"We [i.e., the members of the Japanese race] who have been brought into existence through the creative spirits of the sacred ancestral kami are, each and every one, in spontaneous possession of the Way of the Gods. This means that we are equipped by nature with the virtues of reverence for the gods, for rulers and parents, with kindness toward wife and children, with the moral qualities which in Confucianism are called the five great ethical relationships (gorin) [i.e., those of ruler and subjects, parent and child, husband and wife, older and younger brothers, and friend with friend] and also with the five virtues (gojō) [i.e., benevolence, justice, propriety, wisdom, and faith], and to follow this nature just as it is, without bending or turning aside, is to conform to the teaching of the kami."
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Hirata Atsutane, Zoku Shindō Taii ("The Great Principles of Shintō"); text in Shintō Daijiten ("The Shinto Encyclopaedia"), I (1937), p. 399, quoted in D. C. Holtom, Modern Japan and Shinto Nationalism: A Study of Present-Day Trends in Japanese Religions (1943; rev. edn., 1947), p. 16
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Shinto
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