much to build up national consciousness. For many centuries Shinto had been completely overshadowed by Buddhism. Its many deities had been given humble recognition as local manifestations of universal Buddhist deities. But during the feudal period Shinto began to free itself gradually from Buddhist domination and to take on new intellectual vigor. Shinto philosophers, by adopting many Buddhist and Chinese concepts, developed their simple cults into a religion suitable to a more advanced people. In the process, Shinto priests came to claim superiority for their religion over Buddhism. They even reversed the old theory of relationship, terming the Buddhist deities foreign, and therefore inferior manifestations of supreme native Japanese gods. Quite naturally these nationalistic Shinto priests felt that native things were superior to foreign importations, and they looked back to the period of Japanese history which antedated Buddhist and Chinese influences as a golden age.
During the Tokugawa period, political unity and complete isolation marked by strong anti-foreign policies made for a rapid growth in nationalism. Strangely enough, even the Tokugawa patronage of the Chinese philosophy of Confucianism did much to strengthen nationalism, for interest in Confucianism led to a revival of historical studies; and the study of Japanese history took scholars back to the myths and legends of ancient Japan, as related in the early histories, the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. One important school of historians was founded by the second head of the great Tokugawa branch family at Mito. This group, in the
