OTHER FOKMS OF RESTRAINT. 23 



cause of evil. In adult life he may, perhaps, see this ; but 

 he certainly does not see it at the time when bravery is 

 thus associated in his consciousness with all that is good, 

 and cowardice with all that is bad. Similarly there are 

 produced in him feelings of inclination or repugnance 

 toward other lines of conduct that have become estab 

 lished or interdicted, because they are beneficial or inju 

 rious to the tribe; though neither the young nor the 

 adults know why they have become established or 

 interdicted. Instance the praiseworthiness of wife-steal 

 ing, and the viciousness of marrying within the tribe. 



We may now ascend a stage to an order of incentives 

 and restraints derived from these. The primitive belief 

 is that every dead man becomes a demon, who remains 

 somewhere at hand, may at any moment return, may give 

 aid or do mischief, and is continually propitiated. Hence, 

 among other agents whose approbation or reprobation is 

 contemplated by the savage as a consequence of his con 

 duct, are the spirits of his ancestors. When a child he is 

 told of their deeds, now in triumphant tones, now in whis 

 pers of horror ; and the instilled belief that they may inflict 

 some vaguely-imagined but fearful evil, or give some great 

 help, becomes a powerful incentive or deterrent. Espe 

 cially does this happen when the narrative is of a chief, 

 distinguished for his strength, his ferocity, his persistence 

 in that revenge which the experiences of the savage make 

 him regard as beneficial and virtuous. The conscious 

 ness that such a chief, dreaded by neighboring tribes, and 

 dreaded, too, by members of his own tribe, may reappear 

 and punish those who have disregarded his injunctions, 

 becomes a powerful motive. But it is clear, in the first 

 place, that the imagined anger and the imagined satisfac 

 tion of this deified chief are simply transfigured forms of 

 the anger and satisfaction displayed by those around ; and 



