As Buddhism absorbed Shinto, and as Hirata, on behalf of the latter religion, proposed to admit Buddha and his saints to a humble place in the native assemblage of deities, so the Shingaku movement was an attempt to utilise both religions in the interests of Chinese philosophy and ethics. The preachers of this school professed to combine the teachings of all three faiths, and they spoke with something more than tolerance of Buddhism and Shinto; but they were at heart rationalists, to whom much in the popular presentation of both these religions must have appeared utterly unworthy of credence. They tried, however, to smooth over matters by introducing the proviso that everything in them which is irreconcilable with reason is to be regarded as hōben. This hōben is a word of great virtue. It is quite inoffensive, and embraces everything which, though not strictly in accordance with fact, tends to edification. It is alike applicable to the parables of the Gospels, the lives of the saints, and even to the Neapolitan miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. To the tolerant minds of the Shingaku preachers the use of any weapon which was likely to be useful in that struggle between the powers of light and darkness which goes on in Japan, as elsewhere, was not only permissible, but laudable, and even imperative. That it might have been taken from the armoury of the enemy was with them a very minor consideration.
Practically, the maxims of Confucius and Mencius are the sources of the Shingaku doctrines. The preachers usually take their texts from the writings of one of these two sages. They address themselves to the ignorant, and
