King was not to show himself in his chariot, not to hold court, not to bring sacrifices, not to change his clothes, not to eat a good dinner, and not even to curse his enemies.1

The Jewish Sabbath was abolished by Christ. "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath"; My father worketh [on it] hitherto, and I work." 3 Jewish converts no doubt continued to observe the Sabbath, but this met with disapproval. In one of the Epistles of Ignatius we find the exhortation not to "sabbatise," which was expanded by the subsequent paraphraser of these compositions into a warning against keeping the Sabbath, after the manner of the Jews, "as if delighting in idleness.' And in the fourth century a Council of the Church enacted “ that the Christians ought not to judaise, and rest on the Sabbath, but ought to work on that day.” On the other hand, it was from early times a recognised custom among the Christians to celebrate the first day of the week in memory of Christ's resurrection, by holding a form of religious service; but there was no sabbatic regard for it, and it was chiefly looked upon as a day of rejoicing. Tertullian is the first writer who speaks of abstinence from secular care and labour on Sunday as a duty incumbent upon Christians, lest they should " "give place to the devil." But it is extremely doubtful whether the earliest Sunday law really had a Christian origin. In 321 the Emperor Constantine issued an edict to the effect that all judges and all city people and tradesmen should rest on "the venerable Day of the Sun," whereas those living in the country should have full liberty to attend to the culture of their fields, " since it frequently happens that no other

2

day is so fit for the sowing of grain or the planting of vines." In this rescript nothing is said of any relation to Christianity, nor do we know that it in any way was due to Christian influence. It seems that Constantine, in his capacity of Pontifex Maximus, only added the day of the sun-whose worship was the characteristic of the new paganism to those inauspicious days, religiosi dies, which the Romans of old regarded as unsuitable for worldly business and especially for judicial proceedings. But though the obligatory Sunday rest in no case was a continuance of the Jewish Sabbath, it gradually was confounded with it, owing to the recognition of the decalogue, with its injunction of a weekly day of rest, as the code of divine morality. From the sixth century upwards vexatious restrictions were made by civil rulers, councils, and ecclesiastical writers; 4 4 until in Puritanism the Christian Sunday became a perfect image of the pharisaic Sabbath, or even excelled it in the rigour with which abstinence from every kind of worldly activity was insisted upon. The theory that the keeping holy of one day out of seven is the essence of the Fourth Commandment reconciled people to the fact that the Jewish Sabbath was the seventh day and Sunday the first. In England, in the seventeenth century, persons were punished for carrying coal on Sunday, for hanging out clothes to dry, for travelling on horseback, for rural strolls and walking about. And Scotch clergymen taught their congregations that on that day it was sinful to save a vessel in distress, and that it was proof of religion to leave ship and crew to perish."

2

TRAVELLERS have often noticed with astonishment the immense quantities of food which uncivilised people are able to consume. Sir George Grey has described the orgies which follow the stranding of a whale in Australia, when the natives remain by the carcase for many days, fairly eating their way into it. The Rocky Mountain Indians, though they often subsist for a great length of time on a very little food, will at their feasts "gorge down an incredible quantity." A Mongol "will eat more than ten pounds of meat at one sitting, but some have been known to devour an average-sized sheep in the course of twenty-four hours." 3 The Waganda in Central Africa "sometimes gorge themselves to such an extent that they are unable to move, and appear just as if intoxicated." 4 It has been justly observed that what would among ourselves be condemned as disgusting gluttony is, under the conditions to which certain races of men are exposed, quite normal and in fact necessary. As Mr. Spencer observes, "where the habitat is such as at one time to supply very little food and at another time food in great abundance, survival depends on the ability to immense quantities when the opportunities When this is the case gluttony can hardly be

consume Occur." 5

stigmatised as a vice; and I find no direct evidence that it is so even among savages who are described as generally moderate in their diet. The lack of foresight, which is a characteristic of uncivilised peoples, must prevent them from attaching much moral value to temperance. On the other hand, gluttony is sometimes said to be regarded with admiration. Mr. Torday informs me that the Bambala in South-Western Congo, when praising a man for his strength, are in the habit of saying, "He eats a whole goat with its skin."

"2

At higher stages of culture intemperance is often subject to censure because it is detrimental to health or prosperity, or because it calls forth an instinctive feeling of disgust, or because indulgence in sensual pleasures is considered degrading, or, generally, because it is inconsistent with an ascetic ideal of life. It is said in the Proverbs that "the glutton shall come to poverty."1 According to the Laws of Manu, "excessive eating is prejudicial to health, to fame, and to bliss in heaven; it prevents the acquisition of spiritual merit, and is odious among men; one ought, for these reasons, to avoid it carefully. Aristotle maintains that the pleasure with which intemperance is concerned is justly held in disgrace," since it belongs to us in that we are animals, not in that we are men."3 Cicero observes that, as mere corporeal pleasure is unworthy the excellency of man's nature, the nourishment of our bodies "should be with a view not to our pleasure, but to our health and our strength." The same opinion is at least nominally shared by many among ourselves; whereas others, though denying that the gratification of appetite is to be sought for its own sake, admit as legitimate ends for it not only the maintenance of health and strength but also "cheerfulness and the cultivation of the social affections." 5 But most of us are undoubtedly less exacting, if not in theory at least in tice, and really find nothing blamable in pleasures of the

1 Proverbs, xxiii. 21.

Laws of Manu, ii. 57.

* Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, iii.

IO. 10.

"5

4 Cicero, De officiis, i. 30.

prac

5 Whewell, Elements of Morality, p. 124 sq.

table which neither impair health, nor involve a perceptible loss of some greater gratification, nor interfere with duties towards neighbours.1

Sometimes temperance has been inculcated on grounds which in other cases lead to the duty of fasting, that is, abstinence from all food and drink, or at least (in a looser sense of the word) from certain kinds of food, for a determined period. The custom of fasting is wide-spread, and deserves special attention in a study of moral ideas.

Fasting is practised or enjoined for a variety of purposes. It is frequently adopted as a means of having supernatural converse, or acquiring supernatural powers. He who fasts sees in dreams or visions things that no ordinary eye can see. The Hudson Bay Eskimo "discovered that a period of fasting and abstinence from contact with other people endowed a person with supernatural powers and enabled him to learn the secrets of Tung ak [the great spirit]. This is accomplished by repairing to some lonely spot, where, for a greater or less period, the hermit abstains from food or water until the imagination is so worked upon that he believes himself imbued with the power to heal the sick and control all the destinies of life. Tung ak is supposed to stand near and reveal those things while the person is undergoing the test. The Naudowessies totally abstain from every kind of either victuals or drink before a hunting expedition, because they think that "it enables them freely to dream, in which dreams they are informed where they shall find the greatest plenty of game."4 The Tsimshian of British Columbia, if a special object is to be attained,

3

1 See Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, p. 328 sq.

2 Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 410 sqq. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 261. Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, p. 266 sqq. Landtman, Origin of Priesthood, pp. 118-123, 158 sqq. Müller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, pp. 285, 651. Dorsey, 'Siouan Cults,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 390. Mooney, Myths of

the Cherokee,' ibid. xix. 480. Herrera, General History of the West Indies, i. 165 (ancient natives of Hispaniola). Niebuhr, Travels through Arabia, ii. 282.

3 Turner, Ethnology of the Ungava District,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 195.

4 Carver, Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, p. 285.