(5) Religion is, until late in civilization, almost wholly a group affair.  The gods are tribal gods, their commands are chiefly the more obvious duties to the tribe.  The fear of their displeasure and the hope of their assistance are among the most powerful of the sanctions of early morality.  Where a special set of men are set aside as priests, to foster the religious consciousness and insure obedience to the divine behests, he is rash who dares openly to transgress.  The idea of “taboo” of certain acts which must not be done, certain objects which must not be touched, etc. i extraordinarily prominent among many early peoples.  The taboo may not be clearly connected with a divine prohibition; but, whether vague and mysterious or explicit, it brings the awe of the supernatural to bear upon daily conduct.  The worship of the gods is one of the most important of the common activities, covered by the preceding paragraph, which make for the unifying of a tribe; and the sense of their presence and jealous interest in its welfare one of the strongest motives that restrain the individual from cowardice or lust or any anti-social conduct.

(6) With the development of language, the moral experience of a people becomes crystallized into maxims, proverbs, and injunctions, which the elders pass on to the boys and girls together with their comments and personal instruction.  Oral precepts thus condense the gist of recurrent experience for the benefit of each new generation.  Such saws as “Honesty is the best policy,” “Lies are short lived,” “Ill gotten gains do not prosper,” date, no doubt, well back toward the origin of articulate language.  The gathering antiquity of this inherited counsel adds prestige to the personal authority of the old men who love to repeat it; and the customs once instinctive and unconsciously imitated, or adopted from fear and the hope of praise, are now consciously cultivated as intrinsically desirable.  There is, of course, very little realization of why some acts are commended and others prohibited; the mere fact that such and such are the tribal customs, that thus and so things have been done, is enough.  Primitive peoples are highly innovation.  So that the moral habits which were established before the age of reflection and articulate speech remain for the most part after they have become crystallized into precepts and commands, and by this articulating process become much more firmly entrenched.  Then from the existence of miscellaneous maxims and prohibitions, taught by the elders and linked with whatever impulsive and haphazard punishments are customary, to the formulation of legal codes, with definite penalties attached to specific infringements, is an easy transition.  With the invention of written language these laws could become still better fixed and more clearly known.  The appointment of certain men of authority as judges, to investigate alleged cases of transgression and award the proper penalties, completes the evolution