in the region of bear worship, among people who believe that this wise and divine beast knows what goes on, and will come and punish them. Nor need one wonder at this, for the idea that the bear will hear and come if called on is familiar to German mythology. I was interested to find it still in survival in Switzerland a few years ago, when a peasant woman, whom a mischievous little English boy had irritated beyond endurance, pronounced the ancient awful imprecation on him," The bear take thee!" (der Bär nimm dich!) Among the hill tribes of India a tiger's-skin is sworn on in the same sense as the bear's head among the Ostyaks. Rivers, again, which to the savage and barbarian are intelligent and personal divinities, are sworn by in strong belief that their waters will punish him who takes their name in vain. We can understand why Homeric heroes swore by the rivers, when we hear still among Hindus how the sacred Ganges will take vengeance sure and terrible on the children of the perjurer. It is with the same personification, the same fear of impending chastisement from the outraged deity that savage and barbaric men have sworn by sky or sun. Thus the Huron Indian would say in making solemn promise: "Heaven hears what we do this day!" and the Tunguz, brandishing a knife before the sun, would say: "If I lie, may the sun plunge sickness into my entrails like this knife." We have but to rise one stage higher in religious ideas to reach the type of the famous Roman oaths by Jupiter, the Heaven-god. He who swore held in his hand a stone, praying that, if he knowingly deceived, others might be safe in their countries and laws, their holy places and their tombs, but he alone might be cast out, as this stone now-and he flung it from him. Even more impressive was the great treaty-oath where the pater patratus, holding the sacred flint that symbolized the thunderbolt, called on Jove that if by public counsel or wicked fraud the Romans should break the treaty first -"in that day, O Jove, smite thou the Roman people as I here to-day shall smite this swine, and smite the heavier as thou art the stronger!" So saying, he slew the victim with the sacred stone. These various examples may be taken

as showing the nature and meaning of such oaths as belong to the lower stages of civilization. Their binding power is that of curses, that the perjurer may be visited by mishap, disease, death. But at a higher stage of culture, where the gods are ceasing to be divine natural objects like the Tiber or Ganges, or the Sun or Sky, but are passing into the glorified human or heroic stage, like Apollo or Venus, there comes into view a milder, kind of oath, where the man enters into fealty with the god, whom he asks to favor or preserve him on condition of his keeping troth. Thus, while the proceeding is still an oath with a penalty, this penalty now lies in the perjurer's forfeiting the divine favor. this milder form, which we may conveniently call the oath of conditional favor," belong such classic phrases as So may the gods love me!" (Ita me Dii ament!) As I wish the gods to be propitious to me!" (Ita mihi Deos velim propitios!) I call attention to this class of oaths, of which we shall presently meet with a remarkable example nearer home. We have now to take into consideration a movement of far larger scope.

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Returning to the great first-mentioned class of savage and barbaric oaths, sworn by gestures or weapons, or by invocation of divine beasts, or rivers, or greater nature-deities—the question now to be asked is, what is the nature of the penalties? They are that the perjurer may be withered by disease, wounded, drowned, smitten by the thunderbolt, and so forth, all these being temporal, visible punishments. The state of belief to which the whole class belong is that explicitly described among the natives of the Tonga Islands, where oaths were received on the declared ground that the gods would punish the false-swearer here on earth. A name is wanted to denote this class of oaths, belonging especially to the lower culture; let us call them "mundane oaths." Now it is at a point above the savage level in culture that the thought first comes in of the perjurer being punished in a world. beyond the grave. This was a conception familiar to the Egyptians in their remotely ancient civilization. It was at home among the old Homeric Greeks, as when Agamemnon, swearing his mighty

