1909] on Influence of Superstition on Growth of Institutions. 461 



For it is reasonable to suppose that men are more loth to spill the 

 blood of their fellows when they believe that by so doing they expose 

 themselves to the vengeance of an angry and powerful spirit whom it 

 is difficult either to evade or to deceive. Fortunately in this matter 

 we are not left wholly to conjecture. In the vast empire of China, 

 as vfQ are assured by the best living authority on Chinese religion, the 

 fear of ghosts has actually produced this salutary result. Among the 

 Chinese the faith in the existence of the dead, in their power to 

 reward kindness and punish injury, is universal and inveterate : it 

 has been handed down from an immemorial past, and it is nourished 

 in the experience, or rather in the mind, of everybody by hundreds of 

 ghost- stories, all of which are devoutly accepted as true. Nobody 

 doubts that ghosts may interfere at any moment in the conduct of 

 life, in the regulation of human destiny. This faith of the Chinese 

 in the existence and power of the dead, we are informed, "indubitably 

 exercises a mighty and salutary influence upon morals. It enforces 

 respect for human life, and a charitable treatment of the infirm, the 

 aged and the sick, especially if they stand on the brink of the grave. 

 Benevolence and humanity, thus based on fears and selfishness, may 

 have little ethical value in our eye ; but for all that, their existence 

 in a country where culture has not yet taught man to cultivate good 

 for the sake of good alone, may be greeted as a blessing. Those 

 virtues are even extended to animals, for, in fact, these too have souls 

 which may work vengeance, or bring reward. But the firm belief in 

 ghosts and their retributive justice has still other effects. It deters 

 from grievous and provoking injustice, because the wronged party, 

 thoroughly sure of the avenging power of his own spirit when disem- 

 bodied, will not always shrink from converting himself into a wrath- 

 ful ghost by committing suicide," in order to wreak in death that ven- 

 geance which he could not exact in life. Cases of suicide committed 

 with this intention are said to be far from rare in China. These 

 beliefs, says Professor de Groot, put disrespect for human life under 

 great restraint : in particular they have a salutary effect in restricting 

 the practice of female infanticide. The fear that the souls of the 

 murdered little ones may bring misfortune induces many a Chinese 

 father and mother to spare the infant daughters whom otherwise they 

 would have killed at birth. Humane and wealthy people take advan- 

 tage of these superstitious fears to inculcate a merciful treatment of 

 female infants ; for they print and circulate gratuitously tracts which 

 set forth many gruesome examples of punishments inflicted on un- 

 natural fathers and mothers by the ghosts of their murdered daughters. 

 These highly-coloured narratives, though they bear all the marks of 

 a florid fancy, are said to answer their benevolent purpose perfectly ; 

 for they sink deep into the credulous minds to which they are 

 addressed : they touch the seared conscience and the callous heart 

 which no appeal to mere natural affection could move to pity. 



But while the fear of the ghost has thus operated directly to 



