THE MORAL INFLUENCES OF PRIESTHOODS. 817 



deductive conclusion, that they have been indispensable 

 components of social structures from the beginning down to 

 the present time : groups in which they did not arise having 

 failed to develop. 



As furnishing a principle of cohesion by maintaining a 

 common propitiation of a deceased ruler s spirit, and by 

 implication checking the tendencies to internal warfare, 

 priesthoods have furthered social growth and development. 

 They have simultaneously done this in sundry other ways : 

 by fostering that spirit of conservatism which maintains 

 continuity in social arrangements; by forming a supple 

 mentary regulative system which co-operates with the 

 political one ; by insisting on obedience, primarily to gods 

 and secondarily to kings; by countenancing the coercion 

 under which has been cultivated the power of application ; 

 and by strengthening the habit of self-restraint. 



Whether the modifications of nature produced by this 

 discipline, common to all creeds, are accompanied by modi 

 fications of higher kinds, depends partly on the traditional 

 accounts of the gods worshipped, and partly on the social 

 conditions. Religious obedience is the primary duty; and 

 this, in early stages, often furthers increase of ferocity. 

 With the change from a more militant to a more industrial 

 state, comes a reformed ethical creed, which increases or 

 decreases in its influence according as the social activities 

 continue peaceful or again become warlike. Little as such 

 reformed ethical creed (presently accepted as of divine 

 origin) operates during periods when war fosters sentiments 

 of enmity instead of sentiments of amity, advantage is 

 gained by having it in reserve for enunciation whenever 

 conditions favour. 



But clerical enunciation of it habitually continues subject 

 to the apparent needs of the time. To the last as at first, 

 subordination, religious and civil, is uniformly insisted on 

 * fear God, honour the king ; &quot; and providing subordination is 

 manifested with sufficient emphasis, moral shortcomings may 

 be forgiven. 



