The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas

The mail! object of this book will perhaps be best 
explained by a few words concerning its origin. 

Its author was once discussing with some friends the point 
how far a bad man ought to be treated with kindness. 
The opinions were divided, and, in spite of much deli- 
beration, unanimity could not be attained. It seemed 
strange that the disagreement should be so radical, and 
the question arose, Whence this diversity of opinion ? Is 
it due to defective knowledge, or has it a merely senti- 
mental origin ? And the problem gradually expanded. 
Why do the moral ideas in general differ so greatly ? 
And, on the other hand, why is there in many cases such 
a wide agreement ? Nay, why are there any moral ideas 
at all ? 

• Since then many years have passed, spent by the author 
in trying to find an answer to these questions. The pre- 
sent work is the result of his researches and thoughts.* 

The first part of it will comprise a study of the moral 
concepts : right, wrong, duty, justice, virtue, merit, &c. 
Stfch a study will be found to require an examination into 
the moral emotions, their nature and origin, as also into 
the relations between these emotions and the various 

YOl..'*! 6 

moral concepts. T^ere will then be a discussion of the 
phenomena to whfch such concepts are applied — the 
subjects of moral judgments. The general character of 
these phenomena will be scrutinised, and an answer 
sought to the question why facts of a certain type are 
matters of moral concern, while other facts are not. 
Finally, the most important of these phenomepa will 
be classified, and the moral ideas relating to each clas6 
will be stated, and, so far as possible, explained. 

An investigation of this kind cannot be confined to 
feelings and ideas prevalent in any particular society 
or at any particular stage of civilisation. Its subject- 
matter is the moral consciousness of mankind at large. 
It consequently involves the survey of an unusually rich 
and varied field of research — psychological, ethnogra- 
phical,* historical, juridical, theological. In the present 
state of our knowledge, when monographs on most of the 
subjects involved are wanting, I presume that such an 
undertaking is, strictly speaking, too big for any man ; at 
any rate it is so for the writer of this book. Nothing like 
completeness can be aimed at. Hypotheses of varying 
degrees of probability must only too often be resorted to. 
Even the certainty of the statements on which conclusions 
are based is not always beyond a doubt. But though fully 
conscious of the many defects of his attempt, the author 
nevertheless ventures to think himself justified in placing 
it before the public. It seems to him that one of the 
most important objects of human speculation cannot be 
left in its present state of obscurity ; that at least a 
glimpse of light must be thrown upon it by researches 
which have extended over some fifteen years ; and that‘ 
the main principles underlying the various customs of 
manicind may be arrived at even without subjecting 
these customs to such a full and minute treatment as 
would be required of an anthropological monograph. 

Possibly this essay, in spite of its theoretical chaV- ' 
acter, may even be of some practical use. Though 
rooted in the emotional side of our nature, our moral 

• * 

opinions are in a large measure amen$ble to reason. Now 
in every society the traditional nolions as to what is 
good or bad, obligatory or indifferent, are commonly 
accepted by the majority of people without further re- 
flection. By tracing them to their source it will be found 
that not a few of these notions have their origin in senti- 
mental likings and antipathies, to which a scrutinising 
and enlightened judge can attach little importance ; whilst, 
on the other hand, he must account blameable many an 
act and omission which public opinion, out of thought- 
lessness, treats with indifference. It will, moreover, appear 
that a moral estimate often survives the cause from which 
it sprang. And no unprejudiced person can help changing 
his views if he be persuaded that they have no foundation 
in existing facts. 

B 2

THE EMOTIONAL ORIGIN OF kORAL JUDGMENTS 

That the moral concepts are ultimately based on 
emotions either of indignation or approval, is a fact which a 
certain school of thinkers have in vain attempted to deny. 
The terms which embody these concepts must originally 
have been used — indeed they still constantly are so used — 
as direct expressions of such emotions with reference to the 
phenomena which evoked them. Men pronounced certain 
acts to be good or bad on account of the emotions those 
acts aroused in their minds, just as they called sunshine 
warm and ice cold on account of certain sensations which 
they experienced, and as they named a thing pleasant or 
painful because they felt pleasure or pain. But to attri- 
bute a quality to a thing is never the same as merely to 
state the existence of a particular sensation or feeling in 
the mind which perceives it. Such an attribution must 
mean that the thing, under certain circumstances, makes a 
certain impression on the mind. By calling an object 
warm or pleasant, a person asserts that it is apt to produce 
in him a sensation of heat or a feeling of pleasure. Simi- 
larl]^, to name an act good or bad, ultimately implies 
that it is apt to give rise to an emotion of approval or 
disapproval in him who pronounces the judgment. Whilst 
not affirming the actual existence of any specific emotion 
in the mind of the person judging or of anybody else,' 
the predicate of a moral judgment attributes to the 
subject a tendency to arouse an emotion. The moral 

CHAP. I OR4GIN OF MORAL JUDGMENT® c 

concepts, then, are essentially generalisations or tenaencies 
in certain phenomena to call forth moral emotions. 

However, as is frequently the case with general terms, 
these concepts are mentioned without any distinct idea* of 
their contents. The relation in which many of them stand 
to the moral emotions is complicated ; the use of them is 
often vague ; and ethical theorisers, instead of subjecting 
them to a careful analysis, have done their best to increase 
the confusion by adapting the meaning of the terms to 
fit their theories. Very commonly, in the definition of 
the goodness or badness of acts, reference is made, not to 
their tendencies to evoke emotions of approval or indigna- 
tion, but to the causes of these tendencies, that is, to those 
qualities in the acts which call forth moral emotions. Thus, 
because good acts generally produce pleasure and bad acts 
pain, goodness and badness have been identified with the 
tendencies of acts to produce pleasure or pain. The follow- 
ing statement of Sir James Stephen is a clearly expressed 
instance of this confusion, so common among utilitarians; — 
“ Speaking generally, the acts which are called right do 
promote, or are supposed to promote general happiness, 
and the acts which are called wrong do diminish, or are 
supposed to diminish it. I say, therefore, that this is 
what the words ‘ right ' and ‘ wrong ’ mean, just as the 
words ‘ up ’ and ‘ down ’ mean that which points from 
or towards the earth’s centre of gravity, though they are 
used by millions who have not the least notion of the fact 
that such is their meaning, and though they were used for 
centuries and millenniums before any one was or even could 
be aware of it.” ’ So, too, Bentham maintained that words 
•like “ ought,” “ right,” and “ wrong,” have no meaning 
unless interpreted in accordance with the principle of 
utility ; ^ and James Mill was of opinion that “ the* very 
morality ” of the act lies, not in the sentiments raised in 
the breast of him who perceives or contemplates it, but in 
“Ithe consequences of the act, good or evil, and their being 

^ Stephen, Liberty ^ Equality^ Lim- Bentliam, Principles of Morals and 

ternity^ p. 338. Legislation^ p, 4. 

THE^".EMOTIONAL ORIGIN 

within the intention of the agent/’ ^ He adds that a 
rational assertor of the principle pf utility approves of an 
action because it is good,” and calls it good ‘‘because it 
conduces to happiness/’ ^ This, however, is to invert the 
sequence of the facts, since, properly speaking, an act is 
called good because it is approved of, and is approved of 
by an utilitarian in so far as it conduces to happiness. 

Such confusion of terms cannot affect the real meaning 
of the moral concepts. It is true that he who holds 
that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to 
promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the 
reverse of happiness,” may, by a merely intellectual 
process, pass judgment on the moral character of par- 
ticular acts ; but, if he is an utilitarian from conviction, 
his first principle, at least, has an emotional origin. Vhc 
case is similar with many of the moral judgments 
ordinarily passed by men. They are applications of some 
accepted general rule: conformity or non-conformity to 
the rule decides the rightness or wrongness of the act 
judged of. But whether the rule be the result of a 
person’s independent deductions, or be based upon 
authority, human or divine, the fact that his moral con- 
sciousness recognises it as valid implies that it has an 
emotional sanction in his own mind. 

Whilst the import of the predicate of a moral judg- 
ment may thus in every case be traced back to an emotion 
in him who pronounces the judgment, it is generally 
assumed to possess the character of universality or “ objec- 
tivity” as well. The statement that an act is good or 
bad does not merely refer to an individual emotion ; as 
will be shown subsequently, it always has reference to an' 
emotion of a more public character. Very often it even 
implies some vague assumption that the act must be 
recognised as good or bad by everybody who possesses a 
sufficient knowledge of the case and of all attendant 
circumstances, and who has a “sufficiently developed” 

* James Mill, Fragment on Afackin- ^ Ibid. p. 368. 
tosh., pp. 5, 376. 3 Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism^^. 9^^, 

OF MORAL JUDGMENTS 

moral consciousness. We are not willing to admit that 
our moral convictions are a mere matter of taste, and 
we are inclined to regard convictions differing from our 
own as errors. This characteristic of our moral judgments 
has been adduced as an argument against the emotionalist 
theory of moral origins, and has Ted to the belief that 
the moral concepts represent qualities which are discerned 
.by reason. 

Cudworth, Clarke, Price, and Reid are names which 
recall to our mind a theory according to which the 
morality of actions is perceived by the intellect, just as 
are number, diversity, causation, proportion. “ Morality 
is eternal and immutable,” says Richard Price. “ Right 
and wrong, it appears, denote what actions are. Now 
whatever any thing is, that it is, not by will, or decree, or 
power, but by nature and necessity. Whatever a triangle 
or circle is, that it is unchangeably and eternally. . . . 
The same is to be said of right and wrong, of moral good 
and evil, as far as they express real characters of actions. 
They must immutably and necessarily belong to those 
actions of which they are truly affirmed.” ^ And as 
having a real existence outside the mind, they can only 
be discerned by the understanding. It is true that this 
discernment is accompanied with an emotion: — “Some 
impressions of pleasure or pain, satisfiction or disgust, 
generally attend our perceptions of virtue and vice. But 
these are merely their effects and concomitants, and not 
the percepti^ons themselves, which ought no more to be 
confounded with them,* than a particular truth (like that 
for which Pythagoras offered a hecatomb) ought to be 
confounded with the pleasure that may attend the dis- 
covery of it.” ' 

According to another doctrine, the moral predicates, 
though not regarded as expressions of “ theoretical ” 
truth, nevertheless derive all their import from reason — • 
from “practical” or “moral’' reason, as it is variously 

^ Price, Keviezv of the Principal Questions in Morals^ pj:). 63, 74 sq. 

“ Ibid. p. 63. 

THE EMOTIONAL ORIGIN 

called. Thus Professor Sidgwick holds that the funda- 
mental notions represented by the word ought ’’ or 
right,” which moral judgments contain expressly or by 
implication, are essentially different from all notions 
representing facts of physical or psychical experience, and 
he refers such judgments to the ‘‘reason,” understood as 
a fficuity of cognition. By this he implies “ that what 
ought to be is a possible object of knowledge, that 
what I judge ought to be, must, unless I am in error, be 
similarly judged by all rational beings who judge truly of 
the matter.” dTe moral judgments contain moral truths^ 
and “cannot legitimately be interpreted as judgments 
respecting the present or future existence of human 
feelings or any facts of the sensible world.” ^ 

Yet our tendency to objectivise the moral judgments is 
no sufficient ground for referring them to the province of 
reason. If, in this respect, there is a difference between 
these judgments and others that are rooted in the sub- 
jective sphere of experience, it is, largely, a difference in 
degree rather than in kind. The aesthetic judgments, 
which indisputably have an emotional origin, also lay 
claim to a certain amount of “ objectivity.” By saying 
of a piece of music that it is beautiful, we do not merely 
mean that it gives ourselves aesthetic enjoyment, but we 
make a latent assumption that it must have a similar 
effect upon everybody who is sufficiently musical to 
appreciate it. This objectivity ascribed to judgments 
which have a merely subjective origin springs in the first 
place from the similarity of the mental constitution of 
men, and, generally speaking, the tendency to regard 
them as objective is greater in proportion as the impres- 
sions vary less in each particular case. If “ there is no 
disputing of tastes,” that is because taste is so extremely 
variable ; and yet eve||,^in this instance we recognise a 
certain “ objective ” st#rakm by speaking of a “ bad ” and 
a “ good ” taste. On the other hand, if the appearance 
of objectivity in the moral judgments is so illusive as to 

^ Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics^ pp. 25, 33 S(^. 

OF MORAL JUDGMENTS 

make it seem necessary to refer them to reason, that is 
partly on account of the comparatively uniform nature of 
the moral consciousness. 

Society is the school in which men learn to distinguish 
between right and wrong. The headmaster is Custom, 
and the lessons are the same for all. The first moral 
judgments were pronounced by public opinion ; public 
indignation and public approval are the prototypes of the 
moral emotions. As regards questions of morality, there 
was, in early society, practically no difference of opinion ; 
hence a character of universality, or objectivity, was from 
the very beginning attached to all moral judgments. And 
when, with advancing civilisation, this unanimity was to 
some extent disturbed by individuals venturing to dissent 
from the opinions of the majority, the disagreement was 
largely due to facts which in no way affected the moral 
principle, but had reference only to its application. 

Most people follow a very simple method in judging 
of an act. Particular modes of conduct have their 
traditional labels, many of which are learnt with language 
itself; and the moral judgment commonly consists simply 
in labelling the act according to certain obvious charac- 
teristics which it presents in common with others belonging 
to the same group. But a conscientious and intelligent 
judge proceeds in a different manner. He carefully 
examines all the details connected with the act, the 
external and internal conditions under which it was per- 
formed, its consequences, its motive ; and, since the moral 
estimate in a large measure depends upon the regard paid 
to these circumstances, his judgment may differ greatly 
from that of the man in the street, even though the moral 
standard which they apply be exactly the same. But to 
acquire a full insight into all the details which are apt to 
influence the moral value of an.o;act is in many cases any- 
thing but easy, and this natufaiff increases the disagree- 
Inent, There is thus in every advanced society a diversity 
of opinion regarding the moral value of certain modes 
of conduct which results Yrom circumstances of a purely 

lO 

THE EMOTIONAL ORIGIN 

intellectual character — from the knowledge or ignorance 
of positive facts, — and involves no discord in principle. 

Now it has been assumed by the advocates of various 
ethical theories that all the differences of moral ideas 
originate in this way, and that there is some ultimate 
standard which must be recognised as authoritative by 
everybody who understands it rightly. According to 
Bentham, the rectitude of utilitarianism has been con- 
tested only by those who have not known their own 
meaning : When a man attempts to combat the prin- 

ciple of utility . . . his arguments, if they prove anything, 
prove not that the principle is wrong, but that, according 
to the applications he supposes to be made of it, it is 
misapplied/’ ' Mr. Spencer, to whom good conduct is 
that which conduces to life in each and all,” believes 
that he has the support of the true moral consciousness,” 
or moral consciousness proper,” which, whether in 
harmony or in conflict with the pro-ethical ” sentiment, 
is vaguely or distinctly recognised as the rightful ruler.^ 
Samuel Clarke, the intuitionist, again, is of opinion that 
if a man endowed with reason denies the eternal and 
necessary moral differences of things, it is the very same 
“ as if a man that has the use of his sight, should at the 
same time that he beholds the sun, deny that there is any 
such thing as light in the world ; or as if a man that 
understands Geometry or Arithmetick, should deny the 
most obvious and known proportions of lines or 
numbers/’^ In short, all disagreement as to questions of 
morals is attributed to ignorance or misunderstanding. 

The influence of intellectual considerations upon moral 
judgments is certainly immense. We shall find that the 
evolution of the moral consciousness to a large extent 
consists in its development from the unreflecting to the 
reflecting, from the unenlightened to the enlightened. 
All higher emotions are determined by cognitions, they arise 

v. 

^ Bentham, Pyincipics of Alorals and Ckiikc, Discourse confernin^ the 

Legislation^ p. 4 sq. Unchangeable Obligations of Natural 

Principles of Ethiesfx, Pflii^-ion, p. 179. 

• OF MORAL JUDGMENTS 

1 1 

from the presentation of determinate objective condi- 
tions”;^ and moral enlightenment Implies a true and com- 
prehensive presentation of those objective conditions by 
which the moral emotions, according to their very nature, 
are determined. Morality may thus in a much higher 
degree than, for instance, beauty be a subject of instruc- 
tion and of profitable discussion, in which persuasion is 
•carried by the representation of existing data. But al- 
though in this way many differences may be accorded, 
there are points in which unanimity cannot be reached 
even by the most accurate presentation of facts or the 
subtlest process of reasoning. 

Whilst certain phenomena will almost of necessity 
arouse similar moral emotions in every mind which per- 
ceives them clearly, there are others with which the case is 
different. The emotional constitution of man does not 
present the same uniformity as the human intellect. 
Certain cognitions inspire fear in nearly every breast ; but 
there are brave men and cowards in the world, indepen- 
dently of the accuracy with which they realise impending 
danger. Some cases of suffering can hardly fail to awaken 
compassion in the most pitiless heart ; but the sympathetic 
dispositions of men vary greatly, both in regard to the 
beings with whose sufferings they are ready to sympathise, 
and with reference to the ijitensity of the emotion. The 
same holds good for the moral emotions. The existing 
diversity of opinion as to the rights of different classes 
of men, and of the lower animals, which springs from 
emotional differences, may no doubt be modified by a 
clearer insight into certain facts, but no perfect agreement 
can be expected as long as the conditions under which the 
emotional dispositions are formed remain unchanged. 
Whilst an enlightened mind must recognise the complete 
or relative irresponsibility of an animal, a child, or a 
madman, and must be influenced in its moral judgment by 
Ihe motives of an act- — no intellectual enlightenment, no 
scrutiny of facts, can decide how far the Interests of the 

^ Marshall, Pain, Pleasure, and Aesthetics, p. 83. 

THE EMOTIONAL ORIGIN 

I 2 

lower animals should be regarded when conflicting with 
those of men, or how far a person is bound, or allowed, 
to promote the welfare of his nation, or his own welfare, 
at the cost of that of other nations or other individuals. 
Professor Sidgwick’s well-known moral axiom, “ 1 ought 
not to prefer my own lesser good to the greater good 
of another/' ^ would, if explained to a Fuegian or a 
Hottentot, be regarded by him, not as self-evident, but as 
simply absurd ; nor can it claim general acceptance even 
among ourselves. Who is that ^‘Another” to whose 
greater good I ought not to prefer my own lesser good ? 
A fellow-countryman, a savage, a criniinal, a bird, a fish 
— all without distinction ? It will, perhaps, be argued 
that on this, and on all other points of morals, there 
would be general agreement, if only the moral conscious- 
ness of men were sufiiciently developed. But then, when 
speaking of a sufficiently developed '' moral conscious- 
ness (beyond insistence upon a full insight into the 
governing facts of each case), we practically mean nothing 
else than agreement with our own moral convictions. 
The expression is faulty and deceptive, because, if intended 
to mean anything more, it presupposes an objectivity of 
the moral judgments which they do not possess, and at 
the same time seems to be proving what it presupposes. 
We may speak of an intellect as sufficiently developed to 
grasp a certain truth, because truth is objective ; but it is 
not proved to be objective by the fact that it is recognised 
as true by a ‘‘sufficiently developed" intellect. The 
objectivity of truth lies in the recognition of facts as true 
by all who understand them fully ^ whilst the appeal to a 
siijficioit knowledge assumes their objectivity. To the 
verdict of a perfect intellect, that is, an intellect which 
knows everything existing, all would submit ; but we can 
form no idea of a moral consciousness which could lay 
claim to a similar authority. If the believers in an all- 

^ Sicl^wick, op. cit. p. 383. a conversation which I had willi him 

" This, in fact, was tlie cxjdanalion rcgiirding his moral axioms, 
i^ivei^ by Professv)r Sidgwick himself in 

OF MORAL JUDGMPZNTS 

good God, who has revealed his will to mankind, maintain 
that they in this revelation possess a perfect moral 
standard, and that, consequently, what is in accordance 
with such a standard must be objectively right, it may be 
asked what they mean by an ’■^all-good” God. And in 
their attempt to answer this question, they would in- 
evitably have to assume the objectivity they wanted to 
prove. 

The error we commit by attributing objectivity to 
moral estimates becomes particularly conspicuous when 
we consider that these estimates have not otily a certain 
quality, but a certain quantity. There are different 
degrees of badness and goodness, a duty may be more or 
less stringent, a merit may be smaller or greater.’ These 
quantitative differences are due to the emotional origin of 
all moral concepts. Emotions vary in intensity almost 
indefinitely, and the moral emotions form no exception to 
this rule. Indeed, it may be fairly doubted whether the 
same mode of conduct ever arouses exactly the same 
degree of indignation or approval in any two individuals. 
Many of these differences are of course too subtle to be 
manifested in the moral judgment ; but very frequently 
the intensity of the emotion is indicated by special words, 
or by the way in which the judgment is pronounced. It 
should be noticed, however, that the quantity of the 
estimate expressed in a moral predicate is not identical 
with the intensity of the moral emotion which a certain 
mode of conduct arouses on a special occasion. We are 
liable to feel more indignant if an injury is committed 
before our eyes than if we read of it in a newspaper, and 
yet we admit that the degree of wrongness is in both 
cases the same. The quantity of moral estimates is 
determined by the intensity of the emotions which their 
objects tend to evoke under exactly similar external 
circumstances. 

• 

^ It. will he shown in a follown’n^ cordance willi the moral law. The 
chapter why there are no degree^ of adjeeliv(‘ '' right means that duly is 
rightness. This concept implies ac- fulfilled. 

THE EMOTIONAL ORIGIN 

Besides the relative uniformity of moral opinions, there 
is another circumstance which tempts us to objectivise 
moral judgments, namely, the authority which, rightly or 
wrongly, is ascribed to moral rules. From our earliest 
childhood we are taught that certain acts are right and 
that others are wrong. Owing to their exceptional im- 
portance for human welfare, the facts of the moral 
consciousness are emphasised in a much higher degree 
than any other subjective facts. We are allowed to have 
our private opinions about the beauty of things, but we 
are not so readily allowed to have our private opinions 
about right and wrong. The moral rules which are 
prevalent in the society to which we belong are supported 
by appeals not only to human, but to divine, authority, 
and to call in question their validity is to rebel against 
religion as well as against public opinion. Thus the 
belief in a moral order of the world has taken hardly less 
firm hold of the human mind, than the belief in a natural 
order of things. And the moral law has retained its 
authoritativeness even when the appeal to an external 
authority has been regarded as inadequate. It filled Kant 
with the same awe as the star-spangled firmament. Ac- 
cording to Butler, conscience is ‘Li faculty in kind and in 
nature supreme over all others, and which bears its own 
authority of being so.” ‘ Its supremacy is said to be 
‘‘ felt and tacitly acknowledged by the worst no less than 
by the best of men.”‘'^ Adam Smith calls the moral 
faculties the vicegerents of God within us,” who ‘‘ never 
fail to punish the violation of them by the torments of 
inward shame and self-condemnation ; and, on the con- 
trary, always reward obedience with tranquillity of mind, 
with contentment, and self-satisfaction.”^ Even Hutche- 
son, v/ho raises the question why the moral sense should 
not vary in different men as the palate does, considers it 

‘ Buller, ‘Sermon 11 . — Upon Hu- 
man Nature,’ in Analogy of Religion y 
p. 403. 

- Dugald Stewart, Philosophy of the 

Active and Aforal Pozvers of A fan, i'. 
302. 

^,,Adam Smith, Theory of Aloral 
Sentiments, p. 235. 

“to be naturally destined to command all the other 
powers.” ^ 

Authority is an ambiguous word. It may indicate 
knowledge of truth, and it may indicate a rightful power 
to command obedience. The authoritativeness attributed 
to the moral law has often reference to both kinds of 
authority. The moral lawgiver lays down his rules in 
order that they should be obeyed, and they are authorita- 
tive in so far as they have to be obeyed. But he is also 
believed to know what is right and wrong, and his 
commands are regarded as expressions of moral truths. 
As we have seen, however, this latter kind of authority 
involves a filse assumption as to the nature of the moral 
predicates, and it cannot be justly inferred from the 
power to command. Again, if the notion of an external 
lawgiver be put aside, the moral law does not generally 
seem to possess supreme authority in either sense of the 
word. It does not command obedience in any exceptional 
degree ; ' few laws are broken more frequently. Nor can 
the regard for it be called the mainspring of action ; it 
is only one spring out of many, and variable like all others. 
In some instances it is the ruling power in a man’s life, in 
others it is a voice calling in the desert ; and the majority 
of {K‘ople seem to be more afraid of the blame or ridicule 
of their fellowmen, or of the penalties with which the 
law threatens them, than of ‘‘the vicegerents of God” 
in their own hearts. That mankind prefer the possession 
of virtue to all other enjoyments, and look upon vice as 
worse than any other misery is unfortunately an imagina- 
tion of some moralists who confound men as they are 
with men as they ought to be. 

It is said that the authority of the moral law asserts 
itself every time the law is broken, that virtue bears in 
itself its own reward, and vice its own punishment. But, 
to be sure, conscience is a very unjust retributer. The 
ifiore a person habituates himself to virtue the more he 

^ Hutchesonj Sys/eni of ]\Ioi-al Phito- 
sophy^ i. 61. 

Idem, Inquiry irtio ihc Original of 
our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, p. 248. 

i6 THE EMOTIONAL ORIGIN chap. 

sharpens its sting, the deeper he sinks in vice the more he 
blunts it. Whilst the best men have the most sensitive 
consciences, the worst have hardly any conscience at all. 
It is argued that the habitual sinner has rid himself of 
remorse at a great cost ; ^ but it may be fairly doubted 
whether the loss is an adequate penalty for his wickedness. 
We are reminded that men are rewarded for good and 
punished for bad acts by the moral feelings of their neigh- 
bours. But public opinion and law judge of detected 
acts only. Their judgment is seldom based upon an 
exhaustive examination of the case. They often apply 
a standard which is itself open to criticism. And the 
feelings with which men regard their fellow-creatures, 
and which are some of the main sources of human happi- 
ness and sufFering, have often very little to do with 
morality. A person is respected or praised, blamed or 
despised, on other grounds than his character. Nay, the 
admiration which men feel for genius, courage, pluck, 
strength, or accidental success, is often superior in intensity 
to the admiration they feel for virtue. 

In spite of all this, however, the supreme authority 
assigned to the moral law is not altogether an Illusion, 
It really exists in the minds of the best, and is nominally 
acknowledged by the many. By this I do not refer to 
the universal admission that the moral law, whether obeyed 
or not, ought under all circumstances to be obeyed ; for 
this is the same as to say that what ought to be ought to 
be. But it is recognised, in theory at least, that morality, 
either alone or in connection with religion, possesses 
a higher value than anything else ; that rightness and 
goodness are preferable to all other kinds of mental 
superiority, as well as of physical excellence. If this 
theory is not more commonly acted upon, that is due to its 
being, in most people, much less the outcome of their own 
feelings than of instruction from the outside. It is ulti-' 
mately traceable to some great teacher whose own mind 
was ruled by the ideal of moral perfection, and whose 

^ Ziegler, Social Ethics^ p. 103. 

OF MORAL JUDGMENTS 

words became sacred on account of his supreme wisdom, 
like Confucius or Buddhad or on religious grouncis, like 
Jesus. The authority of the moral law is thus only an 
expression of a strongly developed, overruling moral con- 
sciousness. It can hardly, as Mr. Sidgwick maintains, be 
said to depend upon the conception of the objectivity 
of duty." On the contrary, it must be regarded as a cause 
of this conception — not only, as has already been, pointed 
out, where it is traceable to some external authority, but 
where it results from the strength of the individuars own 
moral emotions. As clearness and distiiictness of the 
conception of an object easily produces the belief in its 
truth, so the intensity of a moral emotion makes him 
who feels it disposed to objcctivise the moral estimate to 
which it gives rise, in other words, to assign to it universal 
validity. The enthusiast is more likely titan anybody 
else to regard his judgments as true, and so is the moral 
enthusiast with reference to his moral judgments. The 
intensity of his emotions makes him the victim of an 
illusion. 

The presumed objectivity of moral judgments thus 
being a chimera, there can be no moral truth in the sense 
in which this term is generally understood, d'he ulti- 
mate reason for this is, that the moral concepts are based 
upon emotions, and that the contents of an emotion fall 
entirely outside the category of truth. But it may be 
true or not that we have a certain emotion, it may be true 
or not that a given mode of conduct has a tendency to 
evoke in us moral indignation or moral approval. Hence 
a moral judgment is true or false according as its subject 
has or has not that tendency which the predicate attri- 
butes to it. If 1 say that it is wrong to resist evil, and 
yet resistance to evil has no tendency whatever to call 

^ “ Besides the ideal king, the per- the })evsoniricati()n of Wisdom, the 
^onificadon of Power and Justice, Buddha.” (Rliys Davids, Lec- 

inoaicr ideal has played an important hires oii Some Points in the History oj 
)art ii\ the formation of early Buddhist Buddhism^ p. i4l). 
deas regarding their Master. ... It, *’ Sidgwick, op, rif. ]). 104. 
vas the ideal of a perfectly Wise Man, 

• VOL. !• C 

forth in me an emotion of moral disapproval, then my 
judgment is false. 

If there are no general moral truths, the object of 
scientific ethics cannot be to fix rules for human conduct, 
the aim of all science being the discovery of some truth. 
It has been said by Bentham and others that moral prin- 
ciples cannot be proved because they are first principles 
which are used to prove everything else.’ But the real 
reason for their being inaccessible to demonstration is 
that, owing to their very nature, they can never be true. 
If the word “ Ethics,” then, is to be used as the name 
for a science, the object of that science can only be to 
study the moral consciousness as a fact.'^ 

Ethical subjectivism is commonly held to be a dan- 
gerous doctrine, destructive to morality, opening the door 
to all sorts of libertinism. If that which appears to each 
man as right or good, stands for that which is right or 
good ; if he is allowed to make his own law, or to make 
no law at all ; then, it is said, everybody has the na'tural 
right to follow his caprice and inclinations, and to hinder 
him from doing so is an infringement on his rights, a 
constraint with which no one is bound to comply provided 
that he has the power to evade it. This inference was 
long ago drawn from the teaching of the Sophists,” and 
it will no doubt be still repeated as an argument against any 
theorist who dares to assert that nothing can be said to be 
truly right or wrong. 

To this argument may, first, be objected that a scientific 
theory is not invalidated by the mere fact that it is likely 
to cause mischief. The unfortunate circumstance that 
there do exist dangerous things in the world, proves that 
soniething may be dangerous and yet true. Another 
question is whether any scientific truth really is mis- 

^ Bentham, Principles oj Morals and Kthik,’ in Driller Tnternationaler Con- 
Legislation, p. 4. llolfding, Etik, p. gress fur Psychologic in Munchen.^^}^,^ 

Sijq, 

*’ Cf. Simmel, Einleiliing in die LLislory of Greek iViilosophy, 

Mornlwissenschajf i. p. iii. jy, ; VVe.ster- ci. 475. 
inarck, * Normative und psychologisclie 

OF MORAL JUDGMENTS 

chievous on the whole, although it may cause much 
discomfort to certain people. I venture to believe that 
this, at any rate, is not the case with that form of ethical 
subjectivism which I am here advocating. The charge 
brought against the Sophists does not at all apply to it. 
I do not even subscribe to that beautiful modern sophism 
which admits every man’s conscience to be an infallible 
guide. If we had to recognise, or rather if we did recog- 
nise, as right everything which is held to be right by any- 
body, savage or Christian, criminal or saint, morality 
would really suffer a serious loss. But we do not, and 
we cannot, do so. My moral judgments are my own 
judgments ; they spring from my own moral conscious- 
ness ; they judge of the conduct of other men not from 
their point of view, but from mine, not with primary 
reference to their opinions about right and wrong, but 
with reference to my own. Most of us indeed admit that, 
when judging of an act, we also ought to take into con- 
sideration the moral conviction of the agent, and the 
agreement or disagreement between his doing and his idea 
of what he ought to do. But although we hold it to be 
wrong of a person to act against his conscience, we may at 
the same time blame him for having such a conscience as 
he has. Ethical subjectivism covers all such cases. It 
certainly does not allow everybody to follow his own in- 
clinations ; nor does it lend sanction to arbitrariness and 
caprice. Our moral consciousness belongs to our mental 
constitution, which we cannot change as we please. We 
approve and we disapprove because we cannot do other- 
wise, Can we help feeling pain when the fire burns us ? 

*Can we help sympathising with our friends ? Are these 
phenomena less necessary, less powerful in their conse- 
quences, because they fall within the subjective sphere 
of experience ? So, too, why should the moral law com- 
mand less obedience because it forms part of our own 
H^tiare ? 

Far from being a danger, ethical subjectivism seems to 
me more likely to be an acquisition for moral practice. 

ORIGIN OF MORAL JUDGMENTS 

CH. 1 

Could it be brought home to people that there is no 
absolute standard in morality, they would perhaps be 
somewhat more tolerant in their judgments, and more 
apt to listen to the voice of reason. If the right has an 
objective existence, the moral consciousness has certainly 
been playing at blindman’s buff* ever since it was born, 
and will continue to do so until the extinction of the 
human race. But who does admit this ? The popular 
mind is always inclined to believe that it possesses the 
knowledge of what is right and wrong, and to regard 
public opinion as the reliable guide of conduct. We have, 
to be sure, no reasoti to regret that there are men who 
rebel against the established rules of morality ; it is more 
deplorable that the rebels are so few, and that, conse- 
quently, the old rules change so slowly. Far above the 
vulgar idea that the right is a settled something to which 
everybody has to adjust his opinions, rises the conviction 
that it has its existence in each individual mind, capable of 
any expansion, proclaiming its own right to exist, if needs 
be, venturing to make a stand against the whole world. 
Such a conviction makes for progress.

THH NATURE OF THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

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 arc of two kinds : disapproval, or 
indignation, and approval. They have in common 
characteristics which make them moral emotions, in dis- 
tinction from others of a non-moral character, but at the 
same time both of them belong to a wider class of emo- 
tions, 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, disap- 
proval 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 : — 

Uetril mti vo I\niolion.s. 

Resentment. 

Retrilnitive Kindly Emotion. 

Moral 

di.sapjnuval. 

Moral 

a|:)])roval. 

•Aii^^er and 
Revenge. 

Moral limotions. 

Non-moral retri- 
]>ittive Kindly Emotion, 
including Clratitude. 

THE NATURE OF 

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 resent- 
ment, 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 resent- 
ment, in which the hostile reaction is more or less 
restrained by reason and calculation.^ 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, con- 
tains a vehement impulse to remove the cause of pain 
without any real desire to produce suffering.^ 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 tres- 
passer, shows rage and fury in every movement ; ^ 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. 

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 

' C'J\ Ribot , Psychology of the Emo~ the Evolutmia>y Psychology of Feelhigy 

tioNS, p. 220 sqq. , p. I38 -Vr/. 

“ There are some ^ood remarks on Romanes, Animal hitelligence^ p. 

this in iMr. Hiram Stanley’s Similes in 246 S{qq, 

TI 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

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 move- 
ments of the arms and whole body, these are the outward 
vents which the gust of childish fury is apt to take.” ^ 
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,“ 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.”^ That a similar discrimina- 
tion 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. 

In a comprehensive work,^ 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 deter- 
minate direction, for, per sCy and originally, it is 
“ undirected.” ^ 

Sully, Studies in Childhood, p. 232 Kfiistehnrii^ dos Cewissem, h^as [)ro- 
sq. noiinced revenge to be a reaction 

" Darwin, ‘ Ibograpbieal Sketch of against the feeling of inferiority which 
an Infant,’ in Mind^ ii. 288. the aggressor impresses upon liis victim. 

^ Perez, h'irst 'fhroe Years oji Child- Tlie injured man, lie says [ibid, ]>. 40), 
ikood, p. 66 sq. is naturally reluctant to feel himself in- 

Ethnoloj^isihe Sludien ztir i rsteti ferior to another man, and conse(|uently 
Entwickliing der Strafe. strives, by avenging the aggression, to 

® Strictly speaking, tins theory is*u>t show liimsclf etpial or even superior to 
new. Dr. Paul Ree, in his )a>ok /)/e the aggressor. A similar view was pre- 

THE NATURE OF 

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 orlnnocentd 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. “ In early times, 
then, vengeance, according to Dr. Steinmetz, was in the 
main ‘‘ undirected.” 

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 ; ’■ though indeed Dr. Steinmetz doubts 
whether in such cases the unfortunate sufferer is really 
supposed to have committed the deed imputed to him.^ 
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 fimily or his tribe. And 

vic.'usly expressed Ijy Scliupenhauer ^ vSteimiietz, op. di. i. 355, 356, 359, 

{ rarerga iimi J\rralipo/?iena, ii. 475 av/.). 561. 

But Dr. Steinmetz lias elaboraled his “ i. 362. 

theory with an independence and fulness Ibid. i. 356 5</. 

vvhicli make any question of priority ^ Ibid. i. 359 .vy. 
cjuite insignificant. 

•THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

from tnis system of joint responsibility we finally come, 
by slow degrees, says Dr. Steinmetz, to the modern concep- 
tion, according to which punishment should be inflicted 
upon the criminal and nobody else/ Dr. Steinmetz 
believes that the vis agens in this long process of evolu- 
tion 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." On this utilitarian calcu- 
lation 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.’'’ 

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.‘^ 

Under the heading Perfectly Undirected Revenge,” Dr. 
Steinmetz sets out several alleged cases of such so-called sur- 
vivals.'"' I. An Indian of tlic 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 

^ vSteinnictz, 0/). cif. i. 361. 

" Ibid, i. 358, 359, 361 -v./. 

^ Ibid. i. Ill, 

Ibid i. 3O4. 

® Ibid. i. 318 s',p/. 

THE NATURE OF 

SOW atid 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. 'Fhe 
Great Eskimo, as it is reported, once after a severe epidemic, 
swore to kill all white people who might venture into their 
country. 6. I'he 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 sufi'ering of the child. 7. 'Hie Brazilian J'upis 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. TJie Dacotahs avenge theft by 
stealing the property of the thief or of somebody else. 9. Among 
the I'shatrali (Pamir if a man is robbed of his meat by a neigh- 
bour’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 theif 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 tliey 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 mur- 
dered man killed the first man who came in their way, whether 
eiiemy or friend. 14. Among the same people, chiefs who had 
suft'ered 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 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

a tree falls on a Kiiki 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. 

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 ‘Sindirected ” 
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 
II, imply that revenge is taken upon an innocent party in a fit 
of passion ; in cases i 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 indigna- 
tion 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. Iji 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 claii 
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 wliite people were supposed to liave caused the epidemic by 
displeasing the god Tornrark.^ Case 2 points to a superstitious 
belief which is interesting enough in itself, but wliich, so far as 
I can see, is without any bearing whatever on the point we are 
discussing. Case 3 looks like a death-offering. Tlie 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 incom- 
plete. Dieftenbach, the original authority, says that the custom 
in question was called by the Maori tana tapu^ sacred fight, 
^ Pctilot, Les Grands EsifitiniatiXy p. 207 57. 

THE NATURE OF 

or taua toto^ i.e.^ blood. He desciibes 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 
tliat comes in their way, is regarded as sufficient, provided that 
blood is actually shed. All wiio participate in such an excur- 
sion arc tapu^ and are not allowed either to smoke or to eat 
anything but indigenous food.” ^ It seems probable that this 
ceremony was undertaken in order to appease the enraged 
spirit of the dead,“^ and at the same time it may have been 

intended to refresh the spirit with blood."* The question, 

Jiowever, is, W])v was not his deatlt avenged upon the actual 
culprit ? To this Dr. Steinmetz would answer that the de- 
ceased was thought to be indiscriminate in his craving for 

vengeance.^ But so far as the resentment of the dead is con- 

cerned, the sacred fight ’’ of the Maoris only seems to illustrate 
the impulsive character of anger. From Dieffenbach’s descrip- 
tion of it, it is obvious that the friends of the slain man con- 
sidered 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 tlie supposed wrath of the dead man’s spirit struck into 
the living, combined pcrliaps 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,^ and 
the gliost of a person who had died a violent death was certainly 
looked upon as especially dangerous. 'Fhc craving for instan- 
taneous shedding of blood is even more conspicuous in anotlier 
case which may be appropriately mentioned in this connectioji. 
The Aetas of the Philippine Islands, we are told, do not always 

^ Dieffcnljacli, 'fraijels in New 
Zealand y ii. 127. 

■’ Cf. ihid. ii, 129. 

I'he latter object is suggested by 
some funeral ceremonies which will be 
noticed in a following chapter. Among 
the Dyaks, “a fatlier who lost his child 
would go out and kill the lir.st man he 
met, as a funeral ceremony,” believing 
that he thus provided the deceased with 
a slave to accompany him to the habita- 
tion of st)uls (Tylor, PriinKroe Culftirey 

i. 459). Among the (laros, it was 
formerly the practice, ‘^whenever the 
death of a great man amongst them 
occurred, to send out a party of assas- 
sins 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 y p. 68). 

■* 'Cf Steinmetz, op. clt. i. 343. 

Taylor, Te Ika a A/auiy p. 221. 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

wait for the death of the afflicted before they bury hiin. 
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 livi/ig creature they meet witli, 
whether a man, a stag, a wild hog, or a buffalo.”^ Dr. 
Stcinmetz liimself quotes some other instances from the same 
group of islands, in which, when a man dies, his iiearest kinsmen 
go out to requite his death by the death of the hist man who 
comes in their way.^ It is worth noticing that tlic Philippine 
Islanders have the very worst opinion of their ghosts, and 
believe that these are particularly bI(X)dthirsty soon after 
death. ^ 

Dr. Steinmetz also refers to some statements according to 
which, among certain Australian tribes, the relatives of a jierson 
who dies avenge his death by killing an innocent man.*^ 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.'''^ In New 
South Wales, after the dead man has been interrogated as to 
the cause of his death, his kinsmen are resolute in taking ven- 
geance, if they ‘^imagine that they have got sure indications of 
the perpetrator of the wrong.” ^ Among the Central Australian 
natives, ‘’Diot infrec|ucntly the dying man will v/hisper in the 
ear of a RaUtchawa^ 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."^ 
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.^ 

^ Karl, Papuan Sy p. 132. 

Steinmetz, op. cit, i. 335 sq. 

^ Blumentrilt, ‘ Dcr Ahncncultii.s tier 
Malaieu des Idiilipj'iinen- Archipcls,’ in 
Miltheilungen dc 7 - Ges^Jhih, in 

,, VVieHy XXV. 166 sqij. De Mas, Infornie 
sobre id estado de las Is las Pilipinas en 
1842, Orije?ty IPc. p. 15. 

Steinmetz, op. cit. i. 337 sq. 

® Hale, U.S. Exploring Expediiion. 

Vol. VI . — El/inography and Philology. 
p. 115; quoted l)y Sleinmety, op. cil. 
i 337- 

I* rase r, Alnvignics oj iVezv Siafth 
J Vales, j). 86, 

^ Spencer and ( iillen, AV/Z/zr 7 Vibes 
of' Cif/tral ylns//-alia, j). 476 sq. 

^ Calvert, Ahorigijies of Western 
Australia^ p. 20 sq. 

3 ° 

THE NATURE OF 

To sum up : all the facts which Dr. Steinmetz nas 
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 ex- 
perience 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.” ’ Many infants, when angry and 
powerless to hurt others, “strike their heads against doors, 
posts, walls of houses, and sometimes on the floor.” " 
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.^ 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. 

In the institution of the blood-feud some sort of 
collective responsibility is usually involved.'* If the 

^ Seneca, De ira^ iii. i. 

Stanley Hall, ‘A Study of Anger,’ 
in AvicHcaji Jour, of Psychoh^^yj x. 554. 

^ Crawfurd, History of the Indian 
Archipel&^gOy 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 nuin “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, ‘ Abori« 
ginal Inhabitants of the Andaman 

Islands,’ in Jour. Ant hr. Inst. xii. 
III). Among the Kar Nicobarcse, 
when a quarrel takes place, in .serious 
ca.ses, 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 pro- 
perty in blind rage, or with some defi- 
nite object in view. 

^ Cf Post, Anfange des Staats- und 
Reehtsleben, p. 180 ; Ree, op. cit. p. 
49 sq. ; Steinmetz, op. cit. i. ch. vi. 

.THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

offender is of another family than his victim, some of his 
relatives may have to expiate his deed3 If he belongs to 
another clan, the whole clan may be held responsible 
for it.‘“ And if he is a member of another tribe, the 

vengeance may be wreaked upon his fellow-tribesmen 
indiscriminately.^ 

‘‘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 
sliould 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.”^ 
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.”*'' 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 neiglibourhood.” 
Among the Maoris, blood-revenge might be taken on any 
relative of the homicide, “no matter how distant.”" In Tana, 

^ Besides the authorities cjuoted Godwin-Austen, ii. 394 ((iaro Hill 

infni^ see Leuschner, in Sleinmetz, tribes). 

Jvtu'hf S7>erh() Itnisse tinxeborenen ^ von Martiu.s, Beitriige zur Eihno- 

Vb/kern in Afrika told Ozcatiieiiy p. 23 graphie AfiierikcC s^ \. 12'] sqq. (Brazilian 

(Bakwiii) ; ibid. ]). 49 (Banaka and Indians). Crawfurd, op. cit. iii. 124 

Bapuku) ; Kautanen, ibid. p. 341 (On- (natives of Celebes). Kohler, in 

donga) ; Walter, ibid. p. 390 (natives Zoitschr. f 7>g/. /\e(ddy7vi.t\\ vii. 383 

of Nossi-Be and Mayotte, Jiear Mada- (Goajiros of Columbia), kbid. vii. 376 

gascar) ; von T.angsdorf, Voyages and (I'apuans of New Guinea). Curr, 7'he 

Tra7jels.,\. 132 (Nukahivans) ; Forbes, Australian Raci\ i. 70. Scaramucci 

A JVaturalisfs IVanderings in the and Giglioli, ‘ Notizie sui Danakil,’ in 

p. 473 (Timorese) ; Archivio per Pantropologia e la etno- 

Foreman, B/iilippine Islands.^ p. 213 login, xiv. 39. Leuschner, in Stein- 

(Igorrotes of Luzon); Kovalcwsky, in inetz, Kechtsverhaltnisse, p. 23 (Bak- 

Joiir. Anthr. Inst. xxv. 113 (j)eople wiri). Ibid. p. 49 (Banaka and 

of Daghestan) ; Idem, Coutione con- Bapuku). 

temporaine et loi ancienne, p. 248 sq. ^ Bridges, in South Auiericaii Alis- 
(Ossetes) ; Merzbacher, Aus den Hock- sionary Magazine, xiii. 15 1 sqq. 
regionen des Jiaukasus, ii. 51 (Khev- ® Maclie, Idneourjcr Island and 
siirs). ^ British Colnnibia, p. 470. 

Bridges, in A Voice for South ® Vuxnz, History of Greenland, \. 178. 

America, xiii. 207 (Fuegians). Dorsey, ^ Short land, Traditions and Snper- 

‘ Omaha Sociology,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. stitions of the New Zealanders, p, 213 

Ethn. iii. 369. Ridley, in four. Antjqr. sq. Cf. ibid. p. 2i8 sq. 

Inst. ii. 268 (Kamilaroi in Australia). 

THE NATURE OF 

revenge “ is often sought in the death of the brother, or some 
other near relative of the culprit.” ^ Among the Kabyles, 
vengeance pent porter sur chacun dcs membrcs de la famille dii 
meurtrier, quel qif il soit.” ^ 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 thh\ or the blood-revenge.^’*^ Among 
tlie people of Ibrim, in Nubia, on the other hand, the same 
traveller observes, it is not considered as sufficient to retaliate 
upon any person withiji the fifth degree ot consanguinity, as 
among the Bedouins of Arabia ; only the brother, son, or 
first cousin can supply the place of the murderer.”^ Traces 
of collective responsibility in connection with blood-revenge 
are found among the Hebrews.^ It has prevailed, or still pre- 
vails, among the Japanese and CoreansJ the Persians® and 
Hindus,'^ the ancient Greeks and Tl'eutons.^^ It was a rule 
among the Welsh and the Scotch in former days,^’^ and is so 
still in CorsicaJ'^ Albania, and among some of the Soutliern 
Slavs.^^ 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 murdererd^ In Albania, under similai' circumstances, the 
victim may be a person vvlio has had nothing else to d : with 
the offender than that he has perhaps once been s]:>eaking to 
him.^® 

There is no difficulty in explaining these facts. The 
following statement made by Mr. Romilly with reference 

’ Turner, Sanioa^ ]). 317. J\'ople of India, p. 195. 

tianoleau and Letoinneux, La lanst, Ali-ayindtes Gentium, 

Kabylie, iii. 6r. p. 42c\. 

Biirckhardl, A'otes on the Bedouins Gotlaaids-Lagoi, 13. 

a/ni JfA/ndys, ]}. Sg See, also, Layaul, Walter, Das ait e I Gales, p. 138. 

Disco 7 'enes in the Kuins of Ninneeh 1 s\‘aG^\x\U-)A\, Ilistoi y of Ci^dlisation 

and Babylon, 306 ; Lane, Alunners in Seotland, ii. 279. 
and Customs of the iModeni Egyptians, ( 'ri e^oroviu.s, IVanderings in Cor- 

i. 133- Eea, i. 179. 

iiurckhardt, Travels in Nubia, (iopcevie, Obaralbanien und seine 

p. p 28 .... P- 324 

^ 2 iHimuel, xiv. 7, Cf. ibid. xxi. Miklosich, ‘ Die EIu( niche bei den 

'' Daiilremcr, ‘ I'he Vendetta or l.er^al Slaven,’ in Denkschriften der kaiserl. 
Revenge in Japan,’ in Trans. Asiatic Akadeniie d. Wissenseh. Philos. -histor. 
Sue. Japan, xiii. 84. Classe, Vienna, xxxvi. 131, 146 sq. 

" Gritlls, Corea, p. 227. Krauts, Sit/e und Braueh der Sndslaz’en. 

^ J 3 piegel, Eranische Allerlhums- p. 39. 
kuna’c, iii, 687. Polak, Persien, ii. 96. Lago, A/eniorie. sulla Dahnazia, ii. 

Dubois, Description of the Cha- 90..^ 
raeter, Manners, and Customs of the Gopcevic, op. cit. p. 325, 

ir TH^ MORAL EMOTIQNS 

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.’’ ‘ Though it may happen 
’ that a manslayer is abandoned by his own people," 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," in which family 
stands against family, clan against clan, or tribe against 
tribe. In such cases the whole group take upon them- 
selves 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 sym- 
pathise with him, is liable to arouse a feeling of resent- 
ment, and may consequently, in extreme cases, have to 
expiate his crime. Moreover, because of the close rela- 
tionship which exists between the members of the same 
group, the actual culprit will be mortified by any success- 
ful 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 him- 
self 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.” ^ 
Among the South Slavonians, in a similar case, the 
avengers of blood first attempt to kill the father, brother. 

' Rotnill)-, IVcsU'ni Pacific and A-cw 
Guinea, ]■». 8i. Cf. Varied richs, ‘ Mensch 
iiml Person.’ in Dac: ylns/and, 1891, 
p. 299. 

* * See, t’.i,''. , SeolL I\(jt>eit.son, I'hc 
Kdfirs of the Hindu Kush ,, ]). 440. 

^ Dr. statement {Die Ge- 

schleclitsgenosscnschaft der ilrzeit, jT. 
156) that the blood -revenge “ charac- 

• VOL. I 

terisilt sich . . . ganz und gar als cin 
Privatkrieg zwischen zwei Gescldechts- 
genossensehaften,” Itowcver, is not ([uite 
rx)rrect in this un(|ualilicd form, as may 
be seen, born von Martins’s de- 

scrijition of the f)loocl-rcvcnge of the 
Ih'azihan Indiatrs, of. ciL i. 127 .vyy. 
Wilkins, Modern Hinduisni, p. 

4JI. 

D 

THE NATURE OF 

CHAl’. 

or grown-up son of the murderer, “ so as to inflict upon 
him a very heavy and painful loss”; and only when this 
has beeii tried in vain, are more distant relatives attacked.' 
The Bedouins of the Eiuphrates 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.”' 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.” In 
these instances vengeance is exacted with reference rather 
to the loss suffered by the survivors than tc> 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 com- 
moner is slain by a nobleman, his death is not avenged 
directly on the slayer, but on some commoner who is sub- 
servient to him.^ 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.'^ If, among the Igorrotes, 
a man slays a woman of another house, her nearest kins- 
man endeavours to slay a woman belonging to the house- 
hold of the homicide, but to the guilty man himself he 
does nothing." 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 
utn.'ost, cannot allow the life of a man to be sacrificed 
for that of a woman, or the life of a nobleman to be 

‘ Krau.ss, o/\ nL p. 39. ^ Munzinj^cr, O^lafnhanisthr 

■’ i^>lunt, Bcdoniii of the dioi^ *» , 

f up/i rates, \{. 20b S(f. HImnentriu, (juuted by .S|)oricer, 

•’ Powers, ’/')-ihes 0/ Calijornia, p. Pri nci p/rs of El hies, sej . 

f' rave Is in I he Philippines, 

p. 213, 

THF. MORAL EMOTIONS 

sacrificed for that of a commoner, or the life of a com- 
moner 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. 

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.^ 
It is only “if they fiil to secure the guilty person that 
the natives of Western Victoria consider it their duty to 
kill one of his nearest relatives." Concerning the West 
Australian aborigines, Sir (jcorge Cirey 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.” ‘‘ Atnong 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 ^ 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 ; ’ and it* is 

‘ f'isojt mid Hovvitf, k^unilivoi and 
/\nrnaf\ p. 22 r. 

” Diiwson, Aushalian 

" ( lrc\ , fom-naJs oj ions^ ii. 

239 . 

Itinilcr, (juc)l(j({ by Ivohicr, iiT 
Zelischr. /'. 7’ero-/, Etchtswiss, xi\', jS’o. 

Uicdtd, /K‘ sinik- rn /vv;, .v/^r/y vp^ 
/VT'.Otv/ iiissc/icn Svitdk’s en Papna, [. 
434 (iuili\ (.*.s of Welti Ty. ( ')ialinei ' 
Pioticerinq' in Axw Oiiinea, p, lyt), 
Kohler, ill Zia (si hr. J . Prrhhwiss 

xiv. 4.'|(> (some Marshall Islanders) 
Merker, ijiioIk! In Kohler, ? 7 nd. \\\ 
S 3 ( vVid.-haega). MreU, Inaian 

i:) 2 

THE NATURE OF 

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 h\iegians, the most serious riots take place 
when a manslayer, whom some one wishes to punish, takes 
refugee with his relations or friendsd 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." With reference to the Creek Indians, Mr. 
Plawkins says that though, df 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.’’ Fhe same is decidedly the case 
in those parts of Morocco where the blood-feud still 
prevails. 

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, ^ 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 

j 

'jyilft’S of (iiiiana^ p. 357. Bcnuiu, ich, loc. tit. p. 131 (Slavs). Wilda, 
Missionary Labours i}i British iiitiana., Strafrecht dor Gerniajion, ]>. 173 sq. 
[). 57. Dali, Alasha, p. 416. Boas, (ancient Teutons). 

‘The Oeiilral Tvskiino,’ in Atm. Kef. ^ Ilyades and Deniker, Mission 

Bur. Ethn. vi. 582. Jacob, Leben so ienfifujiic du Cap Horn., vii. 375. 

dor 7 >oris/dniisohon. Bodz/inen, |>. 144. vt»n Marlins, of. cit. i. 128. 

Kovalewsky, Coufunie oojitefnforaino, Hawkins, in 7 Lans. Ainorioan 

p. 248 (Ossetes). [‘opcndc, Kecht und fithn, St'o. iii. 67. 

Gcrioht in Montonoyroy p. 69 ; Tago, History of Huriazi Marriage, p. 

op, (it, ii. 90 (Monlenegrines). Miklos- 3 .>v/c/. 

THE MORAL EMOriONS 

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. 

On the authority of a zoologist “ wliose scrupulous accuracy 
was known to many persons,” Darwin relates tlie following 
story : — At the Cape of Good Hope an officer had often 
plagued a certain baboon, and the animal, seeing him approach- 
ing one Sunday for parade, poured water into a hole and hastily 
made some thick mud. which he skilfullv dashed over the officer 
as he passed by, to tlie amusement of many bystanders. For 
long afterwards the baboon rejoiced and triumphed whenever 
he saw his victim.”^ Prof. Romanes considers this to be a good 
instance of what may be called brooding resentment deliber- 
ately preparing a satisfactory revenge.” ^ Fhis, 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 
whicli Dr. Steinmetz uses the word, d'he same ma)^ be said 
of other instances mentioneti by so accurate observers as Brchm 
and Rengger in their descriptions of African and American 
monkevs, and of various exam|)les of resentment in elephants 
and even in camels.-^ According to Palgrave, the camel 
possesses the j^tassion of revenge, ami in carrying it out shows 
an unexpected degree of far-thouglited malice, united meanwhile 
with all the cold stupidity of his usual character.” 'The follow- 
ing instance, which occurred in a small Arabian town, deserves 
to be cjuoted, since it seems to ha\ e escaped the notice of the 
students of animal psvchology. A lad of about fourteen had 
conducted a large camel, laden with wood, fiaun that very 
t illage to another at half an hour’s distance or so. As the 

^ Daiwin, DcWcc’?!/ of Jllafi, )>. 69. 
Ronuines, .-liriffial r ^ p. 

47 ^‘ 

nrelmi, J 7 i iorh/u’ri, i. 156. 

From N'mih Foie (o F(/i<aIot\ |). 305. 

{AFli/ri^esr/rie/i/e der 
t hi ere voii Fara^iiay, p. 52) ^ives iIh- 
following infonaation ll\eCay 

“ Kiirclilet er . . . seinon ( Icyni'r, so 
iftnmU er seine /ufUiclU ziir \\‘rstellunj4, 
und sitclu sich ersl danu an iliin zii 
uichen, wenn er ihn unvernuitlicl. 
fallen kann. So hatle ich einen Cjfy, 
welcher melirere Personen die ihn oft 

auf cine j;rol)e Art L;cncckt liallcn, in 
einetn Auycnblicke hiss, wosie im heslcii 
Vernchinen niit. ihin zii sein plauhtcn. 
Nacli vcriihtcr That kleUcMe er sclinell 
anf einen holien Ikdken, wo ni-m ihni 
niclit heikoininen konnle, vind grinste 
schadenfroh den (degenstand seiner 
Raehe an.’’ See, moreover, Watson, 
'J'hc Feasoniny l\nve}- in AnimaF^ 
especially pj). 20, 21, 24, 156 .0/. ; 

Romanes, of . oi /. p. 387 s ////. ; hut also 
Morgan, minima! f ife and /nieiiiyrnee, 
p. 401 iV/. 

THE NATURE OE 

CHAI’. 

animal loitered or turned out of the way, its conductor struck 
it repeatedly, and harder than it seems to liavc thought lie 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 ihey 
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 lu) 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.”^ We are also 
told that elephants, though very sensitive to insults, are never 
provoked, even under the most painful or distracting circum- 
stances, to hurt those from whom they have received no harm.*^ 
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 witli a stick, tried to seize, not the stick, but the hand 
of its tormentor,'^ More interesting is the revenge” which 
an elephant at Versailles inflicted upon a certain artist who had 
employed liis 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.” * 

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 “ selt-feeling ” is an extremely 
common and powerful incentive to resentment. It is so 

^ Palgrave, Narrative of a Year'^s ■'* Aas, Sjaeleliv og intclligens hos 
Journey through Central and Eastern Dyr, \. 72. 

Arabia^ i. 40. -A Smellic, Philosophy of Natural 

“ Watson, op. dt. p. 26 sq. /Jisto?’y., i. 448, 

The moral, emotions 

among savage ^ 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. l.ong 
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.”^ 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. “ Contempt,” 
says Bacon, is that which putteth an edge upon anger, 
as much, or more, than the hurt itself.” ' 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, primordial ly 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. 'Phere 
are genuine specimens of resentment without the co- 
operation of self-regarding pride;" and, on the other 
hand, the reaction of the wounded “self-teeling ” 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 
docs so, not merely in order to enhance his “ self-feeligg,” 

' a’urncr, ‘ Elhnolo^^y of the Ungava of Sierra Leone, i, 21 1, 

Districl,' in Ami. Rep- Rirr. lit/ui. xi. " Soneca, De ira, iii. 28. 

2K) (Hudson Bay Indians). Oeorgi, Plutarch, De eohibenda ira, 12. 

^ Ktiisia,' iii. 205 (Aleuts). Sarasin, Bacoji, ‘Essay lA’II. Of Anger,’ 

Rr<^ebnisse nainrwiss. L'orsehunt^en einf in Es'says', p 5r4. 

Ceylon, ill. 537 (Wnldahs). \a)n Wrede, Bain, L/no/ions and the Will, {). 

Reise in Iladhramaiit , jc 1 5 7 ( Bedouin?). 177- 

WinlcrboUyin, Natii'e Africans in the 

THE NATURE OF 

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.’’ ' 

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.' 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. 

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 resent- 
ment — 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 pro- 
tection tor the animal. Its intrinsic object is to remove 
a cause of pain, or, what is the same, a cause of danger. 
Two different attitudes maybe 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 

^ Boas, /'Vrs/ Coicral Report ofi the ihe British As.sociafi^Mi, 1889, p. 19, 
Indians of Hrilisk Columbia^ read at * - Cf. RiBol. op. eit. p. 221 sq. 
the Nc\vcasiIc-u})oii-Tync meeting- of 

‘THE MORAl. EMOTIONS 

determinant. Both of them are of supreme importance 
for the preservation of the species, and may consequently 
be regarded as elements in the animars mental constitution 
which have been acquired by means of natural selection 
in the straggle 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 accom- 
panied by such suffering, the desire to produce it natur- 
ally, with the increase of intelligence, entered as an 
important element in resentment. The need for protec- 
tion thus lies at the foundation of resentment in all its 
forms. 

Tliis view is not new. iVlorc than one lunuired and fifty 
years before ii)arwin, Shaftesbury wrote of resentment in these 
words : — Notwithstanding its immediate aim be indeed tlie 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 inteiest of the species.’’ ^ 
A similar opinion is expressed by Ihitlei*, according to whom 
the reason and end for which man was made liable to anger 
is, that he might be better (jiialiiied to prevent and resist \'io- 
lence and opposition, while deliberate resentment “ is to be 
considered as a weapon, put into our hands by nature, against 
injury, injustice, and cruelty.”-' Adam Smith, also, believes 
that resentment has been given us by nature for defence, ami 
for defence only,” as being the safeguard of justice and the 
security of innocence.”'^ Exactly the same view is taken by 
several modern evolutionists as regards the ^N*nd” of resent- 
ment, tlunigh they, of course, do not rest contented with saying 
that this feeling has been given us by nature, but try to ex|)lain 
in what way it has deyeloped. “Among members of the same 
species,” says Mr. Herbert Spencer, “ tliose individuals which 
have not, in any considerable degree, resented aggiessions,*must 
have ever tended to disappear, and to liave left behind those 
which have with some effect made counter-aiZ'^ressions.” ^ Mr. 

* ‘ Shalteslniry, ‘ Uicjuiry concerning ^Vdani Sinith, 'J'heory of Moral 

V^irUle or Merit,’ ii. 2. 2, in C/iaraoter' Sonti///i:?ils, jc 113. 

islici's, ii. 145. ^ Spencer, Principh'S of lit hies, i. 

“ Butler, ‘Seinion V'lII. — Upon fve- 361. 
sentinentj’^c/. lit. p. 457. 

THl^: NATURE OI-' 

Hiram Stanley, too, quoting Junker’s statement regarding the 
pigmies of Africa, that ‘‘they are much feared for their re- 
vengeful spirit,” 1 observes that, “other things being equal, the 
most revengeful are the most successful in the struggle for self- 
conservation and self-furtherance.” 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.'^ But this way of 
reasoning, according to wliich the whole mental life would be 
excluded from tlie influence of natural selection, is based on a 
false conception of tlie relation between mind and body, and, 
ultimately, on a wrong idea of cause and effect. 

From non-moral resentment we shall pass to the emotion 
of moral indignation. That this is closely connected with 
anger is indicated by language itself: we may feel indig- 
nant on other than moral grounds, and we may feel 
“ righteous anger.” The relationship between these 
emotions is also conspicuous in their outward expressions, 
which, when the emotion is strong enough, present similar 
characteristics. When possessed with strong moral indig- 
nation, a person looks as if he were angry, '' and so he 
really is, in the wider sense of the term. This relation- 
ship has not seldom been recognised by moralists, though 
it has more often been forgotten. Some two thousand 
years ago Polybius wrote : — “ If a man has been rescued or 
helped in an hour of danger, and, instead of showing 
gratitude to his preserver, seeks to do him harm, it is 
clearly probable that the rest will be displeased and 
offended with him when they know it, sympathising with 
their neighbour and imagining themselves in his case. 
Hence arises a notion in every breast of the meaning and 
theory of duty, which is in fact the beginning and end of 
justice.’’ - Hartley regarded resentment and gratitude 

’ junkLA*, Travels in Africa during ^ Steinmetz, EthtwL Stiidien, ^ 

the Years 1882-1886, p. 85. i. 135. 

“ Minim Stanley, op, cit, p. 1 80. Cf. Notice, for instance, Michelani^elo’.s 

also ( liiyaii, Ksqitissc d' line Morale sans M^i.ses. 

obligation ni sanction^ p. 162 sq. “ l^olybius, Historiae, vi. 6. 

n 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

as intimately connected with the moral sense.” ’ Adam 
Smith made the resentment of the impartial spectator ” 
a corner-stone of his theory of the moral sentiments. 
Butler found the essential difference between sudden and 
deliberate anger to consist in this, that the “ natural 
proper end ” of the latter is to remedy or prevent only 
that harm which implies, or is supposed to imply, injury 
or moral wrong.” And to Stuart Mill, the sentiment of 
justice, at least, appeared to be derived from ^‘the animal 
desire to repel or retaliate a hurt or damage to oneself, 
or to those with whom one sympathises.” ^ 

Moral indignation, or disapproval, like non-moral re- 
sentment, is a reactionary attitude of mind directed towards 
the cause of inflicted pain. In a subsequent chapter we 
shall see that both are in a similar way determined by the 
answer given to the question. What is the cause of the 
pain -a fact which, whilst strongly confirming their 
affinity, throws light upon some of the chief character- 
istics of the moral consciousness. Nay, moral indignation 
resembles non-moral resentment even* in this respect that, 
in various cases, the aggressive reaction turns against 
innocent persons who did not commit the injury which 
gave rise to it. The collective responsibility assumed in 
certain types of blood-revenge is an evidence of this in so 
far as such revenge is not merely a matter of individual 
practice, but has the sanction of custom. And even 
punishment, which, in the strict sense of the term, is a 
more definite expression of public, or moral, indignation 
than the custom of private retaliation, is often similarly 
indiscriminate. 

Like revenge, and for similar reasons, punishment 
sometimes falls on a relative of the culprit in cases when 
he himself cannot be caught. In Fiji, says Mr. Williams, 

the virtue of vicarious suffering is recognised.” It once 
^hjippened that a warrior left his charged musket so 

^ Hartley, Observaiions on Man^ i. ^ Jkiller, op. cit. p. 458. 

520. " ^ Stuart Mill, Uii/ihinaNisfN , p. 79. 

“ Adam op. cit. passim. 

THE NATURE OF 

carelessly that it went off and killed and wounded some 
individuals, whereupon he fled himself. His case was 
judged worthy of death by the chiefs of the tribe, and 
the offender’s aged father was in consequence seized and 
strangled.' 

In other cases an innocent person is killed for the 
offence of another, not because the offender cannot be 
seized, but with a view to inflicting on him a loss, accord- 
ing to the rule of like for like. The punishment, then, is 
meant for the culprit, though the chief sufferer is some- 
body else. According to the Laws of Hammurabi, if a 
builder has built a house for a man and has not made 
strong his work, and the house he built has fallen, and he 
has caused the death of the owner, that builder shall be 
put to death.” But ‘‘if he has caused the son of the 
owner of the house to die, one shall put to death the son 
of that builder.” “ Similarly, “ if a man has struck a 
gentleman’s daughter and caused her to drop what is in 
her womb, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for what was 
in her womb.” But*“if that woman has died, one shall put 
to death his daughter.'’ The following custom which 
Mr. Gason reports as existing among the Australian 
Dieyerie, in case a man should unintentionally kill another 
in a fight, is probably based on a similar principle : — 
“Should the offender have an elder brother, then he 
must die in his place ; or, should he have no elder 
brother, then his father must be his substitute ; but in 
case he has no male relative to suffer for him, then he 
himself must die.” ^ 

This extreme disregard of the suffering of guiltless 
persons is probably not so much due to downright 
callousness as to a strong feeling of family solidarity. The 
same feeling is very obvious in those numerous instances 
in which both the criminal himself and members of his 
family are implicated in the punishment. 

' Williams arid Calverl, /’>//, p. 24. 
“ f.au's' of oiurafiy 229 stj. 
Ihui, 209 s(/. 

Crason, ‘ Manners and Customs of 
tlic Dieycrie Tribe,’ in Woods, Native 
Tribes of South Australias 265. 

n 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

Among the Atkha Aleuts, the punisliment for certain offences 
was sometimes carried so far as to include the wife of the 
offender.^ Among the Ewc-speaking peoples of the Slave 
Coast, a person found guilty of having procured, or en- 
deavoured to procure, the death of another through the agency 
of the gods Huntin and Loko, is put to death, and his family is 
generally enslaved as well.” -^' Among the Matabele, if a person 
is declared by the witch-doctor to have caused ifijury to some- 
body else by making charms, he is immediately put to death, 
his wife and the whole of his family sharing his fate.” Among 
the Shilluks of the White Nile, ‘‘ murder is punished witli 
death to the criminal and the forfeiture of wives and children 
to the Sultan, who retains them in bondage.” ‘ Among the 
Kafirs, in cases of trespasses against the kijig, the sentence falls 
not only on the individual, but on his whole liouse.'* In Mada- 
gascar, the code of native laws, up to recent time, reduced for 
many offences the culprit’s wife and cliildren to slavery.^' In 
some parts of the Malay Archipelago, according to Crawfurd, 
a father and child arc considered almost inseparable, hence when 
the one is punished the other seldom escapes.'^ In Bali, the law 
prescribes that for certain kinds of sorcery the offender shall be 
put to death. It adds, If the matter be very clearly made out, 
let the punishment of death be extended to his father and In’s 
mother, to his children and to his grand-children ; let none of 
them live ; let none connected with one so guilty remain on 
the face of the land, and let their goods he in like manner 
confiscated.” 

The Chinese doctrine of responsibility is to a great extent 
based upon family solidarity ; in great crimes all the male rela- 
tives of the offender are held responsible for his deed. Every 
male relative, of whatever degree, who may he dwelling under 
tlic roof of a man guilty of treason, is doomed to death, with 
the exception of young boys, who are allowed their lives, but 
oji the condition that they are made eunuchs for service in the 
imperial palace.'^ In ancient Mexico, traitors and conspirators 
were not only themselves killed, but their children and relatives 

^ Petrofg ‘ Report on Alaska,’ in 
Tenth Census of the United States^ p. 
158. 

Ellis, Eii^e- speaking Peoples pf the 
Coast, p. 225. 

^ Decle, I'hree Years in Sarage 
Africa, p. 153. 

^ Petherick, Travels in Central 
Africa, ii. 3. 

•'* Kat/.el, History of Mankind, ii. 445. 
Sila'ee, The Great African Island, 
]). iSi. Ellis, History of Madagascar, 
i. 174, 175, 193. 

" C'ravvfurd, op. cit. i. 82, 

Ibid. iii. 138. 

'■ Douglas, Society in China, p. 71 
sq. Ta Tsing Leu Lee, sec. ccliv. }). 
270. 

THE NATURE OF 

were made slaves to the fourth generation^ According to an 
Athenian law, a man who committed sacrilege or betrayed his 
country was banished with all his children. “ , Aristotle mentions 
a case of sacrilege in which the bones of the guilty dead were 
disentombed and cast beyond the borders of Attica ; the living 
clan were condemned to perpetual exile, and the city was sub- 
sequently purified.”'^ The Macedonian law involved iji punish- 
ment the kindred of conspirators against the monarch.^ Diony- 
sius of Halicarnassus states that some of the Greeks ‘‘think it 
reasonable to put to death the sons of tyrants together with 
their fathers, whereas otliers punish them witli perpetual banish- 
ment ” ; and he contrasts this with the Roman principle that 
“ the sons sliall be exempted from all punishment, whose fathers 
are offenders, wh(;ther they happen to be the sons ot tyrants, of 
parricides, or of traitors.” '' But after the end of the Marsic, 
and civil wars, this nde was transgressed and later on Arca- 
dius, though expressly ordaining that the pimisliment of the 
crime shall extend to the criminal alone,^ took a different view 
of the punishment for treason. By a special extension of his 
imperial clemency, he allows the sons of the criminal to live, 
although in strict justice, being tainted with hereditary guilt, 
they ought to suffer tlie punishment of their fatlier. But they 
shall be incapable of inheritance ; they shall be abandoned to 
the extreme of poverty and perpetual ijuligence ; they shall be 
excluded from all honours and from the participation of religious 
rites ; the infamy of their father shall ever attend them, and 
such shall be the misery of their condition, tliat life shall be a 
punishment, and death a comfort,'^ Among the Anglo-Saxons, 
before the time of Cnut, the child, even the infant in the cradle, 
was liable to be sold into slavery for the payment of penalties 
incurred by the father, being “ held by the covetous to he 
equally guilty as if it had discretion.”'^ Even later, the child 
of an outlaw^, following the condition of the father, also became 
an outlaw ; and this grievance was only partly remedied by 
Edward the Confessor, who relieved from the consequences of 
the father’s outlawry such children as were born before he was 

' barici ofu Nafivt’ Races of the Pad- 
fic States, ii. 459. 

■' Meursi us, Pheuiis St/i'ea, ii. 2, in 
( irttiioviiis, 'J'hesaufits (jfaeearam 
Aiitiqifitaiuiii , v. 1968. 

Aristotle, De repiihiiea AtJienien- 
sifiui. I. Cf. ibid, 20, 

^ Ciirlius Kurus, Oe p-est/s A/exa;u/d 
vi. n, 20, 

^ Dionysius of f lalicavnassus, Anti- 
(jiiitates Ro/nanae^ viii. 80. 

Jbid, viii. 80. 

" Codex lusiinianns, i\. 47. 22. 

Ibid, ix. 8. 5. 

•’ f.atvs of Cnut, ii. 77. Cf. I.appen- 
l)eij4, History of England under the 
Anglo-Saxon Kings, ii. 414 ; Wilda, 
op. di. p. 906. 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

outlawed, but not such as were born afterwards.^ During the 
Middle Ages it was the invariable rule to confiscate the entire 
property of an impenitent heretic, a rule which was justified on 
the ground that his crime is so great that something of his im- 
purity falls upon all related to him.^ The Pope Alexander IV. 
also excluded the descendants of an heretic to the second gener- 
ation from all offices in the Church.’^ Owing to religious 
influence, illegitimate children were not only deprived of the 
title of inheritance, but they were treated by some law-books as 
almost rightless beings, on a par with robbers and thieves.'^ If 
a pers )n committed suicide, his goods were confiscated, and, 
according to a French mediieval law, In's wife was besides de- 
prived of her own private property.'' Even in the latter half of 
the eighteenth century, in France, in the case of an attempt 
made against the life of the king, the whole family of the 
criminal was banished.*^ Nay, in various European countries, 
up to quite recent times — in England till 1 870— forfeiture of 
property has been the punishment prescribed for certain crimes, 
including suicide ; ^ which means, if not actually the imposition 
of penalties on the survivors in a case where the culprit himself 
is out of reach, at least a gross disregard of their ordinary 
rights of property. It is hardly necessary to point out how 
often, in the very society in which we live, ^‘social punish- 
ments ” are inflicted upon children for their father^s wrongs. 

For the explanation of these facts we have to remember 
what has been said before about collective responsibility 
in the case of revenge. Speaking of the Chinese doctrine 
of family solidarity, Dr. de Groot observes that, under 
the influence of this doctrine, families, not men indivi- 
dually, came to be regarded, from the Government's point 
of view, as the smallest particles, the molecules of the 
nation, each individual being swallowed up in the circle 
of his kinsfolk.” ^ Such a doctrine assumes that the 
other members of the family-group are, in a way, acces- 

^ I.ti'ges Edwardi Conf 'ssoris^ 19. J)ii l-ioys, llist(dre. dit d)'i)i/ n-iniitu l 

“ Lecky, History of Rationalisffi in dcs penples inoderne.u ii. 236. 

Hiiropef\\. I. Geschichte Hertz, Voltaire loid die fnDizYisiscJtc 

itnd System der miUelaltcrlichen \Vclt- Sfrafrcefitspfle^^e im aeJitzetuden Jahr- 
^aiischaunng, p. 572 ,sv/. Paramo, De hundert^ p. 27. 
orii^ine et progressii Sancti Inqnisitionis, ™ Stephen, History oj the Criminal 

P- 5S7 sq. • Law of EngkrmL i. 487 sq, ; iii. 105. 

Kicken, op. cit. p. 573. ^ ^ do Grout, Religions System of 

^ Ibid. p. 573. China (vol, ii. book) i. 539. 

THE NATURE OF 

series to any crime committed by a fellow-member. 

Human nature/' says Lord Kames, is not so perverse, 
as without veil or disguise to punish a person acknow- 
ledged to be innocent. An irregular bias of imagination, 
which extends the qualities of the principal to its acces- 
sories, paves the way to that unjust practice. This bias, 
strengthened by indignation against an atrocious criminal, 
leads the mind hastily to conclude, that all his connections 
are partakers of his guilt.'' ’ Among the ancients we 
also meet with a strong belief that, according to the course 
of nature, wicked fathers have wicked sons. “ That 
which is begot,” says Plutarch, is not, like some pro- 
duction of art, unlike the begetter, for it proceeds from 
him, and is not merely produced by him, so that it ap- 
propriately receives his share, whether that be honour or 
punishment.” " To destroy, or to make harmless, the 
family of an odender may be, not only an act of retalia- 
tion, but a precaution ; according to an old Greek adage, 
‘‘ a man is a fool if he kills the father and leaves the sons 
alive .” This especially holds good for treason, which 
generally suggests accomplices ; and of all crimes for 
which penalties are imposed upon other individuals 
besides the culprit, treason is probably the most common. 
This crime is also particularly apt to evoke the hatred 
of those who have the power to punish, hence the punish- 
ment of it, being closely allied to an act of revenge, is 
often inflicted without due discrimination. Moreover, 
by being extended to the criminal’s family, the punish- 
ment falls more heavily upon himself as well. Again, in 
case the crime is of a sacrilegious character, it is supposed 
to pollute everybody connected with the criminal, and 
even the whole community where he dwells. 

In their administration of justice, gods are still more 
indiscriminate than men. They hold the individual re- 
sponsible for the whole to which he belongs. They 

^ Kaint's, Sketi/ie.'^ of the History of op. cit. viii. 8o. 

Man^ iv. 148. Schnudt, Ethik der alten Griech- 

" De so iniuoiinisvindieta^ eti fu. 126. 

16. Cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

+9 

punish the community for the sins of one of its members. 
They visit the iniquity of the fathers and forefathers upon 
the children and descendants. 

The Sibuyaus, a tribe belonging to the Sea Dyaks, are of 
opinion tluit an an married girl proving with child must be 
offensive to the superior powers, who, instead of always chas- 
tising the individual, punish the tribe by misfortunes happening 
to its members. I'hey, therefore, on the discovery of the 
pregnancy fine the lovers, and sacrifice a pig to propitiate 
offended Heaven, and to avert that sickness or those misfortunes 
that might otherwise follow ; and they inflict heavy mulcts for 
every one who may have suffered from any severe accident, or 
who may have been drowned within a month before the 
religious atonement was made.” ^ According to Chinese 
beliefs, whole kingdoms are punished for the conduct of their 
rulers by. spirits who act as avengers with orders or ap})roval 
from the or Heaven.^*^ Prevalent opiniem in China, con- 

tinuously inspired anew by literature of all times and ages, 
further admits that spiritual vengeance may come down upeJn 
the culprit’s offspring in the form of disease or death.’^ When a 
maimed or deformed child is born the Jafianese say that its 
parents or ancestors must have committed some great sin.'* 
The Vedic people ask Varuna to forgive the wrongs committed 
hy their fathers,'^ Says the poet : — What we ourselves have 
sinned in mercy pardon ; my own misdeeds do thou, C) god, 
take from me, and for another’s sin let me not suffer.” 
Accortling to the ancient Greek theory of divine retribution, 
the community has to suffer for the sins of some c^f its members, 
children for the sins of their fathers." Hesiod says that often a 
whole town is punished with finnine, pestilence, barrenness of 
its women, or loss of its army or vessels for the misdeeds of a 
single individual.''^ Creesus atoned by the forfeiture of his 
kingdom for the crime of Gyges, his fifth ancestor, who had 
murdered liis master and usurped his tlirone.’^ Cytissorus 
brought down the anger of gods upon his descendants by 

SL John, fJfc in the Forests of the '' Rig-l'eda^ ii. 28. 9. Cf. ibid. vi. 
Far East, i. 63. 51-7 ; vii. 52. 2. 

*■“’ dc (.iroot, op. fit. (vol. iv. l)ook) ” Nagelsbach, Nac/thomerische 7 'heo- 

ii. 432, 435. Davis, China, ii. 34 looie des hisehen I 'olksg-faidnnis, p. 

^ ’.^de (irool, op. cit. (v<d. iv, book) ii, 34 sq. Schmiilt, op. cit. i. 67 sqq. 
4 S-- Farncll, Cnfts nj the Creeh States, i. 

^ tirihis, Mihadd s Knipirc, p. 472. 7O sq. 

Rig- Veda, vii. 86. 5. Cf. AtJiai'Shi-^ llvsiod, Opera ct dies, 240 .sy//. 

Veda, V. 30. 4 ; \. 3. 8. ‘‘ Herodotus, i. 91. 

• VOL. I 

E 

rescuing Athainas, whom the Achaians intended to offer up as 
an expiatory sacrifice on behalf of their country.^ When hear- 
ing of the death of his wife, Theseus exclaims, This must be a 
heaven-sent calamity in consequence of the sins of an ancestor, 
which from some remote source I am bringing on myself.” “ 
According to Hebrew notions, sin affects the nation through tlie 
individual and entails guilt on succeeding generations.*^ "I'he 
anger of the Lord is kindled against the cln’ldren of Israel on 
account of Achan’s sin.^ The sin of the sons of Eli is visited 
on his wliole house from generation to generation.*' Because 
Saul has slain the Gibeonites, the Jvord sends, in the days of 
David, a three years’ famine, wliich ceases only when seven 
of Saul’s sons arc hanged/' 'The siiis of Manasseh arc expiated 
even by the better generation under JosiahC The notion of a 
jealous God who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate 
Him,"^ is also frequently met witli in the Old Testament 
Apocrypha. ff"he inheritance of sinners’ children shall 
perish, and their posterity shall have a perpetual reproach.”*’ 
‘•‘The seed of an unrighteous bed shall be rooted out.” /Fhe 
same idea has survived among Christian peoples. It was 
referred to in Canoii Law as a principle to be imitated by 
human justice, and by Innocent III. in Justification of a bull 
whicli autliorised the cofifiscatio?i of the goods of heretics.^“ 
Up to quite recent times it was a common belief in Scotland 
that tlie punishment of the cruelty, oppression, or misconduct 
of an individual descended as a curse on Ins children to tlie 
third and fourth generation. It was not confined to the 
common people ; “all ranks were influenced by it ; and many 
believed that if the curse did not fall upon the first or second 
generation it would inevitably descend upon the succeeding.” 

In the dogma that the whole human race is condemned on 

' vii, 197. 

“ Euripides, (S^^i sq. 

^ Ocliler, I'heoioyy of I he Old Testa- 
nienf, i. 236. Dorncr, Sys/ejfi of Chris- 
tian Doctrine^ ii. 325. Montefiore, 
HUdcrt Lectnres^ p. 103. Robertson 
Smith, Relief on of the SeDiifcs, p. 421. 
Schultz, Old I'estameJit Theology ^ ii. 
308. Bernard, ‘Sin,’ in Hastinj^cs, 
Dii'!io)iary of the Bible ^ \v. 530, 

534. 

^ Joshua, vii. i. 

^ I Santnel, ii, 27 sqq. 

2 Sam net, xxi. i sqq. 

” Deuteronomy., i. 37 ; iii. 26 ; iv. 21. 

2 Kinys., 26 ; xxiv. 3. fere/niah , 

XV. 4 sqq. 

^ Jtxodns, XX. 5 ; xxiv, 7. N^umhers, 
xiv. 18. Dei(teronomy , 9, Cf. 

Lei' it ions, xxvi. 39. 

Ideclesiastieiis, xli. 6. Cf. ibid. 

xvi. 4 ; xli. 5, 7 

IVisdo)}! of Solomon, iii. 16. Cf. 
ibid. iii. 12, 13, \q sqq. 
hdeken, op. cit. }). 572. 

LecIvYj History of Rational is tn f Oi 
Europe, ii. 37 n. 

wStewart, Sketches of the Character, 
of the High landers of Scotland, p. 

127. 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

iiccouiit of the sin of its first parents, the doctrine of collective 

responsibility has reached its pitch. 

Men originally attribute to their gods mental cjualities 
similar to their own, and imagine them to be no less 
fierce and vindictive than they are themselves. Thus the 
retribution of a god is, in many cases, nothing but an 
outburst of sudden anger, or an act of private revenge, 
and as such particularly liable to comprise, not only the 
offender himself, but those connected with him. Plutarch 
even argued that the punishments inflicted by gods on 
cities for ill-deeds committed by their former inhabitants 
allowed of a just defence, on the ground that a city is 
"‘one continuous entity, a sort of creature that never 
changes from age, or becomes different by time, but is 
ever sympathetic with and conformable to itself,” and 
therefore “ answerable for whatever it does or has done for 
the public weal, as long as the community by its union 
and federal bonds preserves its unity.” ^ He further 
observes that a bad man is not had only when he breaks 
out into crime, but has the seeds of vice in his nature, and 
that the deity, knowing the nature and disposition of 
every man, prefers stifling crime in embryo to waiting till 
it becomes ripe.“ 

But there are yet special reasons for extending the 
retribution of a god beyond the limits of individual guilt. 
Whilst the resentment of a man is a matter of experience, 
that of a god is a matter of inference. That some 
particular case of suffering is a divine punishment, is 
inferred either from its own peculiar character, suggesting 
the direct interference of a god, or from the assumption 
that a certain act, on account of its offensiveness, cannot 
be left unpunished. Now experience shows that, in nufny 
instances, the sinner himself escapes all punishment, 
leading a happy life till his death ; hence the conclusion 
is^near at hand that any grave misfortune which befalls 
his descendants, is the delayed retribution of the offended 

’ V\u[:uch, D(: Sera z'/'/rd/r/df “ /did. 20. 

».v 

E 2 

THE NATURE OF 

52 . 

god.^ Such a conclusion is quite in harmony with the 
common notions of divine power. It especially forces 
itself upon a mind which has no idea of a hell with 
post mortem punishments for the wicked. And, where the 
spirit of a man after his death is believed to be still 
ardently concerned for the welfare of his family, the 
affliction of his descendants naturally appears as a punish- 
ment inflicted upon himself. As Dr. de Groot observes, 
the doctrine of the Chinese, that spiritual vengeance mav 
descend on the oflender’s offspring, tallies perfectly with 
their conception that the severest punishment which may 
be inflicted on one, both in his present life and the next, 
is decline or extermination of his male issue, leaving no- 
body to support him in his old age, nobody to protect 
him after his death from misery and hunger by caring for 
his corpse and grave, and sacrificing to his manes.’’ 

The retributive sufferings which innocent persons have 
to undergo in consequence of the sins of the guilty, are 
not always supposed to be inflicted upon them directly, as 
a result of divine resentment. I'hey are often attributed 
to infection. Sin is looked upon in the light of a con- 
tagious matter which may be transmitted from parents to 
children, or be communicated by contact. 

This idea is well illustrated by the funeral ceremonies of the 
Taliitians. When the house for the dead had been erected, 
and the corpse placed upon the platform or bier, the priest 
ordered a hole to be dug in the earth or floor near the foot of 
the platform. Over this he prayed to the god by whom it was 
supposed tlie spirit of the deceased had been required. The 
purport of his prayer was that all the dead man's sins, and 
especially that for which his soul liad been called to the po^ 
tnight be deposited there, that they might not attach in any 
degree to the survivors, and that the anger of the god might be 
appeased.” All who were employed in embalming the dead 
were also, during the process, carefully avoided by every person, 

‘ Cj. Isocrates, Oratio dd pme, 120; - Cf. Scljntidl, op. cit. i. 71 .sv/. (an- 

( iceio, /)c iiatitra Dforuiii., iii. 38 ; cienl Greeks). 

