempt to create a Buddhist
Shintoism resulted only in the formation of a Shinto-Buddhism.

And the secret living force of Shinto to-day--that force which repels
missionary efforts at proselytising--means something much more profound
than tradition or worship or ceremonialism. Shinto may yet, without loss
of real power, survive all these. Certainly the expansion of the popular
mind through education, the influences of modern science, must compel
modification or abandonment of many ancient Shinto conceptions; but the