The origin and development of the moral ideas

Chapter II: The Nature of the Moral Emotions (1)

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IN the preceding chapter it was asserted, in general terms, that the moral concepts are based on emotions, and the leading arguments to the contrary were met. We shall now proceed to examine the nature of the moral emotions.

These emotions are of two kinds: disapproval, or indignation, and approval. They have in common characteristics which make them moral emotions, in distinction from others of a non-moral character, but at the same time both of them belong to a wider class of emotions, which I call retributive emotions. Again, they differ from each other in points which make each of them allied to certain non-moral retributive emotions, disapproval to anger and revenge, and approval to that kind of retributive kindly emotion which in its most developed form is gratitude. They may thus, on the one hand, be regarded as two distinct divisions of the moral emotions, whilst, on the other hand, disapproval, like anger and revenge, forms a sub-species of resentment, and approval, like gratitude, forms a sub-species of retributive kindly emotion. The following diagram will help to elucidate the matter:--

{22} That moral disapproval is a kind of resentment and akin to anger and revenge, and that moral approval is a kind of retributive kindly emotion and akin to gratitude, are, of course, statements which call for proof. An analysis of all these emotions, and a detailed study of the causes which evoke them, will, I hope, bear out the correctness of my classification. In this connection only the analysis can be attempted. The study of causes will be involved in the treatment of the subjects of moral judgments.

Resentment may be described as an aggressive attitude of mind towards a cause of pain. Anger is sudden resentment, in which the hostile reaction against the cause of pain is unrestrained by deliberation. Revenge, on the other hand, is a more deliberate form of non-moral resentment, in which the hostile reaction is more or less restrained by reason and calculation.[1] It is impossible, however, to draw any distinct limit between these two types of resentment, as also to discern where an actual desire to inflict pain comes in. In its primitive form, anger, even when directed against a living being, contains a vehement impulse to remove the cause of pain without any real desire to produce suffering.[2] Anger is strikingly shown by many fish, and notoriously by sticklebacks when their territory is invaded by other sticklebacks. In such circumstances of provocation the whole animal changes colour, and, darting at the trespasser, shows rage and fury in every movement;[3] but we can hardly believe that any idea of inflicting pain is present to its mind. As we proceed still lower down the scale of animal life we find the conative element itself gradually dwindle away until nothing is left but mere reflex action.

[Footnote 1: _Cf._ Ribot, _Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 220 _sqq._]

[Footnote 2: There are some good remarks on this in Mr. Hiram Stanley's _Studies in the Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling_, p. 138 _sq._]

[Footnote 3: Romanes, _Animal Intelligence_, p. 246 _sqq._]

That the fury of an injured animal turns against the real or assumed cause of its injury is a matter of notoriety, and everybody knows that the same is the case with the {23} anger of a child. No doubt, as Professor Sully observes, "hitting out right and left, throwing things down on the floor and breaking them, howling, wild agitated movements of the arms and whole body, these are the outward vents which the gust of childish fury is apt to take."[4] But, on the other hand, we know well enough that Darwin's little boy, who became a great adept at throwing books and sticks at any one who offended him,[5] was in this respect no exceptional child. Towards the age of one year, according to M. Perez, children "will beat people, animals, and inanimate objects if they are angry with them; they will throw their toys, their food, their plate, anything, in short, that is at hand, at the people who have displeased them."[6] That a similar discrimination characterises the resentment of a savage is a fact upon which it is necessary to dwell at some length for the reason that it has been disputed, and because there are some seeming anomalies which require an explanation.

[Footnote 4: Sully, _Studies in Childhood_, p. 232 _sq._]

[Footnote 5: Darwin, 'Biographical Sketch of an Infant,' in _Mind_, ii. 288.]

[Footnote 6: Perez, _first Three Years of Childhood_, p. 66 _sq._]

In a comprehensive work,[7] Dr. Steinmetz has made the feeling of revenge the object of a detailed investigation, which cannot be left unnoticed. The ultimate conclusions at which he has arrived are these: Revenge is essentially rooted in the feeling of power and superiority. It arises consequently upon the experience of injury, and its aim is to enhance the "self-feeling" which has been lowered or degraded by the injury suffered. It answers this purpose best if it is directed against the aggressor himself, but it is not essential to it that it should take any determinate direction, for, _per se_, and originally, it is "undirected."[8]

[Footnote 7: _Ethnologische Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe_.]

[Footnote 8: Strictly speaking, this theory is not new. Dr. Paul Rée, in his book _Die Entstehung des Gewissens_, has pronounced revenge to be a reaction against the feeling of inferiority which the aggressor impresses upon his victim. The injured man, he says (_ibid._ p. 40) is naturally reluctant to feel himself inferior to another man, and consequently strives, by avenging the aggression, to show himself equal or even superior to the aggressor. A similar view was previously expressed by Schopenhauer (_Parerga und Paralipomena_, ii. 475 _sq._). But Dr. Steinmetz has elaborated his theory with an independence and fulness which make any question of priority quite insignificant.]

{24} We are told, in fact, that the first stage through which revenge passed within the human race was characterised by a total, or almost total, want of discrimination. The aim of the offended man was merely to raise his injured "self-feeling" by inflicting pain upon somebody else, and his savage desire was satisfied whether the man on whom he wreaked his wrath was guilty or innocent.[9] No doubt, there were from the outset instances in which the offender himself was purposely made the victim, especially if he was a fellow-tribesman; but it was not really due to the feeling of revenge if the suffering was inflicted upon him, in preference to others. Even primitive man must have found out that vengeance directed against the actual culprit, besides being a strong deterrent to others, was a capital means of making a dangerous person harmless. However, Dr. Steinmetz adds, these advantages should not be overestimated, as even indiscriminate revenge has a deterring influence on the malefactor.[10] In early times, then, vengeance, according to Dr. Steinmetz, was in the main "undirected."

[Footnote 9: Steinmetz, _op. cit._ i. 355, 356, 359, 561.]

