[118] Monier-Williams, Brāhmanism and Hindūism, p. 199.
[119] Yasts, iv. 5. Maspero, Études, ii. 373 sq.; Idem, Dawn of Civilization, p. 146 (ancient Egyptians). Sell, op. cit. p. 318 (Muhammedans).
[120] Indo-Chinese Gleaner, iii. 145.
[121] Indo-Chinese Gleaner, iii. 146.
Among all sins there is none which gods resent more severely than disobedience to their commandments. Mr. Macdonald says of the Efatese, in the New Hebrides, that no people under the sun is more obedient to what they regard as divine mandates than these savages, who believe that an offence against a spiritual being means calamity and death.[122] The Chaldeans had a lively sense of the risks entailed upon the sinner by disobedience to the gods.[123] According to the Bible disobedience was the first sin committed by man, and death was introduced into the world as its punishment. “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”[124] On the history of morals this demand of obedience has exercised considerable influence. It gives emphasis to moral rules which are looked upon as divine injunctions, and it helps to preserve such rules after the conditions from which they sprang have ceased to exist. The fact that they have become meaningless does not render them less binding; on the contrary, the mystery surrounding them often increases their sanctity. The commandments of a god must be obeyed independently of their contents, simply because disobedience to him is a sin. Acts totally different in character, crimes of the worst description and practices by themselves perfectly harmless, are grouped together as almost equally offensive to the deity because they have been forbidden by him.[125] And moral progress is hampered by a number of precepts which, though rooted in obsolete superstitions or antiquated ideas about right and wrong, have an obstinate tendency to persist on account of their supposed divine origin.[126]
[122] Macdonald, Oceania, p. 201.
[123] Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, p. 682. Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? p. 86.
[124] 1 Samuel, xv. 23. Schultz, Old Testament Theology, ii. 286. For other instances see Rig-Veda, vii. 89. 5; Geiger, Civilization of the Eastern Irānians, i. p. li.; Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 51 sq.
[125] Cf. supra, [i. 193 sqq.]
[126] Cf. Pollock, Essays on Jurisprudence and Ethics, p. 306 sq.