not kill within the tribe,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery within the tribe,” etc.  Cannibalism furnishes a most interesting example of the prohibition of a practice as applied to the members of the group, while extra-tribal cannibalism continued unabated.  And within the tribe there is a continuance of this practice in the forms which do not interfere with the efficiency and cripple the activity of the group.  That is, while cannibalism in general is prohibited, the eating of the decrepit, the aged, of invalids, of deformed children, and of malefactors is still practiced.[202]

But there gradually grew up a set of disapprovals of conduct as such, whether within or without the group.  In the Odyssey Pallas Athene says that Odysseus had come from Ephyra from Ilus, son of Mermerus:  “For even thither had Odysseus gone on his swift ship to seek a deadly drug, that he might have wherewithal to smear his bronze-shod arrows:  but Ilus would in no wise give it to him, for he had in awe the everlasting gods."[203] Here is an extension to society in general of a principle which had been first worked out in the group; for poisoning without the group was long allowed after it was disallowed in the group.  The case of poisoning is, indeed, a particularly good instance of an unsatisfaction felt in the substitution of clandestine methods for simple motor force in deciding a dispute, and affords a clear example of an important relation between moral feeling and physiological functioning.  Animal as well as human society has developed strategy alongside of direct motor expressions, but strategy is only an indirect application of the motor principle.  Co-ordination, associative memory, will, judgment, are involved in strategy; it is only a different mode of functioning.  On the other hand, there is a peculiar abhorrence of murder by night, poisoning, drowning in a ship’s hold, because, while all the physiological machinery for action is on hand, there is no chance to work it.  It is a most exasperating thing to die without making a fight for it.  The so-called American duel is an abhorrent thing, because life or death is decided by a turn of the dice, not on the racially developed principle of the battle to the strong.

When, then, it is observed within the group that this, that, and the other man has died of poison, each interprets this in terms of himself, and no one feels safe.  The use of poison is not only a means of checking activities and doing hurt socially, but this form is most foul and unnatural because it involves a death without the possibility of motor resistance (except the inadequate opportunity on the strategic side of taking precautionary measures against poison) and a victory and social reward without a struggle.  The group, therefore, early adopts very severe methods in this regard.  Death is the usual penalty for the use of poison, and even the possession of poison, among tribes not employing it for poisoning weapons,