[Footnote 10: _Ibid._ i. 362.]

At the next stage it becomes, he says, somewhat less indiscriminate. A proper victim is sought for even in cases of what we should call natural death, which the savage generally attributes to the ill-will of some foe skilled in sorcery;[11] though indeed Dr. Steinmetz doubts whether in such cases the unfortunate sufferer is really supposed to have committed the deed imputed to him.[12] At all events, a need is felt of choosing somebody for a victim, and "undirected" vengeance gradually gives way to "directed" vengeance. A rude specimen of this is the blood-feud, in which the individual culprit is left out of consideration, but war is carried on against the group of which he is a member, either his family or his tribe. And {25} from this system of joint responsibility we finally come, by slow degrees, says Dr. Steinmetz, to the modern conception, according to which punishment should be inflicted upon the criminal and nobody else.[13] Dr. Steinmetz believes that the _vis agens_ in this long process of evolution lies in the intellectual development of the human race: man found out more and more distinctly that the best means of restraining wrongs was to punish a certain person, namely, the wrong-doer.[14] On this utilitarian calculation our author lays much stress in the latter part of his investigation; whereas in another place he observes that a revenge which is directed against the offender is particularly apt to remove the feeling of inferiority, by effectually humiliating the hitherto triumphant foe.[15]

[Footnote 11: _Ibid._ i. 356 _sq._]

[Footnote 12: _Ibid._ i. 359 _sq._]

[Footnote 13: Steinmetz, _op. cit._ i. 361.]

[Footnote 14: _Ibid._ i. 358, 359, 361 _sq._]

[Footnote 15: _Ibid._ i. 111.]

In this historical account the main points of interest are the initial stage of "undirected" vengeance, and the way in which such vengeance gradually became discriminate. If, in primitive times, a man did not care in the least on whom he retaliated an injury, then of course the direction of his vengeance could not be essential to the revenge itself, but would be merely a later appendix to it. The question is, what evidence can Dr. Steinmetz adduce to support his theory? Of primitive man we have no direct experience; no savage people now existing is a faithful representative of him, either physically or mentally. Yet however greatly the human race has changed, primitive man is not altogether dead. Traits of his character still linger in his descendants; and of primitive revenge, we are told, there are sufficient survivals left.[16]

[Footnote 16: _Ibid._ i. 364.]

Under the heading "Perfectly Undirected Revenge," Dr. Steinmetz sets out several alleged cases of such so-called survivals[17] 1. An Indian of the Omaha tribe, who was kicked out of a trading establishment which he had been forbidden to enter, declared in a rage that he would revenge himself for an injury so gross, and, "seeking some object to destroy, he encountered a {26} sow and pigs, and appeased his rage by putting them all to death." 2. The people of that same tribe believe that if a man who has been struck by lightning is not buried in the proper way, and in the place where he has been killed, his spirit will not rest in peace, but will walk about till another person is slain by lightning and laid beside him. 3. At the burial of a Loucheux Indian, the relatives sometimes will cut and lacerate their bodies, or, as sometimes happens, will, "in a fit of revenge against fate," stab some poor, friendless person who may be sojourning among them. 4. The Navahoes, when jealous of their wives, are apt to wreak their spleen and ill-will upon the first person whom they chance to meet. 5. The Great Eskimo, as it is reported, once after a severe epidemic swore to kill all white people who might venture into their country. 6. The Australian father, whose little child happens to hurt itself, attacks his innocent neighbours, believing that he thus distributes the pain among them and consequently lessens the suffering of the child. 7. The Brazilian Tupis ate the vermin which molested them, for the sake of revenge; and if one of them struck his foot against a stone, he raged over it and bit it, whilst, if he were wounded with an arrow, he plucked it out and gnawed the shaft. 8. The Dacotahs avenge theft by stealing the property of the thief or of somebody else. 9. Among the Tshatrali (Pamir), if a man is robbed of his meat by a neighbour's dog, he will, in a fit of rage, not only kill the offending dog, but will, in addition, kick his own. 10. In New Guinea the bearers of evil tidings sometimes get knocked on the head during the first outburst of indignation evoked by their news. 11. Some natives of Motu, who had rescued two shipwrecked crews and safely brought them to their home in Port Moresby, were attacked there by the very friends of those they had saved, the reason for this being that the Port Moresby people were angry at the loss of the canoes, and could not bear that the Motuans were happy while they themselves were in trouble. 12. Another story from New Guinea tells us of a man who killed some innocent persons, because he had been disappointed in his plans and deprived of valuable property. 13. Among the Maoris it sometimes happened that the friends of a murdered man killed the first man who came in their way, whether enemy or friend. 14. Among the same people, chiefs who had suffered some loss often used to rob their subjects of property in order to make good the damage. 15. If the son of a Maori is hurt, his maternal relatives, to whose tribe he is considered to belong, come to pillage his father's house or village. 16. If {27} a tree falls on a Kuki his fellows chop it up, and if one of that tribe kills himself by falling from a tree the tree from which he fell is promptly cut down. 17. In some parts of Daghestan, when the cause of a death is unknown, the relatives of the deceased declare some person chosen at random to have murdered him, and retaliate his death upon that person.

