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His son Kanetane, in the biographical notice which forms part of the last volume of the Tamadasuki, says that the number of pupils who entered his school was altogether five hundred and fifty-three. His acknowledged works amount to over one hundred, besides those which he never published. A list of the most important is to be found at the end of the Ningaku Mondô, and the biographical notice just referred to contains the dates at which each of them was begun and completed.
Hirata’s works are composed in two styles, the one almost entirely colloquial, the other formed on the model of the ancient prose-writers, and crowded with obsolete words which add considerably to the difficulties of the student. His graver writings fall far short of those of Motoöri in point of clearness for this reason. His scholarship appears to have been very extensive, and without a wide acquaintance with ancient Chinese literature and Buddhism it would be impossible to follow him into the remote regions whither his researches sometimes carry him. He speaks so frequently of analogies between the native traditions, and those of the Buddhists and ancient Chinese, which he interprets by the theory that the latter borrowed from the Japanese, that it is a matter of regret not to be able to test his statements; since if the supposed analogies really exist, they would be of considerable use in tracing the relationship of the Japanese to the races of the Asiatic Continent.
The object of this paper being merely to give some account of the views entertained by a school of modern writers on Shintô, no attempt has been made to determine which of their opinions are in accordance, and which at variance with the real nature of this religion. It is, however, manifest that such of their conclusions as are founded on the alleged infallibility of the ancient records or on any premisses which involve the miraculous or supernatural must for those very reasons be discredited; and the real nature and origin of Shintô must be decided by the usual canons of historical criticism. The most effectual means of conducting the investigation would be a comparison of