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oaths, calls to witness not only Father Zeus, and the all-seeing Sun, and the Rivers, and Earth, but also the Erinnys who down below chastise the souls of the dead, whosoever shall have been forsworn. Not less plainly is it written in the ancient Hindu Laws of Manu-" A man of understanding shall swear no false oath even in a trifling matter, for he who swears a false oath goes hereafter and here to destruction.' To this higher stage of culture then belongs the introduction of the new "post-mundane" element into oaths. For ages afterward, nations might still use either kind, or combine them by adding the penalty after death to that in life. But in the later course of history there comes plainly into view a tendency to subordinate the old mundane oath, and at last to suppress it altogether. How this came to pass is plain on the face of the matter. simply the result of accumulated experience. The continual comparison of opinions with facts could not but force observant minds to admit that a man might swear falsely on sword's edge or spear's point, and yet die with a whole skin; that bears and tigers were not to be depended on to choose perjurers for their victims, and that in fact the correspondence between the imprecation and the event was not real, but only ideal. How judgment by real results thus shaped itself in men's minds we may see by the way it came to public utterance in classic times, nowhere put more cogently than in the famous dialogue in the Clouds of Aristophanes. The old farmer Strepsiades asks, Whence comes the blazing thunderbolt that Zeus hurls at the perjured? "You fool," replies the Sokrates of the play, "you smack of old Kronos' times-if Zeus smote perjurers, wouldn't he have been down on those awful fellows Simon, and Kleonymos, and Theoros? Why, what Zeus does with his bolt is to smite his own temple, and the heights of Sunium, and the tall oaks! Do you mean to say that an oak-tree can commit perjury?" What is said here in chaff full many a reasonable man in the old days must have said to himself in the soberest earnest, and once said or thought, but one result could come of it-the result which history shows us did come. The venue of the judicial oath was gradually changed, NEW SERIES.-VOL. XXIV., No. 1

till the later kind, with its penalties transferred from earth to the region of departed souls, remained practically in possession of the field.

As a point in the science of culture which has hitherto been scarcely if at all observed, I am anxious to call attention to the historical stratification of judicial oaths, from the lowest stratum of mundane oaths belonging to savage or barbaric times, to the highest stratum of post-mundane oaths such obtain among modern civilized nations. Roughly, the development in the course of ages may be expressed in the following two classificationsMundane. Mixed.

Post-Mundane.

Curse.

as

Oaths. Conditional Favor.
Judgment.

Though these two series only partly coincide in history, they so far fit that the judicial oaths of the lower culture belong to the class of mundane curse, while those of the higher culture in general belong to that of post-mundane judgment. Anthropologically, this is the most special new view I have here to bring forward. It forms part of a wider generalization, belonging at once to the science of morals and the science of religion. But rather than open out the subject into this too wide field, we may do well to fix it in our minds by tracing a curious historical point in the legal customs of our own country. Every one knows that the modes of administering a judicial oath in Scotland and in England are not the same. In Scotland, where the witness holds up his hand toward heaven, and swears to tell the truth as he shall answer to God at the Day of Judgment, we have before us the most explicit possible example of a post-mundane oath framed on Christian lines. contrasting this with the English judicial oath, we first notice that our acted ceremony consists commonly in taking a New Testament in the hand and kissing it. Thus, unlike the Scotch oath, the English oath is sworn on a halidome (Anglo-Saxon hâligdom, German heiligthum), a holy or sacred object. Many writers have fallen into confusion about this word, mystifying it into sacred judgment or "holy doom;" but it is a perfectly straightforward term for sanctuary or relic, as On tham haligdome swerian"-to swear by the relic.

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Now this custom of swearing on a halidome belongs to far præ-Christian antiquity, one famous example being when Hannibal, then a lad of nine years old, was brought by his father to the altar and made to swear by touching the sacred things (tactis sacris) that when he grew up he would be the enemy of Rome. In classical antiquity the sacred objects were especially the images and altars of the gods, as it is put in a scene in Plautus-"Touch this altar of Venus !" The man answers, "I touch it," and then he is sworn. When this ancient rite came into use in early Christian England, the object touched might be the altar itself, or a relic-shrine like that which Harold is touching with his right forefinger in the famous scene in the Bayeux tapestry, or it might be a Missal, or a book of the Gospels. In modern England, a copy of the New Testament has become the recognized halidome on which oaths are taken, and the practice of kissing it has almost supplanted the older and more general custom of touching it with the hand.

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Next, our attention must be called to the remarkable formula in which (in England, not in Scotland) the invocation of the Deity is made, "So help me God!" or So help you God!" Many a modern Englishman puzzles over this obscure form of words. When the question is asked what the meaning of the oath is, the official interpretation practically comes to saying that it means the same as the Scotch oath. But neither by act nor word does it convey this meaning. So obvious is the discrepancy between what is considered to be meant, and what is actually done and said, that Paley, remarking on the different forms of swearing in different countries, does not scruple to say that they are "in no country in the world, I believe, worse contrived either to convey the meaning, or impress the obligation of an oath, than in our own."

