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Wisdom and Valour, and nineteen characters are included under each heading. It is a more curious than valuable production.
The Kijin Shinron, completed first in 1806 and revised for publication in 1820, is intended to prove that the ordinary Chinese philosophers have misunderstood the teachings of Confucius with regard to supernatural beings, and to show by quotations from the Confucian Analects and other writings that he believed in their actual existence. Hirata in this work refutes the opinions of Chinese and Japanese scholars with regard to the non-existence of gods, and demonstrates the correctness of the opposite view. We have not time to analyze the work more minutely, and have had recourse to the bibliographical list of Hirata’s writings printed at the end of the Niugaku Mondô for this brief notice of it.
In 1807 he resumed practice as a physician, and the study of medicine. During this year he commenced the compilation of the Chi-shima Shiranami, or White Waves of the Kurile Islands, which contains an account of the incursions of the Russians under Davidoff and Chwostoff against the Japanese possessions in Sagalien and Itorup in the previous year. It was intended also to be a manual of the way to “Restrain Barbarians” and of Maritime Defence. It is to be regretted that this interesting work still remains unprinted.
The year 1811 was un extremely fruitful one. Early in the spring he began to revise the lectures on Shintô, Chinese philosophy and Buddhism which during the two previous years he had delivered to his pupils, and produced in succession the Kodôtaii, Summary of the Ancient Way; Zoku-Shintô Taii, Summary of the Vulgar Shintô; Kangaku Taii, Summary of Chinese Learning, the same as that which was afterwards published under the title of Sai-jaku Gairon; the Butsudô Taii, Summary of Buddhism, subsequently renamed Go-dô Ben; Idô Taii, Summary of the Medical Art, printed under the title of Shidzu no Iwaya; the Kadô Taii, Summary of the Art of Poetry, and the Tamadasusi, which he re-
