The more scrutinising the moral consciousness, the greater the importance which it attaches to positive commandments. This is well illustrated by a comparison between Old and New Testament morality. As Professor Seeley observes,[3] "the old legal formula began 'thou shalt not,' the new begins with 'thou shalt.' The young man who had kept the whole law--that is, who had refrained from a number of actions--is commanded to do something, to sell his goods and feed the poor. Condemnation was passed under the Mosaic law upon him who had sinned, who had done something forbidden--the soul that sinneth shall die; Christ's condemnation is pronounced upon those who had not done good--'I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat.' The sinner whom Christ habitually denounces is he who has done nothing." This characteristic is repeatedly manifested in His parables--as in the case of the priest and Levite who passed by on the other side; in the case of Dives, of whom no ill is recorded except that a beggar lay at his {305} gate full of sores and yet no man gave unto him; in the case of the servant who hid in a napkin the talent committed to him. However, to say that the new morality involved the discovery of "a new continent in the moral globe,"[4] is obviously an exaggeration. The customs of all nations contain not only prohibitions, but positive injunctions as well. To be generous to friends, charitable to the needy, hospitable to strangers, are rules which, as will be seen, may be traced back to the lowest stages of savagery known to us. The difference in question is only one of degree. Of the Bangerang tribe in Victoria Mr. Curr observes:--"Aboriginal restraints were, in the majority of cases, though not altogether, of a negative character; an individual might not do this, and might not eat that, and might not say the other. What he should do under any circumstances, or that he should do anything, were matters with which custom interfered less frequently."[5] [Footnote 3: Seeley, _Ecce Homo_, p. 176.] [Footnote 4: _Ibid._ p. 179.] [Footnote 5: Curr, _Recollections of Squatting in Victoria_, p. 264 _sq._] Whilst the unreflecting mind has a tendency to overlook or underrate the guilt of a person who, whether wilfully or by negligence, causes harm by doing nothing, it is on the other hand, apt to exaggerate the guilt of a person who, not wilfully but out of heedlessness or rashness, causes harm by a positive act. In reality the latter person is blamable not for what he did, but for what he omitted to do, for want of due attention, for not thinking of the probable consequences of his act or for insufficient advertence to them. But the superficial judge largely measures the agent's guilt by the actual harm done, and in many cases even attributes to carelessness what was due to sheer misfortune.