This remark of Paley's aptly illustrates a principle of the science of culture which cannot be too strongly impressed on the minds of all who study the institutions of their own or any other age. People often talk of mystic formulas and mystic ceremonies. But the more we study civilization in its earlier stages, the more we shall find that formulas and cere

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monies, both in law and in religion, are as purposeful and business-like as can be, if only we get at them anywhere near their origin. What happens afterwards is this, that while men's thoughts and wants gradually change, the old phrases and ceremonies are kept up by natural conservatism, so that they become less and less appropriate, and then as their meaning falls away, its place is apt to be filled up with mystery. Applying this principle to the English oath-formula, we ask what and where it originally was. was Teutonic-Scandinavian, for though corresponding formulas are known in Latin (Ita me adjuvet Deus) and in Old French (Ce m'ait Diex, &c.), these are shown by their comparatively recent dates to be mere translations of the Germanic originals. Now although ancient English and German records fail to give the early history of the phrase, this want is fortunately supplied by a document preserved in Iceland. Some while after the settlement of the island by the Northmen, but long before their conversion to Christianity, the settlers felt the urgent need of a code of laws, and accordingly Ulfliot went to Norway for three years to Thorleif the Wise, who imparted to him his legal lore. Ulfliot went to Norway A.D. 925, so that the form of judicial oath he authorised, and which was at a later time put on record in the Icelandic Landnâmabôk, may be taken as good and old in Norse law. Its præ-Christian character is indeed obvious from its tenor. The halidome on which it was sworn was a metal arm-ring, which was kept by the godhi or priest, who reddened it with the blood of the ox sacrificed, and the swearer touching it said, in words that are still half English, "Name I to witness that I take oath by the ring, law-oath, so help me Frey, and Niördh, and almighty Thor (hialpi mer svâ Freyr, ok Niördhr, ok hinn almâttki Ass) as I shall this suit follow or defend, or witness bear or verdict or doom, as I wit rightest and soothest and most lawfully," &c. Here, then, we have the full and intelligible formula which must very nearly represent that of which we keep a mutilated fragment in our English oath. So close is the connection, that two of the gods referred to, Frey and Thor (who is described as the Almighty God) are the old English gods whose names we

commemorate in Friday and Thursday. The formula belongs, with the classic ones lately spoken of, to the class of oaths of conditional favor, "so help me as I shall do rightly," while Frey and Niördh are gods whom a Norse warrior would ask for earthly help, but who would scarcely concern themselves with his soul after death. It is likely that the swearer was not indeed unmindful of what the skalds sang of Nâströnd, the strand of corpses, that loathly house arched of the bodies of huge serpents, whose heads, turned inward, dripped venom on the perjurers and murderers within. But the primary formula is, as I have said, that of the oath of conditional favor, not of judgment. With the constituents of the modern English oath now fairly before us, we see that its incoherence, as usual in such cases, has a historical interpretation. What English law has done is to transplant from archaic fetish-worship the ceremony of the halidome or consecrated object, and to combine with this one-half of a præChristian formula of conditional favor without the second half which made sense of it. Considering that to this combination is attached a theological in terpretation which is neither implied in act nor word, we cannot wonder if in the popular mind a certain amount of obscurity, not to say mystery, surrounds the whole transaction. Nevertheless we may well deprecate any attempt to patch up into Scotch distinctness and consistency the old formula, which will probably last untouched so long as judicial oaths shall remain in use in England.

Being in the midst of this subject it may not be amiss to say a few words upon old and new ideas as to the administration of oaths to little children. The Canon Law expressly forbade the exacting of an oath from children under fourteen-pueri ante annos XIV non cogantur jurare. This prohibition is derived from yet earlier law. The rough old Norsemen would not take oaths from children, as comes out so quaintly in the saga of Baldur, where the goddess made all the beasts and birds and trees swear they would not harm him, but the little mistletoe only she craved no oath from, for she thought it was too young. Admitting the necessity of taking children's evidence somehow, the question is how best

to do it. In England it must be done on oath, and for this end there has arisen a custom in our courts of putting the child through an inquisition as to the theological consequences of perjury, so as usually to extract from it a well-known definition which the stiffest theologian will not stand to for a moment if put straight to him, but which is looked upon as a proper means for binding the conscience of a little child.* Moreover, children in decent families learn to answer plain questions some years before they learn to swear, and material evidence is often lost by the child not having been taught beforehand the proper answers to make when questioned as to the nature of an oath. I heard of a case only lately, which was expected to lead to a committal on a charge of murder, and where an important point rested on the evidence of a young lad who was, to all appearance, truthful, but who did not satisfy the bench that he understood the nature of an oath. Those in whom the ceremony of swearing a child arouses the feeling of physical repugnance that it does in myself, may learn with interest a fact as yet little known in England, and which sufficiently justifies my bringing forward the subject. Hearing that there was something to be learnt from Germany, I applied to the eminent jurist, Dr. Gneist, of Berlin, and hear from him that under the new German rules of procedure, which are expected shortly to come into force, the evidence of children under sixteen may be received without oath, at the discretion of the judge. these days there is a simple rule which an Englishman will do well to act up to