Xai^elsbiK'h, op. oil. p. 33 sq. ■■ de Gn)ot, e/’. oit. (vol. iv. book) ii. 

452. 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

Hs the guilt of the crime for which the deceased had died was 
believed to contaminate such as came in contact with the 
corpse ; and as soon as the ceremony of depositing the sins in 
the hole was over, all who l\ad touched the body or the garments 
of the deceased, whicli were buried or destroyed, fled precipi- 
tately into the sea to cleanse themselves from the pollution.^ 
In one part of New Zealand a service was pty-formed over an 
individual, by which all the sins of the tribe were supposed to 
be transferred to him, a fern stalk was previously tied to his 
person, with which he jumped into the river and there unbinding, 
allowed it to float away to the sea, bearing their sins with it.” 
The Iroquois White Dog Feast, which was held every year in 
January, February, or early in March,'^ implied, according to 
most authorities, a ceremony of sin-transference.^ The follow- 
ing description of it is given by Mrs. Jem Ison, a white woman 
who was captured by the Indians in the year 1755: — Two 
white dogs, without spot pr blemish, are strangled and hung 
near the door of the council-Jiouse. Oji the fourth or fifth 
day the committee,” consisting of from ten to twenty active 
men who have been appointed to superintend the festivities, 
“ collect the evil spirit, or drive it off entirely, for the present, 
and also concentrate within themselves all the sins of their 
tribe, however numerous or heinous. On the eight or ninth 
day, the committee having received all the sin, as before ob- 
served, into their own bodies, they take down the dogs, and 
after having transfused the whole of it Into one of their own 
number, he, by a peculiar sleight of hand, or kind of magic, 
works it all out of himself into the dogs. The dogs, thus 
loaded with all tlie sins of the people, are placed upon a pile of 
wood that is directly set on fire. Here they are burnt, 
together with the sins with which they were loaded.” ^ Among 
the Badagas of India, at a burial, ‘‘an elder, standing by the 
corpse, offers up a prayer that the dead may not go to hell, that 
the sins committed on eartJi may be forgiven, and that the sins 
may be borne by a calf, which is let loose in tlie jungle and 
used thenceforth for no manner of work.” At Utcli-Kurgan, 
in Turkestan, Mr. Schuyler saw an old man, constantly 

^ Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 401 
S(jq. 

Taylor, Te Ika a Mam, p. loi. 

^ Beauchamp, ‘ Iroquois White T>og 
•r* 0 ast,’ in' American Antiquarian, vii. 
236 sq. Hale, ‘Iroquois Sacrifice of 
the White Dog,’ ibid. vii. 7. 

Beauchamp, loc. cit, [). 237 sq. '• 
Seaver, AArrath'c of (he Life of 

Mrs. Mary Jeniison, p. 158 sqq. Cf 
Mr. Clark’s description, quoted by 
Beauchamp, loc. cit. p. 238. 

•'Thurston, ‘Badagas of the Nib 
giris,’ ill the Madras Government Mu- 
seum’s Bulletin, ii. 4. Cf. Metz, 
'Bribes inhabiiing the Neilyherry Hills, 
p. 78 ; Graul, Rrise nach Ostindicn, 
iii. 296 sqq. 

THE NATURE OF 

engaged in prayer, who was said to be an iskatchi^ that is, a 
persoji who gets his living by taking on liinisclf the sins of the 
dead, and thenceforth devoting his life to, prayer for their 
souls.” ^ 

In ancient Peru, an Inca, after confession of guilt, bathed in 
a neighbouring river, and repeated this formula : — O thou 
River, receive the sins I have this day confessed unto the Sun, 
carry them down to the sea, and let them never more appear.” '-^' 
According to Vedic beliefs, sin is a contamination which may 
be inherited, or contracted in various ways,'^ and of which the 
sinner tries to rid himself by transferring it to some enemy,* or 
by invoking the gods of water or fire.'"' It is washed out by 
Varuna, in his capacity of a water-god,*' and by I'rita, another 
water-god,’^ and even by the Waters ” in general, as appears 
from the prayer addressed to them : — “ O Waters, carry off 
whatever sin is in me and untruth.” For a similar reason, as 
it seems, water became in the later, Brahmanic age, the essence 
(sap) of immortality ” and tlie belief in its purifying power 
still survives in modern India. No sin is too heinous to be 
removed, no character too black to be washed clean, by the 
waters of Ganges.^** At sacred places of pilgrimage on the 
banks of rivers, the Hindus perform special religious shavings 
for the purpose of purifying soul and body from pollution ; and 
persons who liave committed great crimes or are troubled by 
uneasy consciences, travel lumdreds of miles to such holy places, 
where they may be released from every sin by first being re- 
lieved of every hair and then plunging into the sacred stream.” 
So, also, according to Hindu beliefs, contact with cows purifies, 
and, as in the Parsi ritual, the dung and urine of cows have the 
power of preventing or cleansing away not only material, but 
moral defilements.^*'^ In post-Homeric Greece, individuals and a 
whole people were cleansed from their sins by water or some 
other material means of purification.*'^ Plutarch, after observing 

^ Schuyler, 'rurki.stan, ii. 28. 

- 1 ylor, rrimidvc Culture^ ii. 435. 
Athaj va- Veda^ v. 30. 4 ; x. 3. 8 ; 
vii. 64. I sq. Cf. Ol( 1 enl)erg, Religion 
des fdda, 290. 

** Rig- Veda, x. 36. 9; x. 37. 12. 

/bid. X. 164. 3. Alharva- Idda, 
vii. 64. 2. , Cf. Kaegi, /\ ig- Veda, p. 
157; Oklenbcrg, op. oil. pj). 291-298, 
319 sqq. 

‘‘ Cy. Hopkins, Religions of India, 
]')p. 65 n. I, 66- 

" Alharva- ]dda, vi. 113. i sq(f. 

Rig- Veda, i. 23. 22. Sin is also 

looked upon as a galling chain from the 
captivity of which release is besought 
{ibid. i. 24. 9, 13 sq. ; n.^27. 16 ; ii. 
2 ^. S ; V. 85. 8 ; vi. 74. 3 ; ike.). 

Hopkins, oj). eit. p. 196. 

Mother Williams, Rrdhtnanisni and 
Ilindiiism, p. 347. 

Ibid. p. 375. 

Ikirtli, Religions of India, p. 264. 
Laws of Plan It, iii. 206; v. 105, li'i, 
124 ; xi. no, 203, 213. 

Stengel, Die gricehischen KuUns- 
a\fertii liter, p. 138 sqq. 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

that there are other properties that have connection and 
communication, and that transfer themselves from one thing to 
another with incredible quickness and over immense distances,” 
asks whether it is more wonderful that Athens should have 
been smitten with a plague which started in Arabia, than that, 
when the Delphians and Sybarites became wicked, vengeance 
should have fallen on tlieir descendants.”^ The Hebrews 
annually laid the sins of the people upon the head of a goat, and 
sent it away into the wilderness ; ^ and they cleansed every 
impurity with consecrated water or the sprinkling of blood.^ 
'Fo this day, the Jews in Morocco, on their New-Year’s day, 
go to the sea-shore, or to some spring, and remove their sins by 
throwing stones into the water. 'Die words of the Psalmist, 
^^Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me 
from my sin,”^ were not altogether a ligiire of speech ; nor is 
Christian baptism originally a mere symbol. Its result is 
forgiveness of sins; by the water, as a medium of the Holy 
Ghost, the stains of sin are waslied away.” That sin is 
contagious has been expressly stated by Christian writers. 
Novatian says that the one is defiled by the sin of the other, 
and the idolatry of the transgressor passes over to him who does 
not transgress.” ” 

In this materialistic conception of sin there is an obvious 
confusion between cause and effect, between the sin and 
its punishment. Sin is looked upon as a substance charged 
with injurious energy, which will sooner or later discharge 
itself to the discomfort or destruction of anybody who is 
infected with it. 'The sick Chinese says of his disease, 
“ it is my sin,” instead of saying, it is the punishment of 
my sin.” Both in Hebrew and in the Vedic language 
the word for sin is used in a similar way. ’’ ‘‘ In the con- 

sciousness of the pious Israelite,” Professor Schultz 
observes, ‘‘ sin, guilt, and punishment, are ideas so directly 
connected that the words for them are interchangeable.” 

* I^lularch, Dt; sera mini ini sviiidieta^ 

14, 

“ Leviticus^ xvi. 

N timbers^ viii. 7 ; xix. 4 9, r^.sv/^/. ; 
,^xi. 23.' lA'vitiens^ xvi. 14 .svyy. 
Psalms, li. 2. 
llarnack, o/^. ciL ii. 140 
Calcehism of the Council of I'rokJl, 
ii. 2. 10, p. 162. 

' by llarnack, op. cil. ii. 

1 19. 

Edkins, China, p. 134. 

^ Hol/.inaii, ‘ Siiiule Lind Siihne in den 
Rij^vcdahyiiinen und den P.salnien,’ in 
Zeitschr. /'. Volkerpsyc hoi oi^ie , x\'. 9. 

Schult/., op. l it. ii. 306. Cy’ Curtiss, 
Primitive Semilie Religion To-day, ]i. 
124 jv/y. 

I’HE NATURE OF 

The prophets frequently and emphatically declare that 
there is in sin itself a power which must destroy the 
sinner.' So, too, as M. Bergaigne points out, there is in 
the Vedic notion of sin,. “ la croyance a une sorte de vertu 
propre du pt^che, grace a laquelle il produit de lui-meme 
son effet necessaire, a savoir le chatiment du pc^ch'eur.” - 
Sins are thus treated like diseases, or the germs of diseases, 
of which patients likewise try to rid themselves by washing 
or burning, or which are described — in the very language 
often applied to sins- — as fetters which hold them chained. 
All kinds of evil are in this way materialised. The 
Shamanistic peoples of Siberia, says Georgi, “ hold evil to 
be a self-existing substance which they call by an infinitude 
of particular names.” *' According to Moorish ideas, 
l-hasy or “ misfoi'tune,” is a kind of infection, which may 
be contracted by contact and removed by water or fire ; 
hence in all parts of Morocco water- and fire-ceremonies 
are performed annually, either on the Gj/z^r-eve or at 
midsummer, l-anuira^ for the purpose of purifying men, 
animals, and fruit-trees.'^ And just as the Moors, on these 

^ Ibid. ii. 308 S(j. that they alternate with lu.stralion l)y 

“ Bergaigne, Judixion VtUiiqne, iii. water (see (Irirnin, Teutonic Alytliology., 

163. Cf. Rig-Veda, 132. 5. ii. 588 .vyy. ). On the t)lher hand, in 

Oldenberg, op. cit, p. 288. J >r. Fra/er\s exliaustive description of 

Cieorgi, Russia, iii. 257. these ceremonies I hril to discover a 

The various methods of transferring single fact which would make iMann- 

or expelling evil, which abundantly il- hardt’s hypothesis at all probable. • Dr. 

lustrate the materialistic notions held I'dazer says {op. cit. iii. 301), “The 

about it, have been treated by Dr. cu.stom of rolling a burning wheel down 
PVazer with unrivalled learning { 7 Vic a hillside, which is often observed at 

Golden Bough, iii. i sqq.). 1 have little these times, seems a very natural imita- 

doubt that the fire- and water-ceremo- lion of the sun’s course in the sky.” To 

nics, once practised all over Europe on me it appears as a method of distributing 

a certain day e\'ery year, belong to the the purificatory energy over the fields 

.same group of rites. “ The be.st gene- or vineyards. Notice, for instance, the 

ral ex|)lanation of these Euroj^ean fire- following statements: — In the Rhdn 

festivals,” says Dr. J^'razer {ibid. iii. Mountains, Bavaria, “ a w heel wrapt in 

300)^ “seems to be the one given by combu.stibles, was kindled and rolled 

Mannhardt, namely, that they are sun- down tlie hill; and the young {people 

charms or magical ceremonies intended rushed about the fields wdth their biirn- 

to ensure a proper supply of sun.shine ing torches and brooms. . . . In neigh- 

for men, animals, and plants.” But it bouring villages of Iles.se ... it is 

should be noticed that m Europe, as in thought that wherever the Imrniftg 

Morocco, a purificahjry [lurpo.sc is ex- wheels roll, the fields will be .safe from 

pressly ascribed to them by the very hail and storm ” iii. 243 .yy. }. At 

persons by whom they are practised \>:;>lkmar.sen, in Ilcsse, “ in some places 

(see Frazer, e/. cit, iii. 238 ), and tar-barrels or wTeels wrapt in straw used 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

occasions, rid themselves of l-bas^ so, in modern Greece, 
the women make a fire on Midsummer Eve, and jump 
over it, crying, I leave my sins.” ^ 

Closely connected with the primitive conception of sin, 
is that of a curse. In fact, the injurious energy attributed 
to a sinful act, is in many cases obviously due to the curse 
of a god. The curse is looked upon as a baneful substance, 
as a miasma which injures or destroys anybody to whom it 
cleaves. The curse of Moses was said to lie on mount 
Ebal, ready to descend with punishments whenever there 
was an occasion for it.‘^ The Arabs, when being cursed, 
sometimes lay themselves down on the ground so that the 
curse, instead of hitting them, may fly over their bodies.*^ 
According to Teutonic notions, curses alight, settle, 
cling, they take flight, and turn home as birds to their 
nests.'* It is the vulgar opinion in Ireland “ that a curse 
once uttered must alight on something : it will float in 
the air seven years, and may descend any moment on the 
party it was aimed at ; if his guardian angel but forsake 
him, it takes forthwith the shape of some misfortune, 
sickness or temptation, and strikes his devoted head.” ^ 
We shall later on see that curses are communicated 
through material media. In some parts of Morocco, if a 
man is not powerful enough to avenge an infringement on 
his marriage-bed, he leaves seven tufts of hair on his head, 
and goes to another tribe to ask for help. This is l-ar^ 
a conditional curse, which is first seated in the tufts, and 

t<j l)e scl oil and llieii scnl. rolling was to disperse tlic aerial dragons 
down the l)illside. In <jthers the boys iii. 267). It would carry me too far 
light torches and whisps of straw at the from my sul>jccl to enter into further 
bonfires and rush alioul brandishing details. 1 hope t ) deal with the matter 
them in their hands” {ibid. iii. 254). on another oecasi m 
In Miinsterland, “ lioys with blazing * (Irimin, 7/V ii. 623. 

bundles of straw run over the fields to “ Deiiti'rononiy xi. 29. » 

make them fruitful {ibid. iii. 255). Abha}idlii)igc)i zur arab- 

Dr, Frazer says [ibid. iii. 301), The ischcii Philologie^ i. 29. VVellhausen, 
custom of throwing blazing discs, shaped Reste arabischcn }{cidenlitfns\ p. 139, 

like suns, into the air is probably also 11. 4. 
irfi»piece of imitative magic.” Ihit why ^ (Irimm, op. riL iv. 7690. 
should it not, in conformity with other Jbid. iii. 1227. Wood-Martin, 

practices, be regarded as a means of IPaces of the Eider Faiths of lreta 7 idy 
purifying the air? According to oid ii. 57 .v//. 
writers, the object of Midsummer fires 

THE NATURE OF 

from there transferred to those whom he ^ invokes. 
Similarly, a person under the vow of blood-revenge lets 
his hair grow until he has fulfilled his vow. The oath 
clings to his hair, and will fall upon his head if he 
violates it.' 

Generally, a curse follows the course which is indicated 
by the curser. But it does not do so in every case, and it 
has a tendency to spread. In ancient India, and among 
the Arabs ^ and Hebrews,'^ there was a belief that a curse, 
especially if it was undeserved, might fall back on the 
head of him who uttered it. The same belief prevailed, 
or still prevails, among the Irish ; so, also, according to 
an Ivnglish proverb, curses, like chickens, come home 
to roost.” According to Plato, the curse of a father 
or mother taints everything with which it comes in con- 
tact. Any one who is found guilty of assaulting a 
parent, shall be for ever banished from the city into 
the country, and shall abstain from the temples ; and 
‘‘ if any freeman eat or drink, or have any other sort of 
intercourse with him, or only meeting him have volun- 
tarily touched him, he shall not enter iiTto any temple, 
nor into the agora, nor into the city, until he is purified ; 
for he should consider that he has become taiiited by a 
curse.”*’ Plutarch asks whether Jupiter’s priest was for- 
bidden to swear for the reason that “ the peril of perjury 
would reach in common to the whole commonwealth, if 
a wicked, godless, and forsworn person should have the 
charge and superintendence of the prayers, vows, and sacri- 
fices made in the behalf of the city.”' The Romans 
believed that certain horrid imprecations had such power, 
that not only the object of them never escaped their in- 
fluence, but that the person who used them also was sure 

^ The same practice prevailed among 
the ancient Aralis (Wellhausen, op. cif. 
p. 122), and some other cases are re- 
corded by Dr. h'razer [op. cit. i. 370 
«V(/. ). I cannot accept Wellhausen’s 
explanation {op. cit. p. 1 24) that tlie 
hair is tellovved to grow for the purpose 

of being sacrificed wlien the vow is 
fidfdled: 

Atharva- Veda., ii. 7. 5. 

■" Ooldzilier, Abhainiltnip^ea.^ i. 38 .sy. 
^ /tec/esias/icus, xxi. 27. 

Wood- Martin, op. cit. ii. 57 sv/., 
Plato, Leges ix, 881. 

" Plutarch, Qttesiiones Rornanae., 44. 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

to be unhappy.* Among the Arinzes, an oath is reckoned 
a terrible thing : — “ They do not suffer a person, who 
has been under the necessity of expurgating himself in so 
dreadful a manner, to remain among them : he is sent 
into exile.” ^ According to Bedouin notions, a solemn 
oath should only be taken at a certain distance from the 
camp, “ because the magical nature of the oath might 
prove pernicious to the general body of Arabs, were 
it to take place in their vicinity.”'* “To take an 
oath of any sort,” says Burckhardt, “ is always a 
matter of great concern among the Bedouins. It seems 
as if they attached to an oath consequences of a super- 
natural kind. ... A Bedouin, even in defence of his 
own right, will seldom be persuaded to take a solemn 
oath before a kadhy, or before the tomb of a sheikh 
or saint, as they are sometimes required to do ; and 
would rather forfeit a small sum than expose himself to 
the dreaded consequences of an oath.” ’ Exactly the 
same holds good for the Moors. The conditional self- 
curse is supposed in some degree to pollute the swearer 
even though the condition referred to in the oath be only 
imaginary, in other words, though he do not perjure 
himself. This, I think, is the reason why, among the 
Berbers in the South of Morocco, persons who have been 
wrongly accused of a crime, sometimes entirely undress 
themselves in the sainthouse, when going to swear. I'hey 
believe that, if they do so, the saint will punish the 
accuser ; and I conclude that, at the bottom of this belief 
there is a vague idea that the absence of all clothes will 
prevent the oath from clinging to themselves. They say 
that it is bad not only to swear, but even to be present 
when an oath is taken by somebody else. And at Demnat, 
in the Great Atlas, I was told that when a person has made 
oath in a sainthouse, he avoids going back to his house 
the same way as he came, since otherwise, at least if he 

'' Burckhardt, Bedouins and ll'd/td- 

AJ'-''. P- 7;5- 
^ /hid. p. 

^ Idem., 1 1 hi Cas.v/., 1 6 . 
Geor^i, o/>. cit. iii. 54 sq. 

6o 

THE NATURE OF 

has sworn false, his family as well as himself would have 
to suffer. 

If a curse is infectious, it is naturally liable to con- 
taminate those who derive their origin from the infected 
individual. Fhe house of Glaucus was utterly extirpated 
from Sparta, in accordance with the words of the oracle, 
“ There is a nameless son of the Oath-god who has neither 
hands nor feet ; he pursues swiftly, until, having seized, 
he destroys the whole race, and all the house.” ' So, too, 
the Erinyes visited the sins of the fathers even on the 
children and grandchildren and the Erinyes were origi- 
nally only personifications of curses.'* It is said in the 
Ecclesiasticus ; — “ A man that useth much swearing shall 
be filled with iniquity, and the plague shall never depart 
from his house. ... If he swear in vain, he shall not be 
innocent, but his house shall be full of calamities.” ■* 
Casalis remarks of the Basutos, that “ the dreadful con- 
sequences that the curse of Noah has had for Ham and 
his descendants appear quite natural to these people.” 
The Dharkar and Majhwar in Mirzapur, believe that a 
person who forswears himself will lose his property and 
his children but as we do not know the contents of the 
oath, it is possible that the destruction of the latter is not 
ascribed to mere contagion, but is expressly imprecated on 
them by the swearer." Among the Rejangs of Sumatra, 

^ Ifcrodotii.s, vi. 86. Cf, Ife.sitxl, 
Opera et dies^ 282 sijq. 

~ Aescbylii.s, Eunioiides, 934 sqq. 

Ae.scliylu.s {Eunietiides^ 416 sq.) 
fxprcs.sly dcsignatc.s the Erinyes by the 
title of “ curses'’ {apal), and Paiisanias 
(viii. 25, 6) derives the name Erinys 
from an Arcadian vv<jrd signifying a fit 
<jf anger. CY. von La.saulx, ‘ l,>er Eluch 
Itei Griechen und Rdmern,’ in Eer- 
zeichaiis dcr Vorksungen an der jnlius- 
Maxiniilians- Universilaet zn IViirz- 
bnrg ini Sonnner-Seniester 1843, p. 8; 
M liller, Dissertations on the Junnen ides 
of Aeschy/us, p. 1 55 sqq. ; Rohde, 
‘ Paralipomena,’ in 1 \ heinisches Museiun 
fiir rhiloloyie^ 1895, 1^* 

^ Ecclesiastieus^ xxiii. ir. Cf. ibid. 

xli. 5 sqq. ; IVisdoni of So/onion, iii. 
12 sq.y xii. 1 1. 

^ Casalis, Easiitos, p. 305. 

^ Crooke, 7 'ribes and Castes of the 
AErth-lVestern 1 -rovinces and Oiidhy 
ii. 287 ; iii. 444. Cf ibid. i. 132. 

" Among these tribes it is usual to 
swear by “ putting a Immboo on the 
head,” or “ touching a broad-sword, 
touching the feet of a Brahman, holding 
a cow’s tail, touching Ganges water.” 
But among many of the other tribes 
de.scribed by Mr. Crooke, persons 
swear on the heads of their children 
(ihiti. I. II, 130, 172; ii. 96, 138, 339, 
357 ; iii. 40, 113, 251. 262 ; iv. 35), or 
vvjth a .son or grandson in the arms 
{ibid. ii. 428), and in such cases the 

n THE MORAL EMOTIONS 6i 

^‘any accident that happens to a man, who has been 
known to take a false oath, or to his children or grand- 
children, is carefully recorded in memory, and attributed 
to this sole cause.” ^ Among the Karens the following 
story is told : — ‘‘ Anciently there was a man who had ten 
children, and he cursed one of his brethren, who had done 
him no injury ; but the curse did the man no harm, and 
he did not die. Then the curse returned to the man who 
sent it, and all his ten children died.” ^ Fhe Moors are 
fond of cursing each other’s father or mother, or grand- 
father, or grandfather’s father, such a curse being under- 
stood to involve their descendants as well. The Rev. 
R. Taylor says of the Maoris, ‘‘ To bid you go and cook 
your father would be a great curse, but to tell a person 
to go and cook his great-grandfather would be far worse, 
because it included every individual who has sprung from 
him.” 

Thus, from the conception that sins and curses are 
contagious it follows that an innocent person may have to 
suffer for the sin of another. His suffering does not 
necessarily relieve the sinner from punishment ; sin, like 
an infectious disease, may spread without vacating the 
seat of infection. But, as we have seen, it may also be 
transferred, and sin-transference involves vicarious suffer- 
ing. At the same time, this kind of vicarious suffering 
must not be confounded with vicarious expiatory sacrifice. 
As a general rule, the scapegoat is driven or cast away, 
not killed. The exceptions, to this rule seem to be due 
to two different causes. On the one hand, the scapegoat 
may be chased to death, or perhaps be pushed over a 
precipice,^ for the sake of ridding the community as 

death of the child would naturally be Taylor, 7 > Ika a Afaui^ ]>. 2(^. 

expected to follow perjury as a direct ^ AccfU'din^ to the Minima, the 
result of it. Among the Kol, the Iltdnew scapegoat was not allowed to 

usual form of an oath is, “ M^y my go free in the wilderness, 1 nil was killed 

,«ii.hildren die if I lie ” iii. 313). hy being pushed over a })reciijice 

' Marsden, History of Sti?nafra, I'l. (Robertson Smith, Religioji oj the 

240. Semites^ p. 418}. See also the am- 

" /our. Asiatic Soc. Hr l>iguous passage in Servius, fn J t'rgi/ii 

xxxvii. pt. ii. 137. Aencidos^ iii. 57, 

THE NATURE OF 

effectively as possible of the evils loaded on the victim. 
Thus the Bhotiyas of Juhar take a dog, make him drunk, 
‘‘ and having fed him with sweetmeats, lead him round 
the village and let him loose. They then chase and kill 
him with sticks and stones, and believe that by so doing 
no disease or misfortune will visit the village during the 
year.” ^ On the other hand, the transference of evil may 
be combined with a sacrifice. But of such a combination 
only a few instances are recorded, and most of them are 
ambiguous. Considering further that in these cases, or at 
least in the best known of them, the act of transference 
takes place after the victim has been killed, it seems to me 
extremely probable that we have here to do with a fusion 
of two distinct rites into one, and that the victim is not 
offered up as a sacrifice in its capacity of a scapegoat, but, 
once sacrificed, has been made use of as a conductor for 
all the evils with which the people are beset. 

In his list of scapegoats^ Dr. Frazer refers to a case of human 
sacrifice witnessed by the Rev. J. C. Taylor at Onitsha, on 
the Niger.- A young woman was drawn, witli her face to 
the earth, from the king’s house to the river. As the people 
drew her along, they cried, Wickedness ! wickedness ! ” so 
as to notify to the passers-by to screen themselves from wit- 
nessing the dismal scene. The sacrifice was to take away the 
iniquities of the land. 'The body was dragged along in a 
merciless manner, as if the weight of all their wickedness 
were thus carried away”; and it was finally drowned in the 
river. Our informant also lieard that there was a man killed, 
as a sacrifice for the sins of t]ic king. ‘‘Thus two human 
beings were offered as sacrifices, to propitiate their heathen 
deities, thinking that they would thus atone for the individual 
sins of those who had broken God’s laws during the past year. 

. . . Those who had fallen into gross sins during the past year 
—such as incendiarisms, thefts, fornications, adulteries, witch- 
crafts, incests, slanders, &:c. — were expected to pay in twenty- 
eight ngugus^ or £2 os, as a fine ; and this money was 

taken into the interior, to purchase two sickly persons, to be 

^ Atkinson, ‘Notes on the History N.W. iVovinces,’ in Asiatic Soc. 
of in the lliindhiya of the Hungal^ liii. ])t. i. 62. 

- Frazer, op. cit. iii. 109 sq. 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

offered as a sacrifice for all these aboinioahle crimes — one for 
the land, and one for the river.” ^ As will be seen in a follow- 
ing chapter, human sacrifices to rivers are very common in the 
Niger country. In the cases mentioned by the English mis- 
sionary, the idea of vicarious expiation is obvious. JLt I find 
no evidence of actual siji-transference. 

IJ r. Frazer further mentions a custom which, according to 
Strabo, prevailed among the Albanians of the Eastei'ii Caucasus." 
In the temple of the Moon they kept a number of sacred slaves, 
of whom many were inspired and prophesied. When one of 
these men exhibited more than usual symptoms of inspiration 
or insajiity, the lugh priest had him bound with a sacred chain 
and maintained him in luxury for a year. At the end of tlie 
year he was anointed with unguents and led fortli to be sacri- 
ficed, A man thrust a sacred spear into his side, piercing his 
heart. From the manner in which the victim fell, omens were 
drawn as to the welfare of the commonwealth. I 'hen the 
body was carried to a certain spot where all tlie people stood 
upon it as a purificatory ceremony.*^ Dr. Frazer maintains 
that “ the last circumstance clearly indicates that the sins of 
tlie people were transferred to the victim, just as the Jewish 
priest transferred tlic sins of the people to the scapegoat by 
laying his hand on the animaPs head.”^ So it may be, although, 
in my opinion, the purificatory ceremony described by Strabo 
also allows of another interpretation. "Fhe victim was evidently 
held to be saturated with magic energy ; this is commonly 
the case with men, or animals, or even inanimate things, that 
are offered in sacrifice, and in the present instance the man 
was regarded as holy already, long before lie was slain. To 
stand on the corpse, then, might have been regarded as puri- 
fying in consequence of the benign virtue inherent in it, just 
as, according to Muhammedan notions, contact with a saint 
cures disease, not by transferring it to the saint, but by anni- 
hilating it or expelling it from the body of the patient. But 
whether the ceremony in question involved the idea of sin- 
transference or not, there is no indication that the sacrifice of 
the slave was of an expiatory character. The same may be 
said both of the Egyptian sacrifice of a bull, mentioned ’•by 
Herodotus, and of the white dog sacrifice performed by the 
Iroquois. The Egyptians first invoked the god and slew the 
bull. They then cut offs'll is head and flayed the body. Next 

^ Crovvlher and Taylor, Gospt:/ on 
the Hanks of the Niger^ p. 344 sq. 

" Frazer, op. cit. iii. 112 sq. 

Sliabo, xi. 4. 7. 

^ I'razer, op. eif. iii, 1 13. 

THE NATURE OF 

they took the head, and heaped imprecations on it, praying that, 
if any evil was impending either o\'er those who sacrificed or 
over the land of Egypt, it might be made to fall upon that 
head. And, finally, they either sold the head to Greek traders 
or threw it into the river ^ — which shows that the real scape- 
goat, the head, was not regarded as a sacrifice to the god. 
Among the Iroquois, also, the victims were slain before the sins 
of the people were transferred to them. According to Hale’s 
and Morgan’s accounts of this rite, which have reference to 
different tribes of the Iroquois, no mention of sin-transference 
is made in the hymn which accompanied the sacrifice. ^ Only 
blessings were invoked. 'Fhis was the beginning of tlie chant : 
— Now we are about to offer this victim adorned for the 
sacrifice, in hope that the act will be pleasing and acceptable 
to the All-Ruler, and that he will so adorn his children, the 
red men, with his blessings, when they appear before him.” 
Mr. Morgan even denies that the burning of the dog had the 
slightest connection with the sins of the people, and states that 
the religious system of the Iroqiiois, there is no recognition 
of the doctrine of atonement for sin, or of the absolution or 
forgiveness of sins.” 

I think we can see the reason why, in some cases, a 
sacrificial victim is used as scapegoat. The transference 
of sins or evils is not looked upon as a mere natural 
process, it can hardly be accomplished without the aid of 
mysterious, magic energy. Among the Berbers of Ait 
Zeltn, in Southern Morocco, sick people used to visit a 
miracle-working wild olive-tree, growing in the immediate 
vicinity of the supposed grave of Sidi Butlila. They there 
relieve themselves of their complaints by tying a woollen 
string to one of its branches ; in case of headache the 
patient previously winds the string three times round the top 
of his head, whilst, in case of fever, he spits on the string, 
and, when tying it to the tree, says, I left my fever in 
thee, O wild olive-tree.’' Pie believes that he may thus 
transfer his disease to this tree because there is baraka^ 
‘‘ benign virtue,” in it ; he would not expect to be cured 

' I Ici'otlouis, ii. 39. p. 217 St/. 

'' Mule, in A/neruan An/ii/itariaii , ' Male, loi. vit. [>. 10. 

vii. 10 sqcj. Morgan, League of the Morgan, ot>. eit. p. 216. 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

by tying the string to any ordinary tree. This illustrates 
a principle of probably world-wide application. In 
Morocco, and, I presume, in other countries where disease- 
transference is believed in, rags tied to a tree are a sure 
indication that the tree Is regarded as holy. Similarly I 
venture to believe that the transference of sins and evils to 
a scapegoat is generally supposed to require magic aid of 
some kind or other. Among the Hebrews, it took place 
on the Day of Atonement only, and the act was per- 
formed by the high-priest.^ Among the Iroquois, It was 
by a kind of magic ” that the sins of the people 
were worked into the white dogs ; and that the animals 
themselves were held to be charged with supernatural 
energy, appears from the fact that, according to one 
account, the ashes of the pyre on which one of them was 
burnt were ^‘gathered up, carried through the village, 
and sprinkled at the door of every house. Considering, 
then, that sacrificial victims, owing to their close contact 
with the deities to whom they are offered, are held more 
or less sacred, the idea of employing them as scapegoats is 
certainly near at hand. But this does not make the 
sacrifice expiatory. In fact, I know of no instance of an 
expiatory sacrifice being connected with a ceremony of 
sin-transference. Hence the materialistic conception of 
sin hardly helps to explain the belief that the sins of a 
person may be atoned by another person being offered as a 
sacrifice to the offended god. 

A sacrifice Is expiatory If its object is to avert the 
supposed anger or indignation of a superhuman being 
from those on whose behalf it is offered. In various cases the 
offended god is thought to be appeased only by the death 
of a man. But it is not always necessary that the victim 
should be the actual offender. The death of a substitute 
may expiate his guilt. The expiatory sacrifice may be 
vicarious. 

We shall see, in a subsequent chapter, that, as a general 

^ Lc7nticM^, xvi. 21. Heaurlianip, loc. n't. p. 236. 

“ Seaver, op. rit. p. 1 60. 

VOL. I 

F 

THE NATURE OF 

rule, human victims are sacrificed for the purpose of saving 
the lives of the sacrificers : before the beginning of a 
battle or during a siege, previously to a dangerous sea- 
expedition, during epidemics, famines, or on other similar 
occasions, when murderous designs are attributed to some 
superhuman being on whose will the lives of men are 
supposed to depend. But these sacrifices are not always 
expiatory in nature. A god may desire to cause the death 
of men not only because he is offended, but because he 
delights in human flesh, or because he wants human 
attendants, or — no one knows exactly why. It is impos- 
sible to find out in each particular case whether the sacri- 
fice is meant to be an expiation or not ; it is not certain 
that the sacrificers know it themselves. Yet in many 
instances there can be no doubt that its object is to serve 
as a vicarious atonement. 

In Eastern Central Africa, ‘‘if a freeman were to set fire to 
the grass or reeds beside a lake, and cause a great conflagration 
close to the chosen abode of the deity, he is liable to be oifered 
up to the god that is thus annoyed,” but if he be tlie owner of 
many slaves he can easily redeem himself by offering one of 
them in his place.^ The Ojibways, it is said, were once visited 
with an epidemic, which they regarded as a divine punishment 
sent them on account of their wickedness ; and when all other 
efforts failed, “ it was decided that the most beautiful girl of the 
tribe should enter a canoe, push into the channel just above the 
Sault, and throw away her paddle.” - In Bceotia, a drunken 
man having killed a priest of Dionysus Aegobolus, and a pesti- 
lence having broken out immediately after, the calamity was 
regarded as a judgment on the people for the sacrilege, and the 
oracle of Delphi ordered them to expiate it by sacrificing to the 
god a blooming boy.'^ In his work on the Jews, Philo of Byblus 
states that “ it was the custom among the ancients in cases of 
^great dangers, that the rulers of a city or a nation, in order to 
avert universal destruction, should give the dearest of their 
children to be killed as a ransom offered to avenging demons.”^ 
The idea that sins could be expiated by the death of one who 

^ Macdonald, Afncana, i. 96 sq, ^ Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangeltcay 

2 Dorman, Origin of Primitive i. 10. 40. (Migae, Patrologiny Ser. Gr. 
Superstitions y p. 208. Sxi. 85). 

^ Pausanias, ix. 8. 2. 

rr 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

had not deserved it, was familiar to the Hebrews. It was said 
that the death of the righteous makes atonement.” ^ The 
passage in Isaiah liii. 12 was interpreted of Moses, who poured 
out his soul unto death and was numbered with the trans- 
gressors (the generation that died in the wilderness) and bare 
the sin of many” that he might atone for the sin of the golden 
calf.^ Ezekiel suffered that he might wipe out tlie trans- 
gressions of Israel.” ^ And of the Maccabaean martyrs it is 
said, Having become as it were a vicarious expiation for the 
sins of the nation, and through the blood of those godly men 
and their atoning death, divine providence saved Israel which 
had before been evil entreated.” In these cases, of course, 
there was no sacrifice in the proper sense of the term, but they 
obviously illustrate the same characteristic of the divine mind. 
In fact, the death of Christ, by which he atoned and obliterated 
the sins of all ages, was conceived as a sacrifice, or spoken of 
in sacrificial figures.^' 

It is said that, according to early ideas, it did not 
essentially concern divine justice that the punishment of 
faults committed should fall precisely on the guilty ; what 
did concern it was that it should fall on some one, that it 
should have its accomplishment.” Men, we are told, 
could not fail to discern that a transgression produces 
suffering as its consequence, and, seeing this, they 
“ associate suffering with the expiation of sin, and, in 
atoning for their transgressions, they mark their contrition 
by the suffering which they inflict vicariously on the 
victim. They argue thus : ‘ I have broken a law of God. 
God exacts pain as a consequence of such a breach. I 
will therefore slay this Jamb, and its sufferings shall make 
the atonement requisite.’ ” ^ But, so far as I can see, this 
interpretation of the idea of vicarious expiation is not 
supported by facts. The victim whose suffering or death 
is calculated to appease the wrathful god is not anybody 

^ Moore, in Cheyne and Black, Ency- * 4 Maccabaeans, xvii. 22, quoted 
clopaedia Biblica^ iv. 4226. ^ ibid. col. 4232. 

Exodus^ xxxii. 32. ^ See Moore, loc. cit. col. 4229 sqq. 

Sdtdhy 14 A, quoted by Moore, loc, ^ Reville, Pi'olegomena of the History 
cit. col. 4226. of EeligioiiSy p. 135. 

^ Sauhedriji , 39 A, quoted ibid, col^ ^ Bar inj^- Gould, Origin and Develop- 
4226. ment of Keiigiotis Beliefs i. 387 sq. 

F 2 

THE NATURE OF 

at random, whosoever he may be. He is a representative 
of the community which has incurred the anger of the 
god, and is accepted as a substitute on the principle of 
social solidarity. So, also, according to the Western 
Church, Christ discharged the punishment due to the sins 
of mankind and propitiated the justice of his Father, in 
his capacity of a man, as a representative of the human 
race ; whereas in the East, where it was maintained that 
the deity suffered (though he suffered through the human 
nature which he had made his own), the idea of substi- 
tution could hardly take root, since, as Harnack remarks, 
“ the dying Gt?dl-man really represented no one.” ' The 
Greek Church regarded the death of Christ as a ransom 
for mankind paid to the devil, and this doctrine was also 
accepted by the most important of the Western Fathers, 
although it flatly contradicted their own theory of atone- 
ment.^ There can be no doubt that expiatory sacrifices 
are frequently offered as ransoms, in other words, that the 
god or demon is supposed to be appeased, not by the 
suffering of the victim, but by the gift. Among men it 
often occurs that the offended party is induced by some 
material compensation to desist frdni avenging the injury 
— in many societies such placability is even prescribed by 
custom, — and something similar is naturally believed to be 
the case with gods. From this point of view, of course, 
it is not necessary that the victim should be a person who 
is connected with the offender by ties of social solidarity, 
although he may still be regarded as in a way a substitute. 
He may be an alien or a slave ; or animals or inanimate 
things may be offered to expiate the sins of men Among 
the Dacotahs, “ for the expiation of sins or crimes a sacri- 
fice is made of some kind of an animal.” Of the 
Melanesian sacrifices, says Dr. Codrington, “ some are 
propitiatory, substituting an animal for the person who 
has offended.” The Shanafs of Tinnevelly offer up a 

^ Harnack, op, cit. iii. 312 ^ Sclioolcraft, Indian Tribes of the 

^ Ibid. iii. 307, 315 2. *'Uni(ed States ^ ii. 196. 

^ Codrington, Melanesians,, p. 127. 

goat, a sheep, or a fowl, in order “ to appease the angry 
demon, and induce him to remove the evil he has inflicted, 
or abstain from the infliction he may meditate,” ^ It 
would be almost absurd to suppose that in similar cases 
the suffering or death of the animal is looked upon in the 
light of a vicarious punishment. Of the Hebrew sin- 
offering, Professor Kuenen aptly remarks :— ■* “ According 
to the Israelite’s notion, Jahveh in his clemency permits 
the soul of the animal sacrificed to take the place of that 
of the sacrificer. No transfer of guilt to the animal 
sacrificed takes place ; the blood of the latter is clean and 
remains so, as is evident from the very fact that this blood 
is put upon the altar ; it is a token of mercy on Jahveh’s 
part that he accepts it. . . . Nor can it be asserted that 
the animal sacrificed undergoes the punishment in the 
place of the transgressor : this is said nowhere, and there- 
fore, in any case, gives another, more sharply defined idea 
than that which the Israelite must have formed for him- 
self ; moreover, it is irreconcilable with the rule that the 
indigent may bring the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour 
as a sin-offering.”'^ It should also be noticed that a 
purifying effect was ascribed to contact with the victim’s 
blood : the high priest should put or sprinkle some blood 
upon the altar “ and cleanse it, and hallow it from the 
uncleanness of the children of Israel.” ^ 

To sum up : — The fact that punishments for offences 
are frequently inflicted, or are supposed to be inflicted, by 
men or gods upon individuals who have not committed 
those offences, is explicable from circumstances which in 
no way clash with our thesis that moral indignation is, in 
its essence, directed towards the assumed cause of inflicted 
pain. In many cases the victim, in accordance with the 
doctrine of collective responsibility, is punished because 
he is considered to be involved in the guilt — even when 
he is really innocent — or ‘because he is regarded as a fair 

^ Perciv^al, Lmtd of the Veda., p. 309 ^ Kuenen, Religion of Israel^ ii. 

-vy. Cf. Caldwell, Tinucvelly S/idndrs, 266 sg. 
p. 37, « Levitieus^ v. 1 1 sqq. 

■* Ibid. xvi. 18 sq. 

THE NATURE OF 

representative of an offending community. In other cases, 
he is supposed to be polluted by a sin or a curse, owing to 
the contagious nature of sins and curses. The principle 
of social solidarity also accounts for the efficacy ascribed 
to vicarious expiatory sacrifices ; but in many instances 
expiatory sacrifices only have the character of a ransom or 
bribe. 

And whilst thus our thesis as to the true direction of 
moral indignation is not in the least invalidated by facts, 
apparently, but only apparently, contradictory, it is, on 
the other hand, strongly supported by the protest which 
the moral consciousness, when sufficiently guided by dis- 
crimination and sympathy, enters against the infliction of 
penal suffering upon the guiltless. Such a protest is heard 
from various quarters, both with reference to human 
justice and with reference to the resentment of gods. 

Confucius taught that the vices of a father should not 
discredit a virtuous son.' Plato lays down the rule that 
“ the disgrace and punishment of the father is not to be 
visited on the children ” ; on the contrary, he says, if the 
children of a criminal who has been punished capitally 
avoid the wrongs of their father, they shall have glory, 
and honourable mention shall be made of them, “ as 
having nobly and manfully escaped out of evil into 
good.” ” According to Roman law, “ crimen vel poena 
paterna nullam maculam filio infligere potest.”® “No- 
thing,” says Seneca, “ is more unjust than that any one 
should inherit the quarrels of his father.” ' The Deutero- 
nomist enjoins, “The fathers shall not be put to death for 
the children, neither shall the children be put to death for 
the fathers : every man shall be put to death for his own 

1 J.2m 37 /, vi. 4. Cj. T/iiu'-S/iani^\ their appoinleH lot’’ [ihid. ix. 856). 

■’ rUito, Leges, ix. 854 [Mato Jhit this enactineiil liad no doul)t a 

nuikes an exception for those whose purely utilitarian foundation, the off- 

fathers, grandfathers, and great-grand- spring of a thoroughly wicked family 

fathers have successively undergone the being considered a danger to the cityr“" 

penally of death: “Such persons the Digesia, xlviii. 19. 26. Cf. ibid. 

city shall send away with all their pos- xlviii. 19. 20. 

sessions to the city and country of their ^ Seneca, De ira, ii. 34. Cf. Cicero, 
ancestors, retaining only and wholly De officiis, i. 25. 

•THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

sin.” ^ Lawgivers have been anxious to restrict the blood- 
feud to the actual culprit. The Koran forbids the avenger 
of blood to kill any other person than the manslayer him- 
self.'^ In England, according to a law of Edmund, the 
feud was not to be prosecuted against the kindred of the 
slayer, unless they made his misdeed their own by har- 
bouring him.® So, also, in Sweden, in the thirteenth 
century, the blood-feud was limited by law to the guilty 
individual;' and we meet with a similar restriction in 
Slavonic law-books.® 

Passing to the vengeance of gods ; according to the 
Atharva-Veda, Agni who forgives sin committed through 
folly and averts Varuna’s wrath, also frees from the con- 
sequence of a sin committed by a man’s father or mother.® 
Theognis asks, “ How, O king of immortals, is it just 
that whoso is aloof from unrighteous deeds, holding no 
transgression, nor sinful oath, but being righteous, should 
suffer what is not just ? ” ’ According to Bion, the deity, 
in punishing the children of the wicked for their fathers’ 
crimes, is more ridiculous than a doctor administering a 
potion to a son or grandson for a father’s or grandfather’s 
disease.® The early Greek notion of an inherited curse 
was modified into the belief that the curse works 
through generations because the descendants each com- 
mit new acts of guilt.® The persons who prohibited 
the sons of such as had been proscribed by Sylla, from 
standing candidates for their fathers’ honours, and from 
being admitted into the senate, were supposed to have 
been punished by the gods for this injustice : — “ In pro- 
cess of time,” says Dionysius of Halicarnassus, “a blame- 
less punishment, the avenger of their crimes, pursued 

^ Deitterouofny^ xslv. 16. C/. 2 

/vings^ xiv. 6. 

Koran.) xvii. 35. 

^ Laws of E dm 14 nd.) ii. i. 

^ Nordstrom, Bidrag till den svey.ska 
^amhdllsfdrfattningens historia, ii. 
103. 334. 335. 399- Wilda, op. cit. 
p. 174. 

^ Kovalew.sky, Coutu^ne conteinpp- 
raine.) p. 248. In Montenegro, it was 

enjtwned by Daniel T. (i’ost, -d/fgngt' 
des St aatS’ nnd Eeihtslebefi) p. 181). 

^ Alhar 7 U 2 ‘ ^rda, v. 30. 4. Cf. Alac- 
donell, Irdic Mythology^ p. 98. 

” Theognis, 743 sgq. 

^ Plutarch, De sera ntiminis vindicta^ 
19. Cf. ibid, 12; Cicero, Be nalura 
Deoruni) iii. 38. 

^ Fame]], op. di. i. 77. Maine, 
Ancient p. 127. 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS chap, ii 

them, by which they themselves were brought down from 
the greatest height of glory, to the lowest degree of 
obscurity ; and none, even, of their race are now left, but 
women.” ^ Among the Hebrews, Jeremiah and Ezekiel 
broke with the old notion of divine vengeance. The law 
of individual responsibility, which had already previously 
been laid down as a principle of human justice, was to be 
extended to the sphere of religion." “ Every one shall 
die for his own iniquity : every man that eateth the sour 
grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.” ^ ‘‘The soul that 
sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity 
of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity 
of the son : the righteousness of the righteous shall be 
upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon 
him.” ^ 

^ Dionysius of llalicarnassus, o/>. n't. ferennaJi., xxxi. jo. 

viii. tSo, Ezekiel, xviii. 20. t’or Dalinudic 

~ Cf. IMontefiorc, op. eit. p. 220 : views, see Deiilseli, f/iteraiy /le/z/oiNs, 

Kiienen, op. eit. ii. 35 s</. p. 52.

THE NATURE OF THE MORAL EMOTIONS (^Continued') 

It was said in the last chapter that moral disapproval 
is a sub-species of resentment, and that resentment is, in 
its essence, an aggressive attitude of mind towards an 
assumed cause of pain. It was shown that, in the course 
of mental evolution, the true direction of the hostile re- 
action involved in moral disapproval has become more 
apparent. We shall now see that, at the same time, its 
aggressive character has become more disguised. 

This is evidenced by the changed opinion about anger 
^nd revenge which we meet at the higher stages of moral 
development. Retaliation is condemned, and forgiveness 
of injuries is laid down as a duty. 

The rule that a person should be forbearing and kind 
to his enemy has no place in early ethics. 

Let those that speak evil of vis perish. l.ct the enemy be 
clubbed, swept away, utterly destroyed, piled in heaps. Let 
their teeth be broken. May they fall headlong into a pit. Let 
ns live, and let our cnemit^s perish.” Sucli were the requests 
which generally concluded the prayers of the Fijians.^ A 
savage would find nothing objectionable in tliem. On the coji- 
trary, he regards revenge as a duty,‘‘^ and forgiveness of enemies 
as a sign of weakness, or cowardice, or want of honour.^ Nor 

» ' E'ison^ quoted l)y Codrington, cotah.s) ; Boas, Fi?'sf Ue?i€ral Report on 

Melanesians ^ p. 147, n. 1. the Indians of Rritish Colufnbia^ p. 38 ; 

See infra^ on Blood-revenge. Baker, Albert A^yanza^ i. 240 sq. 

CJ. Domenech, Great Deserts qp‘ (I.atiikas). 

North Am eric ay ii. 97, 338, 438 (Da- 

THE NATURE OF 

is this opinion restricted to the savage world. In the Old 
Testament the spirit of vindictiveness pervades both the men 
and their god. The last thing with which David on his death- 
bed charged Solomon was to destroy an enemy whom he 
himself had spared.^ Sirach counts among the nine causes of 
a man’s happiness to see the foil of his enemy.‘^ "Fhe enemies 
of Yahveh can expect no mercy from him, but utter destruction 
is their lot.'* To do good to a friend and to do harm to an 
enemy was a maxim of the ancient Scandinavians.^ It was 
taken for a matter of course by popular opinion in Greece and 
Rome. According to Aristotle, ‘fo't belongs to the courageous 
man never to be worsted ” ; to take revenge on a foe rather 
than to he reconciled is just, and therefore honourable.^' Cicero 
defines a good man as a person who serves whom he can, and 
injures none except whcii provoked by injury.” Except in 
domestic life and in the case of friends, Professor Seeley ob- 
serves, people not only did not forgive their enemies, but did 
not wish to do so, nor think better of themselves for having 
done so. That man considered himself fortunate who on his 
deathbed could say, in reviewing his past life, that no one had 
done more good to liis friends or more mischief to his enemies. 
This was the celebrated felicity of Sulla ; this the crown of 
Xenophon’s panegyric on Cyrus the Younger.” ® 

But side by side with the doctrine of resentment, we 
meet, among peoples of culture, the doctrine of forgive- 
ness. 

Recompense injury with kindneSvS,” says Lao-Tsze.^ Ac- 
cording to Mencius, ‘‘a benevolent man does not lay up anger, 
nor cherish resentment against his brother, but only regards him 
with affection and love.” In the Laws of Manu the follow- 
ing rule is laid down for the twice-born man : — Against an 
angry man let him not in return show anger, let him bless 

^ I Kings, ii. 8 sq. 

^ Ecclcsiasticus, xw. 7. 

i CJ. Mojitefiorc, IJibboi Ixciures, 
p. 40. 

^ Maurer, Bckefirung des Norweg- 
i sc ben Stain nics, ii, 154 sq. 

Maury, Histoire des religions de la 
Grhe antique, i. 383. Schmidt, Eihik 
der alien Griechen, ii. 309 sqq. 

^ Aristotle, Rhetorica, i. 9. 24. Cf. 
Aeschylus, Choeophori, 309 sqq. ; Plato, 

]\Ieno, p. 71 ; Memorabilia, 

h. 6. 35- 

^ Ciicero, De ojficiis, iii. 19. Cf. ibid. 
ii. 14 ; but cf. also ibid. i. 25, where it 
is said that notliing is more worthy of a 
great and a good man than placability 
and moderation. 

^ Seeley, Ecce Plonio, p. 273. 

T(h Teh King, ii. 63. I. According 
to ThdiEhang, 4, a bad man ‘ ‘ broods 
over resentment without ceasing.” 

Mencius, v. i. 3. 2. 

Ill 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

when he is cursed.” ^ It is said in the Buddhistic Dhamma- 
pada : — “ Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time ; hatred 
ceases by love, this is an old rule .... Among men who 
hate us we dwell free from hatred. . . . Let a man overcome 
anger by love, let him overcome evil by good ; let him over- 
come the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth.” ^ According 
to one of the Pahlavi texts, we ought not to indulge in 
wrathfulness ; wrath is one of the fiends besetting man, and 
“ goodness is little in the mind of a man of wrath.” 

In Leviticus hatred is condemned : — Thou shalt not hate 
thy brother in thine heart. . . . Thou shalt not avenge, nor 
bear any grudge against the children of tliy people.” ^ Sirach, 
whom I have already quoted, says in another passage, For- 
give thy neighbour the hurt that he has done unto thee, so 
shall thy sins also be forgiven when tliou prayest.” ^ Accord- 
ing to the Talmud, whosoever does not persecute them that 
persecute him, whosoever takes an offence in silence, he wlio 
does good because of love, he who is cheerful under his suffer- 
ings — they are the friends of God, and of them the Scripture 
says. And they shall shine forth as docs the sun at noon- 
day.”^ The Koran, whilst repeating the old rule, an eye 
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," at the same time teaches 
that Paradise is ^Tor those who repress their rage, and those 
who pardon men; God loves the kind.”® Muhammedan 
‘tradition puts the following words in the mouth of the Pro- 
phet : — Say not, if people do good to us, we will do good 
to them, and if people oppress us, we will oppress them : but 
resolve that if people do good to you, you will do good to 
them, and if they oppress you, oppress them not again.” Pro- 
fessor Goldziher emphasises Muhammed’s opposition to the 
traditional rule of the Arabs that an enemy is a proper object 
of hatred and Syed Ameer Ali has collected various passages 
from the writings of Muhammedan scholars, which prove that, 

^ Laws of A/anu, vi. 4S. Cf ihid. 
viii. 313; INTonier-Williams, Imihin 
IVisdom, pp. 444, 446 ; Muir, Additio) 7 - 
al A! oral and Jlel/gions J^assai^ts, ren- 
dered from the Sanskrit^ p. 30. 

£>hainmapada^ i. 5 ; xv. 197 ; xvii., 
223. Cf. Jdtaka Tales i. 22 ; Oklcii- 
berg, Buddhay [). 298. 

^ .Dmd-i‘Alaindg-i Ivhirad, ii^ l6 ; 
xU. 1 1 ; xxxix. 26. 

'* Leviticus y xix. 17 sq. Cf Exodus ^ 
xxiii. 4, 

Ecclesiasticusy xxviii. 2. Cf ibkL 
X. 6; Proverbs y xxv. 21. 

Dcutscli, Literary Remains^ p. 58. 
Cf. Katz, Der wahre 7 'ahuudjudey p. 1 1 
s]j, 

' /xoran, ii. 190: “Whoso trans- 
gresses against you, transgress ag:«nst 
him like as he transgressed against 
you.’’ 

^ Ibid, iii. 125. Cf ibid, xxiii. 98 ; 
xxiv. 22 ; xli. 34. 

I.ane-Poole, Speeches and Table- 
Talk of Aloha nnnady p. 1 47. 

Goldziher, Ahihaminedanische Stu- 
dieiiy i. I'iiSqq. 

THE NATURE OF 

in spite of what has often been said to the contrary, forgiveness 
of injuries is by no means foreign to the spirit of Islam.^ I hus 
the author of the Kashshaf prescribes, Seek again him who 
drives you away ; give to him who takes away from you ; 
pardon him who injures you : for God loveth that you should 
cast into the depth of your souls the roots of His perfections.” 
That “ the sandal-tree perfumes the axe that fells it,” is a 
saying in everyday use among the Muhammedcins of India,’^ 
And Lane often heard Egyptians forgivingly say, on receiving 
a blow from an equal, God bless thee,” “ God requite thee 
good,” Beat me again.” 

The principles of forgiveness had also advocates in Greece 
and Rome. In one of the Platonic dialogues, Socrates says, 

We ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to any one, 
whatever evil we may have suffered from him ” ; though he 
wisely adds that “ this opinion has never been held, and never 
will be held, by any considerable number of persons.^ The 
Stoics strongly condemned anger as unnatural and unreasonable. 

Mankind is born for mutual assistance, anger for mutual riiin.”’^ 
“ Anger is a crime of the mind ; ... it often is even more 
criminal tJian the faults with which it is angry.” ^ He is the 
best and purest “who pardons others as if he sinned himself 
daily, but avoids sinning as if he never pardoned.” ^ “ If any 

one is angry with you, meet his anger by returning benefits 
for it.”'^^ “ The cynic loves those who beat him.” 

Forgiveness of enemies is thus by no means an exclusively 
Christian tenet, although it has never before or after been 
inculcated with the same emphasis as it was by Jesus. “ Love 
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to tliem that 
hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and 
persecute you.”^^ When St. Peter asked, “ Lord, how oft shall 
my brother sin against me, and I forgive him ? till seven 
times?” Jesus replied, “Isay not unto thee, Until seven 
times ; but, Until seventy times seven,” — that is, as often as 
he repeats the offence. It would seem that Jesus by these 
sentences expressly forbade men to avenge themselves, or even 

^ ^\mcer AH, Ethics of Islam ^ p. 26 

W- 

Ibid, p. 7. Idem^ Life and I'each- 
rngs of Mohammed^ p. 280. 

Poole, Studies in Afohammeda?tism, 
p. 226. 

Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 314 
sq.^ 

Plato, Crito, p. 49. 

^ Seneca, Ee ira, i. 5. 

" Ibid. i. 16 ; ii. 6. 

® Pliny, Epistoht, ix. 22 (viii. 22). 

^ Seneca, op. eit. ii. 34. 

Epictetus, Dissertationes, iii. 22, 
54 - 

AA Matthew, v. 44. Cf ihid. v. 
39 sq, ; vi. 14 sq, ; St. Luke, vi. 27 
sqq. ; xvii. 3 sq. ; St. Mark, xi. 25 sq, 
^'i St. Matthew, xviii. 21 sq. 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

HI 

to feel resentment on their own behalf; and so also he was 
understood by St. Paul.^ 

The rule of retaliation and the rule of forgiveness, 
however, are not so radically opposed to each other as 
they appear to be. What the latter condemns is, in reality, 
not every kind of resentment, but non-moral resentment ; 
not impartial indignation, but personal hatred. It pro- 
hibits revenge, but not punishment. According to the 
Laws of Manu, crime was so indispensably to be followed 
by punishment, that if the king pardoned a thief or a 
perpetrator of violence, instead of slaying or striking him, 
the guilt fell on the king ; and if Lao-tsze was an 
enemy to the infliction of any kind of suffering, it was 
because he held that in a well-governed State the necessity 
for punishment could not arise, as crime would cease to 
exist.** The Chinese book. Merits and Errors Scrutinised, 
which regards it as a merit to refrain from avenging an 
injury, adds that, “ if a man should omit to avenge the 
injuries of his parents, it would become an error.”'' Jesus 
was certainly not free from righteous indignation. It does 
not appear that he ever forgave the legalists who sinned 
against the kingdom of God, and he told his disciples that, 
if a brother who had trespassed against his brother neglected 
to hear the church, he should be looked upon as a heathen 
and a publican . '' Christian writers have laid much stress 
upon the circumstance that Jesus enjoined men to for- 
give their own enemies, but not to abstain from resenting 
injuries done to others. According to Thomas Aquinas, 
“ the good bear with the wicked to this extent, that, so 
far as it is proper to do so, they patiently endure at their 
hands the injuries done to^ themselves ; but they do not 
bear with them to the extent of enduring the injuries ddne 
to God and their neighbours. For Chrysostom says, ‘ It 

^ Romqns, xii. 19 sqq. ; i Thessalo- 
nians^ v. sq, ; Colossiansy iii. 12 sq, 

" Laws of Manu ^ viii, 316, 346 sq, 
Cf Gautama,, xii. 45 ; Apastamba, i. 9. 
25. 5- 

^ Douglas, Confucianism and Taou- 
ism, p. 204. 

^ ‘ Merits and Errors Scrutinised,’ in 
/ndo- Chinese Gleaner, iii. 153. 

* St, Matthew, xviii. 15 sqq. 

is praiseworthy to be patient under one’s own wrongs, but 
the height of impiety to dissemble injuries done to God.’ ” ^ 
Practically, at least, Christianity has not altered the validity 
of the Aristotelian rule that anger admits not only of an 
excess, but of a defect, and that we ought to feel angry at 
certain things." As Plutarch says, we even think those 
worthy of hatred who are not vexed at hateful indi- 
viduals ; and we can sympathise with the man who, hear- 
ing somebody -praise Charillus, king of Sparta, for his 
gentleness, replied, “ How can Charillus be good, who is 
not harsh even to the bad ? ” •* Moreover, the belief in a 
transcendental retributive justice, in an ultimate punish- 
ment of badness, which we meet with in Taouism,^ 
Brahmanism, Buddhism,'' Christianity, “ side by side with 
the doctrine of forgiveness, is based upon the demand that 
wrong should be resented. 

It is easy to see why enlightened and sympathetic minds 
disapprove of resentment and retaliation springing from 
personal motives. Such resentment is apt to be partial. 
It is too often directed against persons whom impartial 
reflection finds to be no proper objects of indignation, and 
still more frequently it is unduly excessive. As Butler 
says, “ we are in such a peculiar situation, with respect to 
injuries done to ourselves, that we can scarce any more see 
them as they really are, than our eye can see itself.” ” 
“ As bodies seem greater in a mist, so do little matters in 
a rage ” ; hence the old rule that we ought not to punish 
whilst angry.® The more the moral consciousness is 
influenced by sympathy, the more severely it condemns 
any retributive infliction of pain which it regards as 
undeserved ; and it seems to be in the first place with a 

^ Thomas Aquinas, Su/nnia Theo^ ^ Cf, Kojiians^ xii, 19: ‘‘Vengeance 
logica, ii.-ii. 108. i. 2. Cf. Lactantius, is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” 
De ira Dei^ 17. Butler, ‘Sermon IX, — Upon For- 

^ Aristotle, Ethica Nicomacheay ii. 7. giveness of Injuries,’ in Analogy of 
to ; iii. I. 24 ; iv. 5. 3 sqq. Religiojiy Cf'c. p. 469. 

^ V\\\{iA.xc\\, De iftvidla et odioy 5. ^ Plutarch, De cohibenda ira, ii. 

Douglas, op. cit. p. 257. Montaigne, Essaisy ii. 31 {OeuvreSy p. 

Dhanimapaday i. 15, 17 ; x. 137 3^96). 

sqq. 

[(I 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

view to preventing such injustice that teachers of morality 
have enjoined upon men to love their enemies. It would, 
indeed, be absurd to blame a person for expressing moral 
indignation at an act simply because he himself happens to 
be the offended party ; practically we allow him to be 
even more indignant than the impartial spectator would 
be, whereas excessive placability often meets with censure. 
Like Aristotle, we maintain that “ to submit to insult, or 
to overlook an insult offered to our friends, shows a slavish 
spirit ” ^ ; and we agree with the Confucian maxims, that 
injuries should be recompensed, not with kindness, but 
with justice, and that nobody but he who deserves it 
should be an object of hatred." 

At the same time, the injunctions of moralists that 
unjust resentment should be suppressed, are far from 
introducing any absolutely new element into the estima- 
tion of conduct. They only represent a higher stage of a 
process of moral development the early phases of which 
are found already in primitive societies. Even the savage 
who enjoins revenge as a duty, regards revenge under 
certain circumstances as wrong.^ The restraining rule of 
like for like, as we shall see, is an instance of this. 

The aggressive character of moral disapproval has 
become more disguised, not only by the more scrutinising 
attitude towards resentment and retaliation which dis- 
tinguishes the moral consciousness of a higher type, but 
by the different way in which the aggressiveness displays 
itself. The infliction of suffering merely for the sake of 
retribution is condemned, and the rule is laid down that 
we should hate, not the sinner, but only the sin. 

Punishment, which expresses more or less faithfully the 
moral indignation of the society which inflicts it, is extern- 
ally similar to an act of revenge ; it causes, or Is Intended 

* Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea^^ iv. 

.5.6. 

Lun Yu, xiv. 36. 3 ; xvii.9. i, 5 ; 
xvii. 24. I. Douglas, Confucianism 
and Taouism, p. 91. Cf. Chimg Yung, 
X. 3 ; xxxi. I ; xxxiii. 4. 

* Concerning the Dacotalis, Prescott 
observes, “ There are cases where the 
Indians say retaliation is wrong, and 
they try to prevent it ” (Schoolcraft, 
Indian Tribes, ii. 197). 

8o 

THE NATURE OF 

to cause, pain in return for inflicted pain. For ages it 
was looked upon as a matter of course that if a person 
had committed an offence he should have to suffer for it. 
Thi s is still the notion of the multitude, as also of a host 
of theorisers, who, by calling punishment an expiation, or 
a reparation, or a restoration of the disturbed equilibrium 
of justice, only endeavour to give a philosophical sanctioi 
to a very simple fact, the true nature of which they too 
often have failed to grasp. The infliction of pain, how- 
ever, is not an act which the moral consciousness regards 
with indifference, even in the case of a criminal ; and to 
many enlightened minds with keen sympathy for human 
suffering, it has appeared both unreasonable and cruel that 
the State should wilfully torment him to no purpose. 
But whilst retributive punishment has been condemned, 
punishment itself has been defended ; it is only looked 
upon in a different light, not as an end by itself, but as a 
means of attaining an end,. It is to be inflicted, not 
because wrong has been done, but in oi'der that wrong be 
not done. Its object is held to be, either to deter from 
crime, or to reform the criminal, or, by means of elimina- 
tion or seclusion, to make it physically impossible for him 
to commit fresh crimes. 

These views were expressed already in Greek and Roman 
antiqiiity.'^ According to Plato, a reasonable man punishes for 
the sake of deterrinii from wickedness, or with a view to 
correcting the offender.’^ Aristotle looks upon punishment as 
a moral medicine/' Seneca maintains that the law, in punishing 
wrong, aims at three ends ; either that it may correct him 
whom it punishes, or that his punishment may render other 
men better, or that, by bad men being put out of the way, the 
rest may live without fear.” In modern times all these theories 
^ have had, and still have, their numerous adherents. According 
to Hugo Grotius, ‘‘^men are so bound together by their common 

^ Cf. Lai.stner, Das Rec/it in der 479. Idem, Leges, ix. 854; xi. 934: 
St)‘afe, p. 9 sqq. ; Thonissen, Le droit xii, 944. 

final de la ripnhliqne Atliinioine, ]■>. ^ Aristotle, Etliica Nicomachea, ii.' ' 

4l^sqq. 3 . 4 . 

“ Plato, D/vta^oras, p. 324. Idem, ^ Seneca, De elemenda , i. 22.. Cf, 
Politiciis, p. 293. Idem, Gorgias, p. Idem, De ira, i. 19. 

HI 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

8i 

nature, that they ought not to do each other harm, except for 
the sake of some good to be attained”; hence man is not 
rightly punished by man merely for the sake of punishing ” ; 
advantage alone makes punishment right — either the advan- 
tage of the offender, or of him who suffers by the offence, or 
of persons in general.” ^ P'or a long time the view taken by 
Hobbes, that the aym of Punishment is not a revenge, but 
terrour,” “ remained the leading doctrine on the subject, among 
philosophers, as well as legislators. It was shared by Montes- 
quieu,*^ Beccaria,^ and Filangieri,*'' by Anselm von Feuerbach ^ 
and Schopenhauer,^ and, in the main, by Bentham/^ During the 
nineteenth century the principle of determent was largely super- 
seded by the principle of reformation ; whilst certain contem- 
porary criminologists — like some previous ones^ — are of opinion 
that punishment should aim to repress crime by an ‘‘ absolute ” 
or relative elimination ” of the criminal, that is, in extreme 
cases by killing him, but generally by incarcerating him in a 
criminal lunatic asylum, or by banishing him for ever or for a 
certain period, or by interdicting him from a particular neigh- 
bourhood.’** 

The advocates of these various theories are unanimous 
n condemning retributive punishment as wrong. With- 
out the grounds of social defence, says M. Guyau, “the 
punishment would be as blameworthy as the crime, 
and . . . the lawgivers and the judges, by deliberately con- 
demning the guilty to punishment, would become their 
fellows.”'^ For my own part I believe, on the other hand, 
that those who would venture to carry out all the conse- 
quences to which the theories of social defence or of 
^formation might lead, would be regarded even as more 
criminal than those they punished, not only by the 

^ (irotius, De jure belli et pads, ii, 
20 . 4 sqt]. 

“ Hobbes, Le 7 >iathaii, ii. 28, p. 243. 
Montesquieu, Lettres Persajies, 81. 
-Ik'ccaria, Dei delitti e dellc pene, 
passim. 

'' I'ilangieri, La scienza della legisla- 
zwjie, iii. 2. Tpj, vol. iv. 13 sq. 

^ von Feiierl)ach-Milteni)aier, l.ehr- 
biteh des j^eaieineii in Deutschland 
giiltigen Peinlichoi Rechts, p. 38 sqq. 

' Sciiopenhauer, Die Welt als VVille 

^ VOL, I 

nnd Vorstellung, ii. 683 sqq. 

^ Bentham, Idinciples of Morals and 
Legislation, p. 170 sq. n. I : “ Ex- 
ample is the most important end of all.” 
Idem, Rationale of Punishment, p. 19 
sqq. 

See von Feuerbacb-MiUermaier, 
op. dt. p. 40. 

Oarofalo, Cri?ninologie,\>. 251 sqq, 
Ferri, Criminal Sociology, p. 204 sqq. 

Ciuyau, Esqnisse d'etat e morale sans 
obligation ni sanction, p. 148. 

G 

THE NATURE OF 

opponents, but probably by the very supporters of the 
theories in question. A brief statement of some of 
those consequences will, I hope, suffice to prove that 
punishment can hardly be guided exclusively by utilitarian 
considerations, but requires the sanction of the retributive 
emotion of moral disapproval. 

The principle of repressing crime by eliminating the 
criminal may at once be put aside, because it has no 
reference to punishment of criminals, although it contains 
a suggestion — and a most excellent one indeed— as to the 
proper mode of treating them. Their exclusion from the 
company of their fellow-men — not to speak of their elimi- 
nation by death — certainly entails suffering, but, according 
to the principle with which we are dealing, this suffering 
is not intended. On the other hand, punishment, in the 
ordinary sense of the word, always involves an express 
intention to inflict pain, whatever be the object for which 
pain is inflicted. We do not punish an ill-natured dog 
when we tie him up so as to prevent him from doing 
harm, nor do we punish a lunatic by confining him in a 
madhouse. 

According to the principle of determent, the infliction 
of suffering in consequence of an offence is justified as a 
means of increasing public safety. The offender is sacri- 
ficed for the common weal. But why the offender only ? 
It is quite probable that a more effective way of deterring 
from crime would be to punish his children as well ; and 
if the notion of justice derived all its import from the 
result achieved by the punishment, there would be nothing 
unjust in doing so. The only objection which, from this 
point of view, might ever be raised against the practice 
of visiting the wrongs of the fathers upon the children, 
ns that it is needlessly severe ; the innocence of the 
children could count for nothing. Nor do I see why 
the law should not allow our own judges now and then to 
follow the example of their Egyptian colleague who in 
intricate lawsuit caused a person avowedly innocent to be 
bastinadoed with the hope ’^that whoever was the real 

Ill 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

culprit might be induced to confess out of compassion^ 
MoreoVfer^ if the object of punishment is merely preven- 
tive, the heaviest punishment should be threatened where 
the strongest motive is needed to restrain. Consequently, 
an injury committed under great temptation, or in a 
passion, should be punished with particular severity ; 
whereas a crime like parricide might be treated with more 
indulgence than other kinds of homicide, owing to the 
restraining influence of filial affection. Could the moral 
consciousness approve of this ? 

Again, if punishment were to be regulated by the prin- 
ciple of reforming the criminal, the result would in some 
cases be very astonishing. There is no more incorrigible 
set of offenders than habitual vagrants and drunkards, 
whereas experience has shown that the most easily re- 
formed of all offenders is often some person who has 
committed a serious crime. According to the reformation 
theory, the latter should soon be set free, whilst the petty 
offender might have to be shut up for all his life. Nay 
more, if the criminal proves absolutely Incorrigible, and 
not the slightest hope of his reformation is left, there 
would no longer be any reason for punishing him at all."' 
The reformationist may also be asked why he does not 
try some more humane method of improving people’s 
characters than by the infliction of suffering. 

It may seem strange that theories which are open to 
such objections should have been able to attract so many 
intelligent partisans. These theories must at least possess 
a certain plausibility. If punishment on the one hand 
springs from moral Indignation, and on the other hand is 
frequently interpreted as a means either of deterring from 
crime or of reforming the criminal, there must obviously 
be some connection between these ends and the retributive 
aim of moral resentment. There must be certain facts 
which, to some extent, fil] up the gap between the theory 
^f retribution and the other theories of punishment. 

^ Burckhardt, Arabic ProverbSj p. p. 203 ; DurkheiiiL Dii'ision dii travail 
103 sq, 0 social i p. 94. 

Cf. Morrison, Crime and its Causes, 

G 2 

THE NATURE OF 

The doctrine of determent regards punishment as a 
means of preventing crime. A crime always involves the 
infliction of pain ; and the one thing which men try to 
prevent for its own sake is pain. The one thing which 
arouses resentment is likewise pain. There must con- 
sequently be a general coincidence between the acts which 
people resent and the acts which the law would punish if 
it were framed on the principle of determent. But the 
resemblance between the desire to deter and resentment is 
greater still. Resentment is not only aroused by pain, 
but is a hostile attitude towards its cause, and its intrinsic 
object is to remove this cause, that is, to prevent pain. 
An act of moral resentment is therefore apt to resemble a 
punishment Inflicted with a view to deterring from crime, 
provided that the punishment is directed against the cause 
of crime — the criminal himself — and is not unduly 
severe. 

The doctrine of reformation aims at the removal of a 
criminal disposition of mind by improving the offender. 
Moral resentment likewise aims at the removal of a 
volitional cause of pain, by bringing about repentance in 
the offender. That repentance ought to be followed by 
forgiveness, partial or total, is a widely recognised moral 
claim. 

According to the Chinese Penal Code, whoever, having 
committed an injury wliich can be repaired by restitution or 
compensation, surrenders himself voluntarily, and acknowledges 
his guilt to a magistrate, before it is otherwise discovered, shall 
be freely pardoned, though all claims upon his property shall be 
duly liquidated.^ In Madagascar, according to a law made in 
1828, all the fines shall be reduced one-half, according to the 
nature of the fines, if the persons guilty accuse themselves.” 
According to Zoroastrianism, one element of atonement con- 
sists in repentance, as manifested by avowal of the guilt and by 
the recital of a formula, the PatetJ^ It is said in the Laws of 
Manu : — ‘‘In proportion as a man who has done wrong, himself 

^ Ta 'J'shig Leii I.ee, sec. xxv. p. 27 s<]. ^ Darmesteter, in Sacf ed Books of the 

~ Kllis, Histoy of Afaciamscar, i. Bast, iv. p. Ixxxvi. 

386. 

in 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

confesses it, even so far he is freed from guilt, as a snake from 
its slough. . . . He who has committed a sin and Jras repented, 
is freed from that sin, but he is purified only by the resolution 
of ceasing to sin and thinking H will do so no more.’ ” ^ Ac- 
cording to the Rig-Veda, Varuna inflicts terrible punishments 
on the hardened criminal, but is merciful to him who repents ; 
to Varuna the cry of anguish from remorse ascends, and before 
him the sinner comes to discharge himself of the burden of his 
guilt by confession.^ So, also, Zeus pardons the repentant.-^ 
The main doctrine of Judaism on the subject of atonement is 
comprised in the single word Repentance. No teachers, says 
Mr. Montefiore, exalted the place and power of repentance 
more than the Rabbis. 'Fhere was no sin for which in their 
eyes a true repentance could not obtain forgiveness from God.” ^ 
According to the Talmud, a space of only two fingers’ breadth 
lies between Hell and Heaven : the sinner has only to repent 
sincerely, and the gates to everlasting bliss will spring open.'’ 
Jesus commanded his disciples to forgive injuries if followed by 
repentance : — If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke 
him ; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against 
thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again 
to thee, saying, I repent ; thou shalt forgive him.”^ 

But repentance not only blunts the edge of moral 
indignation and recommends the offender to the mercy of 
men and gods : it is the sole ground on which pardon can 
be given by a scrupulous judge. When sufficiently guided 
by deliberation and left to itself, without being unduly 
checked by other emotions, the feeling of moral resent- 
ment is apt to last as long as its cause remains unaltered, 
that is, until the will of the offender has ceased to be 
offensive ; and it ceases to be offensive only when he 
acknowledges his guilt and repents. It is true that the 
mere performance of certain ceremonies is frequently 
supposed to relieve the performer of his sins,' and that the# 

^ Laivs of Alan li, xi, 229, 231. Cf. Cf, ibid. p. 56; Katz, Der wahre Tal- 

ibid. xi. 228, 230. mudjude., p. 87 sq. ; Kohler, ‘ Atone- 

- Rig- Veda^ i. 25. I sq. ; ii. 28. 5 nienl,’ in Jcivish Encyclopedia^ ii. 279 ; 

^aq. ; V. 85^. 7 sq. ; vii. 87. 7, 88. 6 .rr/., Moore, ‘ vSncrificc ’ in Cheyne and 

09. I sqq. Barth, Religions of Jndia^ Black, Encyclopcedia Bildica, iv. 4224 

p. 17. ^ sq. 

^ Ilias^ ix. 502 sqq. ® St. Luke^ xvii. 3 sq. 

^ Montefiore, op. eit. pj'). 524, 335 n. * ^ Supra, ]). 53 sqq. l leriot, Travels 

Deutsch, Literary Remains, j). 53. through the Canadas, p, 378 (ancient 

THE NATURE OF 

same end is thought to be attained by pleasing God in 
some way or other, by sacrifice, or alms-giving, or the 
like. Men even lay claim to divine forgiveness as a 
right belonging to them in virtue of some meritorious 
deeds of theirs, according to the doctrine of opera 
super erogativa — a doctrine which, in substance, is not 
restricted to Roman Catholicism, but is found, in a more 
or less developed form, in Judaism,^ Mohammedanism,^ 
Brahmanism,'^ and degenerated Buddhism/ But all such 
ideas are objectionable to the moral consciousness of a 
higher type. They are based on the crude notion that 
sin is a material substance which mav be removed by 
material means ; or on the belief that an offender may 
compound with the deity for sinning against him, in the 
same way as he pacifies his injured neighbour, by bribery 
or flattery ; or on the assumptions that by a good or 
meritorious deed a man has done more than his duty, that 
a good deed stands in the same relation to a bad deed as a 
claim to a debt, that the claim is made on the same person 
to whom the debt is due, namely, God — even though it 
be only by his mercy — and that the debt consequently 
may be compensated by the claim in the same way as the 
payment of a certain sum may compensate for a loss 
inflicted. This doctrine attaches badness and goodness to 
external acts rather than to mental facts. Reparation 
implies compensation for a loss. The loss may be com- 
pensated by the bestowal of a corresponding advantage ; 
but no reparation can be given for badness. Badness can 
only be forgiven, and moral forgiveness can be granted 
only on condition that the agent’s mind has undergone a 
radical alteration for the better, that the badness of the 
Vill has given way to repentance.'"' Hence the Reformation 

Mexicans). Adair, History of (he “ little sins 'Mhal are forgiven if some 
America)}. Jndiafis^ 1 50. Krashenin- good actions are done, whereas “ great 
riikoft', IIisto)y of A'a))ischalha^ \). \"J^. sins” can only l>e forgiven after due 
Williams and Calvert, Fiji, p. 24. re])entance [ihid. p. 214). 

’ Montefjore, op. cit. p. 525 sqq. ^ W'^heeler, History of India^ ii. 475. 

Korany xi. 1 16. Sell, Faith of ^ Indo-Chinese Gteanery\\\, 159, 161, 
IsidtHy p. 220 sq. According to Mu- ' 164. Davis, Chinay ii. 4k 
hammedanism, however, it is only ® Thi.s point was certainly not over- 

Ill 

fkE MORAL EMOTIONS 

proscribed offerings for the redemption of sins, together 
with the trade in indulgences ; and we meet with an 
analogous movement in other comparatively advanced 
forms of religion. In reformed Brahmanism, repentance 
is declared to be the only means of redeeming trespasses/ 
The idea expressed in the Psalms, that God delights not 
in burnt offerings, but that the sacrifices of God are a 
broken and a contrite heart, became the prevailing opinion 
among the Rabbis, most of whom regarded repentance as 
the conditio sine qua non of expiation and the forgiveness 
of sins.^ Let us also remember that he who commanded 
his followers to forgive a brother for his sin, at the same 
time pronounced the qualification : if he repent.” 

ITat moral indignation is appeased by repentance, and 
that repentance is the only proper ground for forgiveness, 
is thus due, not to the specifically moral character of such 
indignation, but to its being a form of resentment. This 
is confirmed by the fact that an angry and revengeful man 
is apt to be in a similar way influenced by the sincere 
apologies of the offender. As Aristotle said, men are 
placable in regard to those who acknowledge and repent 
their guilt : ‘‘ there is proof of this in the case of chastising 
servants ; for we chastise more violently those who con- 
tradict us, and deny their guilt ; but towards such as 
acknowledge themselves to be justly punished, we cease 
from our wrath.” 'Fo take an instance from the savage 
world. The Caroline Islander, according to Mr. Christian, 
‘‘is inclined to be revengeful, and will bide his time 
patiently until his opportunity comes. Yet he is not 
implacable, and counts reconciliation a noble and a princely 
thing. There is a form of etiquette to be observed on 

looked by die Calholic moralists, but {Cateihism of the Council of Trent ^ n. 
e\'cn the most ardent apology cannot 5. 22). 

explain away the idea of reparation in ^ (loblet d’Alviella, Hibhert Lectures 
the Catholic doctrine of the justification on the Origin and Gnnvth of the Con- 
of man (e/. Manzoni, Osservazioni Sulla ceptuni of Cod^ p. 263. 

^ Morale Cattolica, p. icx)). Penance l^alins, li. r6 sq. 

consists of contrition, confession, and ^ Moore, toe. < it, col. 4225. 
satisfaction, and contrition itself is ^ Cf Martineau, lypcs of Ethieal 
chiefly “ a willingness to compensate^’ 'Theory ^ ii. 203. 

® Aristotle, Khetorica^ ii. 3. 5. 

these occasions — a present {katom) is made, an apology 
olFered — a piece of sugar-cane accepted by the aggrieved 
party — honour is satisfied and the matter ends.” ^ In the 
case of revenge, external satisfaction or material compensa- 
tion is often allowed to take the place of genuine repent- 
ance, and the humiliation of the adversary may be sufficient 
to quiet the angry passion. But the revenge felt by a 
reflecting mind is not so readily satisfied. It wants to 
remove the cause which aroused it. The object which 
resentment is chiefly intent upon, Adam Smith observes, 
“ is not so much to make our enemy feel pain in his turn, 
as to make him conscious that he feels it upon account of 
his past conduct, to make him repent of that conduct, and 
to make him sensible, that the person whom he injured 
did not deserve to be treated in that manner.” ■ The 
delight of revenge, says Bacon, “ seemeth to be not so 
much in doing the hurt, as in making the party repent.” 

We can now see the origin of the idea that the true end 
of punishment is the reformation of the criminal. This 
idea merely emphasises the most humane element in 
resentment, the demand that the offender’s will shall 
cease to be offensive. The principle of reformation has 
thus itself a retributive origin. This explains the fact, 
otherwise inexplicable, that the amendment which it has 
in view is to be effected by the infliction of pain. It also 
accounts for the inconsistent attitude of the reformationist 
towards incorrigible offenders, already commented upon. 
Resentment gives way to forgiveness only in the case of 
repentance, not in the case of incorrigibility. Hence, 
not even the reformationist regards incorrigibility as a 
legitimate ground for exempting a person from punish- 
rqent, although this flatly contradicts his theory about the 
true aim of all punishment. 

Thus the theories both of determent and of reformation 
are ultimately offspring of the same emotion that first 

^ Christian, Caroline Islands y p. 72. . ^ Bacon, ‘ Ivs.say IV. Of Revenge,’ 

- Adam Smith, Theory of Moral iir Essays^ p. 45. Cf. IMontaighe, 
Sentiments y p. 138.^7/. Essaisy ii. 27 {Oeuvres y p. 384). 

lu The moral emotions 89 

induced men to inflict punishment on their fellow- 
creatures. It escaped the advocates of these theories that 
they themselves were under the influence of the very 
principle they fought against, because they failed to grasp 
its true import. Rightly understood, resentment is pre- 
ventive in its nature, and, when sufficiently deliberate, 
regards the infliction of sufiering as a means rather than 
as an end. It not only gives rise to punishment, but 
readily suggests, as a proper end of punishment, either 
determent or amendment or both. But, first of all, moral 
resentment wants to raise a protest against wrong. And 
the immediate aim of punishment has always been to give 
expression to the righteous indignation of the society 
which inflicts it. 

Now it may be thought that men have no right to give 
vent to their moral resentment in a way which hurts their 
neighbours unless some benefit may be expected from it. 
In the case of many other emotions, we hold that the 
conative clement in the emotion ought not to be allowed 
to develop into a distinct volition or act ; and it would 
seem that a similar view might be taken with refer- 
ence to the aggressiveness inherent in moral disapproval. 
It is a notion of this kind that lies at the bottom of the 
utilitarian theories of punishment. They are protests 
against purposeless infliction of pain, against crude ideas 
of retributive justice, against theories hardly in advance of 
the low feelings of the popular mind. Therefore, they 
mark a stage of higher refinement in the evolution of the 
moral consciousness ; and if the principles of determent 
and of reformation are open to objections which will be 
shared by almost everyone, that is due to other circum- 
stances than their demand that punishment should serye 
a useful end. As we have seen, they ignore the fact that 
a punishment, in order to be recognised as just, must not 
transgress the limits set 'down by moral disapproval, that 
it must not be inflicted on innocent persons, that it must 
be proportioned to the guilt, that offenders who are 
amenable to discipline must not be treated more severely 

THE NATURE OF 

than incorrigible criminals. These theories also seem to 
exaggerate the deterring or reforming influence which 
punishments exercise upon criminals/ whilst, in another 
respect, they take too narrow a view of its social use- 
fulness. Whether its voice inspire fear or not, whether it 
wake up a sleeping conscience or not, punishment, at all 
events, tells people in plain terms what, in the opinion of 
the society, they ought not to do. It gives the multitude 
a severe lesson in public morality ; and it is difficult to see 
how quite the same effect could be attained by any other 
method. Retaliation is such a spontaneous expression of 
indignation, that people would hardly realise the offensive- 
ness of an act which evokes no signs of resentment. Of 
course, punishment, in the legal sense of the term, is only 
one form — the most concrete form — of public retaliation ; 
it is, indeed, probable that public opinion exercises a 
greater influence on men than punishment would do 
without its aid.'"' But punishment, in combination with 
public opinion, has no doubt to some extent an educating, 
and not merely a deterring, influence upon the members 
of a society. As Sir James Stephen observes, “ the 
sentence of the law is to the moral sentiment of the public 
in relation to any offence what a seal is to hot wax. It 
converts into a permanent final judgment what might 
otherwise be a transient sentiment.”’^ Finally, it must 
not be overlooked that the infliction of punishment upon 
the perpetrator of a grave offence gratifies a strong general 
desire, and, even though the pain which always accompanies 
an unsatisfied desire would by itself afford no sufficient 
justification for subjecting the offender to such intense 

^ On the liniitncl cflicicncy tjf punish- 
as a deterrent, see Veni, op. cif. 
p. 82 sqq. On the moral insensibility 
of tlie instinc'tive and habitual criminal, 
and al):sence of remorse, see Havelock 
Kills, The CriifiiuaP p. 124 sqq. 

Cf. Locke, Essay eoJiccnuiiy JJn- 
1)1 a)! l/))de}'sta?idi)jgj ii. 28. 12 {Philo- 
sophical IVor/cSj p. 2S3) ; Shaftesbury, 
‘ Incpiiry concerning Virtue aJid Merit,’ 
3 * 3 ) Charac/cris/ichsy ii. 64. 

