^{page 201 note 1} Tsunoda, Ryusaku (ed.) Sources of Japanese Tradition (1958 Columbia University Press), pp. 483 f.Google Scholar (quoting Tominaga's Okina no Fumi).

^{page 201 note 2} This and other Japanese names below are given in western order, family name last.

^{page 202 note 1} Ritschl, Dietrich, ‘Johann Salomo Semler: The Rise of the Historical-Critical Method in Eighteenth-Century Theology on the Continent’, in Mollenauer, R. (ed.) Introduction to Modernity. A Symposium on Eighteenth Century Thought (Texas 1965), p. 119.Google Scholar

^{page 202 note 2} Recently translated by David Reid and introduced by Adams, James Luther as Absoluteness of Christianity and the History of Religions (SCM Press 1971).Google Scholar

^{page 202 note 3} ibid. p. 45.

^{page 202 note 4} ibid. p. 46.

^{page 202 note 5} ibid. p. 47.

^{page 202 note 6} Hoyt, N. S., and Cassirer, Th. (ed.) Encyclopedia, Selections (New York etc. 1965), pp. 147 ffGoogle Scholar (section headed ‘Intolerance’). Voltaire, , Traité sur la Tolérance (1713), e.g. in Oeuvres Philosophiques, Extraits (Montreux 1934).Google Scholar

^{page 203 note 1} Cassirer, Ernst, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Boston 1951, from German of 1932), p. 136.Google Scholar

^{page 203 note 2} Lively, J.The Enlightenment (London 1966), p. 193.Google Scholar

^{page 203 note 3} I have already tried to show that western thought about religion is not unique but that on the contrary there is room for a more generally valid and indeed comparative approach to problems of interpretation in a paper entitled ‘Comparative Hermeneutics in Religion’, in Pye, M. and Morgan, R. (ed.) The Cardinal Meaning, Essays in Comparative Hermeneutics: Buddhism and Christianity. Monton, The Hague, 1973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The present argument is intended to reinforce the position stated there.

^{page 204 note 1} Tominaga is a much neglected figure, and for logistical reasons this paper is mainly based on the data contained in Tsunoda, op. cit. The points of principle upon which the present comparative argument is based seem to be well enough established, and recognised by a variety of writers; but no doubt more detailed research into Tominaga's writings would raise many more points of interest.

^{page 204 note 2} This and the following biographical information is based on Dai Jinmei, Jiten, ad loc., a Japanese biographical encyclopedia.

^{page 204 note 3} Information on this and other aspects of the intellectual background is most easily available in Tsunoda, op. cit.

^{page 204 note 4} E.g. Suguro, Shinjō, ‘Hokkekyō Hihanron no Keifu’, in Mochizuki, Kankō (ed.) Kindai Nihon no Hokkebukkyō (Kyōto 1968) pp. 541–8.Google Scholar

^{page 205 note 1} Garland, H. B.Lessing, The Founder of Modern German Literature (1937, London 1962), p. 165.Google Scholar

^{page 205 note 2} Tsunoda, , op. cit. p. 480.Google Scholar

^{page 206 note 1} Tsunoda, , Op. cit. p. 483.Google Scholar

^{page 206 note 2} See Chadwick, Henry, Lessing's Theological Writings (London 1956).Google Scholar

^{page 206 note 3} E.g. a variety of semi-popular titles in the series Bukkyō Mondai Shinsho published by Bunshodō, Nagata, Kyōto 1963.Google Scholar

^{page 207 note 1} Bernard, Isaac. Controversy with P. Goetz, Cambridge Free Thoughts and Letters on Bibliolatry (1862).Google Scholar

^{page 207 note 2} Lessing, G. E.Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts und andere Schriften, pp. 2–5 (Reclam, Stuttgart 1965).Google Scholar

^{page 207 note 3} Chadwick, , op. cit., pp. 62–4.Google Scholar

^{page 208 note 1} Tsunoda, , op. cit. p. 481.Google Scholar

^{page 208 note 2} ibid., op. cit. p. 487.

^{page 208 note 3} ibid. p. 488.

^{page 209 note 1} Garland's translation, op. cit. p. 162.Google Scholar

^{page 209 note 2} Tsunoda, , Op. cit. p. 480.Google Scholar

^{page 209 note 3} ibid. pp. 486 f.

^{page 210 note 1} Tsunnoda, , op. cit. p. 486f.Google Scholar

^{page 210 note 2} It is still necessary today to argue that these relationships between Buddhism and Shinto require to be understood from the standpoint of a general phenomenological approach to religion as well as, if not instead of, from the point of view of one or other of the religions themselves; and also to take seriously the fact of real struggle between the two traditions. Cf. my ‘Assimilation and Skilful Means’ in Religion, journal of Religion and Religions, I, I, pp. 152–8.

