Note 30 — Chapter II · THE DAWN OF MORALITY: CONSCIENCE IN THE KINSHIP GROUP

Before this stage in civilization has been reached, religion is a hindrance to the widening of the moral sympathies; for in earlier stages “a man is held answerable to his god [only] for wrong done to a member of his own kindred or political community; ... he may deceive, rob, or kill an alien without offense to religion; the deity cares only for his own kinsfolk” (W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, 2d ed., pp. 53 f.).