■' Stejilien, History of the Criminal 
Law of England, ii. 81. Cf Shaft es- 
Iniry, op. cif. ii. 64; “As to punish- 
ments and rewards, their efiicac)’ is not 
so nuu'h from the fear or exjK'Ctalion 
which they raise, as from a natural 
esteem of virtue, and detestation of 
villajiy, which is awaken’d and excited 
by these }ml)lic]c expressions of the 
approbation and hatred of mankind in 
each case.” 

in 

tHE MORAL EMOTIONS 

suffering, other more serious consequences might easily 
result from leaving him unpunished. The public indigna- 
tion might find a vent in some less regular and less 
discriminating mode of retaliation, like lynching ; or, on 
the other hand, by remaining unsatisfied, the desire might 
dwindle away from want of nourishment, and the moral 
standard suffer a corresponding loss. 

However, it is not to be believed that, in practice, the 
infliction of punishment is, or ever will be, regulated 
merely by considerations of social utility, even within the 
limits of what is recognised as legitimate by the moral 
sentiment. The retributive desire is so strong, and 
appears so natural, that we can neither help obeying it, 
nor seriously disapprove of its being obeyed. The theory 
that we have a right to punish an offender only in so 
far as, by doing so, we promote the general happiness, 
really serves in the main as a justification for gratifying 
such a desire, rather than as a foundation for penal 
practice. Moreover, this theory refers, and pretends to 
refer, only to outward behaviour — to punishment, not to 
the emotion from which punishment springs. It condemns 
the retributive act, not the retributive desire. 

But at the same time the aggressive element in the 
emotion itself has undergone a change, which tends to 
conceal its true nature by partly leading it into a new 
channel, or, rather, by narrowing the channel in which it 
discharges itself. Resentment is directed against the 
cause of the offence by which it was aroused — broadly 
speaking, the offender. But when duly reflecting upon 
the matter, we cannot fail to admit that the real cause was 
not the offender as a whole, but his will. Deliberate and 
discriminating resentment is therefore apt to turn agaipst 
the will rather than against the wilier ; as we have seen, 
it is desirous to inflict pain on the offender chiefly as a 
means of removing the cause of pain suffered, the 

existence of the bad will. If this is the case with deliberate 
resentment in general, it must particularly be the case 
with moral indignation,' which is more likely to be 

' THE NATURE OF 

influenced by sympathy, and hence more discriminate, 
than non-moral resentment. This fact gives rise to the 
moral commandment that we should hate, not the sinner, 
but the sin. The hostile reaction should be focussed on 
the will of the offender, and his sensibility should be 
regarded merely as an instrument through which the will 
is worked upon. But there is little hope that such a 
demand can ever be strictly enforced. Professor Sidgwick 
justly remarks that, though moralists try to distinguish 
between anger directed “ against the act ” and anger 
directed “ against the agent,” it may be fairly doubted 
whether it is within the capacity of ordinary human nature 
to maintain this distinction in practice.’ The will which 
offends, and the sensibility which suffers, cannot seriously 
be looked upon as two different entities the one of which 
should not be punished for the fault of the other. 'I'he 
person himself is held responsible for the offence. The 
hostile reaction turns against his will because only by 
acting upon the will can the cause of pain be removed. 
But since the remotest ages the aggressive attitude towards 
this cause has been connected with an instinctive desire to 
produce counter-pain ; and, though we may recognise that 
such a desire, or rather the volition into which it tends to 
develop, may be morally justifiable only if it is intended 
to remove the cause of pain, we can hardly help being 
indulgent to the gratification of a human instinct which 
seems to be well nigh ineradicable. It is the instinctive 
desire to inflict counter-pain that gives to moral indigna- 
tion its most important characteristic. Without it, 
moral condemnation and the ideas of right and wrong 
would never have come into existence. Without it, we 
should no more condemn a bad man than a poisonous 
plant. The reason why moral judgments are passed on 
volitional beings, or their acts, is not merely that they are 
volitional, but that they are sensitive as well ; and how- 
ever much we try to concentrate our indignation on the 
act, it derives its peculiar flavour from being directed 

^ Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics ^ p. 364. 

Ill 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

against a sensitive agent. I have heard persons of a highly 
sympathetic cast of mind assert that a wrong act awakens 
in them only sorrow, not indignation ; but though sorrow 
be the predominant element in their state of mind, I 
believe that, on a close inspection, they would find there 
another emotion as well, one in which there is immanent 
an element of hostility, however slight. It is true that 
the intensity of moral indignation cannot always be 
measured by the actual desire to cause pain to the 
offender ; but its intensity seems nevertheless to be con- 
nected with the amount of suffering which the indignant 
man is willing to let the offender undergo in consequence 
of the offence. Which of us could ever, quite apart from 
any utilitarian considerations, feel the same sympathy with 
a person who suffers on account of his badness as with one 
who suffers innocently ? It is one of the most interesting 
facts related to the moral consciousness of a higher type, 
that it in vain condemns the gratification of the very 
desire from which it sprang. It is like a man of low 
extraction, who, in spite of all acquired refinement, bears 
his origin stamped on his face. 

Whilst resentment is a hostile attitude of mind towards 
a cause of pain, retributive kindly emotion is a friendly 
attitude of mind towards a cause of pleasure. Just as in 
the lower forms of anger there is hardly any definite desire 
to produce suffering, only a vehement desire to remove 
the cause of pain, so in the lower form of retributive kindly 
emotion there is hardly any definite desire to produce 
pleasure, only a friendly endeavour to retain the cause of 
the pleasure experienced. When the emotion contains a 
definite desire to give pleasure in return for pleasure 
received, and at the same time is felt by the favoured 
party in his capacity of being himself the object of the 
benefit, it is called gratitude. We often find intermingled 
with gratitude a feeling of indebtedness ; he upon whom 
a benefit has been conferred feels himself as a debtor, and 
regards the benefactor aa his creditor. This feeling has 

• THE NATURE OF ' 

even been represented as essential to, or as a condition of, 
gratitude ; ^ but it is not implied in what I here under- 
stand by gratitude. It is one thing to be grateful, and 
another thing to feel that it is one’s duty to be grateful. 
A depression of the “ self-feeling,” a feeling of humilia- 
tion, also frequently accompanies gratitude as a motive for 
requiting the benefit ; but it is certainly not an element in 
gratitude itself. 

Retributive kindly emotion is a much less frequent 
phenomenon in the animal kingdom than is the emotion 
of resentment. In many animal species not even the germ 
of it is found, and where it occurs it is generally restricted 
within narrow limits. Anybody may provoke an animal’s 
anger, but only towards certain individuals it is apt to 
feel retributive kindliness. The limits for this emotion 
are marked ^ff by the conditions under which altruistic 
sentiments in general tend to arise — a subject which will 
be discussed in another connection. Indeed, social affec- 
tion is itself essentially retributive. Gregarious animals 
take pleasure in each other’s company, and with this 
pleasure is intimately associated kindly feeling towards its 
cause, the companion himself. Social affection presupposes 
reciprocity ; it is not only a friendly sentiment towards 
another individual, but towards an individual who is 
conceived of as a friend. 

The intrinsic object of retributive kindliness being to 
retain a cause of pleasure, we may assume that the definite 
desire to produce pleasure in return for pleasure received 
is due to the fact that such a desire materially promotes 
the object in question — exactly in the same way as the 
definite desire to inflict pain in return for pain inflicted 
has become an element in resentment because such a desire 
pfomotes the intrinsic object of resentment, the removal 
of the cause of pain. And as natural selection accounts 
for the origin of resentment, so it also accounts for the 

* Morwicz, Psychologische Analysen^ barkeit aufkomracn.” Cf. Milton, /’am- 

333 • “ Ohne die.ses Gefiihl de.s Ver- disc Lost, iv. 52 S(/q. 
bundenseins ... * kann keine Dank- 

Ill 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

origin of retributive kindly emotion. Both of these 
emotions are useful states of mind ; by resentment evils 
are averted, by retributive kindliness benefits are secured. 
That there is such a wide difference in their prevalence is 
explicable from the simple facts that gregariousness — 
which is the root of social affection, and, largely at least, 
a condition of the rise of retributive kindly emotions — is 
an advantage only to some species, not to all, and that even 
gregarious animals have many enemies, but few friends. 

In some cases the friendly reaction in retributive kind- 
liness is directed towards individuals who have in no 
way been the cause of the pleasure which gave rise to the 
emotion. So intimate is the connection between the 
stimulus and the reaction, that he who is made happy 
often feels a general desire to make others happy. ^ But 
such an indiscriminate reaction is only an offset of the 
emotion with which we are here concerned. Moreover, 
retributive kindly emotion often confers benefits upon 
somebody nearly related to the benefactor, if he himself 
be out of reach, or in addition to benefits conferred on him. 
But in such cases the gratitude towards the benefactor is 
the real motive. 

That moral approval — by which I understand that 
emotion of which moral praise or reward is the outward 
manifestation — is a kind of retributive kindly emotion, 
and as such allied to gratitude, will probably be admitted 
without much hesitation. “ Its friendly character is not, 
like the hostile character of moral disapproval, disguised 
by any apparently contradictory facts. To confer a benefit 
upon a person is not generally regarded as wrong, unless, 
indeed, it involves an encroachment on somebody’s rights 
or is contrary to the feeling of justice. And that moral 
approval sometimes bestows its favours upon undeserving 

^ Tliat a jiappy man wants to see i?)ad 
faces around him, is also due to another 
cause, wlhcli lias been pointed out by 
Dr. Him [Origins of Art, p, 83) : from 
their expression he wants to derive 
iurther nourishment and increase for 4 iis 

own feeling. 

“ The relationship between gratitude 
and moral approval has lieen recognised 
by Hartley [Observations on. Man^ i. 
520) and Adam Smith ( 'fheory of Moral 
Sentiments, passim). 

THE NATURE OF 

individuals for the merits of others, can no more invalidate 
the fact that it is essentially directed towards the cause of 
pleasure, than the occasional infliction of punishments upon 
innocent individuals invalidates the fact that moral dis- 
approval is essentially directed against the cause of pain. 
Unmerited rewards are explicable on grounds analogous to 
those to which we have traced unmerited punishments. 

The doctrine of family solidarity leads, not only to 
common responsibility for crimes, but to common enjoy- 
ment of merits. 

In Madagascar, exemption from punishment was claimed by 
the descendants of persons who had rendered any particular 
service to the sovereign or the State, as also by other branches 
of the family, on the same plea.^ According to Chinese ideas, 
the virtuous conduct of any individual will result, not only in 
prosperity to himself, but in a certain quantity of happiness to 
his posterity, unless indeed the personal wickedness of some of 
the descendants neutralise the benefits which would otherwise 
accrue from the virtue of the ancestor and, conversely, the 
Chinese government confers titles of nobility upon the dead 
parents of a distinguished son.-^ The idea that the dead share 
in punya or that is, the merit or demerit of the living, 

and that the happiness of a man in the next life depends on the 
good works of his descendants, was early familiar to the civilised 
natives of India ; almost all legal deeds of gift contain the 
formula that the gift is made for the increase of the piinya of 
the donor and that of his father and mother.” ^ 

But the vicarious efficacy of good deeds is not necessarily 
restricted to the members of the same family. 

In a hymn of the Rig- Veda we find tlie idea that the merits of 
the pious may benefit their neighbours.'" According to one of the 
Pahlavi texts, persons who are wholly unable to perform good 
’i^works are supposed to be entitled to a share of any supererogatory 
good works performed by others.^’ The Chinese believe that 

^ Ellis, History of Aladagascar, i. ^ Giles, op. at. i. 305, n. 6. Wells 
376. Williams, Aliddle Kingdom.^ i. 422. 

“ Giles, Strange Stories from a Barth, Keiigions of India, p. 52, 

Chinese Studio, i. 426, n. 3 ; ii. 384, 11. 4. 

n. 63. Doolittle, Social Life of the •'* AVv* Veda, vii. 35. 4. 

Chinese, ii. 398. Dind-i Mainog-'i Khirad, xv. 3. 

in 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

whole kingdoms arc blessed by benevolent spirits for the virtuous 
conduct of their rulers.^ Yahvch promised not to destroy Sodom 
for the sake of ten righteous, provided that so many righteous 
could be found in the town/^ 'Flic doctrine of vicarious reward 
or satisfaction througli good works is, in fact, more prevalent 
than tlie doctrine of vicarious punisliment. Jewish theology 
has a great deal more to say about the acceptance of the merits 
of the righteous on behalf of the wicked, than about atone- 
ment through sacrifice.'^ The Muhammedans, who know 
nothing of vicarious suffering as a means of expiation, confer 
merits upon their dead by reciting chapters of the Koran and 
almsgiving, and some of them allow the pilgrimage to Mecca 
to be done by proxy. * Christian theology itself maintains that 
salvation depends on the merit of the passion of Christ ; and 
from early times tlie merits of martyrs and saints were believed 
to benefft other members of the Church.-^ 

For the explanation of these and similar facts various 
circumstances have to be considered. Good deeds may be 
so pleasing to a god as to induce him to forgive the sins 
of the wicked, in accordance with the rule that anger 
yields to joy. There is solidarity not only between 
members of the same family, but between members of the 
same social unit ; hence the virtues of individuals may 
benefit the whole community to which they belong. The 
Catholic theologian argues that, since we are all re- 
generated unto Christ by being washed in the same 
baptism, made partakers of the same sacraments, and, 
especially, of the same meat and drink, the body and 
blood of Christ, we are all members of the same body. 
“As, then, the foot docs not perform its functions solely 
for itself, but also for the benefit of the eyes ; and as the 
eyes exercise their sight, not for their own, but for the 
common benefit of all the members ; so should works c£ 
satisfaction be deemed common to all the members of the 

* cU' Oroot, Sysilenu oj 

China (vol. iv. hook ii.) 435. 

Genesis^ xviii. 52, 

■' Roberlsoii Smith, /\cIij^io}i of the 
Semites^ p. 424, n. l. ^ 

^ Lane, Modern Ey;yptians^ pp. 247, 

248, 532. St'll, op. eit. PI). 242, 278, 
287, 288, 298. Cf, Wallin, For si a 
A'esa frdn Cairo fill Aj-ahiska oknoi., p. 

■' Ilaniack, History of Doi^nia., ii. 
133, n. 3. 

VOL. I 

H 

THE NATURE OF 

Church.” ' Moreover, virtues, like sins, are believed to 
be in a material way transferable, In Upper Bavaria, 
when a dead person is laid out, a cake of flour is placed on 
his breast in order to absorb the virtues of the deceased, 
whereupon the cake is eaten by the nearest relatives.'"’ And 
we are told that, in a certain district in the north of 
England, if a child is brought to the font at the same time 
as a body is committed to the ground, whatever was 
“ good ” in the deceased person is supposed to be trans- 
ferred to the little child, since God does not allow any 
“ goodness ” to be buried and lost to the world, and such 
“ goodness ” is most likely to enter a little child coming 
to the sacrament of Baptism.'' A blessing, also, no less 
than a curse, is looked upon in the light of material 
energy ; goodness is not required for the acquisition of it, 
mere contact will do. Blessings are hereditary: — “The 
just man walketh in his integrity : his children are blessed 
after him.” ' 

It is no doubt more becoming for a god to pardon the 
sinner on account of the merits of the virtuous, than to 
punish the innocent for the sins of the wicked. It shows 
that his compassion overcomes his wrath ; and the mercy 
of the deity is, among all divine attributes, that on which 
the higher monotheistic religions lay most stress. Allah 
said, “ Whoso doth one good act, for him are ten rewards, 
and I also give more to whomsoever I will ; and whoso 
doth ill, its retaliation is equal to it, or else I forgive 
him.”'’ Nevertheless, the moral consciousness of a higher 
type can hardly approve that the wicked should be 
pardoned for the sake of the virtuous, or that the reward 
for an act should be bestowed upon anybody else than the 
♦agent. The doctrine of vicarious merit or recompense is 
not just ; it involves that badness is unduly ignored ; it is 
based on crude ideas of goodness and merit. The theory 
of opera supererogativa, as we have seen, attaches badness 

’ Cati'ifiisni of the Council of I'jcnt, Kolk-Medicine,’ in Fo[k-Lo)c, vii. 280. 
ii. 5 ' 7 -- Proverbs^ xx. 7. 

“ Am Urcjuell^ ii. loi. . Lane-Poole, Speethes atid 'Pahle- 

Pcacuck, ‘ KxccuWxI ( .'liniinals and Talk of A/ohammad, p. 147. 

Ill 

T*HE MORAL EMOTIONS 

and goodness to external acts rather than to mental facts, 
and assumes that reparation can be given for badness, 
whereas the scrutinising moral judge only forgives badness 
in case it is superseded by repentance. If thus a bad act 
cannot be compensated by a good one, even though both 
be performed by one and the same person, it can still less 
be compensated by the good act of another man. From 
various quarters we hear protests against the notion of 
vicarious merit — protests which emphasise the true 
direction of moral reward. Ezekiel, who reproved the 
old idea that the children’s teeth are set on edge because 
the fathers have eaten sour grapes, also taught that a 
wicked son is to reap no benefit from the blessing bestowed 
upon a righteous father/ ‘‘Fear the day,” says the 
Koran, “wherein no soul shall pay any recompense for 
another soul.” ^ The Buddhistic Dhammapada contains the 
following passage, which sums up our whole argument : — 
“By oneself the evil is done, by oneself one suffers ; by 
oneself evil is left undone, by oneself one is purified. The 
pure and the impure stand and fall by themselves, no one 
can purify another.”^ 

^ Kzckii'l^ xviii. 5 >v/y. Dliavuuatada^ xii. 165. 

/\ or (1)1^ ii. 44. 

H 2

THE NATURE OF THE MORAL EMOTIONS (^concluded) 

We have seen that moral disapproval is a form of 
resentment, and that moral approval is a form of retribu- 
tive kindly emotion. It still remains for us to examine 
in what respects these emotions differ from kindred non- 
moral emotions- -disapproval from anger and revenge, 
approval from gratitude — in other words, what charac- 
terises them as specifically moral emotions. 

It is a common opinion, held by all who regard the 
intellect as the source of moral concepts, that moral 
emotions only arise in consequence of moral judgments, 
and that, in each case, the character of the emotion is 
determined by the predicate of the judgment. We are 
told that, when the intellectual process is completed, 
when the act in question is definitely classed under such 
or such a moral category, then, and only then, there 
follows instantaneously a feeling of either approbation or 
disapprobation as the case may be.^ When we hear of a 
murder, for instance, we must discern the wrongness of 
the act before we can feel moral indignation at it. 

It is true that a moral judgment may be followed by a 
moral emotion, that the finding out the tendency of a 
certain mode of conduct to evoke indignation or approval 
is apt to call forth such an emotion, if there was none 
before, or otherwise to increase the one existing. It is, 
moreover, true that the predicate of a moral judgment, as 

^ Fleming, Alan it al of Moral Philosophy, p. 97 sqq. F'nwler, Principles of 
Morals, ii. 198 sqq. 

CH. IV 

tHE MORAL EMOTIONS 

lOI 

well as the generalisation leading up to such a predicate, 
may give a specific colouring to the approval or dis- 
approval which it produces, quite apart from the general 
characteristics belonging to that emotion in its capacity of 
a moral emotion ; the concepts of duty and justice, for 
instance, no doubt have a peculiar flavour of their own. 
But for all this, moral emotions cannot be described as 
resentment or retributive kindliness called forth by 
moral judgments. Such a definition would be a meaning- 
less play with words. Whatever emotions may follow 
moral judgments, such judgments could never have been 
pronounced unless there had been moral emotions ante- 
cedent to them. Their predicates, as was pointed out 
above, are essentially based on generalisations of ten- 
dencies in certain phenomena to arouse moral emotions ; 
hence the criterion of a moral emotion can in no case 
depend upon its proceeding from a moral judgment. 
But at the same time moral judgments, being definite 
expressions of moral emotions, naturally help us to dis- 
cover the true nature of these emotions. 

The predicate of a moral judgment always involves a 
notion of disinterestedness. When pronouncing an act to 
be good or bad, I mean that it is so, quite independently of 
any reference it might have to my own interests. A moral 
judgment may certainly have a selfish motive ; but then 
it, nevertheless, pretends to be disinterested, which shows 
that disinterestedness is a characteristic of moral concepts 
as such. This is admitted even by the egoistic hedonist, 
who maintains that we approve and condemn acts from 
self-love. According to Helvetius, it is the love of con- 
sideration that a virtuous man takes to be in him the love 
of virtue ; and yet everybody pretends to love virtue for* 
its own sake, “ this phrase is in every one’s mouth and in 
no one’s heart.” ^ 

If the moral concepts 'are essentially generalisations of 
tendencies in certain phenomena to call forth moral 
emotions, and, at the same time, contain the notion of 

^ Helvetius, De V Homme ^ i. 263. 

THE NATURE OF 

disinterestedness, we must conclude that the emotions 
from which they spring are felt disinterestedly. Of this 
fact we find an echo — more or less faithful^ — in the maxims 
of various ethical theorisers, as well as practical moralists. 
We find it in the utilitarian demand that, in regard to his 
own happiness and that of others, an agent should be 
“ as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent 
spectator;”’ in the “rule of righteousness” laid down 
by Samuel Clarke, that “ We so deal with every man, as in 
like circumstances we could reasonably expect he should 
with us” ; * in Kant’s formula, “ Act only on that maxim 
which thou canst at the same time will to become a 
universal law ” ; “ in Professor Sidgwick’s so-called axiom, 
“ I ought not to prefer my own lesser good to the greater 
good of another” ; ’ in the biblical sayings, “ Thou shalt 
love thy neighbour as thyself,” and, “ Whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them.” ” The same fact is expressed in the Indian 
Mahabharata, where it is said : — “ Let no man do to 
another that which would be repugnant to himself ; this 
is the sum of righteousness ; the rest is according to 
inclination. In refusing, in bestowing, in regard to 
pleasure and to pain, to what is agreeable and disagree- 
able, a man obtains the proper rule by regarding the case 
as like his own.” ' Similar words are ascribed to Confucius.” 
When Tsze-kung asked if there is any one word which 
may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life, the 
Master answered, “ Is not Reciprocity such a word ? 
What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to 

^ Stuart Mill, Utiliiarianisn} , p. 24. 

“ Clarke, D is course couceniing the 
^^Unchaugcabte Obligations of Natural 
Religion y p. 20 1. 

^ Kant, Grundiegung zur Meta- 
physik der SitteUy sec. 2 {Siimndlirhe 
IVerke^ iv. 269). 

Sklgwick, Methods of Ethics^ p. 
383. However, as we have seen above, 
this so-called “axiom” is not a cor- 
rect representation of the disinterested- 
ness of moral emotions. 

Leviticus, xix. 18. St, Matthew, 
xxii. 39. 

St,. Matthew, vii. 12. Cf. St. 
Luke, vi. 31. 

Alahahharata, xiii. 557 ^ 

Muir, Religious and Aloral Sentiments, 
rendered from Sanskrit Writers, p. 107. 
Cf Panchatantra, iii. 104 (Benfey’s 
translation, ii. 235). 

^ Lun Yu, XV. 23. Cf ibid, xii. 2 ; 
Chung Yung, xiii. 3. 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

others.” And in another utterance Confucius showed 
that the rule had for him not only a negative, but a 
positive form. He said that, in the way of the superior 
man, there are four things to none of which he himself 
had as yet attained ; to serve his father as he would 

require his son to serve him, to serve his prince as he 

would require his minister to serve him, to serve his elder 
brother as he would require his younger brother to serve 
him, and to set the example in behaving to a friend as he 
would require the friend to behave to him.' 

This “ golden rule ” is not, as has been sometimes 
argued, a rule of retaliation.^ It does not say, “ Do to 
others what they wash to do to you ” ; it says, “ Do to 

others what you wish, or require, them to do to you.” 

It brings home to us the fact that moral rules are general 
rules, which ought to be obeyed irrespectively of any 
selfish considerations. If formulated as an injunction 
that we should treat our neighbour in the same manner 
as we consider that he, under exactly similar circum- 
stances, ought to treat us, it is simply identical with the 
sentence, “ Do your duty,” with emphasis laid on the 
disinterestedness which is involved in the very conception 
of duty. So far, St. Augustine was right in saying that 
“ Do as thou wouldst be done by ” is a sentence which all 
nations under heaven are agreed upon.® 

Disinterestedness, however, is not the only characteristic 
by which moral indignation and approval are distinguished 
from other, non-moral, kinds of resentnient or retributive 
kindly emotion. It is, indeed, itself a form of a more 
comprehensive quality which characterises moral emotions 
— apparent impartiality. If I pronounce an act done to 
a friend or to an enemy to be either good or bad, that_ 
implies that I assume it to be so independently of the 
fact that the person to whom the act is done is my 
friend or my enemy. Conversely, if I pronounce an 

^ Chu}ig xiii. 4. St. Augustine, (juoted l)y lully, 

“ Lctourneau, f\^volution relii^ictise Ri<^ht and Wrotig^ p. 106. 
da 7 is Ay dlvcrses races hiimaines^ p. 553. 

THE NATURE OF ' 

act done by a friend or by an enemy to be good or 
bad, that implies that I assume the act to be either good 
or bad independently of my friendly or hostile feelings 
towards the agent. All this means that resentment and 
retributive kindly emotion are moral emotions in so far as 
they are assumed by those who feel them to be unin- 
fluenced by the particular relationship in which they 
stand, both to those who are immediately affected by the 
acts in question, and to those who perform those acts. 
A moral emotion, theii, is tested by an imaginary change 
of the relationship between him who approves or disap- 
proves of the mode of conduct by which the emotion was 
evoked and the parties immediately concerned, whilst the 
relationship between the parties themselves is left un- 
altered. At the same time it is not necessary that the 
moral emotion should be really impartial. It is sufficient 
that it is tacitly assumed to be so, nay, even that it is not 
knowingly partial. In attributing different rights to 
different individuals, or classes of individuals, we are often, 
in reality, influenced by the relationship in which we 
stand to them, by personal sympathies and antipathies ; 
and yet those rights may be moral rights, in the strict sense 
of the term, not mere preferences, namely, if we assume 
that any impartial judge would recognise our attribution 
of rights as just, or even if we are unaware of its partiality. 
Similarly, when the savage censures a homicide committed 
upon a member of his own tribe, but praises one com- 
mitted upon a member of another tribe, his censure and 
praise are certainly influenced by his relations to the 
victim, or to the agent, or to both. He does not reason 
thus : it is blamable to kill a member of one’s own tribe, 
^nd it is praiseworthy to kill a member of a foreign tribe 
— whether the tribe be mine or not. Nevertheless, his 
blame and his praise must be regarded as expressions of 
moral emotions. 

Finally, a moral emotion has a certain flavour of 
generality. We have previously noticed that a moral 
judgment very frequently implies some vague assumption 

tHE MORAL EMOTIONS 

that it must be shared by everybody who possesses both 
a sufficient knowledge of the case and a ‘‘sufficiently 
developed ” moral consciousness. We have seen, however, 
that this assumption is illusory. It cannot, consequently, 
be regarded as a conditio sine qua non for a moral judg- 
ment, unless, indeed, it be maintained that such a judgment, 
owing to its very nature, is necessarily a chimera — an 
opinion which, to my mind, would be simply absurd. 
But, though moral judgments cannot lay claim to uni- 
versality or “objectivity,” it does not follow that they 
are merely individual estimates. Even he who fully sees 
their limitations must admit that, when he pronounces an 
act to be good or bad, he gives expression to something 
more than a personal opinion, that his judgment has 
reference, not only to his own feelings, but to the feelings 
of others as well. And this is true even though he be 
aware that his own conviction is not shared by those 
around him, nor by anybody else. He then feels that it 
zvould be shared if other people knew the act and all its 
attendant circumstances as well as he does himself, and if, 
at the same time, their emotions were as refined as are his 
own. This feeling gives to his approval or indignation a 
touch of generality, which belongs to public approval and 
public indignation, but which is never found in any merely 
individual emotion of gratitude or revenge. 

The analysis of the moral emotions which has been 
attempted in this and the two preceding chapters, holds 
good, not only for such emotions as we feel on account of 
the conduct of others, but for such emotions as we feel 
on account of our own conduct as well. Moral self- 
condemnation is a hostile attitude of mind towards one’s self 
as the cause of pain, moral self-approval is a kindly 
attitude of mind towards one’s self as a cause of pleasure. 
Genuine remorse, though focussed on the will of the 
person who feels it, involves, vaguely or distinctly, some 
desire to suffer. The repentant man wants to think of 
the wrong he has committed, he wants clearly to realise 

io6 

THE NATURE OF 

its wickedness ; and he wants to do this, not merely 
because he desires to become a better man, but because it 
gives him some relief to feel the sting in his heart. If 
punished for his deed, he willingly submits to the punish- 
ment. The Philippine Islander, says Mr. F'oreman, if he 
recognises a fault by his own conscience, will receive a 
flogging without resentment or complaint, although, if 
he is not so convinced of the misdeed, he will await his 
chance to give vent to his rancour.” ^ We may feel 
actual hatred towards ourselves, we may desire to inflict 
bodily suffering upon ourselves as a punishment for what 
we have done ; ^ nay, there are instances of criminals, 
guilty of capital offences, having given themselves up to 
the authorities in order to appease their consciences by 
suffering the penalty of the law.'^ Yet the desire to 
punish ourselves has a natural antagonist in our general 
aversion to pain, and this often blunts the sting of the 
conscience. Suicide prompted by remorse, which some- 
times occurs even among savages,'^ is to be regarded rather 
as a method of putting an end to agonies, than as a kind 
of self-execution ; and behind the self-torments of the 
sinner frequently lurks the hopeful prospect of heavenly 
bliss. Self-approval, again, is not merely joy at one’s 
own conduct, but is a kindly emotion, a friendly attitude 
towards one’s self. Such an attitude, for instance, lies at the 
bottom of the feeling that one's own conduct merits praise 
or reward. 

Not every form of self-reproach or of self-approval is a 
moral emotion — no more than is every form of resentment 
or retributive kindly emotion towards other persons. We 
may be angry with ourselves on account of some act of 
i^urs which is injurious to our own interests. lie w^ho has 
lost at play may be as vexed at himself as he who has 

^ t'oreman, Philippijie Islands, p. ® von Fouerbach, Akfejifndsslgc 
185. Cp'. Hinde, The Last of tlni DarsttLlufn^- uicrksviirdiger I 'crhreclien, 
Masai, p. 34 ; Zdller, Das Togoland, i. 249 ; ii. 473, 479 sq. von Lasaiilx, 
p. 37. Siihnopfer der Griechen and Ronier, 

Cf Jodi, Lchrlnuh der Fsychologit:, p. 6. 
p. 675. See infra, on Suicide. 

fHE MORAL EMOTIONS 

cheated at play, and the egoist may bitterly reproach him- 
self for having yielded to a momentary impulse of benevo- 
lence, or even to conscience itself. In order to be moral 
emotions, our self-condemnation and self-approval must 
present the same characteristics as make resentment and 
retributive kindliness moral emotions \vhen they are felt 
with reference to the conduct of other people. A person 
does not feel remorse when he reproaches himself from an 
egoistic motive, or when he afterwards regrets that he has 
sacrificed the interests of his children to the impartial 
claim of justice. Nor does a person feel moral self- 
approval when he is pleased with himself for having 
committed an act which he recognises as selfish or unjust. 
And besides being disinterested and apparently impartial, 
remorse and moral self-approval have a flavour of gene- 
rality. As Professor Baldwin remarks, moral approval or 
disapproval, not only of other people, but of one’s self, is 
never at its best except when it is accompanied, in the 
consciousness which has it, with the knowledge or belief 
that it is also socially shared.” ^ Indeed, almost inseparable 
from the moral judgments which we pass on our own 
conduct seems to be the image of an impartial outsider 
who acts as our judge. 

' Baldsvin, SocialaUiilithiiallnlcrJ^i-^faiiou in I^Icntal J)cvch)pnii'nt^ p. 314.

THE ORIGIN OF THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

We have found that resentment and retributive kindly 
emotion are easily explicable from their usefulness, both of 
them having a tendency to promote the interests of the 
individuals who feel them. This explanation also holds 
good for the moral emotions, in so far as they are retributive 
emotions : it accounts for the hostile attitude of moral 
disapproval towards the cause of pain, and for the friendly 
attitude of moral approval towards the cause of pleasure. 
But it still remains for us to discover the origin of those 
elements in the moral emotions by which they are distin- 
guished from other, non-moral, retributive emotions. 
First, how shall we explain their disinterestedness ? 

We have to distinguish between different classes of con- 
ditions under which disinterested retributive emotions 
arise. In the first place, wc may feel disinterested resent- 
ment, or disinterested retributive kindly emotion, on 
account of an injury inflicted, or a benefit conferred, upon 
another person with whose pain, or pleasure, we sympa- 
thise, and in whose welfare we take a kindly interest. Our 
retributive emotions are, of course, always reactions against 
pain, or pleasure, felt by ourselves ; this holds true for the 
moral emotions as well as for revenge and gratitude. The 
question to be answered, then, is. Why should we, quite 
disinterestedly, feel pain calling forth indignation because 
our neighbour is hurt, and pleasure calling forth approval 
because he is benefited ? 

CH. V 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

That a certain act causes pleasure or pain to the by- 
stander is partly due to the close association which exists 
between these feelings and their outward expressions. 
The sight of a happy face tends to produce some degree 
of pleasure in him who sees it ; the sight of the bodily 
signs of suffering tends to produce a feeling of pain. In 
either case the feeling of the spectator is the result of a 
process of reproduction^ the perception of the physical 
manifestation of the feeling recalling the feeling itself on 
account of the established association between them. 

Sympathetic pain or pleasure may also be the result of 
an association between cause and effect, between the cogni- 
tion of a certain act or situation and the feeling generally 
produced by this act or situation. A blow may cause 
pain to the spectator before he has witnessed its effect on 
the victim. The sympathetic feeling is of course stronger 
when both kinds of association concur in producing it, 
than when it is the result of only one. As Adam Smith 
observes, “ general lamentations which express nothing 
but the anguish of the sufferer, create rather a curiosity to 
inquire into his situation, along with some disposition to 
sympathise with him, than any actual sympathy that is 
very sensible.” ^ On the other hand, the sympathy which 
springs from an association between cause and effect is 
much enhanced by the perception of outward signs of 
pleasure or pain in the individual with whom we sym- 
pathise. 

But the sympathetic feeling which results from associa- 
tion alone is not what is generally understood by sympathy. 
Arising merely from the habitual connection of certain 
cognitions with certain feelings in the experience of the 
spectator, it is, strictly speaking, not at all concerned with 
the feelmgs of the other person. It is not a reflex of 
what he feels — which, indeed, is a matter of complete in- 
difference — and the activity which it calls forth is thor- 
* oughly' selfish. If it is a feeling of pain, the spectator 
naturally, for his own sake, tries to get rid of it ; but this 

^ Adam Smith, l'heo}y of Aloral Sentiments^ p. 7. 

I lO 

THE ORIGIN OF 

may be done by turning the back upon the sufferer, and 
looking out for some diversion. The sympathetic feeling 
which springs from association alone, may also produce a 
benevolent or hostile reaction against its immediate cause : 
the smiling face often evokes a kindly feeling towards the 
smiler, and “ the sight of suffering often directs irritation 
against the sufferer.” ^ In such cases it is the other person 
himself, rather than his benefactor or his tormentor, that 
is regarded as cause by the sympathiser. When based on 
association alone, the sympathetic feeling thus lacks the 
most vital characteristic of sympathy, in the popular sense 
of the term : it lacks kindliness." 

Sympathy, in the ordinary use of the word, requires the 
co-operation of the altruistic sentiment or affection — a dis- 
position of mind which is particularly apt to display itself 
as kindly emotion towards other beings. This sentiment,'^ 
only, induces us to take a kindly interest in the feelings of 
our neighbours. It involves a tendency, or willingness, 
and, when strongly developed, gives rise to an eager desire, 
to sympathise with their pains and pleasures. Under its 
influence, our sympathetic feeling is no longer a mere 
matter of association ; we take an active part in its pro- 
duction, we direct our attention to any circumstance 
which we believe may affect the feelings of the person 
whom we love, to any external manifestation of his emo- 
tions. We are anxious to find out his joys and sorrows, 
so as to be able to rejoice with him and to suffer with 
him, and, especially, when he stands in need of it, to con- 
sole or to help him. For the altruistic sentiment is not 
merely willingness to sympathise; it is above all a conative 

^ Leslie Stej^hen, of Ethics y 

r- 243- 

The difference between sympathy 
and kindly ( “ tender'’) emotitin has been 
C('mmented upon by FiaTessor Ribot 
{Psychology of the E motions ^ p. 233), 
and by Mr. fShand, in his excellent 
chapter on the ‘ Sources of Tender 
E)notion/ in Stout’s Croujidivorh of 
Psychology^ p. 198 S(jq. 

^ I use the vv^ord “sentiment” in the 

sense proposed l)y Mr. Shand, in his 
article, ‘ (diaracter and the Emotions,'* 
in A! indy N.S. v. 203 jvyy. , and adopted 
by Professor Stout, op, cit. p. 221 sqq. 
Sentiments cannot be actually felt at 
any one moment ; “ they are complex 
mental dispositions, and may, as divers 
occasions arise, give birth to the whole 
gamut of the emotions ” [ibid. p. 223 

TjHE moral emotions 

1 1 1 

disposition to do good. The latter aptitude must be re- 
garded rather as the cause than as the result of the former; 
affection is not, as Adam Smith maintained,^ merely habitual 
sympathy, or its necessary consequence. It is true that 
sympathetic pain, unaided by kindliness, may induce a 
person to relieve the suffering of his neighbour, instead of 
shutting his eyes to it ; but then he does so, not out of 
regard to the feelings of the sufferer, but simply to free 
himself of a painful cognition. Nor must it be supposed 
that the altruistic sentiment prompts to assistance only by 
strengthening the sympathetic feeling. The sight of the 
wounded traveller may have caused no less pain to the 
Pharisee than to the good Samaritan ; yet it would have 
been impossible for the Samaritan to dismiss his pain by 
going away, since he felt a desire to assist the wounded, 
and this desire would have been left ungratilieci if he had 
not stopped by the wayside. To the egoist, the relief 
offered to the sufferer is a means of suppressing the sym- 
pathetic pain ; to the altruist, the sympathetic pain is, so 
to say, a means of giving relief. The altruist wants to 
know, to feel the pain of his neighbour, because he desires 
to help him. Why are the most kind-hearted people 
often the most cheerful, if not because they think of 
alleviating the misery of their fellow-creatures, instead of 
indulging in the sympathetic pain which it evokes ? 

It is obvious, then, that sympathy aided by the altruistic 
sentiment — sympathy in the common sense — tends to pro- 
duce disinterested retributive emotions. When we to some 
extent identify, as it were, our feelings with those of our 
neighbour, we naturally look upon any person who causes 
him pleasure or pain as the cause of our sympathetic pleasure 
or pain, and are apt to experience towards that person a 
retributive emotion similar in kind, if not always in degree, 
to the emotion which we feel when we are ourselves bene- 
fited or injured. In all animal species which possess 
altruistic sentiments in some form or other, we may be 
sure to find svmpathetic resentment as their accompani- 

^ Adam Smith, ci/. p. 323. 

1 12 

THE ORIGIN OF 

ment. A mammalian mother is as hostile to the enemy 
of her young as to her own enemy. Among social 
animals whose gregarious instinct has developed into social 
affection,^ sympathetic resentment is felt towards the enemy 
of any member of the group ; they mutually defend each 
other, and this undoubtedly involves some degree of sym- 
pathetic anger. With reference to animals in confinement 
and domesticated animals, many striking instances of this 
emotion might be quoted, even in cases when injuries have 
been inflicted on members of different species to which 
they have become attached. Professor Romanes’ terrier, 
‘‘ whenever or wherever he saw a man striking a dog, 
whether in the house, or outside, near at hand or at a 
distance, .... used to rush in to interfere, snarling and 
snapping in a most threatening way.'’ -' Darwin makes 
mention of a little American monkey in the Zoological 
Gardens of London which, when seeing a great baboon 
attack his friend, the keeper, rushed to the rescue and by 
screams and bites so distracted the baboon, that the man 
was able to escape.^ The dog who flies at any one who 
strikes, or even touches, his master, is a very familiar 
instance of sympathetic resentment. The Rev. Charles 
Williams mentions a dog at Liverpool who saved a cat 
from the hands of some young ruffians who were maltreat- 
ing it : he rushed in among the boys, barked furiously at 
them, terrified them into flight, and carried the cat off in 
his mouth, bleeding and almost senseless, to his kennel, 
where he laid it on the straw, and nursed it.^ In man, 
sympathetic resentment begins at an early age. Professor 
Sully mentions a little boy under four who was indignant 
at any picture where an animal suffered.- 

The altruistic sentiments of mankind will be treated at 

‘ I'hc connection l»cl\veen social xxxiii. 6i8. A curious instance of a 
affection and the gregarious instinct terrier “ avenging ” the death of another 
will be discussed in a subsequent terrier, his inseparable friend, is men- 
chapter, tioru'd by Captain Medwin 

“ Romanes, Aiiijiial p. ITa/es^ ii, 162-164, 197, 2165^.), 

440. Williams, Doi^s and /heir Ways\ 

^ Darwin, Descent of Alan, p, ,.103. p. 43. 

Cf. Fisher, in Kevuc Scie 7 itifiqney ^ Sully, Studies of Childhood^ p. 250. 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS 

length in subsequent chapters. We shall find reason to 
believe that not only maternal, but to some extent, paternal 
and conjugal affection, prevailed in the human race from 
ancient times, and that social affection arose in those days 
when the conditions of life became favourable to an expan- 
sion of the early family, when the chief obstacle to a 
gregarious life — scarcity of food — was overcome, and 
sociality, being an advantage to man, became his habit. 
There are still savages who live in families rather than in 
tribes, but we know of no people among whom social 
organisation outside the family is totally wanting. Later 
discoveries only tend to confirm Darwin’s statement that, 
though single families or only two or three together, roam 
the solitudes of some savage lands, they always hold 
friendly relations with other families inhabiting the same 
district ; such families occasionally meeting in council and 
uniting for their common defence/ But as a general rule, 
to which there are few exceptions, the lower races live in 
communities larger than family groups, and all the mem- 
bers of the community are united with one another by 
common interests and common feelings. Of the harmony, 
mutual good-will, and sense of solidarity, which under 
normal conditions prevail in these societies, much evidence 
will be adduced in following pages. Mr. Melville’s remark 
with reference to some Marquesas cannibals may be quoted 
as to some extent typical. With them,’' he says, ‘‘there 
hardly appeared to be any difference of opinion upon any 
subject whatever. . . . They showed this spirit of unanimity 
in every action of life : everything was done in concert and 
good fellowship.” When a member of the group is hurt, 
the feeling of unanimity takes the form of public resent- 
ment. As Robertson observed long ago, “ in small com- 
munities, every man is touched with the injury or affront 
offered to the body of which he is a member, as if it were 
a personal attack upon his own honour or safety. The 
desire of revenge is communicated from breast to breast, 

' Darwin, 4?/. cit, p. loS. “ Melville, Typee, p. 297 sq. 

THE ORIGIN OF 

CFiAP. 

and soon kindles into rage.’' ' Speaking of some Australian 
savages, Mr. Fison remarks : — “ To the savage, the whole 
gens is the individual, and he is full of regard for it. 
Strike the gens anywhere, and every member of it con- 
siders himself struck, and the whole body corporate rises 
up in arms against the striker.”- Nobody will deny that 
there is a disinterested element in this public resentment, 
even though every member of the group consider the 
enemy of any other member to be actually his own enemy 
as well, and, partly, hate him as such. 

Our explanation of what has here been called sympa- 
thetic resentment,” however, is not yet complete. This 
emotion, as we have seen, may be a reaction against 
sympathetic pain ; but it may also be directly produced 
by the cognition of the signs of anger. In the former 
case it is, strictly speaking, independent of the emotioyi of 
the injured individual ; we may feel resentment on his 
behalf though he himself feels none. In the latter case 
it is a reflected emotion, felt independently of the cause 
of the original emotion of which it is a reflection — as 
when the yells and shrieks of a street dog-fight are heard, 
and dogs from all sides rush to the spot, each dog being 
apparently ready to bite any of the others. In the former 
case, it is, by the medium of sympathetic pain, closely 
connected with the inflicted injury ; in the latter case it 
may even be the reflection of an emotion which is itself 
sympathetic, and the origin of which is perhaps out of 
sight. In an infuriated crowd the one gets angry because 
the other is angry, and very often the question, Why is 
hardly asked. This form of sympathetic resentment is 
of considerable importance both as an originator and as a 
communicator of moral ideas. To teach that a certain 
act is wrong is to teach that it is an object, and a proper 
object, of moral indignation, and the aim of the instructor 

^ Rohertson, History of America^ \. anybody treads on his foot, but when-> 
350. Cf. ('li('ford\s theory of the anybod}^ treads on his tiiVje.” 

“ tribal self” { Led uf’es ajid Essays Fison and flowitt, KafnHaroi and 

290 Sijq), He says [ibid. p. 291), lOti nai, p. 170, 

rtiE MORAL EMOTIONS 

is to inspire a similar indignation in the mind of the 
pupil. An intelligent teacher tries to attain this end by 
representing the act in such a light as to evoke disapproval 
independently of any appeal to authority ; but, unfortu- 
nately, in many cases where the duties of current morality 
are to be enjoined, he cannot do so — for a very obvious 
reason. Of various acts which, though inoffensive by 
themselves, are considered wrong, he can say. little more 
than that they are forbidden by God and man ; and if, 
nevertheless, such acts are not only professed, but actually 
felt, to be wrong, that is due to the fact that men are 
inclined to sympathise with the resentment of persons for 
whom they feel regard. It is this fact that accounts for 
the connection* between the punishment of an act and the 
consequent idea that it deserves to be punished. We shall 
see that the punishment which society inflicts is, as a rule, 
an expression of its moral indignation ; but there are in- 
stances in which the order is reversed, and in which human, 
or, as it may be, supposed divine, punishment or anger is 
the cause, and moral disapproval the effect. Children, as 
everybody knows, grow up with their ideas of right and 
wrong graduated, to a great extent, according to the temper 
of the father or mother ; ^ and men are not seldom, as 
Hobbes said, “like little children, that have no other rule 
of good and evill manners, but the correction they receive 
from their Parents, and Masters.’’ “ The case is the same 
with any outbreak of public resentment, with any punish- 
ment inflicted by society at large. However selfish it 
may be in its origin, to whatever extent it may spring 
from personal motives, it always has a tendency to become 
in some degree disinterested, each individual not only being 
angry on his own behalf, but at the same time reflecting 
the anger of everybody else. 

Any means of expressing resentment may serve as a 
communicator of the emotion. Besides punishment, lan- 
guage deserves special mention. Moral disapproval may 

^ Cf. Bariiig-Gould, Origin and Dc~ Hobbes, J xviai han,, i. 2, p. 76. 

'^eiopfnent of Reiigions Beliefs i. 212. 

I 2 

THE ORIGIN OF 

f HAP. 

I l6 

be evoked by the very sounds of certain words, like 
“ murder,” “ theft,” “ cowardice,” and others, which not 
merely indicate the commission of certain acts, but also 
express the opprobrium attached to them. By being called 
a “ liar,” a person is more disgraced than by any plain 
statement of his untruthfulness ; and by the use of 
some strong word the orator raises the indignation of a 
sympathetic audience to its pitch. 

All the cases of disinterested resentment which we have 
hitherto considered fall under the heading of sympathetic 
resentment. But there are other cases into which sympathy 
does not enter at all. Resentment is not always caused 
by the infliction of an injury ; it may be called forth by 
any feeling of pain traceable to a living being as its direct 
or indirect cause. apart from our sympathy with 

the sufferings of others, there are many cases in which we 
feel hostile towards a person on account of some act of 
his which in no way interferes with our interests, which 
conflicts with no self-regarding feeling of ours. There are 
in the human mind what Professor Bain calls “disinter- 
ested antipathies,” sentimental aversions “ of which our 
fellow-beings are the subjects, and on account of which 
we overlook our own interest quite as much as in display- 
.ing our sympathies and affections.” ^ Differences of taste, 
habit, and opinion, are particularly apt to create similar 
dislikes, which, as will be seen, have played a very promi- 
nent part in the moulding of the moral consciousness. 
When a certain act, though harmless by itself (apart from 
the painful impression it makes upon the spectator), fills 
us with disgust or horror, we may feel no less inclined to 
inflict harm upon the agent, than if he had committed an 
offence against person, property, or good name. And 
here, again, our resentment is sympathetically increased by 
our observing a similar disgust in others. We are easily 
affected by the aversions and likings of our neighbours. 
As Tucker said, “ we grow to love things we perceive 

^ Bain, Emotions and the IVill^ p. 26S. 

tHE MORAL EMOTIONS 

them fond of, and contract aversions from their 
dislikes,” ^ 

We have already seen that sympathy springing from an 
altruistic sentiment may produce, not only disinterested 
resentment, but disinterested retributive kindly emotion 
as well. When taking a pleasure in the benefit bestowed 
on our neighbour, we naturally look with kindness upon 
the benefactor ; and just as sympathetic resentment may 
be produced by the cognition of the outward signs of re- 
sentment, so sympathetic retributive kindly emotion may 
be produced by the signs of retributive kindliness. Lan- 
guage communicates emotions by terms of praise, as well 
as by terms of condemnation ; and a reward, like a punish- 
ment, tends to reproduce the emotion from which it sprang. 
Moreover, men have disinterested likings, as they have 
disinterested dislikes. As an instance of such likings may 
be mentioned the common admiration of courage when 
felt irrespectively of the object for which it is displayed. 

Having thus found the origin of disinterested retributive 
emotions, we have at the same time partly explained the 
origin of the moral emotions. But, as we have seen, dis- 
interestedness is not the sole characteristic by which moral 
indignation and approval are distinguished from other 
retributive emotions : a moral emotion is assumed to be. 
impartial, or, at least, is not knowingly partial, and it is 
coloured by the feeling of being publicly shared. How- 
ever, the real problem which we have now to solve is not 
how retributive emotions may become apparently impartial 
and be coloured by a feeling of generality, but why dis- 
interestedness, apparent impartiality, and the flavour of 
generality have become characteristics by which so-called 
moral emotions are distinguished from other retributive 
emotions. The solution of this problem lies in the fact that 
society is the birthplace of the moral consciousness ; that 
^the first moral judgm'ents expressed, not the private 
emotions of isolated individuals, but emotions which were 

^ Tucker, Light of Nature I'^itrsucd^ j. 154. 

ii8 

THE ORIGIN OF 

felt by the society at large ; that tribal custom was the 
earliest rule of duty. 

Customs have been defined as public habits, as the 
habits of a certain circle, a racial or national community, 
a rank or class of society. But whilst being a habit, 
custom is at the same time something else as well. It 
not merely involves a frequent repetition of a certain 
mode of conduct, it is also a rule of conduct. As Cicero 
observes, the customs of a people “ are precepts in them- 
selves.” ‘ We say that “ custom commands,” or “ custom 
demands,” and speak of it as “strict ” and “ inexorable ” ; 
and even when custom simply allows the commission of a 
certain class of actions, it implicitly lays down the rule that 
such actions are not to be interfered with. 

The rule of custom is conceived of as a moral rule, 
which decides what is right and wrong.* “ Les loix de la 
conscience,” says Montaigne, “ que nous disons naistre de 
nature, naissent de la coustume.” ^ Mr. Howitt once said 
to a young Australian native with whom he was speaking 
about the food prohibited during initiation, “ But if you 
were hungry and caught a female opossum, you might eat 
it if the old men were not there.” The youth replied, “ I 
could not do that ; it would not be right ” ; and he could 
give no other reason than that it would be wrong to dis- 
regard the customs of his people."* Mr. Bernau says of the 
British Guiana Indians ; — “ Their moral sense of good 
and evil is entirely regulated by the customs and practices 
inherited from their forefathers. What their predecessors 
believed and did must have been right, and they deem it 
the height of presumption to suppose that any could think 
and act otherwise.” '' The moral evil of the pagan Green- 
landers “ was all that was contrary to laws and customs, as 

^ Cicero, De Officiis, i. 41, view is expre.ssed hy Wundt {Ethiky 

Cf Austin, J.ectures on Ji/rispru^ p. 128.?//. ) 
de?nc, i. 104; Tdnnies, ‘ Philosophical ^ Montaigne, Essa/s, i. 22 {CEtivreSy 
Terminology,’ in Af/nd, N.S., viii. 304. p. 48), « 

Von Jhering {Z 7 veck im Reehfy ii. 23) ** Fi.son and Howitt, t/V. p, 256 

defines the (iennan as ‘'die im ^ Bernau, Missionary Labours in 

LeVien des Yolks sich bildende ver- British Guiana^ p. 60. 
pflicblende Gevvuhnheit and a similar 

regulated by the angakoks/’ and when the Danish mis- 
sionaries tried to make them acquainted with their own 
moral conceptions, the result was that they ‘‘ conceived the 
idea of virtue and sin as what waspleasing or displeasing to 
Europeans, as according or disaccording with their customs 
and laws.”^ ‘‘The Africans, like most heathens,” Mr. 
Rowley observes, “ do not regard sin, according to their 
idea of sin, as an offence against God, but simply as a 
transgression of the laws and customs of their country.” - 
The Ba-Ronga call derogations of universally recognised 
custom yila^ prohibited, tabooed."’ The Bedouins of the 
Euphrates “make no appeal to conscience or the will of 
God in their distinctions between right and wrong, but 
appeal only to custom.” '^ According to the laws of Manu, 
the custom handed down in regular succession since time 
immemorial “is called the conduct of virtuous men.”"' 
'Fhe Greek idea of the customary, to vdfiLfxov^ shows the 
close connection between morality and custom ; and so do 
the words e 0 o 9 , }}dos^ and the Roman mos and moralisj 

the German SiUe and SittUchkeitd' Moreover, in early 
society, customs are not only moral rules, but the only 
moral rules ever thought of. llie savage strictly com- 
plies with the Hegelian command that no man must have 
a private conscience. The following statement, which 
refers to the Tinnevelly Shanars, may be quoted as a 
typical example : — “ Solitary individuals amongst them 
rarely adopt any new opinions, or any new course of 
procedure. They follow the multitude to do evil, and 
they follow the multitude to do good. They think in 
herds.” ' 

Disobedience to custom evokes public indignation. In 

^ Rink, CreeiiltDid.; p. 201 sq. of custom, see Maclean, Conipoidi tt»i 

Rowley, Religion of the Africans^ of Kafr Laws and Customs, p, 34 

p. 44. (Amaxosa); Mac[)her.son, AJemorials oj 

Junod, Jia-Rong'd, p. 477. Seri'iee in India, p. 94 (Kandhs) ; 

Blunt, Bedouin Brides of*the Eu- Kuliary, Ethnographisehe Beitrdge zur 
phrates, ii, 224. Kenntniss der Karoliiiischen InseL 

■'* Laws of ARinu, ii. 18. 73 ( I’elew Islanders) ; Smith, 

*’ f'or the history of these words, sec Chinese C ha raeteri sties, p. 119. 

Wundt, op. eit. p. 19 sqq. For other " Caldwell, Tinnevelly Shanars, p. 
instances illustrating the moral character 69. 

THE ORIGIN OF 

the lower stages of civilisation, especially, custom is a 
tyrant who binds man in iron fetters, and who threatens 
the transgressor, not only with general disgrace, but often 
with bodily suffering. “To believe that man in a savage 
state is endowed with freedom either of thought or action,” 
says Sir G. Grey, “ is erroneous in the highest degree ” ; ^ 
and this statement is corroborated by an array of facts from 
all quarters of the savage world." Now, as the rule of 
custom is a moral rule, the indignation aroused by its 
transgression is naturally a moral emotion. Moreover, 
where all the duties incumbent on a man are expressed in 
the customs of the society to which he belongs, it is ob- 
vious that the characteristics of moral indignation are to 
be sought for in its connection with custom. The most 
salient feature of custom is its generality. Its transgres- 
sion calls forth public indignation ; hence the flavour of 
generality which characterises moral disapproval. Custom 
is fixed once for all, and takes no notice of the preferences 
of individuals. By recognising the validity of a custom, I 
implicitly admit that the custom is equally binding for me 
and for you and for all the other members of the society. 
This involves disinterestedness ; 1 admit that a breach of 
the custom is equally wrong whether I myself am im- 
mediately concerned in the act or not. It also involves 
apparent impartiality ; I assume that my condemnation of 
the act is independent of the relationship in which the 
parties concerned in it stand to me personally, or, at least, 

I am not aware that my condemnation is influenced by any 

^ ( >vey, foiDiiah of li.xfedUiois in 
North- West and Western Australia^ ii. 

217. 

- Tylor, ‘ riimili\’e Society,’ in Co)i- 
ieniporary Review, xxi. 706. Idem, 
Anthropology, p. 408 sq, Avebury, 
Origin of Civilisation, p. 466 .sv/t/. 
Eyre, fonrnals of Expeditions into Cen- 
tral Anstra/ia, ii. 384, 385, 388. Curr, 
The Anstralian Race, i. 51. Mathew, 

‘ Australian Aborigines,’ in four, and 
Proceed. Roy. Soc. NS. Wales, xxiii. 
398. Idem, Eaglehaivk and Crow, 
p. 93. Taplin, ‘ Narrinyeri,’ in Woods, 
Nat we Tribes of South Australia, pp. 

35, 136 .sv/. ilawlrey, ‘ Lengua Indians 
of tlic baniguayan Chaco,’ in four, 
Anthr, Inst, xx.xi. 292. Murdoch, 

‘ Ethnological Result.s of the Point 
Ikirrow Expedition/ in Ann. Rep, Bur. 
Ethn. ix. 427 S(j, ( i‘oint Harrow Eskimo). 
Holm, ‘ Iuhnologi.sl< Skiz/x' af Ang- 
magsalikerne,’ in Meddelelser om Cron- 
land, X. 85. Nansen, Eirst Crossing 
of Creeniajui, ii. 295. Johnston, British 
Central Africa, p. 452. New, life, 
Wanderings, and Labours in Eastcr/i 
Africa, sq. iio(Wanika). Scott Robert- 
son, Kafirs of the Hindu- Kush, p. 183 
sq. 

tHE MORAL EMOTIONS 

I2I 

such relationship. And this holds good whatever be the 
origin of the custom. Though customs are very frequently 
rooted in public sympathetic resentment or in public dis- 
interested aversions, they may have a selfish and partial 
origin as well. At first the leading men of the society 
may have prohibited certain acts because they found them 
disadvantageous to themselves, or to those with whom they 
particularly sympathised. Where custom is an oppressor 
of women, this oppression may certainly be traced back to 
the selfishness of men. Where custom sanctions slavery, 
it is certainly not impartial to the slaves. Yet in the one 
case as in the other, I assume custom to be in the right, 
irrespectively of my own station, and I even expect the 
women and slaves themselves to be of the same opinion. 
Such an expectation is by no means a chimera. Under 
normal social conditions, largely owing to men’s tendency 
to share sympathetically the resentment of their superiors, 
the customs of a society are willingly submitted to, and 
recognised as right, by the large majority of its members, 
whatever may be their station. Among the Rejangs of 
Sumatra, says Marsden, “ a man without property, family, 
or connections, never, in the partiality of self-love, con- 
siders his own life as being of equal value with that of a 
man of substance.” * However selfish, however partial a 
certain rule may be, it becomes a true custom, a moral 
rule, as soon as the selfishness or the partiality of its 
makers is lost sight of. 

It will perhaps be argued that, by deriving the charac- 
teristics of moral indignation from its connection with 
custom, we implicitly contradict our initial assumption 
that moral emotions lie at the bottom of all moral judg- 
ments. But it is not so. Custom is a moral rule only 
on account of the indignation called forth by its trans- 
gression. In its ethical aspect it is nothing but a general- 
isation of emotional tendencies, applied to certain modes 
of conduct, and transmitted from generation to generation. 
Public indignation lies at the bottom of it. In its capacity 

' Maistltrij IIis(o)'v of Sumatra^ p. 247. 

THE ORIGIN OF 

of a rule of duty, custom, ynos^ is derived from the emotion 
to which it gave its name. 

As public indignation is the prototype of moral dis- 
approval, so public approval, expressed in public praise, is 
the prototype of moral approval. Like public indignation, 
public approval is characterised by a flavour of generality, 
by disinterestedness, by apparent impartiality. But of 
these two emotions public indignation, being at the root 
of custom and leading to the infliction of punishment, is 
by far the more impressive. Hence it is not surprising 
that the term ‘‘ moral is etymologically connected with 
mos^ which always implies the existence of a social rule 
the transgression of which evokes public indignation. 
Only by analogy it has come to be applied to the emotion 
of approval as well. 

Though taking their place in the system of human 
emotions as public emotions felt by the society at large, 
moral disapproval and approval have not always remained 
inseparably connected with the feelings of any special 
society. The unanimity of opinion which originally 
characterised the members of the same social unit was 
disturbed by its advancement in civilisation. Individuals 
arose who found fault with the moral ideas prevalent in 
the community to which they belonged, criticising those 
ideas on the basis of their own individual feelings. Such 
rebels, to be sure, are no less justified in speaking in the 
name of morality true and proper, than is society itself. 
The emotions from which their opposition against public 
opinion springs may be, in nature, exactly similar to the 
approval or disapproval felt by the society at large, though 
they are called forth by different facts or, otherwise, differ 
from these emotions in degree. They may present the 
same disinterestedness and apparent impartiality — indeed, 
dissent from the established moral ideas largely rises 
from the conviction that the apparent impartiality of 
public feelings is an illusion. As will be seen, the evo- * 
iution of the moral consciousness involves a progress in 
impartiality and justice ; it tends towards an equalisation 

tHE MORAL EMOTIONS 

of rights, towards an expansion of the circle within which 
the same moral rules are held applicable ; and this process 
is in no small degree effected by the efforts made by 
high-minded individuals to raise public opinion to their 
own standard of right. Nay, as we have already noticed, 
individual moral feelings do not even lack that flavour 
of generality which characterises the resentment and ap- 
proval felt unanimously by a body of men. Though, 
perhaps, persecuted by his own people as an outcast, the 
moral dissenter does not regard himself as the advocate 
of a mere private opinion.^ Even when standing alone, 
he feels that his conviction is shared at least by an ideal 
society, by all those who see the matter as clearly as he 
does himself, and who are animated with equally wide 
sympathies, an equally broad sense of justice. Thus the 
moral emotions remain to the last public emotions — if 
not in reality, then as an ideal. 

The fact that the earliest moral emotions were public 
emotions Implies that the original form of the moral 
consciousness cannot, as is often asserted, have been the 
individuars own conscience. Dr. Martineau’s observation, 
that the inner springs of other men’s actions may be 
read off only by inference from our own experience, by 
no means warrants his conclusion that the moral con- 
sciousness is at its origin engaged in self-estimation, in- 
stead of circuitously reaching this end through a prior 
critique upon our fellow-men. The moral element which 
may be contained in the emotion of self-reproach or self- 
approval, is generally to such an extent mixed up with 
other and non-moral elements, that it can be disentangled 
only by a careful process of abstraction, guided by the 
feelings of other people with reference to our conduct or 
by our own feelings with reference to the conduct ot 
others. The moral emotion of remorse presupposes some 
notion of right and Wrong, and the application of this 
notion to one’s own conduct. Hence it could never have 

^ Cf. Pollock, Essays in Jurispru- - W^xXsvut^vxEEypes oj Ejhual Theory^ 

dence and Ethus^ p. 309. ii. 29 sqq. 

THE ORIGIN OF 

it necessary to scrutinise the facts which Lord Avebury has 
adduced in support of his conclusion. 

Mr. Neighbors states that, among the Comanchcs of Texas, 

no individual action is considered a crime, but every man 
acts for liimself according to his own judgment, unless some 
superior power — for instance, that of a popular chief— should 
exercise authority over Iiim.” Another writer says, ‘‘The 
Redskin has no moral sense whatever.” Among the Basutos, 
according to Casalis, morality “depends so entirely upon social 
order that all political disorganisation is immediately followed 
by a state of degeneracy, which the re-establishment of order 
alone can rectify.” Similar accounts are given as regards Central 
Africa and some other places. Thus at Jenna, and in the 
surrounding districts, “ whenever a town is deprived of its chief, 
the inhabitants acknowledge no law — anarcliy, troubles, and 
confusion immediately prevail, and till a successor is appointed 
all labour is at an end.” Tlie Damaras “seem to have no 
perceptible notion of right or wrong.” The Tasmanians were 
“without aiiy moral views and impressions.” Eyre says of the 
Australians tliat they have “ no moral sense of what is just and 
equitable in the abstract”; and a missionary had very great 
difficulty in conveying to those natives ai;y idea of sin. 'Ehe 
Kacliaris had “ in their own language no words for sin, for 
piety, for prayer, for repentance ” ; and of another of the ab- 
original tribes of India Mr. Campbell remarks that they “are 
. . . said to be without moral sense.” Lord Avebury in this 
connection even quotes a statement to the effect that the ex- 
pressions which the "Eonga Islanders have for ideas like vice 
and injustice “ arc equally applicable to other things.” 7"hc 
South American Indians of the Gran Chaco are said by the 
missionaries to “ make no distinction between right and wrong, 
and have therefore neither fear nor hope of any present or future 
punishmejit or reward, nor any mysterious terror of some super- 
natural power.” Finally, Lord Avebury observes that religion, 
except in the more advanced races, has no moral aspect or 
influence, that tlie deities are almost invariably regarded as evil, 
and that the belief in a future state is not at first associated 
with reward or punishment.^ 

Many of the facts referred to by Lord Avebury do not at 
all presuppose the absence of moral feelings. It is difficult to 
see why the malevolence of gods should prevent men from 
having notions of right and wrong, and we know from the Old 
Testament itself that there may be a moral law without Para- 
^ Avebury, r?/. rz/, p. 417 .'yy. 

tHE MORAL EMOTIONS 

disc and Hell. The statement concerning the Conianches only 
implies that^ among them, individual freedom is great ; whilst 
the social disorder which prevails among various peoples at times 
of political disorganisation indicates that the cohesiveness of the 
political aggregate is weak, as well as a certain discrepancy be- 
tween moral ideas and moral practice. In Morocco, also, the 
death of a Sultan is immediately followed by almost perfect 
anarchy, and yet the people recognise both the moral tenets of 
the Koran and the still more stringent temets of tlieir ancient 
customs. As to the Basutos, Casalis expressly states that they 
have the idea of moral evil, and represent it in tlicir language 
by words which mean ugliness, or damage, or debt, or incapa- 
city ; ^ and M. Arbousset once heard a Basuto say, on an unjust 
judgment being pronounced, The judge is powerful, therefore 
we must be silent ; if lie were weak, we should all cry out about 
his injustice.”- Moreover, a people may be unconscious of 
what is just in the abstract,” and of moral notions,” in 
the strict sense of tlie term, and at the same time, in concrete 
cases, distinguish between right and wrong, just and unjust. 
Of the Western Australians, Mr. Chauncy expressly says that 
they have a keen sense of justice, and mentions an instance of 
it ; whilst our latest authorities on the Central Australians 
observe that, though their moral code difters radically from 
ours, it cannot be denied that their conduct is governed by 
it, and that any known breaches are dealt with both surely and 
severely.” ^ As regards the 'Fonga Islanders, Mariner states 
that ‘‘ their ideas of honour and justice do not very much differ 
from ours except in degree, they considering some things more 
honourable tlian we should, and others much less so”; and in 
anotlier place lie says that the notions of the Tonga people, 
in respect to honour and justice . , . are tolerably well defined, 
steady and universal,” though not always acted upon.^ The 
statement that the American Indians have no moral sense 
whatever,” sounds very strange wlien compared with what is 
known about their social and moral life ; Buchanan, for instance, 
asserts that they have a strong innate sense of justice.”^ Of 
course, there may be diversity of opinion as to what constitutes 
the moral sense ” ; if the conception of sin or other theo- 
logical jiotions are regarded as essential to it, it is probably 

^ Casali.s, /nis/z/df, p. 304. ^ ^ Central Aus fra/ ta, 46. 

- AiVj(jiissel and Dauinas, op, cit. ^ Mariner, N'alives of the Tonga 

j>- 3‘^9- /s/ajn/s\ ii. 159, 163. 

" Brough Sinylh, Aborigines of Vic- Buchanan, Sketches of the History^ 

toria, ii. 228. i 5 rv,, of the jVorth American fjictia 7 is^ 

Spencer and Gillen, N'ative Tribes p. 158. 

THE ORIGIN OF 

wanting in a large portion of mankind, and not only in the least 
civilised. When missionaries or travellers deny to certain 
savages moral feelings and ideas, they seem chiefly to mean 
feelings or ideas similar to their own. 

Of many savage and barbarous peoples it is directly affirmed 
that they have a sense of justice. Mr. Man says concerning 
the Andaman Islanders, Certain traits wliich have been notice- 
able in their dealings with us would give colour to the belief 
that they are not altogether lacking in the sense of honour, and 
have some faint idea of the meaning of justice.”^ Colonel 
Dalton states that, among the Korwas on the highlands of 
Sirgiija, wlien several persons are implicated in one offence, he 
has found them most anxious that to each should be ascribed 
his fair share of it, and no more, the oldest of tlie parly invari- 
ably taking on liimself the chief responsibility as leader or 
instigator, and doing his utmost to exculpate as unaccountable 
agents the young members of the gang.”“ 'Fhe Aleuts, accord- 
ing to Veniaminof, are “naturally inclined to be just,” and feel 
deeply undeserved injuries.-^ Kolbcn, wlio is nowadays recog- 
nised as a good authority,'^ wrote of the Hottentots, “The 
strictness and celerity of the Hottentot justice are things in 
which they outshine all Christendom.”’'^’ Missionaries have 
wondered that, among the Zulus, “ in the absence for ages of all 
revealed truth and all proper religious instruction, tliere sliould 
still remain so mucli of mental integrity, so much ability to 
discern truth and justice, and withal so much regard for these 
principles in their daily intercourse with one another.”^’ Zoller 
ascribes to the Negro a well-developed feeling of justice. 
“No European,” he says, “at least no European child, could 
discriminate so keenly between just and unjust punishment.”^ 
Mr. Hinde observes; — “One of the most marked characteristics 
of black people is their keen perception of justice. They do 
not resent merited punishment where it is coupled with justice 
upon other matters. The Masai liavc their sense of justice 
particularly strongly developed.” ^ Dieffenbach writes of the 
Maoris, “ There is a high natural sense of justice amongst them ; 

^ Man, in Jour. jUithr. lust. xii. 92. 

- Dalton, Descriptive EtJmoIogy of 
Bengal , p. 230. 

3 V^eniaminof, quoted by Dali, 
Aiaska, p. 398. 

^ Theophilus Hahn remarks {The 
Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi , p. 
40) that Kolbcn\s reports have been 
doubted by European writers without 
any good reason. 

Kolben, Present State of the Cape 
of Good Hope^ i- 30i. Cf. ibid. i. 339. 

(Quoted by Tyler, B'orty Years 
among the Zulus ^ p. 197. 

^ Zoller, ICanienm, ii. 92. Cf Idem, 
Das Togoland., p. 37. 

^ Hinde, The Last of the Masai., p. 
34. Cf, F(jreman, Philippine Islands, 
V- 185. 

fHE MORAL EMOTIONS 

and it is from us that they have learnt that many forbidden 
things can be done with impunity, if they can only be kept 
secret.’"^ Justice is a virtue which always commands respect 
among the Bedouins, and injustice on the part of those in 
power is almost impossible. Public opinion at once asserts 
itself ; and the Sheykh, who should attempt to override the 
law, would speedily find himself deserted,” ^ 

Much less conspicuous than the emotion of public re~ 
sentment is the emotion of public approval. These public 
emotions are largely of a sympathetic character, and, 
whilst a tendency to sympathetic resentment is always 
involved in the sentiment of social affection, a tendency 
to sympathetic retributive kindly emotion is not. Among 
the lower animals this latter emotion seems hardly to occur 
at all, and in men it is often deplorably defective. Resent- 
ment towards an enemy is itself, as a rule, a much stronger 
emotion than retributive kindly emotion towards a friend. 
And, as for the sympathetic forms of these emotions, it is 
not surprising that the altruistic sentiment is more readily 
moved by the sight of pain than by the sight of pleasure,^ 
considering that its fundamental object is to be a means of 
protection for the species. Moreover, sympathetic retri- 
butive kindliness has powerful rivals in the feelings of 
jealousy and envy, which tend to make the individual 
hostile both towards him who is the object of a benefit 
and towards him who bestows it. As an ancient writer 
observes, ‘‘ many suffer with their friends when the friends 
are in distress, but are envious of them when they 
prosper.” ^ But though these circumstances are a hin- 
drance to the rise of retributive kindly emotions of a sym- 
pathetic kind, they do not prevent public approval in a 
case when the whole society profits by a benefit, nor have 
they any bearing on those disinterested instinctive likings 
of which I have spoken above. I think, then, we may 

^ Dicffenbach , 7 'ravels in JVew Zea~ Cf. Jodi, Lehr buck der Psycho- 

'and, ii. 106. Jogie, p. 686. 

“ Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the Schmidt, Eihik der alien Griechen, 

Euphrates^ ii. 224 sqq, i, 259, 

K 

THE MORAL EMOTIONS c^ap. v 

safely conclude that public praise and moral approval 
occurred, to some degree, even in the infancy of human 
society. It will appear from numerous facts recorded in 
following chapters, that the moral consciousness of 
modern savages contains not only condemnation, but 
praise.

ANALYSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL MORAL CONCEPTS 

We have assumed that the moral concepts are essentially 
generalisations of tendencies in certain phenomena to call 
forth moral emotions. We have further assumed that 
there are two kinds of moral emotions : indignation and 
approval. If these assumptions hold good, either indig- 
nation or approval must be at the bottom of every moral 
concept. That such is really the case will, I think, be- 
come evident from the present chapter, in which the 
principal of those concepts will be analysed. 

Our analysis will be concerned with moral concepts 
formed by the civilised mind. Whilst the most represen- 
tative of English terms for moral estimates have equivalents 
in the other European languages, I do not take upon 
myself to decide to what extent they have equivalents 
in non-Iiuropean tongues. That all existing peoples, 
even the very lowest, have moral emotions is as certain 
as that they have customs, and there can be no doubt 
that they give expression to those emotions in their speech. 
But it is another question how far their emotions have led 
to such generalisations as are implied in moral concepts. 
Concerning the Fuegians M. Hyades observes, ‘‘ Les id6es 
abstraites sont chez eux a peu pres nulles. II est difficile de 
,definir exactement ce qu’ils appellent un homme bon et un 
homme m(!;chant ; mais a coup sur ils n’ont pas la notion 
de ce qui est bon ou mauvais, abstraction faite de Tindi- 
vidu ou de I’objet auquel ils appliqueraient Tun ou Tautre 

K 2 

ANALYSIS OF THE 

de ces attributs.” ^ The language of the Californian 
Karolc, though rich in its vocabulary, is said to possess 
no equivalent for “virtue.”^ In the aboriginal tongues 
of the highlanders of Central India “ there seem to be 
no expressions for abstract ideas, the few such which they 
possess being derived from the Hindi The nomen- 

clature of religious ceremony, of moral qualities, and of 
nearly all the arts of life they possess, are all Hindi.” ® 
On a strict examination of the language of the Tonga 
Islanders, Mariner could discover “ no words essentially 
expressive of some of the higher qualities of human merit, 
as virtue, justice, humanity ; nor of the contrary, as vice, 
injustice, cruelty, &c. They have indeed expressions for 
these ideas,” he adds, but these expressions “ are equally 
applicable to other things. To express a virtuous or good 
man, they would say, tangata lilU, a good man, or tangata 
loto alley a man with a good mind ; but the word lille, 
good (unlike our word virtuous), is equally applicable to 
an axe, canoe, or anything else.” ' Of the Australian 
natives about Botany Bay and Port Jackson Collins 
wrote, “ That they have ideas of a distinction between 
good and bad is evident from their having terms in their 
language significant of these qualities.” A fish of which 
they never ate, was wee-rCy or bad, whereas the kangaroo 
was bood-yer-rCy or good ; and these expressions were used 
not only for qualities which they perceived by their senses, 
but for all kinds of badness and goodness, and were the 
only terms they had for wrong and right. “ Their enemies 
were wee-re ; their friends bood-yer-re. On our speaking 
of cannibalism, they expressed great horror at the mention, 
and said it was wee-re. On seeing any of our people 
punished or reproved for ill-treating them, they expressed 
their approbation, and said it was bood-yer-re, it was 
right.” ® 

^ llyades and Deniker, Mission India^ p. 139. 
scientifique du Cap Horn^ vii. 251. ^ Mariner, Natives of the Tont^a 

Powers, Tribes of California^ p. Islands^ ii. 147 sq. 

22. ® Collins, English Colony in New 

^ Forsyth, Highlands of Ce 7 ttral South IValeSy i. 548 sq. 

VI . PRINCIPAL MORAL CONCEPTS 

Considering, moreover, that even the European lan- 
guages make use of such general terms as good ’’ and 
“ bad for the purpose of expressing moral qualities, it 
seems likely that, originally, moral concepts were not 
clearly differentiated from other more comprehensive 
generalisations, and that they assumed a more definite 
shape only by slow degrees. At the same time we must 
not expect to find the beginning of this process reflected 
in the vocabularies of languages. There is every reason 
to believe that a savage practically distinguishes between 
the “ badness ” of a man and the “ badness’’ of a piece of 
food, although he may form no clear idea of the dis- 
tinction. As Professor Wundt observes, ‘‘the phenomena 
of language do not admit of direct translation back again 
into ethical processes : the ideas themselves are different 
from their vehicles of expression, and here as everywhere 
the external mark is later than the internal act for which 
it stands.”^ Language is a rough general iser ; even 
superficial resemblance between different phenomena often 
suffices to establish linguistic identity between them. 
Compare the rightness of a line with the rightness of 
conduct, the wrongness of an opinion with the wrongness 
of an act. And notice the different significations given 
to the verb “ought” in the following sentences: — “They 
ought to be in town by this time, as the train left Paris 
last night “ If you wish to be healthy you ought to rise 
early;” “You ought always to speak the truth.” 
Though it may be shown that in these statements the 
predicate “ ought ” signifies something which they all have 
in common — the reference to a rule,“ — we must by no 
means assume that this constitutes the essence of the moral 
“ ought,” or gives us the clue to its origin. 

Discarding all questions of etymology as irrelevant to 
our subject,^ we shall, in our analysis of moral concepts, 

^ ^ Wundt, Ethik, p. 36 (English moral concepts has, in my opinion, 

translation, p. 44). proved a failure — which may be seen 

Cf. Stephen, Liberty^ Equality^ from Mr. iJaynes’ hook on The Idea 

Fraternity ^ p. 343 sq. of God and the Moral Sense in the 

^ The attempt to apply the philo- Light of Language. 
logical method to an examination of 

ANALYSIS OF THE 

endeavour to fix the true import of each concept by 
examining how, and under what circumstances, the term 
expressing it is generally applied. We shall restrict 
ourselves to the principal, typical terms which are used as 
predicates in moral judgments. If we succeed in proving 
that they are all fundamentally derived from either moral 
indignation or moral approval, there can be no reasonable 
doubt as to the origin of the rest. 

The tendency in a phenomenon to arouse moral in- 
dignation is directly expressed by the term had^ and a 
disposition of mind which is characterised by some special 
kind of badness is called Closely allied to the term 

‘‘ bad ” is the term wrong. But there is a difference in 
the use of these words. Whilst bad may be applied 
both to a person’s character and to his conduct, only his 
conduct may be said to be ‘‘wrong.’' The reason for this 
is that the concept of moral wrongness is modelled on the 
idea of a moral law, the breach of which is regarded as 
“ wrong.’’ And, by laying down a moral law, we only 
enjoin a certain mode of conduct ; we do not command a 
person to have a certain character. 

The moral law is expressed by the term ought.^ a term 
which, in modern ethics, generally occupies a central 
position among moral predicates. The notion which 
it embodies is frequently looked upon as ultimate and 
incapable of analysis — “too elementary” (to quote 
Professor Sidgwick) “to admit of any formal definition.”^ 
This view, I think, instead of simplifying the matter, has 
been one of the chief causes of the prevailing confusion in 
ethical thought. 

Far from being a simple notion, “ ought ” appears to me 
clearly decomposable, even though it have a special flavour 
of its own. First of all, it expresses a conation. When 
I feel that I ought to do a thing, I experience an impulse 
to do it, even though some opposite impulse may finally 
determine my action. And when I say to another man, 
“You ought to do this, or that,” there is certainly implied 

^ Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics^ p. 32. 

a purpose to influence his action in a certain direction. 
In the notion of duty, the ethical import of which is 
identical with that of “ ought,” this conative element is 
not so obvious. 

Closely connected with the conative nature of “ought” 
is the imperative character it is apt to assume. But, 
though frequently used imperatively, “ ought ” is not 
necessarily and essentially imperative. Even if the 
“ ought ” which I address to myself, in a figurative sense, 
may be styled a command, it is hardly appropriate to 
speak of a present command with reference to past actions. 
ThQ common phrase, “ You ought to have done this, or 
that,” cannot be called a command. 

The conation expressed in “ ought ” is determined by 
the idea that the mode of conduct which ought to be per- 
formed is not, or will possibly not be, performed. It is 
also this idea of its not being performed that determines 
the emotion which gives to “ ought ” the character of a 
moral predicate. The doing of what ought not to be 
done, or the omission of what ought not to be omitted, is 
apt to call forth moral indignation — this is the most essen- 
tial fact involved in the notion of “ ought.” Every 
“ ought ’’-judgment contains implicitly a negation. No- 
body would ever have dreamt of laying down a moral rule 
if the idea of its transgression had not presented itself to 
his mind. We may reverse the words of the Apostle,' and 
say that where no transgression is, there is no law. When 
Solon was asked why he had specified no punishment for 
one who had murdered a father, he replied that he sup- 
posed it could not occur to any man to commit such a 
crime.^ Similarly, the modern Shintoist concludes that 
the primaeval Japanese were pure and holy from the fact 
that they are represented as a people who had no moral 
commandments.® It is this prohibitive character of 
“ ought ” that has imparted to duty that idea of antagonism 
to inclination which has found its most famous expression 

^ Romans y iv. 1 5. Cicero, Pro S. Roscio A merino ^ 25. 

^ Diogenes Laertius, So/on, 10. ® Criffis, Religions of Japan,, p. 72. 

in the Kantian ethics, and which made Bentham look upon 
the word itself as having in it “ something disagreeable 
and repulsive.” ^ It is the intrinsic connection between 
“ ought ” and “ wrong ” that has given to duty the most 
prominent place in ethical speculation whenever moral 
pessimism has been predominant. Whilst the ancient 
Greeks, with whom happiness was the state of nature, 
never spoke of duty, but held virtue to be the Supreme 
Good, Christianity, on the other hand, which looked upon 
man as a being born and bred in sin, regarded morals pre- 
eminently as the science of duty. Then, again, in modern 
times, Kant’s categorical imperative came as a reaction 
against that moral optimism which once more had given 
the preference to virtue, considering everything in the 
world or in humanity as beautiful and good from the very 
beginning.^ It is also worth noting that the feeling of 
self-complacency connected with the consciousness of 
having acted in accordance with the law of duty, has no 
distinctively expressive name in ordinary language, while 
the opposite feeling is known by so familiar and distinctive 
a term as “remorse.” This is not, as has been said,® “ a 
significant indication of the moral condition of mankind,” 
but a significant indication of the true import of the 
notion of duty itself. 

It is not, then, in the emotion of approval that we 
must seek for the origin of this concept. We may un- 
doubtedly applaud him who is faithful to his duty, but 
the idea of duty involves no applause. There is no 
contradiction in the omission of an act being disapproved 
of and the performance of it being praised. “ Ought ” 
and “ duty ” express only the tendency of an omis- 
sion to call forth disapproval, and say nothing about 
the consequences of the act’s performance. I'he con- 
scientious man refuses the homage paid to him, by 
saying, “ I have only done my duty.” Duty is a “ stern 

^ Bentham, Deontology^ i, lO. * Murray, Introdnctioti to Ethics y x>. 

^ Ziegler, Social Ethics, pp. 22, 75 io8. 
sq. 

lawgiver/’ who threatens with punishment, but promises 
no reward/ 

The ideas of “ ought ” and duty ” thus spring from 
the same source as the ideas of ‘‘ bad ” and ‘‘ wrong.” To 
say that a man ought to do a thing is, so far as the 
morality of his action is concerned, the very same thing 
as to say that it is bad, or wrong, of him not to do it — 
in other words, that the not-doing of it has a tendency to 
call forth moral disapproval. 

Wrong” is popularly regarded as the opposite of 
rights and they are really contradictories, but only within 
the sphere of positive moral valuation. We do not call 
the actions of irresponsible beings, like animals or infants, 
‘‘ right,” although they are not wrong ; nor do we pro- 
nounce morally indijfferent actions of responsible beings 
to be ‘‘right,” unless we wish thereby especially to mark 
their moral value as not being wrong. An act which is 
permissible is of course not wrong, and so far it may be 
said to be right ; but it would be more accurate to say 
that people have a right to do it. The adjective “ right,” 
in its strict sense, refers to cases from which the indifferent 
is excluded. A right action is, on a given occasion, the 
right action, and other alternatives are wrong. “ Right ” 
is thus closely related to “ ought,” but at the same time 
“ right ” and “ obligatory ” are not identical. I cannot 
quite subscribe to the view of Professor Sidgwick, that “ in 
the recognition of conduct as ‘ right ’ is involved an authori- 
tative prescription to do it.” “ What is right is in accord- 
ance with the moral law; the adjective “right” means 
that duty is fulfilled. It is true that the super-obligatory 
also is right. But “ right ” takes no notice of the super- 
obligatory as distinct from the obligatory, and what goes 

^ The intrinsic connection between wrong, without regtirding the person 
duty and disapproval has previously who commits the wrong and violates 
been noticed by Stuart Mill (in a note the duty as a fit object of punishment.” 
•to James Mill’s Analysis of the fliiinan Cf also Bain, Evioiions and the IVill^ 
Mindt ii. 325), according to whom ch. 15, and Gizyeki, Introduction to 
“no case can be pointed out in which the Study of Ethics^ English adaptation 
we consider anything as a duty, and by Stanton Coit, p. 102 sq. 
any act or omission as immoral or Sidgwick, op. cit. p. 106. 

beyond duty always involves the fulfilment of some duty. 
It may be admitted to be “ not only right,” but not to be 
more right. Right has no comparative. A duty is either 
fulfilled or not, and unless it be perfectly fulfilled the 
conduct is wrong. There are degrees of wrongness and 
of goodness, as the moral indignation and the moral 
approval may be stronger or weaker, but there are no 
degrees of rightness. 

The fact that the right action is a duty fulfilled accounts 
for the erroneous opinion so generally held by ethical 
writers that “ right ” is intrinsically connected with moral 
approval.' The choice of the right alternative may give 
us satisfaction and call forth in us an emotion of approval. 
This emotion may be the motive for our pointing out the 
rightness of the act, and the judgment in which we do so 
may even intrinsically contain applause. The manner in 
which the judgment, “That is right,” is pronounced, often 
shows that it is meant to be an expression of praise. But 
this does not imply that the concept “ right ” by itself has 
reference to moral approval and involves praise. It only 
means that in one word is expressed a certain concept — 
the concept that a duty is fulfilled — plus an emotion of 
approval. That “ right ” per se involves no praise is 
obvious from the fact that we regard it as perfectly right 
to pay a debt and to keep a promise, or to abstain from 
killing, robbing, or lying, although such acts or omissions 
generally have no tendency whatever to evoke in us an 
emotion of moral approval. 

The concept of “ right,” then, as implying that the 
opposite mode of conduct would have been wrong, 
ultimately derives its moral significance from moral 
disapproval. This may seem strange considering that 
“right” is commonly looked upon as positive and 
“ wrong ” as its negation. But we must remember that 
language and popular conceptions in these matters start 

^ Hutcheson, Essay on the Nature Essays^ pp. 294, 304 sq. Fowler and 
and Conduct of the Passions and Affec- Wilson, Principles of Morals ii. 1 99. 
tions^ with Illustrations on the Moral Alexander, Moral Order and Progress^ 
Senses p. 279. Clifford, Lectures and p. 399. 

from the notion of a moral rule or command. It is a 
matter of paramount importance that such modes of 
conduct as are apt to arouse moral indignation should be 
avoided. People try to prevent them by prohibitions and 
injunctions, often emphasised by threats of penalties for 
the transgressors. The whole moral and social discipline 
is based upon commands ; customs are rules of conduct, 
and so are laws. It is natural, then, that the notion of a 
command should figure uppermost in popular conceptions 
of morality. Obedience to the command is right, a 
breach of it is wrong. But the fact which gives birth to 
the command itself is the indignation called forth by the 
act which the command forbids, or by the omission of 
that which it enjoins. 

