LAWS. 521 



punishment is inflicted upon the whole race of the offender.&quot; 

 Of efforts thus wholly to extinguish families guilty of dis 

 loyalty, the Merovingians yielded an instance : king Gunt- 

 chram swore that the children of a certain rebel should be 

 destroyed up to the ninth generation. And these examples 

 naturally recall those furnished by Hebrew traditions. When 

 Abraham, treating Jahveh as a terrestrial superior (just as 

 existing Bedouins regard as god the most powerful living 

 ruler known to them) entered into a covenant under which, 

 for territory given, he, Abraham, became a vassal, circumcision 

 was the prescribed badge of subordination ; and the sole 

 capital offence named was neglect of circumcision, implying 

 insubordination : Jahveh elsewhere announcing himself as &quot; a 

 jealous god,&quot; and threatening punishment &quot; upon the children 

 unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.&quot; 

 And the truth thus variously illustrated, that during stages in 

 which maintenance of authority is most imperative, direct dis 

 loyalty is considered the blackest of crimes, we trace down 

 through later stages in such facts as that, in feudal days, so 

 long as the fealty of a vassal was duly manifested, crimes, 

 often grave and numerous, were overlooked. 



Less extreme in its flagitiousness than the direct dis 

 obedience implied by treason and rebellion, is, of course, the 

 indirect disobedience implied by breach of commands. This, 

 however, where strong rule has been established, is regarded 

 as a serious offence, quite apart from, and much exceeding, that 

 which the forbidden act intrinsically involves. Its greater 

 gravity was distinctly enunciated by the Peruvians, among 

 whom, says Garcilasso, &quot; the most common punishment was 

 death, for they said that a culprit was not punished for the 

 delinquencies he had committed, but for having broken the 

 commandment of the Ynca, who was respected as God.&quot; The 

 like conception meets us in another country where the ab- 

 Bolute ruler is regarded as divine. Sir E. Alcock quotes 

 Thunberg to the effect that in Japan, &quot; most crimes are 

 punished with death, a sentence which is inflicted with lesa 