^{page 210 note 3} Tsunoda, , op. cit. p. 487.Google Scholar

^{page 210 note 4} ibid. p. 480.

^{page 210 note 5} ibid. p. 486.

^{page 210 note 6} ibid. p. 487.

^{page 211 note 1} The question of the relationship between the idea of an ‘essence’ of a specific religion and the idea of an ‘essence’ of religion in general are both closely linked with the rise of a modern historicocritical way of looking at things. The latter, dealt with under point vii below, is more prominent than the former in the case of both Tominaga and Lessing, but in terms of the historical relativism characteristic of both, the former seems to be logically included even if not clearly worked out in detail.

^{page 212 note 1} The problem about the relationship between these two has of course been brought out much more clearly in more recent times.

^{page 212 note 2} Tsunoda, p. 483.

^{page 212 note 3} Chadwick points out that because knowledge was for Lessing not something static to be contentedly enjoyed but rather a ceaselessly new object of pursuit, ‘The target to be hit by the student of his writings is never still, but is rapidly moving.’ Op. cit. p. 43.

^{page 212 note 4} Tsunoda, , Op. cit. p. 388.Google Scholar

^{page 213 note 1} Tsunoda, pp. 485 f.

^{page 213 note 2} Chadwick, , Op. cit. p. 44.Google Scholar

^{page 213 note 3} ‘Natural religion’ admittedly meant different things to different people, cf. Pailin, David A. Some Eighteenth-Century Attitudes to Other Religions' in Religion, Journal of Religion and Religions, I, 2 (1971).Google Scholar Pailin writes: ‘Indeed, the theological battles of the period resulted in people being more confident of their moral beliefs than of their religious ones, and consequently judging religious beliefs by their moral concomitants’. (pp. 90–1)

^{page 213 note 4} Paragraph 92, Chadwick, , op. cit. p. 97.Google Scholar

^{page 213 note 5} ibid. pp. 104–5.

^{page 214 note 1} Tsunoda, , op. cit. p. 486.Google Scholar

^{page 214 note 2} ibid. p. 485.

^{page 215 note 1} A standard account is Boxer, C. R.The Christian Century in Japan (Berkeley 1951).Google Scholar

^{page 215 note 2} The oldest known work of this kind is the ‘Refutation of Deus’ (Ha Deusu) by a Jesuit convert who reverted to Buddhism. The work dates from 1620 and was translated by Hibbard, and Hiraishi, in Contemporary Religions in Japan, vol. III, Nos. 2, 3 and 4 (1962).Google Scholar

^{page 215 note 3} Keene, D.The Japanese Discovery of Europe: Honda Toshiaki and Other Discoverers 1720–1798, (London 1952) pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

^{page 215 note 4} ibid. p. 18.

^{page 215 note 5} ibid. p. 18.

^{page 215 note 6} ibid. p. 26.

^{page 215 note 7} Goodman, G. K.The Dutch Impact on Japan (1640–1853) (T'oung Pao Monograph V) (Leiden 1967).Google Scholar

^{page 215 note 8} Cf. Keene, , op. cit. p. 114Google Scholar, and Goodman's lengthy discussion, pp. 97–117.

^{page 216 note 1} Keene, , op. cit. pp. 107–8.Google Scholar

^{page 216 note 2} ibid. p. 109.

^{page 216 note 3} Cf. Keene, , op. cit. pp. 110–11Google Scholar, and Tsunoda, op. cit. pp. 540 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 216 note 4} An example is Wolff's ‘Oratio de Sinarum philosophia practica’ (first printed in 1726) of which Max Wundt wrote: ‘Ist es doch im Grunde seine eigene Morallehre, die er hier als die der Chinesen und besonders des Confucius darlegt…! Wundt, , Die deutsche Schulphilosophie im Zeitalter der Aufklärung (Tübingen 1945), p. 177.Google Scholar Cf. also Pailin, , op. cit. pp. 88 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 216 note 5} Chadwick, , op. cit. p. 45.Google Scholar

^{page 216 note 6} Tsunoda, , op. cit. p. 481.Google Scholar

^{page 216 note 7} Cf. Tsunoda, pp. 422 ff.

^{page 217 note 1} ibid. pp. 412 ff.

^{page 217 note 2} Cf. the article by Craig, A. entitled ‘Science and Confucianism in Tokugawa Japan’ in Jansen, M. B. (ed.) Changing Japanese Attitudes Towards Modernisation (Princeton Univ. Press 1965).Google Scholar