I have spoken here of ** right ” as an adjective. Used 
as a substantive, to denote a rights it also, -in whatever 
sense it be used, expresses a concept which is rooted in the 
emotion of moral disapproval. To have a right to do a 
thing is to be allowed to do it, either by positive law, 
in the case of a legal right, or by the moral law, in the 
case of a moral right ; in other words, to have a moral 
right to do a thing means that it is not wrong to do it. 
But generally the concept of ‘‘a right” means something 
more than this. From the fact that an act is allowable, 
that it is not wrong, it follows, as a rule, that it ought 
not to be prevented, that no hindrance ought to be put in 
the way of its performance ; and this character of in- 
violability is largely included in the very concepts of 
rights. That a man has a right to live does not merely 
mean that he commits no wrong by supporting his life, 
but it chiefly means that it would be wrong of other 
people to prevent him from living, that it is their duty 
not to kill him, or even, as the case may be, that it is 
their duty to help him to live. And in order to constitute 
a right in him, the duty in question must be a duty to 
Viim.. That a right belonging to A is not merely a duty 
incumbent on B, but a duty to A incumbent on B, will 
become evident from an example. To kill another 

ANALYSIS OF THE 

1 40 

person’s slave may be condemned as an injury done to the 
slave himself, in which case it is a duty to the slave not to 
kill him; or to kill another person’s slave may be 
condemned on account of the loss it causes to the master, 
in which case it is deemed a duty to the master not to kill 
the slave. In the latter case we can hardly say that the 
duty of not killing the slave constitutes a right of life in 
the slave— it only constitutes a right in the master to 
retain his slave alive, not to be deprived of him by an act 
causing his death. 

So commonly does the conception of a right belonging 
to a person contain the idea of a duty which other persons 
owe him, that it seems necessary to point out the existence 
of rights in which no such idea is involved, A man’s 
right to defend his country, for instance, does not in- 
trinsically imply that it is wrong of the enemy to disable 
him from doing so. But, on the other hand, there are 
rights which are nothing else than duties towards those 
who have the rights. A right is not always a person’s 
right to a certain activity, or to abstaining from a certain 
activity ; it may have exclusive reference to other people’s 
acts or omissions. I'hat a man has the right to be re- 
warded by his country only means that his country is 
under an obligation to reward him. That a father has a 
right to be obeyed by his children only means that it is 
a duty incumbent on his children to obey him. That a 
person has the right of bodily integrity only means that 
it is wrong to inflict on him a bodily injury. These 
rights may, no doubt, if violated, give rise to certain 
rights of activity : a man may have a right to claim the 
reward which is due to him, a father to exact from his 
children the obedience which they owe him, a person 
who is wronged to defend himself. But the rights of 
claiming a reward, of exacting obedience, of resisting 
wrong, are certainly not identical with the rights of being 
rewarded, of being obeyed, of not being wronged. 

It is commonjy said that rights have their corresponding 
duties. But if this expression is to be used, it must be 

PRINCIPAL MORAL CONCEPTS 

remembered that the duty which “ corresponds ” to a right, 
as a matter of fact, is either included in that right or 
simply identical with it. The identity between the right 
and the duty, then, consists in this, that the notion 
of a right belonging to a person is identical with the 
notion of a duty towards him. Rights and duties are 
not identical in the sense that it is always a duty to 
insist on a right, though this has been urged. ^ If 
anybody prevents me from making use of my right it 
may no doubt be deemed a duty on my part not to 
tolerate the wrong committed against me, but nothing of 
the kind is involved in the concept of a right. And 
the same may be said with reference to the assertion that 
a right to do a thing is always, at the same time, a duty 
to do it — an assertion which is a consequence of the doc- 
trine that there is nothing morally indifferent and nothing 
that goes beyond duty ; in other words, that all conduct of 
responsible beings is either wrong or obligatory. Even if 
this doctrine were psychologically correct — which it is 
not — even if there were a constant coincidence between 
the acts which a person has a right to perform and acts 
which it is his duty to perform, that would not constitute 
identity between the concepts of rights and duties. Ac- 
cording to the meaning of a right, A’s right may be B’s 
duty towards A, but A’s right cannot be A’s duty towards 
B or anybody else. 

Closely connected with the notions of wrongness and 
rightness are the notions of injustice and justice. Injustice, 
indeed, is a kind of wrongness. To be unjust is always 
to be unjust to somebody, and this implies a doing of 
wrong to somebody, a violation of somebody’s right. 
“Justice,” again, is a kind of rightness. It involves the 
notion that a duty to somebody, a duty corresponding to 
a right, is fulfilled we say that justice “demands” that 
it should be fulfilled. As an act is “ right " if its omission 

1 Alexander, op. cit. p. 146 stj. each one hi.s right,” — “ justitia est con- 

“ According to the Insiitutiones of stans et perpetua voluntas jus suum 
Justinian (i. i. i) “ justice is the con- cuique tribuens.” 
stant and perpetual will to render to 

ANALYSIS OF THE 

is wrong, so an act is “just,” in the strict sense of the 
word, if its omission is unjust. But, like the adjective 
“right,” the adjective “just” is also sometimes used in 
a wider sense, to denote that something is “ not unjust.” 
As non-obligatory acts that are “ not wrong ” can hardly 
be denied to be “ right,” so non-obligatory acts that are 
“ not unjust” can hardly be denied to be “just,” although 
they are not demanded by justice. 

At the same time, “ injustice ” and “justice ” are not 
simply other names for violating or respecting rights. 
Whenever we style an act “unjust,” we emphasise that it 
involves partiality. We do not denominate murder and 
robbery unjust, but wronger criminal, because the partiality 
involved in their commission is quite obscured by their 
general wrongness or criminality ; but we at once admit 
their gross injustice when we consider that the murderer 
and robber indulged their own inclinations with utter 
disregard of their neighbours’ rights. And we look upon 
“ unjust ” as an exceedingly appropriate term for a judge 
who condemns an innocent man with the intention to save 
the culprit, and for an employer who keeps for himself a 
profit which he ought to share with his employees. Again, 
when we style an act “just,” in the strict sense of the 
term, we point out that an undue preference would have 
been shown to somebody by its omission. It is true that, 
as Adam Smith observes, “ we may often fulfil all the 
rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing,” * and 
that the man who barely abstains from violating either the 
person or the estate or the reputation of his neighbours so 
far does justice to them ; but in such a case we hardly 
apply the epithet “just,” simply because there is no reason 
for emphasising the partiality involved in the opposite 
mode of conduct. On the other hand, we say it is just, 
or, more emphatically, that justice demands, that the inno- 
cent should not suffer in the place of the guilty, or that, 
the employer should give his employees all their dues. 

It is necessary to note that the impartiality which justice 

^ Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Senii 7 ?tents^ p. 117. 

PRINCIPAL MORAL CONCEPTS 

demands is impartiality within the recognised order of 
rights, whether these rights themselves have a partial origin 
or not. A father is unjust if he gives away property to 
one of his children in preference to others, in case all of 
them are recognised to have a right to an equal share 
in his property, even though it be only a conditional 
right ; and a man is unjust if he keeps for himself a 
profit to which another man has an equal right. But 
in a society which regards slavery as a morally permis- 
sible institution, a man is not necessarily deemed unjust 
if he beats a slave in a case where it would have been 
wrong to beat a freeman. However, in the case of un- 
equal rights, justice admits of no greater difference of 
treatment than what the difference in rights implies. It 
may be just to punish a man who by a crime has forfeited 
that right to be protected from wilfully inflicted pain which 
every law-abiding citizen possesses, but it is unjust to 
extend the inequality between his condition and the con- 
dition of others beyond the inequality of their rights by 
inflicting upon him a punishment which is unduly severe. 

It is the emphasis laid on the duty of impartiality that 
gives justice a special prominence in connection with punish- 
ments and rewards. A man's rights depend to a great 
extent upon his actions. Other things being equal, the 
criminal has not the same rights to inviolability as regards 
reputation, or freedom, or property, or life, as the innocent 
man ; the miser and egoist have not the same rights as the 
benefactor and the philanthropist. On these differences in 
rights due to differences in conduct, the terms “just" and 
“ unjust " lay stress ; for in such cases an injustice would 
have been committed if the rights had been equal. When 
we say of a criminal that he has been “justly " imprisoned, 
we point out that he was no victim of undue partiality, as 
he had forfeited the general right to freedom on account 
^ of his crime. When we say of a benefactor that he has 
been “justly ” rewarded, we point out that no fivour was 
partially bestowed upon him in preference to others, as he 
had acquired the special right of being rewarded. But the 

ANALYSIS OF THE 

“justice” of a punishment or a reward, strictly speaking, 
involves something more than this ; as we have seen, what 
is strictly “just” is always the discharge of a duty cor- 
responding to a right which would have been in a partial 
manner disregarded by a transgression of the duty. If it 
is just that a person should be rewarded, he ought to be 
rewarded, and to fulfil this duty is to do him justice. 
Again, if it is just that a person should be punished, he 
ought to be punished, and his not being punished is an in- 
justice to other persons. It is an injustice towards all those 
whose condemnation of the wrong act finds its recognised 
expression in the punishment, inasmuch as their rightful 
claim, that the criminal should be punished, their right of 
resisting wrong, is thereby violated in favour of the wrong- 
doer. Moreover, his not being punished is an injustice 
towards other criminals, who have been punished for similar 
acts, in so far as they have a right to demand that no un- 
due preference should be shown to anybody whose guilt is 
equal to theirs. Retributive justice may admit of a certain 
latitude as to the retribution. It may be a matter of small 
concern from the community’s point of view whether men 
are fined or imprisoned for the commission of a certain crime. 
But it may be a demand of justice that, under equal cir- 
cumstances, all of them should be punished with the same 
severity, since the crime has equally affected their rights. 

The emphasis which “injustice” lays on the partiality of 
a certain mode of conduct always involves a condemnation 
of that partiality. Like every other kind of wrongness, 
“ injustice ” is thus a concept which is obviously based on 
the emotion of moral disapproval. And so is the concept 
of “justice,” whether it involves the notion that an in- 
justice would be committed if a certain duty is not ful- 
filled, or it is simply used to denote that a certain mode of 
conduct is “ not unjust.” But there is yet another sense 
in which the word “just ” is applied. It may emphasise 
the impartiality of an act in a tone of praise. Consider- 
ing how difficult it is to be perfectly impartial and to give 
every man his due, especially when one’s own interests are 

PRINCIPAL MORAL CONCEPTS 

H5 

concerned, it is only natural that men should be applauded 
.for being just, and consequently that to call a person just 
should often be to praise him. So, also, “justice ” is used 
as the name for a virtue, “ the mistress and queen of all 
virtues.” ^ But all this does not imply that an emotion of 
moral approval enters into the concept of justice. It 
only means that one word is used to express a certain 
concept — a concept which, as we have seen, ultimately 
derives its import from moral disapproval - — plus an 
emotion of approval. That the concept of justice by 
itself involves no reference to the emotion of moral ap- 
proval appears from the fact that it is no praise to say of 
an act that it is “ only just.” 

From the concepts springing from moral disapproval 
we pass to those springing from moral approval. F'ore- 
most among these ranks the concept goodl^ 

Though “ good,” being affixed to a great variety of 
objects, takes different shades of meaning in different 
cases, there is one characteristic common to everything 
called “good.” This is hardly, as Mr. Spencer maintains,^ 
its quality of being well adapted to a given end. It is 
true that the good knife is one which will cut, the good 
gun one which carries far and true. But I fail to see 
that “ good ” in a moral sense involves any idea of an 
adaptation to a given purpose, and, by calling conduct 

^ Cicero, De offictis, iii. 6. 

" Profe.ssor Bain, who take.? a very 
legal view of the moral con.scioiisness, 
maintains {Evioiions and the Will, p. 
292) that positive good deeds and 
self-. sacrifice . . . transcend the region 
of morality proper, and occupy a 
sphere of their own.” A similar opinion 
has been expre.ssed by Prof. Durkheim 
{Division dit travail social), and, quite 
recently, by Dr. Lagerborg, in his inter- 
esting essay, ^ La nature de la morale ’ 
tfRcvue internationale de Sociologie, xi. 
466). .Prof. Durkheim argues (p. 30) 
that it would be “ contraire a toute 
methode ” to include under the same 
heading acts which are obligatory and 

acts which are objects of admiration, 
and at the same time exempt from all 
regulation. “Si done, pour rester 
fidele k fiisagc, on reserve aux pre- 
miers la qualification de moraux, on 
ne saurait la donner egalement aux 
seconds.” But I fail to see that 
ordinary usage recognises regulation as 
the test of morality. On the contrary, 
terms like “goodness” and “virtue,” 
though having no reference whatever 
to any moral rule, have always hitherto 
been applied to qualities avowedly 
moral. 

® Spencer, Principles of Ethics, \. 21 
sqq. 

ANALYSIS OF THE 

“ good,” we certainly do not mean that it “ conduces to 
life in each and all.” “ Good ” simply expresses approval 
or praise of something on account of some quality which 
it possesses. A house is praised as “good” because it 
fulfils the end desired, a wine because it has an agreeable 
taste, a man on account of his moral worth. “ Good,” as 
a moral epithet, involves a praise which is the outward 
expression of the emotion of moral approval, and is affixed 
to a subject of moral valuation on account of its tendency 
to call forth such an emotion, 

“ Good ” has commonly been identified with “ right,” 
but such an identification is incorrect. A father does 
right in supporting his young children, inasmuch as he, 
by supporting them, discharges a duty incumbent upon 
him, but we do not say that he docs a good deed by 
supporting them, or that it is good of him to do so. 
Nor do we call it good of a man not to kill or rob his 
neighbours, although his conduct is so far right. The 
antithesis between right and wrong is, in a certain sense 
at least, contradictory, the antithesis between good and 
bad is only contrary. Every act — provided that it falls 
within the sphere of positive moral valuation — that is not 
wrong is right, but every act that is not bad is not neces- 
sarily good. Just as we may say of a thing that it is 
“ not bad,” and yet refuse to call it “ good,” so we may 
object to calling the simple discharge of a duty “ good,” 
although the opposite mode of conduct would be bad. 
On the other hand, no confusion of ethical concepts is 
involved in attributing goodness to the performance of a 
duty, or, in other words, praising a man for an act the 
omission of which would have incurred blame. To say of 
one and the same act that it is right and that it is good, 
really means that we look upon it from different points 
of view. Since moral praise expresses a benevolent 
attitude of mind, it is commendable for a man not to be 
niggard in his acknowledgment of other people’s right 
conduct ; whereas, self-praise being objectionable, only the 
other point of view is deemed proper when he passes a 

PRINCIPAL MORAL CONCEPTS 

judgment upon himself. He may say, without incurring 
censure, “ I have done my duty, I have done what is 
right,” but hardly, I have done a good deed” ; and it 
would be particularly obnoxious to say, ‘‘ I am a good 
man.” The best man even refuses to be called good by 
others: — Why callest thou me good ? there is none good 
but one, that is, God.” ^ 

Whilst “goodness ” is the general expression for moral 
praise, virtue denotes a disposition of mind which is 
characterised by some special kind of goodness. He who 
is habitually temperate possesses the virtue of temperance, 
he who is habitually just the virtue of justice. And even 
when a man is simply said to be “ virtuous,” this epithet 
Is given to him, more or less distinctly, with reference to 
some branch of goodness which constitutes his virtue. A 
Supreme Being, to whom is attributed perfect goodness, is 
not called virtuous, but good. 

It was the opinion of Aristotle that virtue Is Imperfect 
so long as the agent cannot do the virtuous action without 
a conflict of impulses. Others maintain, on the contrary, 
that virtue essentially expresses effort, resistance, and 
conquest. It has been represented as “mediation through 
pain ” ; ^ according to Kant, It Is “the moral disposition 
in struggle.”^ But I do not see that virtue presupposes 
struggle, nor that it is lessened by being exercised with 
little or no effort. A virtue consists in the disposition to 
will or not to will acts of a certain kind, and is by no 
means reduced by the fact that no rival impulses make 
themselves felt. It is true that by struggle and conquest 
a man may display more virtue, namely, the virtue of 
self-restraint In addition to the virtue gained by it. The 
vigorous and successful contest against temptation con- 
stitutes a virtue by itself. For instance, the quality of 
mind which is exhibited in a habitual and victorious effort 
K) conquer strong sexual passions is a virtue distinguish- 
able ' from that of chastity. But even this virtue of 

^ St. Aiatthezv, xix. 17. ^ Kantj Kriiik der praktischen Ver~ 

• ^ Laurie, Mthica, p. 253 nunft^ i. i. 3 {Sdnuntliche VVerkejS. 89). 

L 2 

ANALYSIS OF THE 

resisting seductive impulses is not greater, ceteris paribus^ 
in proportion as the victory is more difficult. Take two 
men with equally strong passions and equally exposed to 
temptations, who earnestly endeavour to lead a chaste life. 
He who succeeds with less struggle, thanks to his greater 
power of will, is surely inferior neither in chastity nor in 
self-restraint. Suppose, again, that the two men were 
exposed to different degrees of temptation. He who 
overcomes the greater temptation displays more self- 
restraint ; yet the other man may possess this virtue in an 
equal degree, and his chastity is certainly not made greater 
thereby. He may have more merit, but merit is not 
necessarily proportionate to virtue. 

The virtues are broad generalisations of mental disposi- 
tions which, on the whole, are regarded as laudable. 
Owing to their stereotyped character, it easily happens, in 
individual cases, that the possession of a virtue confers no 
merit upon the possessor ; and, at least from the point of 
view of the enlightened moral consciousness, a man’s 
virtues are no exact gauge of his moral worth. In order 
to form a just opinion of the value of a person’s character, 
we must take into account the strength of his instinctive 
desires and the motives of his conduct. There are virtues 
that pay no regard to this. A sober man, who has no 
taste for intoxicants, possesses the virtue of sobriety in no 
less degree than a man whose sobriety is the result of a 
difficult conquest over a strong desire. He who is brave 
with a view to being applauded is not, as regards the 
virtue of courage, inferior to him who faces dangers 
merely from a feeling of duty. The only thing that the 
possession of a virtue presupposes is that it should have 
been tried and tested. We cannot say that people 
unacquainted with intoxicants possess the virtue of 
sobriety, and that a man who never had anything to spend 
distinguishes himself for frugality. For to attribute % 
virtue to somebody is always to bestow upon him some 
degree of praise, and it is no praise, only irony, to say of 
a man that he ‘‘ makes a virtue of necessity.” 

Attempts have been made to reconcile the Aristotelian 
and the Kantian views of the relation between virtue and 
effort, by saying that virtue is the harmony won and 
merit is the winning of it/ This presupposes that a man 
to whom virtue is natural has had his fights. But, to 
be sure, it is not always so. Who could affirm that every 
temperate, or charitable, or just man has acquired the 
virtue only as a result of inward struggle ? There are 
people to whom some virtues at least are natural from the 
beginning, and others who acquire them with a minimum 
of effort. 

There has been much discussion about the relation 
between virtue and duty. It has been said that “ they 
are co-extensive, the former describing conduct by the 
quality of the agent’s mind, the latter by the nature of the 
act performed ” ; that they express the same ideal, virtue 
subjectively, duty objectively ; ^ or that virtue, in its 
proper sense, is the quality of character that fits for the 
discharge of duty,” and that it only lives in the perform- 
ance of duty.” ^ At the same time it is admitted that 
the distinctive mark of virtue seems to lie in what is 
beyond duty,” and that, though every virtue is a duty, 
and every duty a virtue, there are certain actions to which 
it is more natural to apply the term virtuous.”^ Prof. 
Sidgwick, again, in his elaborate chapter on ‘Virtue and 
Duty,’ remarks that he has “thought it best to employ 
the terms so that virtuous conduct may include the 
performance of duty as well as whatever good actions 
may be commonly thought to go beyond duty ; though 
recognising that virtue in its ordinary use is most con- 
spicuously manifested in the latter.” 

It can be no matter of surprise that those who regard 
the notion of “duty” as incapable of being analysed, or 

^ Dewey, Study of Ethics^ p. 133 ^ Grote, Treatue on the Aloral Ideals^ 

Jq, Simmel, Einleitung in die Moral- p. 22, Cf. Seth, Study of Ethical 
*wissenschafiy i. 228. Cf also Shaftes- Principles^ p. 239. 
bury, ' ‘ Inquiry concerning Virtue and Muirhead, Elements of Ethics ^ p. 

Merit/ i. 2. 4, in Characleristicks, ii. 19011.* 

36 sqq, " Alexander, op. cit. p. 243 sq, 

Alexander, op. cit. p. 244. Sidgwick, op. ctt. p. 221. 

ANALYSIS OF THE 

who fail to recognise its true import, are embarrassed by 
its relation to virtue. We do not call it a virtue if a man 
habitually abstains from killing or robbing, or pays his 
debts, or performs a great number of other duties. We 
do call chastity and temperance and justice virtues, 
although we regard it as obligatory on a man to be chaste, 
temperate, just. We also call hospitality, generosity, and 
charity virtues in cases where they go beyond the strict 
limits of duty. “ The relation of virtue and duty is com- 
plicated,” says Professor Alexander.^ In its common use 
each term seems to include something excluded from the 
other,” observes Professor Sidgwick.“ But, indeed, the 
relation is not complicated, for there Is no other intrinsic 
relation between them than their common antagonism to 
‘‘ wrong.” That something is a duty Implies that its non- 
performance tends to evoke moral indignation, that it is a 
virtue implies that its performance tends to evoke moral 
approval. That the virtues actually cover a comparatively 
large field of the province of duty is simply owing to their 
being dispositions of mind. We may praise the habits of 
justice and gratitude, even though we find nothing praise- 
worthy in an isolated just or grateful act. 

There has been no less confusion with regard to the 
relation between duty and merit. Like the notions of 
"‘good” and “virtue,” the “meritorious” derives its 
origin from the emotion of moral approval ; but while the 
former merely express a tendency to give rise to such an 
emotion, “ meritorious ” implies that the object to which 
it refers merits praise, that it has a just claim to praise, or, 
in other words, that it ought to be recognised as good. 
This makes the term “ meritorious ” more emphatic than 
the term “ good,” but at the same time it narrows its 
province in a peculiar way. Just as the expression that 
something ought to be done implies the idea of its 
not being done, so the word “ meritorious ” suggests the 
idea of goodness which may fail of due recognition. And * 
as it is meaningless to speak of duty in a case where the 

^ Alexander, op. cit. p. 244. Sidgvvick, op. cit. p. 219. 

PRINCIPAL MORAL CONCEPTS 

^ 5 ^ 

opposite mode of conduct is entirely out of the question, 
so it would be an absurdity to attribute merit to some- 
body for an act the goodness of which is universally 
admitted. Thus ^‘meritorious” involves a restriction. 
It would be almost blasphemous to call the acts of a God 
conceived to be infinitely good meritorious, since it would 
suggest a limitation of his goodness. 

The emphatic claim to praiseworthiness made by the 
“ meritorious ” has rendered it objectionable to a great 
number of moralists. It has been identified with the 
“ super-obligatory ” — a conception which is to many an 
abomination. From what has been said above, however, 
it is manifest that they are not identical. As the dis- 
charge of a duty may be regarded as a good act, so it 
may also be regarded as an act which ought to be recog- 
nised as good. Practically, no doubt, there is a certain 
antagonism between duty and merit. We praise, and, 
especially, we regard as deserving praise, only what is 
above the average,^ and we censure what is below it. No 
merit is conferred upon him who performs a duty which 
is seldom transgressed, or the transgression of which would 
actually incur punishment or censure. We do not think 
that a man ought to be praised for what his own interest 
prompts him to perform ; and, since the transgression of a 
moral command which is usually obeyed is generally cen- 
sured or punished, there is under ordinary circumstances 
nothing meritorious in performing a duty. But though 
thus probably most acts which are deemed meritorious fall 
outside the limits of duty as roughly drawn by the popular 
mind, we are on the other hand often disposed to attribute 
merit to a man on account of an act which, from a strict 
point of view, is his duty, but a duty which most people, 
under the same circumstances, would have left undis- 
charged. This shows that the antagonism between duty 
and merit is not absolute. And in the concept of merit 
* per se no such antagonism is involved. 

^ Merit, as Professor Alexander puts interval which separates the rneri- 
it {op, cit, p. 196), expresses the torious from the average.” 

I confess that I fail to grasp what those writers really 
mean who identify the “ meritorious ” with the “ super- 
obligatory,” and at the same time deny the existence of 
any super- obligatory. Do they shut their eyes to the 
important psychical fact indicated by the term “ merit,” 
or do they look upon it as a chimera inconsistent with a 
sufficiently enlightened moral consciousness ? For my 
own part, I cannot see how the moral consciousness could 
dispense with the idea that there are actions which merit 
praise or reward, which ought to be praised or rewarded. 
The denial of merit can be defended from a purely theo- 
logical point of view, but then only with regard to man’s 
relation to God. It is obvious that a fallen being who is 
sinning even when he does his best, could not be recog- 
nised as good by God and could have no merit. But it is. 
hardly just, nor is it practically possible, that a man should 
measure his fellow-man by a superhuman standard of 
perfection, and try to suppress the natural emotion of 
moral approval and the claims springing from it, by 
persuading himself that there is no mortal being who ever 
does anything which ought to be recognised as good. 

Quite distinct from the question of merit, then, is that 
of the super-obligatory. Can a man do more than his duty, 
or, in other words, is there anything good which is not at 
the same time a duty ? The answer depends on the con- 
tents given to the commandments of duty, hence it may 
vary without affecting the concept of duty itself. If we 
consider that there is an obligation on every man to pro- 
mote the general happiness to the _yery utmost of his 
ability, we must also maintain that nobody can ever do any- 
thing good beyond his duty. The same is the case if we 
regard “ self-realisation,” or a “ normal ” exercise of his 
natural functions, as a man’s fundamental duty. In all 
these cases “to aim at acting beyond obligation,” as Price 
puts it,^ is “ the same with aiming at acting contrary to 
obligation, and doing more than is fit to be done, the 
same with doing wrong.” It can hardly be denied, how- 

^ Price, Review oj the Principal Questions in Morals, }). 204 stj. 

PRINCIPAL MORAL CONCEPTS 

ever, that those who hold similar views have actually two 
standards of duty, one by which they measure man and his 
doings in the abstract, with reference to a certain ideal of 
life which they please to identify with duty, and another 
by which they are guided in their practical moral judg- 
ments upon their own and their neighbours’ conduct. The 
conscientious man is apt to judge himself more severely 
than he judges others, partly because he knows his own 
case better than theirs,’ and partly because he is naturally 
afraid of being intolerant and unjust. He may indeed be 
unwilling to admit that he ever can do more than his duty, 
seeing how difficult it is even to do what he ought to do, 
and impressed, as he would be, with the feeling of his own 
shortcomings. Yet I do not see how he could conscienti- 
ously deny that he has omitted to do many praiseworthy 
or heroic deeds without holding himself blamable for such 
omissions. 

Professor Sidgwick observes that we should not deny 
that it is, in some sense, a man’s strict duty to do what- 
ever action he judges most excellent, so far as it is in his 
power.” This, as it seems to me, is not a matter of 
course, and nothing of the kind is involved in the notion 
of duty itself. We must not confound the moral law 
with the moral ideal. Duty is the minimum of morality, 
the supreme moral ideal of the best man is the maximum 
of it. Those who sum up the whole of morality in the 
word “ought” identify the minimum and the maximum, 
but I fail to see that morality is better for this. Rather 
it is worse. The recognition of a “ super-obligatory ” 
does not lower the moral ideal ; on the contrary it raises 
it, or at any rate makes it more possible to vindicate 
the moral law and to administer it justly. It is nowa- 
days a recognised principle in legislation that a law loses 
part of its weight if it cannot be strictly enforced. If the 
realisation of the highest moral ideal is commanded by a 
moral law, such a law will always remain a dead letter, 
and morality will gain nothing. Far above the anxious 

^ Cf, Sidgwick, op, cit, p, 221. Ibid, p. 219. 

^54 

ANALYSIS OF THE 

effort to fulfil the commandments of duty stands the free 
and lofty aspiration to live up to an ideal, which, un- 
attainable as it may be, threatens neither with blame nor 
remorse him who fails to reach its summits. Does not 
experience show that those whose thoughts are constantly 
occupied with the prescriptions of duty are apt to become 
hard and intolerant ? 

Those who deny the existence of anything morally 
“ praiseworthy ” which is not a duty, are also generally 
liable to deny the existence of anything morally indifferent 
in the conduct of responsible beings. The super- 
obligatory ” and the '‘indifferent” have this in common 
that they are “ultra-obligatory,” and the denial of the 
one as well as of the other is an expression of the same 
tendency to look upon the moral law as the sole fact of 
the moral consciousness. Even Utilitarianism cannot 
consistently admit of anything indifferent within the 
province of moral valuation, since two opposite modes of 
conduct can hardly produce absolutely the same sum of 
happiness. Such a repudiation of the “ indifferent ” being 
quite contrary to the morality of common sense, which, 
after all, no ethical theory can afford to neglect, consider- 
able ingenuity has been wasted on vain attempts to show 
that the “ indifferent ” is nothing but a rude popular 
conception unable to keep its ground against a thorough- 
going examination. Professor Ziegler ironically asks : — - 
“Such outward matters as eating and drinking are surely 
morally indifferent ? And yet — is eating and drinking 
too much, is spending too much time in outdoor exercise, 
is lounging idly about, morally indifferent ? or, on the 
other hand, is it morally allowable or wholesome to reduce 
oneself and make oneself weak and ill by fasting, or 
to become a hypochondriac by continually staying in- 
doors ^ This argument, however, involves a confusion 
of different volitions. The fact that eating or drinking 
generally, or eating or drinking too much or too little, 
are no matters of indifference, surely does not prevent 

^ Ziegler, op, cit, p. S5. 

PRINCIPAL MORAL CONCEPTS 

eating or drinking on some certain occasion from being in- 
different. Mr. Bradley again observes : — ‘‘ It is right and 
a duty that the sphere of indifferent detail should exist. 
It is a duty that I should develop my nature by private 
choice therein. Therefore, because that is a duty, it is a 
duty not to make a duty of every detail ; and thus in 
every detail I have done my duty.” ^ This statement also 
shows a curious confusion of entirely different facts. It 
may be very true that it is a duty to recognise certain 
actions as indifferent. This is one thing by itself. But 
it is quite another thing to perform those actions. And if 
it is a duty to recognise certain actions as indifferent, how 
could it possibly at the same time be held a duty to per- 
form them } 

It has been maintained that the sphere of the indifferent 
forms the totality of ‘‘ ought ” ; that when the same end 
may be reached by a variety of means, an action may be 
indifferent merely in relation to the choice of means, but 
not so far as regards the attainment of the end, and hence 
is only apparently indifferent.*'^ If it is my moral duty 
to go from one town to another,” says Mr. Bradley, and 
there are two roads which are equally good, it is indiffer- 
ent to the proposed moral duty zvhich road I take ; it is 
not indifferent that I do take one or the other ; and 
whichever road I do take, I am doing my duty on it, and 
hence it is far from indifferent : my walking on road A is 
a matter of duty in reference to the end, though not a 
matter of duty if you consider it against walking on 
road B ; and so with B — but I can escape the sphere of 
duty neither on A nor on B.” All this is true, but forms 
no argument against the “ indifferent.” The statement, 
“You ought to go to the town and to take either road 
A or B,” refers to two volitions which are regarded as 
wrong, namely, the volition not to go to the town at all, 
and the volition to take any road not A or B ; and it 

^ Bradley, Ethical Studies^ p. 195, andcr, op. cit. p. 50 sqq. Murray, op. 
11. I. cit. p. 26 S(/. Bradley, op. cit. p. 195 

^ Simmel, op. cit. i. 35 sqq. Alex- sq. 

refers also to two pairs of volitions in reference to which 
it indicates that the choice between the volitions con- 
stituting each pair is indifferent. You may choose to 
take road A or not to take it ; you may choose to take 
road B or not to take it. The “ indifferent ” is always 
an alternative between contradictories. It can therefore 
never form part of an “ ought ’’-totality, being itself a 
totality as complete as possible. This is somewhat dis- 
guised by a judgment which makes an obligation of a 
choice between A and B, but becomes conspicuous if we 
consider a simple case of indifference. Suppose that it is 
considered indifferent whether you speak or do not speak 
on a certain occasion. What is here the “ ought ” that 
forms the totality of the indifferent Would there be 
any sense in saying that you ought either to speak or not 
to speak ? Or is the alternative, speaking — not speaking, 
only a link in an indefinite chain of alternatives, each of 
which is by itself indifferent, in a relative sense, but the 
sum of which forms the “ ought You maybe per- 
mitted — it will perhaps be argued — in a given moment to 
speak or to abstain from speaking, to write or to abstain 
from writing, to read or to abstain from reading, and so 
on ; but however wide the province of the permissible 
may be, there must always be a limit inside which you 
ought to remain. That you do this or that may be a 
matter of indifference, but only of relative indifference, 
for it is not indifferent w/ia/ you do on the whole ; hence 
there is nothing absolutely Indifferent. Such an argument, 
however, involves a misapprehension of the true meaning 
of the “ indifferent.” The predicate expressing indiffer- 
ence refers to certain definite volitions and their contra- 
dictories, not to the whole of a man’s conduct in a certain 
moment. The whole of a man’s conduct is never indif- 
ferent. But neither is the whole of a man’s conduct ever 
wrong. In the moment when a murderer kills his victim 
he is fulfilling an endless number of duties : he abstains 
from stealing, lying, committing adultery, suicide, and so 
on. The predicate “wrong” only marks the moral 

PRINCIPAL MORAL CONCEPTS 

character of a special mode of conduct. Why should not 
the indifferent be allowed to do the same ? 

It has, finally, been observed that the so-called ‘‘ indif- 
ferent ” is something ‘‘the morality of which can only be 
individually determined.”^ This remark calls attention 
to the fact that no mode of conduct can be regarded as 
indifferent without a careful consideration of individual 
circumstances, and that much which is apparently indif- 
ferent is not really so. This, however, does not involve 
an abolition of the indifferent. Such an abolition would 
be the extreme of moral intolerance. He who tried to 
put it into practice would be the most insupportable of 
beings, and to himself life would be unbearable. Fortun- 
ately, such a man has never existed. The attempts to 
make every action, even the most trivial, of responsible 
beings a matter of moral concern, are only theoretical 
fancies without practical bearing, a hollow and flattering 
tribute to the idol of Duty. 

^ Marlensen, C/irtsfian 7 £//iicSy p, 415.

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

Moral ideas are expressed in moral judgments. We 
have hitherto examined the predicates of such judgments, 
the import and origin of the moral concepts. Now a 
much wider field of research remains for us to traverse. 
We shall direct our attention to the subjects of moral 
judgments, to the mass of phenomena which, among 
different peoples and in different ages, have had a ten- 
dency to call forth moral blame and moral praise. We 
shall discuss the general characteristics which all these 
phenomena have in common. We shall classify the most 
important of them, and study the moral ideas held with 
reference to the phenomena of each class separately. And 
in both cases we shall not only analyse, but try to find an 
answer to the question. Why ? — the ultimate aim of all 
scientific research. But before entering upon this vast 
undertaking, we must define the lines on which it is to be 
conducted. How can we get an insight into the moral 
ideas of mankind at large ? 

In answering this question I need not dwell upon such 
obvious means of information as direct experience, or 
records of moral maxims and sentiments found in proverbs, 
literary and philosophical works, and religious codes. 
The sources which, from an evolutionary point of view, 
are of the most comprehensive importance for our study, 
are tribal and national customs and laws. It is to these 
sources that the present chapter will he devoted. 

CH. V.Il 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS 

(We have seen that a custom, in the strict sense of the 
word, is not merely the habit of a certain circle of men, 
but at the same time involves a moral rule. There is a 
close connection between these two characteristics of 
custom : its habitualness and its obligatoriness. Whatever 
be the foundation for a certain practice, and however 
trivial it may be, the unreflecting mind has a tendency 
to disapprove of any deviation from it for the simple 
reason that such a deviation is unusual. As Abraham 
Tucker observes, it is a constant argument among the 
common people, that a thing must be done, and ought to 
be done, because it always has been done.’' ^ J Children 
show respect for the customary,^ and so do savages. ‘‘ If 
you ask a Kaffir why he does so and so, he will answer — 
‘How can I tell It has always been done by our 
forefathers.’ ” 'Fhe only reason which the Eskimo can 
give for some of their present customs, to which they 
adhere from fear of ill report among their people, is that 
“ the old Innuits did so, and therefore they must.” ^ In 
the behaviour of the Aleut, who “ is bashful if caught 
doing anything unusual among his people,” ^ and in the 
average European’s dread of appearing singular, we 
recognise the influence of the same force of habit. 

On the other hand, it should be remembered that not 
every public habit is a custom, involving an obligation ; 
certain practices, though very general in a society, may be 
even reprobated by almost every one of its members. 
The habits of a people must therefore be handled with 
discretion by the student of moral ideas. Yet when he 
has no reason to conclude as to some special habit that it 
is held obligatory, he may, probably always, be sure that 
it is either allowed, or, in spite of all assurances of its 
wickedness, that the disapproval of it is not generally 
very deep or genuine. In a community where lying is a 

* ^ Tucker, Light of Nature^ if. 593. 3 Leslie, Among the Zulus and 

Cf als6 Simmel, Einleilung in die Amatongas, p. 146. 

Moralwissenschaft , i. 65 sig]. 4 j-fail, Antic Lies ear ches^ p. 569. 

^ Sully, Studies of Childhood^ p. 280 5 Dali, Alaska^ p. 396. 

5 ( 1 . 

i6o 

GUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

prevailing vice, truthfulness cannot be regarded as a very 
sacred duty ; and where sexual immorality is widely 
spread, the public condemnation of it always smacks of 
hypocrisy. Men’s standard of morality is not independent 
of their practice. The conscience of a community follows 
the same rule as the conscience of an individual. 

“ Commit a sin twice,” says the Talmud, “ and you will 
think it perfectly allowable.” ‘ Hence for the study of 
the inmost convictions of a nation, its “ bad habits ” form 
a valuable complement to its professed opinions. 

The dictates of custom being dictates of morality, it 
is obvious that the study of moral ideas will, to a large 
extent, be a study of customs. But at the same time it 
should be borne in mind that custom never covers the 
whole field of morality, and that the uncovered space 
grows larger in proportion as the moral consciousness 
develops. Being a rule of duty, custom may only in- 
directly be an expression of moral approval, by claiming, in 
certain cases, that goodness should be rewarded. But 
even when demanding praise, custom is not always a reli- 
able exponent of merit ; it includes politeness, and polite- 
ness is a great deceiver. Custom may compel us to 
praise a man for form’s sake, when he deserves no 
praise, and to thank him when he deserves no thanks. 
Moreover, custom regulates external conduct only. It 
tolerates all kinds of volitions and opinions if not openly 
expressed. It does not condemn the heretical mind, but 
the heretical act. It demands that under certain circum- 
stances certain actions shall be either performed or omitted, 
and, provided that this demand is fulfilled, it takes no 
notice of the motive of the agent or omitter. Again, in 
case the course of conduct prescribed by custom is not 
observed, the mental facts connected with the transgression, 
if regarded at all, are dealt with in a rough and ready 
manner, according to general rules which hardly admit of 
individualisation. Yet the incongruity between custom * 
and morality which ensues from these circumstances is on 

^ Deutsch, Lito'ary ReniainSy p. 58. 

. EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

i6i 

the whole more apparent than real. It Is rather an incon- 
gruity between different moral standards. The unreflect- 
ing moral consciousness, like custom, cares comparatively 
little for the internal aspect of conduct. It does not ask 
whether a man goes to church on Sunday from a religious 
motive or from fear of public opinion ; it does not ask 
whether he stays at home from love of ease or from dissent 
of belief and avoidance of hypocrisy. It is ready to blame 
as soon as the dictate of custom is disobeyed. The rule 
of custom is the rule of duty at early stages of develop- 
ment. Only progress in culture lessens Its sway. 

Finally, the moral ideas which are expressed in the 
customs of a certain circle of men are not necessarily shared 
by every one of its members. This may, in the present 
connection, be considered a matter of slight importance 
by him who regards morality as objectively '' realised in 
the customs of a people, and who denies the individual 
the right to a private conscience. But from the subjective 
point of view which I am vindicating, individual convic- 
tion has a claim to equal consideration with public opinion, 
nay frequently, to higher respect, representing as it 
does In many cases a higher morality, a moral standard 
more purified by reflection and impartiality. At the lower 
stages of civilisation, however, where a man is led by his 
feelings more than by his thoughts, such a differentiation 
of moral ideas hardly occurs. The opinions of the many 
are the opinions of all, and the customs of a society are 
recognised as rules of duty by all its members. 

In primitive society custom stands for law, and even 
where social organisation has made some progress it may 
still remain the sole rule for conduct.^ The authority of 

^ Cranz, History of Greenland^ i. Archivio per P antropoloyia e la clno~ 

170. Dal), op. cil. p. 381 (Tiiski). lofa, xiv. 39. tkirl, jfpiians^ }). 105 

Dobrizboffer, Accottni of the AbiponeSy (Arrii Islaiulcrs). F()rl)es, A Nainra'l- 
ii. 9=5. Shooter, Kafirs of Natal and isPs Wanderings in the Eastern Archi- 
4 he Zulu Country^ p. loi 5</. Holden, pelago, p. 473 (Timorese). l)alton. 
East and Future of the Kaffir Races ^ Ethnology of Ih:ngaf\>. 

p, 336. Muni^o Park, Travels in the Rockhill, I .and of the I.an/as^ p. 220 
Interior of Africa., l6. Scaramucci (Eastern Tibetans), 
and Giglioli, ‘ Notizie sui Danakil,’ in 

VOL. I 

M 

i 62 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

a chief does not necessarily involve a power to make laws. 
Even kings who are described as autocrats may be as 
much tied by custom as is any of their subjects. 

The Rejangs of Sumatra do not acknowledge a right in 
the chiefs to constitute what laws they think proper, or to 
repeal or alter their ancient usages, of which they are extremely 
tenacious and jealous.” There is no word in their language 
which signifies law, and the chiefs, in pronouncing their deci- 
sions are not ^heard to say, So the law directs,” but, Such 
is the custom.” ^ According to Ellis, the veneration of the 
Malagasy for the customs derived from tradition, or any accounts 
of their ancestors . . . influences both their public and private 
habits ; and upon no individual is it more imperative than upon 
their monarch, who, absolute as he is in other respects, wants 
either the will or the power to break through the long-estab- 
lished regulations of a superstitious people.” The king ot 
Ashanti, although represented as a despotic monarch, is never- 
theless under an obligation to observe the national customs 
which have been handed down to the people from remote 
antiquity, and a practical disregard of this obligation, in the 
attempt to change some of the old customs, cost one of the 
kings his throne.*^ ‘‘The Africans,” says Mr. Winwood Reade, 
with special reference to Dahomey, “ have sometimes their 
enlightened kings, as the old barbarians had their sages and 
their priests. But it is seldom in the power of the heads of 
a people to alter those customs which have been held sacred 
from time immemorial.” The Basutos, among whom “the 
chiefs have the right of making laws and publishing regula- 
tions required by the necessities of the times,” regard such laws, 
ov molaos^ as inferior to the mekhoas^ “the use and wont,” 
which constitute the real laws of the country.*'* Among the 
ancient Irish, there was no sovereign authority competent to 
enact a new law, the function of the king being merely, as 
chief of the tribal assembly, to see that tlie proper customs 
were observed.^ 

^ Marsden, History of SumabUy p. 
217. 

” Ellis, History of Madagascar y i. 
359 - 

^ Beccham, Ashantee and the Gold 
Coasty p. 90 sq. Cf. Stuhlmann, Mit 

Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrikuy p. 
523 (A-lur). 

* Reade, Savage Africa, p. 52 sq. 

^ Casalis, Basutos, p. 228. 

Ancient Laws of Ireland, iii, p. 
Ixxxvi. sq. Cherry, Growth of Criminal 
Law, p. 33. 

In competition with law, custom frequently carries the 
day. In India, especially in the South, custom has 
always been to a great extent superior to the written law.” 
In the Ramnad case, the Judicial Committee expressly 
declared that, ‘‘ under the Hindu system of law, clear 
proof of usage will outweigh the written text of the law.”^ 
It was also a maxim of the Roman jurists that laws may 
be abrogated by desuetude or contrary usage and in 
modern times the same doctrine is acted upon in Scot- 
land.^ Moreover, when a custom cannot abrogate the 
law, it may still have a paralysing influence on its execu- 
tion. According to the laws of European nations, a man 
who has killed another in a duel is to be treated as a 
homicide ; yet wherever the duel exists as a custom, the 
law against it is ineffective. So it is on the Continent, and 
so it was in England in the eighteenth century, when a 
well-informed writer could affirm that he had not 
found any case of an actual execution in England in 
consequence of a duel fairly fought.” ^ In this instance 
the ineffectiveness of the law is owing to the fact that the 
law has not been able to abolish an old custom. But the 
superiority of custom also shows itself in cases where the 
law itself is getting antiquated, and a new custom, en- 
forced by public opinion, springs up in opposition to it. 
Thus, contrary to law and earlier usage, it is nowadays the 
custom of certain European countries that a sentence of 
death is not carried into execution. Even ‘‘bad habits” 
tend to weaken the authority of the law. Probably the 
two most prominent civil vices of the Chinese are bribery 
and gambling. Against both these vices their penal code 
speaks with no uncertain sound ; and yet, according to 

^ Burnell, quoted by Nelson, View 
of the Hindu Law^ p. 136. 

“ IMayne, Treatise on Hindit Law 
and Usage ^ p. 41. 

• Institutiones, i. 2. ll. Di^csia^ 
i- 3- 32^- 

Mackenzie, Studies in Konian Law^ 

P- ^54. 

Quoted by Bosquett, I'reatise on 

Dndling^ p. 80. Cf. A Short Treatise 
tipflii the Ff'opricty and Hecessity of 
Duellings printed at Bath in 1779. 
In 1808, however, Major Campbell 
was sentenced to death and executed 
for killing Captain Bioyd in a duel 
(Storr, ‘ Duel,’ in Encyclopicdia Bri- 
tannica^ vii. 5*4)- 

M 2 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

Professor Douglas, it is no exaggeration to say that if the 
law were enforced, it would make a clean sweep of ninety- 
nine of every hundred officials in the empire.^ Other 
illustrations of the same principle may be found much 
nearer home. 

Custom has proved stronger than law and religion com- 
bined. Sir Richard Burton writes of the Bedouins, 
“ Though the revealed law of the Koran, being insufficient 
for the Desert, is openly disregarded, the immemorial 
customs of the Kazi al-Arab (the Judge of the Arabs) 
form a system stringent in the extreme.” ^ So, also, the 
Turkomans are ruled, often tyrannised over, by a mighty 
sovereign, invisible indeed to themselves, but whose 
presence is plainly discerned in the word deb — “ custom,” 
“ usage.” Our authority adds : — “ It is very remarkable 
how little the ‘ Deb ’ has suffered in its struggle of eight 
centuries with Mahommedanism. Many usages, which 
are prohibited to the Islamite, and which the Mollahs 
make the object of violent attack, exist in all their 
ancient originality.” ^ 

The laws themselves, in fact, command obedience more 
as customs than as laws. A rule of conduct which, from 
one point of view, is a law, is in most cases, from another 
point of view, a custom ; for, as Hegel remarks, “ the 
valid laws of a nation, when written and collected, do not 
cease to be customs.” '* There are instances of laws that 
were never published, the knowledge and administration 
of which belonged to a privileged class, and which 
nevertheless were respected and obeyed.'"" And among 
ourselves the ordinary citizen stands in no need of study- 
ing the laws under which he lives, custom being generally 
the safe guiding star of his conduct. Custom, as Bacon 
said, is “ the principal magistrate of man’s life,” ® or, as 
the ancients put it, “ the king of all men.” 

^ Doiiglii-s, Society ill China^ p, 82. ^ IJegel, Philosophie des Rechts^*% 

Ikuton, Pilgrima^^e to Al-Madinah 21 1, p. 199. ® Japan^ p. 314. 

and A/eccah, ii. 87. Bacon, ‘ E.s.say xxxix. Of Custom 

^ Vamhery, I'rnvels in Central Asia^ and Kducation,’ in Essays^ p. 372, 
p. 2^10 sqq. ^ Herodotus, iii. 38, 

Many laws were customs before they became laws. 
Ancient customs lie at the foundation of all Aryan law- 
books. Mr. Mayne is of opinion that Hindu law is based 
upon customs which existed even prior to and independent 
of Brahmanism.^ The Greek word voixos means both 
custom and law, and this combination of meanings was 
not owing to poverty of language, but to the deep-rooted 
idea of the Greek people that law is, and ought to be, 
nothing more and nothing less than the outcome of national 
custom.'^ A great part of the Roman law was founded on 
the mores majorum ; in the Institutes of Justinian, it is 
expressly said that ‘‘ long prevailing customs, being sanc- 
tioned by the consent of those who use them, assume the 
nature of Laws.”^ The case was similar with the ancient 
laws of the Teutons and Irish.'^ 

The transformation of customs into laws was not a mere 
ceremony. Law, like custom, is a rule of conduct, but, 
while custom is established by usage and obtains, in a more 
or less indefinite way, its binding force from public opinion, 
a law originates in a definite legislative act, being set, as 
Austin says, by a sovereign person, or a sovereign body of 
persons, to a person or persons in a state of subjection to 
its author.''^ By becoming laws, then, the customs were 
expressly formulated, and were enforced by a more definite 
sanction. It seems that the process in question arose 
both from considerations of social utility and from a sense 
of justice. Cicero observes that It was for the sake of 
equity that “ laws were invented, which perpetually spoke 
to all men with one and the same voice. From these 
points of view it was neither necessary nor desirable that 
more than a limited set of customs should pass into laws. 
There are customs which are too indefinite for assuming 
the stereotyped shape of law.^ There are others, the breach 

1 Mayne, op. cit. p. 4. Austin, Leclurcs on JuHsprudence^ 

* Ziegler, Social Ethics, p. 30. i. 87, 18 r, &c. 

Schmidt, Ethik der altoi Griechen, i. ** Cicero, Dc officiis, ii. 12. 

201. ^ Instilutioncs, i. 2. 9. ^ Cf. Aristotle, Et/iica Nico/nachea^ 

^ Joyce, Social History of Ancient v. 10. 6. 

Irehijtd, i, 1 81. 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

of which excites too little public indignation, or which are 
of too little importance for the public welfare, to be proper 
objects of legislation. And there are others which may be 
said to exist unconsciously, that is, which are universally 
observed as a matter of course, and which, never being 
transgressed, are never thought of. 

\Laws which are based on customs naturally express 
moral ideas prevalent at the time when they are estab- 
lished. On the other hand, though still in existence, they 
are not necessarily faithful representatives of the ideas of 
a later age. Law may be even more conservative than 
custom. Though the latter exercises a very preservative 
influence on public opinion, it co ipso changes when public 
opinion changes. Even among savages, in spite of their 
extreme regard for the customs of their ancestors, it is 
quite possible for changes to be introduced ; the traditions 
of the Central Australian Arunta, for instance, indicate 
their own recognition of the fact that customs have varied 
from time to time.^ But the legal form gives to an 
ancient custom such a fixity as to enable it to survive, 
as a law, the change of public opinion and the intro- 
duction of a new custom. In all progressive societies, 
as Sir Henry Maine observes, social necessities and 
social opinion are always more or less in advance of 
law. We may come indefinitely near to the closing of 
the gap between them, but it has a perpetual tendency 
to re-open.” “ 

The moral ideas of a people are less extensively repre- 
sented in its laws than in its customs. This is a corollary 
of the fact that there are always a great number of 
customs which never become laws. Moreover, whilst law, 
like custom, directly expresses only what is obligatory, 
it hardly ever deals with merit, even indirectly. The 
Chinese have a method of rewarding and commemorating 
meritorious and virtuous subjects by erecting gates in their 
honour, and conferring upon them marks of public dis- 

1 Spencer and Oillen, Native Tribes - Maine, Amient Law, p. 24. 
of Central Australia, p. 12 sqij. 

tinction ; ‘ and the Japanese and Coreans award prizes in 
the form of money or silver cups or monumental columns 
to signal exemplars of filial piety, arguing that, if the law 
punishes crime, it ought also to reward virtue.^ In Europe 
we have titles and honours, pensions for distinguished 
service, and the like ; but the distribution of them is not 
regulated by law, and has often little to do with morality. 

Law, like custom, only deals with overt acts, or omis- 
sions, and cares nothing for the mental side of conduct, 
unless the law be transgressed. Yet, as will be seen sub- 
sequently, though this constitutes an essential difference 
between law and the enlightened moral consciousness, it 
throws considerable light on the moral judgments of the 
unreflecting mind. 

Being a general, and at the same time a strictly defined, 
rule of conduct, a law can even less than a custom make 
special provision for every case so as to satisfy the demand 
of justice. This disadvantage, however, was hardly felt 
in early periods of legislation, when little account was 
taken of what was behind the overt act ; and at later 
stages of development, the difficulty was overcome by 
leaving greater discretion to the judge. The history of 
legal punishments in England, for instance, shows a change 
from a system which, except in cases of misdemeanour, 
left no discretion at all to judges, to a system under which 
unlimited discretion is left to them in all cases except 
those which are still liable to capital punishment — practi- 
cally, high treason and murder.® The study of law, then, 
must for our purpose be supplemented by the study of 
judicial practice. 

Laws which represent public opinion are no more than 
customs safe exponents of the moral ideas held by parti- 
cular members of the society. But on the other hand, 
there are cases in which a law, unlike a custom, may 
express the ideas, or simply the will, of a few, or even of 

^ de Groot, Religious System oj ® Stephen, History of the Crhnmal 
China (vol. ii. book) i. 769, 789 sq. Law of England^ ii. 87. 

Griffis, Corea, p. 236. 

i68 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

a single individual, that is, of the sovereign power only. 

It is obvious that laws imposed upon a barbarous people 
by civilised legislators may difFer widely from the people’s 
own ideas of right and wrong. For instance, when 
studying the moral sentiments of the Teutonic peoples 
from their early law-books, we must carefully set aside all 
elements of Roman or Christian origin. At the same 
time, however, it should be remembered that the moral 
consciousness of a people may gradually be brought into 
harmony with a law originally foreign to it. If the law is 
in advance of public opinion — as Roman law undoubtedly 
was in Teutonic countries — it may raise the views of the 
people up to its own standard by awaking in them dormant 
sentiments, or by teaching them greater discrimination in 
their judgments. And, as has been already noticed, what 
is forbidden and punished may, for the very reason that 
it is so, come to be regarded as wrong and worthy of 
punishment. 

Finally, a law may enjoin or forbid acts which by 
themselves are regarded as indifferent from a moral point 
of view. This is, for instance, the case with the laws 
which require marriages to be celebrated at certain times 
and places only, and which forbid the cultivation of 
tobacco in England. Jurists divide crimes into mala in se 
and mala quia proliibita. The former would be wrong 
even if they were not prohibited by law, the latter are 
wrong only because they are illegal. 

A law expresses a rule of duty by making an act or 
omission which is regarded as wrong a crime, that is, by 
forbidding it under pain of punishment. Law does not 
in all cases directly threaten ^ with punishment — I say 
directly, since all law is coercive, and all coercion at some 
stage involves the possibility of punishment. Sanctions, 
or the consequences by which the sovereign political 
authority threatens to enforce the laws set by it, may 

^ “Not every sovereign can make ( I’oJlock, in Jt(risprude7ice and 

sure of enforcing his commands; and Ethics^ p. 9 jy. ). 
sometimes laws are made without even " CJ. Stej^hen, op, < ii. i, 2. 

any great intention of enforcing them ” 

have in view either the indemnification of the injured 
party, or the suffering of the injurer. In the latter case 
the sanctions are called punishments. But, though 'highly 
important, the distinction between indemnification and 
punishment is not absolute. A person who causes harm 
to another would hardly have to pay damages unless 
some kind of guilt or quasi-guilt were imputed to him ; 
and, on the other hand, punishment may actually consist 
in the damages he has to pay. Moreover, the suffering 
involved in punishment must be regarded as a kind of 
indemnification in so far as it is intended to gratify the 
injured party’s craving for revenge. The pleasure of 
vengeance, says Bentham, ‘^is a gain; it calls to mind 
Samson’s riddle — it is sweet coming out of the terrible, it 
is honey dropping from the lion’s mouth.” ^ In cases 
where the injured party is allowed to decide whether the 
injurer shall be punished some g qj- ^hat punishment 
(within certain limits) shalfP jiflicted upon him, it is 
obvious that punishment looked upon as a 

means of indemnification. I^^vveyer, the fact that such a 
privilege is granted to the (injured party indicates the 
existence of some degree of sympathetic resentment in the 
public. Punishment, in all its forms, is essentially an 
expression of indignation in the society which inflicts it.'"^ 
tience it is of extreme importance for the study of moral 
ideas, and calls for our careful consideration. 

By punishment I do not understand here every 
suffering inflicted upon an offender in consequence of his 
offence, but only such suffering as is inflicted upon him in 
a definite way by, or in the name of, the society of which 
he is a permanent or temporary member. This definition 
holds good whatever may be the opinion about the final 
object of punishment. Whether its purpose is, or is 
supposed to be, either reformation, or determent, or 
retribution, its immediate aim is always to cause suffering. 

^ Bentham, I'lieory of Leg i slat iou, p. lagen des Sfrafrcchls, p. 4). “ La 

309. peine consiste dans une rt^action pas- 

- “ Die Miss 1 >il]igini^ isi das Wesenl- sionnelle d’inlensitci gVadiu*e” (Durk- 
liche ader Strafe ” (von Bar, /J/e Crund- heiin, Divisioji dn Iravail soe/en/, p. 96). 

0 «AP. 

1^0 (yUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

We should not' punishment if the reformation of 

the criminal wen' attempted, say, by means of hypnotism. 

It is a commoi^ opinion that punishment, in this sense 
of the word is d social institution of comparatively 
modern origin, has sprung fiom, and gradually 

superseded, the ‘^^stom of individual or family 

revenge This opid^*^*^ seem plausible to the student 
of European and l-astern law, but, as we shall see, the 
early history of civii*^^*^^ races is apt to give a somewhat 
erroneous idea of td^ evolution of punishment. Even 
among savages pub'*'^ indignation frequently assumes 
that definite shape whi^^*^ constitutes the difference between 
punishment and mere dotidemnation. , , 

Savage punishment simply consists in publicly 

putting the offender to fhame. 

\ 

In Greenland the assemblies, 

which at the same time su . . , n<ttional sports and enter- 
tainments. Here “ nith-sc^jof. all sorts 

of crimes or breaches of ■ in' order or custom, with the 
exception of timse which asta^. ""’f, expiated by dcatli ; by 
means of cutting capers and si ^he offender was told of his 

faults, and the opposite virtue'^ ^o ‘^1/ who were 

present.^ The same institute >s found, with only incidental 
differences, among several oth':^'- tribes within and beyond the 
Arctic circlc.3 A^id, knowing sensitiveness of these peoples, 
we may assume that the punishJ’nont in question is by no means 
lenient. In Greenland “it nowl/”'^ ^^PP^'”/ dt^t some 

one or other, wounded, perhaps, ^ d'om one of 

his kinsfolk, runs away to the mo 
days at least.” ^ And Adair, speak''”g 

which North American Indians u^'^^ P'^^P’^' 

who were guilty of petty crimes, sayf' they would sooner 

die by tofture, than renew their t.diame by repeating the 
actions.” ^ 

’ Sec Steinmetz, Fj/ifiologiscke Slii- 
dien znr erslen Entwickliuig der Skrafe^ 
ii. 327 sqq . ; Makarewicz, Evolution de 
la p eine^ pasnm. 

^ Rink, Eskimo 'Iribes^ p. 24 sq. 
Jdern^ Cremland^ pp. 14 1, 150. Cranz, 
op. cit, i. 165 sq. ilolm, ‘ Ethnologisk 

f- 

f Ancrmansalikevne/ in Afed- 
Skizze af 1 87. 

deUiU am Exploratiom,\\. 128' 

iNaiie, Ti 

.T 'Eskimo Life., p. 267 sq. 

ansen, ij2^^ American 

sq._ 

Adair, Ll ^ 
Indians, p. 429 

In other instances the community as a whole expresses 
its indignation by inflicting suffering of a more material 
kind upon the culprit. 

In certain Australian tribes, when a native for any trans- 
gression incurs the displeasure of his tribe, custom compels 
him to stand punishment,” as it is called ; that is, he stands 
with a shield at a fair distance, while the whole tribe, either 
simultaneously or in rapid succession, cast their spears at him. 
Their expertness generally enables those who are exposed to 
this trial to escape without serious injury, though instances of a 
fatal result occasionally occur ; however, there is a certain pro- 
priety even in this extraordinary punishment, as the accuracy and 
force with which the weapons are thrown will depend very 
much on the opinion entertained of the enormity of the offence.^ 
Among the North- West-Central Queensland aborigines, though 
each individual, within certain limits, can do what he pleases, 
he has to reckon not only with the particular person injured, 
or his relatives, but also, in some cases, with the whole camp 
collectively. Thus the camp as a body, as a camp council, 
will take upon itself to mete out punishment in crimes of 
murder, incest, or the promiscuous use of fighting-implements 
within the precincts of the camping-ground : death, and pro- 
bably the digging of his own grave, awaits the delinquent in 
the former case, while ‘ crippling,’ generally with knives, con- 
stitutes the penalty for a violation of the latter.” Again, if 
a woman makes herself obnoxious in the camp, especially to 
the female portion of it, she is liable to be set upon and ham- 
mered” by her fellow-sisters collectively, tlie men on such 
occasions not interfering.- Among the Bangerang tribe of 
Victoria, any one who had suffered a wrong complained of 
it, if at all, at night aloud to the camp, which was silent and 
attentive. 'Fhen the accused was heard. Afterwards those 
who chose, men or women, expressed their views on the sub- 
ject ; and if general opinion pronounced the grievance a good 
one, the accused accepted the penalty sanctioned by custom.” ^ 
Among various tribes in Western Victoria, should a person, 
through bad conduct, become a constant anxiety and trouble 

^ Hale, 17 . S, Explori} 7 g Expedition. 
VoL VI. Ethnography and Philology, 
p. 114, Cf. My XQ, /our rials of Expedi- 
tions of Disc'07'ery into Central Aus- 
tralia, ii. 388 ; Collins, English Colony 
in New South Wales, i. 586 ; Brough 
Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, ii. 295. 

Roth, Ethnological Studies aviong 
the North- West-Central Queensland 
Aborigines, pp. 139, 141. Curr, The 
Australian Race, i. 61 sq, 

^ Curr, Squatting in Victoria, p. 

245. 

T72 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

GHAP. 

to the tribe, a consultation is held, and he is put to death,” ^ 
Among the Mpongwe, if a man murders another, he is put 
to death, not by the nearest of kin, but by tlie whole com- 
munity, being either drowned or burned alive. ^ Among the 
Hudson Bay Eskimo, when a person becomes so bad in 
character that the community will no longer tolerate his 
presence he is forbidden to enter the huts, partake of food, or 
hold any intercourse with the rest. Nevertheless, as long as 
he threatens no one’s life, but little attention is paid to him. 
Should he be guilty of a murder, several men watch their 
opportunity to surprise him and put him to death, usually by 
stoniiig. The executioners make no concealment of their action 
and are supported by public opinion in the community.” 

Among various savage peoples expulsion from the tribe 
is the punishment of persons whose conduct excites great 
public indignation, and among others such persons are 
outlawed- 

'Fhe Chippcwyans, among whom “order is maintained in 
the tribe solely by public opinion,” the chief having no power 
to punish crimes, occasionally expel from the society individuals 
whose cojiduct is exceptionally bad and threatens the general 
peace, 7"he Salish, or Flathead Indians, sometimes punished 
notorious criminals by expulsion from the tribe or band to 
which they belonged. Mr. Im Thuni, whilst praising the 
Indians of Guiana for their admirable morality as long as they 
remain in a state of nature, adds that there are exceptions to 
the rule, and that such individuals “ are soon killed or driven 
out from their tribe.” ^ Among the Bedouins of the Euphrates, 
“ in extreme cases, and as the utmost penalty of the law, the 
offender is turned out of the tribe ” ; ^ and the same is the case 
among the Beni Mzab.^ In the Scotch Highlands, even to 
this day, ijistances are common of public opinion operating as 
a punishment, to the extent of forcing individuals into exile.^ 
7'here are cases reported from various parts of the savage world 
of banishment being inflicted as a punishment for sexual 

^ Dawson, Australian Aborigines^ p. 

76; 

" Burton, 7 wo IVips to Gorilla Land, 
i. 105. 

Turner, ‘ Ethnology of the Ungava 
District,’ in Ann. Hep. Jlnr. Eihn. xi. 
186. 

Ricivarclson, Searching Ex- 

pedition., ii. 26 sq. 

^ Hale, op. cit. p. 208. 

^ Im Thurn, Among the Indians oj 
Guiana, p. 213. 

^ Blunt, Ecdouin 7 Vibes of the Eu- 
phrates, ii. 206. 

^ Chavanne, Sahara, p. 315. Tris- 
tram, Great Sahara, p. 207. 

^ Stewart, Highlanders of Scotland, 
p. 380. 

EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

*73 

offences ; ^ and other instances ot expulsion are mentioned by 
Dr. Steinmetz.2 In some cases, however, expulsion is to be 
regarded rather as a means of ridding the community from a 
pollution, than as a punishment in the proper sense of the 
term.^ 

Nearly related to the punishment of expulsion is that of out- 
lawry. Von Wrede states that the Bedouins of Hadhramaut 
give a respite of three days to the banislied man, and that after 
the lapse of this period every member of the tribe is allowed 
to kill him.‘^ Among the Wyandots the lowest grade of out- 
lawry consists in a declaration that, if the offender shall con- 
tinue in the commission of crimes similar to that of which he 
has been guilty, it will be lawful for any person to kill him, 
whilst outlawry of the highest degree makes it the duty of any 
member of the tribe who may meet with the offender to kill 
him.^ Among the ancient Xeutons, also, outlawry was originally 
a declaration of war by the commonwealth against an offending 
member, and became only later on a regular means of com- 
pelling submission to the authority of the courts.^^ 

Most generally, however, punishment is inflicted upon 
the culprit, not by the whole of the community, but by 
some person or persons invested with judicial authority. 
Indeed, it is not only civilised races who have judges and 
courts of justice. Among savages and barbarians justice 
is very frequently administered by a council of elders or 
by a chiefs Even people of so low a type as the Australian 
aborigines have their tribunals. 

^ Westermarck, History of Huinan 
JMarrtago^ p. 6i stjq. 

SLcinnictz, op. cit. ii. ch. 5. 

See infra., 011 Homicide, 
von Wrede, Keise in Hadhrajnanty 
P- 51- 

^ J’owcll, ‘ Wyandot Government, in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Eihn. i. 68. 

® Pollock and Maitland, History oj 
English Law before the Time of Eii- 
wara I. i. 49. 

^ Petroff, ‘ Report on Alaska,’ in 
Tenth Census of the United Statcsy ]>. 
152 (Aleuts). Morgan, Leag j(e of the 
Iroquois y p. 330. Powell, in Ann. Rep. 
Bur. Ethn. i. 63, 66 sq. (Wyandots). 
Ideniy ‘ Socioloj^y,’ in American An- 
tJiropologisty N.S. i. 706 (North Amer- 
ican tribes). Schoolcraft, Indian 'I'ribes 

of the United StateSy i. 277 (Creeks), 
von Martins, Beitriig' zur Elhnoqraphie 
Amerihalfy i. 88 (Brazilian Indians). 
Cook, Journal of a J byage round the 
World y p. 41 (Tahitians). Lister, in 
four. Antlir. hist. xxi. 54 (Bowditch 
Islanders). Codrinj^ton, Alclanesiansy 
p. 345 (Solomon Islanders). Hunt, in 
Jour. Anthr. Inst, xxviii. 6 (Murray 
Islanders). Kohler, in Zeitschr.f. vergl. 
Rechtszviss. xiv. 448 ; Senfft, in Steiii- 
metz, Rechtsverhdltnisscy p. 448 ; Ku- 
bary, ‘ Die Kbon^rupjie im Marshall’s 
Archijiei,’ in Journal dcs Museiun 
Godejfroyy i. 37 (Marshall Islanders). 
Ideniy Ethnographische Beitnige zur 
R'enntn/ssdi r/\ 'arolinisclien I usclqnmppCy 
p. 73 sqq.: Ideiiiy ‘ Die Palau-Inseln,’ 
in fournal dcs Pluscuin Godefrogy iv. 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

c;hap. 

Speaking of the native tribes of Central Australia, Messrs. 
Spencer and Gillen observe : — ‘‘Should any man breakthrough 
the strict marriage laws, it is not only an ‘impersonal power’ which 
he has to deal with. The head men of the group or groups 
concerned consult together with the elder men, and, if the 
offender, after long consultation, be adjudged guilty and the 
determination be arrived at that he is to be put to death — a by 
no means purely hypothetical case — then the same elder men make 
arrangements to carry the sentence out, and a party, which is 
called an Ininja^ is organised for the purpose.”^ We hear of 
similar councils from various parts of the Australian continent. 
In his description of the aborigines of New South Wales, Dr. 
Fraser states, “The Australian council of old and experienced 
men — this aboriginal senate and witenagemot — has the power 
to decree punishment for tribal offences.” The chiefs sit 
as magistrates to decide all cases which are brought before 
them, such as the divulging of sacred things, speaking to a 
mother-in-law, the adultery of a wife ; and there is even a 

42 (Pelcw Islanders), von Kotzebue, 
Voyage of Discovery^ iii. 208 (Caroline 
Islanders). Worcester, Philippine Is- 
lands^ p. 107 (Tagbanuas of Palawan). 
Marsden, Hisfo)y of Su}}i air p. 21 7 
(Rejangs). von Besuch bei den 

Kannibalen Sufnatras, p. 21 1 (Batak.s). 
Forbes, A NaturaUsP s IVanderings in 
the Eastern Archipelago, p 243 (Kubiis 
of Sumatra). Man, SonthaUa, p. 88 
sq. Cooper, Mishniee Hills^ p. 238. 
Maepherson, Alenioriah of Sej'^nce in 
India, p, 83 (Kandhs). Stewart, in 
Pour, As. Soc. Bengal, xxiv. 609, 620 
(Nagas, Old Kukis). Dalton, Eihno- 
logy of Bengal, p. 45 (Kukis). Forsyth, 
Hi gh lands of Central India, p. 361 
(Bygas). Shortt, in Trafis. Etlin. Soc, 
N.S. vii. 241 (Todas). Batchelor, 
Ainu and their Folk-Lore, p. 278 ; von 
Siebold, Die Aino auf der Insel Vesso, 
p. 34. P"rom Africa a great number of 
instances might be quoted, e.g.: — Nach- 
tigal, Sahara und Sudan, i. 449(Tcda)- 
Petherick, Egypt, the Soudan-, and 
Cefitral Afidca, i. 320 (Nouaer tribes). 
Beltrame, II Fiume Bianco, p. 77 (Shil- 
luk). Laing, Travels in the Timannee, 
tSre. Countries, p. 365 (Soolimas). 
Mungo Park, 7 ravels hr the Interior of 
Africa, p. 15 sq, (Mandingoes). Lcu- 
schner, in Steinmetz, Rcchtsverhal I nisse , 
p. 22 (Bakwiri). Ibid, p. 47 (Banaka 
and Bapuku). Tellier, ibid, p. , 175 

(Kreis Kita, in the French Soudan). 
]k:)sman, Nciv Description of the Coast 
of Gziinea, p. 331 (Negroes of Fida). 
Casati, I'ezi Years in Equatoria , i. 158, 
163 (Akkas, Mambettu). Stuhlmann, 
Mit Effiin Base ha ins Herz von Africa, 
p. 523 (A-lur). Emin Pasha in Cen- 
tral Africa, p. 89 (Wanyoro). Basker- 
ville, in Steinmetz, Rccliisverhaltnisse, 
p. 193 (Waganda). Beverley, ibid. p. 
214 (Wagogo). Lang, ibid. }>. 253 sqq. 

( Washambala). Desoignies, ibid. p. 
279 sq. (Msalala). Decle, Phree Years 
in Savage Africa, pp. 71, 73, 74, 4S7 
(Barotse, Wakainba). Junod, Les Ba- 
Ronga, p. 155 sqq. Burton, Zanzibar, 
ii. 94 (Wanika). llolub, Seven Years 
in Soulh Africa, ii. 319 (Marutse). 
Kohler, in Zeitschr.f, vergl. Rcchtswiss. 
xiv. 316 (llcrero). Andersson, I.ake 
Nganii, p. 197 (Ovambo). Rautanen, 
in Steinmetz, Rechtsver halt nisse, p. 
340 (Ondonga). Kolben, 1 'resent Stale 
of the Cape of Good Hope, i. 86, 297 
(Hottentots). Kohler, in Zeitschr. f 
vergl. Reehtswiss. xv. 333 (Bcchuanas). 
Casalis, Baszilos, pp. 224, 226. Mac- 
lean, Conipcndimn of Kafir Laws and 
Customs, })p. 35, no. Holden, Past 
and Fuiitre of the Kajfir Races, pp. 
333, 336. Shooter, Kafirs of Natal, p. 
99 ry. 

^ Spencer and Gillen, op. cit. p. 15. 

tribal executioner. At the same time, many grievances are 
arranged without the intervention of the chiefs ; for instance, 
if a man has been found stealing from his neighbour, or two 
men quarrel about a woman, a fight ensues, the one or the other 
gets his head broken, and there the matter ends.^ The Nar- 
rinyeri have a judgment council of the elders of the clan, called 
tendi^ which is presided over by the chief of the clan ; and 
when any member of the tendi dies, tlie surviving members 
select a suitable man from the clan to succeed him. All 
offenders are brought to tin's tribunal for trial. In cases of the 
slaying by a person or persons of one clan of the member of 
another clan in time of peace, the fellow-clansmen of the mur- 
dered man will send to the friends of the murderer and invite 
them to bring him to trial before the united tendies. If, after 
full inquiry, he is found to have committed the crime, he will 
be punished according to the degree of guilt.” Among another 
Australian tribe, the Gournditch-mara, again, the headman, 
whose office was hereditary, settled all quarrels and disputes 
in the tribe. When he had heard both sides, and had given his 
decision in a matter, no one ever disputed it.”^ 

Among the Australian aborigines, then, we find cases in 
which punishment is inflicted by the whole community, 
and other cases in which it is inflicted by a tribunal or a 
chief. There can be little doubt that the latter system has 
developed out of the former ; there are obvious instances 
of transition from the one to the other. Among the 
North- West-Central Queensland natives, for instance, in 
cases of major offences, such as murder, incest, or physical 
violence, the old men are only said to ‘‘influence” aboriginal 
public opinion.'^ It is an inconvenient, and in larger com- 
munities a difficult, procedure for the whole group to in- 
flict punishments in common, hence the administration of 
justice naturally tends to pass into the hands of the 
leading men or the chief. But the establishment of 
a judicial authority within the society may also have a 
different origin. Very frequently judicial organisation 

^ Fraser, Aborigines of New South 
Wales, p. 39. 

Taplin, ‘ Narrinyeri,’ in Woods, 
Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 

^ Flson rind ITowitt, Kannlaroi and 
Auniai, p. 277. 

^ Rotli, Ojb. eit. p. 14 1. 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

seems to have developed, not out of a previous system 
of ]ynch-law, but out of a previous system of private 
revenge. 

An act of individual or family revenge is by itself, of 
course, an expression of private, not of public, feelings — of 
revenge, not of moral indignation. But the case is different 
with the custom of revenge. We shall see in a following 
chapter that blood-revenge is regarded not only as a right, 
but, very frequently, as a duty incumbent upon the rela- 
tives of the slain person. So, also, revenge may be deemed 
a duty in cases where there is no blood-guiltiness. Among 
the Australian Geawe-gal tribe, for instance, the offender, 
according to the magnitude of his offence, was to receive 
one or more spears from men who were relatives of the 
deceased person ; or the injured man himself, when he had 
recovered strength, might discharge the spears at the 
offender. And our authority adds, Obedience to such 
laws was never withheld, but would have been enforced, 
without doubt, if necessary, by the assembled tribe.” ^ The 
obligatory character of revenge implies that its omission 
is disapproved of. It is of course the man on whom the 
duty of vengeance is incumbent that is the immediate object 
of blame, when this duty is omitted ; and the blame may 
partly be due to contempt, especially when there is a sus- 
picion of cowardice. But behind the public cetisure there is 
obviously a desire to see the injurer suffer. Instances may 
be quoted in which the society actually assists the avenger, 
in some way or other, in attaining his object. Speaking 
of the Fuegians, M. Hyades observes: — “Nous avons 
entendu parler ddndividus coupables de meurtre sur leur 
femme, par exemple, et qui, poursuivis par tout un groupe 
de families, finissaient, quelquefois un an ou deux apres 
leur crime, par tomber sous les coups des parents de la 
victime. II s’agit la plutot d^un acte de justice que d’une 
satisfaction de vengeance. Nous devons faire remarquer 
en outre que, dans ces cas, le meurtrier cst abandonne de 
tons, et qu’il ne pent se soustraire que pendant un temps 

^ Fison and llowilt, op. cii. p. zS2. 

vii ^ EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

relativement assez court au chatiment qui le menace.” ^ 
Amongst the Central Eskimo, who have ‘‘no punishment 
for transgressors except the blood vengeance,” if a man 
has committed a murder or made himself odious by other 
outrages, “ he may be killed by any one simply as a 
matter of justice. The man who intends to take revenge 
on him must ask his countrymen singly if each agrees in 
the opinion that the offender is a bad man deserving death. 
If all answer in the affirmative he may kill the man thus 
condemned, and no one is allowed to revenge the murder.” ' 
Among the Greenlanders, in cases of extreme atrocity, 
the men of a village have been known to make common 
cause against a murderer, and kill him, though it other- 
wise is the business of the nearest relatives to take re- 
venge.’^ It is also noteworthy that, among the crimes 
which in savage communities are punished by the com- 
munity at large, incest is particularly prominent. The 
chief reason for this I take to be the absence of an indi- 
vidual naturally designated as the avenger. 

Thus public indignation displays itself not only in 
punishment, but, to a certain extent, in the custom of 
revenge. In both cases the society desires that the offender 
shall suffer for his deed. Strictly speaking, the relation- 
ship between the custom of revenge and punishment is 
not, as has been often supposed, that between parent and 
child- It is a collateral relationship. They have a com- 
mon ancestor, the feeling of public resentment. 

But whilst public opinion demands that vengeance shall 
be exacted for injuries, it is also operative in another way. 
Though in some cases the resentment may seem to out- 
siders to be too weak or too much checked by other 
impulses, it may in other cases appear unduly great. As 
a matter of fact, we frequently find the practice of revenge 
being regulated by a rule which requires equivalence be- 
tween the injury and the suffering inflicted in return for 

Ilyades and Denikcr, JMlssion " Boas, ‘Central Eskimo,’ in /Inn. 
srienti-^iquc du Cap Horn, vii. 240 sq. J\ep. Bur, Elhn. vi. 582. 

^ Nansen, Eskimo Life, [). 163. 

• VOL. I 

N 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

it. Sometimes this rule demands that only one life shall 
be taken for one sometimes that a death shall be avenged 
on a person of the same rank, sex, or age as the deceased;^ 
sometimes that a murderer shall die in the same manner as 
his victim ; ^ sometimes that various kinds of injuries shall 
be retaliated by the infliction of similar injuries on the 
offender.^ This strict equivalence is not characteristic of 
resentment as such.^ There is undoubtedly a certain pro- 
portion between the pain-stimulus and the reaction ; other 
things being equal, resentment increases in intensity along 
with the pain by which it is excited. The more a person feels 
offended, the greater is his desire to retaliate by inflicting 
counter-pain, and the greater is the pain which he desires to 
inflict. But resentment involves no accurate balancing of 
suffering against suffering, hence there may be a crying dis- 
proportion between the act of revenge and the injuryevoking 
it.^’ As Sir Thomas Browne observes, a revengeful mind 
“ holds no rule in retaliations, requiring too often a head 
for a tooth, and the supreme revenge for trespasses, which 
a night’s rest should obliterate.”^ If, then, the rule of 

' Krause, Tlinkit-lndiaucr\ p. 245 Al)reu, Canary Islands, j). 27 (abori- 
sq. Macfie, Vancottver Island and gines of Ferro). 

British Colnnihia, p. 470. Foreman, ^ Im Thurn, r/V. p. 213 .^f/. (Guiana 
Philippine Islands, f). 213 (Negrito Indians). Glimpses of the Eastern 
and Igorrote tribes in the province of p. 86 (bataks). Arbousset 

La Isabela). Low, Sarawak, p. 212 and Dainnas, Eonr to the North-East 

(Dyaks). von Langsdorf, Voyages and of the Colony of Good Hope, p. 67 

Travels, i. 132 (Nukalnvans). (Mantelis). Munzinger, op, cit, p. 502 

^ Travels in the Philippines, (Larea and Kunama). Post, Afrika- 

p. 213 (Igorrotes). Blumentritt, (]uote(I nisehe Jnrispn(denz, ii. 27 (various other 

by Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 370 African peoples), de Abreu, op. f it. p. 

sq, (r)uianganes of Luzon). Munzinger, 71 (aborigines of Gran Canaria). 

(,bA07/v7;//.s77/ci//r^//V;7,p. 243(Alarea). Cf. I’issot, Le droit pdnal, i. 226; 

Kot'an, ii. 173. Steinmetz, Ethnol. Stndien zur ersten 

^ von Martins, op. fit. i. 129 (Brazil- Enlzvieklung dcr Strafe, i. 401 ; 

ian Indians). Wallace, Travels on the Makarewicz, op, cit. p. 13. 

p. 499 (Uaupes). Schoolcraft, von Martins, op. eit. i. 128 

Indian Tribes of the United States, iii. (Brazilian aborigines). Calder, in four. 

246 (Dacotahs). Stellcr, Kamtschatka, Anthr, Inst. iii. 21 (Tasmanians). 

P- 355 - Hickson, A Naturalist in Forbes, A Naturalises Wanderings 

North Celebes,^ p. 198 (Sangirese of in the Eastern Archipelago, p. 473 

Manganitu). Journal of a Tour (Timorese). Sarasin, Eorschungen auf 

ihroui^h Part of the Himdld Mountains, Ceylon, iii. 539 (Veddahs). Jacob* 

P- 339 (Butias). Ellis, History of Das Leben der vorisldmischcn Bedui- 

Madagascar, i. 371. Munzinger, op. p, 144 

fit, p. 502 (Barea and Kunama). de ^ Browne, Christian Morals, iii. 12, 

P* 94 * 

vn 

EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

T79 

equivalence is not suggested by resentment itself, this rule 
must be due to other factors, which intermingle with re- 
sentment, and help, with it, to determine the action. One 
of these factors, I believe, is self-regarding pride, the desire 
to pull down the humiliating arrogance of the aggressor 
naturally suggesting the idea of paying him back in his 
own coin ; and It seems probable that the natural disposi- 
tion to imitate, especially in cases of sudden anger, acts in 
the same direction. But besides this qualitative equiva- 
lence between injury and retaliation, the lex talionis requires, 
in a rough way, quantitative equivalence, and this demand 
has no doubt a social origin. If the offender is a person 
with whose feelings men are ready to sympathise, their 
sympathy will keep the desire to see him suffer within 
certain limits ; and if, under ordinary circumstances, they 
tend to sympathise equally with both parties, the injurer 
and the person injured, and, in consequence, confer upon 
these equal rights, they will demand a retaliation which is 
only equal in degree to the offence. By suffering a loss 
the offender compensates, as it were, for the loss which he 
has inflicted ; and when equal regard is paid to his feelings 
and to those of his victim, it is deemed just that the loss 
required of him as a compensation should be equivalent to 
the loss for which he compensates, anything beyond equiva- 
lence being regarded as undeserved suffering. If this ex- 
planation is correct, the rule of equivalence must originally 
have been restricted to offences within the social group ; 
for, according to early custom and law, only members of 
the same society have equal rights. In speaking of the 
tit-for-tat system prevalent among the Guiana Indians, 
Mr. Im Thurn expressly says, Of course all this refers 
chiefly to the mutual relations of members of the same 
tribe.” ^ And when we find savages acting according to 
the same principle in their relations to other tribes, the 
reason for this may be , sought partly in the strong hold 
which' that principle has taken of their minds, and 
partly in the dangers accompanying intertribal revenge, 

^ Ini Thurn, op. cit, p. 214. 

N 2 

i8o CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS chap. 

which make it desirable to restrict it within reasonable 
limits. 

The regulations to which the practice of revenge is 
subject, help us to understand the transition from revenge 
to punishment, and the establishment of a special judicial 
authority. As long as retaliation is in the hands of private 
individuals, there is no guarantee, on the one hand, that 
the offender will have to suffer, on the other hand, that 
the act of retaliation will be sufficiently discriminate. 

The injured party may be too weak, or otherwise 
unable, to avenge himself. His readiest course, then, is 
to appeal to the chief for help. The chief, on his part, 
has an interest in interfering — he may of course expect a 
handsome reward for his assistance,^ — and, in so far as the 
community at large wishes that the offender shall suffer, 
the chief may even be bound to interfere. Thus in the 
Sandwich Islands, the family or the friends of an injured 
person — who in cases of assault or murder were by 
common consent justified In taking revenge — used to 
appeal to the chief of the district or to the king, when 
they were too weak to attack the offender themselves.^ 
Among the Wanyoro, according to Emin Pasha, should 
the murderer escape, the nearest relatives of the murdered 
man apply to the chief of the tribe to procure the 
punishment of the culprit.® The Indians of Brazil, when 
offended, sometimes bring their cause before the chief; 
but they do it seldom, since they consider it disgraceful for 
a man not to be able to avenge himself.'* The judicial 
authority granted to the Basuto chief “ also insures justice 
to foreigners, and to individuals who, having no relations, 
are deprived of their natural defenders and avengers.” ® 
In ancient Greece, in early times, special care was taken by 
the State for the protection of the weak and helpless, who 
otherwise had been unavenged.'* In the Middle Ages, the 

1 Steinmetz, Kechtsverhiiltnisse^ p. p. 86. 

31 1. Cf. Brunner, Deutsche Nechts- ^ von Martins, op. at. i. 132. 
i^esfhifhte, i. 165. Ca.salis, op. cit. p. 226. 

“ 7 our t/irou^Pi //await, p. 42(). ® Leist, Grueo-italische /vechtsoe- 

^ Emin 7 *asha in Central Africa, scJiichte, p. 372, 

EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

i8i 

poor and the weak were placed under the King’s pro- 
tection ; the intervention of royal justice, as Du Boys 
observes, “ apparaissait comme un bienfait pour les faibles 
et un secours pour les opprimes.” ^ 

Whilst resentment on behalf of injuries inflicted upon 
persons who are unable to avenge themselves has thus, to 
some extent, contributed towards the establishment of a 
central judicial and executive authority, the sympathy natur- 
ally felt for the object of an improper and immoderate re- 
venge undoubtedly tended to bring about a similar result. 
I'he same feeling which checked indiscriminate revenge by 
establishing the rule of strict equivalence, restricted it 
once more, and in a more effective way, by referring the 
case to a judge who was less partial, and more discriminate, 
than the sufferer himself or his friends. Speaking of the 
feuds of the Teutons, Kemble remarks, “Setting aside the 
loss to the whole community which may arise from private 
feud, the moral sense of men may be shocked by its 
results : an individual’s own estimate of the satisfaction 
necessary to atone for the injury done to him, may lead to 
the commission of a wrong on his part, greater than any 
he hath suffered ; nor can the strict rule of ‘ an eye for an 
eye, and a tooth for a tooth,’ be applied where the ex- 
action of the penalty depends upon the measure of force 
between appellant and defender.” ^ In the island of Bali 
the judge steps in between the prosecutor and the person 
whom he pursues, “ so as to restrain the indiscriminate 
animosity of the one, and to determine the criminality of 
the other.” ® Crawfurd, in his account of native customs 
in the Malay Archipelago, says that “ the law even 
expressly interdicts all interference when there appears a 
character of fairness in the quarrel.” A Karen, we are 
told, always thinks himself right in taking the law into 
his own hands, this being the custom of the country, and 
“he is never interfered with, unless he is guilty of some 

^ Du Boys, Histoire du droit criminel ^ Raffles, History of Java, ii. p. 
de V Espagne, p. 237. ccxxxvii. 

