Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 3.djvu/66

those celestial being called shan, and those terrestrial, chi. But into neither of these spiritual classes were the manes of departed mortals received; they took their place among a different order of beings, the kwei, or "demons" of vulgar phraseology. Concerning communication between heaven and mortals, there was the direct voice of God on rare occasions; the sun, the moon, and the stars were regarded as constant sources of revelation; and special methods of consulting the divine will were furnished by the lines on the back of a tortoise and by certain figures and formulae which will be spoken of presently.

Here, then, was monotheism disfigured by animistic tendencies and by superstitious divination. It is true that worship was not confined to one supreme being. Spirits also received homage, but only of a secondary nature and only as doing service to men on behalf of God. The "Statutes of the Ming Dynasty" (1368–1642) contain two prayers to the celestial and terrestrial spirits, which, according to the view of an eminent sinologue, might almost seem to have been specially compiled to prevent the erroneous supposition that the early religion of China took its form from the principle of animism. Of course a ritual used from the fourteenth century onwards may not reflect accurately the religious belief of four thousand years previously. But since history shows that any change effected in the interval should have been in the direction of animism,