[Sidenote: Conclusion.] The foregoing evidence, summary as it is, may suffice to prove that many peoples have regarded their rulers, whether chiefs or kings, with superstitious awe as beings of a higher order and endowed with mightier powers than common folk. Imbued with such a profound veneration for their governors and with such an exaggerated conception of their power, they cannot but have yielded them a prompter and more implicit obedience than if they had {19} known them to be men of common mould just like themselves. If that is so, I may claim to have proved my first proposition, which is, that among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for government, especially monarchical government, and has thereby contributed to the establishment and maintenance of civil order. III. PRIVATE PROPERTY {20} [Sidenote: Superstition as a prop of private property.] I pass now to my second proposition, which is, that among certain races and at certain times superstition has strengthened the respect for private property, and has thereby contributed to the security of its enjoyment. [Sidenote: Taboo in Polynesia.] Nowhere, perhaps, does this appear more plainly than in Polynesia, where the system of taboo reached its highest development; for the effect of tabooing a thing was, in the opinion of the natives, to endow it with a supernatural or magical energy which rendered it practically unapproachable by any but the owner. Thus taboo became a powerful instrument for strengthening the ties, perhaps our socialist friends would say riveting the chains, of private property. Indeed, some good authorities who were personally acquainted with the working of taboo in Polynesia, have held that the system was originally devised for no other purpose. [Sidenote: Taboo among the Maoris of New Zealand.] For example, an Irishman who lived as a Maori with the Maoris for years, and knew them intimately, writes as follows: “The original object of the ordinary _tapu_ seems to have been the preservation of property. Of this nature in a great degree was the ordinary personal _tapu_. This form of the _tapu_ was permanent, and consisted in a certain sacred character which attached to the person of a chief and never left him. It was his birthright, a part in fact of himself, of which he could not be divested, and which was well understood and recognized at all times as a matter of course. The fighting men and petty chiefs, and every one indeed who could by any means claim the title of _rangatira_--which in the sense I now use it means gentleman--were all in {21} some degree more or less possessed of this mysterious quality. It extended or was communicated to all their moveable property, especially to their clothes, weapons, ornaments, and tools, and to everything in fact which they touched. This prevented their chattels from being stolen or mislaid, or spoiled by children, or used or handled in any way by others. And as in the