Note 6 — IV.—PORTENTS OR OMENS, AUGURIES, LUCKY NUMBERS AND DREAMS.

Confucius himself was not above his countrymen in this respect, for in the Due Medium he remarks:—“The reason of perfect ones enables them to foreknow things; if a nation be about to flourish there will be happy omens, and unlucky ones if it totter to its fall. These will appear in the divining herb sz’, in the tortoise, and in the airs and motions of the four members. When either happiness or misery is about to come sages will foreknow both the good and the evil. So that the supremely sincere are equal with the gods.”—Middle Kingdom, II. 276. See Ante, page 6. This inferentially encourages a resort to “wise men” to learn future events, but can scarcely have been intended to pass approval on fortune-tellers. ↑