Kemble, Saxons in England, i. * Crawfurd, History of the Indian 
J268 sq. Archipelago, iii. 120. 

i 82 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

act contrary to Karen ideas of propriety, when the elders 
and the villagers interfere and exercise a check, upon 
him.” ^ Among the Basutos the authority of the chief 
is stated to be “ sufficiently respected to protect criminated 
persons, until their cases have been lawfully examined.” 
Among the Californian Gallinomero the avenger of blood 
has his option between money and the murderer’s life ; 
“ but he does not seem to be allowed to wreak on him a 
personal and irresponsible vengeance,” the chief taking 
the criminal and executing the punishment.'^ 

Besides the desire that the offender shall suffer and the 
desire that his suffering shall correspond to his guilt, there 
is a third factor of importance which has contributed to 
the substitution of punishment for revenge and to the rise 
of a judicial organisation. For every society it is a 
matter of great consct]uencc that there should be peace 
between its various members. Though the system of 
revenge helps to keep down crime, it also has a tendency 
to cause disturbance and destruction. Any act of vengeance 
which goes beyond the limits fixed by custom is apt to call 
forth retaliation in return. Among the Ossetes, says Baron 
von Haxthausen, “ if the retaliation does not exceed the 
original injury the affair terminates ; but if the wound 
given is greater than the one received, the feud begins 
afresh from the other side.” ^ The custom of blood- 
revenge certainly does not imply that the avenger of un- 
justifiable homicide may himself be a proper object of 
retaliation ; but in the absence of a tribunal it may be 

^ Mason, in /our. Asialfc Soc, Ben- 
gal^ xxxvii. pt. ii. 145. Cf. MacMahon, 
Far Cathay and Farther Jndia, p. 188. 

“ Casalis, op. cit. p. 226. 

Powers, Tribes of California., p. 

177. 

Taylor, Te Ika a Mam, p. 96 
(Maori). Im Ttiurn, op. cit. pp. 213, 
330 (Guiana Indians). Purckhardl, 
Bedouins andWahabys, p. 84 S(j.; Blunt, 
Bedouins of the Fupln-ates, ii. 207 ; 
La}?ard, Discoveries in the Ruiifs of 
Nineveh and Babylon, p. 305 ‘ sq. 
(Bedouins). Kohl, Reise nach Istricn, 

i. 409 sq. (Montenegrines). Stephen, 
History of the Criminal Law of Ene^- 
land, i. 60 (Anglo-Saxons). Nordstrimi, 
Svens ka samhalls-l'brfatfningens his- 
ioria, ii. 228 (ancient Scandinavians). 
Steinmetz, Etlinol. Studien zur ersten 
Entxvicklung der Strafe, ii. 125 sqq. 

® von Haxthausen, Transcazuasia, 
p. 411. 

^ Among the ai)origines of Western 
Victoria, when life has been taken for 
life, the feud is ended (Dawson, op. cit. 
p. 7 o)* Among llie Greenlanders, if 
the victim of revenge “be a notorious 

no easy thing to decide the question of guilt, and, besides, 
the dictate of custom may be overruled by passion. As 
a matter of fact, the blood-feud often consists of a whole 
series of murders, the revenge itself calling forth a new 
act of redress, and so on, until the state of hostility may 
become more or less permanent.^ In the long run this 
will prove injurious both to the families implicated in the 
feud and to society as a whole, and some method of putting 
a stop to the feud will readily be adopted. One such 
method is to substitute the payment of blood-money for 
revenge ; another is to submit the cause to an authority 
invested with judicatory power. Casalis tells us that the 
Basutos are often heard to say, “ If we were to revenge 
ourselves, the town or community would soon be dis- 
persed ” ; and he adds that the instinctive fear of the 
disorders that might arise from the exercise of individual 
law has induced them to allow the chief of the tribe a 
certain right over the person of every member of the 
community." 

As may be expected, it is only by slow degrees that 
revenge has yielded to punishment, and the private avenger 
has been succeeded by the judge and the public executioner 
of his sentence. Among many savages the chief is said 
to have nothing whatever to do with jurisdiction.'^ Among 

uffentkr, or haled for Ills hlotxly deeds, 
or if he have no relations, the matter 
rests’" ; but more fretiuently the act of 
vengeance costs the avenger him.self his 
life (Cranz, op. cit. i. 178). Among 
the Bedouins, “ if the family of the man 
killed should in revenge kill two of the 
daintnawy\ or homicide’s family, the 
latter retaliate l>y the death of one. If 
one only Vjc killed, the affair re.sts there 
and all is quiet ; but the quarrel is soon 
revived by hatred and revenge ” ( Burck- 
hardt, Bedouins and Wahdbys.^ p. 86), 
In his book, Das Leben der vot'is- 
Idntischen Beduinen, Dr. Jacoby like- 
wise obs^irves (p. 144) : - Irrtiimlich ist 
die Ansicht, da.ss Blut imnier neues 
Blut fordere. War fur einen Getdd- 
telen ein Anderer er.schlagen, so gait 
die Sache in der Regel damit fiir erledigt 

und abgetan.” CJ. Achelis, AJoderne 
Vdlkcrkunde., p. 407, n. i. 

^ Nekson, ‘ Eskimo aljout Bering 
Strait,’ in Ann. Bep. Bur. Eihn. xviii. 
293. Miklosich, ‘ Blutrache bei den 
Slaven,’ in Denkschriften d. kaiser!. 
Akadeniie d. Wissensch. Phil. -hist. 
CiassOy Vienna, xxxvi. 132 ; &c. 

Ca.salis, op. cit. p. 225. C/. Boyle, 

Adventures among the Dyaks of Borneo., 
p. 217 ; Marsden, op. cit. p. 249 sq. 
(Rejangs). 

^ Keating, Expedition to the Source 
of St. Feted s River ^ i. 123 (Potawa- 
tomis). Richardson, Arctic Searching 
Expedition, ii. 27 (Chippewyans). 
Carver, 7 rave/s, p. 259 {Naudowessies). 
Dol)rizhofifer, Account of the Abipones, 
ii, 103 ; &c. 

others he acts merely as an adviser, or is appealed to as an 
arbiter ; ^ or the injured party may choose between avenging 
himself and appealing to the chief fqr redress;*^ or the 
judicial power with which the chief is invested is stated 
to be more nominal than reaL*^ It is also interesting to 
note that in several cases the injured party or the accuser 
acts as executioner, but not as judge. 

Thus among some Australian tribes, a man accused of a 
serious offence gets a month’s citation to appear before the 
tribunal, on pain of death if he disobeys. If he is found guilty 
of a private wrong, he is painted white, and made to stand out 
at fifty paces in front of the accuser and his friends, all fully 
armed. They throw at him a shower of spears and ^bumarangs,’ 
from which he protects himself with a light shield.” ^ Among 
the Aricara Indians of the Missouri, who, for the most part, 
punished murder with death, the nearest relative of the mur- 
dered man was deputed by the council to act the part of 
executioiier.^'’ With reference to the natives of Bali, Raffles 
says tliat “ in the execution of the punishment awarded by the 
court there is this peculiarity, that the aggrieved party or his 
friends are appointed to inflict it.”^ In some parts of Af- 
ghanistan, ^Mf the oft’ended party complains to the Sirdar, or if 
he hears of a murder committed, he first endeavours to bring 
about a compromise, by offering the Khoon Behau, or price of 
blood ; but if the injured party is inexorable, the Sirdar lays the 
affair before the King, who orders the Gauzy to try it , and, if 
the criminal is convicted, gives him up to be executed by the 
relations of the deceased.” ^ Among the peoples round Lake 
Nyassa and Tanganyika and among the Bantu tribes generally, 
“ when a murderer is caught and proved guilty he is given over 

^ Lewis and Clarke, Travels to the 
Source of the Missouri River, p, 306 S(j, 
(Shoshones). I\>wers, 'J'ribes of Cali- 
fornia, p. 45 (Karok and Yiirok), 
Dunbar, ‘ Pawnee Indians,’ in Magazine 
of American History, iv. 261. Ar- 
l>ousset and Daiinias, op. cit, p. 67 
(Mantetis), Ellis, Yoruba-speaking 
Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 300 (Tshi- 
and Ewe-speaking peoples 01 the 
African West Coast). Burckhardt, 
Bedouins and Wahdbys, pp. 68, 70. 
Blunt, op, cit. ii. 232 sq, (Bedouins of 
the Euphrates). von Haxthaiisen, 
Transcaucasia, p. 415 (Ossetes). 

2 Ellis, Tour through Ilazuaii, p. 
429. Williams and Calvert, Fiji and 
the Fijians, p. 23. Forbes, A Natur- 
alisfs Wanderings in the Eastern 
Archipelago, p. 473 (Timorese). 

Falkner, Description of Patagonia, 
p. 123. Andensson, Lake Ngami, p. 
231 (Damaras). 

Fraser, Aborigines of Nezv South 
Wales, p, 40 sq. 

Bradbury, Travels in the Interior 
of America, p. 168. 

Raffles, op. cit. ii. p. ccxxxvii. 

^ Elpliinstone, Kingdom of Cxzubul, 
ii. 105 sq. 

to the relatives of tlic person murdered, who have power to 
dispose of him as they choose.” ^ A similar practice prevails 
among the Mishmis5‘^ Bataks/^ and Kamchadales.'^ It was also 
recognised by early Slavonic,^ Teutonic, and English codes.^' 
According to the provisions of a code granted so late as 1231, by 
the Abbey of St. Bertin to the town of Arques, when a man was 
convicted of intentional homicide, he was handed over to the 
family of the murdered person, to be slain by them.'^ 

But although, in innumerable cases, punishment and 
judicial organisation have succeeded a previous system of 
revenge, and thus are products of social development, 
their existence or non-existence among a certain people is 
no exact index to the general state of culture which that 
people has attained. Even among low savages we have 
noticed instances of punishments which are inflicted by the 
community as a whole, as also by special judicial autho- 
rities. On the other hand, we are taught by the history of 
European and Oriental nations, that the system of revenge 
is not inconsistent with a comparatively high degree of cul- 
ture.^ We can now see the reason for this apparent anomaly. 
In a small savage community, all the members of which are 
closely united with each other, an injury inflicted upon one 
is readily felt by all. The case may be different in a State 
consisting of loosely-connected social components, which, 
though forming a political unity, have little communica- 
tion between themselves, and take no interest in each 
other’s private dealings. And, whilst in the smaller society 
public resentment is thus more easily aroused, such a 
society also stands in more urgent need of internal peace. 

Our assumption that punishment is, in the main, an 
expression of public indignation, is opposed to another 
theory, according to which the chief object of punish- 
ment, not only ought to be, but actually is, or has been, 

^ Macdonald, in Jour, Aiiihr, Inst. Wilda, tStrafrcclit der Ger///anen, 

xxii. 108. " p. 167. It\x Sa/ita, 68. l.atvs of 

* “ Cooper, Mishnico Hills,, p. 238. Cniit, i. 53. Leges Hcnriei L Ixxi. i. 

^ von Premier, op. eit. p. 212. ^ Leges vilhe de Arles al> ablate S, 

^ Georgi, Russia, iii. 137. Betiini concessee, 28 (d’Achery, Spiel- 

^ Macieiowski, Slavische Rechts- legitim, iii. 608}. 
geschichte, ii. 127. ^ See infra, on lilood-revenge. 

i86 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

to prevent crime by deterring people from committing 
it. We are even told that punishment, inflicted for such 
a purpose, is, largely, at the root of the moral conscious- 
ness ; that punishment is not the result of a sense of 
justice, but that the sense of justice is a result of punish- 
ment ; that, by being punished by the State, certain acts 
gradually came to be regarded as worthy of punishment, 
in other words, as morally wrong.^ 

There are certain facts which seem to support the sup- 
position that punishment has, to a large extent, been in- 
tended to act as a deterrent. We find that among various 
semi-civilised and civilised peoples the criminal law has 
assumed a severity which far surpasses the rigour of the 
lex talionis. 

Speaking of the Azteks, Mr. Bancroft observes that ‘^tlie greater 
part of their code miglit, like Draco’s, have been written in 
blood — so severe were the penalties inflicted for crimes that 
were comparatively slight, and so brutal and bloody were tlie 
ways of carrying those punishments into execution.” ^ 'phe 
punishment of death was inflicted on the man who dressed him- 
self like a woman, on the woman who dressed lierself like a 
man,'^ on tutors who did not give a good account of the estates 
of their pupils,^ on those who carried oft’, or changed, the 
boundaries placed in the fields by public authority ; and should 
an adulterer endeavour to save himself by killing the injured 
husband, his fiite was to be roasted alive before a slow fire, his 
body being basted with salt and water that death might not 
come to his relief too soon.^^ Nor did the ancient Peruvian code 
ccojiomise human suft*ering by proportioning penalties to crimes; 
the punishment most commonly prescribed by it was death. ^ 
The penal code of China, though less cruel in various respects 
than the European legislation of the eighteenth century, awards 
death for a third and aggravated theft, for defacing the branding 
inflicted for former offences,^ and for privately casting copper 
coin ; ^ whilst for the commission of the most heinous crimes 

^ Ree, Ursprun^ der moj'alischen 
Empfinditngen^ P* 45 -W* Eiem^ Ent- 
stehiing des Gewissens^ p. 190 

Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific 
States y ii. 454. 

Clavigero, History of Mexico y i. 358. 
^ Ibid. i. 

« Ibid. i. 355. 

^ Bancroft, op. cit. ii. 465 sq. 

^ Garci lasso de la Vega, First Part 
of the Royal Covimentaries of the Yncas, 
i. 145, 151 sq. 

^ Wells Williams, Muhlle Kingdomy 
i. 512. 

•* I 'a Tsirig Leu LeCy sec. ccclix. p. 
397- 

the penalty is to be cut into ten thousand pieces,” which 
appears to amount, at least, to a licence to the executioner to 
aggravate and prolong the sufferings of the criminal by any 
species of cruelty he may think proper to inflict.^ In Japan, 
before the revolution of 1871, the punishments for crime had 
been both rigorous and cruel ; death was the usual punishment, 
and death accompanied by tortures was the penalty for aggra- 
vated crimes.” According to the Mosaic law, death is inflicted 
for such offences as breach of the Lord’s day,^ wizards,^ 

eating the fat of a beast of sacrifice,^ eating blood, ^ approaching 
unto a woman as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness,” 
and various kinds of sexual offences.^ The Laws of Manu pro- 
vide capital punisJiment for those who forge royal edicts and 
corrupt royal ministers 3 ^ for those who break into a royal store- 
house, an armoury, or a temple, and those who steal elephants, 
Jiorses, or chariots ; for thieves who are taken with the stolen 
goods and the implements of burglary ; for cut-purses on the 
third conviction ; whilst a wife, who, proud of the greatness of 
her relatives or her own excellence, violates the duty which she 
owes to her lord, shall be devoured by dogs in a place frequented 
by many, and the male offender shall be burnt on a red-hot iron 
bed.i’^ 

Increasing severity has been a characteristic of European 
legislation up to quite modern times. Towards the end of the 
thirteenth century, the English law knows some seven crimes 
which it treats as capital, namely, treason, homicide, arson, rape, 
robbery, burglary, and grand larceny ; but the number of capital 
offences grew rapid ly.^'^ From the Restoration to the death ot 
George III. — a period of 160 years — no less than 187 such 
offences, wholly different in character and degree, were added 
to the criminal code; and when, in 1837, the punishment of 
death was removed from about 200 crimes, it was still left 
applicable to exactly the same offences as were capital at the end 
of the thirteenth century. Pocket-picking was punishable with 
death until the year 1808;^^ horse-stealing, cattle-stealing, 

^ Ibid, sec, ccliv. p. 269 n. t 
^ Reed, Japan^ i. 323. Thuiiberg, 
Travels y iv. 65. 

^ Exodtis^ XXX i. 14. 

^ Leviticus^ xx. 6. 

^ Ibid. vii. 25. 

® Ibid. vii. 27. 

^ Ibid, xviii. 19. 

® Ibid, xviii. 6 sqq. 

^ Lazvs of Mann., ix. 232. 

Ibid. ix. 280. 

Ibid. ix. 270. 

Ibid. ix. 277. 

Ibid. viii. 371 sq. 

Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. ii. 

511. 

May, Constitutional History oj 
England., ii. 595. Mackenzie, Studies 
in Kornan lazv, p. 424 sq. 

Pike, History of Crime in England., 

ii. 450. 

i88 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

sheep-stealing, stealing from a dwelling-house, and forgery, until 
1832 ; ^ letter-stealing and sacrilege, until 1835 rape, until 
1841 robbery with violence, arson of dwelling-houses, and 
sodomy, until 1861.'^ And not only was human life recklessly 
sacrificed, but the mode of execution was often exceedingly 
cruel. In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Peine 
forte et dure^ or pressing to death with every aggravation of tor- 
ture, was adopted as a manner of punishment suitable to cases 
where the accused refused to plead. ^ Burning alive of female 
offenders still occurred in England at the end of the eighteenth 
century,^ being considered by the framers of the law as a com- 
mutation of the sentence of hanging required by decency.^ 
Still more cruel was the punishment inflicted on male traitors : 
they were first hanged by the neck and cut down before life 
was extinct, their entrails were taken out and burned before 
their face, then they were beheaded and quartered, and the 
quarters were set up in diverse places.^ This punishment con- 
tinued to exist in England as late as in the reign of George III., 
and even then Sir Samuel Romilly, the great agitator against its 
continuance, brought upon himself the odium of the law officers 
of the Crown, who declared that he was breaking down the 
bulwarks of the Constitution.” ^ Such cruelties were not 
peculiar to the English. On the contrary, as Sir James Stephen 
observes, though English people, as a rule, have been singularly 
reckless about taking life, they have usually been averse to the 
infliction of death by torture.^^ In various parts of the Continent 
we find such punishments as breaking on the wheel, quartering 
alive, and tearing with red-hot pincers, in use down to the end 
of the eighteenth century. 

It is interesting to compare these punishments with 
those practised among savages. Wanton cruelty is not a 
general characteristic of their public justice. 

^ IhuL ii. 451. Stephen, History of 
the Criminal Law of Engiand, i. 474. 

“ Pike, op. cit. ii. 451. Stephen, op. 
cit. i. 474. 

Stephen, op. cit. i. 475. 

^ Ibid. i. 475. 

® P'or the manner in which this tor- 
ture was inflictecl, see Andrews, Ctd^ 
Time Pitttis /intents^ p. 203 sq. 

^ Ibid. p. 198. Stephen, op. cit. i. 
477 - 

^ Andrews, op. cit. p. 192. 

^ I lolin-shed, Chronicles oj England^ 
C>~c. i. 310. Thomas Smith, Common- 
wealth of Engl a 7 id^ p. 198. 

Andrews, op. cit. p. 203. An 

earlier method of punishing traitors was 
boiling to death, which was adopted 
by Henry VIII. as a punishment for • 
poi.soners as well (Holinshed, op. cit. 

1. 31 1). 

Stephen, op. cit. i. 478. Cf 

Thomas Smith, op. cit. p. 193 sq'. 

Vll 

EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

Among several uncivilised peoples capital punishment is said 
to be unknown or almost so.^ Among others it is restricted to 
a few particularly atrocious offences. Among the Greenlanders 
none are put to death but murderers, and such witches as arc 
thought to have killed some one by their art.” The Aleuts 
punished with death murderers and betrayers of community 
secrets.^ In Samoa and New Guinea murder and adultery 
are punished capitally ; ^ among the Bataks, open robbery and 
murder, provided that the offender is unable to redeem his 
life by a sum of money among the Kukis, only treason or 
an attempt at violence on the person of the King.^ Among 
tlie Misliinis, adultery committed against the consent of the 
husband is punished with death, but all other crimes, including 
murder, are punished by fines ; however, if the amount is not 
forthcoming, the offender is cut up by the company assembled." 
In Kar Nicobar the only cause for a ‘‘death penalty” that 
Mr. Distant could discover was madness.® Among the Soolimas 
“murder is the only crime punishable with death.” Among 
the Congo natives “ the only capital crimes are stated to be 
those of poisoning and adultery.” Of the kingdom of Fida 
Bosnian writes, “Here are very few capital crimes, which are 
only murthers, and committing adultery with the King’s or his 
great men’s wives.” Among the Wanika two crimes are 
visited with capital punishment — murder and an improper use 
of sorcery ; among the Wagogo^® and Washambala,^^ witch- 
craft only. Among the Basutos every murderer is by law 
liable to death, but the sentence is generally commuted into 
confiscation ; an incorrigible thief sometimes pays with his 
head, but is generally fined, whereas treason and rebellion 
against authority are treated with more severity. Among the 
Kafirs, cases of assault on the persons of wives of the chiefs, 

^ von Siel)()ld, EtJinol. Studien liber 
die Ai/io auf Yesso, [). 35 ; Batchelor, 
Aiiui and their Eolk-i.ore p. 284. 
Dalton, op. cit. p. 115 (Kakhyens). 
Marsden, op. cit. p. 248 (Rejangs of 
Sumatra). Riedel, Ee slnik- en 
kroesharige rasse 7 t tnsschen Seiches en 
Papua., p. 103 (Serangese). Worcester, 
op. cit. pp. 413, 492 (Mangyans and 
Tagbanuas). Kubary, ‘ Die Palau- 
Inseln,’ va Journal des Museum Godef- 
froy, iv. 42 (Pelew Islanders), de 
Abreu, ap. cit. p. 152 (Canary Islanders). 
Vx\K.?>(A\, Die Eingeborenen Sud-Afrikds, 
p. 322 (Hottentots). 

2 Cranz, op. cit. i. I 77 * 

^ Petroff, loc. cit. p. 152. 

^ Turner, Samoa, [). 178. Clialniers, 
Pioneering in New Guinea, j). 179. 
Marsden, op. cit. p. 389. 

Dalton, op. cit. p. 45, Stewart, in 
Tour. As. Soc. Bengal, xxiv. p. 627. 

7 Griffith, ibid. vi. 332. 

^ Distant, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iii. 6. 
^ Laing, Travels, p. 365. 

Tucker, Expedition to Explore the 
River Zaire, p. 383. 

Bosman, op. cit. p. 331. 

New, op. cit. p. III. 

Beverley, in Steininetz, Rechlsvcr- 
hiiltnisse, p. 215. 

Lang, ibid. p. 259. 

Casalis, op. cit. p. 228. 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

ajid what are deemed aggravated cases of witchcraft, are the 
only crimes which usually inv^olve the punishment of death, 
very summarily inflicted ; whereas this punishment seldom 
follows even murder, when committed without the supposed aid 
of supernatural powers.^ 

Nor, as it seems, is savage justice fond of torturing its victims 
before they are killed. The Maoris exclaimed loudly against 
the English method of executing criminals, first telling them 
that they are to die, then letting them lie for days and nights 
in prison, and finally leading them slowly to the gallows, If 
a man commits a crime worthy of death,” they said, we shoot 
him, or chop off* his head ; but we do not tell him first that we 
are going to do so.” ^ Dr. Codrington gives the following 
description of the cases of burning persons alive which have 
occasionally happened in Pentecost Island : — ‘‘ In fighting time 
there, if a great man were very angry with the hostile party, 
he would burn a wounded enemy. When peace had been made, 
and the chiefs had ordered all to behave well that tlie country 
might settle down in quiet, if any one committed such a crime 
as would break up the peace, such as adultery, they would tie 
him to a tree, heap fire-wood round him, and burn him alive, a 
proof to the opposite party of their detestation of his wicked- 
ness. This was not done coolly as a matter of course in tlie 
execution of a law, but as a horrible thing to do, and done for 
the horror of it ; a horror renewed in the voice and face of the 
native who told me of the roaring flames and shrieks of agony,” 
This story is not without interest when compared with the 
cold-blooded burning of female criminals and women suspected 
of witchcraft in Christian Europe. 

There is sufficient evidence to show that the severe 
punishments adopted by peoples of a higher culture have 
been regarded by them as beneficial to society. The legis- 
lators themselves often refer to the deterrent effects of 
punishment. 

The Peruvian Incas considered that light punishments gave 
confidence to evil-doers, whilst through their great care in 
punishing a man’s first delinquency, they avoided the effects of 
his second and third, and of the host of others that are com- 
mitted in every commonwealth where no diligence is observed" 

^ Maclean, Compendium of Kafir ^ Yale, Account of New Zealand^ p. 
Laws and Customs^ p. 35 105. 

^ Codrington, op, cit, p. 347. 

EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

to root up the evil plant at the commencement,” ^ According 
to the Prefatory Edict of the Emperor Kaung-hee, published 
in 1679, the chief ends proposed by the institution of punish- 
ments in the Chinese Empire have been to guard against 
violence and injury, to repress inordinate desires, and to secure 
the peace and tranquillity of an honest and unoffending com- 
munity.” ^ In the Laws of Mami punishment is described as a 
protector of all creatures : — If the king did not, without 
tiring, inflict punishment on those worthy to be punished, the 
stronger would roast the weaker, like fisli on a spit ; the crow 
would eat the sacrificial cake and the dog would lick the sacrifi- 
cial viands, and ownership would not remain with any oiie, the 
lower ones would usurp the place of the higher ones. The 
whole world is kept in order by punishment, for a guiltless 
man is hard to find ; through fear of punishn'ent the whole 
world yields the enjoyments which it owes.”'^ Even the gods, 
the Danavas, the Gandharvas, the Rakshasas, the bird and snake 
deities, give the enjoyments due from them only if they are 
tormented by the tear of punishment.'^ In mediaeval law-books 
determent is frequently referred to as an object of punishment.^ 
And in more modern times, till the end of the eighteenth cen- 
tury at least, the idea that punishment should inspire fear was 
ever present to the minds of legislators. 

The same idea is also conspicuous in the practice of 
punishing criminals in public.^’ A petty thief in the 
pillory and a scold on the cucking-stool were, in earlier 
times, spectacles familiar to everybody, whilst persons still 
living remember seeing offenders publicly whipped in the 
streets. “ A gallows or tree with a man hanging upon 
it,” says Mr. Wright, '' was so frequent an object in the 
country that it seems to have been almost a natural 
ornament of a landscape, and it is thus introduced by no 

' Garcilasso de la Vega, op. cit. i. 

^ 7(2 Tsuiii Iaui I.e(\ p, Ixvii. 

^ Laivs of Manu^ vii, 14, 15, 20-22, 
24 sq. 

^ Ibid. vii. 23. 

® Leges Bttrgundionu}?/, Leges (nin- 
'•del>ati, 52 : “ Reclius enim paucorum 
conderripnatione mulliUido corregitur, 
quam sub specie incongniae civilitatis 
intromittaUir occasio, quae licentiam 
tribuat delinquendi,” Capitulare Aiptis- 

gran 02 sc An. 802, 33 : “ Sed taliter hoc 
corripiantur, ut caeteri metuin habeant 
talia perpetrandi” (Migne, Patrologiic 
cursfis, xcvii. 230). Chlotar II. Edictum 
de Synodo Parisiensi 24 : “ In ipsum 
capitali senLcntia judiceUir, qualiter alii 
non debeantsimiliaperpetrare ” (Migne, 
op. cit. Ixxx. 454). For other instances, 
see Brunner, Deutsche Rcchtsgcschichte. 
ii. 588, n. 6. 

^ Giinther, Die Idee der Wiederver- 
gcltuftg, i. 21 1 sq. n. 31, 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

means uncommonly in mediasval manuscripts.” ^ I 
atrocious cases it was usual for the court to direct the 
murderer, after execution, to be hung upon a gibbet in 
chains near the place where the fact was committed, 
“ with the intention of thereby deterring others from 
capital offences ” ; and in order that the body might all 
the longer serve this useful purpose, it was saturated 
with tar before it was hung in chains.” The popularity 
which mutilation as a punishment enjoyed during the 
Middle Ages was largely due to the opinion, that “a 
malefactor miserably living was a more striking example 
of justice, than one put to death at once.” ® 

We shall now consider whether these facts really 
contradict our thesis that punishment is essentially an 
expression of public indignation. 

It may, first, be noticed that the punishment actually 
inflicted on the criminal is in many cases much less severe 
than the punishment with which the law threatens him. 
In China the execution of the law is, on the whole, 
lenient in comparison with its literal and fr'ma facie in- 
terpretation.''^ “ Many of the laws seem designed to 
operate chiefly in terrorem^ and the penalty is placed 
higher than the punishment really intended to be inflicted, 
to the end that the Emperor may have scope for mercy, 
or, as he says, ‘ for leniency beyond the bounds of the 
law.’ ” '' In Europe, during the Middle Ages, malefactors 
frequently received charters of pardon, and in later times 
it became a favourite theory that it was good policy, in 
framing penal statutes, to make as many oflisnees as 
possible capital, and to leave to the Crown to relax the 
severity of the law. In England, about the beginning of 
the .nineteenth century, the punishment of death was 
actually inflicted in only a small proportion of the cases in 

^ Wright, History of Domestic Alan- Chains/ in llie Antiquary ^ xxii. 2131^. 
ners and Sentiments in England during ^ Strutt, View of the AJanners^ fsfe. 
the Middle Ages, p. 346. of the Inhabitants of England, ii. 8. 

I l.t>linshcd, op. cit. i. 31 1. Black- ^ Staunton, in his rrcface to Ta 
stone, Commentaries on the Laius of Tsing Leu Lee, p. xxvii. sq. 

England, iv. 201. Cox, ‘ Hanging in ® Wells Williams, op. eit. id 392 sq. 

EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

^93 

MI 

nich sentence was passed ; indeed, ‘‘ not one in twenty of 
,he sentences was carried into execution.”^ This dis- 
crepancy between law and practice bears witness, not only 
to the extent to which the minds of legislators were 
swayed by the idea of inspiring, fear, but to the limitation 
of determent as a penal principle. It has been ob- 
served that the excessive severity of laws hinders their 
execution. Society revolted against barbarities which 
the law prescribed. Men wronged by crimes, shrank 
from the shedding of blood, and forbore to prosecute : 
juries forgot their oaths and acquitted prisoners, against 
evidence: judges recommended the guilty to mercy.” ^ 
Yet, in spite of all such deductions, there can be no doubt 
that the hangman had plenty to do. Hanging persons, 
says Mr. Andrews, was almost a daily occurrence in the 
earlier years of the nineteenth century, ‘‘ for forging 
notes, passing forged notes, and other crimes which we 
now almost regard with indifference.”'^ 

Another circumstance worth mentioning is, that in 
earlier times the detection of criminals was much rarer and 
more uncertain than it is now.^ It has been argued on 
utilitarian grounds that, to enable the value of the punish- 
ment to outweigh that of the profit of the offence, it must 
be increased, in point of magnitude, in proportion as it falls 
short in point of certainty.” But the rareness of detection 
would also for purely emotional reasons tend to increase 
the severity of the punishment. When one criminal 
out of ten or twenty is caught, the accumulated indigna- 
tion of the public turns against him, and he becomes a 
scapegoat for all the rest. 

However, the chief explanation of the great severity 
of certain criminal codes lies in their connection with 
despotism or religion or both.^ An act which is pro- 

^ Stephen, op, cit. i. 471. May, op. ^ Bentham, Principles of Morals and 
}^t. ii. 597. ‘ Legislation,, p. 184. Cf, Paley, Moral 

2 May; op. cit. ii. 597. and Political Philosophy,, vi. 9 {Coni- 

3 Andrews, op. cit. p. 218. Cf. pUte Works, ii. 371). 

Olivecrona, Om dikisstraffet, p. x. ^ Tliis has been previously pointed 

^ Cf. M orrison , Crime and its Causes, out by Ihof. Durkheim, in his interest- 
p. 175. ing essay, ‘ Deux lois de revolution 

VOL. I O 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

hibited by law may be punished, not only on account 
of its intrinsic character, but for the very reason that 
it is illegal. When the law is, from the outset, an 
expression of popular feelings, the severity of the 
penalty with which it threatens the transgressor depends, 
in the first place, on the public indignation evoked by 
the act itself, independently of the legal prohibition of 
it. But the case is different with laws established by 
despotic rulers or ascribed to divine lawgivers. Such 
laws have a tendency to treat criminals not only as 
offenders against the Individuals whom they injure or 
against society at large, but as rebels against their 
sovereign or their god. Their disobedience to the will of 
the mighty legislator incurs, or is supposed to incur, his 
anger, and is, in consequence, severely resented. But 
however severe they be, the punishments inflicted by the 
despot on disobedient subjects are not regarded as mere 
outbursts of personal anger. In the archaic State the 
king is an object of profound regard, and even of religious 
veneration. He is looked upon as a sacred being, and 
his decrees as the embodiment of divine justice. The 
transgression of any law he makes is, therefore, apt to 
evoke a feeling of public indignation proportionate to the 
punishment which he pleases to inflict on the transgressor. 
Again, as to acts which are supposed to arouse the anger 
of invisible powers, the people are anxious to punish 
them with the utmost severity so as to prevent the divine 
wrath from turning against the community itself. But the 
fear which, in such cases, lies at the bottom of the 
punishment, is certainly combined with genuine indignation 
against the offender, both because he rebels against God 
and religion, and because he thereby exposes the whole 
community to supernatural dangers. 

penalc ’ aniit^e sociohgiqtie, iv. [1899- proiiycr qiie, tlan.s tons ou prcstjue tons 
1900J, p. 64 jt/ty. ), with which I became les Ktats d’Enrope, les peines oiU di- 
acqiiainled only when the pre.scnt chap- miniie ou augmente a mesiirc qu’on 
ter was already in type. Montesquieu s’est plus approche ou plus eloigne de 
observes [De resprit des lois^ vi. 9 la libcrte,” 

\<EiivreSy p. 231]), “II serait ais^ de 

vil 

• EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

^95 

Various facts might be quoted in support of this 
explanation. Whilst the punishments practised among 
the lower races generally, are not conspicuous for their 
severity, there are exceptions to this rule among peoples 
who are governed by despotic rulers. 

Under the AsJianti code, even the most trivial offences are 
punishable with death. ^ In Madagascar, also, death was 
formerly inflicted for almost every offence.” ^ In Ugajida the 
ordinary punishments were death by fire, being hacked to 
pieces by reed splinters, fine, imprisonment in the stocks mvubay 
or in the slove fork kaligOy also mutilation. It is most common 
to see people deprived of an eye, or in some cases of botli eyes ; 
persons lacking their ears are also frequently met with.” ^ 
Among the Wassukuma, whose chieftains used to have power 
of life and death over their subjects, a person who was guilty 
of disobedience to his ruler, or of some action which the ruler 
considered wicked and punishable, was condemned to death. 
In the Sandwich Islands, a chief takes the life of one of his 
own people for any offence he may commit, ajid no one thinks 
he has a right to interfere.” 

In the old monarchies of America and Asia there was 
an obvious connection between the punishments prescribed 
by their laws and the religious-autocratic form of their 
governments. According to Garcilasso de la Vega, the 
Peruvians — among whom the most common punishment 
was death — maintained ‘‘ that a culprit was not punished 
for the delinquencies he ha^d committed, but for having 
broken the commandment of the Ynca, who was respected 
as God,” and that, viewed in this light, the slightest 
offence merited to be punished with death. In China 
the Emperor “ is regarded as the vice-gerent of heaven, 
especially chosen to govern all nations, and is supreme in 
everything, holding at once the highest legislative and 
executive powers, without limit or control.”' According 

^ Ellis, 7 'ski-s/>eaking Peoples of the 
aphl Coast, p. 1 66. 

“ 'Ellis, History of Madayasear, i. 
374* 

^ Ashe, Ttvo Kings of Uganda, p. 
293. Cf Wilson and FCkiu, Uganda 
a^td the Egyptian Soudan, i. 201. 

Kolljnann, I'ictoria Nyanza, p. 
® Ellis, Tour through IKnvaii, p. 

431- 

^ Garcilasso de la Vega, op. cit. i. 
^ Wells Williams, op. at, i. 393. 

O 2 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

to ancient Japanese ideas, “ the duty of a good Japanese 
consists in obeying the Mikado, without questioning 
whether his commands are right or wrong. The Mikado 
is god and vicar of all the gods, hence government and 
religion are the same.” ^ In Rome the criminal law, 
which for a long time was characterised by great modera- 
tion,- gradually grew more severe according as absolutism 
made progress. Sylla, the dictator, not only put thousands 
of citizens to death by proscription without any form of 
trial, but fixed, in the Cornelian criminal code, for heinous 
offences the punishment called aqu,c et ignis interdictio. 
Under the Emperors some new and cruel capital 
punishments were introduced, such as burning alive and 
exposing to wild beasts ; whilst at the same time offences 
such as driving away horses or cattle were made capital.'^ 
In mediaeval and modern Europe the increase of the royal 
power was accompanied by increasing severity of the penal 
codes. Every crime came to be regarded as a crime 
against the King. Indeed, breach of the King’s peace 
became the foundation of the whole Criminal Law of 
England ; the right of pardon, for instance, as a preroga- 
tive of the Crown, took its origin in the fact that the 
King was supposed to be injured by a crime, and could 
therefore waive his remedy And the King was not only 
regarded as the fountain of social justice, but as the 
earthly representative of the heavenly lawgiver and judge.® 
Of the connection between punishment and the belief 
in supernatural agencies many instances are found already 
in the savage world.*’ The great severity with which cer- 

^ Griffis, Religions of Japan ^ p. 92. dcs dcutschcii peinlichen Rechts^ ii. 310. 
Cf Idem, Mikado s Empire, p. 100. Abegg, Die verse hiede^ien Strafrechts- 

- Cf. Livy, X. 9; Polybius, vi. 14; theoricen, p. 117. Du Boys, Histoire 
Gil)l)on, History of the Decline and dn droit criminel de P Espaggie, 323, 
Rail of the Roman Empire.^ v. 318, ^ Steinmetz, EthnoL Studien zur 

326. ersten EntwickUiny der Strafe, ii. 340 

Studies i}i Roman Laiv, sq. The connection Ifctwecn punish- 
pp. 408, 409, 414. Gibbon, op. cit. v. inent and religion has been etnj)hasi.sed* 
320. Cf. Momm.scn, Roniisches Straf- hy {Division dtt trainiil 

recht, p, 943. social, p. 97 sqq.) and M. Mauss (‘La 

Cherry, Growth of Criminal Law religion et Ics origines da droit penal,’ 
in Ancient Communities, pj). 68, 105. in Revue de P histoire des religions, vols. 

^ Plenke, Gritndriss einer Geschichte xxxiv. and xxxv.). But Prof. Durkheim * 

vir . EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

tain infractions of custom are punished has obviously a 
superstitious origin. In Polynesia, according to Ellis, 
“ the prohibitions and requisitions of the tabu were 
strictly enforced, and every breach of them punished 
with death, unless the delinquents had some very powerful 
friends who were either priests or chiefs.” ^ Among the 
western tribes of Torres Straits, “death was the penalty 
for infringing the rules connected with the initiation period, 
i.e., for sacrilege.” ^ Among the Port Lincoln aborigines 
the women and children are not allowed to see any of the 
initiation ceremonies, and “ any impertinent curiosity on 
their part is punishable with death, according to the 
ancient custom.”® Among the Masai, who believe that 
the boiling of milk will cause the cows to run dry, “ any 
one caught doing so can only atone for the sin with a 
fearfully heavy fine, or, failing that, the insult to the holy 
cattle will be wiped out in his blood.” ^ The penalty of 
death which is frequently imposed on incest or other sexual 
offences is largely due to the influence of religious or 
superstitious beliefs.® And in various cases of sacrilege 
the offender is offered up as a sacrifice to the resentful 
god.® 

According to Hebrew notions, it is man’s duty to 
avenge offences against God ; every crime involves a 
breach of God’s law, and is punishable as such, and hardly 
any punishment is too severe to be inflicted on the 
ungodly. These ideas were adopted by the Christian 
Church and by Christian governments.® The principle 

cxaggcrate.s the importance of this con- Kilinia-njaro Expedition^ 

nection by assuming (p. 97) that ‘Me p. 425, 

droit penal a I’origine etait essenticlle- ® See infra, on Sexual Morality, 

ment religieux.” ^ See infra, on Human Sacrifice. 

^ Ellis, Tour through Hawaii, p. ^ Cf Robertson Smitli, Religion of 
394. Cf Olmsted, Jncidenis of a the Semites, p. 162 sq, 

Whalmg Voyage, p. 248 sq. ; Maii.ss, ® von Kicken, Gcschichte iind System 
in op. cit. XXXV. 55. der mittelalter/iihen IVeltanschauung, 

Haddon, ^Ethnography of the p. 563 sqq. Abegg, op. cit. p. Ill sq. 
Western Tribes of Torres Straits,’ in Strafrecht der Germanen, 

four. Anthr. Inst. xix. 335 « sq. Gunther, e/. c/A ii. 12 sqq. Henke, 

^ Schiirmann, ‘ Aboriginal Tribes of op. cit, ii. 310 sq. Brunner, op. cit. ii. 
Port Lincoln,’ in Woods, Native Tribes 587. 
of South Australia, p. 234. 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

. CHAP. 

Stated in the Laws of Cnut, that “ it belongs very rightly 
to a Christian king that he avenge God’s anger very 
deeply, according as the deed may be,”'^ was acted upon 
till quite modern times, and largely contributed to the 
increasing severity of the penal codes. It was therefore 
one of the most important steps towards a more humane 
legislation when, in the eighteenth century, this principle 
was superseded by the contrary doctrine, “ II faut faire 
honorer la Divinite, et ne la venger jamais.” ^ 

From the fact, then, that crimes are punished not only 
as wrongs against individuals, but as wrongs against the 
State, and, especially, as wrongs against some despotic or 
semi-divine lawgiver, or against the Deity, it follows that 
even seemingly excessive punishments may, to a large 
extent, be regarded as manifestations of public resentment. 
TJiis emotion does not necessarily demand like for like. 
The law of talion presupposes equality of rights ; it is not 
applicable to impersonal offences, nor to offences against 
kings or gods. And as the demands of public resentment 
may exceed the lex talioniSy so they may on the other hand 
fall short of it. Moreover, though the degree of punishment 
on the whole more or less faithfully represents the degree of 
indignation aroused by any particular crime in comparison 
with other crimes belonging to the same penal system, we 
must not take the comparative severity of the criminal 
laws of different peoples as a safe index to the intensity of 
their reprobation of crime. As we have seen before, the 
strength of moral indignation cannot be absolutely mea- 
sured by the desire to cause pain to the offender. When 
the emotion of resentment is sufficiently refined, the in- 
fliction of suffering is regarded as a means rather than as 
an end. 

By all this I certainly do not mean to deny that 
punishment, though in the main an expression of public 
indignation, is also applied as a means of deterring fron\ 
crime. Criminal law is preventive, its object is to forbid and 

' l.aiui of Omit, ii. 40. ^ Montesquieu, De. Fesfrit des lois, 

xii. 4 ( Gitivt'es^ p. 282). 

vn , EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

to warn, and it uses punishment as a threat. But the acts 
which the law forbids are, as a rule, such as public opinion 
condemns as wrong, and it is their wrongness that in all 
ages has been regarded as the justification of the penalties 
to which they are subject. It is true that there are in- 
stances in which the law punishes acts which in themselves 
are not apt to evoke public resentment, and others in 
which the severity of the punishment does not exactly 
correspond with the resentment they evoke. The State 
may have a right to sacrifice the welfare of individuals in 
order to attain some desirable end. It may have a right 
to do so in cases where no crime has been committed, it 
would therefore seem to be all the more justified in doing 
so when the evil has been preceded by a warning. And 
yet, in the case of punishment, it is only within narrow 
limits that such a right is granted to the State. To punish 
a person could not simply mean that he has to suffer for 
the benefit of the society ; there is always opprobrium 
connected with punishment. Hence the scope which 
justice leaves for determent pure and simple is not wide. 
Sir James Stephen observes : — “ You cannot punish anything 
which public opinion, as expressed in the common practice 
of society, does not strenuously and unequivocally con- 
demn. To try to do so is a sure way to produce gross 
hypocrisy and furious reaction.” ' Experience shows that 
the fate of all disproportionately severe laws which make 
too liberal use of punishment as a deterrent is that they 
come to be little followed in practice and are finally 
annulled. As Gibbon says, “ whenever an offence in- 
spires less horror than the punishment awarded to it, the 
rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common 
feelings of mankind.” 

Numerous data, to be referred to in following chapters, 
will show how faithfully punishment reflects the emotion 
of resentment, and how impossible it would be to explain 
*it from considerations of social utility without close refer- 

' Stephen, Liberty^ Equality^ Fra- Romisches Strafrecht^ P* 9 ^ 
ternity^ p. 159. Cf. Mommsen, 

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS 

ence to the feeling of justice. Why, for instance, should 
the attempt to commit a crime, when its failure obviously 
depends on mere chance, be punished less severely than 
the accomplished crime, if not because the indignation it 
arouses is less intense Would not the same amount of 
suffering be requisite to deter a person from attempting 
to murder his neighbour as to deter him from actually 
committing the murder ? And is there any reason to 
suppose that the unsuccessful offender is less dangerous 
to society than he who succeeds? All the facts referring 
to criminal responsibility, as we shall see, suggest resent- 
ment, not determent, as the basis of punishment, and 
so does the gradation of the punishment conformably 
to the magnitude of the crime. ^ According to the 
principle of determent, as expressed by Anselm von 
Feuerbach and others, punishment should be neither more 
nor less severe than is necessary for the suppression of 
crime.'^ But if this rule were really acted upon, the 
penalties imposed, especially on minor offences, which the 
law has been utterly unable to suppress, would certainly 
be much less lenient than they actually are. Moreover, 
if there were no intrinsic connection between punishment 
and resentment, how could we explain the predilection of 
early law for the principle of talion — an eye for an eye, a 
tooth for a tooth, a life for a life — ® which, as we have 
seen, so frequently regulates the custom of revenge ? 

The criminal law of a society may thus, on the whole, 
be taken for a faithful exponent of moral sentiments 
prevalent in that society at large. The attempt to make 
law independent of morality, and to allot to it a kingdom 
of its own, is really, I think, only an excuse for the moral 
shortcomings which it reveals if scrutinised from the 
standpoint of a higher morality. Law does not show us 
the moral consciousness in its relinement. But refinement 

^ Cf, Durkheiin, Division du travail von Gizycki, Introduction to the Study 
social, p. 93 jv/. of Ethics^ p. i88. 

- von Feuerbach, Ueher die St 7 ‘afe ^ On this subject, see Gunther, op, 
als Sicherimgsmittel vor kiinftigen Be- cit. passim, 
leidigungen des Verbrechers^ p. 83. 

VII ^ EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS 

is a rare thing, and criminal law is in the main on a level 
with the unreflecting morality of the vulgar mind. Philo- 
sophers and theorisers on law would do better service to 
humanity if they tried to persuade people not only that 
their moral ideas require improvement, but that their laws, 
so far as possible, ought to come up to the improved 
standard, than they do by wasting their ingenuity in 
sophisms about the sovereignty of Law and its independence 
of the realm of Justice.

THE GENERAL NATURE OF THE SUBJECTS OF 
ENLIGHTENED MORAL JUDGMENTS 

The subjects of moral judgments call for a very com- 
prehensive investigation, which will occupy the main part 
of this work. As already said, we shall first discuss the 
general nature, and afterwards the particular branches, of 
those phenomena which have a tendency to evoke moral 
condemnation or moral praise ; and in each case our inves- 
tigation will be both historical and explanatory. The 
present chapter, however, will be neither the one nor the 
other. It seems desirable to examine the general nature 
of the subjects of moral valuation from the standpoint of 
the enlightened moral consciousness before dealing with 
the influence which their various elements have come to 
exercise upon moral judgments in the course of evolution. 
By doing this, we shall be able, from the outset, to dis- 
tinguish between elements which are hardly discernible, or 
separable, at the lower stages of mental development, as 
also to fix the terminology which will be used in the 
future discussion. 

Moral judgments are commonly said to be passed upon 
conduct and character. This is a convenient mode of 
expression, but the terms need an explanation. 

Conduct has been defined sometimes as acts adjusted 
to ends,’' ^ sometimes as acts that are not only adjusted to. 
ends, but definitely willed.‘^ The latter definition is too 

’ Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 5. ® E.g.,yLax}».^xvL\f:, Manual of Ethics, 

p. 85. 

narrow for our present purpose, because, as will be seen, 
it excludes from the province of conduct many phenomena 
with reference to which moral judgments are passed. The 
same may be said of the former definition also, which, 
moreover, is unnecessarily wide, including as it does an 
immense number of phenomena with which moral judg- 
ments are never concerned. Though no definition of 
conduct could be restricted to such phenomena as actually 
evoke moral emotions, the term “ conduct ” seems, never- 
theless, to suggest at least the possibility of moral valua- 
tion, and is therefore hardly applicable to such “ acts 
adjusted to ends ” as are performed by obviously irrespon- 
sible beings. It may be well first to fix the meaning of 
the word “act.” 

According to Bentham, acts may be distinguished as 
external, or acts of the body, and internal, or acts of the 
mind. “ Thus, to strike is an external or exterior act : 
to intend to strike, an internal or interior one.” ' But 
this application of the word is neither popular nor con- 
venient. The term “ act ” suggests something besides 
intention, whilst, at the same time, it suggests something 
besides muscular contractions. To intend to strike is no 
act, nor are the movements involved in an epileptic fit 
acts. 

An act comprises an event and its immediate mental 
cause. The event is generally spoken of as the outward 
act, but this term seems to be too narrow, since the inten- 
tional production of a mental fact — for instance, a sensa- 
tion, or an idea, or an emotion like joy or sorrow or 
anger — may be properly styled an act. The objection 
will perhaps be raised that I confound acts with their 
consequences, and that what I call the “event” is, as 
Austin maintains, nothing but bodily movements. But 
Austin himself admits that he must often speak of “ acts ” 
when he means “ acts and their consequences,” since 
“ most of the names which seem to be names of acts, are 
names of acts, coupled with certain of their consequences, 

^ Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation >> p. 73. 

THE SUBJECTS OF 

and it is not in our power to discard these forms of 
speech.” ^ I regard the so-called consequences of acts, in 
so far as they are intended, as acts by themselves, or as 
parts of acts. 

The very expression “ outward act ” implies that acts 
also have an inner aspect. Intention, says Butler, “ is 
part of the action itself.” ^ By intention I understand a 
volition or determination to realise the idea of a certain 
event ; hence there can be only one intention in one act. 
Certain writers distinguish between the immediate and the 
remote intentions of an act. Suppose that a tyrant, when 
his enemy jumped into the sea to escape him, saved his 
victim from drowning with a view to inflicting upon him 
more exquisite tortures. The immediate intention, it is 
maintained, was to save the enemy from drowning, the 
remote intention was to inflict upon him tortures.’^ But I 
should say that, in this case, we have to distinguish be- 
tween two acts, of which the first was a means of producing 
the event belonging to the second, and that, when the 
former was accomplished, the latter was still only in 
preparation. A distinction has, moreover, been drawn 
between the direct and the indirect intention of an act : — 
“ If a Nihilist seeks to blow up a train containing an 
Emperor and others, his direct intention may be simply 
the destruction of the Emperor, but indirectly also he 
intends the destruction of the others who are in the train, 
since he is aware that their destruction will be necessarily 
included along with that of the Emperor.” In this case 
we have two intentions, and, so far as I can see, two 
acts, provided that the nihilist succeeded in carrying out 
his intentions, namely (i) the blowing up of the train, 
and (2) the killing of the emperor ; the former of these 
acts does not even necessarily involve the latter. But I 
fail to see that there is any intention at all to kill other 

^ Austin, Lectures ou lurisprudence, example is borrowed from Stuart Mill, • 
i. 427, 432 s<j. Utilitarianism^ p. 27 note. 

- Butler, ‘ Dissertation II. Of the ^ Mackenzie, op. cit. p. 61. Cf. 
Nature of Virtue,’ in Analogy of Sidgwick, Methods of EthieSy p. 202, 
EeEi^iony &^c. p. 336. n. i. 

^ Mackenzie, op. cit. p. 60. The 

persons. Professor Sidgwick maintains that it would be 
thought absurd to say that, in such a case, the nihilist 
“did not intend ” to kill them but the reason for this 
is simply the vagueness of language, and a confusion 
between a psychical fact and the moral estimate of that 
fact. It might be absurd to bring forward the nihilist’s 
non-intention as an extenuation of his crime ; but it 
would hardly be correct to say that he intended the death 
of other passengers, besides that of the emperor, when he 
only intended the destruction of the train, though this 
intention involved an extreme disregard of the various 
consequences which were likely to follow. He knowingly 
exposed the passengers to great danger ; but if we speak 
of an intention on his part to expose them to such a 
danger, we regard this exposure as an act by itself. 

A moral judgment may refer to a mere intention, inde- 
pendently of its being realised or not. Moreover, the 
moral judgments which we pass on acts do not really 
relate to the event, but to the intention. In this point 
moralists of all schools seem to agree." Even Stuart Mill, 
who drew so sharp a distinction between the morality of 
the act and the moral worth of the agent, admits that 
“ the morality of the action depends entirely upon the 
intention.”^ The event is of moral importance only in 
so far as it indicates a decision which is final. From the 
moral point of view there may be a considerable difference 
between a resolution to do a certain thing in a distant 
future and a resolution to do it immediately. However 
determined a person may be to commit a crime, or to 
perform a good deed, the idea of the immediacy of the 
event may, in the last moment, induce him to change his 
mind. “ The road to hell is p^ved with good intentions.” 
External events are generally the direct causes of our 
moral emotions ; indeed, without the doing of harm and 
.the' doing of good, the moral consciousness would never 

^ Sidgwick, op, cit, p. 202, n. i. On ^ Sidgwick, op, cit. p. 2or. 
the subject of ‘Mndircct intention,” cf. ^ Stuart Mill, UtilUarianisniy 27 
also Bentham, op. cif, pp. 84, 86. note. Cf. James Mill, Fragment on 

Mackintosh^ p. 376. 

2o6 the subjects OF chap. 

have come into existence. Hence the ineradicable ten- 
dency to pass moral judgments upon acts, even though 
they really relate to the final intentions involved in acts. 
It would be both inconvenient and useless to deviate, in 
this respect, from the established application of terms. 
And no misunderstanding can arise from such application 
if it be borne in mind that by an “act,” as the subject of 
a moral judgment, is invariably understood the event plus 
the intention which produced it, and that the very same 
moral judgment as is passed on acts would also, on due 
reflection, be recognised as valid with reference to final 
decisions in cases where accidental circumstances prevented 
the accomplishment of the act. 

It is in their capacity of volitions that intentions are 
subjects of moral judgments. What is perfectly indepen- 
dent of the will is no proper object of moral blame or 
moral praise. On the other hand, any volition may have 
a moral value. But, so far as I can see, there are volitions 
which are not intentions. A person is morally accountable 
also for his deliberate wishes, and the reason for this is 
that a deliberate wish is a volition. I am aware that, by 
calling deliberate wishes “ volitions,” I offend against the 
terminology generally adopted by psychologists. How- 
ever, a deliberate wish is not only from a moral point of 
view — as being a proper subject of moral valuation — but 
psychologically as well, so closely akin to a decision, that 
there must be a common term comprising both. In the 
realm of conations, deliberate wishes and decisions form 
together a province by themselves. In contradistinction 
to mere conative impulses, they are expressions of a 
person’s character, of his will. A deliberate wish may 
just as well as a decision represent his “ true self.” It 
has been argued .that a person may will one thing and yet 
wish the opposite thing. Locke observes : — “ A man 
whom I cannot deny, may oblige me to use persuasions to 
another, which, at the same time I am speaking, I may 
wish may not prevail upon him. In this case it is plain 
the will and desire run counter. I will the action that 

tends one way, whilst my desire tends another, and that 
the direct contrary way.” ^ Yet in this case I either do 
not intend to persuade the man, but only to discharge my 
office by speaking to him words which are apt to have a 
persuasive effect on him ; or, if I do intend to persuade 
him, I do not in the same moment feel any deliberate wish 
to the contrary, although I may feel such a wish before 
or afterwards. We cannot simultaneously have an inten- 
tion to do a thing and a deliberate wish not to do it. 

If it is admitted that moral judgments are passed on* 
acts simply in virtue of their volitional character, it seems 
impossible to deny that such judgments may be passed on 
the motives of acts as well. By “motive” I understand 
a conation which “moves” the will, in other words, the 
conative cause of a volition.^ The motive itself may be, 
or may not be, a volition. If it is, it obviously falls 
within the sphere of moral valuation. The motive of an 
act may even be an intention, but an intention belonging 
to another act. When Brutus helped to kilb Caesar in 
order to save his country, his intention to save his country 
was the cause, and therefore the motive, of his intention 
to kill Caesar. The fact that an intention frequently acts 
as a motive has led some writers to the conclusion that 
the motive of an act is a part of the intention. But if 
the intention of an act is a part of the act itself, and a 
motive is the cause of an intention, the motive of an 
intention cannot be a part of that intention, since a part 
cannot be the cause of the whole of which it forms a 
part. 

But even motives which, being neither deliberate wishes 

^ Locke, £ssay concerning Human gfouiid or reason of our decision when 
Understandings \\. 21. ya {Philosophical it has been fully formed.” Motive, in 
fVorhs, p. 219). the former sense ^of the term, is not 

“The term ‘motive,’” says Pro- implied in what I here understand by 
fessor Stout {Groundwork of* Psycho- motive. On the other hand, it sliould 

'P' 233 aml)iguous. It be ob.served that there are m( 3 tives not 

may refer to the various conations which only for decisions, but for deliberate 
come into play in the proce.ss of de- wishes — another circumstance which 

liberation and tend to influence its shows the affinity bclvveen these two 

result. Or it may refer to the cona- cla.sses of mental tacts, 

tions which we mentally assign as the 

2o8 

THE SUBJECTS OF 

nor intentions, consist of non-volitional conations, and, 
therefore, are no proper subjects of moral valuation, may 
nevertheless indirectly exercise much influence on moral 
judgments. Suppose that a person without permission 
gratifies his hunger with food which is not his own. The 
motive of his act is a non-volitional conation, an appetite, 
and has consequently no moral value. Yet it must be 
taken into account by him who judges upon the act. Other 
things being equal, the person in question is less guilty in 
proportion as his hunger is more intense. The moral 
judgment is modified by the pressure which the non- 
volitional motive exercises upon the agent’s will. The 
same is the case when the motive of an act is the conative 
element involved in an emotion. If a person commits a 
certain crime under the influence of anger, he is not 
so blameable as if he commits the same crime in cold 
blood. Thus, also, it is more meritorious to be kind to an 
enemy from a feeling of duty, than to be kind to a friend 
from a feeling of love. No man deserves blame or praise 
for the pressure of a non-volitional conation upon his will, 
unless, indeed, such a pressure is due to choice, or unless 
it might have been avoided with due foresight. But a 
person may deserve blame or praise for not resisting that 
impulse, or for allowing it to influence his will for evil or 
good. 

It is true that moral judgments are commonly passed 
on acts without much regard being paid to their motives 
but the reason for this is only the superficiality of ordinary 
moral estimates. Moral indignation and moral approval 
are, in the first place, aroused by conspicuous facts, and, 
whilst the intention of an act is expressed in the act itself, 
its motive is not. But a conscientious judge cannot, like 
the multitude, be content with judging of the surface only. 
Stuart Mill, in his famous statement that “ the motive has 
nothing to do with the morality of the action, though 
much with the worth of the agent,” ^ has drawn a distinc- 

^ Cf. James Mill, Fragment on p. 364. 

Mackintosh, p. 376 ; Sidgwick, op, cit. 2 Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 26. 

tion between acts and agents which is foreign to the moral 
consciousness. It cannot be admitted that “ he who saves 
a fellow creature from drowning does what is morally 
right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of being 
paid for his trouble.” He ought, of course, to save the 
other person from drowning, but at the same time he 
ought to save him from a better motive than a wish for 
money. It may be that “ he who betrays his friend that 
trusts him is guilty of a crime, even if his object be to 
serve another friend to whom he is under greater obliga- 
tions ” ; ’ but surely his guilt would be greater if he 
betrayed his friend, say, in order to gain some personal 
advantage thereby. Intentions and motives are subjects of 
moral valuation not separately, but as a unity ; and the 
reason for this is that moral judgments are really passed 
upon men as acting or willing, not upon acts or volitions 
in the abstract. It is true that our detestation of an act 
is not always proportionate to our moral condemnation of 
the agent ; people do terrible things in ignorance. But 
our detestation of an act is, properly speaking, a moral 
emotion only in so far as it is directed against him who 
committed the act, in his capacity of a moral agent. We 
are struck with horror when we hear of a wolf eating a 
child, but we do not morally condemn the wolf. 

A volition may have reference not only to the doing 
of a thing, but to the abstaining from doing a thing. It 
may form part not only of an act, but of a forbearance, 
A forbearance is morally equivalent to an act, and the 
volition involved in it is equivalent to an intention. 
“Sitting still, or holding one’s peace,” says Locke, “when 
walking or speaking are proposed, though mere forbear- 
ances, requiring as much the determination of the will, 
and being as often weighty in their consequences as the 
contrary actions, may, on that consideration, well enough 
pass for actions too.” ^ Yet it is hardly correct to call 
them acts. Bentham’s division of acts into acts of com- 

^ Ibid, p. 26. " Locke, op. cii. ii. 21. 28 {Philo- 

^ sophical IVorkSy p. 218). 

VOL. I 

P 

THE SUBJECTS OF 

CHAF\ 

mission and acts of omission or forbearance ^ is not to be 
recommended. A not-doing I do not call, an act, and the 
purpose of not doing I do not call an intention/^ But the 
fiict remains that a forbearance involves a distinct volition, 
which, as such, may be the subject of moral judgment 
no less thaii the intention involved in an act. 

Willing not to do a thing must be distinguished from 
not willing to do a thing ; forbearances must be distin- 
guished from omissions. An omission — in the restricted 
sense of the word — is characterised by the absence of 
volition. It is, as Austin puts it, ‘‘the not doing a 
given act, without adverting (at the time) to the act 
which is not done.”'" Now moral judgments refer not 
only to willing, but to not-willing as well, not only to 
acts and forbearances, but to omissions. It is curious that 
this important point has been so little noticed by writers 
on ethics, although it constitutes a distinct and extremely 
frequent element in our moral judgments. It has been 
argued that what is condemned in an omission is really a 
volition, not the absence of a volition ; that an omission is 
bad, not because the person did not do something, but 
because he did something else, or was in such a condition 
that he could not will, and is condemned for the acts 
which brought him into that condition,” ^ In the latter 
case, of course, the man cannot be condemned for his 
omission, since he cannot be blamed for not doing what 

' Ik'nllTuni, ofy. tH. ]>. 72. A .similar view is taken hy the moral 

' Cf Clark, A)ialysis of (.'li miiial ])liilosoj'jliy of Roman Catholici.sm 

((n.ipfert, IMorall hcoloyic^ i. 113)- 

^ .Austin, of cit. i. 43S. Binding, again, assiime.s (./j/e Nornieu., 

^ iVlexander, Aloral Order (xrul Pro- ii. 105 .vc/y. ) that a person may have a 
g’77.9.r, p. 34 sq. So, alsf>, I'rofes.sor volition without having an idea of wliat 
Sidgwick maintains (e/e cit. p, 60) that he wills, and that ca.rele.ssne.ss implies 
“ tlie jiroper immediate ohjects of a volition of tliis Ivind. Otherwise, he 
moral approval or disap[)roval would .says, the will could not he held re- 
seem to ];e always the results of a spousihle for the result. But, as we 
man’s vaditions so far as they were shall see immediately, the alvsence of a 
intended , represented in thought volition may very well be altrilnited to 
as certain or proliahle consecjuence.s of a defect of the will, and the will thu.s 
sucA volitions,” and that, in cases of l)e rt?garded as llie cause of an im- 
carelessness, moral Idame, strictly intended event. To speak of a vadition 
speaking, attaches to the agent, only or will to do a thing of wltich the 
“ in far as his carelessness is the person who wills it has no idea seems 
result of some wilful neglect of duty.” absurd. 

vni £NLIGHTENED MORAL JUDGMENTS 21 1 

he “ could not will ” ; but to say that an omission is con- 
demned only on account of the performance of some act is 
undoubtedly a psychological error. If a person forgets to 
discharge a certain duty incumbent on him, say, to pay a 
debt, he is censured, not for anything he did, but for what 
he omitted to do. He is blamed for not doing a thing 
which he ought to have done, because he did not think of 
it ; he is blamed tor his forcretfulness. In other w^ords, 
his guilt lies in his negligence. 

Closely related to negligence is heedlessncss, the differ- 
ence between them being seemingly greater than it really 
is. Whilst the negligent man omits an act which he ought 
to have done, because he does not thiifc of it, the heed- 
less man does an act from which he ought to have forborne, 
because he does not consider its probnble or possible con- 
sequences^ In the latter case there Is acting, in the 
former case there is absence of actino;. But in both cases 
the moral judgment refers to Avant of attention, in other 
words, to not- willing. Idle fault of the negligent man is 
that he does not think of the act which he ought to 
perform, the fault of the heedless man is that he does not 
think of the probable or possible consequences of the act 
which he performs. In rashness, again, the party adverts 
to the mischief which his act may cause, but, from insuf- 
ficient advertence assumes that it will not ensue; the fault 
of the rash man is partial want of attention.’^' Negligence, 
heedlessness, and rashness, are all included under the 
common term carelessness.” 

Our moral judgments of blame, however, are concerned 
with not-willing only in so far as this not-willing is 
attributed to a defect of the will, not to the influence of 
intellectual or other circumstances for which no man can 
be held responsible. That power in a person which we 
call his ^^will” is regarded by us as a cause, not only of 

^ The meaning of Uic word “ negli- was applied })y Austin {op. cit. i. 439 
gcncc,” in the common use of language, sq . ). 

is very indefinite. It often stands for Austin, op. oil. i. 440 sq. Clark, 

heedlessness as well, or for carelessness. op. oil., p. tot. 

use it here in the sense in which it 

P 2 

THE SUBJECTS OF 

such events as are intended, but of such events as we think 
that the person could '' have prevented by his will. 
And just as, in the case of volitions, the guilt of the party 
is affected by the pressure of non-voluntary motives, so 
in the case of carelessness mental ficts falling outside the 
sphere of the will must be closely considered by the con- 
scientious judge. But nothing is harder than to apply 
this rule in practice. 

Equally difficult is it, in^many cases, to decide whether 
a person’s behaviour is due to want of advertence, or is 
combined with a knowledge of what his behaviour implies, 
or of the consequences which may result from it — to 
decide whether it is due to carelessness, or to something 
worse than carelessness. For him who refrains from 
performing an obligatory act, though adverting to it, 
“ negligent ” is certainly too mild an epithet, and he who 
knows that mischief will probably result from his deed is 
certainly worse than heedless. Yet even in such cases the 
immediate object of blame may be the absence of a volition 
— not a want of attention, but a not-willing to do, or a 
not-willlng to refrain from doing, an act in spite of ad- 
vertence to what the act Implies or to its consequences. 
I may abstain from performing an obligatory act though I 
think of it, and yet, at the same time, make no resolution 
not to perform it. So, too, if a man is ruining his family 
by his drunkenness, he may be aware that he is doing so, 
and yet he may do it without any volition to that effect. 
In these cases the moral blame refers neither to negligence 
or heedlessness, nor to any definite volition, but to dis- 
regard of one’s duty or of the interests of one’s family. 
At the same time, the transition from conscious omissions 
into forbearances, and the transition from not-willing 
to refrain from doing into willing to do, are easy and 
natural ; hence the distinction between willing and 
not-willing may be of little or no significance from an 
ethical point of view. For this reason such consequences 
of an act as are foreseen as certain or probable have 
commonly been included under the term “ inten- 

tion,” ^ often as a special branch of intention — “ oblique,”, 
or “ indirect,” or “ virtual ” intention but, as was already 
noticed, this terminology is hardly appropriate. I shall 
call such consequences of an act as are foreseen by the 
agent, and such incidents as afe known by him to be 
involved in his act, “ the known concomitants ” of the 
act. When the nihilist blows up the train containing an 
emperor and others, with a view to killing the emperor, 
the extreme danger to which he exposes the others is a 
known concomitant of his act. So, also, in most crimes, 
the breach of law, as distinct from the act intended, is a 
known concomitant of the act, inasmuch as the criminal, 
though aware that his act is illegal, does not perform it 
for the purpose of violating the law. As Bacon said, 
“ no man doth a wrong for the wrong’s sake, but thereby 
to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honour, or the 
like.” 

Absence of volitions, like volitions themselves, give rise 
not only to moral blame, but to moral praise. We may, 
for instance, applaud a person for abstaining from doing a 
thing, beneficial to himself but harmful to others, which, 
in similar circumstances, "would have proved too great a 
temptation to any ordinary man ; and it does not neces- 
sarily lessen his merit if the opposite alternative did not 
even occur to his mind, and his abstinence, therefore, 
could not possibly be ascribed to a volition. Very fre- 
quently moral praise refers to known concomitants of acts 
rather than to the acts themselves. The merit of saving 
another person’s life at the risk of losing one’s own, really 
lies in the fact that the knowledge of the danger did not 
prevent the saver from performing his act ; and the merit 
of the charitable man really depends on the loss which he 
inflicts upon himself by giving his property to the needy. 
In these and analogous cases of self-sacrifice for a good 
^ncl, the merit, strictly speaking, consists in not-willing to 

^ Cf. Sidgwick, op. cit. p. 202. ^ ^ ]vss;iy IV. Of Revenge,’ 

“ Benthain, op. ciL p. 84. in Essays^ ]). 45. Cf. Cirotiiis, De jure 

op. cit. i. 480. Clark, op. cit. pp. 97» ei pads, ii. 20. 29. i : “ Vix 

100. tjuistptam gratis mains est, ” 

THE SUBJECTS OF 

avoid a known concomitant of a beneficial act. But there 
are instances, though much less frequent, in which moral 
praise is bestowed on a person for not-willing to avoid a 
known concomitant which is itself beneficial. Thus it 
may on certain conditions be magnanimous of a person 
not to refrain from doing a thing, thoug*h he knows that 
his deed will benefit somebody who has injured him, and 
towards whom the average man in similar circumstances 
would display resentment. 

All these various elements into which the subjects of 
moral judgments may be resolved, are included in the 
term ^‘conduct.” By a man's conduct in a certain case is 
understood a volition, or the al)sence of a volition in him 
— which is often, but not always or necessarily, expressed 
in an act, forbeara?ice, or omission — viewed with reference 
to all such circumstances as may influence its moral char- 
acter. In order to form an accurate idea of these circum- 
stances, it is necessary to consider not only the case itself, 
but the man’s character, if by character is understood a 
person’s will regarded as a continuous entity.' The sub- 
ject of a moral judgment is, strictly speaking, a person’s 
will conceived as the cause either of volitions or of the 
absence of volitions ; and, since a man's will or character 
is a continuity, it is necessary that any judgment passed 
upon him in a particular case, should take notice of his 
will as a whole, his character. We impute a person’s acts 
to him only in so far as wc regard them as a result or 
manifestation of his character, as directly or indirectly due 
to his will. Hume observes : — Actions are, by their very 
nature, temporary and perishing ; and where they proceed 
not from some cause in the character and disposition of 
the person who performed them, they can neither redound 
to his honour, if good ; nor infamy, if evil. . . . 'Fhc 
person is not answerable for them ; and as they proceeded 

^ Cf\ Alcxancior, op. cit. p. 49: According to John (Jrotc 

“ (hiaraclcv is simply tliat ot wlilch {'J'lWitisc on the Moral lUcals., \y. 4.^2)^ 
iudivianal pieces of conduct arc the a persoivs character “is liis hkbitnal 
m:ii\ifestali()n.’' To the word “char- way of thinking, feeling, and acting.” 
acLcr” has also teen given a broader 

from nothing in him, that is durable and constant, and 
leave nothing of that nature behind them, it is impossible 
he can, upon their account, become the object of punish- 
ment or vengeance/’^ There is thus an intimate connec- 
tion between character and conduct as subjects of moral 
valuation. When judging of a man's conduct in a special 
instance, we judge of his character, atid when judging of 
his character, we judge of his conduct in general. 

It will perhaps be remarked that moral judgments are 
passed not only on conduct and character, but on emotions 
and opinions ; for instance, that resentment in many cases 
is deemed wrong, and love of an enemy is deemed praise- 
worthy, and that no punishment has been thought too 
severe for heretics and unbelievers. But even in such 
instances the object of blame or praise is really the will. 
Idle person who feels resentment is censured because his 
will has not given a check to that emotion, or because the 
hostile attitude of mind has led up to a definite volition. 
Very frequently the irascible impulse in resentment or the 
friendly impulse in kindly emotion develops into a volition 
to inflict an injury or to h^estow a benefit on its object ; 
and the words resentment and love themselves are often 
used to denote, not mere emotions, but states of mind 
characterised by genuine volitions. An emotion, or the 
absence of an emotion, may also, when viewed as a symp- 
tom, give rise to, and be the apparent subject of, a moral 
judgment. VVe arc apt to blame a [person whose feelings 
are not affected by the news of a misfortune which has 
befallen his friend, because we regard this as a sign of an 
uncharitable character. VVe may be mistaken, of course. 
The same person might have been the first to try to 
prevent the misfortune if it had been in his power ; but 
we judge from average cases. 

As for opinions and beliefs, it may be said that they 
involve responsibility in so far as they are supposed to 

^ WmwQ^ KiiiliurVconcLDiiiv^ IliiiiKDi See also S('lioj)e)ihauer, Die bciden 
Understa)idij!!^j viii. 2 {PJiilosophicnl Gruiidprohlenie dcr Dlhik [Sdnuiifltche 
IVor/es^ iv. 8o). Cf. Idcni^ '/'jradse of //vr/v, vol. vii ), p|), £2 p 124, 2S1. 
Jdtintan Nature iii. 2 {ibid. ii. 191). 

2i6 subjects of moral judgments c^. VIII 

depend on the will. Generally it is not so much the 
opinion itself but rather the expression, or the outward 
consequence, of it that calls forth moral indignation ; and 
in any case the blame, strictly speaking, refers either to 
such acts, or to the cause of the opinion within the will. 
That a certain belief, or unbelief,” is never as such a 
proper object of censure is recognised both by Catholic 
and Protestant theology. Thomas Aquinas points out 
that the sin of unbelief consists in contrary opposition 
to the faith, whereby one stands out against the hearing 
of the faith, or even despises faith,” and that, though such 
unbelief itself is in the intellect, the cause of it is in the 
will. And he adds that in those who have heard nothing 
of the faith, unbelief has not the character of a sin, “ but 
rather of a penalty, inasmuch as such ignorance of divine 
things is a consequence of the sin of our first parent.” ^ 
Dr. Wardlaw likewise observes : — The Bible condemns 
no man for not knowing what he never heard of, or for 
not believing what he could not know. . . . Ignorance is 
criminal only when it arises from wilful inattention, or 
from aversion of heart to truth. Unbelief involves guilt, 
when it is the effect and manifestation of the same aver- 
sion — of a want of will to that which is right and good.”^ 
To shut one’s eyes to truth may be a heinous wrong, but 
nobody is blameable for seeing nothing with his eyes shut. 

After these preliminary remarks, which refer to the 
scrutinising and enlightened nioral consciousness, we shall 
proceed to discuss in detail, and from an evolutionary 
point of view, the various elements of which the subjects 
of moral judgments consist. 

^ Thomas Aquinas, Sitnuna Theo- Accoiiniabicness for his Beliefs Ssfc, p. 
logica^ ii.-ii. lo. i sq, 38. 

Wardlaw, Sermons on Afan^s

THE WILL AS THE SUBJECT OF MORAL JUDGMENT AND 
THE INFLUENCE OF EXTERNAL EVENTS 

However obvious it may be to the reflecting moral 
consciousness that the only proper object of moral blame 
and praise is the will, it would be a hasty conclusion to 
assume that moral judgments always and necessarily relate 
to the will. There are numerous facts which tend to show 
that such judgments are largely influenced by external 
events involved in, or resulting from, the conduct of men. 

Some peoples are said to make no distinction between 
intentional and accidental injuries. Most statements to 
this effect refer to revenge or compensation. 

Von Martins states that, among the Arawaks, “the blood- 
revenge is so blind and is practised so extensively, that many 
times an accidental death leads to tlie destruction of whole 
families, both the family of him who killed and of the family of 
the victim ” ; ^ and, according to Mr. Im 'riiurn, the smallest 
injury done by one Guiana Indian to anotlier, even if uninten- 
tional, must be atoned by the suffering of a similar injury.‘^ 
Adair, in his work on the North American Indians, says that 
they pursued the law of retaliation with such a fixed eagerness, 
that formerly if a little boy shooting birds fin the high and 
thick cornfields unfortunately chanced slightly to wound 
another with his childish arrow, “the young vindictive fox was 
excited by custom to watch his ways with the utmost 
earnestness, till the wound was returned in as equal a manner 

^ von Martins, Beiirage zu?' Etkno- Im Thurn, Amotig the Indians of 

graphie Amerikd'Sj i. 693 j//. Guiana^ p. 214. 

2i8 

THE WILL AS THE 

as could be expected.” ^ Among the Ondonga in South Africa,^ 
the Nissan Islanders in the Bismarck Archipelago,^ and certain 
Marshall Islanders,"^ the custom of blood-revenge makes no 
distinction between wilful and accidental homicide. Among 
the Kasias destruction of human life, whether by accident or 
design, in open war or secret, is always the cause of feud among 
the relations of the parties.” ^ It seems that the blood-revenge 
of the early Greeks was equally indiscriminate.^^ As for the 
blood- feuds of the ancient Teutons, Wilda maintains that, even 
in prehistoric times, it was hardly conformable to good 
custom to kill the involuntary manslayer ; ^ but there is every 
reason to believe that custom made no protest against it. 
According to the myth of Balder, accident was no excuse for 
shedding blood. Loke gives to Hodur tlie mistletoe twig, and 
asks him to do like the rest of the gods, and sliow Balder 
honour, by shooting at him with the twig, tiodur tlirows the 
mistletoe at Balder, and kills him, not knowing its power. 
According to our notions, blind Hodur is perfectly innocent of 
his brother’s death; yet the avenger, Vali, by the usual 
Germanic vow, neither washes nor combs his liair till he has 
killed Hthlur. It is also instructive to note that the narrator 
of this story finds himself called upon to explain, and, in a 
manner, to excuse the Asas for not punisliing Hodur at once, 
the place where they were assembled being a sacred place.^ 
We find survivals of a similar view in laws of a compara- 
tively recent date. The earliest of tlie Norman customals 
declares quite plainly that tlie man who kills his lord 
by misadventure must die.’^ And, according to a passage in 
Leges Henrici I., in case A by mischance falls from a tree upon 
B and kills him, then, if B’s kinsman must needs have 
vengeance, he may climb a tree and fall upon A.^^ This 
provision has been justly rcprcs(?nted as a curious instance of a 
growing appreciation of moral ditrerences, which lias not dared 
to abolish, but has tried to circumvent the ancient rule.^^ 

* Adair, History of the American 
Indians^ p. 150. 

Raulanen, in Sleininctz, Rechts- 
vcrhdltnissey ]X 341. 

^ Sorj^e, ibid. p. 4i(S. 

^ Koldcr, in Zeitschr. f veri^d. 
Recht SWISS, xiv. 443. See also Idem., 
Shakespeare vor dem P'oriim dcr Juris- 
priidcnz., p. 1 88, 

^ Kisher, in four. Asiatic Soc. 
Bengaf ix. 835. 

^ Rohde, Psyche., pp. 237, 238, 242. 

” Wilda, Strafrccht dcr Germancn^ 

P- 174 - 

'^Snorri Sturluson, ‘ Gylfaginning,’ 
50, in Edda, p. 59. Cf. Brunner, 
P'orschituycn zur Geschichle des dent' 
schen und franzbsischen Rcchtes, p. 

489. 

Pollock and Maitland, History of 
ICny'/isk Paw before the Time of 
Edivard /. ii. 482. 

Leges Henrici 1. xc. 7. 

Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. ii, 

471. 

Among the Kandlis ‘‘similar compensation is made in all 
cases both of excusable homicide and of manslaughter.” ^ And 
the same is said to be the case among various other savages or 
barbarians. 

However, this want of discrimination between inten- 
tional and accidental injuries is not restricted to cases of 
revenge or compensation. Early punishment is sometimes 
equally indiscriminate. 

Among the Kafirs of the Hindu-Kiish, “murder, justifiable 
homicide, and killing by inadvertence in a quarrel, are all classed 
as one crime, and pimished in the same way. Extenuating 
circumstances are never cojisidered. "Ehe single question asked 
is, Did the man kill the other ? 'The penalty is an extremely 
heavy blood-ransom to the family of the slain man, or perpetual 
exile combiiied with spoliation of the criminal’s property.” ^ 
Parkyns tells us t]\c following story from Abyssinia : — A boy 
who had climbed a tree, happened to fall down right on the 
head of his little comrade standing below. 'Fhe Gomrade died 
immediately, and the unlucky climber was in consequence 
sentenced to be killed in the same way as he had killed the 
other boy, that is, the deatl boy’s brother should climb the tree 
in his turn, and tumble down on the other’s head till he killed 
him.'^ 'Ehe Cameroon tribes do not recognise the circumstance 
of accidental death : — “ He who kills another accidentally must 
die, Tdien, they say, the friends of each are equal mourners.”^’ 
Among the negroes of Accra, according to Monrad, accidental 
homicide is punished as severely as intentional.^’ 

Yet it would obviously be a mistake to suppose that, at 
early stages of civilisation, people generally look only at 
the harm done, and not in the least at the will of him 
who did it. Even in the system of private redress we often 

^ Maepherson, Mei/ioriah of Service ® Riebardson, ' Ol).sej-vaLions among 
in India^ p. <S2. the ('amcroon Tribes of West Central 

Crawfurd, IJisiory of Ihc Indian iXfrica,’ in Memoirs of the Jnter- 
Arihihclago, iii. 123. Ellis, Ewe- national Congress of Anthropology, 

Speaking Peoples of the Slcpoe Coast, ]>. Chicago, p. 203. Sec also Leuschner, 

22'3. Munzingcr, Ostafrikanisehc St it- in .Stcinmetz, Reehtsverhaltmsse, [). 24 

dien, p. 502 (Barea and Kiinania). (Ijakwiri) ; ilnd, p. 51 (Banaka and 

^ Scott Rol)ertson, Kafirs of the Bapuku). 

Hindu- Knsh, p. 440. ® Monrad, Guinea- Kysten og dens 

^ Parkyns, Life in Ahyssmia, ii. Lndhyggere, p. 8S. 

236 sqq. 

find a distinction made between intentional or foreseen 
injuries on the one hand, and unintentional and unforeseen 
injuries on the other. In many instances, whilst blood- 
revenge is taken for voluntary homicide, compensation is 
accepted for accidental infliction of death. ^ And some- 
times the chief or the State interferes on behalf of the 
involuntary manslayer, protecting him from the persecu- 
tions of the dead man’s family. 

Among the African Wapokomo intention makes a difference 
in the revenge.^ Among the Papuans of the Tami Islands 
blood-revenge is common in the case of murder, but is not 
exacted in the case of accidental homicide ; the involuntary 
manslayer has only to pay a compensation and to leave the 
community for a certain length of time.^ Among the Namaqua 
Hottentots custom demands that compensation should be 
accepted for unintentional killing.^ We meet with the same 
principle among the Albanians ^ and the Slavs, ^ in the past 
history of ^ther European peoples,^ in ancient Yucatan,® and in 
the religious law of Muhammedanism.^^ Among the Kabyles 
of Algeria, ^^si les moeurs n’autorisent jamais la famille victime 
d’un homicide volontaire a amnistier un crime, elles lui permet- 
tent presque toujours de pardonner la mort qui ne rdsulte que 
d’une maladresse ou d’un accident.” They have a special 
ceremony by which the family of the deceased grant pardon to 
the involuntary manslayer, but the pardon must be given 
unanimously. The manslayer then becomes a member of the 
kharuba^ or gens^ of the deceased.^® Among the Omahas, 
when one man killed another accidentally, he was rescued by 
the interposition of the chiefs, and subsequently was punished 
as if he were a murderer, but only for a year or two.” The 

^ Cf. Kohler, Shakespem'e vor defji 
Fortun der JtirisprttdenZy 188,11. i. 

^ Kraft, in Steinmetz, Rechtsver- 
haltnisse^ p. 292. 

* Bamler, quoted by Kohler, in 
Zeitschr. f. vergL Rechtswiss. xiv. 380. 

^ Fritsch, Die Eingehorenen Sild- 
Afrikds.y. 

® (jopcevid, Oheralbanien and seme 
Urn, p. 327. 

® Miklosich, ‘ Blutrache bei den 
Slaven,’ in Denksekriften der kaiserl, 
Akademie der Wissensch. Philos.- 
histor. Classe^ Vienna, xxxvi. 131. 

^ Leist, Grcuo-italische Rechtsge- 
schichtey p. 324. Ancient Laws of 
Irelandy iii. p. exxiv. F or the ancient 
Teutons, see infray p. 226. 

® de Landa, Relacion de las cosas de 
Yucatan, p. 134. 

® Koran, iv. 94. Cf Sachau, 
Mithammedanisckes Rechi nach Scha- 
fiitischer Lelire, p. 761 sq. 

Hanoteau and Letoumeux, La 
Kabylie, iii. 68 sq. 

Dorsey, ‘ Omaha Sociology,’ in 
An 7 t. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 370. 

^ SUBJECT OF MORAL JUDGMENT 

ancient law of the Hebrews, which recognised the right and 
duty of private revenge in cases of intentional homicide, laid 
down special rules for homicide by misfortune. He who killed 
another unawares and unwittingly might flee to a city of refuge, 
where he was protected against the avenger of blood as long 
as he remained there.^ In ancient Rome the involuntary 
manslayer seems to have been exposed to the blood-feud until a 
law attributed to Numa ordained that he should atone for the 
deed by providing a ram to be sacrificed in his place.^ 

Among some peoples who accept compensation even for 
wilful murder, the blood-price is lower if life is taken 
unintentionally.^ 

According to Bowdich, “ a person accidentally killing ’ 
another in Ahanta, pays 5 oz. of gold to the family, and defrays 
the burial customs. In the case of murder, it is 20 oz. of gold 
and a slave ; or, he and his family become the slaves of the 
family of the deceased. Ancient Irish law imposed an Eric 
fine for accidental or unintentional homicide, to be paid to the 
relatives of the dead man, whilst a double fine was due for 
homicide where anger was shown, where probably there 
was what we should call malice.’^ 

In the punishments Inflicted by many savages, a similar 
distinction is made between intentional and accidental 
harm, although, at the same time, some degree of guilt is 
frequently imputed to persons who, in our opinion, are 
perfectly innocent. 

Speaking of the West Australian aborigines. Sir G. Grey 
observes ; — If a native is slain by another wilfully, they kill the 
murderer, or any of his friends they can lay hands on. If a 
native kills another accidentally, he is punished according to 
the circumstances of the case.” And the punishment may be 
severe enough. “ For instance, if, in inflicting spear wounds as 
a punishment for some offence, one of the agents should spear 
the culprit through the thigh, and accidentally so injure the 

^ Deuteronomy^ iv. 42. Numbers^ halinissey p. 215 (Wagogo). Dareste, 
X.3CXV. II sqq. /oshuay xx"!! sqq, Nouvelles tHudes dHiistoire dii droity p. 

2 Servius, In Virgilii Bucolica, iv. 237 (Swanetians of the Caucasus). 

43. Cf, von Jhering, Das Schuld- ^ Bowdich, Mission from Cape 
moment im rbmiseken Privairechty p. Castle to As/iantecy p. 258 n. X. 

II. ^ Cherry, Growth of Criminal Law 

* Beverley, in Steininetz, Rechtsver- in Ancient CommimitieSy p. 22. 

THE WILL AS THE 

femoral artery that he dies, the man who did so would have to 
submit to be speared through both thighs himself.’'^ In New 
Guinea, according to Dr. Chalmers, murder is punished capitally, 
whereas a death caused by accident is expiated by a fine.‘^ 
Among the Mpongwe, ^‘except in the case of a chief or a 
very rich man, little or no difference is made between wilful 
murder^ justifiable Jiomicide, and accidental manslaughter.”^ 
Kafir law seems to demand no compensation for wliat is clearly 
proved to have been a strictly accidental injury to property, but 
the case is different in regard to accidental injuries to persons, if 
the injury be of a serious nature. Thus it seems to make 
little or no distinction between wilful murder and any other 
kind of homicide ; unless it be, perhaps, that in purely accidental 
homicide the full amount of the fine may not be so rigidly 
insisted upon.”^ Among the A-liir, in the case of accidental 
injuries, a compensation is paid to the injured party and a fine 
to the cliief. Whilst the strict punishment for murder is deatJ), 
the cidprit is allowed to redeem himself if it cannot be proved 
that he committed the deed wilfully.^'' The Masai regard 
accidental homicide, or injury, as the will of N’gai,” the 
Unknown,” and the elders arrange what compensation sliall 
be paid to the injured person (if a male) or to the nearest 
relative. If a woman is killed by accident, all the killer’s 
property becomes the property of the nearest relative.” Tlie 
Eastern Central Africans, according to the Rev. D. Adacdonald, 
know the difFcrence between an injury of accident and one of 
intention.” ^ And so do the natives of Nossi-]5e and Mayotte, 
near Madagascar.^ 

Nay, there are. instances of uncivilised peoples who 
entirely excuse, or do not punish, a person for an injury 
which he has inflicted by mere accident, even though 
they may compel him to pay damages for involuntary 
destruction of property. 