[Footnote 17: _Ibid._ i. 318 _sqq._]

I have been obliged to enumerate all these cases for the reason that a theory cannot be satisfactorily refuted unless on its own ground. I may confess at once that I scarcely ever saw an hypothesis vindicated by the aid of more futile evidence. The cases 7 and 16 illustrate just the reverse of "undirected" revenge, and, when we take into consideration the animistic beliefs of savages, present little to astonish us. In case 17 the guilt is certainly imputed to somebody at random, but only when the culprit is unknown. Cases 1, 4, 10 and 12 and perhaps also 11, imply that revenge is taken upon an innocent party in a fit of passion; in cases 1 and 12 the offender himself cannot be got at, in case 10 the man who is knocked on the head appears for the moment as the immediate cause of the grief or indignation evoked, while case 11 exhibits envy combined with extreme ingratitude. In case 9 the anger is chiefly directed against the "guilty" dog, and against the "innocent" one evidently by an association of ideas. Cases 8 and 14 illustrate indemnification for loss of property, and in case 8 the thief himself is specifically mentioned first. In case 15 the revenging attack is made upon the property of those people among whom the child lives, and who may be considered responsible for the loss its maternal clan sustains by the injury. Case 6 merely shows the attempt of a superstitious father to lessen the suffering of his child. As regards case 5, Petitot, who has recorded it, says expressly that the white people were supposed to have caused the epidemic by displeasing the god Tornrark.[18] Case 2 points to a superstitious belief which is interesting enough in itself, but which, so far as I can see, is without any bearing whatever on the point we are discussing. Case 3 looks like a death-offering. The stabbing of an innocent person is mentioned in connection with, or rather as an alternative to, the self-laceration of the mourners, which last has probably a sacrificial character. Moreover, there is in this case no question of a culprit. In case 13, finally, the idea of sacrifice is very conspicuous. Dr. Steinmetz has borrowed his statement from Waitz, whose account is incomplete. Dieffenbach, the original authority, says that the custom in question was called by the Maori _taua tapu_, _i.e._, sacred fight, {28} or _taua toto_, _i.e._, fight for blood. He describes it as follows:--"If blood has been shed, a party sally forth and kill the first person they fall in with, whether an enemy or belonging to their own tribe; even a brother is sacrificed. If they do not fall in with anybody, the _tohunga_ (that is, the priest) pulls up some grass, throws it into a river, and repeats some incantation. After this ceremony, the killing of a bird, or any living thing that comes in their way, is regarded as sufficient, provided that blood is actually shed. All who participate in such an excursion are _tapu_, and are not allowed either to smoke or to eat anything but indigenous food."[19] It seems probable that this ceremony was undertaken in order to appease the enraged spirit of the dead,[20] and at the same time it may have been intended to refresh the spirit with blood.[21] The question, however, is, Why was not his death avenged upon the actual culprit? To this Dr. Steinmetz would answer that the deceased was thought to be indiscriminate in his craving for vengeance.[22] But so far as the resentment of the dead is concerned, the "sacred fight" of the Maoris only seems to illustrate the impulsive character of anger. From Dieffenbach's description of it, it is obvious that the friends of the slain man considered it to be a matter of paramount importance that blood should be shed immediately. If no human being came in their way, an animal was killed, but then an incantation was uttered beforehand. I presume that the reason for this was the terror which the supposed wrath of the dead man's spirit struck into the living, combined perhaps with the idea that it was in immediate need of fresh blood. The Maoris considered all spirits of the dead to be maliciously inclined towards them,[23] and the ghost of a person who had died a violent death was certainly looked upon as especially dangerous. The craving for instantaneous shedding of blood is even more conspicuous in another case which may be appropriately mentioned in this connection. The Aetas of the Philippine Islands, we are told, "do not always {29} wait for the death of the afflicted before they bury him. Immediately after the body has been deposited in the grave, it becomes necessary, according to their usages, that his death should be avenged. The hunters of the tribe go out with their lances and arrows to kill the first living creature they meet with, whether a man, a stag, a wild hog, or a buffalo."[24] Dr. Steinmetz himself quotes some other instances from the same group of islands, in which, when a man dies, his nearest kinsmen go out to requite his death by the death of the first man who comes in their way.[25] It is worth noticing that the Philippine Islanders have the very worst opinion of their ghosts, and believe that these are particularly bloodthirsty soon after death.[26]

[Footnote 18: Petitot, _Les Grands Esqimaux_, p. 207 _sq._]

[Footnote 19: Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 127.]

[Footnote 20: _Cf._ _ibid._ ii. 129.]

[Footnote 21: The latter object is suggested by some funeral ceremonies which will be noticed in a following chapter. Among the Dyaks, "a father who lost his child would go out and kill the first man he met, as a funeral ceremony," believing that he thus provided the deceased with a slave to accompany him to the habitation of souls (Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 459). Among the Garos, it was formerly the practice, "whenever the death of a great man amongst them occurred, to send out a party of assassins to murder and bring back the head of the first Bengali they met. The victims so immolated would, it was supposed, be acceptable to their gods" (Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 68).]

[Footnote 22: _Cf._ Steinmetz, _op. cit._ i. 343.]

[Footnote 23: Taylor, _Te Ika a Maui_, p. 221.]

[Footnote 24: Earl, _Papuans_, p. 132.]

[Footnote 25: Steinmetz, _op. cit._ i. 335 _sq._]

[Footnote 26: Blumentritt, 'Der Ahnencultus der Malaien des Philippinen-Archipels' in _Mittheilungen der Geogr. Gesellsch. in Wien_, xxv. 166 _sqq._ De Mas, _Informe sobre el estado de las Islas filipinas en 1842_, _Orijen, &c._ p. 15.]

Dr. Steinmetz also refers to some statements according to which, among certain Australian tribes, the relatives of a person who dies avenge his death by killing an innocent man.[27] But in these cases the avenged death, though "natural" according to our terminology, is, in the belief of the savages, caused by sorcery, and the revenge is not so indiscriminate as Dr. Steinmetz seems to assume. Among the Wellington tribe, as appears from a statement which he quotes himself, it is the sorcerer's life that must be taken for satisfaction.[28] In New South Wales, after the dead man has been interrogated as to the cause of his death, his kinsmen are resolute in taking vengeance, if they "imagine that they have got sure indications of the perpetrator of the wrong."[29] Among the Central Australian natives, "not infrequently the dying man will whisper in the ear of a _Railtchawa_, or medicine man, the name of the man whose magic is killing him," and if this be not done, "there is no difficulty, by some other method, of fixing sooner or later on the guilty party"; but only after the culprit has been revealed by the medicine man is it decided by a council of the old men whether an avenging party is to be arranged or not.[30] Among the aborigines of West Australia, the survivors are "pretty busy in seeking out" the sorcerer who is supposed to have caused the death of their friend.[31]

[Footnote 27: Steinmetz, _op. cit._ i. 337 _sq._]

[Footnote 28: Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition Vol. VI.--Ethnography and Philology_, p. 115; quoted by Steinmetz, _op. cit._ i. 337.]

