This sense of superiority to all surroundings is disclosed everywhere in mystic religions. A Hindu prophetess was a few years ago imprisoned by the English civic judge for violation of the local laws and disturbing the peace. Her only statement in defence was: “Years ago, when a girl, I met in the jungle, face to face, the god Siva. He entered into my bosom. He abides in me now. My blessing is his blessing; my curse his curse.”[293] The Malay, when he “runs amuck,” regards himself exonerated from all restraint, moral or social; and that custom and belief are not confined to his race.[294] It was held among the ancients that those who are “born of God,” that is, inspired by the divine afflatus, are not only above human law, but “are not subject even to the decrees of Fate.”[295] The ceremonial law, so powerful in primitive condition, must have exerted a beneficial influence on the training of the individual. Its severe restrictions, its minute and ceaseless regulations of his life, taught him self-control and self-sacrifice. His first duty was not to himself but to the other members of his clan or totem. Obedience and systematic restraint were useful lessons inculcated on him from earliest childhood. The Congo Negro, the Andaman Islander, the American Indian, for whom his sponsors had taken vows at his birth, grew up to consider the fulfilment of these the chief end of his life. Their violation would entail disaster and disgrace not merely on himself but on his people. His religious education, therefore, cultivated in him some of the finest qualities of perfected manhood,—self-abnegation and altruism; for, as Professor Granger well says, “The primitive idea of holiness implies as its chief element, relation to the _communal_ life.”[296] If, therefore, with some writers, we must concede that in primitive conditions the individual was ever conceived with reference to the gens or community, on the other hand, we must recognise the potency of the religious element occasionally to separate him from others as one of “the elect”; to train him in self-realisation and self-government; and to cherish in his mind the germs of a free personality.[297] More difficult is the decision of the question whether primitive religions increased the happiness of the individual. I have mentioned more than once the generally joyous character of many of them, as seen in their rituals. But it would be a grave error not to dwell also upon the dread of evil spirits which is so conspicuous a part of most, and which keeps their votaries in a state of perpetual anxiety. Nor can the self-sacrifice I have referred to increase the cheerfulness of life, associated as it often is with painful mutilations, with prolonged fasting, and exposure to cold and heat. The cruelty of the ceremonies is often shocking, the edicts of the religious code merciless.