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Evolution of Theology: an Anthropological Study by Thomas Henry Huxley
page 47 of 80 (58%)
practised, Mariner says:--


Although a few young ferocious warriors chose to imitate what
they considered a mark of courageous fierceness in a
neighbouring nation, it was held in disgust by everybody else
(vol. ii. p. 171).


That the moral standard of Tongan life was less elevated than
that indicated in the "Book of the Covenant" (Exod. xxi.-xxiii.)
may be freely admitted. But then the evidence that this Book of
the Covenant, and even the ten commandments as given in Exodus,
were known to the Israelites of the time of Samuel and Saul, is
(to say the least) by no means conclusive. The Deuteronomic
version of the fourth commandment is hopelessly discrepant from
that which stands in Exodus. Would any later writer have
ventured to alter the commandments as given from Sinai, if he
had had before him that which professed to be an accurate
statement of the "ten words" in Exodus? And if the writer of
Deuteronomy had not Exodus before him, what is the value of the
claim of the version of the ten commandments therein contained
to authenticity? From one end to the other of the books of
Judges and Samuel, the only "commandments of Jahveh" which are
specially adduced refer to the prohibition of the worship of
other gods, or are orders given ad hoc, and have nothing
to do with questions of morality.

In Polynesia, the belief in witchcraft, in the appearance of
spiritual beings in dreams, in possession as the cause of
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