ay life that sharp distinction
between these religions which the native or foreign scholar makes, and
which both history and philosophy demand shall be made for the student
at least. Using the technical language of Christian theologians,
Shint[=o] furnishes theology, Confucianism anthropology and Buddhism
soteriology. The average Japanese learns about the gods and draws
inspiration for his patriotism from Shint[=o], maxims for his ethical
and social life from Confucius, and his hope of what he regards as
salvation from Buddhism. Or, as a native scholar, Nobuta Kishimoto,[11]
expresses it,

In Japan these three different systems of religion and morality
are not only living together on friendly terms with one another,
but, in fact, they are blended together in the minds of the
people, who draw necessary nourishment from all of these
sources. One and the same Japanese is both a Shint[=o]ist, a
Confucianist, and a Buddhist. He plays a triple part, so to
speak ... Our religion may be likened to a triangle....
Shint[=o]ism furnishes the object, Confucianism offers the rules
of life, while Buddhism supplies the way of salvation; so you
see we Japanese are eclectic in everything, even in religion.

These three religious systems as at present constituted, are "book
religions." They rest, respectively, upon the Kojiki and other ancient
Japanese literature and the modern commentators; upon the Chinese
classics edited and commented on by Confucius and upon Chu Hi and other
mediaeval scholastics who commented upon Confucius; and upon the
shastras and sutras with which Gautama, the Buddha, had something to do.
Yet in primeval and prehistoric Nippon neither these books nor the
religions growing out of the books were extant. Furthermore, strictly
speaking, it is not with any or all of these three religions that the
Christian missionary comes first, oftenest or longest in contact. In
ancient, in mediaeval, and in modern times the student notices a great
undergrowth of superstition clinging parasitically to all religions,
though formally recognized by none. Whether we call it fetichism,
shamanism, nature worship or heathenism in its myriad forms, it is there
in awful reality. It is as omnipresent, as persistent, as hard to kill
as the scrub bamboo which both efficiently and sufficiently takes the
place of thorns and thistles as the curse of Japanese ground.

The book-religions can be more or les