We are told that the Pennsylvania Indians ^^judge with 
calmness on all occasions, and decide with precision, or endeav- 

^ Grey, Journals of Expeditions of Laws and Customs^ pp. 113, 67, 60. 
Discovery in North-lVest and Western ^ Stiihlniami, A/it Ernin Pascha ins 
Australia, ii. 238 st/. IJerz von Afrika, p. 524. 

Chalmers, Piojicering in New ^ Ilindc, The I.ast of the A/asai, p. 
Guinea, p. 179. loS, 

® Barton, /wo L'rips to Gorilla ^ Macdonald, Africa na, i. ii. 

/.and, i. 105. 8 Walter, in Steinmetz, Pechtsver- 

^ Maclean, Compendium, of Kafir haltnissey p. 393. 

our to do so, between an accident and a wilful act; the first, 
they say, they are all liable to commit, and therefore it ought 
not to be noticed, or punished ; the second being a wilful or 
premeditated act, committed witJi a bad design, ought on the 
contrary to receive due punishment.” ^ Among some of the 
Marshall Islanders unintentional wrongs are punislicd only if 
the injured party be a person of note, for instance, a chief, or a 
member of a chief’s family. - Among the Papuans of the Tami 
Islands, ‘^accidental injuries are not punished. Generally the 
culprit confesses Iiis deed, and makes an apology. If he lias 
caused the destruction of some valuable, he has to repair 
the loss.” Among the Wadshagga there is no punishment 
for an accidental hurt ; but if anybody’s property has been 
damaged thereby, a compensation amounting to one half of the 
damage may be required.'^ Fhe Hottentots do not nowadays 
punish accidents, even in the case of liomicidc.^"* Among the 
Wasliambala a person is held responsijile only for such injuries 
as he has inflicted intentionally or caused by carelessness.^ In 
some parts of West Africa, if a man, woman, or child, not 
knowing what lie or she does, damages the property of another 
person, ‘‘native justice requires, and contains in itself, that if it 
can be proved the act was committed in ignorance that was not 
a culpable ignorance, the doer cannot be punished according to 
the law.” ^ 

These instances of occasional discrimination in savage 
justice are particularly interesting in the face of the fact 
that, even among peoples who have attained a higher 
degree of culture, innocent persons are often punished by 
law for bringing about events without any fault of theirs. 

It is a principle of the Chinese law that “all persons 
who kill or wound others purely by accident, shall be 
permitted to redeem themselves from the punishment of 
killing or wounding in an affray, by the payment in each 
case of a fine to the family of the person deceased or 
wounded.” But there are exceptions to this rule. Any 

^ Buchanan, North American ^ Kohler, ihid. xv. 353. 

India}is^ p. 160 sq. Steinmetz, 7 \ecktsve?'- 

^ Kohler, in Zeitschr. f. vergl. halinisse^ p. 261. 

Rechfswiss\ xiv. 448. ^ Miss Kingsley, in her Introduction 

^ Bamlcr, (piolcd by Kohler, ibid. to Dennett’s Notes on the Folklore of 
xiv. 381. the Jjart, p. xi. 

* Merker, (pioted by Kohler, ibid. ® Ta I'sing Leu Lee^ sec. ccxcii. p. 
XV. 64. 314, 

THE WILL AS THE 

person who kills his father, mother, paternal grandfather 
or grandmother, and any wife who kills her husband’s 
father, mother, paternal grandfather or grandmother, 
“purely by accident, shall still be punished with loo 
blows and perpetual banishment to the distance of 3,000 
lee. In the case of wounding purely by accident, the 
persons convicted thereof shall be punished with 100 
blows and three years banishment : in these cases, more- 
over, the parties shall not be permitted to redeem them- 
selves from punishment by the payment of a fine, as usual 
in the ordinary cases of accident.” ^ Again, slaves who 
accidentally kill their masters, “ shall suffer death, by being 
strangled at the usual period.” ^ It is also a characteristic 
provision of the Chinese law that an act of grace is 
necessary for relieving all those from punishment who 
have offended accidentally and inadvertently.^ 

It is said in the Laws of Hammurabi : — “ If a man 
has struck a man in a quarrel, and has caused him a 
wound, that man shall swear ‘ I did not strike him know- 
ing ’ and shall answer for the doctor. If he has died of 
his blows, he shall swear, and if he be of gentle birth he 
shall pay half a mina of silver. If he be the son of a poor 
man, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver.”^ 

It has been observed that the purpose of the Hebrew 
law of sanctuary was not merely to protect the involuntary 
manslayer from blood-revenge, but at the same time to 
punish him and compel him to expiate the blood he has 
shed.® If he left the city of refuge before the death of 
the high-priest, the avenger of blood might kill him with- 
out incurring blood-guiltiness and he was not permitted 
to purchase an earlier return to his possession with a money 
ransom.^ 

According to the Laws of Manu, “he who damages the 

^ Ibid. sec. cccxix. p. 347. Cf, im biblischen und talmudischen Strafe 
ibid. sec. ccxcii. p, 314. recht^ p. 25 sq. Keil, Manual of 

Ibid. sec. cccxiv. p. 338. Biblical Archccology^ ii. 371. 

^ Ibid. sec. xvi. p. 18. ® Numbers, xxxv. 26 sqq, ^ 

* Laws of Hammurabi, 206 sqq. ^ Ibid. xxxv. 32. 

® Goitein, Das Vergeltungsprincip 

goods of another, be it intentionally or unintentionally, 
shall give satisfaction to the owner and pay to the king a 
fine equal to the damage ” ; ^ and various rites of expiation 
are prescribed for a person who kills a Brahmana by 
accident,^ whereas the intentional slaying of a Brahmana 
is inexpiable.® 

Demosthenes praises the Athenian law for making the 
penalty of unintentional homicide less than that of in- 
tentional. The punishment for murder was death, from 
which, however, before the sentence was passed, the 
murderer was at liberty to escape by withdrawing from 
his country and remaining in perpetual exile. But he 
who was convicted of involuntary homicide had to leave 
the country only for some shorter time, until he had 
appeased the relatives of the deceased.^ As w'ill be seen 
subsequently, the real object of this law was not so much 
to punish the involuntary manslayer, as to save him from 
being persecuted by the dead man’s ghost, and to rid the 
community of a pollution. However, the Athenian law 
does not represent the ideas of early times. As Dr. Farnell 
observes, the constitution and the legend about the founda- 
tion of the court at the Palladium, which was established 
to try cases of \inintentional blood-shedding, shows that 
the ancient practice was susceptible of improvement.'’ Nor 
does the Roman law, which, in its developed shape, with 
such a remarkable consistency carried out the Cornelian 
principle, “ in maleficiis voluntas spectator non exitus,”'’ 
seem to have been equally discriminate in early times.^ In 
the Law of the Twelve Tables there are still some faint 
traces left of the notion that expiation was required of a 
person who accidentally shed human blood.® 

^ Laws of Alanu, viii. 288. * T>Gmo^i\\QnG%^Co>it 7 'a A^'istocratefn^ 

^ Ibid. xi. 73 sqcj. 71 sqq, p. 643 sq. 

^ Ibid. xi. 90. Gautama, xxi. 7. ^ Aristotle, I}e 7 'epiiblica Atheuien- 

According to .some authorities, how- sium, 57. Farnell, Cults of the Greek 

ever, the wilful slaying of a brahmana States, i. 304. 

*was' expiable by a penance of greater ^ Digesta, xlviii. 8. 14. 

severity (Buhler’s note, in his translation ^ von Jhering, Das SckuIdmo 77 ient i 77 i 

of the Laws of Manu, Sacred Books of roinischeit Pj'ivab'echt , p. 16. Momm- 
the East, xxv. 449). sen, Kb??iisches Strafrecht, p. 85. 

V 8 Mommsen, op. cit. p. 85. 

Q 

VOL. I 

THE WILL AS THE 

The principle of ancient Teutonic law was, “Qui 
inscienter peccat, scienter emendet ” — a maxim laid down 
by the compiler of the so-called ‘ Laws of Henry I.,’ ^ no 
doubt translating an old English proverb.^ In historic 
times, the law, distinguishing between vili and vadhi, 
treats intentional homicide as worse than unintentional. 
In one case there can, in the other there can not, be a 
legitimate feud ; and whilst wilful manslaughter can be 
expiated only by wtte^ as well as wer^ the involuntary 
manslayer has to pay wer to the family of the dead, but 
no wUe to the authorities.® Yet the wer to be paid was 
not merely compensation for the loss sustained, as Wilda, 
niisled by his enthusiasm for Teutonic law, has erroneously 
assumed it was punishment as well.® And the character 
of criminality attached to accidental homicide survived the 
system of wer. When homicide became a capital offence,^ 
homicide by misadventure was included in the law. How- 
ever, the involuntary manslayer was not executed, but 
recommended to the “ mercy ” of the prince. This was 
the case in England in the later Middle Ages,® and in 
France still more recently. And when the English law 
was altered, and the involuntary offender no longer was in 
need of mercy, he nevertheless continued to be treated as 
a criminal. He was punished with forfeiture of his goods. 
According to the rigour of the law such a forfeiture might 
have been exacted even in the year 1828, when the law was 
finally abolished after having fallen into desuetude in the 
course of the previous century.® 

If men at the earlier stages of civilisation generally 

^ Leges Henrici /. xc, ii. ® Bracton, Legibus et Consuetiidi- 

2 Pollock and Maitland, History of nibtis Anglia.^ fol. 134, vol. ii. 382 $q, ; 
the English Law before the 7Yme of fol. 104 b, vol. ii. 152 sq. Brunner, 
Edward /. i. 54. Forschungen, p. 494 sqq, Biener, 

® Wilda, op, cit, p. 545 sqq.., 594. Das en^lische Geschwornengericht, i, 
Brunner, Forschimgen^ p. 498 sq, 120, 392, Pollock and Maitland, op. 
Idem, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichtefi, 165. cit, ii. 479. 

Pollock and Maitland, op, cit, ii. 471. ^ Beaumanoir, Les coutumes du 

^ Wilda, op. cit. p. 578. Beauvoisis, 69, vol. ii. 483. Esmein, 

® Geyer, Die Lehre vo7i der Noth- Histoire de la proc^dicre criminelle en 
wehr, p. 87 sq. Trummer, Vortriige Ff'ance, p. 255. 

fiber 7'ortur, i. 345. Brunner, ® Stephen, History of the Criminal 

Fqrschungen, p. 505 sq. Law of England^ iii. 77. 

attach undue importance to the outward aspect of 
conduct, the same is still more the case with their 
gods. 

The Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast believe that 
the god Sasabonsum “ takes delight in destroying all those 
who have offended him, even though the offence may 
have been accidental and unintentional ” ; whereas, among 
the same people, it is the custom that even deaths result- 
ing from accidents, not to speak of minor injuries, are 
compensated for by a sum of money.^ Miss Kingsley says 
she is unable, from her own experience, to agree with Mr. 
Dennett’s statement with reference to the Fjort, that 
ignorance would save the man who had eaten prohibited 
food. From what she knows, Merolla’s story is correct : 
the man, though he eat in ignorance, dies or suffers 
severely. “It is true,” she adds, “that one of the 
doctrines of African human law is that the person who 
offends in ignorance, that is not a culpable ignorance, can- 
not be punished ; but this merciful dictum I have never 
found in spirit law. Therein if you offend, you suffer ; 
unless you can appease the enraged spirit, neither Ignorance 
nor intoxication is a feasible plea in extenuation.”^ The 
Omahas believe that to eat of the totem, even in 
ignorance, would cause sickness, not only to the eater, but 
also to his wife and children. •'* 

Speaking of the sacred animals of the ancient Egyptians, 
Herodotus says, “ Should any one kill one of these beasts, 
if wilfully, death is the punishment ; if by accident, he 
pays such fine as the priests choose to impose. But who- 
ever kills an ibis or a hawk, whether wilfully or by 
accident, must necessarily be put to death. According 
to the Chinese penal code, “ whoever destroys or damages, 
whether intentionally or inadvertently, the altars, mounds, 
or terraces consecrated to the sacred and imperial rites, 
shall suffer 100 blows, and be perpetually banished to dis- 

^ Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of the p. xxviii. 

Gold Coasts pp. 35, 301. ^ Frazer, Totemism, p. 1 6. 

^ Miss Kingsley, in her Introduction ** Herodotus, ii. 65. Cf Pompo- 

to Dennett’s Folklcn'e of the Fjort^ nius Mela, 9. 

Q 2 

tance of 2000 In these cases the punishment inflicted 

by human hands is obviously a reflection of the supposed 
anger of superhuman beings. 

The Shintoist prays for forgiveness of errors which he 
has committed unknowingly.'** According to the Vedic 
hymns, whoever with or without intention offends against 
the eternal ordinances of Varuna, the All-knowing and 
Sinless, arouses his anger, and is bound with the bonds of 
the god — with calamity, sickness, and death.“ Forgiveness 
is besought of Varuna for sins that' have been committed 
in unconsciousness ; ■* even sleep occasions sin."' The 
singer Vasishtha is filled with pious grief, because daily 
against his will and without knowledge he offends the 
god and in ignorance violates his decree.^’ “ All sages,” 
say the Laws of Manu, “ prescribe a penance for a sin un- 
intentionally committed ” ; such a sin “is expiated by the 
recitation of Vedic texts, but that which men in their folly 
commit intentionally, by various special penances.” 
Among the present Hindus, “ even in cases of accidental 
drinking of spirits through ignorance on the part of any 
of the three twice-born classes, nothing short of a repetition 
of the initial sacramentary rites, effecting a complete 
regeneration, is held sufficient to purge the sin.”* 

In the Greek literature there are several instances of 
guilt being attached to the accidental transgression of 
some sacred law, the transgressor being perfectly unaware 
of the nature of his deed. Oedipus is the most famous 
example of this. Actaeon is punished for having seen 
Diana. Pausanias, the Spartan king, made sacrifice to 
Zeus Phyxius, to atone for the death of the maiden whom 
he had slain by misfortune.® 

The Babylonian psalmist, assuming that one of the 

^ 'Fa Tsing Lea LcCy sec. clviii. p. ® Ibid. vii. 86. 6; x. 164. 3. 

172. ^ Ibid, vii. 88. 6. Cf. Kaegi, op, at. 

^ Selcnka Sonnige Weltaiy p. 210 p. 68. 
sij. ^ Laivs 0/ A/ami y xi. 45 s^. Cf. 

^ Cf. Kaegi, Rigveday p, 66 sq. ; Vasishthay 20. 

Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, p. ^ Rajendralala Mitra, Indo‘AryanSy 
289. i. 393. 

^ Rig- Veduy v. 85. 8, ^ Farnell, op, cit, i. 72. 

gods is angry with him because he is suffering pain, 
exclaims ; — “ The sin which I committed I know not. 
The transgression I committed I know not. The afflic- 
tion which was my food — I know it not. The evil 
which trampled me down — I know it not. The lord 
in the wrath of his heart has regarded me ; the god 
in the fierceness of h'ls heart has punished me.” ^ In 
another psalm it is said ; — “ He knows not his sin against 
the god, he knows not his transgression against the god 
and the goddess. Yet the god has smitten, the goddess 
has departed from him,” ^ 

So, also, the Hebrew psalmist cries out, “ Who can 
understand his errors ? cleanse thou me from secret 
faults.” ^ Unintentional error, as Mr. Montefiore observes, 
would be as liable to incur divine punishment as the most 
voluntary crime, if it infringed the tolerably wide province 
in which the right or sanctity of Yahveh was involved.^ 
Whilst a deliberate moral iniquity was punished under 
the penal law, a sin committed “ through ignorance, in 
the holy things of the Lord,” required a sin- or trespass- 
offering for its expiation.^ Speaking of the developed 
sacrificial system of the Jews, Professor Moore remarks, 
“ The general rule in the Mishna is that any transgression 
the penalty of which, if wilful, would be that the offender 
be cut off, requires, if committed in ignorance or through 
inadvertence, a hattcith [or sin-offering] ; the catalogue of 
these transgressions ranges from incest and idolatry to 
eating the (internal) fat of animals and imitating the 
composition of the sacred incense, but does not include 
the commonest offences against morals.” “ The Rabbis 
also maintained that a false oath, even if made uncon- 
sciously, involves man in- sin, and is punished as such.*^ 

^ Ziminern, Bahylonuche Buss- ^ Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures on 
psatmen^ p. 63, # the Religon of the Anctenl Hebrews^ p. 

Sayce, Hibbert Lectures on the 10^. Cf. ibid. p. 515 sq. 

Religion of the A 7 icient Babylonians^ ** Leviticus, iv. 22 sqq, ; v. 15 sqq. 
p. 505. Cf. Murdler-Dclitz.sch, Ge^ Numbers, xv. 24 sqq. 
sckichte Babyloniens tmd Assyriens, p. ^ Moore, ‘ Sacrifice,’ in Cheyne and 
38. Black, Enclycopcedia Biblica, iv, 4205, 

^ Psahns^ xix. 12. Montefiore, op. cit. p. 558. 

THE WILL AS THE 

We meet with a similar opinion in mediaeval Christianity. 
The principle laid down by St. Augustine/ and adopted by 
Canon Law'/ that “ ream linguam non facit, nisi mens 
rea,” was not always acted upon. Various penitentials 
condemned to penance a person who, in giving evidence, 
swore to the best of his belief, in case his statement after- 
wards proved untrue.® In other “cases, also, the Church 
prescribed penances for mere misfortunes. If a person 
killed another by pure accident, he had to do penance — in 
ordinary cases, according to most English penitentials, for 
one year,^ according to various continental penitentials, 
for five ® or seven ® years ; whereas, according to the 
Penitential of Pseudo-Theodore, he who accidentally 
killed his father or mother was to atone his deed with a 
penance of fifteen years,^ and he who accidentally killed 
his son with a penance of twelve.® The Scotists even 
expressly declared that the external deed has a moral value 
of its own, which increases the goodness or badness of the 
agent’s intention ; and though this doctrine was opposed 
by Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Suarez, and other 
leading theologians, it was nevertheless admitted by th.pm 
that, according to the will of God, certain external deeds 
entail a certain accidental reward, the so-called aureola.^ 
In some cases the secular law, also, punishes misadventure 
on religious grounds. Thus the Salic law treated with 
great severity any person who accidentally put fire to a 
church, although it imposed no penalty on other cases of 

^ St. Augustine, Ser?fionesy clxxx. 2 
(Migiie, Pairologioe cursus, xxxviii. 
973 )-, 

Oratian, Decretiim, ii. 22. 2. 3. 

^ Pivnitentiale Bedts, v, 3 (Wasser- 
schleben, Bussordnungen der abend- 
Idndischen Kircke^ p. 226). Pmiit. 
Egberti, vi. 3 {ibid, p. 238). Pamit. 
Pseudo- 7 'heodori, xxiv. ^{ibid. p. 593). 

Pcenit, llieodori^ i. 4. 7 {ibid. p. • 
188). Pa nit B edit /\Y. ^ {ibid. 225). 
Pamit. Egberti^ iv. 1 1 {ibid. p. 
235). According to Panit. Pseudo- 
Theodori^ xxi. 2 {ibid, p. 586), the 
penance was to la.st for five years. 

® Panit. Hubcrtertse, 2 {ibid. p. 377). 
Panit. Mersebiirgense., 2 {ibid. p. 391). 
Panit. Bobiense^ 4 (ibid. p. 408). 
Panit. Pindobonense, 2 {ibid. p. 418). 
Panit. Cummeaniy vi. 2 (ibid. p. 478). 
Pajtit. XXXV. Capitulorumy i (ibid. 
p. 506). Panit. Vigiianumy 27 (ibid. 

p- 529)- 

® Pamt. Paris lensBy i {ibid. p. 412). 
Panit. Floriacenscy 2 {ibid. p. 424). 

^ Panit. Pseudo- Theodoriy xxi. 18 
{ibid. p. 588). 

® Panit. Pseudo-Theodofiy xxi. 1 9 
{ibid. 588). 

^ Gopfert, MoraltheologiCy i. 185. 

unintentional incendiary ; * and even to this day the 
Russian criminal law prescribes penitence for homicide by 
misadventure, “in order to quiet the conscience of the 
culprit.” ^ According to the Koran, he who kills a 
believer by mistake shall expiate his deed, not only by 
paying blood-money to the family of the dead (unless they 
remit it), but by setting free a believing slave ; and as to 
him who cannot find the means, “ let him fast for two 
consecutive months — a penance this from God.” ® 

How shall we explain all these facts Do they faith- 
fully represent ideas of moral responsibility ? Do they 
indicate that, at the earlier stages of civilisation, the out- 
ward event as such, irrespectively of the will of the agent, 
is an object of moral blame 

Most of the statements which imply a perfect absence 
of discrimination between accident and intention, refer to 
the system of private redress. Under this system a personal 
injury is regarded as a matter which the injured party or 
his kin have to settle for themselves. It certainly does 
not allow them to treat the offender just as they please ; 
as we have seen, it is more or less regulated by custom. 
But at the same time it makes considerable allowance for 
the personal feelings of the sufferer, and these feelings are 
apt to be neither impartial nor sufficiently discriminate. 
Whether, in a savage community, public opinion prescribes, 
or merely permits, revenge in cases of accidental 
injury, is a question which the ordinary observations 
of travellers leave unanswered. It is important to 
note that one of the first steps which early custom or 
law took towards a restriction of the blood-feud was to 
saye the life of the involuntary manslayer. Moreover, in 
many cases where the system of revenge has been succeeded 
by punishment, the injured party may still have a voice in 
the matter. In Abyssinia, for instance, “ a life for a life is 
the sentence passed upon the murderer ; but, obtaining 

^ Lex Salica (Herold’s text), 71. ^tats europiens^ edited by von Liszt, p. 
Brunner, Forschtingetiy p. 507, n. i. 531. 

® Foinitzki, in Le droit criminel des ® Koran^ iv. 94. 

THE WILL AS THE 

the consent of the relatives of the deceased, he is authorised 
by law to purchase his pardon.”^ According to ancient 
Swedish law, an injury could not be treated as accidental 
unless the injured party acknowledged it as such.'^ In 
England, even in the days of Henry III., the king could 
not protect the manslayer from the suit of the dead man’s 
kin, although he had granted him pardon on the score 
of misadventure.** Indeed, so recently as 1741, a royal 
order was made for a hanging in chains “ on the petition 
of the relations of the deceased.” * And to this day English 
criminal courts, when dealing with some slight offence, 
mitigate the punishment “ because the prosecutor does not 
press the case,” or even give him leave to settle the 
matter and withdraw the prosecution.® 

In the case of accidental homicide, deference may also 
have to be shown for the supposed feelings of the dead 
man’s ghost, which, angry and bloodless, is craving for 
revenge and thirsting for blood. To leave its desires 
ungratified would be both dangerous and unmerciful. 
That this has something to do with the rigid demand of 
life for life in the case of homicide by misadventure seems 
all the more likely as in some instances when the involun- 
tary manslayer is pardoned, other blood is to be shed in- 
stead of his. Among the Yao and Wayisa, near Lake 
Nyassa, it is the custom “ by way of propitiation to give 
up a slave or some relative of the criminal’s, to ‘ go along 
with the one who was slain,’ and this seems to be invari- 
ably done when one is killed by accident, in which case 
the slayer may escape, the deputy taking as it were his 
place.”® We may assume that a similar idea underlies the 
ancient Roman law which provided a ram to be sacrificed 
in the place of the involuntary manslayer. 

But the dead man’s ghost not only persecutes his own 
family if neglectful of their duty, it also attacks the man- 

^ Harris, Highlands of ^Ethiopia y ii. p. 98. 

94. ^ Amos, Ruins of 7 'imey p. 23. 

von Amira, Nordgermanisckes Ob- ® Kenny, Outlines of Criminal Law, 
ligationenrechty i. 382. p. 23. 

^ Three Early Assize Rolls for the ® Macdonald, in Jour, Antkr, Inst, 
County of Nor i /lumber land y scec. Kill, xxii. 108 sq. 

slayer and cleaves to him like a miasma. The manslayer 
is consequently regarded as unclean, and has, both for his 
own sake and for the sake of the community in which he 
lives, to undergo some ceremony of purification in order 
to rid himself of the dangerous and infectious pollution. 
This notion will be illustrated in a following chapter. 
In the present connection 1 merely desire to point out that 
the pollution is there, whether the shedding of blood was 
intentional or accidental. And, as will be shown, though 
this state of uncleanness does not intrinsically involve 
guilt, it easily becomes a cause of moral disapproval, whilst 
the ceremony of purification is apt to be looked upon in 
the light of punishment. We shall also find that the 
notion of a persecuting ghost may be replaced by the 
notion of an avenging god, it being a fact of common 
occurrence that the doings or functions of one mysterious 
being are transferred to another. We shall, finally, see 
that the infection of uncleanness is shunned by gods even 
more than it is shunned by men ; and this largely 
helps to explain the attituSe of religion towards uninten- 
tional and unforeseen shedding of human blood. 

There are other, more general reasons for the want of 
discrimination often displayed by religion in regard to the 
accidental transgression of a religious law. When a thing 
is taboo, in the strict sense of the word, it is supposed to 
be charged with mysterious energy which will injure or 
destroy the person who eats or touches the forbidden 
thing, whether he does so wilfully or by mistake. As 
Professor Jevons correctly observes, the action of taboo 
is always mechanical ; contact with the tabooed object 
communicates the taboo infection as certainly as contact 
with water communicates moisture. . . . The intentions 
of the taboo-breaker have no effect upon the action of the 
taboo ; he may touch in ignorance, or for the benefit of 
the person he touches, but he is tabooed as surely as if his 
motive were irreverent or his action hostile.” ^ So, also, 
according to primitive notions, the effect of a curse or an 

^ Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 91. 

^34 

THE WILL AS THE 

oath is purely mechanical ; hence a person who swears 
falsely in ignorance exposes himself to no less danger 
than a person who perjures himself knowingly. As re- 
gards religious offences in the strictest sense of the term — 
that is, offences against some god which are supposed' to 
arouse his resentment — it should be remembered that, just 
as a man who is hurt is unable to judge on the matter as 
coolly as does the community at large, so a god whosd 
ordinances are transgressed is thought to be less dis- 
criminating in his anger than a disinterested human judge, 
and, consequently, more apt to be influenced by the 
external event. And where nearly every calamity is 
regarded as a divine punishment, a person who is suffering 
without knowing what sin he has committed, naturally 
infers that a god is punishing him for some secret fault. 

Thus it may be that, in the point which we are dis- 
cussing, as in various other respects, the religious beliefs 
of a people do not faithfully represent their general 
notions- of moral responsibility. It is profoundly wrong 
to assume, from the legend of Oedipus and other similar 
cases, that the ancient Greeks, in general, held a person 
“equally responsible for an accident which occurs to him, 
and for an act of which the agent is aware.” Even the 
transgression of a sacred law, when committed in ignor- 
ance, seems to have excited pitiful horror rather than 
moral indignation. Oedipus had killed his father in self- 
defence, and married his mother, perfectly ignorant of his 
relation to them. The gods punished the Thebans with 
pestilence for harbouring such a wretch on their soil. But 
when “ time that sees all, found him out in his unwitting 
sin,” it was not blame, but terror and deep compassion for 
the unhappy man that, according to the tragedian,^ spoke 
from the lips of the people. Moreover, in the later 
tragedy Oedipus persistently vindicates his innocence : — 
“ Whatever I have done was done unwittingly ” — “ Be-., 
fore the law I have no guilt.” And, addressing himself 
to Creon, who has accused him of parricide and incest, he 

^ Sophocles, CEdipus Tyrannus. 

exclaims : — “ O shameless soul, where, thinkest thou, falls 
this thy taunt, — on my age, or on thine own ? Bloodshed 
— -incest — misery — all this thy lips have launched against 
me, — all this that I have borne, woe is me ! by no choice 
of mine ; for such was the pleasure of the gods, wroth, 
haply, with the race from of old. . . Tell me, now, — if, 
by voice of oracle, some divine doom was coming on my 
sire, that he should die by a son’s hand, how couldst thou 
justly reproach me therewith, who was then unborn, — 
whom no sire had yet begotten, no mother’s womb con- 
ceived ? And if, when born to woe — as I was born — I 
met my sire in strife, and slew him, all ignorant what 
I was doing, and to whom, — how couldst thou justly 
blame the unknowing deed ^ Never was a more pathetic 
appeal made to the court of Justice from the indiscriminate 
verdict of angry gods. 

While thus the grossest want of discrimination may be 
explained from revengeful feelings and superstitious beliefs, 
there still remain a multitude of cases which must be 
regarded as genuine expressions of moral indignation. As 
to these, it should, first, be remembered that even the 
reflecting moral consciousness may hold a person blame- 
able for the unintentional and unforeseen infliction of an 
injury, namely, in cases where it assumes want of proper 
foresight. Now, as we know, it is often difficult enough 
to discern whether, or to what extent, an unintended 
injury is due to carelessness on the part of the agent ; some- 
times even it is no easy thing to tell whether an injury 
was intended or not. It is not to be expected, then, that 
distinctions of so subtle a nature should be properly made 
by the uncultured mind, and least of all is it to be expected 
that such distinctions should be embodied in early custom 
and law, which are based on average cases and allow of no 
minute individualisation. It has been observed that the 
roughness of Teutonic justice may be partly explained from 
the difficulty of getting any proof of intention or of its 
absence, from the lack of any proper distinctions between 

^ Ide??iy CEdipus ColoneuSy g 6 o sqq. (Jebb’s translation, p. 155), 

THE WILL AS THE 

misadventure and carelessness, and from the fact that the 
so-called misadventures of early times covered many a 
blameworthy act.^ And all this holds good not merely 
of the ancient Teutons. It may further be said that the 
more defective the power of discrimination, the greater is 
the tendency to presume guilt. In Morocco a man who 
runs away after having killed another is presumed to have 
committed the deed intentionally, however innocent he really 
may be. Among the Teutons the presumption was 
always against the manslayer ; he had to proclaim what he 
had done, and to prove that the deed was not intended^ — 
unless, indeed, the misadventure belonged to a certain type 
of injuries which by their very nature entailed no guilt. 
For instance, if a man carried a spear level on his shoulder 
and another ran upon the point, he was free from blame; 
whereas, if harm ensued by pure accident from a distinct 
act, the agent was liable.® As von Amira remarks, the 
Swedish notion of vadhav^rk was not a merely negative 
conception, but implied that there was danger connected 
with the act.^ 

Where the distinction between guilt and innocence is 
difficult to draw, it may be wise policy to presume guilt. 
According to Sir R. Burton, the Mpongwe jurists say that 
little or no difference is generally made between wilful 
murder and accidental manslaughter in order that people 
should be more careful ; and a similar idea may lie at the 
bottom of the Dahoman law which punishes capitally any 
person whose house takes fire, even if it happens accident- 
ally.” But the presumption of guilt is not only, nor in 
the first place, owing to considerations of social utility, 
combined with a reckless indifference to undeserved suffer- 

^ l\)llock and Maitland, op, clt, i. 
55 ; ii. 475, 483. von Amira, Nord- 
gernianisches Obligatioiienrecht , i. 377 
sq, 

Wilda, op. C2t. p. 594 sqq. Trmnmer, 
op. cit. i. 345. Brunner, /^'orsckungen, 
p, 5CX3 sq. Bollock and Maitland, op. 
cit. ii. 471. 

Wilda, op. cit. p. 584. Triimnier, 
op. cit. i. 427. Brunner, Forsckungefiy 

p. 499 sq. von Amira, ‘ Recht,’in Paul’s 
Griindriss der gernianischen rhiloiogie, 
ii. pt. ii. 172. Pollock and Maitland, 
op. cit. i. 53 sq. 

^ von Amira, No}'dger ;n anise hes, 

Obligationenrechty i. 377. 

® Burton, 7 wo 77 ips^ to Gorilla 
Landj i. 105. 

® Elli.s, Ewe-speaking Peoples of the 
Slave Coast, p. 224. 

ing. The unreflecting mind is shocked by the harm done, 
and cares little for the rest. It does not press the question 
whether the harm was caused by the agent’s will or not. 
It does not make any serious attempt to separate the 
external event from the will, and it is inclined to assume 
that there is a coincidence between the two. This is not 
altogether bad psychology since, as a rule, men will 
what they do. “ Le fait juge Thomme,” says an old 
French proverb ; and in morals, also, “ the tree is known 
by the fruit.” However, there are cases of injuries in 
which not even uncivilised men can fail to discover, at 
once, the absence of any evil intention. This certainly 
does not mean that the injurer escapes all censure. Every 
feeling of pain, sympathetic pain included, which is caused 
by a living being, has a certain tendency to give rise to 
an aggressive impulse towards its cause ; hence savages, 
even though they distinguish between intentional and un- 
intentional harm, are inclined to impute some degree of 
guilt to any person who involuntarily commits a forbidden 
deed, though he be in reality quite innocent. But the reason 
for this is only want of due reflection. If it is clearly under- 
stood that a certain event is the result of merely external 
circumstances, that it was neither intended by the agent nor 
could have been foreseen by him, in other words, that it 
in no way was caused by his will — then there could be no 
moral indignation at all. It would be simply absurd to 
suppose that an outward event as such, assumed to be 
absolutely unconnected with any defect of will, could ever 
give rise to moral blame. Such an event could not even 
call forth a feeling of revenge. Sudden anger itself 
cools down when it appears that the cause of the inflicted 
pain was a mere accident. Even a dog, as has been 
observed, distinguishes between being stumbled over and 
being kicked. 

That the indiscriminate attitude of early custom and law 
towards accidental injuries does not imply any difference in 
principle between the enlightened and unenlightened moral 
consciousness as regards the subject of moral valuation, 

THE WILL AS THE 

becomes perfectly obvious when we consider what a great 
influence the outward event exercises upon moral estimates 
even among ourselves. “ The world judges by the event, 
and not by the design,” says Adam Smith. “ Everybody 
agrees to the general maxim, that as the event does not 
depend on the agent, it ought to have no influence upon 
our sentiments, with regard to the merit or propriety of 
his conduct. But when we come to particulars, we find 
that our sentiments are scarce in any one instance exactly 
conformable to what this equitable maxim would direct.”^ 
Even in the criminal laws of civilised nations chance still 
plays a prominent part. According to the present law of 
England, though a person is not criminally liable for the 
involuntary and unforeseen consequences of acts which are 
themselves permissible, the case is different if he commits 
an act which is wrong and criminal,'^ or, as it seems, even 
if he commits an act which is wrong without being for- 
bidden by law.^ Thus death caused unintentionally is 
regarded as murder, if it takes place within a year and a 
day * as the result of an unlawful act which amounts to a 
felony.'’ For instance, a person kills another accidentally 
by shooting at a domestic fowl with intent to steal it, and 
he will probably be convicted of murder.'’ Again, a near- 
sighted man drives at a rapid rate, sitting at the bottom 
of his cart, and thereby causes the death of a foot-pas- 
senger ; he is guilty of manslaughter,'’ A man recklessly 
and wantonly throws a lighted match into a haystack, 
careless whether it take fire or not, and so burns 
down the stack ; his crime is arson. But if he did not 
intend to throw the lighted match on the haystack, he 
would probably not be guilty of any offence at all, “ unless 
death was caused, in which case he would be guilty of 
manslaughter.”^ Even if the unintended death is to some 

^ Adam Smith, Theory of Aloral ^ Stephen, History of the Criminal 
Sentiments^ p. 152. Law of England ^ iii. 8. 

According to Harris {Principles of ® Ibid, iii. 22. 

the Criminal Laiv, p. 156), the act ^ Ibid. iii. 83. 

should be a malum in se, not merely a ^ Harris, op. cit. p. 157. 
malum quia prohibittim. ^ Stephen, op. cit. ii. 113, 

^ K-enny, op. cit. p. 41. 

extent owing to the negligence of the injured party him- 
self, it may be laid to the charge of the injurer. This at 
all events was the law in Hale’s time, “ If a man,” he 
says, “ receives a wound, which is not in itself mortal, but 
either for want of helpful applications, or neglect thereof, 
it turns to a gangrene, or a fever, and that gangrene or 
fever be the immediate cause of his death, yet, this is 
murder or manslaughter in him that gave the stroke or 
wound.”*' So far as I know, the severity of the English 
law on unintentional homicide — which, in fact, is a survival 
of ancient Teutonic law® — is without a parallel in the 
European legislation of the present day. Both the 
French ® and the German * laws are much less severe ; and 
so is the Ottoman Penal Code,*’ and Muhammedan law in 
general.® Yet the unintended deadly consequence of a 
criminal act always affects the punishment more or less. 

I presume that nobody after due deliberation would 
maintain that the moral guilt of the offender is enhanced 
by the death of him whom he involuntarily happened to 
kill. Sir James Stephen, nevertheless, makes an attempt to 
defend, from a moral point of view, the severe English 
law on the subject, which he thinks “ is much to be pre- 
ferred to the law of France.” He asks, “ Is there anything 
to choose morally between the man who violently stabs 
another in the chest with the definite intention of killing 
him, and a man who stabs another in the chest with no 
definite intention at all as to the victim’s life or death, but 
with a feeling of indifference whether he lives or dies.?"” * 
Perhaps not. But I venture to maintain that there is a 
considerable moral difference between the man who shoots 
at another with the definite intention of killing him, and 
the man who, firing at another’s chickens, with the inten- 
tion of stealing them, accidentally kills the owner whom 

^ Hale, History of the Pleas of the ^ Code Pdnal^ art. 309. 

Cro'^Hy i. 428. * ^ Strafgcselzbuch^ art. 226. 

* ^ Lex Wisigothoriiui, vi. 5. 6: “Si ® Ottoman Penal Code, art, 177* 
dum quis calce, vel pugno, aut qua- ibid. art. 174. 
cumque percussione injuriam conatur ® vSachau, op. cit. p. 761 sq. 
inferre, homicidii extiterit occasio, pro ^ Stephen, op. cit. iii. 91 sq. 
homicidio puniatur.’’ 

he does not see. It will perhaps be argued that the law 
has a utilitarian purpose, its object b^ing to make people 
more careful. But if this were the case one would expect 
that the law should punish with equal severity acts which 
involve the same degree of danger, and which result in 
similar injuries. To fire at a sparrow may be as dangerous 
to people’s lives as to fire at another person’s chicken, and, 
in the latter case, the danger is hardly increased by the inten- 
tion to steal the chicken. I take the truth to' be this. 
The degree of punishment corresponds to the degree of 
indignation aroused by the deed. Public imagination is 
shocked by the actual event. The agent, being guilty 
either of criminal intention, or of gross disregard of other 
people’s interests, or of criminal heedlessness, is a proper 
object of punishment. Owing to that want of discrimina- 
tion which characterises the popular mind, his guilt is 
exaggerated on account of the grave consequences of his 
act ; and the result is that he is punished not only 
for the fault of his will, but for his bad luck as well. 
Sir James Stephen seems to admit this, when saying 
that the shock which the offence gives to the public feeling 
requires that the offender should himself suffer “ a full 
equivalent for what he has inflicted,” from which “ he 
ought to be excused only on grounds capable of being 
understood by the commonest and most vulgar minds.” * 
Though thoroughly dissenting from the opinion that 
criminal law should try to gratify the feelings of “ the 
commonest and most vulgar minds,” I think that, as a 
matter of fact, it is not much above their standard of 
justice, being in the main an expression of public 
sentiments. 

In the cases which we have hitherto considered the 
external event which a person brings about involuntarily, 
either makes him liable to punishment though he really is 
free from guilt, or increases his punishment beyond the' 
limits of his guilt; But the influence of chance also shows 

^ Ibid, iii. 91, 

itself in the opposite way. A person who is guilty of 
carelessness generally escapes all punishment if no injurious 
result follows, and an unsuccessful attempt to commit a 
criminal act, if punished at all, is, as a rule, punished much 
less severely than the accomplished act. 

The Hottentots nowadays punish attempt, but only 
leniently.^ The Wadshagga punish it less severely than 
the accomplished act.^ Among some of the Marshall 
Islanders it is not punished at all.® The same holds good 
of the Ossetes ^ and Swanetians ®. of the Caucasus, as also of 
ancient Russian law.® The Teutons, as a general rule, had 
no punishment for him who tried to do harm, but failed ; 
and if they did punish an unsuccessful attempt, the penalty 
was out of proportion lenient.’' This feature of ancient 
Teutonic law has had a lasting effect upon European 
legislation, largely through the influence it exercised upon 
the Italian jurists of the Middle Ages,® whose theories laid 
the foundation of modern laws and doctrines on attempt. 
In conformity with the Roman law, they held attempts to 
commit crimes to be punishable, and in atrocious cases they 
even admitted that the attempt might be subject to the 
same punishment as the accomplished crime. But their 
general theory was that it should be punished less severely, 
and that the penalty should be lenient in proportion as the 
actual deed was remote from the act intended.® These 
views were generally adopted by the^ later legislation. 
Among present European lawbooks, the French Code 
P^nal is almost the only one that punishes an attempt 

^ Kohler, m Zeilschr, f vergL 475, 509. 

Recktswiss. xv. 353. h Seeger, Vermch der Verbrechen in 

^ Merker, quoted by Kohler, ibid, der IVissensehaft des Mittelalters^ p. 8. 
XV. 63. 9 Zacharia, op. cii. i. 169; ii. 141. 

^ Kohler, ibid. xiv. 448. von Feuerbach>Mittermaier, Lehrbuch 

^ Kovalewsky, Coutume contempo- des Peinlicken Rechts, p. 74. 
raine, p. 296 sq. Code Phial ^ art. 2 : “ Toute tenta- 

® D^este, Nouvelles Rudes (This- live de crime qui aura 6te manifest^e 
toire au droit, p. 237. • par un commencement d’ex^cution, si 

® Kovalewsky, op. cit. pp. 291, 299. elle n’a ete suspendue ou si elle n’a 
^ Wilda, op. cit. p. 598 sqq. manqu^ son efFet que par des circon- 
Zacharia, Die Lehre vom Versuche der stances independantes de la volonte de 
Verbrechen, i. 164 sqq. ; ii. 130 sq. son auteur, est consideree comme le 
Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. crime meme.” 

558 sqq. Pollock and Maitland, ii. 

VOL, \ 

R 

THE WILL AS THE 

with the same severity as the finished crime.^ And the 
French law on the subject is of modern origin ; before the 
year IV, the present rule was applied only to the conatus 
proximus in a few specified cases of a very heinous 
character,^ 

Besides the provision of the Code P^nal concerning 
attempt, there are a few other exceptions, of an earlier date, 
to the general rule. The Romans seemed to have followed 
the principle “ dolus pro facto accipitur,” * at least if the 
crime attempted was a serious one.'* A somewhat similar 
line was adopted by ancient Irish law. The general im- 
pression produced by the rules in the commentary to 
the Book of Aicill is, that the attempt to commit an 
injurious act was treated as equivalent to its commis- 
sion, unless the result was very insignificant. Thus, 
if an attempt was made to slay, or to inflict an injury 
which would endure for life, and blood was shed, the fine 
was the same as if the attempt had succeeded ; whereas, if 
the injury did not amount to the shedding of blood, the 
fine was reduced one-half.^ And if a man went to kill 
one person and killed another by mistake, a fine for the 
intention, in addition to the fine due to the friends of the, 
murdered man, was due to him whose death was intended, 
even though no injury was actually done to him.® In 
England, at the end of the Middle Ages, the will was 
taken for the deed in cases of obvious attempts to murder ; 
but this rule appears to have been considered too severe — 
even in an age when death was the common punishment for 
felony — and to have fallen into disuse several centuries 
ago.^ 

^ Chauveau and Helic, Thiorie du perfecta adhuc vindicantiir, cruenta 
Code Penaly i. 347 sq, mente, pura manu. Ergo .siciit ad 

Ibid. i. 337 sq. poenam sufficit meditari punienda,^’ 

^ Digestay xlviii. 8. 7. ® Ancient Laws of Ireland, iii. pp. 

^ Seeger, Verstich der Verbrechen cviii. sq. 139. 
nach rbmischefn Recht, pp. i, 2, 49. ® Cherry, Growth of Crhninal Law, 

Idem, Verstich der Verbrechen in der in Ancient Comnmnities, p. 32. 
Wissenschaft des Mitielalters^ p. 9. Stephen, op. cit. ii. 222 sq. 

Mommsen, Romisches Strafrecht, p. 97 Thomas Smith, Common-ivedlth of Eng- 
sq. Apuleius, Florida, iv. 20 ; — In land, p. 194 sq. 
jpalefipiis etiaip cogitata sceler3. poij 

The question, which attempts should be punished, and 
even the elementary question, what constitutes an attempt, 
have been answered differently by different jurists and 
legislators.^ In England all attempts whatever to commit 
indictable offences, whether felonies or misdemeanours, are 
punishable by law."* The French * and German ^ codes, on 
the other hand, do not punish, except in a few particular 
cases, attempts to commit de/ifs or Verbrechen, that is, what 
the English jurists would describe as misdemeanours. 

Again, should a person be punished for attempting to 
commit a crime in a manner in which success is physically 
impossible, as if he attempts to steal from a pocket which 
is empty, or puts into a cup pounded sugar which he believes 
to be arsenic ^ This question has given rise to a whole 
literature. Seneca’s statement that “ he who mixes a sleep- 
ing draught, believing it to be poison, is a poisoner,” ^ 
seems to have had the support of Roman law.® In Eng- 
land, not long ago, the man who attempted to pick an 
empty pocket, was not held liable for an attempt to 
steal ; ^ but this case has been overruled, and it appears 
now to be the law that an indictment would lie for such an 
attempt.® According to the French® and Italian^® codes, it 
would not be punished, according to some German law- 
books, it would ; whilst the Strafgesetzbuch contains no 
special provisions for attempts of a similar character. 

Finally, there are different rules as to the stage at 
which an attempt begins to be criminal, or as to the dis- 
tinction between attempts and acts of preparation. The 
Romans, it is supposed, drew no such distinction.*® The 
French law regards as permissible acts of preparation many 

^ See Cohn, Zur Lehre vom ver- 
stichten unci U7iVoIlendeten Verbrechen^ 
i. 6 sqq. 

Stephen, op. cit, ii. 224. , 

^ Code Pinal ^ art. 3. 

• ^ Strafgesetzbuch^ art. 43. 

® Seneca, De beneficiis^ v. 13, Cf. 
Idem.^ Ad Seretitmi^ 7. 

® Seeger, Versuch nach rbmischem 
Reckt^ p. 50. 

» ^ Stephen, op. cit, ii, 225. 

® Harris, Principles of the Crifninal 
Law., p. 209 n. c. 

^ Stephen, op. cit. ii. 225. 

Alimena, in Le d^^oit crirninel des 
itats europieftSy ed. by von Liszt, p. 
123. 

von Feuerbach-Mittermaier, op. cit. 
p. 76. Cohn, op. cit. i. 14, 

Seeger, Versuch 'nach roftiischen 
Rechty p. 49. 

R 2 

THE WILL AS THE 

things which in England would be punished as attempts.^ 
In England lighting a match with intent to set fire to a 
haystack has been held to amount to a criminal attempt to 
burn it, although the defendant blew out the match on 
seeing that he was watched. But it was said in the same 
case that, if he had gone no further than to buy a box of 
matches for the purpose, he would not have been liable, 
the act being too remote from the offence to be criminal.'^ 
“ Liability will not begin until the offender has done 
some act which not only manifests his mens rea but also 
goes some way towards carrying it out.” ® 

If we go a step further, we come to designs unaccom- 
panied by any attempt whatever to realise them. The laws 
of all countries agree as to the principle that an outward 
event is requisite for the infliction of punishment. “ Cogi- 
tationis poenam nemo patitur.” ^ 

This fact again illustrates the influence which external 
deeds exercise upon the moral feelings of men. In the 
average man moral emotions are hardly ever called into 
existence by calm and penetrating reflection. There are 
certain phenomena which for some reason or other are apt 
to arouse in him such emotions, but he does not seek for 
them. They must force themselves upon his mind, and 
the more vigorously they do so, the stronger are the 
emotions they excite. Nothing makes a greater impres- 
sion on him than facts which are perceptible by the senses. 
He will admit that an intention, or even a mere wish, to 
do something wrong is wrong by itself, but an outward 
event is generally needed for shaking him up. This, I 
think, is the original reason why persons have not been 
punished for intentions unaccompanied by external deeds. 
No doubt, the principle that “ the thought of man shall 
not be tried,” is strongly supported by the fact that, as a 
mediasval writer puts it, “ the devil himself knoweth not 
the thought of man.” ^ But considering how ready people 

^ Chauveau and Helie, cit. i. 357 ^ Digesta, xlviii, 19. 18. 

Stephen, op, cit. ii. 226. ® Quoted by Pollock and ,Maitland, 

Holmes, Common Law, p. 67 sq, op, cit. ii. 474. 

^ Kenny, op, cit. p. 79. 

have been to presume guilt in cases of unintentional 
injuries, it seems very incredible that they originally re- 
frained from punishing bare intentions merely on account 
of insufficient evidence. Indeed, as an exception to the 
rule, in a few cases when the crime designed is regarded 
with extreme horror, the very intention may give such 
a shock to public imagination as to call for punish- 
ment. 

According to Chinese law, “ any person convicted of 
a design to kill his or her father or mother, grandfather or 
grandmother, whether by the father’s or mother’s side ; 
and any woman convicted of a design to kill her husband, 
husband’s father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, 
shall, whether a blow is, or is not struck in consequence, 
suffer death by being beheaded.” ^ This exceptional law 
obviously owes its origin to the extreme reverence in which 
parents and ancestors are held by the Chinese, and to the 
wife’s subjection to her husband. In mediaeval laws refer- 
ring to heresy we have another instance of punishment 
being inflicted for a mere state of mind without any cor- 
responding act. According to Julius Clarus, this exception 
to the rule is due to the fact that the crime of heresy itself 
consists in “sola mentis cogitatione.”“ But the real reason 
why the law in this case troubled itself about men’s 
thoughts, and even allowed them to be put on their trial 
for their tacit opinions on bare suspicion, is the detestation 
in which heresy was held and the extreme attention it 
attracted. By all this, of course, I do not mean to deny 
that a judicious and enlightened legislator may find other 
grounds for taking no notice of mere intentions than their 
inability to arouse public indignation. I only speak of 
matters of fact. 

Again, as regards acts of preparation and many cases of 
unsuccessful attempts, it may be said that the agent per- 
. haps would have altered his mind before he came to the 
point, or that the failure of his attempt was possibly due 

^ Ta Tsing Lett Lee^ sec. cclxxxiv. 

.P- 305- 

® Julius Clarus, Practica Criniinalis^ 
qu. 91 {Opera omnia^ ii. 625). 

THE WILL AS THE 

to a change of intention in the last moment.^ But there 
are innumerable cases in which the attempt, with no less 
certainty than the accomplished crime, displays a criminal 
intention which is final. And it is particularly instructive 
to note that, among the very peoples who treat uninten- 
tional injuries with the greatest severity, unsuccessful 
attempts are treated with the greatest leniency. This is 
well illustrated by a comparison between Teutonic and 
Roman law ; in either case the former chiefly looks at the 
event, the latter chiefly at the intention of the agent. If there 
is no punishment for a bare attempt to commit a crime, that 
is because such an attempt makes no impression on the 
public. If an attempt is punished more heavily according 
as it is more advanced, that is because it calls forth greater 
indignation in proportion as it comes near to the crime 
intended. And if even the conatus proximus is punished 
with less severity than the accomplished crime, that is 
because the indignation it evokes is less. This explanation 
is corroborated by concessions made by theorisers who 
have in vain endeavoured to find more rational grounds 
for existing laws on attempt. They have ultimately found 
it necessary to resort to phrases such as “ the natural sense 
of justice,” or to appeal to the feelings of the multitude.^ 

^ As a rule, the man who voluntarily 
desists from the attempt to commit a 
crime would not be punished at all (see 
Seeger, Vemtch nac/i rornischem Kecht^ 
p. 50 ; Charles V/s Peinliche Gerichts 
Ordnnng^ art. 178 ; the French Code 
art. 2 ; the Italian Codice 
Penale^ art. 61 ; Finger, Conipendiiwi 
des dste,’reichische 7 L Kechtes — Strafi'echt, 

i. 181 ; and, for various German laws, 
Zachariii, op. cit. ii. 31 1 sq.^ and Cohn, 
op. cit. i. 12 jy.), or he would be 
punished more leniently than if there 
had been no such desistance (Zacharia, 

ii, 239 jyy. Cohn, i. 12 sq.). On this 
subject see also Herzog, Riicktritt vom 
Versuch ttnd Thatige Retie, passim. 

Lelievre, De conatu delinqtundi, 
p. 361 (quoted by Zacharia, op. cit. ii. 
66, n. 2) : “ Ceterum libenter fateor, 
me potius sentire aliquam necessitaten\ 
paululum levins in perfcctum crimen 

ac in maleficium consummaturn ani- 
madvertendi, quam reddere posse 
claram necessitatis rationem.” Abegg, 
Die verse kiedctte ft Strafrechtsthcoricen, 
p. 65 : “ FUr uns folgt aber jene 
nothwendige Beobachtung der con- 
creten Unterschiede, in dem Gebiete 
der Erscheinung, nach der aus dem 
Gerechtigkeitsprincipe abgeleitcten 
Regel, dass Jeder fur seine That, iind 
was er verdient babe, leiden solle.” 
Zacharia, op. cit. ii. 51 : — “ So macht 
sich in dem natliilichen Gerechtigkeits- 
Gefiihl des Einzelnen imd des ganzen 
Volkes auch von selbst die Unterschei- 
dung zwischen der Strafe des vollen- 
deten und der des bios versuchten 
Verbrechens geltend. . . . Es kann 
freilich seyn, dass der grosste Theil 
der Menschen fur ein solches natiir- 
liches Gefiihl keine Griinde' anzuge- 
ben vermag ; allein das ' Strafrecht, 

M. Rossi observes, “ Nous pensons que le sens commun et 
la conscience publique ont constamment tenu le meme 
langage. ‘ Le d^lit n’ a pas consomfn^, done la puni- 
tion doit etre moindre.’ Cette id6e de proportion 
mat^rielle, ce sentiment de justice, grossiere j’en conviens, 
est naturel a Thomme.” ^ This is the view taken by the un- 
reflecting moral consciousness. To him whose feelings 
are tempered by thought, “ a man,” as Seneca says, “ is no 
less a brigand, because his sword becomes entangled in his 
victim’s clothes, and misses its mark.” ^ 

In the same way as moral indignation, is moral approval 
influenced by external events. Though we would not 
praise a person for some deed of his which we clearly 
recognise to reflect no merit on his will, the benefits which 
result from a good act easily induce us to exaggerate 
the goodness of the agent. On the other hand, it is success 
alone that confers upon a man the full reward which he 
deserves ; good intentions without corresponding deeds 
meet with little applause even when the failure is due to 
mere misfortune. “ In our real feeling or sentiment,” 
Hume observes, “ we cannot help paying a greater regard 
to one whose station, joined to virtue, renders him really 
useful to society, than to one who exerts the social virtues 
only in good intentions and benevolent affections.” 

It is thus only from want of due reflection that moral 
judgments are influenced by outward deeds. Owing to its 
very nature, the moral consciousness, when sufficiently 
influenced by thought, regards the will as the only proper 
object of moral disapproval or moral praise. That moral 
qualities are internal, is not an invention of any particular 
moralist or any particular religion ; it has been recognised 
by thoughtful men in many different countries and different 

welches ja gerade auf die gro.s.se Finger, op. cit. i. 177. 

Menge zu wirken hat, kann desseniin- ^ Ro.ssi, TraiU de droit ptinaly ii. 
geachtet solche unwillkuilich im Volke 318. 

sich geltend machende Ansichten nicht ^ Seneca, Ad Seremwty 7. 
unberlicksichtigt lassen.” Cf. also 

ages. ‘‘ He that is pure in heart is the truest priest/' said 
Buddha.^ In the Taouist work, ‘ Kan ying peen,’ it is 
written : — “ If you form in your heart a good intention, 
although you may not have done any good, the good 
spirits follow you. If you form in your heart a bad 
intention, although you may not have done any harm, the 
evil spirits follow you." ^ According to the Thai-Shang, 
mere wishes are sufficient to constitute badness.^ One of 
the Pahlavi texts puts the following words into the mouth 
of the Spirit of Wisdom : — To be grateful in the world, 
and to wish happiness for every one ; this is greater and 
better than every good work." ^ God, says the Koran, 
will not catch you up for a casual word in your oaths, 
but He will catch you up for what your hearts have 
earned." According to the Rabbis, the thought of sin is 
worse than sin, and an unchaste thought is a wicked 
thing." ^ It was an ancient Mexican maxim that “ he who 
looks too curiously on a woman commits adultery with his 
eyes " ^ — a striking parallel to the passage in St. Matthew 
V. 28. ‘‘Voluntas remuneratur, non opus," says the 
Canonist. “ Licet gladio non occidat, voluntate tamen 
interficit." “ Non ideo minus delinquit, cui sola deest 
facultas." ® 

^ Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 

319- 

^ Douglas, Confucianism and laoic- 
ism, p. 270. 

^ 'IVuU-Shang, 4. 

^ Dind-i-A/afnSgi Kkirad, Ixiii. ^ 
sqq. Cf ibid. i. lO, where it is said 
that the good work which a man does 
unwittingly is little of a good work, 
though the sin which a man commits 
unwittingly amounts to a sin in its 
origin. 

® Korajt, ii. 225. Cf Ameer Ali, 
Ethics of Is him, p. 26. 

Schechter, in Montefiore, op. cit. p. 
558. Cf. Deutsch, Literary Remains, 

P* ,52- 

" Sahagun, llistoi'ia ge^ieral de las 
cosas de Nueva Espafia, vi. 22, vol. ii. 
147 : “ Dice el refran que el que curio f 
$ ament e mira a la niuger adult dr a con 
la vista.” 

® Gratian, Decretum, ii. 33. 3. 25, 
30, 29.

AGENTS UNDER INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY 

We hold an agent responsible not only for his inten- 
tion, but for any known concomitant of his act, as also 
for any such unknown concomitant of it as we attribute 
to want of due attention. But for anything which he 
could not be aware of he is not responsible. Hence certain 
classes of agents — animals, children, idiots, madmen — are 
totally or partially exempted from moral blame and legal 
punishment. 

Though animals are undoubtedly capable of acting, we 
do not regard them as proper objects of moral indigna- 
tion. The reason for this is not merely the very limited 
scope of their volitions and their inability to foresee conse- 
quences of their acts, since these considerations could only 
restrict their responsibility within correspondingly narrow 
limits. Their total irresponsibility rests on the presumption 
that they are incapable of recognising any act of theirs as 
right or wrong. If the concomitant of an act is imputable 
to the agent only in so far as he could know it, it is 
obvious that no act is wrong which the agent could not 
know to be wrong. 

It is a familiar fact that, by discipline, we may teach 
domesticated animals to live up to a certain standard of 
behaviour, but this by no means implies that we awake in 
them moral feelings. When some writers credit dogs and 
apes with a conscience,^ we must remember that an 

^ Romanes, Mental Evolution in der Thiere^ p. 67. Brehm, From 
^ AnimalSy p. 352. Petty, Seelenleben North Pole to Equator^ p. 298. 

2§0 

AGENTS UNDER 

observer’s inference is not the same as an observed fact.^ 
It seems that the so-called conscience in animals is nothing 
more than an association in the animal’s mind between 
the performance of a given act and the occurrence of 
certain consequences, together with a fear of those con- 
sequences/^ 

The following is one of the most striking instances of what 
Professor Romanes regards as conscience in animals ; it 
refers to a terrier which had never, even in its puppyhood, been ' 
known to steal, but on the contrary used to make an excellent 
guard to protect property from other animals, servants, and so 
forth, even though these were his best friends. “ Nevertheless,” 
says Professor Romanes, on one occasion he was very hungry, 
and in the room where I was reading and he was sitting, there 
was, within easy reach, a savoury mutton chop. I was greatly 
surprised to see him stealthily remove this chop and take it 
under a sofa. However, I pretended not to observe what had 
occurred, and waited to see what would happen next. For 
fully a quarter of an hour this terrier remained under the sofa 
without making a sound, but doubtless enduring an agony of 
contending feelings. Eventually, however, conscience came 
off victorious, for, emerging from his place of concealment and 
carrying in his mouth the stolen chop, he came across the room 
and laid the tempting morsel at my feet. The moment he 
dropped the stolen property he bolted again under the sofa, and 
from this retreat no coaxing could charm him for several hours 
afterwards. Moreover, when during that time he was spoken 
to or patted, he always turned away his head in a ludicrously 
conscience-stricken manner. Altogether I do not think it 
would be possible to imagine a more satisfactory exhibition of 
conscience by an animal than this ; for . . . the particular 
animal in question was never beaten in its life.” The author 
then adds in a note that mere dread of punishment cannot even 
be suspected to have been the motive principle of action.” ^ It 
may be so, if by punishment be understood the infliction of 
physical pain. But it can hardly be doubted that the terrier 
suspected his master to be displeased with his behaviour, and 
the dread of displeasure or reproof may certainly have been 
the sole reason for his bringing back the stolen food. Among 

^ C/. Lloyd Morgan, Animal Life ^ Romanes, ‘Conscience in Ani- 
and Intelligence^ p. 399. inals,’ in Quarterly fotirnal of Science^ 

Cf. ibid, p. 405. xiii. 156 sq» 

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY 

“ high-life ” dogs, as Professor Romanes himself observes, 
“ wounded sensibilities and loss of esteem are capable of pro- 
ducing much keener suffering than is mere physical pain.” ^ But 
fear of the anticipated consequences of an act, even when mixed 
with shame, is not the same as the moral feeling of remorse. 
There is no indication that the terrier felt that his act was 
wrong, in the strict sense of the word. 

However, though most of us, on due reflection, would 
deny that animals are proper objects of moral censure, 
there is a general tendency to deal with them as if they 
were. The dog or the horse that obstinately refuses to 
submit to its master’s will arouses a feeling of resentment 
which almost claims to be righteous ; and the shock given 
to public feeling by some atrocious deed committed by 
a beast calls for retribution. As Adam Smith observes, 
“ the dog that bites, the ox that gores, are both of them 
punished. If they have been the causes of the death of 
any person, neither the public, nor the relations of the 
slain, can be satisfied, unless they are put to death in their 
turn ; nor is this merely for the security of the living, 
but, in some measure, to revenge the injury of the 
dead.” ' 

If thus our own resentment towards an animal which 
has caused some injury, when not duly tempered by 
reason, often comes near actual indignation, it is not 
surprising to find that, at the lower stages of human civili- 
sation, animals are deliberately treated as responsible 
agents. The American Indian who eats the vermin which 
molest him defends his action by arguing that, as the 
animal has first bitten him, he is only retaliating the 
injury on the injurer.® The custom of blood-revenge is 
often extended to the animal world. The Kukis, says 
Mr. Macrae, “ are of a most vindictive disposition ; 
blood must always be shed for blood ; if a tiger kills 

^ Idem^ Animal Inlelligence^ p. 439. Travels in the Interior of North 
Adam Smith, 7 'heory of Moral America^ p. 327. Southey, History of 
Sentimeifts ^ p. 137. Brazil, i. 223. Cf Bastian, Der 

^ Harmon, foinmal of Voyages and Mensch in der Geschichte, iii. 25. 

AGENTS UNDER 

any of them, near a Parah [or village], the whole tribe 
is up in arms, and goes in pursuit of the animal ; when 
if he is killed, the family of the deceased gives a feast of 
his flesh, in revenge of his having killed their relation. 
And should the tribe fail to destroy the tiger, in this first 
general pursuit of him, the family of the deceased must 
still continue the chase ; for until they have killed either 
this, or some other tiger, and have given a feast of his 
flesh, they are in disgrace in the Parah^ and not associated 
with by the rest of the inhabitants. In like manner, if 
a tiger destroys one of a hunting party, or of a party of 
warriors, on an hostile excursion, neither the one nor the 
other (whatever their success may have been) can return 
to the Parahy without being disgraced, unless they kill 
the tiger.” ^ Of the Sea Dyaks we are told that they will 
not willingly take part in capturing an alligator, unless 
the alligator has first destroyed one of themselves ; “ for 
why, say they, should they commit an act of aggression, 
when he and his kindred can so easily repay them But 
should the alligator take a human life, revenge becomes a 
sacred duty of the living relatives, who will trap the man- 
eater in the spirit of an officer of justice pursuing a 
criminal. . . . The man-eating alligator is supposed to be 
pursued by a righteous Nemesis ; and whenever one is 
caught, they have a profound conviction that it must be 
the guilty one, or his accomplice, for no innocent leviathan 
could be permitted by the fates to be caught by man.” ^ 
So, also, the Malagasy will never kill a crocodile, except 
in retaliation for one of their friends or neighbours who 
has been destroyed by a crocodile. “ They believe that 
the wanton destruction of one of these reptiles will be 
followed by the loss of human life, in accordance with the 
principle of lex talionis. The inhabitants living in the 
neighbourhood of the lake Itasy, to the west of the 
central province, are accustomed to make a yearly pro- 

* Macrae, ‘Account of the Kookies,’ Journal of the Straits Branch of the 
va Asiatick Researches, vii. 189. Royal Asiatic Society, ro, p. 221 

Perham, ‘ Sea Oyak Religion,* in sq, Cf Frazer, Golden Bough, ii, 390. 

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY 

clamation to the crocodiles, warning them that they shall 
revenge the death of some of their friends by killing as 
many voay in return, and warning the well-disposed croco- 
diles to keep out of the way, as they have no quarrel with 
them, but only with their evil-minded relatives who have 
taken human life.” * 

Animals are not only exposed to the blood-feud, but 
are often exposed to regular punishment. This is the 
case among the Mambettu in Central Africa. Casati 
mentions the following instance : — “ A goat was chased 
and persecuted by a dog, and in the fight for self-defence 
the latter received a thrust from the goat’s horn. The 
poor dog, which was the valuable property of a powerful 
man, died shortly after. This serious matter was much 
discussed and commented upon, and finally referred to the 
king for judgment. The poor goat was sentenced to be 
slaughtered before its victim’s corpse, its flesh was served to 
the Mambettu [that is, people of the superior race], and 
that of the dog to the Mege [that is, people of the con- 
quered race].” Among the Maori, according to Polack, 
the crime of impiety is not confined to man only, but 
even a pig straying over a sacred place incurs the punish- 
ment of death.® In Muhammedan East Africa, some time 
ago, a dog was publicly scourged for having entered a 
mosque.^ The Bogos kill a bull or cow which causes 
the death of a man.® According to the native code of 
Malacca, if a buffalo or a head of cattle “ be tied in 
the forest, in a place where people are not in the 
habit of passing, and there gore anybody to death, it 
shall be put to death but the owner of the animal 
shall not be held liable!** According to Hebrew law, 
“ if an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die : 
then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall 
not be eaten”; and, in the case of sexual intercourse 

► ^ Sibree, The Great African Island^ ^ von Amira, Thierstrafen und 

p. 269. Thierprocesse, p. 30. 

^ Casati, Ten Years in Equatoria, ® Munzinger, Die Siticn und das 
i. 176. Recht der Bogos ^ p. 83. 

^ Polack, Manners and Customs of ® Newbold, British Settlements in 

^ the New Zealanders^ i. 240. the Straits of Malacca^ ii* 257. 

AGENTS UNDER 

between a man, or woman, and a beast, not only the 
human offender, but the beast, is to be put to death. ^ It 
is prescribed in the Vendidad that, if a mad dog which 
bites without barking, smite a sheep or wound a man, 
“ the dog shall pay for the wound of the wounded as for 
wilful murder.” Plato had undoubtedly borrowed from 
Attic custom or law the idea which underlies the following 
regulation in his ‘ Laws ’ : — “ If a beast of burden or other 
anirhal cause the death of any one, except in the case of 
anything of that kind happening to a competitor in the 
public contests, the kinsmen of the deceased shall prosecute 
the slayer for murder, and the wardens of the country, such, 
and so many as the kinsmen appoint, shall try the cause, and 
let the beast when condemned be slain by them, and let them 
cast it beyond the borders. ” ® In various European countries 
animals have been judicially sentenced to death, and 
publicly executed, in retribution for injuries inflicted by 
them. Advocates were assigned to defend the accused 
animals, and the whole proceedings, trial, sentence, and 
execution, were conducted with all the strictest formalities 
of justice.^ These proceedings seem to have been par- 
ticularly common from the end of the thirteenth till the 
seventeenth century ; the last case in France occurred as 
late as 1845.'* only domestic animals, but even wild 

ones, were thus put on trial.® “In 1565 the Arlesians 
asked for the expulsion of the grasshoppers. The case 
came before the Tribunal de l’Officialit6, and Maitre Marin 
was assigned to the insects as counsel. He defended his 
clients with much zeal. Since the accused had been 
created, he argued that they wer^ justified in eating what 
was necessary to them. The opposite council cited the 
serpent in the Garden of Eden, and sundry other animals 

^ Exodus^ xxi. 28 sq, Leviticus^ vol. iv. 139. 

XX. 15 sq, ® von Amira, Thierstrafe^i^ pp. 2, 

2 Vendtddd^ xiii. 31. Cf, ibid, xiii. 15, 16, 28 sq. In England such pro- 
32 sqq. ; Yasts, xxiv. 44. ceedings seem to have hardly occurred 

^ Plato, Leges, ix. 873. at all (ibid. p. 15), but, as we shall see, 

^ Chambers, Book of Days, i. 127. an animal which caused the death of a 
Fertile, ‘ Gli animali in giudizio,’ in man was forfeited as deodand. 

d^l E. Istituto Venetp, ser. vi. ® See Chambers, of, cit, i. 127 s<^. 

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY 

mentioned in Scripture, as having incurred severe penalties. 
The grasshoppers got the worst of it, and were ordered to 
quit the territory, with a threat of anathematisation from 
the altar, to be repeated till the last of them had obeyed 
the sentence of the honourable court.” From an earlier 
period we have records of maledictions and excommunica- 
tions of vermin and obnoxious insects. In 1 1 20 , a bishop 
of Laon is reported to have excommunicated the cater- 
pillars which were ravaging his diocese, with the same 
formula as that employed the previous year by the 
Council of Rheims in cursing the priests who persisted in 
marrying in spite of the canons.^ Such maledictions and ex- 
communications, however, were probably regarded rather 
as magical means of expulsion than as punishments.®* Not 
long ago, when swarms of locusts ravaged the gardens of 
Tangier, the Shereef of Wazzan expelled the injurious 
animals by spitting into the mouth of one of them. 

• It has been suggested that the mediaeval practice of 
punishing animals after human fashion was derived from the 
Mosaic law.^ But this hypothesis does not account for 
the comparatively late appearance of the practice, nor for 
the fact that, in some cases, other punishments short of 
death were inflicted upon offending beasts.® It seems 
much more probable that the procedure in question de- 
veloped out of an ancient European custom, to which it 
stood in the relationship of punishment to revenge.® 
According to the customs or laws of various so-called Aryan 
peoples — Greeks,’^ Romans,® Teutons,® Celts,’® Slavs “ — an 

^ Martinengo-Cesaresco, Essays in 
the Study of Folk-Songs^ p. 183 sq. 

Desmaze, Les phialitils anciefines, 
p. 31 sq, 

^ This is the opinion of von Aniira, 
who, however — as it seems to me, 
without sufficient evidence — suggests 
that the maledictions did not refer to 
ordinary animals, but to human souls 
or devils in disguise ( Thferstrafen, p. 

sqq.) 

^ Ibid. pp. 4, 47 sqq. 

® Fertile, loc. cit. p. 148. 

® Cf. Brunner, Forschungen zur 
Qpschicht^ d^s d^fitschen t*nd franzq- 

si sc hen Fee hies, p. 517 sqq. 

" Plutarch, Vita Solon is, 24. Xeno- 
phon, Hist or ice Grcecce, ii. 4. 41. 

^ /nstitiiiioneSyiv. g. Digestafxy.. i. 
^ Lex Salica (cod. i. ), 36. Lex Ripu- 
ariorum, 46. Grimm, Deutsche Fechts- 
alterthumer, p, 664 sqq. Brunner, 
Forschungen, p. 5^3 

Ancient I.aws of Ireland, i. 16 1 ; 
iv. 177, 179, 181. Welsh Imws , iv. i. 
17 {Ancient l.aws and Institutes of 
Wales, p. 391). 

Macieiowski, Slavische Fechts^e- 
schichte, iv. 333. 

AGENTS UNDER 

animal which did some serious damage, especially if it caused 
the death of a man, was to be given up to the injured party, 
or his family, obviously in order that it might be retaliated 
upon.' According to the Welsh Laws, “ that is the only 
case in which the murderer is to be given up for his deed.” ^ 
The fact that afterwards, in the later Middle Ages, this 
form of reprisal was in certain instances transformed 
into regular punishment, only implies that the principle 
according to which punishment succeeded vengeance in the 
case of human crimes was, by way of analogy, extended 
to injuries committed by animals. 

There has been considerable diversity of opinion con- 
cerning the purpose of inflicting punishments upon animals. 
Some writers suggest that it was possibly done with a view 
to deterring other animals from committing similar 
injuries.® According to others, the animal was executed 
in order that the hateful act should be forgotten ; Gratian, 
referring to St. Augustine,'* says, “ Non propter culpam, 
sed propter memoriam facti pecus occiditur, ad quod 
mulier accesserit.” ® A theory which has gained much 
adherence explains the punishment as a symbolic 
act, performed for the purpose of inspiring horror 
of the crime into the minds of men.® M. Thonissen 
maintains that, at Athens, “ on frappait I’animal auteur 
d’un homicide, afin que le peuple, en voyant p^rir un etre 
privd de raison, con^ut une grande horreur pour I’efFusion 
du sang humain.” ' It has also been supposed that the 
animal was punished with intention to intimidate those 

^ See Lex IVisigothoruni, viii. 4. 20 ; 
Schwabenspiegel ^ I^andrcchtbiich, 204 ; 
Dirksen, Chnlistische A b hand! tin gen., 
i. 104; von Jherinj;, Geist dcs rbniischen 
Rechts,\. 123; Die Znrechtmng 

anf dcm Gebiete des CitnlrecJUs , p. 
103 ; Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalter- 
ihumer, p. 664 ; Brunner, Deutsche 
Rechtsgeschichte^ ii. 556 ; Idem, For- 
schungeft, p. 513. 

^ IVelsh Laws, iv. i. 17 {Ancient 
Laws and Institutes of Wales, p. 391). 

^ Leibnitz, Essais de Theodicle, 
p. 182 sq, Lessona, quoted by 
d’Addosio, Bestie delinquenti, p. 145. 

^ St. Augustine, Qucesiiones in L^vi- 

ticum, 74 {ad. I.ev. xx. l6) : “Nam 
pecora inde credendum cst jussa inter- 
fici, quia tali flagitio contaminata, 
indignam refricant facti memoriam” 
(Migne, Patrologice cur sits, xxxiv. 709)* 

® Gratian, Decretum, ii. 15. i. 4. 
Cf. Mishna, fob 54, quoted by Rabbi- 
no wicz, Ugislaiion cydmmelle du Tal- 
mud, p. 1 16. 

® Ayrault, Des procH faicts au 
cadaver, aux cendres, h la 7 nImoire, 
aux besies brutes, fob 24. Ortolan, 
Jflllments du droit final, p. 188. 
Ti.ssot, Le droit final, i. 19 sq. 

^ Thonissen, Le droit final de la, 
riftiblique Athini^nne, p. 414. 

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY 

who were responsible for its acts/ or that it was killed 
because it was dangerous.^ But the true solution of the 
problem seems simple enough. The animal had to suffer 
on account of the indignation it aroused. It was regarded 
as responsible for its deed.^ In early records the punish- 
ment is frequently spoken of as an act of ‘‘justice”/ 
and the protests of Beaumanoir and others against this 
opinion ^ only show that it was held in good earnest, if not 
by all, at least by many. From certain details we can 
also see how closely the responsibility ascribed to animals 
resembled the responsibility of men. In some of the 
texts of the Salic law the animal is spoken of as “ auctor 
criminis.” In an ancient Irish law-tract it is said that, 
when a bee has blinded a person’s eye, the whole hive 
“ shall pay the fine,” and “ the many become accountable 
for the crime of one, although they all have not attacked.” ' 
Youth was a ground for acquittal, as appears from a 
case which occurred at Lavegny in 1457, when a sow and 
her six young ones were tried on a charge of their having 
murdered and partly eaten a child : whilst the sow, being 
found guilty, was condemned to death, the young pigs 
were acquitted on account of their youth and the bad 
example of their mother.^ In Burgundy, a distinction 
was made between a mischievous dog that entered a room 
through an open door and one that committed a burglary ; 
the latter was a larroriy and was to be punished as such.'^ 
The repetition of a crime aggravated the punishment. 

1 Du Boys, quoted by d’Addosio, ® Lex Salica^ edited by Ilessels, 

op. cit. p. 139. coll. 209-212, 215. 

2 Lessona, quoted ibid. p. 145. ^ Ancient Laws of Ireland., iv. 179. 

^ Cf. Post, Die Grimdlagen des ^ Chambers, op. cit. i. 128. 

Rechts, p. 359 ; Friedrichs, ‘ Mcnsch ® Ancient Contnmier de Bourgogne., 
und Person,’ in Das Atcsland, 1891, 23 {Revue historique de droit franfais 

pp. 300, 315; and, especially, et Itranger, Vn. 549): “ II deust hauoir 

d Addosio, cit. p. 1465^^.: “Nel faire iustice del larron.” 
medioevo si puni I’animale perche lo si Fertile, loc. cit. p. 148: “La 

ritenne in certo modo conscio delle sue Carta de I.ogic d’ Eleonora giudicessa 
azioni, in certo modo Ubero, in certo d’Arborea{i395) prescrive : che venendo 
jiiodo responsabile.” ' trovato un asino in danno sui fondi 

•* von Amira, op. cit. p. 9. altrui, per la prima volta gli si tagli im 

Beaumanoir, Les coutumes du orecchio ; la seconda, I’altro ; e la 
Beauvoisis, Ixix. 6, vol. ii. 485 sq. terza, si confischi la bestia consegnan- 
Chambers, cit. i. 127. Lichtenberg, dola alia cortc principesca.” Cf. 
V^nnischte Schriften, iv. 481. Vendiddd, xiii. 32 sqq. 

VOL. I 

S 

AGENTS UNDER 

And the animal “principal ” was punished more severely 
than the “ accessories.” ^ 

Considering the feelings to which even the cultured 
mind is susceptible with reference to a mischievous beast, 
it is not difficult to understand the attitude of the ignorant. 
The savage, not only momentarily, while in a rage, but 
permanently and in cold blood, obliterates the boundaries 
between man and beast. He regards all animals as practi- 
cally on a footing of equality with man. He believes 
that they are endowed with feelings and intelligence like 
men, that they are united into families and tribes like 
men, that they have various languages like human tribes, 
that they possess souls which survive the death of the 
bodies just as is the case with human souls. He tells of 
animals that have been the ancestors of men, of men that 
have become animals, of marriages that take place between 
men and beasts. He also believes that he who slays an 
animal will be exposed to the vengeance either of its dis- 
embodied spirit, or of all the other animals of the same 
species which, quite after human fashion, are bound to 
resent the injury done to one of their number.^ Is it not 
natural, then, that the savage should give like for like 
If it is the duty of animals to take vengeance upon men, 
is it not equally the duty of men to take vengeance upon 
animals ? 

Nor are these beliefs restricted to savages. Muham- 
medans maintain, not only that animals will share with 
men the general resurrection, but that they will be 
judged according to their works. Their tradition says 
that God “ will raise up animals at the last day to receive 

^ (TAddosio, op. cit. p. 16. 

^ Tylor, Primitive Culture^ i. 467 
sqq. Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 389 
sqq. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde^ p. 
17. Acheli.s, Moderne Volkerktmde, p. 
373 Idem-’, ‘Animal Worship/ 

in Open Court, xi. 705 sq. Waitz, 
Anthropologie der Naturvolker, ii. 180 
(Negroes), von den Steinen, Unter 
den Nattu^blkern Zentral-Brasiliens, 
p. 351. Im Thurn, Among the Indians 
of Gidana, p. 350 sqq, Donnarj, 

Origin of Primitive Super stitions, pp. 
223, 253. Lumholtz, Unknown 

Mexico, i. 331 (Tarahumares). 
Mooney, ‘ Myths of the Cherokee,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xix. pp. 250, 
261 sq. Nelson, ‘ Eskimo about 
Bering Strait,’ ibid, xviii. 423. Ho.se 
and McDougall, ‘ Relations between 
Men and Animals in Sarawak,’ in 
four. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. 473 
especially p. 205 sq. 

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY 

reward and to show His perfection and His justice. Then 
the hornless goat will be revenged on the horned one.”’^ 
We can hardly wonder that the Zoroastrian law inflicted 
punishments on dogs which hurt men or animals, when 
we read in the Vendidad that a dog has the characters of 
eight sorts of people.^ The fable and the Mdrchen for a 
long time related in good earnest their stories of animals 
that behaved exactly like men.® Even to this day, in 
certain districts of Europe, as soon as a peasant is dead, 
it is customary for his heir to announce the change of 
ownership to every beast in the stall, and to the bees also ; * 
and in some parts of Poland, when the corpse of the rustic 
proprietor is being carried out, all his cattle are let loose, 
that they may take leave of their old master.® In the 
Middle Ages animals were sometimes accepted as witnesses ; 
a man who was accused of having committed a murder in 
his house appeared before the tribunal with his cat, his 
dog, and his cock, swore in their presence that he was 
innocent, and was acquitted.® It was not only the common 
people that ascribed intelligence to beasts. According to 
Porphyry, all the philosophers who have endeavoured to 
discover the truth concerning animals have acknowledged 
that they to a certain extent participate of reason ; '' and 
the same idea is expressed by Christian writers of a much 
later date. In the sixteenth century, Benoit wrote that 
animals often speak.® In the middle of the following 
century, Hieronymus Rorarius published a book entitled 
‘ Quod animalia bruta ratione utantur melius homine.’ 
And about the same time Johann Crell, in his ‘ Ethica 
Christiana,’ expressed the opinion that animals at all events 
possess faculties analogous to reason and free-will, that they 
have something similar to virtues and vices, that they 

^ Koran^ vi. 38. Sell, Faith of ® Ralston, op. cit. p. 318. 

/s/dm, p. 223. ® Michelet, Origines dtc droit fran- 

. ^ Vendiddd, xiii. 44 sqq, * ^ais, pp. 76, 279 sq. Chambers, <?/. 

^ See Grimm, Reinhart Ftichs, p. i. cit. i. 129. 
sqq. Porphyry, De abstinentia ab esu 

^ Ralston, Songs of the Russian animalium, iii. 6. 

People, p. 315. Wuttke, Der deutsche ® Benott, quoted by d’Addosio, op. 
Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, p. 428. cit. p. 214. 

S 2 

26 o 

AGENTS UNDER 

deserve something like rewards and punishments, and are 
consequently punished by God and man.^ This, as it 
seems to me, is the correct explanation of the mediaeval 
practice of punishing animals, even though, in some cases, 
as M. Menabrea observes, the obnoxious animal was 
regarded as an embodiment of some evil spirit and was 
punished as such.^ The beast or insect was retaliated 
upon for the simple reason that it was regarded as a 

rational being. 

At the earlier stages of civilisation even inanimate 
things are treated as if they were responsible agents. 
The Kukis take revenge not only on a murderous 
tiger, but on a murderous tree. “ If a man should 

happen to be killed, by an accidental fall from a tree, 
all his relations assemble, and cut it down ; and how- 
ever large it may be, they reduce it to chips, which 
they scatter in the winds, for having, as they say, been 
the cause of the death of their brother.”® Among 

the aborigines of Western Victoria, “when the spear or 
weapon of an enemy has killed a friend, it is always 
burnt by the relatives of the deceased ; but those 

captured in battle are kept, and used by the conquerors.”^ 
The North American Redskins, when struck with an arrow 
in battle, “ will tear it from the wound, break and bite it 
with their teeth, and dash it on the ground.”® The 
British Guiana Indian, when hurt either by falling on a 
rock, or by the rock falling on him, “ attributes the blame, 
by a line of argument still not uncommon in more 
civilised life, to the rock.”® The gods of the Vedic age 
cursed the trees which had injured them.’^ Xerxes com- 

^ Crell, Ethica Christiana^ ii. I, p. reftdns an tnoyen-age conire les animaux^ 
65 sq. : — “ Hinc aliquid ctiam virtuti et p. 35. ^ 

vitio simile, sen recte et prave factum : ^ Macrae, in Asiatick Researches^ 

quorum illud cst, cum bruta naturae vii. 189 sq. 

suce ductum sequuntur, hoc cum a ** Dawson, Atistra/ian Aborigines^ 
natiirali via exorbitant. Unde tandem p. 53. 

etiam aliquid proemio aut poense, et ® Robertson, History of Atnerica, i. * 
hide quidem maxime simile. Unde 351 sq. 

bestias etiam a Deo punitas, aut pcenas ® Im Thurn, op. cit, p. 354. 

certas lege illis constitutas, cernimus.” ^ Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, p. 

Menabrea, De Vorigine de /dt 518, 
forme et de tesprit des jiigements ^ 

manded that the Hellespont should be stricken with three 
hundred lashes,^ and Cyrus “ wreaked his vengeance ” on 
the river Gyndes by dispersing it through three hundred 
and sixty channels.^ Pausanias relates that when Thea- 
genes had died, one of his enemies went up to his statue 
every night, and whipped the brass. At last, however, 
“ the status checked his insolence by falling on him ; but 
the sons of the deceased prosecuted the statue for murder. 
The Thasians sank the statue in the sea, herein following 
the view taken by Draco, who, in the laws touching 
homicide which he drew up for the Athenians, enacted 
that even lifeless things should be banished if they fell 
on anybody and killed him.”* As Dr. Frazer remarks, 
the punishment of inanimate objects for having accident- 
ally been the cause of death was probably much older 
than Draco.* At Athens there was a special tribunal for 
the purpose.* Demosthenes states that, if a stone or a 
piece of wood or iron or any such thing fell and struck a 
man, and the person who threw the thing was not known, 
but the people knew, and were in possession of, the object 
which killed the man, that object was brought to trial at 
the court of the Prytaneum.*’ Plato lays down the follow- 
ing rule in his ‘ Laws ’ “ If any lifeless thing deprive a 

man of life, except in the case of a thunderbolt or other 
fatal dart sent from the gods, — whether a man is killed 
by lifeless objects falling upon him, or by his falling upon 
them, the nearest of kin shall appoint the nearest neigh- 
bour to be a judge, and thereby acquit himself and the 
whole family of guilt. And he shall cast forth the guilty 
thing beyond the border.”^ Teutonic law, which still 
recognised the principle of self-revenge, treated the 
inanimate murderer with less ceremony.* According to 
the Laws of Alfred, when men were at work together in 

^ Herodotus, vii. 35. ® Demosthenes, Contra Aristo- 

Ibid, i. 190. " cratem^ 76, p. 645. 

Pausanias, vi. ii. 6. Cf. ibid. v. ^ Plato, Leges., ix. 873 S(^. 

27. 10. ^ See Trummer, Vorhiige iiber 

Frazer, Pausanias., ii. 371. Tortur, drr. i. 376 sq. Brunner, 

® Aristotle, De republica Athenien- Forschungen, P-521 sqq. 

^sium^ 57. Pausanias, i. 28. 10. 

AGENTS UNDER 

a forest, and by misadventure one let a tree fall on 
another, which killed him, the tree belonged to the dead 
man’s kinsfolk if they took it away within thirty days.^ 
Later on, in England, a thing by which death was caused 
was “ forfeited to God, that is to the King, God’s Lieu- 
tenant on earth, to be distributed in works of charity for 
the appeasing of God’s wrath.”^ This law remained in 
force till 1 846.® 

In some of these cases superstitious dread may have 
been a motive for destroying or banishing the instrument 
of death. There are facts which prove that such an 
object is looked upon as a source of danger. According 
to the Ripuarian law, people are forbidden 4 o make use of 
a thing which has been “ auctor interfectionis and in 
Norway, in quite modern times, sickles, axes, and other 
objects with which men have been killed, have been seen 
lying about abandoned and unused.® Again, among the 
aborigines of West Australia, if a person has been killed 
by a thrust of the native wooden spear, ghiciy his country, 
men think that his soul remains in the point of the 
weapon which caused his death, and they burn it after his 
burial, so that the soul may depart.® But it is also obvious 
that an inanimate thing which is the cause of a hurt is 
apt to evoke a genuine feeling of resentment. We kick 
the chair over which we stumble, we curse the stone which 
hurts us ; Dr. Nansen says that, when he was crossing 
Greenland, it would have caused him “ quite real satis- 
faction ” to destroy a sledge which was heavy to draw.’^ 
When we thus behave as if the offending object were 
capable of feeling our resentment, we for a moment vaguely 
believe that it is alive.* But our anger very soon passes 

^ Laws of Alfred, ii. 13. 

