As to religion in China, it is only of the ethics of Confucius that the State takes any real cognizance. His is what John Stuart Mill alluded to as "the best wisdom they possess;" and, as he further observed, the Chinese have secured "that those who have appropriated most of it shall occupy the posts of honour and power." His maxims are entirely devoid of the superstitious element. He recognises a principle of right beyond the ken of man; but though he once said that this principle was conscious of his existence and his work on earth, it never entered his head to endow it with anything like retributory powers. Allusions to an unseen world were received by him with scorn; and as regards a future state, he has preserved a most discreet silence. "While you do not know life, how can you know about death?" was the rebuke he administered to a disciple who urged some utterance on the problem of most interest to mankind. And yet, in spite of the extreme healthiness of Confucian ethics, there has grown up, around both the political and social life of the Chinese, such a tangled maze of superstition, that it is no wonder if all intellectual advancement has been first checked, and has then utterly succumbed. The ruling classes have availed themselves of its irresistible power to give them a firmer hold over their simple-hearted, credulous subjects; they have practised it in its grossest forms, and have written volumes in support of absurdities in which they cannot really have the slightest faith themselves. It was only a year or two ago that the most powerful man in China, a distinguished scholar, statesman, and general, prostrated himself before a diminutive water-snake, in the hope that by humble intercession with the God of Floods he might bring about a respite from the cruel miseries which had been caused by inundations over a wide area of the province of Chihli. The suppliant was no other than the celebrated Viceroy, Lu Hung-chang, who has recently armed the forts at the mouth and on the banks of the Peiho with Krupp's best guns, instead of trusting, as would be consistent, the issue of a future war to the supernatural efforts of some Chinese Mars.
Turning now to the literature of China, we cannot but be astonished at the mass of novels which are one and all of the same tendency; in fact, not only throughout the entire stratum of Chinese fiction, but even in that of the gravest philosophical speculations, has the miraculous been introduced as a natural and necessary element. The following passage, taken from the writings of Han Wen-kung, whose name has been pronounced to be "one of the most venerated," is a fair specimen of the trash to be met with at every turn in that trackless, treeless desert, which for want of a more appropriate term we are obliged to call the literature of China:—
"There are some things which possess form but are devoid of sound,
as for instance jade and stones; others have sound but are without
form, such as wind and thunder; others again have both form and
sound, such as men and animals; and lastly, there is a class
devoid of both, namely, devils and spirits."
Descending to the harmless superstition of domestic life, we find that the cat washing her face is not, as with us, a sign of rain, but that a stranger is coming. On the other hand, "strangers" in tea portend, as with us, the arrival of some unlooked-for guest, tall or short, fat or lean, according to the relative proportions of the prophetic twig. Aching corns denote the approach of wet weather—we do not quote this as a superstition—and for a girl to spill water on fowls or dogs will ensure a downpour of rain on her wedding-day. Any one who hears a crow caw should shatter his teeth three times and blow; and two brooms together will bring joy and sorrow at the same time, as a birth and a death on the same day. "Crows' feet" on the face are called "fishes' tails," and in young men mean what the widower's peak is supposed to signify with us.
Superstition is China's worst enemy—a shadow which only the pure light of science will be able to dispel. There are many amongst us who would give her more: but they will not succeed.
NATURAL PHENOMENA
It is a question of more than ordinary interest to those who regard the Chinese people as a worthy object of study, What are the speculations of the working and uneducated classes concerning such natural phenomena as it is quite impossible for them to ignore? Their theory of eclipses is well known, foreign ears being periodically stunned by the gonging of an excited crowd of natives, who are endeavouring with hideous noises to prevent some imaginary dog of colossal proportions from banqueting, as the case may be, upon the sun or moon. At such laughable exhibitions of native ignorance it will be observed that there is always a fair sprinkling of well-to-do, educated persons, who not only ought to know better themselves, but should be making some effort to enlighten their less fortunate countrymen instead of joining in the din. Such a hold, however, as superstition on the minds of the best informed in a Chinese community, that under the influence of any real or supposed danger, philosophy and Confucius are scattered to the four winds of Heaven, and the proudest disciple of the Master proves himself after all but a man.
Leaving the literati to take care of themselves, and confining our attention to the good-tempered, joyous, hospitable working-classes of China, we find many curious beliefs on subjects familiar among western nations to every national school-boy. The earth, for instance, is popularly believed to be square; and the heavens a kind of shell or covering, studded with stars and revolving round the earth. We remember once when out of sight of land calling the notice of our native valet to the masts of a vessel sinking below the horizon. We pointed out to him that were the earth a perfectly flat surface its disappearance would not be so comparatively sudden, nor would the ship appear to sink. But at the last moment, when we felt that conviction was entering into his soul and that another convert had been made to the great cause of scientific truth, he calmly replied that it was written—"Heaven is round, earth is square," and he didn't very well understand how books could be wrong!
The sun is generally supposed to pass at sunset into the earth, and to come out next morning at the other side. The moon is supposed to rise from and set in the ocean. Earthquakes are held to result from explosions of sulphur in the heart of the earth; rain is said to be poured down by the Dragon God who usually resides on the other side of the clouds, and the rainbow is believed to be formed by the breath of an enormous oyster which lives somewhere in the middle of the sea, far away from land. Comets and eclipses of the sun are looked upon as special warnings to the throne, and it is usual for some distinguished censor to memorialise the Emperor accordingly. The most curious perhaps of all these popular superstitions are those which refer to thunder, lightning, and hail, regarded in China as the visitation of an angry and offended god. In the first place it is supposed that people are struck by thunder and not by lightning—a belief which was probably once prevalent in England, as evidenced by the English word thunderstruck. Sir Philip Sydney writes:—"I remained as a man thunder-stricken." Secondly, death by thunder is regarded as a punishment for some secret crime committed against human or divine law, and consequently a man who is not conscious of anything of the kind faces the elements without fear. Away behind the clouds during a storm or typhoon sit the God of Thunder armed with his terrible bolts, and the Goddess of Lightning, holding in her hand a dazzling mirror. With this last she throws a flash of lightning over the guilty man that the God of Thunder may see to strike his victim; the pealing crash which follows is caused by the passage through the air of the invisible shaft—and the wrongs of Heaven are avenged. Similarly, hail is looked upon as an instrument of punishment in the hands of the Hail God, directed only against the crops and possessions of such mortals as have by their wicked actions exposed themselves to the slow but certain visitation of divine vengeance.