Chapter XXXV: Communal and Individual Elements in the Evolution of Japanese

RELIGIOUS LIFE

Japanese religious life has been predominantly communal--Shinto provided the sanctions for the social order--Recent abdication of Shinto as a religion--Primitive Shinto world--view--Shinto and modern science--Shinto sanctions for the modern social order--Buddhism is individualistic--Lacks social ideals and sanctions--Hence it could not displace Shinto--Shinto and Buddhism are supplementary--Produced a period of prosperity--The defect of Buddhist individualism--Imperfect acceptance of Shinto--Effect of political history--Confucianism restored the waning communal sanctions--The difference between Shinto and Confucian social ideals and sanctions--The difference between Shinto and Confucian world-views--Rejection of the Confucian social order--An interpretation--The failure of Confucianism to become a religion--Western intercourse re-established Shinto sanctions--Japan's modern religious problem--Difficulty of combining individual and communal religious elements--Christianity has accomplished it--Individualism in and through communalism--A modern expansion of communal religion--Shared by Japan--Some Japanese recognize the need of religion for Japan--Sociological function of individualistic religion in the higher human evolution--Obstacle to evolution through the development of intellect--The Japanese mind is outgrowing its old religious conceptions--The dependence of religious phenomena on the ideas dominating society--Note on National and Universal religions--Buddhism not properly classified as Universal--The classification of religions, 404