Veracity is found to prevail most where there is least to tempt to falsehood, and most to be feared from it.  In a very rude state of society, like that of which I have been speaking, the only shape in which property is accumulated is in cattle; things are bartered for each other without the use of a circulating medium, and one member of a community has no means of concealing from the other the articles of property he has.  If they were to steal from each other, they would not be able to conceal what they stole—­to steal, therefore, would be no advantage.  In such societies every little community is left to govern itself; to secure the rights, and enforce the duties, of all its several members in their relations with each other; they are too poor to pay taxes to keep up expensive establishments, and their Governments seldom maintain among them any for the administration of justice, or the protection of life, property, or character.  All the members of all such little communities will often unite in robbing the members of another community of their flocks and herds, the only kind of property they have, or in applauding those who most distinguish themselves in such enterprises; but the well-being of the community demands that each member should respect the property of the others, and be punished by the odium of all if he does not.[1]

It is equally necessary to the well-being of the community that every member should be able to rely upon the veracity of the other upon the very few points where their rights, duties, and interests clash.  In the very rudest state of society, among the woods and hills of India, the people have some deity whose power they dread, and whose name they invoke when much is supposed to depend upon the truth of what one man is about to declare.  The ‘pipal’ tree (Ficus religiosa) is everywhere sacred to the gods, who are supposed to sit among its leaves and listen to the music of their rustling.  The deponent takes one of these leaves in his hand, and invokes the god who sits above him to crush him, or those dear to him, as he crushes the leaf in his hand, if he speak anything but the truth; he then plucks and crushes the leaf, and states what he has to say.[2]

The large cotton-tree is, among the wild tribes of India, the favourite seat of gods still more terrible,[3] because their superintendence is confined exclusively to the neighbourhood; and having their attention less occupied, they can venture to make a more minute scrutiny into the conduct of the people immediately around them.  The ‘pipal’ is occupied by one or other of the Hindoo triad, the god of creation, preservation, or destruction, who have the affairs of the universe to look after;[4] but the cotton and other trees are occupied by some minor deities, who are vested with a local superintendence over the affairs of a district, or perhaps, of a single village.[5] These are always in the view of the people, and every man knows that he is every moment liable to be taken