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310 EELiaiON OB" THE NOETHMEN.
-system complete in itself, appointed for all the
nations of the earth ; one which by its own divine
power opened for itself a way to conviction, and
through that operated on the popular spirit in a
direction pointed out by the fundamental principles
of the religion itself.
As the system of the Asa-faith arose without any con-
scious object to be effected in morals, therefore it did
not embrace any actual code of morals, in the higher
sense of the term. The Asa doctrine does not pronounce
by positive expression what is virtue and what
is vice ; it pre-supposes a consciousness thereof in its
votaries. It only represents in general terms Yirtue
as bringing its own reward. Vice its own punish-
ment, if not here upon the earth, then with certain-
ty beyond the grave. This is contained in the doctrines
of Valhalla and Helheim, of Gimli and Nd-
strond. For the rest, the precepts relating to life
which are propounded as divine in many of the
heathen poems, especially in Havamdl and Sigr-
drifumal of the Older Edda,* constitute a collection
of prudential maxims rather than a system of
morals. But these maxims, inasmuch as they were
thought to proceed from the Gods, or from superior
beings nearly related to the Gods, are combined
with the Asa-faith,- and express the ideas of a
rational and worthy life which were developed
among the Northmen under its influence.
* In the Hd,vam41—which name signifies either the Sublime
Discourses or the Discourse of the Sublime Being—Odin himself is
represented as the speaker. In Sigrdrlfumfl it is the Valkyrja
Sigrdrifa, -who gives couDsel to Sigurd Fafnisbani,