The factors which determine the cleanliness of a people also naturally influence the moral valuation of it. Aversion to dirt not only leads to cleanly habits, but makes a filthy person an object of disgust and disapprobation; indeed, this aversion is generally stronger with reference to other individuals than with reference to one’s own person. But where for some reason or other dirtiness becomes habitual, it at the same time ceases to be disgusting; and it is often astonishing how soon people get used to filthy surroundings. Thus, when cleanliness is insisted upon it is so in the first instance because dirt is directly disagreeable to other persons, and when uncleanness is tolerated it is so because it gives no offence to the senses of the public. But at the higher stages of civilisation, at least, cleanliness is besides inculcated on hygienic grounds.
In many cases cleanliness, either temporary or habitual, is also practised and enjoined from religious or superstitious motives. A Lappish noaide, or wizard, had to wash all his body before he offered a sacrifice.[53] The Siberian shamans have compulsory water purifications once a year, sometimes every month, as also on special occasions when they feel themselves defiled by contact with unclean things.[54] The Shinto priests in Japan bathed and put on clean garments before making the sacred offerings or chanting the liturgies.[55] Herodotus speaks of the cleanliness observed by the Egyptian priests when engaged in the service of the gods.[56] As a preliminary to an act of worship the ancient Greeks washed their hands or bathed and put on clean clothes.[57] One of the legal maxims of the Romans required that men should approach the deity in a state of purity.[58] According to Zoroastrianism it is the great business of life to avoid impurity, and, when it is involuntarily contracted, to remove it in the correct manner as quickly as possible; and by impurity is then understood not an inward state of the soul, but mainly a physical state of the body, everything going out of the human body being considered polluting.[59] For a Brahmin bathing is the chief part of the minute ceremonial of daily worship, whilst further washings and aspersions enter into more solemn religious acts;[60] and not only Brahmins but most Hindus regard it as a religious duty to bathe daily if this is at all convenient.[61] Lamaism enjoins personal ablution as a sacerdotal rite preparatory to worship, though the ceremony seldom extends to more than dipping the tips of the fingers in water.[62] Jewish Rabbis are compelled to wash their hands before they begin to pray.[63] Tertullian mentions that a similar ablution was practised by the Christians before prayer.[64] According to Islam, the clothes and person of the worshipper should be clean, and so also the ground, mat, carpet, or whatever else it be, upon which he prays; and every act of worship must be preceded by an ablution, though, where water cannot be got, sand may be used as a substitute.[65] But a polluting influence is not ascribed to everything which we regard as dirt. For instance, Muhammedans consider the excrements of men and dogs defiling, but not the dung of cows and sheep; cow-dung is even used as a means of purification.
[53] Friis, Lappisk Mythologie, p. 145 sq. von Düben, Lappland, p. 256.
[54] Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxiv. 88.
[55] Griffis, Religions of Japan, p. 85.
[56] Herodotus, ii. 37. Cf. Wiedemann, Herodots zweites Buch, p. 154.
[57] Iliad, i. 449; iii. 270; vi. 266; ix. 171, 174; xvi. 229 sq.; xxiii. 41; xxiv. 302 sqq. Odyssey, ii. 261; iv. 750; xvii. 58. Keller, Homeric Society, p. 141. Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusaltertümer, p. 106.
[58] Cicero, De legibus, ii. 10.
[59] Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. lxxii. sqq.
[60] Ward, View of the History, &c. of the Hindoos, ii. 61 sq. Colebrooke, Miscellaneous Essays, ii. 142 sqq. Dubois, People of India, p. 113 sq.