[Note 5: Another probable reason of this prohibition is, that the practice of such unions would be fraught with great domestic disorders and unhappiness, and consequent social evils. But it is opportune here to remind the leader, that many attempts have been made, in the course of centuries, by eminent expositors, to assign to many of the Mosaic ordinances motives of various characters, rationalistic and metaphysical, sanitary, political, and mystical, but all more or less conjectural. To the religious man the positive knowledge of the true motives is not at all essential for the performance of the divine precepts; and in the words of our author himself, as stated elsewhere, "we have to bow reverently before an explicit and rigorous commandment of God, and we consider it as calculated to contribute to the promotion of our own weal."--THE TRANSLATOR.] CHAPTER XV. XCIII. CASTING now a retrospective glance on what we have hitherto briefly stated, it will be easy to deduce, from the aggregate of these notions, the principal characteristic of that wondrous institution, which it pleased the Divine mercy to found upon earth for the benefit of the human family, selecting for its organ the people of Israel; an institution, which, in reference to the means adopted for its preservation and propagation, is called _Judaism_. The scope of Judaism is, then, the propagation among men of the _religious idea_, and this comprises the doctrines revealed respecting the Deity and respecting man, in consequence of which the latter will be able to attain his true goal. Respecting God, revelation teaches that He is a Being absolute--that is to say, that has in Himself all the sources of existence, of will, of power, and of action--hence He is eternal, all-perfect, all-powerful, all-holy; He is unique, because there is no God beside Him; and He is one, because in Him there can be no multiplicity or division of parts; He created out of nought the universe, which He governs by pre-ordained physical laws, and all that exists owes to Him its existence and conservation. Respecting man, revelation teaches that he has an immortal soul, made in the image of God--that is, endowed with various spiritual faculties similar, in their nature, to those of his Maker--therefore susceptible of a progressive perfection, which he will attain by sanctifying himself--that is, by imitating God and carrying out his commands. To that effect, God entered into an immediate relation with man, whereby He not only provides for the preservation of mankind, as He does for that of all other things created, but He, moreover, granted him a supernatural assistance to improve his moral condition; and this assistance consists in having made him the recipient of a revelation, by which He instructed him in the best rules of life, and declared to him that He will be his support, his protector, his judge, his loving father, and his guide towards eternal felicity.