In primitive religions it was regarded as most dangerous to touch certain things and persons because they were conceived of as belonging to, or as being under the protection of, or indwelt by, spirits; it would be dangerous to touch these because the spirit’s anger would be aroused thereby, and evil consequences would ensue; they were, therefore, “taboo.” But in the dire event of any of these things or persons being touched by a man, the supernatural essence attaching to them was communicated; they were “contagious,” and therefore the unhappy victim who came into contact with them became “infected.” The result was one of two things: either the man died,[231] or for some (to the savage) incomprehensible reason no evil consequences ensued. In the latter case, since by contact the supernatural and dangerous essence adhered to the man, it was necessary that some means should be found whereby this “infection” should be obliterated, otherwise the “infected” person would be a danger to the community and would himself continue in the unfortunate position of being debarred from intercourse with his fellows. Various means were devised whereby this infection, conceived of as something tangible, could be got rid of. Among these there was the obvious one of washing it away with water. But the tabooed things and persons referred to were of very diverse character; some, such as a carcase, we should certainly consider polluted or unclean; others, such as the priestly vestments, we should call holy; but each was regarded as “infectious,” in the sense used above, even in the Old Testament.[232] This is but an echo of ideas which obtained among the forbears of the Israelites in distant bygone ages; it may be illustrated by the condition of thought, in this respect, among men of low culture at the present day. Frazer, in dealing with the subject of “holy” persons[233] (and the principle of what he says applies likewise to “holy” things), says, that so far as the savage is concerned, “the conceptions of holiness and pollution are not yet differentiated in his mind. To him the common feature of all these persons is that they are dangerous and in danger, and the danger in which they stand and to which they expose others is what we should call spiritual or ghostly.... To seclude these persons from the rest of the world so that the dreaded spiritual danger shall neither reach them, nor spread from them, is the object of the taboos which they have to observe. These taboos act, so to say, as electrical insulators to preserve the spiritual force with which these persons are charged from suffering or inflicting harm by contact with the outer world.”[234] To man in a low state of culture, then, the distinction between the conceptions of what we speak of as holiness and uncleanness does not exist; but as soon as a higher form of religion comes into being that distinction begins to be discerned, especially as with any form of religion higher than