The other consequence was neglect of the moral training of the common people and con tempt for the merchant class. Not only was the moral code of the ruling class incapable of refining the people, but it was more conven ient for the rulers to keep them as blindly obedient servants. Husbandry was, regarded as the only source of wealth, but hushandmen were mere producers. Trade was thought a treacherous occupation and merchants were treated as base, contemptible people. It was quite natural, in this condition of society, that general education was left in the hands of poor schoolmasters who taught reading and gounting only, or at the mercy of Buddhist priests, who became more and more corrupted in conditions of ease and security. To meet the need there arose, in the middle of the 18th century, an 'ethical movement which was humanitarian in its spirit and popular in its practice. The move ment is known as the Shin-gaku, or mental learning, which means the culture of the mind. The teachers of this popular education were men of admirable character, their teachings were quite broad and plain, and their lectures and writings were persuasive in tone, attractive and intelligible to all. The movement flour ished, and continued to have great success up to the end of the Shogunate regime, when its quiet and meek character no longer fulfilled the need of the new reign.
Buddhism enjoyed, as the patronized re ligion, a peaceful slumber during this period. But its activity never totally died out. It wits during the peaceful times that most of its writings were printed, and that, a thing more important, the dogmatic system of each of its sections was organized, so that in form it reached the utmost refinement. Strifes of orthodox teachers of dogma with heretics were characteristic of Buddhism at this period. Ap peals for decisions were often taken to the government and many tragicomedies were played by the meddling of the officials with subtle dogmatic discussions. Curiously the Shinshu men, the followers of the pietist re formers of the 13th. century, were foremost in these struggles.
Among the Confucianists appeared many men of more or less original genius, more of them outside the orthodox circle than within. Their struggles with the orthodox teachers and also among themselves were so severe that the government at last found it necessary to pro hibit the heretical branches. Still they made common cause with the orthodox men in their attitude against religion.
To these opponents of Buddhism was added a new factor, i.e., the revival of Shinto. The first section of the revivalists was composed of learned Confucianists and Samurai. Their creeds amounted to obedience to the heavenly reason and to its practice in loyalty and filial piety. Loyalty, not only to the feitclal lords, but to the imperial throne, and filial piety, chiefly expressed in ancestor-worship, made them ad vocates of the Shinto belief. Thus the ortho dox Confucianism adopted by the Shogunate government became one of the factors which threw down the existing regime and restored the imperial authority. The second section of
the new Shintoists were Japanese philologists. Studies of the ancient mythological and his torical writings, the first impetus to which was given by a Buddhist monk, were now used for the revival of the ancestral religion in its ancient and pure form, at least such as these philologists thought it had been. Indeed, their Shinto was free from Buddhistic and Confu cianistic elements, but the most prominent of them, Hirata (died. 1843), was already in fluenced by European learning. These men and their followers contributed to the restoration of the imperial regime and influenced the re ligious policy of the new era. But their re ligious influence was not deep.
Another remarkable feature of the Shinto revival was the appearance of sonic theistic Shintoists during the last century of this period, They considered theinselves Shintoists and they are called so. But in reality their beliefs were loosely connected with ancient traditions. They were men of original religious experiences, al most visionaries. Kurozumi (died 1849), the most prominent among them, can be called a propounder of almost pure monotheism in a very simple and devout form.
V. The New Era, Progress and Problems The new era opened with the res toration of the imperial authority in 1868. Chauvinistic Shintoists and Confucian samurai, both prominent agents in the political trans ;ormation, tried at once to establish a national religion. The National Cult Department stood at the head of the new government and every means was taken to exclude Buddhist influence. All the privileges granted to Buddhist priests and temples were abolished. Buddhist were driven out of the kami-temples that they were attending; images, decorations, scriptures etc., were taken out and burned. Even cremation which had been introduced by the Buddhists was prohibited. The purification of the na tional religion was carried out, after 1,200 years of its mingling with Buddhism. The establishment of the Shinto faith as the state religion was fatal to Buddhism in its material aspect, but this loss was to be compensated by its spiritual reawakening. The zeal of the Buddhists, combined with the unstable social conditions after revolution, influenced the gov ernment to the extent of instituting an Ecclesi astical Board, under the supervision of which both Shintoists and Buddhists could preach the "patriotic and humanitarian principles' as the authoritative teaching of the state (1872). The two feligiOns now stood on an equal footing. After three years the board was dissolved. Buddhist churches were allowed their respective independent management, and Shintoists were ordered to organize their own bodies apart from the court ritual. The fervent Shinto revival subsided, after a few years' sway, and the freedom of belief was pronounced de facto.