[Footnote 29: Fraser, _Aborigines of New South Wales_, p. 86.]

[Footnote 30: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 476 _sq._]

[Footnote 31: Calvert, _Aborigines of Western Australia_, p. 20 _sq._]

{30} To sum up: all the facts which Dr. Steinmetz has adduced as evidence for his hypothesis of an original stage of "undirected" revenge only show that, under certain circumstances, either in a fit of passion, or when the actual offender is unknown or out of reach, revenge may be taken on an innocent being, wholly unconnected with the inflicter of the injury which it is sought to revenge. There is such an intimate connection between the experience of injury and the hostile reaction by which the injured individual gives vent to his passion, that the reaction does not fail to appear even when it misses its aim. Anger, as Seneca said, "does not rage merely against its object, but against every obstacle which it encounters on its way."[32] Many infants, when angry and powerless to hurt others, "strike their heads against doors, posts, walls of houses, and sometimes on the floor."[33] Well known are the "amucks" of the Malays, in which "the desperado assails indiscriminately friend and foe," and, with dishevelled hair and frantic look, murders or wounds all whom he meets without distinction.[34] But all this is not revenge; it is sudden anger or blind rage. Nor is it revenge in the true sense of the word if a person who has been humiliated by his superior retaliates on those under him. It is only the outburst of a wounded "self-feeling," which, when not directed against its proper object, can afford no adequate consolation to a revengeful man.

[Footnote 32: Seneca, _De ira_, iii. 1.]

[Footnote 33: Stanley Hall, 'A Study of Anger,' in _American Jour. of Psychology_, x. 554.]

[Footnote 34: Crawfurd, _History of the Indian Archipelago_, i. 67. _Cf._ Ellis, 'The Amok of the Malays,' in _Jour. of Mental Science_, xxxix. 325 _sqq._ In the Andaman Islands, it is not uncommon for a man "to vent his ill-temper, or show his resentment at any act, by destroying his own property as well as that of his neighbours" (Man, 'Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xii. 111). Among the Kar Nicobarese, when a quarrel takes place, in serious cases, a man will probably burn his own house down (Kloss, _In the Andamans and Nicobars_, p. 310). But in these instances it is not certain whether the offended party destroys his own property in blind rage, or with some definite object in view.]

In the institution of the blood-feud some sort of collective responsibility is usually involved.[35] If the {31} offender is of another family than his victim, some of his relatives may have to expiate his deed.[36] If he belongs to another clan, the whole clan may be held responsible for it.[37] And if he is a member of another tribe, the vengeance may be wreaked upon his fellow-tribesmen indiscriminately.[38]

[Footnote 35: _Cf._ Post, _Anfänge des Staats- und Rechtsleben_, p. 180; Rée, _op. cit._ p. 49 _sq._; Steinmetz, _op. cit._ i. ch. vi.]

[Footnote 36: Besides the authorities quoted _infra_, see Leuschner, in Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse von eingeborenen Völkern in Afrika und Ozeanien_, (Bakwiri); _ibid._ p. 49 (Banaka and Bapuku); Rautanen, _ibid._ p. 341 (Ondonga); Walter, _ibid._ p. 390 (natives of Nossi-Bé and Mayotte, near Madagascar); von Langsdorf, _Voyages and Travels_, i. 132 (Nukahivans); Forbes, _A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago_, p. 473 (Timorese); Foreman, _Philippine Islands_, p. 213 (Igorrotes of Luzon); Kovalewsky, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xxv. 113 (people of Daghestan); _Idem_, _Coutume contemporaine et loi ancienne_, p. 248 _sq._ (Ossetes); Merzbacher, _Aus den Hochregionen des Kaukasus_, ii. 51 (Khevsurs).]

[Footnote 37: Bridges, in _A Voice for South America_, xiii. 207 (Fuegians). Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ iii. 369. Ridley, in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ ii. 268 (Kamilaroi in Australia). Godwin-Austen, _ibid._ ii. 394 (Garo Hill tribes).]

[Footnote 38: von Martins, _Beiträge zur Ethnographie Amerika's_, i. 127 _sqq._ (Brazilian Indians). Crawfurd, _op. cit._ iii. 124 (natives of Celebes). Kohler, in _Zeitschr. f. vgl. Rechtswiss._ vii. 383 (Goajiros of Columbia). _Ibid._ vii. 376 (Papuans of New Guinea). Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 70. Scaramucci and Giglioli, 'Notizie sui Danakil,' in _Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia_, xiv. 39. Leuschner, in Steinmetz, _Rechtsverhältnisse_, p. 23 (Bakwiri). _Ibid._ p. 49 (Banaka and Bapuku).]

