Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/358

 new officials, were introduced, and therefore both the living and the dead had to be placed under new directors.

A point of great importance was the destruction of the graves of the preceding dynasty—that is to say, the destruction of the worship of ancestors, who had hitherto been the powers ruling over families and over nature generally. Since there were in the new empire families who were attached to the old dynasty, whose relations had held the higher offices, and particularly military posts, yet to offend whom would have been impolitic, a means had to be found by which the dead relatives of these families should continue to enjoy the respect and reverence in which they had hitherto been held. Wû accomplished this in the following way. After the flames had been extinguished in the capital (it was not as yet Pekin), the flames, namely, which the last prince had had kindled in order to destroy the Imperial Palace with all its treasures, women, &c., the empire and its government were brought under Wû’s authority, and the moment had arrived for him to make his entrance as Emperor into the Imperial city, to present himself to the people, and to give laws. He nevertheless announced that he could not do this until everything was brought into proper order between himself and Heaven. With regard to this imperial constitution between himself and Heaven, it was given out that it was contained in two books which were deposited upon a mountain in the care of a venerable sage. Of these two books, one contained the new laws, and the other the names and offices of the genii, called Ch‘i, who were the new directors of the empire in the world of nature, in the same way as the mandarins are in the world of every-day life. Wû’s general was sent off to fetch these books; this man was himself already a Ch‘i, a present genius, to which dignity he had attained