There are always people to be found in every race whose minds are of the receptive but unanalytic order—people who continue to believe anything they have been told in childhood simply because it does not occur to them to ask questions or to think out problems for themselves. Whether such a mental attitude is worthy of being called an attitude of "belief" is another matter. What makes it suspiciously probable that the shouting and uproar among certain American tribes was merely a ceremonial survival from a primitive age is the fact that entirely different and much more reasonable theories of the cause of a lunar or solar eclipse were known and apparently assented to by the very people who nominally believed in the hungry-dog theory. "Passing on from these most primitive conceptions," says Dr. Tylor, "it appears that natives of both South and North America fell upon philosophic myths somewhat nearer the real facts of the case, insomuch as they admit that the sun and moon cause eclipses of one another."[415] A further significant observation is made that the Aztecs, "as part of their remarkable astronomical knowledge, seem to have had an idea of the real cause of eclipses," yet "kept up a relic of the old belief by continuing to speak in mythologic phrase of the sun and moon being eaten."
It is the old story, that to introduce changes into religious ceremonial is considered impious or sacrilegious, even when the advance of knowledge renders such ceremonial meaningless. One hears of stone knives being used by priests for sacrificial purposes long ages after metal has come into common use, simply because a kind of sanctity is attached to the form of instrument that was used when the sacrificial rite itself was young: though it had only been selected originally because in the stone age nothing better was available. One of the stone knives of some Western Churches is the so-called Creed of St. Athanasius. There are many other stone implements in the ecclesiastical armouries of the West, but some of them are cunningly carved and regilded from time to time so that as long as no one examines them too critically they are regarded without disfavour. But the carving and gilding will not hide their imperfections for ever.
Writing of events at Canton, Dr. Wells Williams says that "an almost total eclipse of the moon called out the entire population, each one carrying something with which to make a noise, kettles, pans, sticks, drums, gongs, guns, crackers and what not to frighten away the dragon of the sky from his hideous feast ... silence gradually resumed its sway as the moon recovered her fulness."[416] Dr. Williams does not say so, but the fact was that the townspeople were simply availing themselves of a recognised and legitimate opportunity to have what English schoolboys might call a "rag." If he had scrutinised the faces of the gong-beaters he would have observed that the prevailing feelings were those of mirth and good-humour, not of terror at the occurrence of a distressing celestial calamity. The stereotyped nature of the official ceremonies (in which every action is carefully prescribed) that take place during an eclipse, not to mention the fact that eclipses have for centuries been regularly foretold by the Court astronomers, ought to be sufficient to show that the noisy ceremonial is merely a rather interesting survival from an age of complete scientific ignorance and perhaps barbarism.
It seems very possible, indeed, that the eclipse-theory supposed to be generally held in China is not a traditional inheritance of the Chinese race but came to them in comparatively recent times from some less civilised neighbour, possibly an Indian or a central Asiatic race. It is hardly likely to have come from America; for even if the Fu-sang stories are not mere fairy-tales it is not probable that China can have borrowed her superstitions from so distant a source. If China was foolish enough to borrow the beast-theory from India, she may at least retort that it was borrowed by Europe too: for the same theory, with or without variations, has existed even on the Continent and in the British Isles.[417]
It is noteworthy that the oldest books extant in the Chinese language mention eclipses but give no hint of the beast-theory, and the philosopher Wang Ch'ung (first century A.D.), whose delight it was to demolish foolish superstitions, mentions several explanations (wise and foolish) of eclipses without directly or indirectly referring to that which we have been considering. He would certainly have referred to it if it had been known to him. Whatever may have been the date of their first observance, the official eclipse-rites (which are said to have been recently abolished by order of the Prince-Regent) continued to exist through the centuries simply because, partly from political motives, Chinese Governments have always been very reluctant to interfere with established customs. Much of the imperial ritual carried on at the present day in connection with the worship of Heaven and Earth is a pure matter of form so far as religious belief goes. If the Emperor gave up the grand ceremonials conducted annually at the Altar of Heaven it would doubtless be interpreted to mean that he had lost faith in his own divine right to rule and that the Manchu dynasty was about to abdicate the throne.
On the whole, then, we may conclude that in spite of appearances the Chinese do not, as a nation, hold that when the moon is passing through the earth's shadow it means that the moon is being devoured by a hungry dragon. That very many Chinese will profess belief in the dragon, if suddenly asked about the cause of an eclipse, is perfectly true. Somewhat similarly, many an Englishman, if suddenly asked what became of Red Riding Hood's grandmother, would probably reply without hesitation that the wretched old lady was eaten by a wicked wolf.
A missionary writer already quoted states that though the Chinese are gifted with a keen sense of humour, "when they come to deal with the question of spirits and ghosts and ogres they seem to lose their reasoning faculties, and to believe in the most outrageous things that a mind with an ordinary power of the perception of the ludicrous would shrink from admitting."[418] That the Chinese (like multitudes of Europeans) do believe in some outrageous and ridiculous things I am quite ready to admit, but it is necessary again to emphasise the undoubted fact that many Chinese (like multitudes of Europeans) seem to believe in a great deal more than they really do, and that what seems like active belief is often nothing more than a passive acquiescence in tradition. Let us remember that in China, as in our own Western lands, relics of early barbarism hold their own through ages of civilisation "by virtue of the traditional sanctity which belongs to survival from remote antiquity."[419] As time goes on and knowledge grows (especially among the mothers of the race) many of the unreasonable forms of traditional belief and many of the crude ideas which are accepted in China because traditional, though not really believed in, will gradually decay and disappear; arms and heads will fall off clay images and will not be replaced; temple-roofs will fall in and will not be repaired; annual processions and festivals will be kept up because they provide holidays for hard-working adults and are a source of delight to the children, but will gradually become more and more secular in character; while ghosts and devils will be relegated to the care of lovers of folk-lore or (perhaps with truer wisdom) submitted as subjects of serious study to a future Chinese society for psychical research.