Nay, within the limits of the clan, legal punishment can scarcely be said to be in theory possible; the sacredness of the blood-tie lending to any chastisement that may be inflicted on an erring kinsman the purely religious complexion of a sacrifice, an act of excommunication, a penance, or what not.

Thus almost insensibly we are led on to the subject of religion from the study of the legal sanction; this very term "sanction," which is derived from Roman law, pointing in the same direction, since it originally stood for the curse which was appended in order to secure the inviolability of a legal enactment..