It cannot fail to enhance our interest in a study of the ideal upheld by these teachers of morality, if we recall that this ideal of character has for upwards of three thousand years exercised an incalculable influence upon the moral life of probably a fourth of the human race and is the cement of a social structure that has outlasted all others of the ancient world. The cast of this moral ideal affords a good illustration of the way in which the moral type of a people is molded by religious and philosophical ideas, social institutions, race experiences, and physical environment. Following our usual method of exposition we shall begin our examination of Chinese morality by first casting a glance at some of the agencies which have been especially influential in the creation of the ethical standard. [Sidenote: Confucianism: the state worship of Heaven and the popular worship of ancestors] There are two religious elements in Confucianism which have special significance for Chinese morality. These are, first, the state worship of Heaven and of the lesser gods of the sky and earth; and second, the popular cult of ancestral spirits. The worship of Heaven, the supreme deity, is a state function; that is, it is a matter which is left entirely to the Emperor and the magistrates. Consequently those duties to God, that is, to a being looked upon as Creator and Father,--duties of reverence, love, and worship, which fill so large a place in the moral ideals of Judaism and Christianity,--find scarcely any place among the duties enjoined upon the multitude by Confucianism.[118] The worship of ancestors is the essential and popular element of Confucianism. Commenting on the ethical value of this cult, Dr. Martin affirms that “in respect to moral efficiency, it would appear to be only second to that of faith in the presence of an all-seeing Deity.”[119] The constant and reverent dwelling upon the virtues of their ancestors has exalted the virtue of filial piety among the Chinese to the highest place in their ideal of character and has helped to make respect for what is old, for what has been handed down from ancestral ages, a highly prized virtue and a distinguishing trait of the race character. In an indirect way also ancestor worship has exerted a great influence upon the moral life of the Chinese people, for this worship is necessarily a family cult and must be cared for by the head of the family. This has prevented the growth of a priestly caste in Confucian China. The absence of a powerful national priesthood has been a great boon to Chinese morality. The place thus left vacant has been filled by the _literati_, or learned class,[120] whose influence upon the ethical life of the people has, without question, been more beneficent than that of a priestly class would have been.[121] [Sidenote: Demonism: evil spirits the ministers of retributive justice]