We have hitherto looked upon Feng-shui as derived chiefly from the teachings of Choo-he and other philosophers of the Sung dynasty. And certainly, when we regard Feng-shui as a recognized popular system of physical science, as a methodical combination of certain philosophical ideas for definite practical purposes, we can scarcely trace its origin beyond that period so justly called the Augustan age of Chinese literature. But the most prominent ideas and practices which go to make up this system of popular superstition can be followed up to very ancient times. The leading principles of Feng-shui have their roots in remote antiquity, and it would not be exaggeration to say, that, though indeed modern Feng-shui was not a distinct branch of study or a separate profession before the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1126), yet the history of the leading ideas and practices of Feng-shui is the history of Chinese philosophy.

The deepest root of the Feng-shui system grew out of that excessive and superstitious veneration of the spirits of ancestors, which, though philosophical minds like that of Confucius might construe it on an exclusively moral basis as simply an expression of filial piety, was with the mass of the Chinese people the fruitful soil from which the poisonous weed of rank superstition sprang up in profusion. Ancestral worship naturally implied the idea that the spirits of deceased ancestors could and would somehow influence the fortunes of their descendants. This superstitious notion, the existence of which can be shewn in the most ancient records of Chinese thought that we possess, is the moving spring and leading instinct of the whole Feng-shui system.

The next step in the direction of Feng-shui, which the superstitious mind of antiquity took, was to connect this supposed influence of deceased ancestors with the locality of their tombs and the topographical character of the surroundings of each grave. In the most primitive ages of Chinese antiquity no such custom can be shewn to have been in vogue. But we have some distinct traces of the first budding of this idea. In the times of the early dawn of Chinese history, which I place not earlier than the Chow dynasty (B.C. 1122), ordinary people, it is reported, used to be buried in the plain, princes on low hills, emperors under a mound on the top of high mountains. Here we have the first indication of a degree of importance being attached not only to the general situation of the tomb, but also to its construction, viz., the erection, in the case of imperial tombs, of a high mound, supposed, no doubt, to protect the back of the tomb; the dragon, in fact, of future ages.

Feng Shui, or the Rudiments of Natural Science in China by Ernest J. Eitel [b. 1839, d. 1908] Hong Kong: Trubner & Co., [1873]