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It appears to have been only gradually that other elements than those of efficient service of the master found their way into the stock of priestly or shamanistic instruction.
They were superior to their Mongol fellow-wolves in that they could smelt iron and had some idea of constructive enterprise. They had also adopted Islam, which was a great advance from the Shamanistic wizardry and totem-worship they used to practise, and their contact with the Arabs who raided them and afterwards accepted their military service to the Caliphate had civilised them considerably.
We pass by, or only glance at, the philosophy of the Punjaub; the metaphysics of Nepal with its developments into what some writers consider to be a close approach to monotheism, and others, indeed, monotheism itself; the system of Lamaism in Tibet, which has paralleled so closely the development of the papal hierarchy; the possibly two thousand years' growth and decay of Chinese Buddhism; the varieties of the Buddhism of Mongolia almost swamped in the Shamanistic superstitions of these dwellers on the plains; the astonishing success, quick ripening, decay, and almost utter annihilation, among the learned and governing classes, of Korean Buddhism; and study in detail only Eastern or Japanese Buddhism.
It is deemed of prime importance that such deities should be induced to act in the interest of men. Thus it is that Shamanistic government is held to be of as great importance as tribal government, and the Shamans are the peers of the chiefs.
Closer research has shown that Shih Huang-ti was evidently an average man without any great gifts, that he was superstitious, and shared the tendency of his time to mystical and shamanistic notions. The Legalists taught that the ruler must do as little as possible himself. His Ministers were there to act for him. He himself was to be regarded as a symbol of Heaven.
It appears to have been from this source that learning, as an institution, arose, and its differentiation from this its parent stock of magic ritual and shamanistic fraud has been slow and tedious, and is scarcely yet complete even in the most advanced of the higher seminaries of learning.
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