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Two illustrative cases are given me by a friend learned in the law. In court lately, a little girl was asked the usual preliminary question as to the consequence of swearing falsely, should go to burning Hell!" Unluckily, howand answered in due form, "Please, Sir, I o ever, the unusual question was then put, how she knew that? which brought the reply, "Oh, please, another girl outside told me I was to say so!" It is Bar tradition, though there may be no record in print, that years ago the most sarcastic of English judges put the whole matter in a nutshell. The question having been asked of a child-witness, if she knew what would become of her when she died, she answered simply, "Don't know, Sir!" whereupon the judge said, "Well, gentlemen, no more do I know-but the child's evidencecannot be taken."

and that is, "Don't be beaten by a German!" Let us live in the heartiest fellowship with the Germans, and never let them get ahead of us if we can help it. In this matter of children's legal evidence, they are fairly leaving us behind, by introducing a plan which is at once more humane and more effective than

ours.

If now, looking at the subject as one of practical sociology, we consider what place the legal oath has filled in savage, barbaric, and civilized life, we must adjudge to it altogether higher value than to the ordeal. At certain stages of culture it has been one of the great forces of society. There was a time when Lycurgus could tell the men of Athens that the oath was the very bond that held the democracy together. There was a time when, as Montesquieu insists, an oath was so binding on the minds of the Romans, that for its observance they would do more than even patriotism or love of glory could draw them to. In our own day, its practical binding power is unmistakable over the consciences of a numerous intermediate class of witnesses, those who are neither truthful nor quite reckless, who are without the honesty which makes a good man's oath superfluous, who will indeed lie solemnly and circumstantially, but are somewhat restrained from perjury by the fear of being, as the old English saying has it, once forsworn, ever forlorn." Though the hold thus given is far weaker than is popularly fancied, it has from time to time led legislators to use oaths, not merely in special and solemn matters, but as means of securing honesty in the details of public business. When this has been done, the consequences to public morals have been disastrous. There is no need to hunt up ancient or foreign proofs of this, seeing how conspicuous an instance is the state of England early in the present century, while it was still, as a contemporary writer called it, a land of oaths," and the professional perjurer plied a thriving trade. A single illustration will suffice, taken from the valuable treatise on Oaths, published in 1834 by the Rev. Jas. Endell Tyler :-"During the continuance of the former system of Custom-house oaths, there were houses of resort where persons were always to be found ready at a moment's warning

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to take any oath required; the signal of the business for which they were needed was this inquiry, 'Any damned soul here?'" Nowadays this enormous excess of public oaths has been much cut down, and with the best results. Yet it must be evident to students of sociology that the world will not stop short at this point. The wider question is coming into view-What effect is produced on the everyday standard of truthfulness by the doctrine that fraudulent lying is in itself a minor offence, but is converted into an awful crime by the addition of a ceremony and a formula? It is an easily-stated problem in moral arithmetic; on the credit side, Government is able to tighten with an extra screw the consciences of a shaky class of witnesses and public officers; on the debit side, the current value of a man's word is correspondingly depreciated through the whole range of public and private business. As a mere sober student of social causes and effects, following along history the tendencies of opinion, I cannot doubt for a moment how the public mind must act on this problem. I simply predict that where the judicial ordeal is already gone, there the judicial oath will sooner or later follow. Not only do symptoms of the coming change appear from year to year, but its greatest determining cause is unfolding itself day by day before observant eyes, a sight such as neither we nor our fathers ever saw before.

How has it come to pass that the sense of the sanctity of intellectual truth, and the craving after its full and free possession, are so mastering the modern educated mind? This is not a mystery hard to unravel.

Can any fail to see how in these latter years the methods of scientific thought have come forth from the laboratory and the museum to claim their powers over the whole range of history and philosophy, of politics and morals? Truth in thought is fast spreading its wide waves through the outside world. Of intellectual truthfulness, truthfulness in word and act is the outward manifestation. In all modern philosophy there is no principle more fertile than the doctrine so plainly set forth by Herbert Spencer-that truth means bringing our minds into accurate matching with the realities in and around us; so that both intellectual and moral