ABSTRACT
The relations of a man to his fellow-men are limited by physical conditions, because man, on the side of his bodily organism, is himself a part of the material universe. The lack of any sharp distinction between the nature of different kinds of visible beings appears in the oldest myths, in which all kinds of objects, animate and inanimate, organic and inorganic, appear as cognate with one another, with men, and with the gods. The haunt of the jinn differs from a sanctuary as the jinn themselves differ from gods. The most general term to express the relation of natural things to the gods which language affords is the word "holy"; holy places, holy things, holy persons, holy times. But the word "holy" has had a long and complicated history, and has various shades of meaning according to the connection in which it is used.
