ction between what is holy
and what is unclean is real; in rules of holiness the motive is respect
for the gods, in rules of uncleanliness it is primarily fear of an
unknown or hostile power, though ultimately, as we see in the Levitical
legislation, the law of clean and unclean may be brought within the
sphere of divine ordinances, on the view that uncleanness is hateful to
God and must be avoided by all that have to do with Him.

The fact that all the Semites have rules of uncleanness as well as rules
of holiness, that the boundary between the two is often vague, and that
the former as well as the latter present the most startling agreement
in point of detail with savage taboos, leaves no reasonable doubt as to
the origin and ultimate relations of the idea of holiness. On the other
hand, the fact that the Semites--or at least the northern
Semites--distinguish between the holy and the unclean, marks a real
advance above savagery. All taboos are inspired by awe of the
supernatural, but there is a great moral difference between precautions
against the invasion of mysterious hostile powers and precautions
founded on respect for the prerogative of a friendly god. The former
belong to magical superstition--the barrenest of all aberrations of the
savage imagination--which, being founded only on fear, acts merely as a
bar to progress and an impediment to the free use of nature by human
energy and industry. But the restrictions on individual licence which
are due to respect for a known and friendly power allied to man, however
trivial and absurd they may appear to us in their details, contain
within them germinant principles of social progress and moral order. To
know that one has the mysterious powers of nature on one's side so long
as one acts in conformity with certain rules, gives a man strength and
courage to pursue the task of the subjugation of nature to his service.
To restrain one's individual licence, not out of slavish fear, but from
respect for a higher and beneficent power, is a moral discipline of
which the value does not altogether depend on the reasonableness of
sacred restrictions; an English schoolboy is subject to many
unreasonable taboos, which are not without value in the formation of
character. But finally, and above all, the very association of the idea
of holiness with a beneficent deity, whose own interests are bound up
with the interests of a community, makes it inevitable that the laws of
social and