As far as the individual goes, neither his goods nor his
existence were protected at all. And this may teach us that
something else was lacked in early societies besides what in our
societies we now think of.
I do not think I put this too high when I say that a most important
if not the most important object of early legislation was the
enforcement of LUCKY rites. I do not like to say religious rites,
because that would involve me in a great controversy as to the
power, or even the existence, of early religions. But there is no
savage tribe without a notion of luck; and perhaps there is hardly
any which has not a conception of luck for the tribe as a tribe, of
which each member has not some such a belief that his own action or
the action of any other member of it--that he or the others doing
anything which was unlucky or would bring a 'curse'--might cause
evil not only to himself, but to all the tribe as well. I have said
so much about 'luck' and about its naturalness before, that I ought
to say nothing again. But I must add that the contagiousness of the
idea of 'luck' is remarkable. It does not at all, like the notion of
desert, cleave to the doer. There are people to this day who would
not permit in their house people to sit down thirteen to dinner.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169