"Among the Fuegians," says Mr. Bridges, "etiquette and custom require that all the relatives of a murdered person should . . . visit their displeasure upon every connection of the manslayers, each personally." The avengers of blood would by no means be satisfied with a party of natives if they should actually deliver up into their hands a manslayer, or kill him themselves, "but would yet exact from all the murderer's friends tribute or infliction of injuries with sticks or stones."[39] Among the Indians of British Columbia and Vancouver Island, "grudges are handed down from father to son for generations, and friendly relations are never free from the risk of being interrupted."[40] Among the Greenlanders, the revenge for a murder generally "costs the executioner himself, his children, cousins, or other relatives their lives; or if these are inaccessible, some other acquaintance in the neighbourhood."[41] Among the Maoris, blood-revenge might be taken on any relative of the homicide, "no matter how distant."[42] In Tana, {32} revenge "is often sought in the death of the brother, or some other near relative of the culprit."[43] Among the Kabyles, "la vengeance peut porter sur chacun des membres de la famille du meurtrier, quel qu'il soit."[44] The Bedouins, according to Burckhardt, "claim the blood not only from the actual homicide, but from all his relations; and it is these claims that constitute the right of _thár_, or the blood-revenge."[45] Among the people of Ibrim, in Nubia, on the other hand, the same traveller observes, "it is not considered as sufficient to retaliate upon any person within the fifth degree of consanguinity, as among the Bedouins of Arabia; only the brother, son, or first cousin can supply the place of the murderer."[46] Traces of collective responsibility in connection with blood-revenge are found among the Hebrews.[47] It has prevailed, or still prevails, among the Japanese[48] and Coreans,[49] the Persians[50] and Hindus,[51] the ancient Greeks[52] and Teutons.[53] It was a rule among the Welsh[54] and the Scotch in former days,[55] and is so still in Corsica,[56] Albania,[57] and among some of the Southern Slavs.[58] In Montenegro, if a homicide who cannot be caught himself has no relatives, revenge is sometimes taken on some inhabitant of the village or district to which he belongs, or even on a person who only is of the same religion and nationality as the murderer.[59] In Albania, under similar circumstances, the victim may be a person who has had nothing else to do with the offender than that he has perhaps once been speaking to him.[60]

[Footnote 39: Bridges, in _South American Missionary Magazine_, xiii. 151 _sqq._]

[Footnote 40: Macfie, _Vancouver Island and British Columbia_, p. 470.]

[Footnote 41: Cranz, _History of Greenland_, i. 178.]

[Footnote 42: Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders_, p. 213 _sq._ _Cf._ _ibid._ p. 218 _sq._]

[Footnote 43: Turner, _Samoa_, p. 317.]

[Footnote 44: Hanoteau and Letourneux, _La Kabylie_, iii. 61.]

[Footnote 45: Burckhardt, _Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys_, p. 85. See, also, Layard, _Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 306; Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians_, i. 133.]

[Footnote 46: Burckhardt, _Travels in Nubia_, p. 128.]

[Footnote 47: _2 Samuel_, xiv. 7. _Cf._ _ibid._ xxi.]

[Footnote 48: Dautremer, 'The Vendetta or Legal Revenge in Japan,' in _Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan_, xiii. 84.]

[Footnote 49: Griffis, _Corea_, p. 227.]

[Footnote 50: Spiegel, _Erânische Alterthumskunde_, iii. 687. Polak, _Persien_, ii. 96.]

[Footnote 51: Dubois, _Description of the Character, Manners, and Customs of the People of India_, p. 195.]

[Footnote 52: Leist, _Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_, p. 424.]

[Footnote 53: _Gotlands-Lagen_, 13.]

[Footnote 54: Walter, _Das alte Wales_, p. 138.]

[Footnote 55: Mackintosh, _History of Civilisation in Scotland_, ii. 279.]

[Footnote 56: Gregorovius, _Wanderings in Corsica_, i. 179.]

[Footnote 57: Gop[vc]evi['c], _**Oberalbanien und seine Liga_, p. 324 _sqq._]

[Footnote 58: Miklosich, 'Die Blutrache bei den Slaven,' in _Denkschriften der kaiserl. Akademie d. Wissensch. Philos.-histor. Classe_, Vienna, xxxvi. 131, 146 _sq._ Krauss, _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven_, p. 39.]

[Footnote 59: Lago, _Memorie sulla Dalmazia_, ii. 90.]

[Footnote 60: Gop[vc]evi['c], _op. cit._ p. 325.]

There is no difficulty in explaining these facts. The following statement made by Mr. Romilly with reference {33} to the Solomon Islanders has, undoubtedly, a much wider application:--"In the cases which call for punishment, the difficulties in the way of capturing the actual culprits are greater than any one, who has not been engaged in this disagreeable work, can imagine."[61] Though it may happen that a manslayer is abandoned by his own people,[62] the system of blood-revenge more often seems to imply, not only that all the members of a group are engaged, more or less effectually, in the act of revenge, but that they mutually protect each other against the avengers. A homicide frequently provokes a war,[63] in which family stands against family, clan against clan, or tribe against tribe. In such cases the whole group take upon themselves the deed of the perpetrator, and any of his fellows, because standing up for him, becomes a proper object of revenge. The guilt extends itself, as it were, in the eyes of the offended party. So, also, any person who lives on friendly terms with the offender, or is supposed to sympathise with him, is liable to arouse a feeling of resentment, and may consequently, in extreme cases, have to expiate his crime. Moreover, because of the close relationship which exists between the members of the sam__e group, the actual culprit will be mortified by any successful attack that the avengers make on his people, and, if he be dead, its painful and humiliating effects may still be supposed to reach his spirit. "When the offender himself is beyond the reach of direct attack," says Mr. Wilkins, "it is not beneath a Bengali's view to try to wound him through his children or other members of his family."[64] Among the South Slavonians, in a similar case, the avengers of blood first attempt to kill the father, brother, {34} or grown-up son of the murderer, "so as to inflict upon him a very heavy and painful loss"; and only when this has been tried in vain, are more distant relatives attacked.[65] The Bedouins of the Euphrates even prefer killing the chief man among the murderer's relations within the second degree to taking his own life, on the principle, "You have killed my cousin, I will kill yours."[66] And the Californian Nishinam "consider that the keenest and most bitter revenge which a man can take is, not to slay the murderer himself, but his dearest friend."[67] In these instances vengeance is exacted with reference rather to the loss suffered by the survivors than to the injury committed against the murdered man, the culprit being subjected to a deprivation similar to that which he has inflicted himself. So, also, among the Marea, if a commoner is slain by a nobleman, his death is not avenged directly on the slayer, but on some commoner who is subservient to him.[68] If, again, among the Quianganes of Luzon, a noble is killed by a plebeian, another nobleman, of the kin of the murderer, must be killed, while the murderer himself is ignored.[69] If, among the Igorrotes, a man slays a woman of another house, her nearest kinsman endeavours to slay a woman belonging to the household of the homicide, but to the guilty man himself he does nothing.[70] In all these cases the culprit is not lost sight of; vengeance is invariably wreaked upon somebody connected with him. But any consideration of guilt or innocence is overshadowed by the blind subordination to that powerful rule which requires strict equivalence between injury and punishment--an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth--and which, when strained to the utmost, cannot allow the life of a man to be sacrificed for that of a woman, or the life of a nobleman to be {35} sacrificed for that of a commoner, or the life of a commoner to expiate the death of a noble. This rule, as we shall see later on, is not suggested by revenge itself, but is due to the influence of other factors which intermingle with this feeling, and help, with it, to determine the action.

