earth. Amulets are worn, and charms hung up, sprigs of artemisia or
of peach-blossom are placed near beds and over lintels respectively,
children and adults are 'locked to life' by means of locks on chains
or cords worn round the neck, old brass mirrors are supposed to cure
insanity, figures of gourds, tigers' claws, or the unicorn are worn
to ensure good fortune or ward off sickness, fire, etc., spells of
many kinds, composed mostly of the written characters for happiness
and longevity, are worn, or written on paper, cloth, leaves, etc.,
and burned, the ashes being made into a decoction and drunk by the
young or sick.

Divination by means of the divining stalks (the divining plant,
milfoil or yarrow) and the tortoiseshell has been carried on from
time immemorial, but was not originally practised with the object of
ascertaining future events, but in order to decide doubts, much as
lots are drawn or a coin tossed in the West. _Fêng-shui_, "the art of
adapting the residence of the living and the dead so as to co-operate
and harmonize with the local currents of the cosmic breath" (the _yin_
and the _yang_: see Chapter III), a doctrine which had its root in
ancestor-worship, has exercised an enormous influence on Chinese
thought and life from the earliest times, and especially from those
of Chu Hsi and other philosophers of the Sung dynasty.


Knowledge

Having noted that Chinese education was mainly literary, and why it
was so, it is easy to see that there would be little or no demand
for the kind of knowledge classified in the West under the head of
science. In so far as any demand existed, it did so, at any rate at