ABSTRACT
A combination of naturalism and supermaturalism, it exercised a great influence upon popular beliefs in China and Korea, and it is no wonder that the Shinto theorists found in it congenial features and adopted some Taoist ideas and practices. However this may be, Shinto is fundamentally not so much a religious system as a complex of ancient beliefs and observances which have remained comparatively unchanged through the vicissitudes of history, despite the impacts of foreign systems like Buddhism and Confucianism. Thus it is not quite unnatural that the advocates of Shinto even nowadays call their religion “The Way after the manner of the Gods,” or “as it was practised by the Gods”. In short, Shinto as a religion was an unorganized worship of spirits. It was rooted in the instinctive being of human nature feeling itself in communion with the living forces of the world and showed its vitality in the communal cult.