[Footnote 61: Romilly, _Western Pacific and New Guinea_, p. 81. _Cf._ Friedrichs, 'Mensch und Person,' in _Das Ausland_, 1891, p. 299.]

[Footnote 62: See, _e.g._, Scott Robertson, _The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush_, p. 440.]

[Footnote 63: Dr. Post's statement (_Die Geschlechtsgenossenschaft der Urzeit_, p. 156) that the blood-revenge "characterisirt sich . . . ganz und gar als ein Privatkrieg zwischen zwei Geschlechtsgenossenschaften," however, is not quite correct in this unqualified form, as may be seen, _e.g._, from von Martius's description of the blood-revenge of the Brazilian Indians, _op. cit._ i. 127 _sqq._]

[Footnote 64: Wilkins, _Modern Hinduism_, p. 411.]

[Footnote 65: Krauss, _op. cit._ p. 39.]

[Footnote 66: Blunt, _Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates_, ii. 206 _sq._]

[Footnote 67: Powers, _Tribes of California_, p. 320.]

[Footnote 68: Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, p. 243.]

[Footnote 69: Blumentritt, quoted by Spencer, _Principles of Ethics_, i. 370 _sq._]

[Footnote 70: Jagor, _Travels in the Philippines_, p. 213.]

Nevertheless, the strong tendency to discrimination which characterises resentment, is not wholly lost even behind the veil of common responsibility. Mr. Howitt has come to the conclusion that, among the Australian Kurnai, if a homicide has been committed by an alien tribe, the feud "cannot be satisfied but by the death of the offender," although it is carried on, not against him alone, but against the whole group of which he is a member.[71] It is only "if they fail to secure the guilty person" that the natives of Western Victoria consider it their duty to kill one of his nearest relatives.[72] Concerning the West Australian aborigines, Sir George Grey observes, "The first great principle with regard to punishments is, that all the relations of a culprit, in the event of his not being found, are implicated in his guilt; if, therefore, the principal cannot be caught, his brother or father will answer nearly as well, and failing these, any other male or female relative, who may fall into the hands of the avenging party."[73] Among the Papuans of the Tami Islands, revenge may be taken on some other member of the murderer's family only if it is absolutely impossible to catch the guilty person himself.[74] That the blood-revenge is in the first place directed against the malefactor, and against some relative of his only if he cannot be found out, is expressly stated with reference to various peoples in different parts of the world;[75] and it is {36} probable that much more to the same effect might have been discovered, if the observers of savage life had paid more attention to this particular aspect of the matter. Among the Fuegians, the most serious riots take place when a manslayer, whom some one wishes to punish, takes refuge with his relations or friends.[76] Von Martius remarks of the Brazilian Indians in general that, even when an intertribal war ensues from the committing of homicide, the nearest relations of the killed person endeavour, if possible, to destroy the culprit himself and his family.[77] With reference to the Creek Indians, Mr. Hawkins says that though, if a murderer flies and cannot be caught, they will take revenge upon some innocent individual belonging to his family, they are "generally earnest of themselves, in their endeavours to put the guilty to death."[78] The same is decidedly the case in those parts of Morocco where the blood-feud still prevails.

[Footnote 71: Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 221.]

[Footnote 72: Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 71.]

[Footnote 73: Grey, _Journals of Expeditions_, ii. 239.]

[Footnote 74: Bamler, quoted by Kohler, in _Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss._ xiv. 380.]

[Footnote 75: Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua_, p. 434 (natives of Wetter). Chalmers, _Pioneering in New Guinea_, p. 179. Kohler, in _Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss._ xiv. 446 (some Marshall Islanders). Merker, quoted by Kohler, _ibid._ xv. 53 _sq._ (Wadshagga). Brett, _Indian Tribes of Guiana_, p. 357. Bernau, _Missionary Labours in British Guiana_, p. 57. Dall, _Alaska_, p. 416. Boas, 'The Central Eskimo,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ vi. 582. Jacob, _Leben der vorislâmischen Beduinen_, p. 144. Kovalewsky, _Coutume contemporaine_, p. 248 (Ossetes). Popovi['c], _Recht und Gericht in Montenegro_, p. 69; Lago, _op. cit._ ii. 90 (Montenegrines). Miklosich, _loc. cit._ p. 131 (Slavs). Wilda, _Strafrecht der Germanen_, p. 173 _sq._ (ancient Teutons).]

[Footnote 76: Hyades and Deniker, _Mission scientifique du Cap Horn_, vii. 375.]

[Footnote 77: von Martius, _op. cit._ i. 128.]

[Footnote 78: Hawkins, in _Trans. American Ethn. Soc._ iii. 67.]

Not only has Dr. Steinmetz failed to prove his hypothesis that revenge was originally "undirected," but this hypothesis is quite opposed to all the most probable ideas we can form with regard to the revenge of early man. For my own part I am convinced that we may obtain a good deal of knowledge about the primitive condition of the human race, but not by studying modern savages only. I have dealt with this question at some length in another place,[79] and wish now merely to point out that those general physical and psychical qualities which are not only common to all races of mankind, but which are shared by them with the animals most allied to man, may be assumed to have been present also in the earlier stages of {37} human development. Now, concerning revenge among animals, more especially among monkeys, many anecdotes have been told by trustworthy authorities, and in every case the revenge has been clearly directed against the offender.

