8 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



the sentiments and ideas out of which civil government 

 comes were but feebly developed. Similarly in the ancient 

 American States. The laws of the Mexican king, Monte- 

 zuina I., mostly related to the intercourse of, and the dis 

 tinctions between, classes. In Peru, a the most common 

 punishment was death, for they said that a culprit was not 

 punishod for the delinquencies he had committed, but for 

 having broken the commandment of the Ynca.&quot; There had 

 not been reached the stage in which the transgressions of 

 man against man are the wrongs to be redressed, and in 

 which there is consequently a proportioning of penalties to 

 injuries; but the real crime was insubordination: implying 

 that insistance on marks of subordination constituted the es 

 sential part of government, In Japan, so elaborately cere 

 monious in its life, the same theory led to the same result. 

 And here we are reminded that even in societies so advanced 

 as our own, there survive traces of a kindred early condition. 

 &quot; Indictment for felony,&quot; says Wharton, &quot; is [for a trans 

 gression] against the peace of our lord the King, his crown 

 and dignity in general: &quot; the injured individual being 

 ignored. Evidently obedience was the primary require 

 ment, and behaviour expressing it the first modification of 

 conduct insisted on. 



Religious control, still better, perhaps, than political 

 control, shows this general truth. Wlieii we find that rites 

 performed at, graves, becoming afterwards religious rites 

 performed at, altars in temples, were at first acts done for 

 the benefit of the ghost, either as originally conceived or as 

 ideally expanded into a deity when we find that the sacri 

 fices and libations, the immolations and blood-offerings and 

 mutilations, all begun to profit or to please the double of the 

 dead man, were continued on larger scales where the double 

 of the dead man was especially feared when we find that 

 fasting as a funeral rite gave origin to religious fasting, 

 that praises of the deceased and prayers to him grew into re 

 ligious praises and prayers; we are shown why primitive 



