In this materialistic conception of sin there is an obvious confusion between cause and effect, between the sin and its punishment. Sin is looked upon as a substance charged with injurious energy, which will sooner or later discharge itself to the discomfort or destruction of anybody who is infected with it. The sick Chinese says of his disease, "it is my sin," instead of saying, "it is the punishment of my sin."[193] Both in Hebrew and in the Vedic language the word for sin is used in a similar way.[194] "In the consciousness of the pious Israelite," Professor Schultz observes, "sin, guilt, and punishment, are ideas so directly connected that the words for them are interchangeable."[195] {56} The prophets frequently and emphatically declare that there is in sin itself a power which must destroy the sinner.[196] So, too, as M. Bergaigne points out, there is in the Vedic notion of sin, "la croyance à une sorte de vertu propre du péché, grâce à laquelle il produit de lui-même son effet nécessaire, à savoir le châtiment du pécheur."[197] Sins are thus treated like diseases, or the germs of diseases, of which patients likewise try to rid themselves by washing or burning, or which are described in the very language often applied to sins as fetters which hold them chained.[198] All kinds of evil are in this way materialised. The Shamanistic peoples of Siberia, says Georgi, "hold evil to be a self-existing substance which they call by an infinitude of particular names."[199] According to Moorish ideas, _l-bas_, or "misfortune," is a kind of infection, which may be contracted by contact and removed by water or fire; hence in all parts of Morocco water- and fire-ceremonies are performed annually, either on the _[(]âshur_-eve or at midsummer, _l-[(]an[s.]ara_, for the purpose of purifying men, animals, and fruit-trees.[200] And just as the Moors, on these {57} occasions, rid themselves of _l-bas_, so, in modern Greece, the women make a fire on Midsummer Eve, and jump over it, crying, "I leave my sins."[201] [Footnote 193: Edkins, _Religion in China_, p. 134.] [Footnote 194: Holzman, 'Sünde und Sühne in den Rigvedahymnen und den Psalmen,' in _Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsychologie_, xv. 9.] [Footnote 195: Schultz, _op. cit._ ii. 306. _Cf._ Curtiss, _Primitive Semitic Religion To-day_, p. 124 _sqq._] [Footnote 196: _Ibid._ ii. 308 _sq._] [Footnote 197: Bergaigne, _Religion védique_, iii. 163. _Cf._ _Rig-Veda_, x. 132. 5.] [Footnote 198: Oldenberg, _op. cit._ p. 288.] [Footnote 199: Georgi, _Russia_, iii. 257.]