[Footnote 79: _History of Human Marriage_, p. 3 _sqq._]

On the authority of a zoologist "whose scrupulous accuracy was known to many persons," Darwin relates the following story:--"At the Cape of Good Hope an officer had often plagued a certain baboon, and the animal, seeing him approaching one Sunday for parade, poured water into a hole and hastily made some thick mud, which he skilfully dashed over the officer as he passed by, to the amusement of many bystanders. For long afterwards the baboon rejoiced and triumphed whenever he saw his victim."[80] Prof. Romanes considers this to be a good instance of "what may be called brooding resentment deliberately preparing a satisfactory revenge."[81] This, I think, is to put into the statement somewhat more than it really contains; but at all events it records a case of revenge, in the sense in which Dr. Steinmetz uses the word. The same may be said of other instances mentioned by so accurate observers as Brehm and Rengger in their descriptions of African and American monkeys, and of various examples of resentment in elephants and even in camels.[82] According to Palgrave, the camel possesses the passion of revenge, and in carrying it out "shows an unexpected degree of far-thoughted malice, united meanwhile with all the cold stupidity of his usual character." The following instance, which occurred in a small Arabian town, deserves to be quoted, since it seems to have escaped the notice of the students of animal psychology. "A lad of about fourteen had conducted a large camel, laden with wood, from that very village to another at half an hour's distance or so. As the {38} animal loitered or turned out of the way, its conductor struck it repeatedly, and harder than it seems to have thought he had a right to do. But not finding the occasion favourable for taking immediate quits, it 'bode its time'; nor was that time long in coming. A few days later the same lad had to re-conduct the beast, but unladen, to his own village. When they were about half way on the road, and at some distance from any habitation, the camel suddenly stopped, looked deliberately round in every direction, to assure itself that no one was within sight, and, finding the road far and near clear of passers-by, made a step forward, seized the unlucky boy's head in its monstrous mouth, and lifting him up in the air flung him down again on the earth with the upper part of his skull completely torn off, and his brains scattered on the ground."[83] We are also told that elephants, though very sensitive to insults, are never provoked, even under the most painful or distracting circumstances, to hurt those from whom they have received no harm.[84] Sometimes animals show a remarkable degree of discrimination in finding out the proper object for their resentment. It is hardly surprising to read that a baboon, which was molested in its cage with a stick, tried to seize, not the stick, but the hand of its tormentor.[85] More interesting is the "revenge" which an elephant at Versailles inflicted upon a certain artist who had employed his servant to tease the animal by making a feint of throwing apples into its mouth:--"This conduct enraged the elephant; and, as if it knew that the painter was the cause of this teasing impertinence, instead of attacking the servant, it eyed the master, and squirted at him from its trunk such a quantity of water as spoiled the paper on which he was drawing."[86]

[Footnote 80: Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 69.]

[Footnote 81: Romanes, _Animal Intelligence_, p. 478.]

[Footnote 82: Brehm, _Thierleben_, i. 156. _Idem_, _From North Pole to Equator_, p. 305. Rengger (_Naturgeschichte der Säugethiere von Paraguay_, p. 52) gives the following information about the Cay:--"Fürchtet er . . . seinen Gegner, so nimmt er seine Zuflucht zur Verstellung, und sucht sich erst dann an ihm zu rächen, wenn er ihn unvermuthet überfallen kann. So hatte ich einen Cay, welcher mehrere Personen die ihn oft auf eine grobe Art geneckt hatten, in einem Augenblicke lass, wo sie im besten Vernehmen mit ihm zu sein glaubten. Nach verübter That kletterte er schnell auf einen hohen Balken, wo man ihm nicht beikommen konnte, und grinste schadenfroh den Gegenstand seiner Rache an." See, moreover, Watson, _The Reasoning Power in Animals_, especially pp. 20, 21, 24, 156 _sq._; Romanes, _op. cit._ p. 387 _sqq._; but also Morgan, _Animal Life and Intelligence_, p. 401 _sq._]

[Footnote 83: Palgrave, _Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia_, i. 40.]

[Footnote 84: Watson, _op. cit._ p. 26 _sq._]

[Footnote 85: Aas, _Sjaeleliv og intelligens hos Dyr_, i. 72.]

[Footnote 86: Smellie, _Philosophy of Natural History_, i. 448.]

I find it inconceivable that anybody, in the face of such facts, could still believe that the revenge of early man was at first essentially indiscriminating, and became gradually discriminating from considerations of social expediency. But by this I certainly do not mean to deny that violation of the "self-feeling" is an extremely common and powerful incentive to resentment. It is so {39} among savage[87] and civilised men alike; even dogs and monkeys get angry when laughed at. Nothing more easily rouses in us anger and a desire for retaliation, nothing is more difficult to forgive, than an act which indicates contempt, or disregard of our feelings. Long after the bodily pain of a blow has ceased, the mental suffering caused by the insult remains and calls for vengeance. This is an old truth often told. According to Seneca, "the greater part of the things which enrage us are insults, not injuries."[88] Plutarch observes that, though different persons fall into anger for different reasons, yet in nearly all of them is to be found the idea of their being despised or neglected.[89] "Contempt," says Bacon, "is that which putteth an edge upon anger, as much, or more, than the hurt itself."[90] But, indeed, there is no need to resort to different principles in order to explain the resentment excited by different kinds of pain. In all cases revenge implies, primordially and essentially, a desire to cause pain or destruction in return for hurt suffered, whether the hurt be bodily or mental; and, if to this impulse is added a desire to enhance the wounded "self-feeling," that does not interfere with the true nature of the primary feeling of revenge. There are genuine specimens of resentment without the co-operation of self-regarding pride;[91] and, on the other hand, the reaction of the wounded "self-feeling" is not necessarily, in the first place, concerned with the infliction of pain. If a person has written a bad book which is severely criticised, he may desire to repair his reputation by writing a better book, not by humiliating his critics; and if he attempts the latter rather than the former, he does so, not merely in order to enhance his "self-feeling," {40} but because he is driven on by revenge. Dr. Boas tells us that the British Columbia Indian, when his feelings are hurt, sits down or lies down sullenly for days without partaking of food, and that, "when he rises his first thought is, not how to take revenge, but to show that he is superior to his adversary.[92]

