814 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



wreak vengeance on those who have injured him, fear of lua 

 ghost becomes not a moralizing but a demoralizing influence ; 

 using these words in their modern acceptations. When, 

 concerning the deities of Mangaia, we read that &quot;the cruel 

 Kereteki, twice a fratricide, and his brother Utahea, were wor 

 shipped as gods in the next generation ; &quot; we are shown that 

 di\ ine example, if not precept, is in some cases a prompter to 

 crime rather than otherwise. But on the average an opposite 

 effect may be inferred. As the deified chief must be supposed 

 to have had at heart the survival and spread of his tribe, 

 sundry of his injunctions are likely to have had in view that 

 maintenance of order conducing to tribal success. Hence 

 rules traditionally derived from him are likely to be restraints 

 on internal aggressions. Ferocious as were the Mexicans, 

 and bloody as were their religious rites, they nevertheless 

 had, as given by Zurita, a moral code which did not suffer by 

 comparison with that of Christians: the one like the other 

 claiming divine authority. Concerning the Peruvians, who 

 like various of these semi-civilized American peoples had 

 confessors, the account runs that 



&quot;The sin of which they mostly accuse themselves was to have 

 hilled somebody in time of peace, to have robbed, to have taken the 

 wife of another, to have given herbs or charms to do harm. The most 

 notable sin was neglect in the service of the huacas [gods] . . . abuse 

 of, and disobedience towards, the Ynca.&quot; 



And in this case, as in many other cases, we see that after the 

 first and greatest sin of insubordination to the deity, come 

 sins constituted by breaches of those laws of conduct needful 

 Cor social concord. 



Evidently through long stages of individual and social 

 evolution, belief in the alleged divine origin of such laws 

 is beneficial. The expected supernatural punishments for 

 breaches of them, usefully re-inforce the threats of natural 

 punishments. And various cases might bo given showing 

 that the moral code required for each higher stage, gaining 

 alleged divine authority through some intermediating priest 

 or inspired man, thus becomes more effective for the time 



