24: MOKALS AND HOKAL SENTIMENTS. 



that the feelings accompanying such imaginations have the 

 same original root in the experiences which have associated 

 an average of painful results with the manifestation of 

 another s anger, and an average of pleasurable results with 

 the manifestation of another s satisfaction. And it is 

 clear, in the second place, that the actions thus forbidden 

 and encouraged must be mostly actions that are respec 

 tively detrimental and beneficial to the tribe ; since the 

 successful chief is usually a better judge than the rest, 

 and has the preservation of the tribe at heart. Hence 

 experiences of utility, consciously or unconsciously organ 

 ized, underlie his injunctions ; and the sentiments which 

 prompt obedience are, though very indirectly and without 

 the knowledge of those who feel them, referable to expe 

 riences of utility. 



This transfigured form of restraint, differing at first 

 but little from the original form, admits of immense 

 development. Accumulating traditions, growing in 

 grandeur as they are repeated from generation to genera 

 tion, make more and more superhuman the early-recorded 

 hero of the race. His powers of inflicting punishment 

 and giving happiness become ever greater, more multi 

 tudinous and varied; so that the dread of divine dis 

 pleasure, and the desire to obtain divine approbation, 

 acquire a certain largeness and generality. Still the con 

 ceptions remain anthropomorphic. The revengeful deity 

 continues to be thought of in terms of human emotions, 

 and continues to be represented as displaying these emo 

 tions in human ways. Moreover, the sentiments of right 

 ;aid duty, so far as they have become developed, refer 

 mainly to divine commands and interdicts ; and have 

 little reference to the natures of the acts commanded or 

 interdicted. In the intended offering up of Isaac, in the 

 sacrifice of Jephthah s daughter, and in the hewing to 



