It can hardly be denied that the populace in China are grossly superstitious. Superstition is a common failing and were statistics available to show the number and status of Europeans who believe in fortune-telling and luck, the result might be startling. But in most civilized countries such things are furtive and apologetic. In China the strangest forms of magic and divination enjoy public esteem. The ideas which underlie popular practice and ritual are worthy of African savages: there has been a monstrous advance in systematization, yet the ethics and intellect of China, brilliant as are their achievements, have not leavened the lump. The average Chinese, though an excellent citizen, full of common sense and shrewd in business, is in religious matters a victim of fatuous superstition and completely divorced from the moral and intellectual standards which he otherwise employs.
Conspicuous among these superstitions is Fêng Shui or Geomancy[570], a pseudo-science which is treated as seriously as law or surveying. It is based on the idea that localities have a sort of spiritual climate which brings prosperity or the reverse and depends on the influences of stars and nature spirits, such as the azure dragon and white tiger. But since these agencies find expression in the contours of a locality, they can be affected if its features are modified by artificial means, for instance, the construction of walls and towers. Buddhism did not disdain to patronize these notions. The principal hall of a monastery is usually erected on a specially auspicious site and the appeals issued for the repair of sacred buildings often point out the danger impending if edifices essential to the good Fêng Shui of a district are allowed to decay. The scepticism and laughter of the educated does not clear the air, for superstition can flourish when neither respected nor believed. The worst feature of religion in China is that the decently educated public ridicules its external observances, but continues to practise them, because they are connected with occasions of good fellowship or because their omission might be a sign of disrespect to departed relatives or simply because in dealing with uncanny things it is better to be on the safe side. This is the sum of China's composite religion as visible in public and private rites. Its ethical value is far higher than might be supposed, for its most absurd superstitions also recommend love and respect in family life and a high standard of civic duty. But China has never admitted that public or private morality requires the support of a religious creed.