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The Effect on the People
The net result of all these "teachings" was to foster a particular outlook among the people, educated and illiterate alike. Along with other equally long-lived influences such as geomancy, and fortune-telling by various means, it created men like the father of Monlin Chiang, the well-known Republican scholar official, concerning whom the son wrote:
"He believed in feng shui, the spirits of wind and water, and in fortune-telling and therefore - with a sort of fatalism - that a man's life was predetermined by super-natural forces. However, he also believed that by virtuous conduct and clean thinking one could make these forces respond by bestowing blessings upon oneself and one's family; thus the predetermined course of life would gradually shift its ground to a better course.
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This outlook was probably quite uniform. Any variations to it were a matter of degree, dependent on to which end of the spectrum of belief and superstition men inclined rather than any more fundamental divide. Differences were determined largely by education, class, and status. In this particular instance, we are dealing with an educated man, a member of a gentry family, a regular Confucian. 18
PART TWO
Polytheism and Demonism: the "Non-instructive" Side of Chinese Religion
This second main division of Chinese religious thought and behaviour has to do with an immense preoccupation with gods and spirits, and the purposes and expectations lying behind it. Bombarded from every direction by Confucian exhortation and Buddhist admonition, the mass of the populace was aware that however filial or well-behaved people might be, there was much in this world that lay beyond human understanding or control.
This realization explains the existence of what may here be styled the "non-instructive" side of Chinese religion. It was an enormous arena in which, in their never-ending confrontation with evil spirits and