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Nonmagical Confucianism was a secular, rational philosophy, but even with this different orientation it could not escape from the ethos of a cosmic government.

Confucianism had its own magic in the idea that virtue had power.

If a man lived a classical life, he need not fear the spirits -- for only lack of virtue gave the spirits power over him.

But let us not be mistaken about Confucian `` virtue '' ; ;

this was not virtue as we understand the word today, and it did not mean an abandonment of the belief in magic manipulation.

To the Confucian, `` virtue '' simply meant mastery and correct observance of three hundred major rules of ritual and three thousand minor ones.

Propriety was synonymous with ritual observance, the mark of a true gentleman.

To live correctly in an interdependent moral and material universe of living and dead was decisive for man's fate.