^ Coke, Third Part of the Insti- 
tutes of the Latvs of England, p. 57. 

^ Stephen, History of the Criminal 
Law of Engiandy iii. 78. Pollock 
and Maitland, History of E^iglish Lmw 
before the Time of Edward /. ii. 473. 

* Lex Ripuariortim, Ixx. i. 

® Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde,^, 

® Salvado, M^mou'es historiques sur 
VAustralie, p. 260 sq. 

^ Nansen, Eskimo Life, p- 213 sq, 

® Cf Dugald Stewart, Philosophy of 
the Active and Moral Powers of Man, 
i. 125; Hall, ‘Study of Anger, \in 
American fournal of Psychology, x. 
566 sq. 

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY 

away when we realise the true nature of its object. The 
case is different with men at earlier stages of civilisation. 
They do not suppose that things which hurt them are 
senseless ; on the contrary, they personify such things, not 
only hastily and momentarily, but deliberately and per- 
manently ; hence their resentment lasts. The Guiana 
Indian, says Mr. Im Thurn, “attributes any calamity 
which may happen to him to the intention of the imme- 
diate instrument of its infliction, and he not unnaturally 
sees in the action of this instrument evidence of its 
possession of a spirit.” ^ Trees, especially, are very 
commonly supposed to possess souls similar to those of 
men, and are treated accordingly. Pausanias writes that 
“ lifeless things are said to have inflicted of their own 
accord a righteous punishment on men ” ; and as the 
best and most famous instance of this he mentions the 
sword of Cambyses.® In England the inanimate murderer 
was to be given up to the kinsmen of the slain surely not 
as a compensation for the loss they had suffered, but as an 
object upon which their vengeance was to be wreaked.^ 
It was called la bane, that is, “ the slayer ” ; Bracton also 
calls it the “ malefactor.”"' It did not matter that its 
owner was recognised as innocent ; the punishment was 
not intended for him.“ But in some well-defined cases 
the “ slayer ” was free from guilt. A ship or other vessel 
from which a person was drowned by misfortune was not 
forfeited as deodand in case the accident happened in salt 
water — as Coke indicates, on account of the great dangers 
to which the vessel is exposed “ upon the raging waves 
in respect of the wind and tempest.”^ Moreover, if a boy 
under fourteen fell from a cart, or from a horse, it was 

^ Im Thurn, op. cit. p. 354 - 
^ See Frazer, Golden Bought i. 169 
sqq. 

^ Pausanias, i. 28. ii. 

^ Pollock and Maitland, ii. 474. 

‘ ® Bracton, De Legibus ei Consue- 
tndinihus Anglia, fol. 116, vol. ii. 
236 sy. 

® Holmes, Common Law, p. 25. 
Bracton, op. cit. fol. 122, vol, ii. 

286 sq. Coke, op. cit. p. 58. Sir 
James Stephen supposes {op. cit. iii. 
78) that “deodands were not in use 
at sea, because the local customs of 
England did not extend to the high 
seas.” But Coke expressly says (p. 58) 
that there can be no deodand of the 
ship even “in aqua salsa, being any 
arm of the sea, though it be in the 
body of the County.” 

AGENTS UNDER 

no deodand, “ because he was not of discretion to look to 
himself,” and so the cart, or horse, could not be regarded 
as blamabJe. But if a cart ran over a boy, or a tree 
fell upon him, or a bull gored him, it was deodand, 
because, apparently, it went out of its way to kill him.^ 
The fact of motion was one of considerable importance 
in the case of animals and inanimate things, as it was in 
the case of men. Thus Bracton would distinguish between 
the horse which throws a man and the horse off which a 
man tumbles, between the tree that falls and the tree 
against which a man is thrown ; and, as a general rule, 
a thing was not a deodand unless it could be said “ movere 
ad mortem.” ^ If anybody was drowned by falling from 
a ship under sail, not only the ship itself but the things 
moving in it were deemed the cause of his death ; 
whereas the merchandise lying at the bottom of the vessel 
was not presumed to be guilty, and consequently was not 
forfeited.® But if any particular merchandise fell upon a 
person and caused his death, that merchandise became a 
deodand, and not the ship.'‘ As Mr. Holmes observes, 
a ship is the most persistent example of motion giving 
personality to a thing. “ She ” is still personified not 
only in common parlance, but in courts of justice. In 
maritime cases of quite recent date judges of great repute 
have pronounced the proceeding to be, not against the 
owner, but “ against the vessel for an offence committed 
by the vessel.” 

Like the lower animals, human beings in their earliest 
childhood are incapable of forming notions of right and 
wrong, hence they are not responsible for any act of theirs. 
Responsibility commences with the dawn of a moral con- 
sciousness, and increases along with the evolution of the 
intellect. Only by, slow degrees the capacity of recognis- 

^ Coke, op. cit. p. 57. Hale, n. 4. Stephen, op. cit, iii. 77. Holmes, 
History of the Pleas of the Crowny i. op. cit. p. sq. 

422. Stephen, op. cit. iii. 78. ^ Britton, i. 2. 14, vol. i. 16. 

Bracton, op. cit. fol. 136 b, vol. ii. Hale, op. cit. i. 422. 

400 sq. Hale, op. cit. i. 420 sqq. ® Holmes, op. cit. p. 29. 

Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. ii. 474, 

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY 

ing acts as right or wrong develops in the child. It soon 
learns that certain acts are forbidden, but to know that an 
act is forbidden is not the same as to recognise it as wrong. 
Nor does the knowledge of a moral rule involve the 
ability to apply that rule in particular cases. Nor can the 
youthful intellect be expected to possess the same degree 
of foresight as the intellect of a grown-up man. Hence 
the total or partial irresponsibility of childhood and early 
youth. 

This irresponsibility is admitted by the laws of civilised 
nations. In England,* Scotland,'^ and the United States,® 
children under seven are absolutely exempt from punish- 
ment. In other modern countries criminal responsibility 
does not commence until the age of nine,^ ten,® twelve,® 
or fourteen." In some it is to be decided in each case 
whether a child is punishable or not.® Thus the French 
Code P^nal provides that a person under sixteen years 
of age shall not be punished if it be decided that he has 
acted without discernment {sans discerneinent)^ whereas, if he 
has acted with discernment {avec discernement), his punish- 
ment is to be mitigated according to a fixed scale.** 
Most laws set down an intermediate period between that 
of complete irresponsibility and that of complete re- 
sponsibility. According to English law there is a pre- 
sumption that children from seven to fourteen are not 
possessed of the degree of knowledge essential to 
criminality, though this presumption may be rebutted 
by proof to the contrary and, according to the German 
Strafgesetzbuch, a person from twelve to eighteen may 
be acquitted if, when he committed the offence, he did 

’ Stephen, op. cit. ii. 97 sq. iros, ibid. p. 199), Russian (Foinitzki, 

Erskine-Rankine, Prificiples of ike ibid. p. 529) law. 

Law of Scotland., p. 546. German Strafgesetzbuch, art. 55. 

^ Bishop, Cormuentaries on the ^ Swedish (Uppstrom, in Legislation 
Criminal Law, § 368, voL i. 209. penale comparde, p. 483), Finnish 

^ Italian Codice Penafe, art, 53 * (Forsman, ibid. p. 565) law. 

Spanish Codigo Penal reformado, art. 8, ^ French, Belgian, Ottoman law 

§ 2. (Riviere, ibid. p. 7). 

® Austrian (Finger, op. cit.'i. no), ^ Code Penal, art. 66 sq. 

Dutch (van Hamel, in Legislation Stephen, op. cit. ii. 98. Kenny, 

penale comparee, edited by von Liszt, Outlines of Criminal Law, p. 50. 
p. 444), Portuguese (Tavares de Mede- 

AGENTS UNDER 

chap. 

not possess the intelligence requisite to know that it 
was criminal.^ Other laws, again, regard a certain age 
eo ipso as a ground of extenuation, its upper limit being 
fixed sometimes at sixteen,'^ sometimes at eighteen,® some- 
times at twenty,^ sometimes at twenty-one.® 

Roman law, as it seems, made out a pr<£Sumptio juris 
of general incapacity to commit a crime under puberty, 
rebuttable by evidence of capacity, at any rate in the 
age called “ next to puberty,” the limits of which are 
not clearly settled.® In the Irish Book of Aicill it is 
said that “ the man who incites a fool is he who pays 
for his crime”; and to this the Commentary adds that 
a man is a fool till the end of seven years, and a fool 
of half sense till the end of fourteen’ — a provision 
similar to that of Canon Law.® According to Muham- 
medan law, the rule of talion is applicable only to 
persons of age.® In China criminal responsibility is 
affected not only by youth, but by old age as well. 

“ Offenders whose age is not more than seven nor less 

than ninety years, shall not suffer punishment in any case, 
except in that of treason or rebellion.” “ Any ofender 
whose age is not more ^'han ten nor less than eighty 

years, . . . shall, when the crime is capital, but not 

^ Strafgesetzbuch, art. 56. 

^ Dutch law (van Hamel, loc. cit, p, 
444 )- 

® Spanish {CSdigo Penal reformadoy 
art. 9, § 2), Swedish (Uppstrdin, lot. 
cit p. 484), Finnish (Forsman, loc. 
cit. p. 566) law. 

^ Austrian law (Finger, op. cit. i. 
112). 

® Italian {Codice Penale.^ art. 56), 
Russian (Foinitzki, loc. cit. p. 529), 
Portuguese (Tavares de Medeiros, loc. 
cit, p. 199), Brazilian {Codigo Penal 
dos Estcvdos Unidos do Brazil, art. 
42, §11) law. According to the Otto- 
man Penal Code, art. 40, “ a guilty 
person who has not arrived at the age 
of puberty may not be punished with 
the punishment enacted against the 
offence of which he has been . found 
guilty.” 

® Clark, Analysis of Criminal 

Liability, p. 70. von Jhering, Pas 
Schuldmoment hn rbmischen PrivuL 
recht, p. 42 sqq. Mommsen, Romisches 
Sir afr edit, p. 75 sq. In the Jnstitn- 
tiones (i. 22) puberty is fixed at the 
completion of the fourteenth year for 
males, and of the twelfth for females. 
According to the Law of the Twelve 
Tables, children were punished for 
theft, though less severely than adults 
(Gellius, Nodes Attica, xi. 18. 8, 
Pliny, Historia naturalis, xviii. 3). 

^ Ancient Laws of Ireland, iii. I 57 » 

® Katz, Grnndriss des kanonischen 
Strafrechts, p. 8, 

® Sachau, Muhammedanisckes Recht, 
p. 762. Jaffur Shurreef says {Qanoon-e- 
Islam, p. 36) that, among the Muham- 
medans of India, previous to the period 
of puberty all the good and evil deeds 
of boys and girls are laid to the charge 
of their parents. 

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY 

amounting to treason, be recommended to the particular 
consideration and decision of His Imperial Majesty.” 
And “ any offender whose age is not more than fifteen, 
nor less than seventy years . . . shall be allowed to 
redeem himself from any punishment less than capital, by 
the payment of the established fine, except in the case of 
persons condemned to banishment as accessories to the 
crimes of treason, rebellion, murder of three or more persons 
in one family, or homicide by magic or poisoning, upon all 
of which offenders the laws shall be strictly executed.”^ 
According to early custom, children who have com- 
mitted an injury are sometimes,^ but not always,^ subject 
to the rule of retaliation. Even in Homeric Greece, man- 
slaughter committed in childhood seems to have been 
visited with banishment for life.^ In other cases, parents 
are responsible for the deeds of their children,® Among 
the West African Fjort, for instance, children are not 
themselves liable for their actions, but the injured party 
can claim compensation from the parents if he likes to do 
so.® Among the Teutons, “ like the master for the slave, 
the father answered for and made claims on behalf of 
the child. The ceremony of investing him with arms as 
a wehrhafty or weapon-bearing member of the community, 
was the usual period for the assumption of rights and 
liabilities ; and this customarily (not always) took place 
at the age of twelve.” According to ancient Swedish law, 
an injury was treated in the same way as if it had been 
accidental, in case the offender was under the age of 
fifteen ; ® according to the Icelandic Gragas, in case he was 

^ Ta Tsing Leu Lee^ sec. xxii. p. 23 ® Nicole, in Steinmetz, Reehfsver- 

s^. halinisse.t p. 132 (Diakite-Sarrakolese). 

2 Senfft, in Steinmetz, Rechtsver- Marx, ibid. p. 357 (Amahlubi). 

hdltnisse^ p. 449 (Marshall Islanders). ® Dennett, in Jour, African Society ^ 

Miklosich, ‘ Blutrache bei den Slaven,’ i. 276. 

in Denkschriften d. kaiserl. Akademic ^ Wigmore, ‘ Responsibility for Tor- 

d, Wtssensch. Philos. -hist, Classe, tious Acts,’ in Harvard Law Review^ 

Vienna, xxxvi. 13 1 (Tufks of Daghe- vii. 447. 

kan). See also supra^ p. 217 ® Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, 

^ Lang, in Steinmetz, Rechtsver- p. 642 sq, Nordstrom, Bidrag till den 
hdltnissey p. 257 (Washambala). svenskasamhdllsjorfattningenshisioriay 

^ Iliad ^ xxiii. 85 sqq, Cf, Muller. ii. 73 * Cfyon Amixo.^ Nordgervianisckes 

dissertations on the Eumenides, p. 95. Obligationenrechty i. 375 sq. 

AGENTS UNDER 

under sixteen.’^ However, as we have seen, accidental 
injuries had to be paid for. Where offences are dealt 
with according to the principle of compensation, it is 
impossible to decide how far parents’ liability for their 
children involves a recognition of the moral irresponsibility 
of the child, or is simply due to the fact that children, 
having no property, are themselves unable to compensate. 
That the latter point of view was largely adopted by early 
custom and law appears from the fact that, when com- 
pensation was succeeded by punishment, the period of 
irresponsibility was reduced. In England the age-limit 
of twelve years, which prevailed in Anglo-Norman days, 
was afterwards disregarded in criminal cases.^ We read in 
the Northumberland Assize Roll, a.d. i 279, “ Reginald 
. . . aged four, by misadventure slew Robert . . . aged 
two ; the justice granted that he might have his life and 
members because of his tender age.”® A little later we 
hear that a child under the age of seven shall not suffer 
judgment in a case of homicide.* In 1457, an infant of 
four was held liable in trespass, though the language of 
the court shows a disposition to exempt the infant.® From 
the eighteenth century instances are recorded of a girl of 
thirteen who was burnt for killing her mistress, and of a 
boy of eight who was hanged for arson.® In 1748, a boy 
of ten, being convicted for the murder of a girl of five, 
was sentenced to death, and all the judges to whom this 
case was reported agreed that, “ in justice to the publick,” 
the law ought to take its course. The execution, however, 
was respited, and the boy at last had the benefit of His 
Majesty’s pardon.'^ It appears from these facts, and from 
others of a similar character referring to continental 
countries,® that there has been a tendency to raise the age 

^ Grdgds^ Vigsloi>i, 32, vol. ii. 63. LaWy p. 124. 

2 Wigmore, loc, cit. p. 447. ^ Foster, Report of Crown CaseSy p. 

^ Three Early Assize Rolls for the yo sqq. 

County of Northuinberlandy p. 323. ® Trummer, op, cit. i. 428, 432 sqq^ 

^ Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. ii. (Germany). Jousse, Traitd de la jus- 
484. tice criniineUe de Franccy^ ii. 617; 

® Wigmore, loc, cit. p. 447 sq. n. 7. Tissot, Droit pthiaf i. 30 (France). 

^ History of Modern English 

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY 

at which full legal responsibility commences. And we 
have reason to hope that legislation has not yet said its 
last word on the subject. 

The principle that intellectual incapacity lessens or 
excludes responsibility also applies to idiots and madmen. 
Though idiots are able to acquire some knowledge of 
general moral rules, the application of those rules is fre- 
quently beyond their powers and their capacity of fore- 
seeing the consequences of their acts is necessarily very 
restricted. The same to some extent holds good of 
madmen ; but, as will be shown in the next chapter, there 
is another ground for their irresponsibility besides the 
derangement of the intellect. 

All modern laws admit that, at least under certain cir- 
cumstances, idiocy or madness exempts a person from 
criminal responsibility. According to Roman law, lunatics 
were even free from the obligation of paying indemnities 
for losses inflicted by them and so mild was their lot at 
Rome, that it became a practice for citizens to shirk their 
public duties by feigning madness.® Even savages recog- 
nise that lunatics and maniacs are not responsible for their 
deeds. The Abipones maintained that it was “ wrong 
and irrational to use arms against those who are not in 
possession of their senses.” ■* Among the North American 
Potawatomis many “ are said to be ‘ foolish,’ and not 
sensible of crime.”"’ The Iroquois are “ persuaded that 
a person who is not in his right senses is not to be repre- 
hended, or at least not to be punished.”® Hennepin states 
that “ they had one day in the year which might be called 
the Festival of Fools ; for in fact they pretended to be 
mad, rushing from hut to hut, so that if they ill-treated 
any one or carried off anything, they would say next day, 

^ von KrafTt-Ebing, Lehrbuch der ^ Digestay xxvii. 10. 6. 
gerichtlichen Psychopat hoiogiCy p. 70. ^ Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abi- 

' ^ von Vangerow, Lehrbuch der Pan- poneSy ii. 234. 

dekteUy iii. 36. von Jhering, Das ® Keating, Expedition to the Source 
Schuldmoment im romischen Privat- of St. Peteds River y\. 127. 
rechty p. 42. Thon, Rechtsnorm und ® Charlevoix, Voyage to North 
subjectives Rechty p. 106, n. 70. AmericUy ii, 24 sq. 

AGENTS UNDER 

‘ I was mad ; I had not my senses about me.’ And the 
others would accept this explanation and exact no venge- 
ance.”^ The Melanesians “are sorry for lunatics and are 
kind to them, though their remedies are rough ” ; at 
Florida, for instance, a man went out of his mind, chased 
people, stole things and hid them, but “ no one blamed 
him, because they knew that he was possessed by a tindalo 
ghost.” ^ Among the West African Fjort fools and idiots 
are not responsible personally for their actions.^ Among 
the Wadshagga crimes committed by lunatics are judged 
of more leniently than others. Among the Matabele 
madmen, being supposed to be possessed of a spirit, 
“ were formerly under the protection of the King.” ^ In 
Eastern Africa the natives say of an idiot or a lunatic, 
“He has fiends.”® El Hajj ‘ Abdssalam Shabeeny states 
that in Hausaland “ a man guilty of a crime, who in 
the opinion of the judge is possessed by an evil spirit, is 
not punished.”^ 

The idea that derangement of the mind is due to spiritual 
possession, often makes the idiot or the insane an object 
of religious reverence.® The Macusis regard lunatics as 
holy.® The Brazilian Paravilhana believe that idiots are 
inspired.^® According to Schoolcraft, “regard for lunatics, 
or the demented members of the human race, is a universal 
trait among the American tribes.” “ So, also, the African 
Barolong give a kind of worship to deranged persons, who 
are said to be under the direct influence of a deity.^^ A 
certain kind of madness was regarded by the ancient 
Greeks as a divine gift, and consequently as “superior to 
a sane mind.”^® Lane states that, among the modern 

^ Hennepin, Descriptiort de la ^ * Abdssalam Shabeeny, Account 
Louisiane^ Les Moeurs des Sauvages, of Timbuctoo and Housa, p. 49. 
p. 71 s(/, ® Cf Tylor, Primitive Culture^ ii. 

^ Codrington, Melanesians ^ p. 218. 128. 

^ Dennett, in Jour. African Society ^ ® Andree, Ethnographische Paral- 

i. 276. leleuy Neue Folge, p. 3. 

^ Merker, quoted by Kohler, in von Martius, Beitrdge zur Eihno- 

Zeitschr. f vergL Rechtswiss. xv. 64. graphic Amerikd'Sy i. 633. 

® Decle, Three Years in Savage Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the 

Africa^ p. 154. United States^ iv. 49. 

® Burton, Labe Regions of Central Tylor, Primitive Culture^ ii. 130. 

Africa^ ii. 320. Plato, Phadrus^ p. 244. 

Egyptians, an idiot or a fool is vulgarly regarded “as a 
being whose mind is in heaven, while his grosser part 
mingles among ordinary mortals ; consequently he is con- 
sidered an especial favourite of heaven. Whatever enor- 
mities a reputed saint may commit (and there are many 
who are constantly infringing precepts of their religion), 
such acts do not affect his fame for sanctity ; for they are 
considered as the results of the abstraction of his mind 
from worldly things — his soul, or reasoning faculties, being 
wholly absorbed in devotion — so that his passions are left 
without control. Lunatics who are dangerous to society 
are kept in confinement, but those who are harmless are 
generally regarded as saints,”* The same holds good of 
Morocco. Lunatics are not even obliged to observe the 
Ramadan fast, the most imperative of all religious duties ; 
of a person who, instead of abstaining from all food till 
sunset, was taking his meal in broad daylight in the open 
street, I heard the people forgivingly say, “The poor 
fellow does not know what he is doing, his mind is with 
God.” ' 

On the other hand there are peoples who treat their 
lunatics in a very different manner. The tribes of Western 
Victoria put them to death, “ as they have a very great 
dread of mad people.”* In Kar Nicobar madness is said 
to be the only cause for a death “ penalty ” that seems to 
exist there, the afflicted individual being garrotted with two 
pieces of bamboo ; * but this practice seems to be a method 
of getting rid of a dangerous individual, rather than a 
penalty in the proper sense of the word. Among the 
Washambala a lunatic who commits homicide is killed — 
as our informant observes, “ not really on account of his 
deed, but in order to prevent him from causing further 
mischief.”* Among the Turks of Daghestan, we are told, 
mad people are subject to the rule of blood-revenge.® 

, * Lane, Manners anct Customs of ® Dawson, op. cit, p. 6l. 

the Modern Egyptians, p. 237. * Distant, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iii. 

^ Cf, Griberg di Hemso, Specchio 6. 
geograjico, e - statistico delP impero ® Lang, in Steinmelz, Rechtsver^ 
Alaroccoy p. 182 sq* kaiinisse, p. 257. 

® Miklosich, loc. cit, p. 131. 

AGENTS UNDER 

In China lunatics are held responsible for their acts, 
although the ordinary penalty applicable is commuted, as, 
for instance, in murder to imprisonment with fetters 
subject to His Majesty’s pleasure. But when a lunatic 
deliberately kills his parents or grandparents, a representa- 
tion will not serve ; he is to be executed at once on the spot 
where the murder was committed or on the city execution 
ground, and the sentence — slicing to pieces — is to be carried 
out in all its horror though the lunatic be already dead.’ 

According to ancient Welsh law, no vengeance is to be 
exercised against an idiot,- nor is the king to have any fine 
for the act of such a person.® But, “ if idiots kill other 
persons, let galanas [that is, blood-money] be paid on their 
behalf, as for other persons ; because their kindred ought 
to prevent them doing wrong.” ^ The Swedish provincial 
laws treated an injury committed by a lunatic in the same 
manner as an injury by misadventure, provided that the 
relatives of the injurer had publicly announced his mad- 
ness, or, according to some laws, had kept him tied in 
bonds which he had broken ; but if they had omitted to 
do so, the injury was treated as if it had been done wil- 
fully.® The Icelandic Gragas even lays down the rule that 
a madman who has committed homicide shall suffer the 
same punishment as a sane person guilty of the same 
crime.® In England, in the times of Edward II. and 
Edward III., proof of madness appears not to have 
.entitled a man to be acquitted, at least in case of murder,- 
but to a special verdict that he committed the offence 
when mad, and this gave him a right to pardon. Such a 
right, indeed, implies the admission that lunacy has a 
claim to forbearance ; but from what we know about the 
treatment of lunatics during the Middle Ages and much 
later, we cannot be sure that the insane offender escaped 

^ AlaJ^astcr, Commentaries on Chi- p. 98). 
nese Lchv, pp, 93, 96. Cf. Dougla.s, Welsh Laws, iv. i. 2 {ibid. p. 

Society in China, pp. 72, 122. 389)* 

^ Dimetian Code, ii. i. 32 {Ancient ® von Amira, Nordgermanisches 
Latus and Institutes of Wales, p. Obligationemrecht, i. 375. 

200). ^ Grdgds, Vigslot»i, 33, voL ii. 64. 

^ V^enedotian Code^ ii. 28. 3 {ibid. ^ Stephen, op. cit. ii. 151. 

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY 

all punishment. In a case which occurred in 1315, it was 
presented that a certain lunatic wounded himself with a 
knife, and finally died of his wounds ; his chattels were 
confiscated.^ Lord Bacon says in his ‘ Maxims of the 
Law,’ “ If an infant within years of discretion, or a mad- 
man, kill another, he shall not be impeached thereof ; but 
if he put out a man’s eye, or do him like corporal hurt, 
he shall be punished in trespass in these latter cases, 
“ the law doth rather consider the damage of the party 
wronged, than the malice of him that was the wrong- 
doer.”^ In none of the German town-laws before the 
beginning of the seventeenth century is there any special 
provision for the offences of lunatics ; ® and, according to 
the Statutes of Hamburg of 1605, though a madman who 
kills a person shall not be punished as an ordinary man- 
slayer, he is yet to be punished.'' In Germany recognised 
idiots and madmen were not seldom punished with great 
severity, and even with death, in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries.® One of the darkest pages in the 
history of European civilisation may be filled with a 
description of the sufferings which were inflicted upon 
those miserable beings up to quite modern times.” Many 
of them were burnt as witches or heretics, or treated as 
ordinary criminals. For unruly and crazy people, who 
nowadays would be comfortably located in an asylum, 
whipping-posts and stocks were made use of. Shakespeare 
speaks of madmen as deserving “ a dark house and a 
whip ’’ and Swift observes that original people like 
Diogenes and others, if they had lived in his day, would 
have been treated like madmen, that is, would have in- 
curred “ manifest danger of phlebotomy, and whips, and 
chains, and dark chambers, and straw.” The writings of 

^ Wigmorc, /oc. cit. p. 446. 

^ Bacon, Maxims of the Law, reg. 7 
( JVorhs, vii. 347 s{j. ). 

^ Tru miner, op. cit. i. 428. 

\ Ibid. i. 432. 

. Ibid, i, 438 s(j(]. 

See Tuke, Chapiei s in the History 
of the Insane in the British Isles, p. 

VOL. I 

43 sq. ; Maiidsley, Responsibility in 
Mental Disease, p. 10 sq. ; Lecky, 
History of Etiropean Morals, ii. 85 

Shakespeare, As yon Like it, iii. 2. 
^ Swift, Tale of a Tnb, sec. 9 
{IVorks, X. 163). 

T 

AGENTS UNDER 

Esquirol, the parliamentary debates on the asylums of 
Bedlam and York, and the reports presented under the 
auspices of La Rochefoucauld to the National Assembly of 
1789, contain a picture unique in its sadness — “ a picture 
of prisons in which lunatics, criminal lunatics, and criminals 
are huddled together indiscriminately without regard to 
sex or age, of asylums in which the maniac, to whom 
motion is an imperious necessity, is chained in the same 
cell with the victim of melancholia whom his ravings soon 
goad into furious madness, and of hospitals in which the 
epileptic, the scrofulous, the paralytic and the insane sleep 
side by side — a picture of cells, dark, foul, and damp, 
with starving, diseased, and naked inmates, flogged into 
submission, or teased into fury for the sport of idle 
spectators.” ^ 

Whatever share indifference to human suffering may 
have had in all these atrocities and all this misery, it is 
likely that thoughtlessness, superstition, and ignorance 
have had a much larger share. We have noticed that, 
when a certain deed gives a shock to public feelings, the 
circumstances in which it has been committed are easily 
lost sight of. Considering that the Chinese punish per- 
sons who have killed their father or mother by pure 
accident, it is not surprising that they punish madmen 
who kill a parent wilfully. Even a man like Smollett, 
the well-known writer, thought it would be neither 
absurd nor unreasonable for the legislature to divest all 
lunatics of the privilege of insanity in cases of enormity, 
and to subject them “ to the common penalties of the 
law.” ® Moreover, as we have seen, madness is often 
attributed to demoniacal possession,® and in other cases 
it is regarded as a divine punishment.'* From a pagan 

1 Wood-Renton, ‘ Mural Mania,* in Morocco,* in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxix. 
Laxv Quarterly Heviezv^ iii. 340. 254 ; Andree, op. at. p. 2 sq. ; Tuke, 

Smollett, quoted by Tuke, op. cit. op. cit. p. i ; Pike, History of Crime 
p. 96. in England., i. 39 ; von Krafft-Ebing, 

8 See also Doughty, Arabia Deserta.^ op. cit. p. 5. 
i. 258 sq. ; Westermarck, 'Nature of ^ Plato, Leges, ix, 854. Esquirol, 
the Arab Ginn illustrated by the maladies mentales, i. ^36, 

Present Beliefs of the People of 

point of view this would make the lunatic an object of 
pity or dread, rather than of indignation ; as the Roman 
legislator said, the insane murderer ought not to be 
punished, because his insanity itself is a sufficient penalty.^ 
But in Christian Europe, where up to quite recent times 
men were ever ready to punish God’s enemies, a lunatic, 
who was supposed to have the devil in him, or whose 
affliction was regarded as the visitation of God upon 
heresy or sin,^ was a hateful individual and was treated 
accordingly. Finally, we have to take into account that 
the sensibility of a lunatic was thought to be inferior to 
that of a sane person ; ® that the mental characteristics of 
insanity were little understood ; and that, in consequence, 
many demented persons were treated as if they were sane 
because they were thought to be sane, and others, though 
recognised as lunatics, were treated as responsible because 
they were thought to be responsible. The history of the 
English law referring to insanity bears sad testimony to 
the ignorance of which lunatics have been victims in the 
hands of lawyers. 

From the year 1724 there is a dictum of an English 
judge to the effect that a man who is to be exempted from 
punishment “ must be a man that is totally deprived of his 
understanding and memory, and doth not know what he 
is doing, no more than an infant, than a brute, or a wild 
beast.” * From the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
the power of distinguishing right from wrong in the 
abstract was regarded as the test of responsibility ; ^ whilst 
in the existing doctrine, dating from the trial of 
M‘Naughten in 1 843, the question of knowledge of 
right and wrong, instead of being put generally and 
indefinitely, is put in reference to the particular act 
at the particular time of committing it.” This series 
of doctrines certainly shows a noteworthy progress 

^ Digesta^ i. 18. 14; xlviii. 9. 9. ® Harris, Principles of the Criminal 

^ Wood-Renton, loc. cit. p. 339. Law, p. 18. Kenny, op. cit. p. 53. 

® Ibid. p. 339, ® Clark and Finnelly, Reports of 

^ Howell, Collection of State Trials, Cases decided in the House of Lords, 
765. X. 202. 

T % 

in discrimination. But at the same time the answers 
given by the fourteen English judges to the questions 
put to them by the House of Lords in consequence 
of M‘Naughten’s case still display an ignorance which 
would nowadays be hardly possible. In reply to the 
question — “If a person under an insane delusion as to 
existing facts, commits an offence in consequence thereof, 
is he thereby excused ? ” — the judges declared that, on the 
assumption “ that he labours under such partial delusion 
only, and is not in other respects insane, ... he must be 
considered in the same situation as to responsibility as if 
the facts with respect to which the delusion exists were 
real. P'or example, if under the influence of his delusion 
he supposes another man to be in the act of attempting to 
take away his life, and he kills that man, as he supposes, 
in self-defence, he would be exempt from punishment. If 
his delusion was that the deceased had inflicted a serious 
injury to his character and fortune, and he killed him in 
revenge for such supposed injury, he would be liable to 
punishment.” ^ The mistake committed in this answer 
does not lie in the conclusion, but in the premise. 
“Here,” as Professor Maudsley observes, “ is an unhesi- 
tating assumption that a man, having an insane de- 
lusion, has the power to think and act in regard to it 
reasonably ; that, at the time of the offence, he ought to 
have and to exercise the knowledge and self-control which 
a sane man would have and exercise, were the facts with 
respect to which the delusion exists real ; that he is, in 
fact, bound to be reasonable in his unreason, sane in his 
insanity.” ^ Modern science, however, teaches us another 
lesson. It has shown that a delusion of the kind suggested 
never stands alone, but is in all cases the result of a disease 
of the brain which interferes more or less with every 
function of the mind, and that few insane persons who do 
violence can be truly said to have a full knowledge of the 
nature and quality of their acts at the rime they are per- 

^ /drc^. X. 21 1 , 

^ Maudsley, 0/. cit. p. 97. 

INTELLECTUAL DISABILI FY 

forming them.^ A perhaps still greater defect in the 
doctrine of the fourteen judges is the absence of all refer- 
ence to the influence of insane impulses ; but with this 
subject we are not concerned at present. In this connection 
my object has been merely to show that the irresponsibility 
of the insane, in so far as it consists in intellectual derange- 
ment, has been generally recognised in proportion as their 
intellectual derangement has been recognised, and that the 
exceptions to this rule are explicable from beliefs which, 
though materially affecting the treatment of the insane, 
have no reference to the principle of responsibility itself. 

There are temporary states of mind in which the agent 
no more knows what he is doing than an idiot or a mad- 
man, such as somnambulism, narcosis, fury. For these 
states, of course, the rule holds good, that nobody is 
responsible for what he does in ignorance, although he 
may be responsible for his ignorance. Responsibility in 
connection with anger and rage will be more appropriately 
dealt with in another place. I shall here restrict myself 
to the case of drunkenness. 

A person is irresponsible, or only partly responsible, 
for what he does when drunk, according as he is ignorant 
of the nature of his act, as also in so far as the intoxicant 
contributed to the rise of some powerful impulse which 
determined his will. If he commits an offence in a state 
of extreme intoxication, he can reasonably be blamed only 
for what he did when sober. If he made himself drunk 
for the purpose of committing the offence, then the offence 
is intended, and he is equally responsible for his act as if 
he had accomplished it straightway. If he became in- 
toxicated without any fault of his, for instance, if he did 
not know, and could not know, the intoxicating quality of 
the liquor which made him drunk, he is free from blame. 
But in other cases ^he is guilty of heedlessness, or rashness, 
or, if he foresaw the danger, of blamable indifference to 

^ Griesinger, Mental Pathology and Therapeutics^ p. 72 sq. Maudsley, op, 

cit, p. 96, 

AGENTS UNDER 

the probable consequences of his act. This is the clear 
theory of the question. But we cannot expect to find it 
accurately expressed in practice. 

Very generally drunkenness is recognised as a ground 
of extenuation. We hear from various sources that the 
North American Indians were exceedingly merciful to 
intoxicated offenders. According to Charlevoix, the 
Iroquois “ suffer themselves to be ill used by drunken 
people, without defending themselves, for fear of hurting 
them. If you endeavour to shew them the folly of this 
conduct, they say, ‘ Why should we hurt them They 
know not what they do. ’ ” Even “ if a savage kills 
another belonging to his cabin, if he is drunk (and they 
often counterfeit drunkenness when they intend to commit 
such actions),^ all the consequence is, that they pity and 
weep for the dead. ‘ It is a misfortune (they say), the 
murderer knew not what he did.’ ” ^ James makes a 
similar statement with reference to the Omahas.® In his 
description of the aborigines of Pennsylvania, Blome 
observes, “ It is rare that they fall out, if sober ; and 
if drunk they forgive it, saying, it was the drink, 
and not the man. that abused them.”^ Benjamin 
Franklin tells us of some Indians who had misbehaved in 
a state of intoxication, and in consequence sent three of 
their old men to apologise ; “ the orator acknowledged 
the fault, but laid it upon the rum, and then endeavoured 
to excuse the rum.” ® The detestable deeds which men 
did under the influence of fulcre, or the native Mexican 
wine, the Aztecs attributed to the god of wine or to the 
wine itself, and not in the least to the drunken man. 
Indeed, if anybody spoke ill of or insulted an intoxicated 
person, he was liable to be punished for disrespect to the 
god by which that person was supposed to be possessed. 

^ Cf. Hennepin, op, cit. p. 71. murder committed in drunkenness. 

^ Charlevoix, op. cit. ii. 23, 25. 2 Expedition from Pittsburgh 

According to X^oskiel {Histo 9 y of the to the Rocky Mountains.^ i. 265. 

Mission of the United Brethren among ^ Rlome, in Buchanan, North 
the Indians in North America, i. 16), American Indians, p. 328. 
the Iroquois, though they laid all the ® Franklin, Autobiography, c\i, ix, 
blame on the rum, punished severely ifVorkSyX. 164), 

INTELLECrUAL DISABItli Y 

Hence, says Sahagun, it was believed, not without ground, 
that the Indians made themselves drunk on purpose to 
commit with impunity crimes for which they would have 
been punished if they had committed them sober.^ 
Among the Karens of India “ men are not unfrequently 
killed in drunken broils ; but such cases are not allowed 
by Karen custom to be a cause of action. No price can 
be demanded for persons who lose their lives in such cir- 
cumstances. It is argued there was no malice, no intention 
to kill ; and the person who died was perhaps as much to 
blame as the man who killed him ; and people are not 
well responsible for what they do in a state of intoxica- 
tion.” ^ Among the Kandhs, “ for wounds, however 
serious, given under circumstances of extreme provocation, 
or in a drunken squabble, slight compensation is awarded.”® 
Among some of the Marshall Islanders blood-revenge is 
generally not taken for an act of homicide which has been 
committed in drunkenness, compensation being accepted 
instead.^ So, also, according to the ancient law, of the 
East Frisians, a man who has killed another when 
drunk is allowed “ to buy off his neck by a sum of money 
paid to the king and to the relatives of the slain.” ® 

Roman law regarded drunkenness as a ground of 
extenuation ; the Jurist Marcian mentions ebrietas as an 
example of impetus y thereby intimating that a drunken 
person, when committing a crime, should not be put on 
the same footing with an offender acting in cold blood,"? 
and calculating his act with clear consciousness.’^ In 
Canon law drunkenness is said to be a ground which 
deserves the indulgence of a reasonable judge, because 
whatever is done in that state is done without conscious- 
ness on the part of the actor.® Indeed, had not God shown 

^ Sahagun, Hist or ia general de las f vergl, Recktswiss. xiv. 446. 
cosas de Niieva Espafla^ i. 22, vol. I. ® Das Ostfriesische Land-Recht, iii, 
40. . 18. 

2 Mason, in Joiir. As, Soc, Bengal^ ® Digesla, xlviii. 19. ri. 2; xlix, 16. 
XXX vii. pt. ii. 146. 6. 7. Mommsen, Rbmisches Straf- 

^ Maepherson, Memorials of Ser- recht^ p. 1043. 
vice in India^ p. 82. ^ Digesta^ xlviii, 19. ii. 2. 

* Jung, quoted by Kohler, in ® Gratian, Decretum^ ii, 15. r. 7. 

28 o agents under chap. 

indulgence for the offence committed by Lot when 
drunk Partly on the authority of Roman law, partly 
on that of Canon law, the earliest practitioners of the 
Middle Ages followed the principle that drunkenness is a 
ground of extenuation ; and this doctrine remained 
strongly rooted in the later jurisprudence, in which a 
drunken person was likened to one under the influence of 
sleep, or drunkenness was regarded as equivalent to in- 
sanity.^ It was not until the sixteenth century that a 
mere general rule, with regard to drunkenness as a ground 
of extenuation, was felt to be insufficient. Since the time 
of Clarus, especially, the opinion began to prevail, that the 
effect of the highest degree of drunkenness was, indeed, to 
exempt from the punishment of dolus, but that the offender 
was still subject to the punishment of culpa, except in two 
cases, namely, first, when he inebriated himself intentionally, 
and with a consciousness that he might commit a crime while 
drunk, in which case the drunkenness was not allowed to 
be any ground of exculpation at all ; and, secondly, when 
he became intoxicated without any fault on his part, as, 
for example, in consequence of inebriating substances having 
been mingled with his wine by his comrades, in which 
case he was relieved even from the punishment of culpad' 
These views, in the main, gradually determined the 
German practice, and similar opinions prevailed in the 
practice of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands.* 
In the annals of Prussian criminal justice of 1824, a case 
is reported of a man who was punished with only one year’s 
imprisonment for having killed his little child in a state of 
drunkenness.® In other countries a different principle was 
acted upon. An ordinance of Francis I. declared that 
drunkenness should not in any case absolve from the 
ordinary punishment ; ® and this rule was sanctioned and 

^ Ibid, ii. 15. I. 9. Penaie, art. 46 S(/q. Spanish Codigo 

^ Mittermaier, Effect of Drunkenness I^enal ref or tnado, art. 9, §6. 
on Criffiinal Responsibility, p, 6. ® Zeitschr. f die Criminal- Rechts- 

Clams, Practica criminalis, qu. lx. Pflege in den Preussischen Staaten, 
nr. II {Opera omnia, ii. 462). edited by Ilitzig, iii. 60. 

^ Mittermaier, op. cit. p. 7. Du ® Isambert, Decrusy, and Armet, 
Boys, Histoirc du droit criminel de Recited giniral des anciennes lots 
V Espagne, p. 290. Italian Codice fran^aises, xii. 527. 

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY 

applied by the later French jurisprudence^ In Code 
P^nal, the state of drunkenness is not mentioned as a 
mitigating circumstance ; yet the rigour of the law has 
been tempered by the doctrine that intoxication produces 
a temporary insanity and that every kind of insanity is a 
ground of exculpation/^ In F/ngland/ Scotland/ and the 
United States/ a state of voluntary drunkenness is no 
excuse for crime. Speaking of a person who commits 
homicide when drunk, Hale says that ‘‘ by the laws of 
England such a person shall have no privilege by this 
voluntary contracted madness, but shall have the same 
judgment as if he were in his right senses.^’ However, 
in a case where the intention with which the act was done 
is the essence of the offence, the drunkenness of the accused 
may be taken into account by the jury when considering 
the motive or intent with which he acted. ^ Accoraing to 
Chinese law, also, intoxication does not affect the question 
of responsibility.^ 

The great forbearance with which injuries inflicted in a 
state of intoxication are treated by various peoples at com- 
paratively low stages of civilisation, is no doubt, to some 
extent, due to lack of foresight. Failing to anticipate the 
harmful consequences which may follow from drunkenness, 
they also fail to recognise the culpability of indulging in 
it. The American Indians are notorious drunkards, and 
look upon drunkenness as a ‘delightful frolick.” Among 
the Kandhs drunkenness is likewise universal, and their 
“ orgies are evidently not regarded as displeasing to their 
gods.” The belief that an intoxicated person is possessed 
with a demon and acts under its influence, also helps 

^ Mittermaier, op, cit. p. 8. 

2 Ibid, p. 12 sq. Riviere, !oc, cit, 

p. 7. 

3 Stephen, History of the Criminal 
Law of England^ ii. 165, 

^ Hume, Comnientaries ^on the Law 
of Scotland^ i. 38. Erskine-Rankine, 
op, cit, p. 545. 

® Bishop, op. cit. §4CX) sq, vol. 1. 231 

° Hale, op. cit. i. 32. 

^ Harris, op. cit, p. 21. Stephen, 

Digest,^ art. 32, p. 22. 

^ Giles, Strange Stories from a 
Chinese Studio, ii. 30, n. 2. 

^ Adair, Lli story of the American 
Indians y p. 5. North American 

Indians, ii. 251. Golden, in School- 
craft, Indian Tribes, iii. 19 1. Pres- 
cott, ibid, iii. 242. James, op, cit. i. 
265. 

10 Campbell, Wild Tribes of Khon^ 
distan, p. 165. Macpherson, op. cit, 
p. 81 sq. 

to excuse him.^ On the other hand, where the law makes 
no difference between an offender who is sober and an 
offender who is drunk, the culpability of the latter is 
exaggerated in consequence of the stirring effect which the 
outward event has upon public feelings. So great is the 
influence of the event that certain laws, most unreason- 
ably, punish a person both for what he does when drunk 
and for making himself drunk. Thus Aristotle tells us 
that legislators affixed double penalties to crimes committed 
in drunkenness.^ The same was done by Charles V., in 
an edict of 1531,® and by Francis I. in 1536.^ Hardly 
more reasonable is it that the very society which shows 
no mercy whatever to the intoxicated offender, is most 
indulgent to the act of intoxication itself when not 
accompanied by injurious consequences. ,Of course it may 
be argued that drunkenness is blamable in proportion as 
the person who indulges in it might expect it to lead to 
mischievous results. It has also been said that, if drunken- 
ness were allowed to excuse, the gravest crimes might be 
committed with impunity by those who either counter- 
feited the state or actually assumed it. Some people even 
maintain that inebriation brings out a person’s true charac- 
ter. In a Chinese story we read, “ Many drunkards will 
tell you that they cannot remember in the morning the 
extravagances of the previous night, but I tell you this is 
all nonsense, and that in nine cases out of ten those extravag- 
ances are committed wittingly and with malice prepense.”® 
However, with all allowance for such considerations, I 
venture to believe that in this, as in many other cases 
where an injury results from want of foresight, the extreme 
severity of certain laws is largely due to the fact that the 
legislator has been more concerned with the external deed 
than with its source. 

^ Cf. Dorsey, ‘ Siouan Cults,’ in nalium^ Ixxxiv. 20, p. 241. 

Ann, Kep, Bur, Ethii. xi. 424. ^ Isambert, Decrusy, and Armet, op, 

^ Aristotle, Eihica Nicomacheay iii. cit, xii. 527. 

5 * ® Giles, op, cit. ii. 30. 

^ Damhouder, Praxis rerwn crimi-

MOTIVES 

No enlightened and conscientious moral judge can 
regard his judgment as final, unless he know the motive, 
or motives, of the volition by which his judgment is 
occasioned. But in ordinary moral estimates little atten- 
tion is paid to motives. Men desire that certain acts 
should be performed, and that certain other acts 
should be abstained from. The conative causes of acts 
or forbearances are not equally interesting, and they are 
often hidden. They are considered only in proportion as 
the moral judgment is influenced by reflection. 

Take, for instance, acts which are performed from a 
sense of duty. It is commonly said that a person ought 
to obey his conscience. Yet, in point of fact, by doing so 
he may expose himself to hardly less censure than does the 
greatest villain. The reason for this is not far to seek. 
A man’s moral conviction is to some extent an expression 
of his character, hence he may be justly blamed for having 
a certain moral conviction. And the blame which he may 
deserve on that account is easily exaggerated, partly 
because people are apt to be very intolerant concerning 
opinions of right and wrong which differ from their own, 
partly owing to the influence which external events 
exercise upon their minds. 

Somewhat greater discrimination is shown in regard to 
motives consisting of powerful non-volitional conations 
which in no way represent the agent’s character, but to which 

MOTIVES 

he yields reluctantly, or by which he is carried away on the 
spur of the moment. In many such cases even the law — 
which regards it as no excuse if a person commits a crime 
from a feeling of duty ’ — displays more or less indulgence 
to the perpetrator of a harmful deed. 

Thus, in the eye of the law, compulsion is oftentimes a 
ground of extenuation. Strictly speaking, a volition can 
never be compelled into existence ; ^ to act under compul- 
sion really means to act under the influence of some 
non-voluntary motive, so powerful that every ordinary 
human will would yield to it. As Aristotle puts it, pardon 
is given when “ a man has done what he ought not to have 
done through fear of things beyond the power of human 
nature to endure, and such that no man could undergo 
them. And yet, perhaps, there are some things which a 
man must never allow himself to be compelled to do, but 
must rather choose death by the most exquisite torments.” ® 
This principle has been in some degree recognised by 
legislation. In many cases of felony, if a married woman 
commits the crime in the presence of her husband, the law 
of England presumes that she acts under his coercion, and 
therefore excuses her from punishment, unless the pre- 
sumption of law is rebutted by evidence ; * but children 
and servants are not acquitted if committing crimes by the 
command of a parent or a master.® Besides the presump- 
tion made in favour of married women, compulsion by 
threats of injury to person or property is recognised as an 
excuse for crime only, as it seems, in cases in which the 
compulsion is applied by a body of rebels or rioters, and 
in which the offender takes a subordinate part in the 
offence.® In a time of peace, on the other hand, though 
a man be violently assaulted, and have no other possible 

^ Cf. the case Reg. v. Morby, Law Crown^ i. 44 434. Harris, Prin- 

Reports ^ Cases determined in the Queen^s ciples of the Critninal Law, p. 25. 
Bench Division, viii, 571 sqq. Stephen, History of the Criminal I^aw 

2 Bradley, Ethical Studies, p. 40, of England, ii. 105 sq. 
n. I. ® Hale, op, cit. i. 44. Harris, op. cit, 

® Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, iii. p. 26. 
i. q sq, ® Stephen, op, cit. ii. 106. 

^ Hale, History of the Pleas of the 

MOTIVES 

means of escaping death but by killing an innocent person, 
if he commit the act he will be guilty of murder ; “ for he 
ought rather to die himself, than kill an innocent.” ^ It 
has even been laid down as a general principle that “ the 
apprehension of personal danger does not furnish any 
excuse for assisting in doing any act which is illegal.” ^ But 
the English law relating to duress per minas^ and to con- 
straint in general, seems to be harsher both than most 
modern continental laws ® and than Roman law.^ Some 
of the Italian practitioners were even of opinion that a 
person who committed homicide by the command of his 
prince or some other powerful man was exempt from all 
punishment.® According to the Talmud, any offence per- 
petrated under compulsion or in mortal fear is excusable 
in the eye of the law, excepting only murder and adultery.® 
Suppose, again, that the motive of breaking the law is 
what has been called “compulsion by necessity.” The old 
instance of shipwrecked persons in a boat unable to carry 
them all is a standing illustration of this principle. Sir 
James Stephen says, that “ should such a case arise, it is 
impossible to suppose that the survivors would be subjected , 
to legal punishment.” ’’ Yet, in a very similar case, occur- 
ring in the year 1884, they were. Three men and a boy 
escaped in an open boat from the shipwreck of the yacht 
Mignonette. After passing eight days without food, and 
seeing no prospect of relief, the men killed the boy, who was 

^ Hale, op. cit. i. 51. Harris, op, 
cit, p. 24 $q. 

^ Denman, C. J., in Reg. v. Tyler, 
reported in Carrington and Payne, Re- 
ports of Cases argued and ruled at Nisi 
Prius^ viii. 621. 

* Code PMal, art. 64 ; Chauveau and 
H61ic, Thiorie du Code Pinal ^ i. 534 
sqq, Italian Codice Penale^ art. 49. 
Spanish Cddigo Penal reformado^ art. 
^> § 9 Finger, Compendium des 

osterreichischen Rechtes—*Das Sir of - 
rechty i. 119. Foinitzki, in Ligislation 
pinale comparie^ edited by von Liszt, 
p. 530 (Russian law). Ottoman Penal 
Code., art. 42. 

Mommsen, Romisehes Strafrecht^ 

P ^53* Janka, Der strafrechtliche 
Not stands p. 48, 

® Janka, op, cit. p. 60. A different 
view, however, is expressed by Covar- 
riivias i^De matri??ioniis^ ii. 3. 4. 6 sq. 
[Opera ofmiia., i. 139]) : — “ Metusnum- 
quam excusat nec a mortali, nec a 
veniali crimine. Peccatum maximum 
malum, nec eo quid grauius.” 

® Benny, Criminal Code of the [ews 
according to the Talmud Massecketk 
Synhedriny p. 125. 

^ Stephen, op. cit. ii. 108. So, also, 
according to Bacon’s Maxims of the 
Law, reg. 5 { IVorks, vii. 344), homi^ 
cide is in such a case justifiable, 

MOTIVES 

on the verge of death, in order to feed on his body. Four 
days later they were rescued by a passing ship ; and, on 
their arrival in England, two of the men w6re tried for the 
murder of the boy. The defence raised was that the act 
was necessary for the purpose of self-preservation. But it 
was held by the Court for Crown Cases Reserved, that 
such necessity was no justification of the act of causing 
death when there was the distinct intention to take away 
the life of another innocent person. However, the sentence 
of death was afterwards commuted by the Crown to six 
months’ imprisonment^ In the same case it was even said 
that if the boy had had food in his possession, and the 
others had taken it from him, they would have been guilty 
of theft.^ Bacon’s proposition that “ if a man steal viands 
to satisfy his present hunger, this is no felony nor 
larceny,” ® is not law at the present day.^ It was expressly 
contradicted by Hale, who'laysdown the following rule ; — 
“ If a person, being under necessity for want of victuals, 
or clothes, shall upon that account clandestinely, and «»/»»(? 
furandi steal another man’s goods, it is felony and a crime 
by the laws of England punishable with death ; altho 
the judge, before whom the trial is, in this case (as in other 
cases of extremity) be by the laws of England intrusted 
with a power to reprieve the offender before or after 
judgment, in order to the obtaining the king’s mercy.” ® 
Britton excuses “ infants under age, and poor people, who 
through hunger enter the house of another for victuals 
under the value of twelve pence.”® According to the 
Swedish Westgota-Lag, a poor man who can find no other 
means of relieving himself and his family from hunger 
may twice with impunity appropriate food belonging to 
somebody else, but if he does so a third time he is punished 
for theft. ^ The Canonist says, “ Necessitas legem non 

^ Reg. V. Dudley and Stephens, in Law Reports^ QueetPs Bc?ich Division^ 
Law Reports^ Cases deternimed in the xiv 286. 

Queen's Bench Division ^ xiv. 273 sqcj. ® Hale, op, cit. i. 54. 

Ibid, xiv. 276. ® Britton, i. II, vol. i. 42. 

^ Bacon, Maxims of the Law 3 reg. 5 ^ Westgdta-I^gen IL c|>iufua bolker, 

{IVorhs, vil 2^2)- 14, p. 164 

* Reg. V. Dudley and Stephens, in 

MOTIVES 

habet ” ^ — “ Raptorem vel furem non facit necessitas, sed 
voluntas.” ^ This principle has the sanction of the Gospel, 
Jesus said to the Pharisees, “ Have ye not read what David 
' did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him ; 
How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the 
shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither 
for them which were with him, but only for the 
priests ? ” ® 

According to Muhammedan law, the hand is not to be 
cut off for stealing any article of food that is quickly 
perishable, because it may have been taken to supply the 
immediate demands of hunger.^ We are told that “ no 
Chinese magistrate would be found to pass sentence upon 
a man who stole food under stress of hunger.” ® In 
ancient Peru, according to Herrera, “ he that robb’d 
without need was banish’d to the Mountains Andes, never 
to return without the Inga’s leave, and if worth it paid the 
value of what he had taken. He that for want stole 
eatables only was reprov’d, and receiv’d no other punish- 
ment, but enjoyn’d to work, and threatened, that if he did 
so again, he should be chastiz’d by carrying a stone on 
his back, which was very disgraceful.” “ We even hear of 
savages who regard “ compulsion by necessity ” as a ground 
of extenuation. Among the West African Fjort robbery 
of plantations, committed in a state of great hunger, is 
exempt from punishment in case there is no deception or 
secrecy in the matter; however, payment for damage done 
is expected.^ Cook says of the Tahitians: — “Those who 
steal clothes or arms, are commonly put to death, either by 
hanging or drowning in the sea; but those who steal pro- 
visions are bastinadoed. By this practice they wisely vary 
the punishment of the same crime, when committed from 
different motives.” ® 

^ Gratian, iii. I. II. ® General IJistory of ih$ 

^ Ibid, iii. 5. 26. * West Indies^ iv. 337. 

' ^ St. Matthew,, xii. i sqq. ’’ I >ennett, in Jotir, African Society ^ 

^ Lane, Matiners and Ctisioms of the i. 276. 

Modern Egyptians, p. I2i. ® CooV, Journal of a Voyage round 

® Giles, Strange Stories from a the World, p. 4^ 

Chinese St^idio^ ii. 217, n. 5. 

MOTIVES 

A special kind of self-preservation is self-defence. Here 
the ground of justification is not merely the motive of the 
agent, but also the wrongness or criminality of the act 
which he tries to prevent. Hence the right of inflicting 
injuries as a necessary means of self-preservation has been 
more generally recognised in the case of self-defence than 
in other cases of “ compulsion by necessity.” “ Vim vi 
repellere ” was regarded by the ancients as a natural 
right/ as a law “ non scripta, sed nata” and the same view 
was taken by the Canonist.® Even in the savage world 
self-defence and killing in self-defence are not unfrcquently 
justified by custom.^ But in other instances the influence 
of the external event makes itself felt also in the case of 
self-defence. Among the Fjort, though a person who 
kills another in self-defence is exempt from punishment, 
he is expected to pay damages.® Among the Hottentots 
self-defence is regarded as a mitigating circumstance, but 
not as an excuse in the full sense of the word.® Among 
other peoples it is not considered at all.’^ Among the 
ancient I'eutons a person who committed homicide in 
self-defence had to pay wer\^ and in Germany such a 
person seems to have been subject to punishment still in 
the later Middle Ages.® In England, in the thirteenth 
century, he was considered to deserve royal pardon, but he 
also needed itd® 

^ Digesta^ xUii. i6. i. 27 : “Vim vi ® Geyer, Lehrc von der Nothwchr^ p. 
repellere licere Ca.ssius scrihit idque ius 88 sqq, Trummer, Vorirdge iiber 7 br~ 
natura comparatur/’ tur^ i, 430. Stemaiin, Den danske 

^ Cicero, Pro Af Hone ^ 4 (10). Retshisiorie ijidtil Christian Vds Lov, 

^ Gratian, Decretur/i, i. i. 7, p. 659. Cf. Leges Henrici 1 , Ixxx. 7 > 

^ Merker, quoted by Kohler, in Ixxxvii. 6. 

'Leitschr, f, vergl. Rechtswiss. xv. 64 ® Trummer, op. cit. i. 428 sqq. von 

(Wadshagga). Lang, in Steinmetz, Feuerbach-Mittermaier, Lehrbtich des 
Rechtsverhallnisse^ p. 257 ( Washam- Pcinlichen Rechts^ p. 64. Brunner ob- 

bala). serves {Deutsche Recktsgeschichte., ii. 

® Dennett, in Jour. African Society^ 630), “ Nicht das Benehmen des Getd- 

i. 276. teten war die causa des Tod.schlags, 

® Kohler, in Zeitschr. /. vergl, sondern nur die feindselige Absicht des 
Rechtswiss. xv. 353. Tod.sch lagers.” 

^ Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdltnisse, p. Bracton, De Legibus et Consuetu- 

50 (Banaka and Bapuku). Tellier, dinibus Anglia^ fob 132 b, vol. ii. 366 

ibid, p. 176 (Kreis Kita). Marx, ibid, sqq. Pollock and Maitland, History of 

P- 357 (Amahlubi). Senfft, ibid. p. 450 English Law before the Time of, Ed- 

(Marshall Islanders). %vard I. ii. 574. 

MOTIVES 

In self-defence there should of course be a proportion 
between the injury which the aggressor intended to inflict 
and the injury inflicted on him by the person attacked. The 
most widely-recognised ground on which life is allowed to 
be taken in self-defence is danger of death. But it is not 
the exclusive ground. Among the Wakamba “ a thief 
entering a village at night can be killed”; though, if he 
is, the incident generally gives rise to a blood-feud between 
his family and the family of the slayer.^ In Uganda 
“ there is no penalty for killing a thief who enters an 
enclosure at night ” ; ^ and among various peoples at 
higher stages of culture we likewise find the provision 
that a nocturnal thief or house-breaker may be killed with 
impunity, though a diurnal thief may not.® This law, 
however, seems to have been due not so much to the fact 
that by night the proprietor had less chance of recovering 
his property, as to the greater danger to which he was 
personally exposed. The Roman Law of the Twelve 
Tables allows the diurnal thief also to be killed, in case 
he defends himself with a weapon ; ^ and, as regards the 
nocturnal thief, Ulpian expressly says that the owner of the 
property Is justified in killing him only if he cannot spare 
the life of the thief without peril to himself.® The same 
rule was laid down by Bracton ’’ and by Grotius. The latter 
observes, “No one ought to be slain directly for the sake 
of mere things, which would be done if I were to kill an 
unarmed flying thief with a missile, and so recover my 
goods ; but if I am myself in danger of life, then I may 
repel the danger even with danger to the life of another; 
nor does this cease to hold, however I have come into that 
danger, whether by trying to retain my property, or to 

^ Decle, Thvi’e Years in Savage (Spanish Partidas). 

Africa, 488. Cf Gregory IX. Dec retaies,v. 12.3; 

/Vshe, Tzvo A'ifr^s of Uganda^ p. Mishna, fol. 72, quoted by Rabbino- 
294. wicz, Legislation crimittelle dti Tal- 

^ 7 a 7 'sing I.cti I,ec, «cc. cclxxvii. mud, p. 122. 

p. 297 (Chinese). Exodus, xxii. 2 sq. ® i.ex Diiodecim 7 'abularum, viii. 

Lex Duodecini Tabzilarum, viii. ii sq, 12. Cicero, Pro Milone, 3 (9), 

Plato, Ixges, ix. 874. Ixx Baiuwar- ^ Digestay xlviii. 8. 9. 

iorufu, ix. (viii). 5. Du Boys, Hisioire ^ Bracton, op, cit, fol. 144 b, vol. ii. 

dn droit criininel de PEspagney p. 288 464 sq, 

VOL. 1 U 

recover it, or to capture the thief; for in all these cases 
I am acting lawfully according to my right.”* 

According to the law of England, a woman is justified 
in killing one who attempts to ravish her ; and so also 
the husband or father may kill a man who attempts a 
rape on his wife or daughter, if she do not consent.^ We 
meet with similar provisions in many other laws, modern 
and ancient.® St. Augustine says that the law allows the 
killing of a ravisher of chastity, either before or after the 
act, in the same manner as it permits a man to kill a 
highwayman who makes an attempt upon his life.^ Ac- 
cording to the Talmud, it is permissible to kill a would-be 
criminal, in order to prevent the commission of either 
murder or adultery — “ to save an innocent man’s life, or 
a woman’s honour ” ; but when the crime has already 
been accomplished, the criminal cannot be thus disposed of.® 
Among many peoples who in other cases prohibit self- 
redress, an adulterer and an adulteress may be put to 
death by the aggrieved husband, especially if they be 
caught flagrante delicto. Such a custom prevails in various 
uncivilised societies where justice is generally administered 
by a council of elders or the chief.® Among the ancient 

^ Grotius, De jtire belli et pach, ii. i. 

12. I. 

Harris, op. cit. p. 145. 

^ Erskine-Rankine, Principles of the 
Law of Scotland p. 558. Ottofnan 
Penal Code^ art. 186. Nord.slrom, Bi- 
drag till den svenska samhiills-fbrfatt- 
ningens hisioria^ ii. 349 (ancient 
Swedish laws). Plato, Leges ^ ix. 874. 

* St. Augustine, Be libero arbitrio.^ 
i. 5 (Migne, Patrologice cursus^ xxxii. 
1227). 

® Benny, op. cit. p. 125. Rabbino- 
wicz, op. cit. p. 124. 

® Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of 
Bengal.^ p. 45 ; Stewart, in Jour. As. 
Soc. Bengal, 628 (Kuki.s). Mac- 
pherson. Memorials of Service in India, 
p. 83 ; Hunter, Annals of Rural Ben- 
gal, iii. 76 (Kandhs). Anderson, Man- 
dalay to Momien, p. 140 (Kakhyens). 
Mac Mahon, Far Cathay and Farther 
India, p. 273 (Indo-Burmese border 

tribes). Crawfurd, History of the hidian 
Archipelago, iii. 130. von Brenner, 
Besuch bei den Kannibalett Sumairas, 
pp. 21 1, 213. Modigliani, Viaggio a 
Nias, p. 495. Dorsey, ‘ Omaha Soci> 
ology,’ in Ami, Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 
364. Dyveyrier, Exploration du Sa- 
hara, p. 429 (Touareg). Barrow, 
Travels into the Interior of Southern 
Africa, i. 207 (Kafirs). Among the 
Gaika tribe of the Kafirs, however, “a 
man is fined for murder, if he kills an 
adulterer or adulteress in the act, al- 
though he be the husband of the adul- 
teress” (Maclean, Compendium of Kafir 
Laws and Customs, p. in). Among 
the Wakamba, “ if a man is caught in 
adultery at night, the husband has a 
right to kill him ; but if the injured 
man thus takes the law into his own 
hands in the daytime, he is dealt with 
as a murderer” (Decle, op. cit. p. 487). 

MOTIVES ‘ 

Peruvians “ a man killing his wife for adultery was free ; 
but if for any other fault he died for it, unless he were 
a man in dignity, and then some other penalty was in- 
flicted.” ^ According to Chinese penal law, “ when a 
principal or inferior wife is discovered by her husband in 
the act of adultery, if such husband at the very time that 
he discovers kills the adulterer, or adulteress, or both, he 
shall not be punishable.” ^ By the law of Nepal, the 
Parbattia husband retains the privilege of avenging, with 
his own hand, the violation of his marriage bed, and 
anyone, save a learned Brahman or a helpless boy, who, 
instead of using his own sword, should appeal to the 
courts, would be covered with eternal disgrace.® In all 
purely Moslem nations custom “ overwhelms with igno- 
miny the husband or son of an adulteress who survives the 
discovery of her sin ; he is taboo’d by society ; he becomes 
a laughing-stock to the vulgar, and a disgrace to his 
family and friends.” * According to the ‘ Lex Julia de 
adulteriis,’ a Roman father had a right to kill both his 
married daughter and her accomplice if she was taken in 
adultery either in his house or in her husband’s, provided 
that both of them were killed, and that it was done at 
once. The husband, on the other hand, had no such 
right as to his wife in any case, and no such right as to 
her accomplice unless he was an infamous person or a 
slave, taken, not in his father-in-law’s house, but in his 
own." However, it seems that in more ancient times the 
husband was entitled to kill an adulterous wife ; ® and his 
right of self-redress in the case of adultery was again 
somewhat extended by Justinian beyond the very narrow 
limits set down by the Lex Julia.^ According to an 
Athenian law, “if one man shall kill another . . . after 
catching him with his wife, or with his mother, or with a 

’ J'lerrera, op. cit. iv. 33^. 

Ta Tsing Leu Lee^ sec. cclxxxv. 
P-.307. 

^ Hodgson, Miscellaneous Essays^ ii. 
235, 236, 272. 

^ Burton, Sind Revisited^ ii. 54 sq. 

® Digesta^ xlviii, 5. 2t sqq. 

® Gellius, Nodes Afliccr^ x. 23. 5. 
Cf. Mommsen, Roniisch s Strafrecht.^ 

p. 625. 

“ Noz^ellce^ cxvii. 15. 

U 2 

MOTIVES 

sister, or with a daughter, or with a concubine whom he 
keeps to beget free-born children, he shall not go into 
exile for homicide on such account.” ^ Ancient Teutonic 
law allowed a husband to kill both his unfaithful wife and 
the adulterer, if he caught them in the act ; ^ according 
to the Laws of Alfred, an adulterer taken flagrante delicto 
by the woman’s lawful husband, father, brother, or son, 
might be killed without risk of blood-feud.® In the 
thirteenth century, however, there are already signs that, 
in England, the outraged husband who found his wife in 
the act of adultery might no longer slay the guilty pair 
or either of them, although he might emasculate the 
adulterer.'* The present law treats the killing of an adul- 
terer taken in the act in the same way as homicide 
committed in a quarrel ; by slaying him, the husband is 
guilty of manslaughter only, though, if the killing were 
deliberate and took place in revenge after the fact, the 
crime would be murder. This seems to be the only case 
in English law in which provocation, other than by actual 
blows, is considered sufficient to reduce homicide to man- 
slaughter, if the killing be effected by a deadly weapon.® 
There are corresponding provisions in other modern laws.® 
As a rule, flagrant adultery does not justify homicide, but 
serves as an extenuating circumstance.^ But according to 
the French Code Penal, “ dans le cas d’adultere . . . le 
meurtre commis par I’dpoux sur son epouse, ainsi que sur 
le complice, a I’instant ou il les surprend en flagrant ddlit 
dans la maison conjugale, est excusable.” ® And in Russia, 
though the law does not exempt from punishment a 

^ Demosthenes, Contra Aristocra- dit droit criminel de f Espagne, p. 
tern, 53, p, 637. 93), 

“ Wilda, Slrafrecht der Ger marten^ Hale, op. cii. i. 486. Harris, op. 

p. S23. Nordstrom, op. cit. ii. 62 sq. cit. p. 145. Cherry, Lectures on the 
Stemann, op. cit. p. 325. Groivtk of Criminal Law., p. 82 sq, 

^ Laws of Alfred f\\. 42. Italian Codice Pcnalei art. 377. 

Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. ii. Spanish Codigo Penal reformadoy art. 
484. The same right is granted by a 438. Ottofuan Penal Code, art, 188. 
Spanish mediaeval law to a father, or a ^ Gunther, Idee der IViedetwergeP 
husband, who finds a man having ille- Ittftg, iii. 233 sqq, 
gitimate sexual intercourse with his ® Code PMal, art. 324. 
daughter, or wife (Hu Hoys, LListoire 

MOTIVES 

husband who thus avenges himself, the jury show great 
indulgence to himd 

Whilst the law referring to self-defence has gradually 
become more liberal, the law referring to self-redress in 
the case of adultery has thus, generally speaking, become 
more severe. The reason for this is obvious. A husband 
who slays his unfaithful wife or her accomplice does not 
defend, but avenges himself ; and it is to be expected that 
a society in which punishment has only just succeeded 
revenge should still admit, or tolerate, revenge in extreme 
cases. The privilege granted to the outraged husband is not 
the sole survival of the old system of self-redress lingering 
on under the new conditions. According to Kafir custom 
or law, the relatives of a murdered man become liable only 
to a very light fine if they kill the murderer.'^ The 
ancient Teutons, at a time when their laws already pro- 
hibited private revenge, did not look upon an avenger of 
blood in the same light as an ordinary manslayer ; ® and 
even the Church recognised the distinction.^ Some 
of the ancient Swedish laws entirely excused homicide 
committed in revenge immediately after the crime.^’ Ac- 
cording to the Ostgota-Lag, an incendiary taken in 
flagrancy might be at once burnt in the fire/’ and ancient 
Norwegian law permitted the slaying of a thief caught in 
the act.’’ In the Laws of Ine there is an indication that 
a thief s fate was at the discretion of his captor,** and a 
law of Aithelstan implies that the natural and proper 
course as to thieves was to kill them.'* In the Laws 
of King Wihtrasd it is said, “ If any one slay 'a layman 
while thieving ; let him lie without ‘ wergeld.’ ” So 
also, according to Javanese law, if a thief be caught in the 
act it is lawful to put him to death.*^ For our present 

^ P'oinilzki, loc, cit. p. 548. ® Nordstrom, op. cit. ii. 414 sq. 

Maclean, op. cit, p. ^143. Cf.y ® Ibid. ii. 416. 

ho^Tver, ibid, p. no. * ^ Wilda, op, cit. p. 889. 

^ Wilda, op. cit, p. 562. Stemann, ^ Laws of Ine^ 12. Cf. Stephen, 

op. cit. p. 582 sq. op. cit. i. 62. 

^ Wilda, op. cit. pp. 180, 565, Laws of Astheis tarty iv. 4. 

Labbe-Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Laws of fVibtncdy 25. 

collexHoy xii, 289. Crawfurd, op. cit. iii. 1 1 5, 

MOTIVES 

purpose it is important to note that all such cases imply 
a recognition of the principle that an act committed 
on extreme provocation requires special consideration. To 
declare that an adulterer or adulteress caught in flagrancy, 
or a manifest thief, may be slain with impunity, is a con- 
cession to human passions, which are , naturally more 
easily aroused by the sight of an act than by the mere 
knowledge of its commission. It was for a similar reason 
that the Law of the Twelve Tables punished fur turn 
manifestum much more heavily than fur turn nec manifestumf 
and that the Laws of Alfred imposed death as the 
penalty for fighting in the King’s hall if the offender 
was taken in the act, whereas he was allowed to pay for 
himself if he escaped and' was subsequently apprehended.^ 
The difference between an injury which a person 
inflicts deliberately, in cold blood, and one which he 
inflicts in the heat of the moment, under the disturbance 
of great excitement caused by a wrong done to himself, 
has been widely recognised. There are instances reported 
of savages who distinguish between murder and man- 
slaughter. And the laws of all civilised nations agree 
in regarding, on certain conditions, passion aroused by 
provocation as a mitigating circumstance at the commis- 
sion of a crime. 

The Australian Narrinyeri, as we have seen, have a tribunal, 
called ttndi^ consisting of the elders of the clan, to which all 
offenders are brought for trial. “ In case of the slaying by a 
person or persons of one clan of the member of another clan in 
time of peace, the fellow-clansmen of the murdered man will 
send to the friends of the murderer and invite them to bring him 
to trial before the united tendies. If, after full inquiry, he is 
found to have committed the crime, he will be punished 
according to the degree of guilt. If it were a case of murder, 
with malice aforethought, he would be handed over to his own 
clan to be put to death by spearing. If it should be what we 
call manslaughter, he would receive a good thrashing, or be 
banished from his clan, or compelled to go to his mother’s 

^ Institutiones, iv, I. 5. 

^ Laws of Alfred, ii. 7. 

MOTIVES 

^95 

relations.” ^ In the Pelew Islands, if two natives are quarrelling, 
and the one says to the other, ‘‘ Your wife is bad,” the insulted 
party is entitled to chastise the provoker with a stone, and is not 
held liable even if the latter should die in consequence.^ The 
Eastern Central Africans ^^are aware of the difference between 
murder and homicide,” even though the punishment of the two 
crimes is often the same.^ Among the Kandhs only slight 
compensation is awarded for wounds, however serious, given 
under circumstances of extreme provocation.” ^ ‘‘ f^aldeyak^ or 

manslaughter,” says Georgi, is not capital among the 
Tungusians, when it has been occasioned by some antecedent 
quarrel. The slayer is however whipped, and obliged to main- 
tain the family of the deceased : he undergoes no reproaches on 
account of the affair \ but on the contrary is considered as a 
brave and courageous man for it.”^ 

Among the ancient Peruvians, “ when one killed another in 
.a quarrel, the first thing enquired into was, who had been the 
aggressor ; if the dead man, then the punishment was slight, at 
the will of the Inga \ but if the surviver had given the provoca- 
tion, his penalty was death, or at least perpetual banishment to 
the Andes, there to work in the Inga’s fields of corn, which was 
like sending him to the galeys. A murderer was immediately 
publickly put to death, tho’ he were a man of quality,” ^ 
Among the Mayas of Yucatan and Nicaragua, in case of great 
provocation or absence of malice, homicide was atoned by the 
payment of a fine.^ 

From certain passages in the Mosaic law the conclusion has 
been drawn that the ancient Hebrews did not consider it 
obligatory to inflict death upon him who had killed his neighbour 
in a fit of passion.® It is said that a man shall be put to death 
if he “ come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him 
with guile,” ^ or if he hate his neighbour, and lie in wait for 
him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally that he 
die.” On the other hand, he shall be allowed a resort to a city 

^ Taplin, ^ Narrinyeri/ in Woods, 
Native Tribes of South Australia, 
P-34-y^. 

^ Kubary, ‘ Die Palau-Inseln,’ in 
Journal des Museum Godeffroy^ iv. 

' * Macdonald, Africana^ i. 172. 

^ Macpherson, op, cit. p. 82. 

® Georgi, Russia, iii. 83. Cf also 
Turner, ‘ Ethnology of the Ungava 

District,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 
186. 

® Herrera, op. cit. iv. 337 sq. 

^ Bancroft, Native Races of the 
Pacific States, ii. 658. 

® Goitein, Das Vergeltungsprincip 
im biblischen and talmudischen Straf 
rechty p. 33 sqq. 

® Exodus, xxi. 14. 

Deuteronomy, xix. 1 1 sq. 

MOTIVES 

of refuge if “ he lie not in wait,” ^ or if he thrust his neigiibour 
“ suddenly without enmity.’' ^ 

Professor Leist suggests that in ancient Greece, at a time 
when blood- revenge was a sacred duty in the case of premedi- 
tated murder, homicide committed without premeditation could 
be forgiven by the avenger of blood.^ Plato, in his ‘Laws,’ 
draws a distinction between him “ who treasures up his anger 
and avenges himself, not immediately and at the moment, but 
with insidious design, and after an interval,” and him “ who 
does not treasure up his anger, and takes vengeance on the 
instant, and without malice prepense.” The deed of the latter, 
though not involuntary, “ approaches to the involuntary,” and 
should therefore be punished less severely than the crime perpe- 
trated by him who has stored up his anger.^ Aristotle, also, 
whilst denying that “ acts done from anger or from desire are 
involuntary,”® maintains that “assaults committed in anger are 
rightly decided not to be of malice aforethought, for they do ilot 
originate in the volition of the man who has been angered, but 
rather in that of the man who so angered him.”^ And he adds 
that “everyone will admit that he who does a disgraceful act, 
being at the same time free from desire, or at any rate feeling 
desire but slightly, is more to be blanied than is he who does 
such an act under the influence of a strong desire ; and that he 
who, when not in a passion, smites his neighbour, is more to be 
blamed than is he who does so when in a passion.” ^ Cicero 
likewise points out that “ in every species of injustice it is 
a very material question whether it is committed through 
some agitation of passion, which commonly is short-lived and 
temporary, or from deliberate, prepense, malice ; for those 
things which proceed from a short, sudden fit, are of slighter 
moment than those which are inflicted by forethought and 
preparation.” ^ 

Of ancient Russian law M. Kovalewsky observes, “ L’exist- 
ence d'une excitation violente est prise en consideration, par 
notre antique legislation, qui declare le crime accompli sous leur 
influence non imputable.”^ According to ancient Irish law, 
“ homicide was divisible into the two classes of simple man- 
slaughter and murder, the difference between which lay in the 

^ Exodus, xxi. 13. I. 21. 

^ Numbers, xxxv. 22, 25. ® Ibid. v. 8. 9. 

3 Leist, Grceco-italischc Rechisge- ^ Ibid. vii. 7. 3. 
schickie, pp. 325, 352. 8 Cicero, De officiis, i. 8. 

* Plato, Leges, ix. 867* ® Kovalewsky, Couiutne contempo* 

Aristotle, Ethica Nicomackea, iii. ratne, p. 291. 

MOTIVES 

existence or absence of malice aforethought, the fine in the latter 
being double what it was in the former case and for a wound 
which was inflicted inadvertently in lawful anger, the payment 
was made upon a diminislied scale.^ The ancient Teutons, also, 
held a wrong committed in sudden anger and on provocation to 
be less criminal than one committed with premeditation in cold 
blood ; ^ this opinion seems partly to be at the bottom of the 
distinction which they made between open and secret homicide.^ 
According to the law of the East Frisians, a man who kills 
another without premeditation may buy off his neck with money, 
not so he who commits a murder with malice aforethought/ 
It is curious that Bracton should take no notice of the different 
grades of evil intention which may accompany voluntary 
homicide, and that he should omit altogether the question of 
provocation ; ^ Beaumanoir, the French jurist, who lived in the 
same age, mentions in his ^ Coutumes du Beauvoisis ’ provocation 
as an extenuating circumstance,^ and the same view was taken 
by tJie Church/ Coke, in his Third Institute — which may be 
regarded as the second source of the criminal law of England, 
Bracton being the first — gives an account of malice aforethought, 
and adds, ^^Some manslaughters be voluntary, and not of malice 
forethought, upon some sudden falling out. Delinquens per tram 
provocatus puniri debet mitinsr ^ Hume says that in Scotland 
the manslayer on suddenty was to have the benefit of the girth 
or sanctuary : he might flee to the church or other holy place \ 
from which he might indeed be taken for trial, but to be 
returned thither, safe in life and limb, if his allegation of chaude 
rnelle were proved.”^ All modern codes regard provocation 
under certain circumstances as a mitigating circumstance.^^ 
According to the criminal law of Montenegro, great provocation 
may even relieve a homicide of all guilt.^^ 

It has been said that a man who acts under the 
influence of great passion has not, at the time, a full 
knowledge of the nature and quality of his act, and that 

^ Ancient Latvs of Ireland^ iii. pp. 
xciii. cx. 

Wilda, o/>, ciL p. 560 Sf/t/., 70 f. 
Stemann, op, cit. p. 574. von Aniira, 
in Paul’s Gritndriss der gerynanischen 
Philologie, ii. pt. ii. 174. 

Wilda, op, cit. p, 560. von Amira, 
loc, cit. p, 173. 

^ Das Ostfriesische Land- Dec Jit, iii. 
17 sri. 

® Cf, Stephen, op. cit. iii. 33. 

^ Beaumanoir, Coutumes du Beau- 
voisis,, XXX. loi, vol. i. 454 sq. 

^ Gregory JII. Judicia congrua 
panitentiims, 3 (Labbe- Mansi, op. cit. 
xii. 289). 

^ Coke, Third Institute^ p. 55. 

^ 1 1 lime, Coniffixntaries on the Law 
of Scotland y i. 365. 

Gunther, op, cit. iii. 256 sqq. 

Ibid, iii. 255 sq. 

MOTIVES 

298 ‘ 

the clemency of the law is “ a condescension to the frailty 
of the human frame, to the furor brevis^ which, while the 
frenzy lasteth, rendereth the man deaf to the voice of 
reason.” ^ But the main cause for passion extenuating 
his guilt is not the intellectual disability under which he 
acts, but the fact that he is carried away by an impulse 
which is too strong for his will to resist. This is implied 
in the provision of the law, that “ provocation does not 
extenuate the guilt of homicide unless the person provoked 
is at the time when he does the act deprived of the power 
of self-control by the provocation which he has received.” * 
That anger has been so generally recognised as an ex- 
tenuation of guilt is largely due to the fact that the person 
who provokes it is himself blamable ; both morality and 
law take into consideration the degree of provocation to 
which the agent was exposed. But, at the same time, the 
pressure of a non-volitional motive on the will may by 
itself be a sufficient ground of extenuation. In certain 
cases of mental disease a morbid impulse or idea may take 
such a despotic possession of the patient as to drive him to 
the infliction of an injury.. He is mad, and yet he may 
be free from delusion and exhibit no marked derangement 
of intelligence. He may be possessed with an idea or 
impulse to kill somebody which he cannot resist. Or he 
may yield to a morbid impulse to steal or to set fire to 
houses or other property, without having any ill-feeling 
against the owner or any purpose to serve by what he 
does.® The deed to which the patient is driven is frequently 
one which he abhors, as when a mother kills the child which 
she loves most.^ In such cases the agent is of course 
acquitted by the moral judge, and if he is condemned by 
the law of his country and its guardians, the reason for this 
can be nothing but ignorance. We must remember that 
this form of madness was hardly known even to medical 

^ Foster, Report of Crown Cases ^ Lehrbuch der gericht lichen Psychopatho- 
p. 315. logic, p. 308 sqq. 

® Stephen, Digest, art. 246, p. 188. ^ Gadelius, Ovi tvangstanhar, p. 

® M.awdsley, Responsibility in Mental 16^ sq, Paulhan, Vactivite mentale. 
Disease, p. 133 sqq^ von Krafft-Ebing, p. 374. 

MOTIVES 

*299 

men till the end of the last century^ when Pinel, to his own 
surprise, discovered that there were “ many madmen who 
at no period gave evidence of any lesion of the under- 
standing, but who were under the dominion of instinctive 
and abstract fury, as if the affective faculties had alone 
sustained injury.” ^ And there can be no doubt that the 
fourteen English judges who formulated the law on the 
criminal responsibility of the insane, made no reference to 
this manie sans delire simply because they had not sufficient 
knowledge of the subject with which they had to deal.® 

That moral judgments are generally passed, in the first 
instance, with reference to acts immediately intended, and 
consider motives only in proportion as the judgment is in- 
fluenced by reflection, holds good, not only of moral blame, 
but of moral praise. Every religion presents innumer- 
able examples of people who do “ good deeds ” only in 
expectation of heavenly reward. This implies the assump- 
tion that the Deity judges upon actions without much 
regard to their motives ; for if motives were duly con- 
sidered, a man could not be held rewardable for an act 
which he performs solely for his own benefit. We are 
told that the homage which the Chinese “ render the gods 
and goddesses believed to be concerned in the manage- 
ment of the affairs of this world is exceedingly formal, 
mechanical, and heartless,” and that “ there seems to be no 
special importance attached to purity of heart.” Accord- 
ing to Caldwell, “ the Hindu religionist enjoins the act 
alone, and affirms that motives have nothing to do with 
merit.” ® The argument, “ Obey the law because it will 

^ Maudsley, p. 141. 

^ Pinel, TraiU mt^dico-philosophtque 
sur r aliination mentale^ p. 156= “Je 
ne fut pas peu surpris de voir plusieurs 
alienes qui n’ofifroient a aucune epoque 
aucune It^sion de ^ente^>dement, et qui 
etoient dominos par une sorte d’instinct 
de fureur, comme si les facult^s affec- 
tives seules avoient et^ l^s^es.” 

^ Sir James Stephen {Digest ^ art. 28, 
p. 20 sq , ) thinks it possible that, accord- 
ing to the present law of England, an 

act is not criminal if the person who 
does it is, at the time when it is done, 
prevented by any disease affecting his 
mind from controlling his own conduct, 
unless the absence of the power of 
control has been produced by his own 
default. 

* Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese^ 

ii- 397. 

® Caldwell, Tinnevelly Shanars^ p. 
35 - 

300 • 

MOTIVES 

profit you to do so,” constitutes the fundamental motive 
of Deuteronomy, as appears from phrases like these : 
“ That it may go well with thee,” “ That thy days may 
be prolonged.” ^ Speaking of the modern Egyptians, Lane 
observes that “ from their own profession it appears that 
they are as much excited to the giving of alms by the 
expectation of enjoying corresponding rewards in heaven 
as by pity for the distresses of their fellow-creatures, or a 
disinterested wish to do the will of God.”^ Something 
similar may be said, not only of the “ good deeds ” of 
Muhammedans, but of those of many Christians. Did 
not Paley expressly define virtue as “ the doing good to 
mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the 
sake of everlasting happiness ” ? ® 

Such views, however, cannot hold their ground against 
the verdict of the scrutinising moral consciousness. They 
have been repeatedly contradicted by the great teachers of 
morality. Confucius required an inward sincerity in all 
outward practice, and poured scorn on the pharisaism 
which contented itself with the cleansing of the outside 
of the cup and platter.^ He said that, “ in the rites of 
mourning, exceeding grief with deficient rites is better than 
little demonstration of grief with superabounding rites ; and 
that in those of sacrifice, exceeding reverence with deficient 
rites is better than an excess of rites with but little 
reverence.” ® “ Sacrifice is not a thing coming to a man 

from without ; it issues from within him, and has its birth 
in his heart. When the heart is deeply moved, expression 
is given to it by ceremonies.” “ The virtuous man offers 
his sacrifices “ without seeking for anything to be gained 
by them.”’’ “The Master said, ‘See what a man does. 
Mark his motives.’ ” ® The popular Taouist work, called 
‘ The Book of Secret Blessings,’ inculcates the necessity 

^ Cf, Montefiore, Hibbert LecttireSy 261 sq, ; Girard de Rialle, Mythologie 
p. 531. compar^e^ p. 214. 

Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 293. ® IJ Kt, ii. i. 2. 27. Cf. Lun Yu, 

* Paley, Principles of Moral and iii. 4. 3. 

Political Philosophy, i. 7 (Complete ® Lt Kt, xxii. i. 

Works, ii. 38). ^ Ibid. xxii. 2. 

^ Cf Legge, Religions of China, p. ® Lun Yii, ii. 10. i sq. 

MOTIVES 

- 301 

of purifying the heart as a preparation for all right-doing.^ 
The religious legislator of Brahmanism, whilst assuming 
in accordance with the popular view that the fulfilment of 
religious duty will be always rewarded to some extent, 
whatever may be the motive, maintains that the man who 
fulfils his duties without regard to the rewards which 
follow the fulfilment, will enjoy the highest happiness in 
this life and eternal happiness hereafter.** According to the 
Buddhistic Dhammapada, “ if a man speaks or acts with an 
evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the 
foot of the ox that draws the carriage. ... If a man 
speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, 
like a shadow that never leaves him.”** In his description 
of the Buddhists of Mongolia, the Rev. James Gilmour 
observes ; — “ Mongol priests recognise the power of motive 
in estimating actions .... The attitude of the mind 
decides the nature of the act. He that offers a cup of 
cold water only, in a proper spirit, has presented a gift 
quite as acceptable as the most magnificent of donations.”'* 
With reference to the Hebrews, Mr. Montefiore says : — 
“ If it were true that the later Judaism of the law laid 
exclusive stress in its moral teaching upon the mere out- 
ward act and not upon the spirit — upon doing rather than 
being, as we might nowadays express it — we should 
scarcely find that constant harping upon the heart as the 
source and seat of good and evil. What more legal book 
than Chronicles ? Yet it is there that we find the earnest 
supplication for a heart directed towards God. . . . The 
eudasmonistic motive is strongest in Deuteronomy ; it 
is weakest with the Rabbis.” ** Few sayings are quoted and 
applied more frequently in the Rabbinical literature than 
the adage which closes those tractates of the Mishna which 
deal with the sacrificial law ; — “ He that brings few offer- 
ings is as he that brings many ; let his heart be directed 

’ Douglas, Confucianism and Taou- 239. 
ism^ p. 272. ® Montefiore, op, ci(, pp. 483, 533. 

