which are probably to be explained by the
necessity of making the rules simple enough to be comprehended by
everybody--even if they included the forbiddal of some quite eatable
animals.

At some early period, in Babylonia or Assyria, a very stringent taboo on
the Sabbath arose, which, taken up in turn by the Jewish and Christian
Churches, has ruled the Western World for three thousand years or more,
and still survives in a quite senseless form among some of our rural
populations, who will see their corn rot in the fields rather than save
it on a Sunday. (1) It is quite likely that this taboo in its first
beginning was due not to any need of a weekly rest-day (a need which
could never be felt among nomad savages, but would only occur in
some kind of industrial and stationary civilization), but to some
superstitious fear, connected with such things as the changes of the
Moon, and the probable ILL-LUCK of any enterprise undertaken on the
seventh day, or any day of Moon-change. It is probable, however, that as
time went on and Society became more complex, the advantages of a weekly
REST-DAY (or market-day) became more obvious and that the priests and
legislators deliberately turned the taboo to a social use. (2) The
learned modern Ethnologists, however, will generally have none of this
latter idea. As a rule they delight in representing early peoples as
totally destitute of common sense (which is supposed to be a monopoly
of us moderns!); and if the Sabbath-arrangement has had any value or
use they insist on ascribing this to pure accident, and not to the
application of any sane argument or reason.

(1) For other absurd Sunday taboos see Westermarck on The Moral
Ideas, vol. ii, p. 289.

(2) For a tracing of this taboo from useless superstition to
practical utility see Hastings's Encycl. Religion and Ethics, art. "The
Sabbath."

It is true indeed that a taboo--in order to be a proper taboo--must not
rest in the general mind on argument or reason. It may have had good
sense in the past or even an underlying good sense in the present, but
its foundation must rest on something beyond. It must be an absolute
fiat--something of the nature of a Mystery (1) or of Religion or
Magic-and not to be disputed. This gives it its blood-curdling quality.
The rustic does not know what would happen to him if he garnered his
corn on Sunday, nor does the diner-out in polite society know what
would happen if he spooned up his food with