The duty of hospitality is one of the most widely recognized. Westermarck has brought together a series of maxims from a great variety of races which show this forcibly.[38] Indians, Kalmucks, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Arabs, Africans, Ainos, and other peoples are drawn upon and tell the same story. The stranger is to be respected sacredly. His person must be guarded from insult even if the honor of the daughter of the house must be sacrificed.[39] "Jehovah preserveth the sojourners," and they are grouped with the fatherless and the widow in Israel's law.[40] The Romans had their _dii hospitales_ and the "duties toward a guest were even more stringent than those toward a relative"--_primum tutelæ_, _delude hospiti_, _deinde clienti_, _tum cognato_, _postea affini_.[41] "He who has a spark of caution in him," says Plato, "will do his best to pass through life without sinning against the stranger." And there is no doubt that this sanctity of the guest's person was not due to pure kindness. The whole conduct of group life is opposed to a general spirit of consideration for those outside. The word "guest" is akin to _hostis_, from which comes "hostile." The stranger or the guest was looked upon rather as a being who was specially potent. He was a "live wire." He might be a medium of blessing, or he might be a medium of hurt. But it was highly important to fail in no duty toward him. The definite possibility of entertaining angels unawares might not be always present to consciousness, but there seems reason to believe that the possibility of good luck or bad luck as attending on a visitor was generally believed in. It is also plausible that the importance attached to sharing a meal, or to bodily contact, is based on magical ideas of the way in which blessing or curse may be communicated. To cross a threshold or touch a tent-rope or to eat "salt," gives a sacred claim. In the right of asylum, the refugee takes advantage of his contact with the god. He lays hold of the altar and assumes that the god will protect him. The whole practice of hospitality is thus the converse of the custom of blood revenge. They are alike sacred--or rather the duty of hospitality may protect even the man whom the host is bound to pursue. But, whereas the one makes for group solidarity by acts of exclusive and hostile character, the other tends to set aside temporarily the division between the "we-group" and the "others-group." Under the sanction of religion it keeps open a way of communication which trade and other social interchange will widen. It adds to family and the men's house a powerful agency in maintaining at least the possibility of humaneness and sympathy. § 4. VALUES AND DEFECTS OF CUSTOMARY MORALITY These have been suggested, in the main, in the description of the nature of custom and its regulation of conduct. We may, however, summarize them as a preparation for the next stage of morality.