th greater power than can be attained to by man, and according to
which at death the soul migrates into anything from a deified human
being to an elephant, a bird, a plant, a wall, a broom, or any piece
of inorganic matter, was imported ready made into China and took the
side of popular superstition and Taoism against the orthodox belief,
finding that its power lay in the influence on the popular mind of its
doctrine respecting a future state, in contrast to the indifference
of Confucianism. Its pleading for compassion and preservation of life
met a crying need, and but for it the state of things in this respect
would be worse than it is.

Religion, apart from ancestor-worship, does not enter largely
into Chinese life. There is none of the real 'love of God' found,
for example, in the fervent as distinguished from the conventional
Christian. And as ancestor-worship gradually loses its hold and dies
out agnosticism will take its place.

Superstitions

An almost infinite variety of superstitious practices, due to the
belief in the good or evil influences of departed spirits, exists in
all parts of China. Days are lucky or unlucky. Eclipses are due to a
dragon trying to eat the sun or the moon. The rainbow is supposed to be
the result of a meeting between the impure vapours of the sun and the
earth. Amulets are worn, and charms hung up, sprigs of artemisia or
of peach-blossom are placed near beds and over lintels respectively,
children and adults are 'locked to life' by means of locks on chains
or cords worn round the neck, old brass mirrors are supposed to cure
insanity, figures of gourds, tigers' claws, or the unicorn are worn
to ensure good fortune or ward off sickness, fire, etc., spells of
many kinds, composed mostly of the written characters for happiness
and longevity, are worn, or written on paper, cloth, leaves, etc.,
and burned, the ashes being made into a decoction and drunk by the
young or sick.

Divination by means of the divining stalks (the divining plant,
milfoil or yarrow) and the tortoiseshell has been carried on from
time immemorial, but was not originally practised with the object of
ascertaining future events, but in order to decide doubts, much as
lots are drawn or a coin tossed in the West. _Feng-shui_, "the art of
adapting the residence of the living and the dead so as to co-operate
and harmonize with the local currents of the cosmic breath" (the _yin_
and the _yang_: see Chapter III), a doct