[Footnote 87: Turner, 'Ethnology of the Ungava District,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xi. 270 (Hudson Bay Indians). Georgi, _Russia_, iii. 205 (Aleuts). Sarasin, _Ergebnisse naturwiss. Forschungen auf Ceylon_, iii. 537 (Veddahs). von Wrede, _Reise in [H.]adhramaut_, p. 157 (Bedouins). Winterbottom, _Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone_, i. 211.]

[Footnote 88: Seneca, _De ira_, iii. 28.]

[Footnote 89: Plutarch, _De cohibenda ira_, 12.]

[Footnote 90: Bacon, 'Essay LVII. Of Anger,' in _Essays_, p. 514.]

[Footnote 91: Bain, _Emotions and the Will_, p. 177.]

[Footnote 92: Boas, _First General Report on the Indians of British Columbia_, read at the Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting of the British Association, 1889, p. 19.]

In the feeling of gratification which results from successful resentment, the pleasure of power or superiority also may form a very important element, but it is never the exclusive element.[93] As the satisfaction of every desire is accompanied by pleasure, so the satisfaction of the desire involved in resentment gives a pleasure by itself. The angry or revengeful man who succeeds in what he aims at, delights in the pain he inflicts for the very reason that he desired to inflict it.

[Footnote 93: _Cf._ Ribot, _op. cit._ p. 221 _sq._]

Revenge thus only forms a link in a chain of emotional phenomena, for which "non-moral resentment" may be used as a common name. In this long chain there is no missing link. Anger without any definite desire to cause suffering, anger with such a desire, more deliberate resentment--all these phenomena are so inseparably connected with each other that no one can say where one passes into another. Their common characteristic is that they are mental states marked by an aggressive attitude towards the cause of pain.

As to their origin, the evolutionist can hardly entertain a doubt. Resentment, like protective reflex action, out of which it has gradually developed, is a means of protection for the animal. Its intrinsic object is to remove a cause of pain, or, what is the same, a cause of danger. Two different attitudes may be taken by an animal towards another which has made it feel pain: it may either shun or attack its enemy. In the former case its action is prompted by fear, in the latter by anger, and it depends on the circumstances which of these emotions is the actual {41} determinant. Both of them are of supreme importance for the preservation of the species, and may consequently be regarded as elements in the animal's mental constitution which have been acquired by means of natural selection in the struggle for existence. We have already noted that, originally, the impulse of attacking the enemy could hardly have been guided by a representation of the enemy as suffering. But, as a successful attack is necessarily accompanied by such suffering, the desire to produce it naturally, with the increase of intelligence, entered as an important element in resentment. The need for protection thus lies at the foundation of resentment in all its forms.

This view is not new. More than one hundred and fifty years before Darwin, Shaftesbury wrote of resentment in these words:--"Notwithstanding its immediate aim be indeed the ill or punishment of another, yet it is plainly of the sort of those [affections] which tend to the advantage and interest of the self-system, the animal himself; and is withal in other respects contributing to the good and interest of the species."[94] A similar opinion is expressed by Butler, according to whom the reason and end for which man was made liable to anger is, that he might be better qualified to prevent and resist violence and opposition, while deliberate resentment "is to be considered as a weapon, put into our hands by nature, against injury, injustice, and cruelty."[95] Adam Smith, also, believes that resentment has "been given us by nature for defence, and for defence only," as being "the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence."[96] Exactly the same view is taken by several modern evolutionists as regards the "end" of resentment, though they, of course, do not rest contented with saying that this feeling has been given us by nature, but try to explain in what way it has developed. "Among members of the same species," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, "those individuals which have not, in any considerable degree, resented aggressions, must have ever tended to disappear, and to have left behind those which have with some effect made counter-aggressions."[97] Mr. {42} Hiram Stanley, too, quoting Junker's statement regarding the pigmies of Africa, that "they are much feared for their revengeful spirit,"[98] observes that, "other things being equal, the most revengeful are the most successful in the struggle for self-conservation and self-furtherance."[99] This evolutionist theory of revenge has been criticised by Dr. Steinmetz, but in my opinion with no success. He remarks that the _feeling_ of revenge could not have been of any use to the animal, even though the _act_ of vengeance might have been useful.[100] But this way of reasoning, according to which the whole mental life would be excluded from the influence of natural selection, is based on a false conception of the relation between mind and body, and, ultimately, on a wrong idea of cause and effect.

[Footnote 94: Shaftesbury, 'Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit,' ii. 2. 2, in _Characteristicks_, ii. 145.]

[Footnote 95: Butler, 'Sermon VIII.--Upon Resentment,' _op. cit._ p. 457.]

[Footnote 96: Adam Smith, _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, p. 113.]

[Footnote 97: Spencer, _Principles of Ethics_, i. 361.]

[Footnote 98: Junker, _Travels in Africa during the Years 1882-1886_, p. 85.]

[Footnote 99: Hiram Stanley, _op. cit._ p. 180. _Cf._ also Guyau, _Esquisse d'une Morale sans obligation ni sanction_, p. 162 _sq._]

[Footnote 100: Steinmetz, _Ethnol. Studien, &c._ i. 135.]

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The origin and development of the moral ideasChapter II: The Nature of the Moral Emotions (1)

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