^ Wheeler, History of India , ii. 478. i Chronicles, xxii. 19 ; xxviii. 9 ; xxix. 

^ Dhammapada, \ sg. 18 sg, 2 Chronicles, xi. 16 ; xv. 12 ; 

^ Gilmour, Among the Mongols^ p. xvi, 9. 

MOTIVES 

CH. XI 

heavenward/’ ^ The same faults which Jesus chastises in 
the hypocritical Rabbis of his day are also chastised in the 
Talmud. It is said, Before a man prays let him purify 
his heart,” ^ and, Sin committed with a good motive is 
better than a precept fulfilled from a bad motive.” ® Rabbi 
Elazar says, No charity is rewarded but according to the 
degree of benevolence in it, for it is said, ‘ Sow (a reward) 
for yourselves in giving alms as charity, you will reap 
according to the benevolence.’”^ Nor is the doctrine 
which requires disinterested motives for the performance 
of good deeds foreign to Muhammedan moralists. What- 
ever we give,” says the author of the Akhlalc-i-Jelali, 
‘‘should be given in the fulness of zeal and good-will. . . . 
We should spend it simply to please God, and not mix 
the act with any meaner motive, lest thereby it be rendered 
null and void.”’"' 

^ Montefiore, op, cit. p, 484. Succah, fol. 49 B, ibid, p. ii. 

^ Ibid. p. 174. Quoted by Ameer Ali, Ethics of 

^ Nazir, fob 23 u, quoted by Hershon, Isidm^ p. 38 j-y. 

Vreasures of the Talnmd,, p. 74.

FORBEARANCES AND CARELESSNESS CHARACTER 

The observation has often been made that in early 
moral codes the so-called negative commandments, which 
tell people what they ought not to do, are much more 
prominent than the positive commandments, which tell 
them what they ought to do. The main reason for this 
is that negative commandments spring from the dis- 
approval of acts, whereas positive commandments spring 
from the disapproval of forbearances or omissions, and 
that the indignation of men is much more easily aroused 
by action than by the absence of it. A person who 
commits a harmful deed is a more obvious cause of pain 
than a person who causes harm by doing nothing, and 
this naturally affects the question of guilt in the eyes 
of the multitude. A scrutinising judge of course care- 
fully distinguishes between wilfulness and negligence, 
whereas, to his mind, a forbearance is morally equivalent 
to an act. The unreflecting- judge, on the other hand, 
is much less concerned with the question of wilfulness 
than with the distinction between acting and not-acting. 
Even the criminal laws of civilised nations take little 
cognisance of forbearances and omissions and one reason 
for this is that they evoke little public indignation. 
Even if k be adrhitted that the rules of beneficence, so far 
as details are concerned, must be left in a great measure to 

^ Stephen, Hisioty of the C?'iMinat Zurechnung auf dem Gebiefe des Civil- 
Law of England y ii, 113. Hepp, rechts, p. 115 (Roman law). 

the jurisdiction of private ethics, the limits of the law on 
this head, as Bentham remarks, seem “ to be capable of 
being extended a good deal farther than they seem ever 
to have been extended hitherto.” And he appropriately 
asks, “ In cases where the person is in danger, why should 
it not be made the duty of every man to save another 
from mischief, when it can be done without prejudicing 
himself, as well as to abstain from brinffine it on 
him ^ 

The more scrutinising the moral, consciousness, the 
greater the importance which it attaches to positive 
commandments. This is well illustrated by a comparison 
between Old and New Testament morality. As Pro- 
fessor Seeley observes,^ “ the old legal formula began 
‘ thou shalt not,’ the new begins with ‘ thou shalt.’ The 
young man who had kept the whole law — that is, who 
had refrained from a number of actions — is commanded 
to do something, to sell his goods and feed the poor. 
Condemnation was passed under the Mosaic law upon him 
who had sinned, who had done something forbidden — the 
soul that sinneth shall die ; — Christ’s condemnation is 
pronounced upon those who had not done good — ‘ I 
was. an hungered and ye gave' me no meat.’ The sinner 
whom Christ habitually denounces is he who has done 
nothing.” This characteristic is repeatedly manifested in 
His parables — as in the case of the priest and Levite who 
passed by on the other side ; in the case of Dives, of 
whom no ill is recorded except that a beggar lay at his 

^ FHnetpies of Morals and vol. ii. 280 j-t/.) that: he who could 

Legislation, p. 322 sq. To a certain rescue a man from death and did not 
extent, however, this ha.s been admitted do it, ought not to be exempt from 
by legislators even in the Middle Ages. punishment. ' It was a principle of the 
Frederick II. ’s Sicilian Code imposed Canon law that he who does not pre* 
a penalty on per.sons who witnessed vent the infliction of an injury upon hi.s 
conflagrations or shit)wucck.s without neighbour when it lies in his power 
helping the victims, and a fine of four to do so, is to be regarded as an ac* 
augustales on anyone who, hearing the complice in the offence (Geyer, Lehre 
shrieks of an a.ssaulted woman, did p. 74.* Gregory IX. 

not \n\xxy to Xmr r^CMc [ Constitntiojies Decretales, v. 12. 6. 2: “ Qui potiiit 
Napolitanee stve Stcuhr, i. 28, 22 [Lin- liomincm liberare a morte, et non 
denbrog. Codex legum antiquarunif pp. liberavit, eum occidit ”)* . 

715, 712]). Bracton says \De Legtbus Seeley, Erec Homo, p. 176. 

et Consucludimbus Anglia, fol. 121, 

gate full of sores and yet no man gave unto him ; in the 
case of the servant who hid in a napkin the talent 
committed to him. However, to say that the new 
morality involved the discovery of “ a new continent in 
the moral globe,” ^ is obviously an exaggeration. The 
customs of all nations contain not only prohibitions, but 
positive injunctions as well. To be generous to friends, 
charitable to the needy, hospitable to strangers, are rules 
which, as will be seen, may be traced back to the lowest 
s’tages of savagery known to us. The difference in 
question is only one of degree. Of the Bangerang tribe 
in Victoria Mr. Curr observes : — “ Aboriginal restraints 
were, in the majority of cases, though not altogether, of 
a negative character ; an individual might not do this, 
and might not eat that, and might not say the other. 
What he should do under any circumstances, or that he 
should do anything, were matters with which custom 
interfered less frequently.” ^ 

Whilst the unreflecting mind has a tendency to over- 
look or underrate the guilt of a person who, whether 
wilfully or by negligence, causes harm by doing nothing, 
it is, on the other hand, apt to exaggerate the guilt of a 
person who, not wilfully but out of heedlessness or rash- 
ness, causes harm by a positive act. In reality the latter 
person is blamable not for what he did, but for what he 
omitted to do, for want of due attention, for not thinking 
of the probable consequences of his act or for insufficient 
advertence to them. But the superficial judge largely 
measures the agent’s guilt by the actual harm done, and in 
many cases even attributes to carelessness what was due to 
sheer misfortune. 

As Sir F. Pollock and Prof. Maitland rightly observe, 
it is not true that barbarians will not trace the chain of 
causation beyond its nearest link — that, for example, they 
will not impute orte man’s death to another unless that 
other has struck a blow which laid a corpse at his feet.® 

^ Ibid, p. 179. ® Pollock and Maitland, History of 

Curr, Recollections of Sqttaiting in English Law before the 7 'ime of Ed- 
Victoria^ p. 264 sq. ward L ii. 470. 

VOL, I 

3o6 forbearances AND CARELESSNESS ch. 

Among the Wanyoro, should a girl die in childbirth, the 
seducer is also doomed to die, unless he ransom himself 
by payment of some cows.^ Among the Wakamba, if a 
man is the second time guilty of manslaughter in a state 
of drunkenness, the elders may either sentence him to 
death, “ or make the seller of drink pay compensation to 
the family of the victim.”^ According to the native code 
of Malacca, if vicious buffaloes or cattle “ be tied in the 
highway, where people are in the habit of passing and 
repassing, and gore or wound any person, the owner shall 
be fined one tahil and one paha, and pay the expense 
necessary for the cure of the wounded individual. Should 
he be gored to death, then the owner shall be fined 
according to the Diyat, because the owner is criminal in 
having tied the animal in an improper place.” ® In the 
Laws of Alfred it is said that, if a man have a spear over 
his shoulder and anybody stake himself on it, the man 
with the spear has to pay the zver.^ According to an 
ancient custom, in vogue in England as late as the 
thirteenth century, one who was accused of homicide was, 
before going to the wager of battle, expected to swear that he 
had done nothing through which the dead man had become 
“ further from life and nearer to death ” ; ® and damages 
which the modern English lawyer would without hesitation 
describe as “ too remote,” were not too remote for the 
author of the so-called ‘ Laws of Henry L’ ® “ At your 
request I accompany you when you are about your own 
affairs; my enemies fall upon and kill me; you must pay 
for my death. ^ You take me to see a wild-beast show or 
that interesting spectacle a madman ; beast or madman 
kills me ; you must pay. You hang up your sword ; some 
one else knocks it down so that it cuts me; you must pay.”® 
In all these cases you did something that helped to bring 

^ Emin Pasha in Central Africa^ p. ® Leges I/e uric i I. xc. il. Bracton, 

83, op, cit. fol. 14 1 b, vol. ii. 440 sq. 

Decle, Three Years in Savage ** Pollock and Maitland, op, cit, ii. 
Africa, x>. . tg ]0 sq, 

^ Newbold, British Settlements in ^ Leges LLenrici /. Ixxxviii. 9. 
the Straits of Malacca, \\. sq. ^ Ibid, xc. II. Pollock and Mait- 

^ Laws of Alfred, 36. land, of, cit, ii. 471, 

about death or wound, and you are consequently held 
responsible for the mishap. 

But though early custom and law may be anxious 
enough to trace an event to its source, they easily fail to 
distinguish between external and internal causes, to dis- 
cover where there is guilt or not, and, in case of 
carelessness, to determine the magnitude of the offender’s 
guilt. Ancient Teutonic law, as we have seen, distin- 
guished between vi/i and. vadhi. It punished the 
involuntary manslayer less heavily than the voluntary 
one, but it punished him all the same; and whether the 
unintended deed was combined with heedlessness or was 
purely accidental was a question with which the law did not 
at all concern itself.^ According to the Laws of Hammurabi, 
‘‘ if the doctor has treated a gentleman for a severe wound 
with a lancet of bronze, and has caused the gentleman to 
die, or has opened an abscess of the eye for a gentleman 
with the bronze lancet and has caused the loss of the 
gentleman’s eye, one shall cut off his hands.”^ In the 
Mosaic law distinction was made between presence and 
absence of enmity in the manslayer, but the difference 
between carelessness and misfortune was not considered,^ 
except when the instrument of death was a goring ox.^ 
However, in this, as in many other respects, great progress 
was made by the later legislation of the Jews. The Rabbis 
took considerable pains to distinguish between purely 
accidental homicide and homicide due to carelessness; the 
former they exempted from all punishment, whereas the 
latter incurred the punishment of confinement to a city of 
refuge."' They even distinguished between cases in which 
the death was exclusively due to the carelessness of the 
agent, and cases in which the deceased contributed to it 
by some blamable act of his own. A father or a teacher 
« 

Wilda, Straf7'€cht der Germane7iy ^ Numbers^ xxxv. i6 sqq, DetUer- 
p. 57 ^- Geyer, op. cit. p. 88. Brim- onomy^ xix. 4 sqq. 

ner, ForscJmn^en ztir Geschichte des ^ Exodus^ xxi. 28-32, 35 sq. Cf 
dent sc ken tmd fraftzosischeft Rechtes^ Laws of ILammurahiy 250 sqq. 
p. 499. ® Rabbinowicz, Legislation criniL 

^ Laws of Ifammurabi^ 218. nelle du Talmud^ p. 173 sqq. 

X % 

3o8 forbearances AND CARELESSNESS ch. 

who in punishing his son or pupil unintentionally caused 
his death, and a person who by order of the Sanhedrim 
inflicted corporal punishment on a culprit and in doing 
so happened by mistake to kill him — such persons were 
not confined in a city of refuge, but escaped punishment 
altogether.^ Whatever else may be said of these pro- 
visions, .they certainly show remarkable discernment in a 
point where legislators of a ruder type have been very 
indiscriminate. In the oldest English records we see no 
attempt to distinguish cases in which the dead man himself 
was reprehensible from others in which no fault could be 
imputed to him, and we find that many horses and boats 
bore the guilt which should have been ascribed to beer.^ 
When a drunken carter was crushed beneath the wheel of 
his cart, the cart, the cask of wine which was in it, and the 
oxen that were drawing it, were all deodand.® According 
to the customary law of the Ossetes, if a stolen gun went 
off in the hands of the thief who was carrying it away, 
and killed him, the thieP s kin had a just feud against the 
owner of the gun."* 

Modern laws generally hold a person liable for harm 
caused by him through want of ordinary care and fore- 
sight, and it depends on the nature of the case whether he 
will have to pay damages or to suffer punishment. Yet, 
as we have previously noticed, his punishment is determined 
not only by the degree of carelessness of which he was 
guilty, or the danger to which he exposed his fellow-men, 
but, largely, by the harm resulting ; whereas, if nobody 
happens to be hurt, little notice is taken of his fault. To 
such an extent are men’s judgments in these matters * 
influenced by external facts, that even nowadays many 
among ourselves will hold a person answerable for all the 
damage which directly ensues from an act of his, even 
though no foresight could have reasonably been expected 

^ p. ,.174. Benny, Criminal ^ Three Early Assize Tolls for the 

Code oj the Jeivs according to the Tal- County of Northumberland^ p. 96 sq. 
mud Massec'heth SynhedriHy X), sq, ** Kovalewsky, Coutume con tempo- 

Pollock and Maitland, op, cit, ii. raincy p. 295. 

474 > n. 4. 

to look, out for it.^ Not long ago there were plausible, if 
insufficient, grounds adduced for asserting that in English 
courts a plea that there was neither negligence nor an 
intent to do harm was no answer to an action which 
charged the defendant with having hurt the plaintilF s 
body.‘^ And of late years attacks have been made by con- 
tinental jurists upon the Roman principle that there is no 
liability where there is no fault ® — a principle which, more 
or less modified, has been adopted by modern laws/ 
Although they take pains to point out the difference 
between punishment and indemnification, the very language 
they use indicates the quasi-ethical basis on which their 
theory rests. It is, only just, they say, that he who has 
caused the evil should compensate for it, since the injured 
party “is still much more innocent than he.” And the 
“ sense of justice ” is appealed to for compelling a man 
who faints in the street and in the fall happens to break 
some fragile articles to indemnify the owner for his loss.'"' 
Thus, whilst loss from accident is generally allowed to lie 
where it falls, an exception is made where the instrument 
of misfortune is a human being. This is a nfost un- 
reasonable exception, but one not difficult to explain. 
People are ready to blame a person who commits a harm- 
ful deed, whether he deserves blame or not ; at the same 
time they are apt to overlook the indirect and more remote 
cause of the harm which lies in the sufferer’s own conduct. 
Hence the liability, if not the guilt, is laid on him who is 
a cause of pain by doing something, even though it be by 
merely spasmodic contractions of his muscles ; whereas the 
other party, who only exposed himself to the risk of being 
hurt, is regarded as the “ more innocent.” 

Whilst culpability or quasi-culpability is thus imputed 
to the innocent committer of a harmful deed, little or no 

^ Holmes, Common Law, p. 80. op. cit. p. 106. 

^ Stanley z'. Vo^^W, in Law Lepof'ts, ^ Forsman, Bidrag till Idran ont 

Queen's Be?tch Dwision, Sf/q, shades tand i brottmal, 158 Pol- 

Pollockand Maitland, op. cit. ii. Atl^sq. lock, Law of Torts, p. 129 sqq. 

^ von Jhering, Schuldmoment im ® Thon, Rechtsnorm und suhjectives 
romischen Privairecht, passim, espe- Recht, p. 106, n. 71. 
cially pp. 20 sqq., 40 sqq, Ilepp, 

CHARACTER 

censure is passed on him whose want of foresight or want 
of self-restraint is productive of suffering, if only the effect 
is sufficiently remote. This is exemplified by the frivolous 
leniency with which drunkenness, not long ago, was looked 
upon in many civilised countries, and by the criminal in- 
difference with which law and public opinion still regard 
the production of offspring that are almost with certainty 
doomed to misery on account of the vices, poverty, or 
bodily infirmities of the parents. To interfere here, it is 
argued, would be to intrude upon the individual’s right of 
freedom, or to meddle with the affairs of Providence. But 
men are not, generally, allowed to do mischief simply in 
order to gratify their own appetites, and Providence might 
equally well be called in to answer for any other kind of 
human shortcoming. I presume the true explanation to 
be that in this, as in many other kindred cases, the cause 
and effect are so distant from each other that the near- 
sighted eye does not distinctly perceive the connection 
between them. Indeed, there is hardly any other point in 
which the moral consciousness of civilised men still stands 
in greater need of intellectual training than in its judg- 
ments on cases which display want of care or foresight. 
And there is no safer measure of the moral enlightenment 
of a man than the scrupulosity with which he considers 
the possible consequences of acts, and the number of 
positive commandments which are contained in his catalogue 
of duties. 

That moral indignation and moral approval are from the 
very beginning felt, not with reference to certain modes of 
conduct per se, but with reference to persons on account of 
their conduct, is obvious from the intrinsic nature of those 
emotions. As we noticed before, they derive one of their 
most essential characteristics from their being directed 
against sensitive agents. Hence they may as naturally 
give rise to judgments on human character as to judgments 
on human conduct. And even when a moral judgment 
immediately refers to a distinct act, it takes notice of the 

CHARACTER 

xir 

31 ^ 

agent’s will as a whole. The forgiveness which follows 
sincere repentance, and the distinction made between 
injuries committed deliberately in cold blood and injuries 
committed in the heat of passion, indicate that men, in 
their moral judgments, are apt to consider something more 
than a momentary volition. The same tendency is at the 
bottom of the common practice of punishing a second and 
third offence more severely than the first. 

Among the Masai, if a man is convicted of a particular 
crime several times, or constitutes himself a public nuisance, he 
is proclaimed an outlaw, his property is confiscated, and he is 
beaten away from any settlement or village he goes near. Un- 
less an outlaw can find friends among non-Masai tribes, he dies 
of starvation.” 1 Among the Wakamba “ a murder is judged 
by the elders ; if it is a man’s first offence of that kind he is 
punished by a fine. . . ♦ But a man convicted for the second 
time of murder is killed at once, everyone setting on him the 
moment judgment is delivered. . . . For rape a first offender 
is flogged, and lias to pay a fine of one cow ; for the second 
offence he is killed.” ^ Among the Wyandots of North 
America, a woman guilty of adultery, for the first offence is 
punished by having her hair cropped ; for repeated offences her 
left ear is cut off.” ^ The laws of the Incas, also, were more 
lenient to a first offence than to a second ; ^ and in the kingdom 
of Mechoacan, whilst the first theft was not severely punished, 
the thief who repeated his crime was thrown down a precipice 
and his carcass was left to the birds of prey.^* Among the 
Aleuts, for the first theft “corporal punishment was inflicted^ 
for the second offence of the kind some fingers of the right hand 
were cut off ; for the third, the left hand and sometimes the lips 
were amputated ; and for the fourth offence the punishment 
was death.” Other crimes, again, “were punished at first by 
reprimand by the chief before the community, and upon 
repetition the offender was bound and kept in such a condition 
for some time.”^ The Kamchadales “ burn the hands of people 
who have been frequently caught in theft, but for the first 
offence the thief must restore what he hath stolen, and live alone 

^ Hinde, I'he Last of the Masai, 
p. io8. 

r Decle, op, cit. p. 487. 

^ l^owell, ‘ Wyandot Government,* 
in A fin. Hep. Bur. Ethn. i. 66. 

^ Herrera, General History of the 
West Indies, iv. 338 sqq. 

^ Ibid. iii. 255. 

® Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, 
‘ Report on Alaska,* in Tenth Census 
of the United States, p. 152. 

in solitude, without expecting any assistance from others.” ^ 
Among the Ainu, for breaking into the storehouse or dwelling 
of another, a very sound beating was administered for the first 
offence ; for the second, sometimes the nose was cut off, some- 
times the ears, and in some cases both the nose and ears were 
forfeited. . . . Persons who had committed such a crime 
twice were driven bag and baggage out of the home and village 
to which they belonged.”^ Among the Murray Islanders 
repetition of an offence such as murder or robbery generally 
incurred a penalty of death, whereas the first offence was 
punished only by a fine.^ According to the Javanese Niti 
Sastra, if a man violates the law, he may for the first trans- 
gression be punished by a pecuniary fine, for the second by a 
punishment affecting his person, but for the third he may be 
punished with death.^ The Penal Code of the Chinese 
prescribes that, for the first offence, individuals convicted of 
being concerned in a theft shall be branded in the lower part of 
the left arm with two words signifying thief, that for the second 
offence they shall be branded again with the same words in the 
lower part of the right arm, but that for the third offence they 
shall suffer death by being strangled, after remaining the usual 
period in confinement.® In Nepal, in the case of theft or petty 
burglary, for the first offence one hand is cut off, for the second 
the other hand, whilst the third offence is capital.® Herodotus 
mentions with approval that in ancient Persia not even the king 
was allowed to put any one to death for a single crime/ 
According to the Vendid^d, the gravity of a crime does not 
depend only on the gravity of the deed, but on its frequency as 
well.^ In ancient Rome the repetition of a crime aggravated 
its punishment.® According to early English law, the punish- 
ment upon a second conviction for nearly every offence was 
death or mutilation.^® In modern European legislation, the 
principle that the criminality of certain crimes is increased by 
their repetition is generally recognised. 

The more a moral judgment is influenced by reflection, 
the more it scrutinises the character which manifests itself 

^ Krasheninnikoff, History of K am- p. 285. 
si'hatka, p. 179. ® Hodgson, Miscellaneous Essays^ 

’ Batchelor, Ainu and their Folk- ii. 235. 

Lore, p. 285. . ^ Herodotus, i. 137. 

Hunt, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. ® Vendi ddd, iw. sqq. 
xxviii. 6. ^ Mommsen, Romisches Strafrecht^ 

^ Raffles, History of Java, i. 262. p. 1044. 

^ Id Tsing Lcti Lee, sec. cclxix. Stephen, op, cit. i. 58. 

CHARACTER 

ji3 

in that individual piece of conduct by which the judgment 
is occasioned. But however superficial it be, it always 
refers to a will conceived of as a continuous entity, to a 
person regarded as a cause of pleasure or pain. This holds 
good of savage and civilised men alike. Even tame 
animals, in response to a hurt or a benefit, behave differently 
towards different persons according to their previous 
experience of the agent.

WHY MORAL JUDGMENTS ARE PASSED ON CONDUCT 
AND CHARACTER MORAL VALUATION AND FREE-WILL 

We have examined the general nature of the subjects 
of moral judgments from an evolutionary point of view. 
We have seen that such judgments are essentially passed 
on conduct and character, and that allowance is made 
for the various elements of which conduct and character 
are composed in proportion as the moral judgment is 
scrutinising and enlightened. But an important question 
stills calls for an answer, the question, Why is this so We 
cannot content ourselves with the bare fact that nothing 
but the will is morally good or bad. We must try to 
explain it. 

After what has been said above the explanation is not 
far to seek. Moral judgments are passed on conduct 
and character, because such judgments spring from moral 
emotions ; because the moral emotions are retributive 
emotions ; because a retributive emotion is a reactive 
attitude of mind, either kindly or hostile, towards a living 
being (or something looked upon in the light of a living 
being), regarded as a cause of pleasure or as a cause of 
pain ; and because a living being is regarded as a true 
cause of pleasure or pain only in so far as this feeling 
is assumed to be caused by its will. The correctness of 
this explanation I consider to be proved by the fact that 
not only moral emotions, but non-moral retributive 
emotions as well, are felt with reference to phenomena 

EXPLANATORY 

CH. XIII 

exactly similar in nature to those on which moral judgments 
are passed. 

Like moral indignation, the emotion of revenge can be 
felt only towards a sentient being, or towards something 
which is believed to be sentient. We may be angry with 
inanimate things for a moment, but such anger cannot last ; 
it disappears as soon as we reflect that the thing in question 
is incapable of feeling pain. Even a dog which, in play- 
ing with another dog, hurts itself, for instance, by running 
into a tree, changes its angry attitude immediately it 
notices the real nature of that which caused it pain.^ 

Equivalent to injuries resulting from inanimate things 
are injuries resulting accidentally from animate beings. 
If my arm or my foot gives a push to my neighbour, and 
he is convinced that the push was neither intended nor 
foreseen nor due to any carelessness whatever on my part, 
surely he cannot feel angry with me. Why not ? Professor 
Bain answers this question as follows : — “ Aware that 
absolute inviolability is impossible in this world, and that 
we are all exposed by turns to accidental injuries from our 
fellows, we have our minds disciplined to let unintended 
evil go by without satisfaction of inflicting some counter 
evil upon the offender.”^ Perhaps another answer would 
be that an accidental injury in no way affects the “self- 
feeling ” of the sufferer. But neither of these explanations 
goes to the root of the question. Let us once more 
remember that even a dog distinguishes between being 
stumbled over and being kicked ; and this can neither be 
the result of discipline, nor have anything to do with the 
feeling of self-regarding pride.® I’he reason is that the dog 
scents an enemy in the person who kicks him, but not in the 
one who stumbles. My neighbour, more clearly still, makes 
a distinction between a part of my body and myself as a 

^ Hiram Stanley, Studies in the Africa^ i, 254), expect a similar clis- 
Evolutionary Psychology of Feelings crimination from the elephant ; for “if 
p. 154 sq. an elephant is killed . . . they seek 

Bain, Emotions and the Willy p. to exculpate themselves towards the 
185. dead animal, by declaring to him 

^ The Koussa Kafirs, according to solemnly, that the thing happened 
Lichtenstein ( '/ravels in Southej'n entirely by accident, not by design. 

volitional being, and finds that / am no proper object of 
resentment when the cause of the hurt was merely my arm 
or my foot. An event is attributed to me as its cause only 
in proportion as it is considered to have been brought about 
by my will ; and /, regarded as a volitional, and sensitive 
entity, can be a proper object of resentment only as a 
cause of pain. 

We can hardly feel disposed to resent injuries inflicted 
upon us by animals, little children, or madmen, when we 
recognise their inability to judge of the nature of their 
acts. They are not the real causes of the mischief resulting 
from their deeds, since they neither intended nor foresaw 
nor could have foreseen it. “ Why,” says the Stoic, “ do 
you bear with the delirium of a sick man, or the, ravings 
of a madman, or the impudent blows of a child ? Because, 
of course, they evidently do not know what they are 

doing Would anyone think himself to be in his 

perfect mind if he were to return kicks to a mule or bites 
to a dog ? ” ^ Hartley observes, “ As we improve in 
observation and experience, and in the faculty of analysing 
the actions of animals, we perceive that brutes and children, 
and even adults in certain circumstances, have little or no 
share in the actions referred to them.’”'* 

Deliberate resentment considers the motives of acts. 
Suppose that a man tells us an untruth. Our feelings 
towards him are not the same if he did it in order to save 
our life as if he did it for his own benefit. Moreover, our 
anger abates, or ceases altogether, if we find that he who 
injured us acted under compulsion, or under the influence 
of a non-volitional impulse, too strong for any ordinary 
man to resist. Then, the main cause of the injury was not 
his will, conceived as a continuous entity. It yielded to the 
will of somebody else, reluctantly, as it were out of necessity, 
or to a powerful conation which forms no part of his real 
self. He was merely an instrument in another’s hand, or 
he was “ beside himself,” “ beyond himself,” “ out of his 

^ Seneca, De ira^ iii. 26 sq. ^ Hartley, Obscrvatiom on Man^ i. 

493 - 

mind.” When we are angry, says Montaigne, “ it is 
passion that speaks, and not we.” ^ The religious psy- 
chology of the ancient Greeks ascribed acts committed 
upon sudden excitement of mind to the Ate which bewilders 
the mind and betrays the man into deeds which, in his 
sober senses, he is heartily sorry for. Hence the Ate has 
in its train the the humble prayers of repentance, 

which must make good, before gods and men, whatever 
has been done amiss.^ The Vedic singer apologises, “ It is 
not our own will, Varuna, that leads us astray, but some 
seduction — wine, anger, dice, and our folly.” ® In the 
Andaman Islands violent outbreaks of ill-temper or resent- 
ment are looked upon as the result of a temporary 
“ possession,” and the victim is, for the time being, con- 
sidered unaccountable for his actions.^ Madness, as we 
have seen, is frequently attributed to demoniacal possession. 
In ancient Ireland, again, it was believed to be often 
brought on by malignant magical agency, usually the work 
of some druid, hence in the Glosses to the Senchus Mor 
a madman is repeatedly described as one “upon whom the 
magic wisp has been thrown.” What a person does in 
madness is not an act committed by him. 

“Was ’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes ? Never Hamlet ; 

If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away, 

And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes, 

Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it. 

Who does it, then ? His madness ; if ’t be so, 

Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d ; 

His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.” ® 

We resent not only acts and volitions, but also omissions, 
though generally less severely ; and when a hurt is 
attributed to want of foresight, our resentment is, ceteris 
paribus., proportionate to the degree of carelessness 

' Montaigne, Essais.u. 31 ((Etivres, * Man, in Jour. Anthrop. Inst. xii. 

P- '39^)* in. 

^ Iliad, ix. 505 sqq. Miiller, Disser- » Joyce, Social Hisiory of Ancicftt 
iations on the Etirnenides, io8. Ireland, \ 224. 

* Veda^ vii. 86, 6, ® Shakespeare, Hamlet, v. 2, 

which we lay to the offender’s charge. A person appears 
to us as the cause of an injury which we think he could have 
prevented by his will. But a hurt resulting from careless- 
ness is not to the same extent as an intentional injury 
caused by the will. And the less foresight could have been 
expected in a given case, the smaller share has the will in 
the production of the event. 

Our resentment is increased by a repetition of the injury, 
and reaches its height when we find that our adversary 
nourishes habitual ill-will towards us. On the other hand, 
as we have noticed in a previous chapter,' the injured party 
is not deaf to the prayer for forgiveness which springs 
from genuine repentance. Like moral indignation, non- 
moral resentment takes into consideration the character of 
the injurer. 

Passing to the emotion of gratitude, we find a similar 
resemblance between the phenomena which give rise to 
this emotion and those which call forth moral approval. 
We may feel some kind of retributive affection for in- 
animate objects which have given us pleasure ; “ a man 
grows fond of a snuff-box, of a pen-knife, of a staff which 
he has long made use of, and conceives something like a 
real love and affection for them.” But gratitude, involving 
a desire to please the benefactor, can reasonably be felt 
towards such objects only as are themselves capable of 
feeling pleasure. Moreover, on due deliberation we do 
not feel grateful to a person who benefits us by pure 
accident. Since gratitude is directed towards the assumed 
cause of pleasure, and since a person is regarded as a cause 
only in his capacity of a volitional being, gratitude pre- 
supposes that the pleasure shall be due to his will. For 
the same reason motives are also taken into consideration 
by the benefited party. As Hutcheson observes, “ bounty 
from a donor apprehended as morally evil, or extorted by 
force, or conferr’d with some view of self-interest, will not 
procure real good-will ; nay, it may raise indignation.” ® 

' Supra y ch. iii. ^ Hutcheson, Inquiry concerning 

^ Adam Smith, Theory of , Moral Moral Good and Evil 157. 
SenlimentSy p. 136. 

Like moral approval, gratitude may be called forth not 
only by acts and volitions, but by absence of volitions, in 
so far as this absence is traceable to a good disposition of 
will. And, like the moral judge, the grateful man is, in 
his retributive feeling, influenced by the notion he forms 
of the benefactor’s character. 

The cognitions by which non-moral resentment and 
gratitude are determined are thus, as regards their general 
nature, precisely similar to those which determine moral 
indignation and approval. Whether moral or non-moral, 
a retributive emotion is essentially directed towards a sensi- 
tive and volitional entity, or self, conceived of as the cause 
of pleasure or the cause of pain. This solves a problem 
which necessarily baffles solution in the hands of those who 
fail to recognise the emotional origin of moral judgments, 
and which, when considered at all, has, I think, never been 
fully understood by those who have essayed it. It has 
been argued, for instance, that moral praise and blame are not 
applied to inanimate things and those who commit involun- 
tary deeds, because they are administered only ‘‘where they 
are capable of producing some effect'’;^ that moral judgment 
is concerned with the question of compulsion, because 
“ only when a man acts morally of his own free will is 
society sure of him”;“ that we do not regard a lunatic as 
responsible, because we know that “ his mind is so diseased 
that it is impossible by moral reprobation alone to change 
his character so that it may be subsequently relied upon.” ^ 
The bestowal of moral praise or blame on such or such an 
object is thus attributed to utilitarian calculation;'^ whereas 
in reality it is determined by the nature of the moral 
emotion which lies at the bottom of the judgment. And, 
as Stuart Mill observes (though he never seems to have 
realised the full import of his objection), whilst we may 
administer praise and blame with the express design of 
influencing conduct, “ no anticipation of salutary effects 

^ James Mill, Fragment on Mackin- Clifford, Lectures and Essays^ p. 

toshy p. 370. 296. 

^ Ziegler, Social Ethics ^ p. 56 sq. * See also James Mill, op, cit, pp. 

;j6i, 262, 375. 

from our feeling will ever avail to give us the feeling 
itself.” 1 

The nature of the moral emotions also gives us the key 
to another important problem — a problem which has called 
forth endless controversies — namely, the co-existence of 
moral responsibility with the general law of cause and 
effect. It has been argued that responsibility, and moral 
judgments generally, are inconsistent with the notion that 
the human will is determined by causes; that “either free- 
will is a fact, or moral judgment a delusion.” The argu- 
ment has been well summed up by Sir Leslie Stephen as 
follows : — “ Moral responsibility, it is said, implies free- 
dom. A man is only responsible for that which he causes. 
Now the causa causce is also the causa causati. If I am 
caused as well as cause, the cause of me is the cause of my 
conduct ; I am only a passive link in the chain which 
transmits the force. Thus, as each individual is the product 
of something external to himself, his responsibility is really 
shifted to that something. The universe or the first cause 
is alone responsible, and since it is responsible to itself 
alone, responsibility becomes a mere illusion.” We are told 
that, if determinism were true, human beings would be no 
more proper subjects of moral valuation than are inanimate 
things ; that the application of moral praise and blame 
would be “ in itself as absurd as to applaud the sunrise or 
be angry at the rain”;® that the only admiration which 
the virtuous man might deserve would be the kind of 
admiration “ which we justly accord to a well-made 
machine.”^ Nor are these inferences from the doctrine of 
determinism only weapons forged by its opponents ; they 
are shared by many of its own adherents. Richard Owen 
and his followers maintained that, since a man’s character 
is made for him, not by him, there is no justice in punishing 

^ Stuart Mill, in a note to James ^ Martineau, Types of Ethical 
Mill’s Analysis of the Phenomena of flieoryy ii. 41 sq. 
the Human Mindy ii. 323. ** Balfour, Poundaiions of Belief p. 

Leslie Stephen, S/ience of EthicSy 25. 

p. 285. , 

XI n 

AND FREE-WILL 

him for’ what he cannot help,^ To Stuart Mill responsi- 
bility simply means liability to punishment, inflicted for a 
utilitarian purpose/^ So also Prof. Sidgwick — whose atti- 
tude towards the free-will theory is that of a sceptic — 
argues that the common retributive view of punishment, 
and the ordinary notions of ‘‘ merit,” ‘‘ demerit,” and 
responsibility,” involve the assumption that the will is 
free, and that these terms, if used at all, have to be used 
in new significations. ‘‘ If the wrong act,” he says, ‘‘and 
the bad qualities of character manifested in it, are conceived 
as the necessary effects of causes antecedent or external to 
the existence of the agent, the moral responsibility — in the 
ordinary sense — for the mischief caused by them can no 
longer rest on him. At the same time, the Determinist 
can give to the terms ‘ ill-desert ’ and ‘responsibility’ a 
signification which is not only clear and definite, but, from 
an utilitarian point of view, the only suitable meaning. 
In this view, if I affirm that A is responsible for a harmful 
act, I mean that it is right to punish him for it ; primarily, 
in order that the fear of punishment may prevent him and 
others from committing similar acts in future.” ^ 

If these conclusions are correct it is obvious that, 
whether the infliction of punishment be justifiable or not, 
the feeling moral indignation or moral approval is, from 
the deterministic point of view, absurd. And yet, as a 
matter of fact, these emotions are felt by determinists and 
libertarians alike. Apparently, they are not in the least 
affected by the notion that the human will is subject to 
the general law of cause and effect. Emotions are always 
determined by specific cognitions, and last only as long as 
the influence of those cognitions lasts. It makes me sorry 
to hear that some evil has befallen a friend ; but my 
sorrow disappears at once when I find that the rumour was 
false. I get angry with a person who hurts me ; but my 
anger subsides as soon as I recognise that the hurt was 
purely accidental. My indignation is aroused by an 

^ Stuart Mill, Exanihiaiion of Sir ^ Ibid. p. 506 sqq. 

William HafniHon's Philosophy/, p. ^ Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, p. 
506. 71 sq. 

VOL. I y 

MORAL VALUATION 

atrocious crime ; but it ceases entirely when I hear that 
the agent was mad. On the other hand, however convinced 
I am that a person’s conduct and character are in every 
detail a product of causes, that does not prevent me from 
feeling towards him retributive emotions — either anger or 
gratitude, or moral resentment or approval. Hence I 
conclude that a retributive emotion is not essentially deter- 
mined by the cognition of free-will. I hold that Spinoza 
is mistaken in his assumption that men feel more love or 
hatred towards one another than towards anything else, 
because they think themselves to be free.^ And I attribute 
the conception that moral valuation is inconsistent with 
determinism either to a failure to recognise the emotional 
origin of moral judgments or to insufficient insight into 
the true nature of the moral emotions. At the same time 
it seems easy to explain the fallacy which lies at the 
bottom of that conception. 

We have seen that the object of moral approval and 
disapproval is the will, and that a person’s responsibility is 
lessened in proportion as his will is exposed to the pressure 
of non-volitional conations. Full responsibility thus pre- 
supposes freedom from such pressure, and, particularly, 
freedom from external compulsion. Hence the inference 
that it also presupposes freedom from causation, and that 
complete determination involves complete irresponsibility. 
Compulsion is confounded with causation ; and this con- 
fusion is due to the fact that the cause which determines 
the will is actually looked upon in the light of a constrain- 
ing power outside the will. 

The popular mind has a strong belief in the law of 
cause and effect. When reflecting on the matter, it admits 
that everything which happens in this world has a cause ; 
and if the natural cause is hidden, it readily calls in a 
supernatural cause to account for the event. Now, in the 
case of human volitions the chain of causation is often 
particularly obscure ; as Spinoza said, whilst men are con- 
scious of their volitions and desires, they “ never even 

^ Spinoza, Etkica^ iii. 49, Note, 

AND FREE-WILL 

dream, in their ignorance, of the causes which have disposed 
them so to wish and desire.” ^ Hence, when in a philo- 
sophic mood, they are liable to attribute their acts to 
the influence of an external power ruling over human 
affairs, a god or an all-powerful fate. No doubt, Providence 
and Fate may effect their purposes without the will of man 
as their tool ; what happens ‘‘by chance,” being frequently 
no less wonderful than any decree of a human will, may 
likewise be traced to a supernatural cause. But, on the 
other hand, the fact that the deeds of men are generally 
preceded by volitions, is so obvious that it could not escape 
even the simplest mind — indeed, so strongly are primitive 
men impressed by this fact that they are apt to attribute 
every event to a will. Acknowledging, then, the connec- 
tion between volition and deed, the fatalist regards the 
former only as an instrument in the hands of a force outside 
the agent, which compels his will to execute its plans. 
Sometimes it reaches its goal in a way quite unforeseen by 
the agent himself. Muhammed said, “ When God hath 
ordered a creature to die in any particular place. He causeth 
his wants to direct him to that place ” ; and it is a popular 
saying throughout Islam that “ whenas Destiny descends 
she blindeth human sight.” ^ Sometimes the external 
power causes its victim to will its decree, by exciting in 
him some irresistible passion, as when Zeus urged Clytem- 
nestra to the slaughter of Agamemnon ; or the volitions 
of a person are themselves regarded as decreed by that 
power. In Warend, in Sweden, when somebody has killed 
another, as also when the manslayer himself suffers the 
penalty of death, the women say, full of compassion, 
“ Well, this was his destiny, to be sure,” or, “ Poor fellow, 
it was a pitiful fate.” ^ In one of the Pahlavi texts the 
following words are put into the mouth of the Spirit of 

^ llnd, pt. i. Appendix. ^ I^ane, Arabian Society in the- 

In a Pahlavi text fate is defined as Middle A^i^eSy ]). 6. 

“that which is ordainoj from the lUirton, in his translation of the 

h^^inning,” and divine providence as Arabian Nights^ i. 62, n 2. 
that which the sacred heings “also Ilyltcn-Cavallius, Warend oek 

grant otherwise ” [Dtnd-i Alai nog - 1 Wirdarne, i. 206. 

Khirady xxiv. 6 sqS, 

Y 2 

MORAL VALUATION 

Wisdom : — “ Even with the might and powerfulness of 
wisdom and knowledge, even then it is not possible to 
contend with destiny. Because, when predestination as to 
virtue, or as to the reverse, comes forth, the wise becomes 
wanting in duty, and the astute in evil becomes intelligent ; 
the faint-hearted becomes braver, and the braver becomes 
faint-hearted ; the diligent becomes lazy, and the lazy acts 
diligently. Just as is predestined as to the matter, the 
cause enters into it, and thrusts out everything else.” ^ 

Nor is it only the popular mind that, when human 
volitions are concerned, interprets causation as compulsion. 
Even such philosophers as Hamilton^ and Mansel® seemed 
quite unable to distinguish between determinism and fatal- 
ism. Professor Laurie likewise observes ; — “ Determinism 
is the term adopted of late years to veil fatalism and 

confound issues Freedom or fate, these are the 

sole alternatives.”^ Surely, it is those who identify deter- 
minism with fatalism that “ confound issues.” And a 
similar confusion lurks behind the main argument which 
has been adduced in support of free-will. It is said that 
“ I ought ” implies “I can,” and that men are not account- 
able for what they cannot avoid. This is perfectly true 
if by “cannot” is meant compulsion, and by “can” 
freedom from compulsion. But it is certainly not true if 
“ I can ” is intended to mean that “ I ” am a first cause, 
not determined by anything else. 

When a person’s will is believed to be constrained by a 
power outside him, he can obviously not be held responsible 
for what he does under the influence of such constraint. 
We are responsible only for that which is due to our will. 
A licentious man who has grown up in a corrupt society 
is less blamable than an equally licentious man who has 
always lived under conditions favourable to virtue ; and 
if we hear of a criminal that he was kidnapped as a child by 
a band of pickpockets and trained to their profession, we 

^ Dind-i Matndg-t Khirad^ xxiii. 3 . ^ Mansel, Prolegometia Logica^ p. 

scjiu 329 sqq. 

^ Yi^xm\iox\^ LecH(res on Metaphysics^ ^ Laurie, Ethica^ pp. 307, 319. 

ii. 410 sqq. 

AND FREE-WILL 

no doubt look upon him with some indulgence. In these 
cases, however, it may be said that, though the person’s 
conduct is largely due to the influence of external circum- 
stances upon his will, this influence was not irresistible, 
that he might have saved himself with an effort of will, 
and that consequently he is not wholly irresponsible. But 
in the case of a restraining destiny no escape is possible ; 
the compulsion is complete. Hence the logical outcome 
of radical fatalism is a denial of all moral imputability, 
and a repudiation of all moral judgment.^ 

Not so with determinism. Whilst fatalism presupposes 
the existence of a person who is constrained by an outward 
power, determinism regards the person himself as in every 
respect a product of causes. It does not assume any part 
of his will to have existed previous to his formation by 
these causes ; his will is not constrained by them, it is made 
by them. When we say of a person that he is influenced 
by external circumstances or subdued by fate, we regard 
him as existing independently of that which influences or 
subdues him, we attribute to him an innate character which 
is acted upon from the outside. He would have been 
different if he had grown up under different conditions of 
life, or if fate had left him alone. But it would be 
absolutely meaningless to say that he would be different 
if the causes to which he owes his existence had been 
different ; for instance, if he were the offspring of dif- 
ferent parents. This shows that we distinguish between 
the original self of a person and the self which is 
partly innate and partly' the product of external cir- 
cumstances. His innate character belongs to his original 

^ Of the inhabitants of North- i. 155, on the Bedouins. How- 

Eastern Africa, Munzinger observes ever, men are not philosophers in the 

{Ostafrikanische Studienj p. 66): — ordinary practice of life, hence the 

“ Seien sie Christen, Heiden, oder fatalist is generally as ready as any- 

Mohammedaner, schreiben sie Leben body else to judge on his neighbour’s 

und Tod, Gltick und Ungllick, Tugend conduct. According to various ancient 

und Verbrechen der unmittelbaren writers, the power of destiny is limited 

Hand Gottes zu. Mit dieser blinder so as not to exclude personal respon- 

Nothwendigkeit entschuldigt sich der sibility (see Schmidt, Ethik der alten 

Missethater, trdstet sich der UnglUck- Griechen^ i. S 9 

liche.” C/. also Doughty, Arabia 

FREE-WILL 

CH, XIII 

self ; and, strictly speaking, it is on the innate char- 
acter only that the scrutinising moral judge, so far 
as possible, passes his judgment, carefully considering 
the degree of pressure to which it has been exposed both 
from the non-voluntary part of the individual himself and 
from the outside world/ According to the fatalist, the 
innate character is compelled ; hence personal responsibility 
is out of the question. According to the determinist, the 
innate character is ,* but this has nothing whatever 

to do with the question of responsibility. The moral 
emotions are no more concerned with the origin of the 
innate character than the aesthetic emotions are concerned 
with the origin of the beautiful object. In their capacity of 
retributive emotions, the moral emotions are essentially 
directed towards sensitive and volitional entities conceived, 
not as uncaused themselves, but only as causes of pleasure 
or pain. 

^ That the proper subject of moral 
judgment is the innate character was 
emphasised by Schopenhauer in his 
prize-essays on J)ie Freiheit des 
Willem (SdfnnitlicheWerke^ vii. 83 jy</.) 
and Die Grundlage der Moral {ibid. vii. 
273 sijej. ). The innate character, he says, 
that real core of the whole man, con- 
tains the germ of all his virtues and 

vices. And though Schopenhauer be 
mistaken in his statement that a 
person’s character always remains the 
same, it seems to me indisputable that 
the succeeding changes to which it 
may be subject are imputable to hita 
only in so far as they are caused by his 
innate character.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

We have discussed the general nature of those 
phenomena which have a tendency to evoke moral blame 
or moral praise. We have seen that moral judgments are 
passed on conduct and character, and we have seen why 
this is the case. It now remains for us to examine the 
particular modes of conduct which are subject to moral 
valuation, and to consider how these modes of conduct are 
judged of by different peoples and in different ages. 

If carried out in every detail such an investigation 
could never come to an end. Among other things, 
it would have to take into account all customs existing 
among the various races of men, since every custom 
constitutes a moral rule. And the impossibility of any such 
undertaking becomes apparent when we consider the extent 
to which the conduct of man, and especially of savage 
man, is hampered by custom. Among the Wanika, for 
instance, “ if a man dares to improve the style of his hut, 
to make a larger doorway than is customary ; if he 
should wear a finer or different style of dress to that of 
his fellows, he is instantly fined.” ^ If, during the per- 
formance of a ceremony, the ancestors of an Australian 
native were in the habit of painting a white line across 
the forehead, their descendant must do the same." Dr. 
Nansen’s statement with reference to the Greenlanders, 

^ New, Life^ Wanderings ^ and ^ Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes 
Labours in Eastern Africa ^ p, no, of Central Australia ^ p. ii. 

PRELIMINARY REMARKS 

that their communities had originally customs and fixed 
rules for every possible circumstance/ is essentially true 
of many, if not all, of the lower races. 

It is necessary, then, that we should restrict ourselves to 
the more important modes of conduct with which the 
moral consciousness of mankind is concerned- These 
modes of conduct may be conveniently divided into six 
groups. The first group includes such acts, forbearances, 
and omissions as directly concern the interests of other men, 
their life or bodily integrity, their freedom, honour, property, 
and so forth. The second includes such acts, forbearances, 
and omissions as chiefly concern a man’s own welfare, 
such as suicide, temperance, asceticism. The third group, 
which partly coincides with, but partly differs from, 
both the first and the second, refers to the sexual relations 
of men. The fourth includes their conduct towards the 
lower animals ; the fifth, their conduct towards dead 
persons ; the sixth, their conduct towards beings, real or 
imaginary, that they regard as supernatural. We shall 
examine each of these groups separately, in the above 
order. And, not being content with a mere description of 
facts, we shall try to discover the principle which lies at 
the bottom of the moral judgment in each particular case. 

It is commonly maintained that the most sacred duty 
which we owe our fellow-creatures is to respect their lives. 
I venture to believe that this holds good not only among 
civilised nations, but among the lower races as well ; and 
that, if a savage recognises that he has any moral obliga- 
tions at all to his neighbours, he. considers the taking of 
their lives to be a greater wrong than any other kind of 
injury inflicted upon them. 

Among various uncivilised peoples, however, human life 
is said to be held very cheap. 

The Australian Dieyerie, we are told, would for a mere trifle 

kill their dearest friend.‘^ In Fiji there is an utter disregard of 

^ Nansen, Eskimo Life^ p. 104. the Dieyerie Tribe/ in Woods, Native 

- Gason, ‘Manners and Customs of 'Jribes 0/ South Austra/ia, p. 258. 

XlV 

the value of human life/’ ^ A Masai \vill murder his friend 
or neighbour "in a fight over a herd of captured cattle, atid 
“ live not a whit the less merrily afterwards.”^ Among the 
Bachapins, a Bechuana tribe, murder excites little sensation, 
excepting in the family of the person who has been murdered ; 
and brings, it is said, no disgrace upon him who has committed 
it ; nor uneasiness, excepting the fear of their revenge.” ^ The 
Orsons of Bengal are ready to take life on very slight 
provocation,” and Colonel Dalton doubts whether they see 
any moral guilt in it.^ Some of the Himalayan mountaineers 
are reported to put men to death merely for the satisfaction of 
seeing the blood flow and of marking the last struggles of the 
victim.^ Among the Pathans, on the north-western frontier of 
the Punjab, there is hardly a man whose hands are unstained,” 
and each person “ counts up his murders.” ^ 

On the other hand; there are uncivilised peoples among 
whom homicide or murder is said to be hardly known. 

Among the Omahas, before liquor was introduced there 
were no murders, even when men quarrelled.” Captain Lyon 
could learn of no instances of manslaughter having ever 
occurred among the Eskimo of Igloolik.® In 'Futuila, of the 
Samoa group, according to Brenchley, there had been but one 
case of assassination in the course of twenty years.^ The 
Veddahs of Ceylon knowx)f manslaughter only as a punish- 

^ Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the 
Fijians^ p. 115. 

Johnstun, Kilinia-njaro Expedition, 
P-419- 

^ Burchell, Travels in the Interior of 
Southern Africa, ii. 554. 

^ Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of 
Bengal, p. 256. 

® Journal of a Tour throuji 

the Hi mala Mountains , j). 267. 

^ Temple, quoted by Spencer, Prin- 
ciples of Ethics, i. 343. For other in- 
stances of the indifference of savaj^es to 
human life, see Fgcde, Description of 
Gi'eenland, p. 123 ; Cranz, History of 
Greenland, 177; Holm, ‘ Ethnolo- 
gisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne,’ in 
Meddelelser orn Gronland, 87, 179 
S(/^ ; Coxe. Russian Discoveries between 
Asia and America, p. 257 (Aleuts of 
Unalaska) ; Krasheninnikoff, History of 
Kamschatka, p. 204 ; S teller, Beschrei- 

bung von deni l.ande Kanitschatka, p. 
294 ; Boyle, Adventures among the 
Dyaks of Borneo, p. n6 (Malays); 
Powell, IVanderings in a Wild Country, 
p. 262 (aborigines of New Britain) ; 
Scaramucci and Giglioli, ‘Notizie sui 
Danakil,’ in Arch ivio per antropologia 
e la etnologia, xiv. 26 ; Wilson and 
Felkin, Uganda, ii. 310 (Gowane) ; 
Schweinfurth, Heart of Africa, i. 286 
(Bongo) ; Arnot, Garenganze, p. 71 
(Barotse) ; Tuckey, Expedition to Ex- 
plore the River Zaire, p. 383 (Congo 
natives) ; Ward, Five Years with the 
Congo Cannibals, p. 105 (Bolobo). 

^ Dorsey, ‘ Omaha Sociology,’ in 
Ann, Rep. Bur, Ethn. iii. 369. 

® Lyon, IVivate Journal, p. 350. 

^ Brenchley, Jottings during the 
Cruise of HM,S. “ Cura^oa'^^ among 
the South Sea Islands, p. 58. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

ment.^ The Bedouin of the Euphrates, says Mr. Blunt, is 
essentially humane, and never takes life needlessly. If he has 
killed a man in war he rather conceals the fact than proclaims 
it aloud, while murder or even homicide is almost unknown 
among the tribes.” ^ Among the Bakwiri, in Cameroon, 
Zoller never heard of any person having killed a member of his 
own community.^ Murders, says CailhY*, ‘‘are rare among 
the Bambaras, and never committed by the Mandingoes.” ^ 
Among the Wanika “ wilful cold-blooded murders are almost 
unknown.” ^ Among the Basutos perfect safety is enjoyed 
“ on roads where the traveller might have been robbed a 
hundred times over without the least hope of aid, and in houses 
where the doors and windows have neither bolts nor bars,” and 
cases of murder are very rare.^ 

In other instances homicide is expressly said to be 
regarded as wrong. 

The Greenlanders described by Dr. Nansen hold it atrocious 
to kill a fellow-creature, except in some particular cases.”^ The 
Dacotahs say that it is a great crime to take their fellow’s 
life, unless in revenge, “ because all have a right to live.”® 
In d'ierra del Kuego homicide rarely occurs, as Mr. Bridges 
remarks, because of an inveterate custom according to which 
human life is held sacred : “ Ic meurtricr est mis au ban de ses 
compatriotes ; isolc de tous, il cst fatalement condamne a perir 
de faim ou a tomber un jour sous les coups d’un groupe de 
justiciers improvises.”^ The Andaman Islanders condemn 
murder as yubda^ or sin."*^^ The natives of Botany Bay, New 

^ Sarasin, Eri^ehnisse naturwisseii- 
schaftlicher Eorschuiigxii attf Ceylon y iii. 
539- ty* Teniient, Ceylon^ ii. 444 ; 
Hartshorn e, in Indian .Intlqiiaryy viii, 
320. 

- Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the Eti- 
phrateSy ii. 203. Cf. ibid. ii. 207. 

^ Zoller, JCamerim, i. 188. 

^ Caillie, Travels through Central 
Afrieay i. 353. 

^ New, op. cit. p. 98. 

^ Casalis, Basutos y 301. For 
other instances, see Hall, Arctic Re- 
searches y p. 571 (Eskimo) ; Dobriz- 
hofifer, Account of the AbiponeSy ii. 148 ; 
Turner, Sanioay p. 178 ; Ellis, Tour 
through Hawaii y p. 429 ; Brooke, Ten 
Years in Sarawak y i. 6 1 (Sea Dyaks) ; 
Low, Sarawaky p. 133; Marsden, 

History of Sumatra p. 471 (koggi 
Islanders) ; Steller, De Sanpi-Af'chipely 
p. 26 ; Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige 
r as sen tusschen Selebes tn Papuay p, 
41 (Ambon and Uliase Islanders) ; von 
Siebold, Aino auf der Inset YessOy 
pp. II, 35 ; Munzinger, Ostafrikanische 
Studieuy p. 532 (Barea and Kunama) ; 
Holub, Seven Years in South AfricUy 
ii. 319 (Marutse) ; Maclean, Compen- 
dium of Kafr Lazvs and Customs y pp. 
61, 143 sq. ; Shooter, Kafirs of AAtaf 

p. 137. 

^ Nansen, Eskimo Lifcy p. 162. 

^ Prescott, in Schoolcraft, Indian 
Tribes of the United States y ii. 195, 
Hyades and Denilver, Alission 
scientifique du Cap HorUy vii. 374, 243. 
Man, in Jour. Anthr. Bist. xii. 1 12. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

South Wales, though a trivial offence in their ideas justifies the 
murder of a man, highly reprobate the crime when committed 
without what they esteem a just cause.” ^ According to Mr. 
Curr’s experience, the Australian Black undoubtedly feels that 
murder is wrong, and its committal brings remorse ; even after 
the perpetration of infanticide or massacres, though both are 
practised without disguise, those engaged in them are subject to 
remorse and low spirits for some time.**^ 

It is of particular importance in this connection to note 
that, in early civilisation, blood-revenge is regarded not as 
a private matter only, but as a duty, and that, where this 
custom does not prevail, the community punishes the 
murderer, frequently with death. We may without 
hesitation accept Professor Tylor’s statement that “ no 
known tribe, however low and ferocious, has ever ad- 
mitted that men may kill one another indiscriminately.”^ 
In every society — even where human life is, generally 
speaking, held in low estimation — custom prohibits 
homicide within a certain circle of men. But the 
radius of the circle varies greatly. 

Savages carefully distinguish between an act of homicide 
committed within their own community and one where 
the victim is a stranger. Whilst the former is under 
ordinary circumstances disapproved of, the latter is in 
most cases allowed, and often regarded as praiseworthy. 
It is a very common notion in savage ethics that the 
chief virtue of a man is to be successful in war and to slay 
many enemies. 

Among the Kdfirs of the Hindu-Kush killing strangers 
might or might not be considered inexpedient, but it would 

^ Barrington, Flisiory of New South p. 572 (Eskimo); Mariner, Natives of 
Wales ^ p. 19. Cf, Liimholtz, Among the Tonga Islands^ ii. 162 ; Macdonald, 
Cannibals^ p. 126 (natives of Northern Oceania^ p. 208 (Efatese) ; Yate, Ac- 
Queensland). count of Neav 'Aealand^ p. 145 ; Ar- 

“ Ciirr, The Australian Race^ i. lOO, bousset and Exploratory Tour 

43 sq. For other instances, see Keat- to the North-East of the Colony of the 

ing, Expedition to the Source of St. Cape of Good Plope, p. 322 (Bechu- 

Peters River ^ i. 127 (Potifwatomis) ; anas) ; Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Slid- 
HaVmon, Journal of Voyages in the Afrikds^ p. 322 ( Mottenlots). 

Interior of North America^ p. 348 Tylor, ‘ Primitive Society,’ in Con- 

(Indians on the east side of tlie Rocky temporary Review ^ xxi. 714. 

Mountains) ; Hall, Arctic Researches, 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

hardly be considered a crime killing fellow-tribesmen, on the 
other hand, is looked upon in a very different light.^ The 
Koriaks do not regard murder as a great crime, unless it occur 
within their own tribe.^ The early Aleuts considered the 
killing of a companion a crime worthy of death, but to kill 
an enemy was quite another thing.” ^ To an Aht Indian the 
murder of a man is no more than the killing of a dog, provided 
that the victim is not a member of his own tribe.^ According 
to Humboldt, the natives of Guiana detest all who are not of 
their family, or their tribe ; and hunt the Indians of a neigh- 
bouring tribe, who live at war with their own, as we hunt 
game.” ^ In the opinion of the Fuegians, ‘‘a strajiger and an 
enemy are almost synonymous terms,” hence they dare not go 
where they have no friends, and where they are unknown, as 
they would most likely be destroyed.^ The Australian Black 
nurtures an intense hatred of every male at least of his own 
race who is a stranger to him, and would never neglect to 
assassinate such a person at the earliest moment that he could 
do so without risk to himself.^ In Melanesia, also, a stranger 
as such was generally throughout the islands an enemy to be 
killed.8 

In Savage Island the slaying of a member of another tribe — 
that is, a potejitial enemy — was a virtue rather than a crime.”^ 
To a young Samoan it was the realisation of his highest ambition 
to be publicly thanked by the chiefs for killing a foe in mortal 
combat. According to Fijian beliefs, men who have not slain 
any enemy are, in the other world, compelled to beat dirt with 
their clubs — the most degrading punishment the native mind 
can conceive — because they used their club to so little purpose 
and in Futuna it was deemed no less necessary to have poured 
out blood on the field of battle in order to hold a part in the 
happy future life.^“ In the Western islands of Torres Straits 
“ it was a meritorious deed to kill foreigners either in fair fight 

^ Scott Robertson, Kiifirs of the Curr, 'Ihe A usiralian Race^ i. 64, 

Hindu- Kitsh^ p. 194, 85 sq, Mathew, in Jour, Proceed. 

^ Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p. 232. Roy. Soc. N. S. IVales, xxiii. 398. 
^^Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, ^ Codringlon, Melanesians., p. 345. 

‘ Report on Alaska,’ in Tenth Census ^ Thomson, Saz>a^e Island., p. 104. 

of the United States., p. 155, See also ibid. p. 94. 

^ Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Pritchard, Poly Etesian Remini- 

Savage Life., p. 152. sconces., p. 57. 

® von Humboldt, Personal Narra- Seemann, Viti, p. 401. Cf, 

five of Travels., v. 422. Williams and Calvert, op. cit. p. 97 

® Stirling, in South American Mis- sq. ; Erskine, Islands of the Western 
siona^y Magazine, iv. Ii. Bridges, Pacific, \y. 248. 

in A Voice for South America, xiii. Smith, in Jour. Polynesian Society, 

210. i. 39. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

or by treachery, and honour and glory were attached to the 
bringing home of the skulls of the inhabitants of other islands 
slain in battle.”^ In the Solomon Islands, ^ New Guinea,^ 
and various parts of the Malay Archipelago, he who has col- 
lected the greatest number of human heads is honoured by his 
tribe as the bravest man ; and some peoples do not allow a man 
to marry until he has cut off at least one human head.^ Among 
many of the North American Indians, again, he who can boast 
of the greatest number of scalps is the person most, highly 
esteemed,'" Among the Seri Indians the highest virtue is 
the shedding of alien blood ; and their normal impulse on 
meeting an alien is to kill, unless deterred by fear.”^^ Among 
the Chukchi it is held criminal to thieve or murder in the 
family or race to which a person belongs ; but these crimes 
committed elsewhere are not only permitted, but held honour- 
able and glorious.” ^ So, too, the Gallas consider it honourable 
to kill an alien, though criminal to kill a countryman.^ 

At the same time there are, among the lower races, 
various instances in which the rule, “ Thou shalt not kill,” 
applies even to foreigners. Hospitality, as will be seen in 
a subsequent chapter, is a stringent duty in the savage 
world. Custom requires that the host should entertain 
and protect a stranger who comes as his guest, and by 
killing him the host would perpetrate an outrage hardly 
possible. Moreover, even in the case of intertribal rela- 
tions, we must not conclude that what is allowed in war 
is also allowed in times of peace. The prohibition of 
homicide may extend beyond the tribal border, to 

^ Haddon, in Reports of the Cam- gon,’ in Contributions to N. American 
bridge Anthropological Expedition to Ethnology y i. 192 ; Powers, Tribes of 
Torres Straits ^ v. 277. Californiay p. 321). 

Romilly, Western Pacific y p. 73, ® McGee, * Seri Indians," in Anit, 

Penny, Ten Years in Mela 7 tesiay p. 46. Rep, Bur, Ethnol. xvii. 1 32. 
Codrington, op, cit, p. 345. ^ Georgi, Russia, iii. 183. 

^ Romilly, Weste 7 nt Pacific, p. 76. ® Macdonald, Af 7 dca 7 tay i. 229. JFor 

^ Bock, Head-Hunters of Bo 7 neOy other instances, see Harmon, op, cit. p. 

pp. 216, 221, &c. (Dyaks'. Bickmore, 301 (Taciillies) ; Burton, City of the 

Travels hi the East lndia 7 t A 7 rhipelag 0 y Saints,^. 139 (Dacotahs) ; Maepher- 

p. 205(Alfura of Ceram). Dalton, op. son, Memoidals of Service in India, p. 

cit, p. 40 (Nagas of Upper Assam). 94(lCandhs) ; MacMahon, Far Cathay, 

^ The well-known practice of scalp- p. 262 (Indo- Burmese border tribes) ; 

ing, though very common, was not Macdonald, Africana, i, 194 sq. 

universal among the North American (Eastern Central Africans) ; Johnston, 

Indians (see Gibbs, ‘ Tribes of Western Kilitna-njaro Expedition, p. 419 

Washington and Northwestern Ore- (Masai). 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

members of different tribes who for some reason or 
other are on friendly terms with each other. ^ We must 
not suppose that a tribe of savages generally either lives 
in a state of complete isolation, or is always at odds with 
its neighbours. In Australia, for instance, one tribe of 
rtatives, as a rule, entertains amicable relations with one, 
two, or more other tribes/' Among the Central Australian 
natives, say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, “ there is no such 
thing as one tribe being in a constant state of enmity with 
another”; on the contrary, where two tribes come into 
contact with one another on the border land of their 
respective territories, friendly feelings are maintained 
between the members of the two.^ Some uncivilised 
peoples are even said to have no wars. The Veddahs of 
Ceylon never make war upon each other.^ According 
to the reports of the oldest inhabitants of Umnak and 
Unalaska, the people there had never been engaged in 
war either among themselves or with their neighbours, 
except once with the natives of Alaska.'^ To the Green- 
landers described by Dr. Nansen war is ‘‘incomprehen- 
sible and repulsive, a thing for which their language has 
no word.” 

That savages to some extent recognise the existence of 
intertribal rights in times of peace is obvious from certain 
customs connected with their wars. Some South Sea 
Islanders and North American Indians consider it neces- 
sary for a party which is about to attack another to give 
notice beforehand of their intention, in order that their 
opponents may be prepared to meet them.' The cessation 
of hostilities is often accompanied by the conclusion of a 
special treaty and by ceremonies calculated to make it 
binding. The Tahitians, for instance, wove a wreath of 

* See, Scott Robertson, op. cit. Nansen, Eskimo LifOy p. 162. 

p. 194 (Kafirs of the llindii-Kush). Hale, U.S. Exploring Expedition. 

Curr, 'Ehe Anstraliayi RacCy i. 62 Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philologyf^ 
Si/. p. 72 (Micronesians). Gibbs, toe. cit. 

Spencer and Ciillen, Native Tribes p. 190 (Indians of Western Washington 
of Central Anstratiay p. 32. an<l North-Western Oregon). 

Sarasin, of. cit. iii. 488. ^ See Farrer, Military Manners and 

^ CoxG, op. cit. p. 244. Customs<y p. 162 sq. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

green boughs furnished by each side^ exchanged two young 
dogs, and, having also made a band of cloth together, 
offered the wreath and the band to the gods with 
imprecations on the side which should first violate so 
solemn a treaty of peace. ^ Nor does savage custom always 
allow indiscriminate slaughter even in warfare. The 
inviolability of heralds is not unfrequently recognised,^ 
Among the aborigines of New South Wales the tribal 
messenger known to be a herald by the red net which he 
wears round his forehead, passes in safety between and 
through hostile tribes ; and among the North American 
Omahas the bearer of a peace pipe was generally re- 
spected by the enemy, just as the bearer of a flag of truce 
is regarded by the laws of war among the so-called 
civilised nations,”^ And many uncivilised races have 
made it a rule in war to spare the weak and helpless. 

The Samoans considered it cowardly to kill a Voman ; ^ and 
even in Fiji the ‘^enlightened party” objected to the killing of 
women, urging that it is “just as cowardly to kill a woman as 
a baby.”^* 'The Abipones, in their wars, “generally spared the 
iinwarlike, and carried away innocent boys and girls unhurt.”’^ 
An old Spanish writer tells us of the Guanches of Gran 
Canaria that, “ in their wars, they held it as base and mean to 
molest or injure the women and children of the enemy, con- 
sidering them as weak and helpless, therefore improper objects 
of their resentment ” ; ^ and similar views prevail among the 
Berbers (Shluh) of Southern Morocco, as also among the 
Algerian Kabyles ^ and the Touareg.^^ Though the Masai and 
Wa-kikuyu “are eternally at war to the knife with each other, 
there is a compact between them not to molest the womenfolk 
of either party.” “The Masai,” says Mr. Hinde, “never 
interfere with women in their raids, and the women cheer 

^ Ellis, AV.'r<’(7;v//t’.v, i. 318. ^ Dobrizhoffer, r/V. ii. 14 T. 

See Eaner, Military Manners and Abreu de Galindo, IJisfory of the 

Cnstonis^ p. 161. Discovery and Conquest of the Canary 

^ Fraser, Aborigines of New South Islands^ p. 66. 

Wales y p* 4U ^ Ilanoteau and Letourneux, La 

Dorsey, ‘ Omaha Sociology,’ in Kabylie^ ii. 76. 

Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 368. ^ Hourst, Sur le Niger et au pays 

^ Turner, Nineteen Years in Poly- des 7ouaregs, p. 223 sq. 
nesia, p. 304. ” Tiioiiison, 'Eh rough Masai Landy 

** Seemaiin, Vitiy p. 180. p. 177, 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

loudly and encourage their relatives during the fight,” ^ Among 
the Latukas, though women are employed as spies and thus 
become exceedingly dangerous in war, there is nevertheless a 
general understanding that no woman shall be killed. ^ The 
Basutos maintain that respect should be paid during war to 
women, children, and travellers, as also that those who surrender 
should be spared and open to ransom 5 and, though these rules 
are not invariably respected, the public voice always disapproves 
of their violation.^ 

Sometimes custom even requires that the life of the 
captive shall be spared. 

It is against Masai tradition to kill prisoners of war.'^ Among 
the Kabyles ‘HI faut que Texasp^ration des partis soit extreme 
pour qu’un blcss(5 ou un prisonnier soit mis a mort.”^’ The 
Touareg do not kill their prisoners after a fight.® Among the 
Bedouins of the Euphrates the person of the enemy is sacred 
when disarmed or dismounted ; and prisoners are neither 
enslaved i^r held to other ransom than their mares.” 
‘^Captives,” says Mr. Dorsey, ^‘were not slain by the Omahas 
and Ponkas. When peace was declared the captives were sent 
home, if they wished to go. If not they could remain where 
they were, and were treated as if they were members of the 
tribe.” ^ Among the Wyandots prisoners of war were 
frequently adopted into the tribe. ^‘The warrior taking the 
prisoner has the first right to adopt him. If no one claims the 
prisoner for this purpose, he is caused to run the gauntlet as a 
test of his courage. If at his trial he behaves manfully 
claimants are not wanting, but if he behaves disgracefully he is 
put to death.” ^ 

Thus we notice even among uncivilised races very ob- 
vious traces of what is called ‘‘international law,” if not 
as a rule, at least as an exception. On the other hand, the 

^ Minde, The Last of the A/asai, p. 

6, n.^ 

Baker, Albert APyanza^ i. 355. 

^ Casalis, op, cit, p. 223 sq. For 
regard paid to wonien, old people, and 
children in war, see also Richardson, 
Arctic Searching Expedition^ i. 367 
(Western Eskimo) ; Gatlin, North 
A merican Indians,, ii. 240 ; Azara, 
Voyages, ii. 145 (Payaguas) ; Steinmetz, 

Rechtsverhdllnisse, p. 292. 

Hinde, op. cit, p. 64. 

® Hanot eau and Letourneux, op. cit. 

ii, 75- 

® Hourst, op. cit. p. 207. 

Blunt, op. cit. ii. 239. 

^ Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 332. 

^ Powell, ibid, i, 68, Cf. Morgan, 
League of the Iroquois, p. ,344. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

readiness with which war is engaged in, not only in self- 
defence or out of revenge, but for the sake of gain, 
indicates how little regard is paid to human life outside 
the tribe. The Kandhs, for instance, maintain “ that a state 
of war may be lawfully presumed against all tribes and 
nations with whom no express agreement to the contrary 
exists.” ^ And if a few savage peoples live in perpetual 
peace, it seems that the chief reason for this is not a 
higher standard of morality, but the absence of all 
inducements to war. 

When we from the lower races pass to peoples more 
advanced in culture, we find that the social unit has grown 
larger, that the nation has taken the place of the tribe, 
and that the circle within which homicide is prohibited as 
a crime of the first order has been extended accordingly. 
But the old distinction between injuries committed against 
compatriots and harm done to foreigners remains. Even 
when the subject is not touched upon in the laws referring 
to homicide we may, from the general attitude of the 
people towards members of other nations, infer that public 
opinion is not very scrupulous as to the taking of their 
lives. How the Chinese look upon the “ red-haired 
barbarians,” the “ foreign devils,” is well known from 
recent excesses. In former days, Japan’s attitude towards 
her neighbours and the whole world was that of an enemy 
and not of a friend.^ The Vedic hymns are full of im- 
precations of misfortune upon men of another race.''* That 
among the ancient Teutons the lot of a stranger was not 
an enviable one is testified even by language ; the German 
word elender has acquired its present meaning from the 
connotation of the older word which meant an “ outland- 
ish ” man.* The stranger as such — unless he belonged to a 
friendly, neighbouring tribe — had originally no legal rights 
at all ; for his protection he was dependent on individual 

^ Hunter, Amials of Riir^al Bengal^ Veda,’ in Joiw. Avierican Oriental 
iii., 75 - ' iii. 338, 

“ Griffis, Religions ofjapan^ p. 129. ** Cf. Grimm, Deutsche Recktsnlter- 

Roth, ‘ On the Morality of the thiimer^ p. 396 ; Gummere, Germanic 

Origins^ p. 288. 

VOL. I 

Z 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

hospitality, and hospitality was restricted by custom to 
three days only.^ According to the Swedish Westgdta- 
Lag, he who killed a foreigner had to pay no compensation 
to the dead man’s relatives, nor was he outlawed, nor exiled.'^ 
The Laws of King Ine let us understand in what light a 
stranger was looked upon : — “ If a far-coming man, or a 
stranger, journey through a wood out of the highway, and 
neither shout nor blow his horn, he is to be held for a 
thief, either to be slain or redeemed.” ® However, as 
commerce increased and the stranger was more often seen 
in Teutonic lands, royal protection was extended to him ; 
and a consequence of this was that thenceforth he who 
killed the stranger had to pay a wergeld^ part, or the whole, 
of which went to the king.'* In Greece, in early times, 
the “ contemptible stranger ” ’’ had no legal rights, and was 
protected only in case he was the guest of a citizen ; ® and 
even later on, at Athens, whilst the intentional killing of 
a citizen was punished with death and confiscation of the 
murderer’s property, the intentional killing of a non-citizen 
was punished only with exile." The Latin word hostis was 
originally used to denote a foreigner ; and the saying of 
Plautus, that a man is a wolf to a man whom he does not 
know,® was probably an echo of an old Roman proverb. 
Mommsen suggests that in ancient days the Romans did 
not punish the killing of a foreigner, unless he belonged 
to an allied nation ; but already in the prehistoric period 
a change was introduced, the foreigner being placed under 
the protection of the State.'® 

How little regard is felt for the lives of strangers also 
appears from the readiness with which war is waged on 

^ Grimm, op. cit. p. 397 sqq. Brim- ** Hermann -Bliimner, Lehrbiuh der 

ner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte^ i. 273. griechischen Privaialicrihuiner^ p. 492. 

Westgbta' Lagen /. Af mandrapi, Schmidt, Elhifz der alien Griechen^ ii. 
V. 4, p. 13. ^ 325. 

^ Laws of Tnej 20. Cf. Laws of ^ Meier and Schdmann, Der aittsche 
Wikt 7 'ied^ 28. Process y p. 379. 

^ Brunner, op. cil, i. 273 sq. Gum- ^ Cicero, De officiis^ i. 12. 

mere, op. cit. p. 28S. Pollock and ® Plautus, Asinaria, ii. 4. 88. 

Maitland, I-Jisto 7 y of English Law be- Mommsen, Romisches Strafrecht , 

fore the Time of Edward /. i. 52. p. 622 sq. 

® Iliady ix. 648. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

foreign nations, combined with the estimation in which 
the successful warrior is held by his countrymen. The 
ancient Mexicans were never at a loss for an excuse to pick 
a quarrel with their neighbours, so as to be able to procure 
victims for sacrifices to their gods.^ “ No profession was 
held in more esteem amongst them than the profession of 
arms. The deity of war was the most revered by them, 
and regarded as the chief protector of the nation,” - The 
Mayas not only wanted to increase their dominions by 
encroachments upon their neighbours’ territory, but under- 
took raids with no other object than that of obtaining 
captives for sacrifice.'^ Speaking of the wars of the ancient 
Egyptians, M. Amelineau observes,* Nous n’avons pas un 
seul mot dans la litterature egyptienne, meme dans les- 
ceuvres cigypto-chretiennes, qui nous fasse entendre le plus 
leger cri de reprobation pour la guerre et ses horreurs.” 
Among the Hebrews the most cruel wars of extermina- 
tion were expressly sanctioned by their religion. That an 
idolatrous people had no right to live was taken as a 
matter of course ; but wars were also unscrupulously 
waged from worldly motives, and in their moral code 
there is no attempt to distinguish between just and unjust 
war.'" Among the Mohammedans it is likewise the un- 
believer, not the foreigner as such, that is regarded as the 
most proper object of slaughter. Although there is no 
precept in the Koran which, taken with the context, justi- 
fies unprovoked war,^’’ the saying that Paradise is under 
the shadow of swords ” ^ is popularly applied to all warfare 
against infidels. Among the Celts '^ and Teutons a man’s 
highest aspiration was to acquire military glory. The 
Scandinavians considered it a disgrace for a man to die 

^ Bancroft, Native Races of the Pa- sur rhistoire de V htimaniltU i. 384 sq. 
cifc States, ii. 420. Clavi^ero, History ^ This was later on admitted by Lane 
of ATexico, i. 371. (Moderu Ei^yptians, p. 574), who had 

Clavigero, op. cit. i. 363. previously maintained that the duty of 

^ Bancrfifl, op. cit. ii. 740, 745. waging holy war is strongly urged in 

Amelineau, IJ tivolutioiu des idJes the Koran. 
morales dans P Egypte aticienate, p. 344. ^ Bool, Studies in Mohammedanism, 

Cf. Sclden, De Syncdriis et Pvte- p. 246. 
fecturis Jnridicis veterum Ebr(Eoriitri, ^ Logan, 'J'lie Scottish Gael, i. loi. 
hi. 12, p. 1179 sqq.\ Laurent, i&tudes de Valroger, Les Celtes, p. 186. 

Z 2 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

without having seen human blood flow ; ^ even the slaying 
of a tribesman they often regarded lightly when it had 
been done openly and bravely. In Greece, in ancient times 
at least, war was the normal relation between different 
states, and peace an exception, for which a special treaty 
was required ; ^ while to conquer and enslave barbarians 
was regarded as a right given to the Greeks by Nature. 
The whole statecraft of the early Republic of Rome 
was no doubt based upon similar principles;® and in 
later days, also, the war policy of the Romans was certainly 
not conducted with that conscientiousness which was 
insisted upon by some of their writers. 

However, the forei^er is not entirely, or under all 
circumstances, devoid of rights. Among the nations of 
archaic civilisation, as among the lower races, hospitality 
is a duty, and the life of a guest is as sacred as the life of 
any of the permanent members of the household. In 
various cases the commencement of international hostili- 
ties is preceded by special ceremonies, intended to justify 
acts which are not considered proper in times of peace. 
In ancient Mexico it was usual to send a formal challenge 
or declaration of war to the enemy, as it was held dis- 
creditable to attack a people unprepared for defence;^ 
and, according to the fecial law of the Romans, no war 
was just unless it was undertaken to reclaim property, or 
unless it was solemnly denounced and proclaimed before- 
hand.'' In some cases warfare is condemned, or a distinc- 
tion is made between just and unjust war with reference 
to the purpose for which the war is waged. The Chinese 
philosophers were great advocates of peace.'’ According 
to Lao-Tsze, a superior man uses weapons “only on the 
compulsion of necessity ” ; there is no calamity greater 

^ Njdla^ ch. 40, vol. i. 167. Maurer, ^ Cf. Lecky, History of European 
Bekehrung des Norwegischen StammeSy MoralSy ii. 257. 

ii. 172. ^ Clavigero, i. 370. Bancroft, 

2 Schmidt, Ethik der alien Griecheny op, cit. ii. 420, 421, 423. 
ii. 280. Laurent, op. cit. i, 46. Plato, ® Cicero, De officiiSy i. ii. 

Leges y i, 625. Livy, xxxi. 29 : Cum ® Cf. I^nessan, Morale des phih- 

alienigenis, cum Imrbaris aeternum om- sophes chinoiSy pp. 54, 107. 
nibus Graecis bellum est»” ^ Tdo Teh Kingy xxxi? 2. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

than lightly engaging in war/ and “ he who has killed 
multitudes of men should weep for them with the bitterest 
grief.” * In the Indian poem, Mahabharata, needless war- 
fare is condemned ; it is said that the success which is 
obtained by negotiations is the best, and that the success 
which is secured by battle is the worst.®* Among the 
Hebrews the sect of the Essenes went so far in their 
reprobation of war that they would not manufacture 
any martial instruments whatever.'* Roman historians, 
even in the case of wars with barbarians, often discuss 
the sufficiency or insufficiency of the motives “ with 
a conscientious severity a modern historian could hardly 
surpass.” ** According to Cicero, a war, to be just, 
ought to be necessary, the sole object of war being to 
enable us to live undisturbed in peace. There are two 
modes of settling controversies, he says, one by discussion, 
the other by a resort to force. The first is proper to 
man, the second is proper to brutes, and ought never 
to be adopted except where the first is unavailable.® 
Seneca regards war as a “glorious crime,” comparable to 
murder ; — “ What is forbidden in private life is com- 
manded by public ordinance. Actions which, committed 
by stealth, would meet with capital punishment, we praise 
because committed by soldiers. Men, by nature the 
mildest species of the animal race, are not ashamed to find 
delight in mutual slaughter, to wage wars, and to transmit 
them to be waged by their children, when even dumb 
animals and wild beasts live at peace with one another.”'^ 
History attests that the Romans, in their intercourse with 
other nations, did not act upon Cicero’s and Seneca’s lofty 
theories of international morality ; as Plutarch observes, 
the two names “ peace ” and “ war ” are mostly used only 
as coins, to procure, not what is just, but what is 
expedient.® Yet there seems to have been a general 

} Ibid, Ixix. 2. Ibid. xxxi. 3. Lecky, History of European 

' ^ Mahabharata^ Bhisma Parva, iii. Morals^ ii. 258. 

81 (pt. xii. sq. p. 6). ® Cicero, De officiis, i. 11. 

^ Philo, Quod liber sit quisquis vir- Seneca, Epistula, 95. 

tuti studet, p, 877. ® Plutarch, Fita Pyrrh/jxil 3,p. 389. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

feeling in Rome that the waging of a war required some 
justification. In declaring it, the Roman heralds called all 
the gods to witness that the people against whom it was 
declared had been unjust and neglectful of its obligations.^ 
Even in war the killing of an enemy is, under certain 
circumstances, prohibited either by custom or by en- 
lightened moral opinion. Among the ancient Nahuas, 
who never accepted a ransom for a prisoner of war, the 
person of an ambassador was at all events held sacred.'^ 
In the ‘ Book of Rewards and Punishments,’ which em- 
bodies popular Taouism, it is said, “ Do not massacre the 
enemies who yield themselves, nor kill those who offer 
their submission.” ^ The Hebrews, whilst being com- 
manded to “ save alive nothing that breatheth ” of the 
cities which the Lord had given them for an inheritance, 
were to deal differently with cities which were very far off 
from them ; to kill only the men, and to take to them- 
selves the women and the little ones."* The Laws of 
Manu lay down very humane rules for a king who fights 
with his foes in battle : — “ Let him not strike with 
weapons concealed in wood, nor with such as are barbed, 
poisoned, or the points of which are blazing with fire. 
Let him not strike one who in flight has climbed on an 
eminence, nor a eunuch, nor one who joins the palms of 
his hands in supplication, nor one who flees with flying 
hair, nor one who sits down, nor one who says * I am 
thine ’ ; nor one who sleeps, nor one who has lost his coat 
of mail, nor one who is naked, nor one who is disarmed, 
nor one who looks on without taking part in the fight, nor 
one who is fighting with another foe ; nor one whose 
weapons are broken, nor one afflicted with sorrow, nor 
one who has been grievously wounded, nor one who 
is in fear, nor one who has turned to flight ; but in all 
these cases let him remember the duty of honourable 
warriors.” The Mahabharata contains expressions of 

^ Livy, i. 32. 

- Bancroft, op. cit. ii. 426, 412. 

^ Douglas, Confucianism and Taou- 

ism, p. 261, 

^ Deuteronomy , xx. 13 S(jq. 

® Laws of Manu, vii. 90 sqq. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

similar chivalrous sentiments in regard to enemies. A 
car-warrior should fight only with a car-warrior, a horse- 
man with a horse-man, a foot-soldier with a foot-soldier. 
“ Always being led by consideration of fitness, willingness, 
bravery, and strength, one should strike another after 
having challenged him. None should strike another who 
is confiding or who is panic-stricken. One fighting with 
another, one seeking refuge, one retreating, one whose 
weapon is broken, and one who is not clad in armour 
should never be struck. Charioteers, animals, men engaged 
in carrying weapons, those who play on drums and those 
who blow conchs should never be smitten.” ^ Among the 
Greeks, in the Homeric age, it was evidently regarded as a 
matter of course that, on the fall of a city, all the men 
were slain, and the women and children carried off as 
slaves ; ^ but in historic times such a treatment of a 
vanquished foe grew rarer, and seems, under ordinary 
circumstances, to have been disapproved of.*^ The rulers 
of this land, says the messenger in the ‘ Heraclida;,’ do not 
approve of slaying enemies who have been taken alive in 
battle."* In Rome the customs of war underwent a similar 
change. In ancient days the normal fate of a captive was 
death, in later times he was generally reduced to slavery ; 
but many thousands of captives were condemned to the 
gladiatorial shows, and the vanquished general was com- 
monly slain in the Mamertine prison On the other hand, 
nations or armies that voluntarily submitted to Rome 
were habitually treated with great leniency. Cicero says : 
— “ When we obtain the victory we must preserve those 
enemies who behaved without cruelty or inhumanity 
during the war ; for example, our forefathers received, 
even as members of their state, the Tuscans, the Aequi, 
the Volscians, the Sabines, and the Hernici, but utterly 
destroyed Carthage and Numantia. . . . And, while we 

^ Mahabharaiay Bhisma Parva, i. 27 ii. 281 sqq. 

^sqq, (pt. xii. sq. p. 2). Euripides, Heraclidcc, 966. 

Iliad, ix. 593 sq, ^ Laurent,^/, cit. iii. xo sq, Lecky, 

^ Schmidt, Eihih der alien Griechen, History of Etty'opean Morals, ii. 257. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

CH. XIV 

are bound to exercise consideration toward those whom we 
have conquered by force, so those should be received into 
our protection who throw themselves upon the honour of 
our general, and lay down their arms, even though the 
battering rams should have struck their walls.” ^ 

^ CicQTO y De ojicnsy i. ii.

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL {con Hfl Ued) 

Christianity introduced into Europe a higher regard 
for human life than was felt anywhere in pagan society. 
The early Christians condemned homicide of any kind as 
a heinous sin. And in this^ as in all other questions of 
moral concern, the distinction of nationality or race was 
utterly ignored by them. 

The sanctity which they attached to the life of every 
human being led to a total condemnation of warfare, 
sharply contrasting with the prevailing sentiment in the 
Roman Empire. In accordance with the general spirit 
of their religion, as also with special passages in the 
Bible,^ they considered war unlawful under all circum- 
stances. Justin Martyr quotes the prophesy of Isaiah, 
that nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
neither shall they learn war any more,” and proceeds to say 
that the instruction in the word of God which was given 
by the twelve Apostles had so good effect that we, who 
heretofore were continually devouring each other, will not 
now so much as lift up our hand against our enemies.”^ 
Lactantius asserts that “ to engage in war cannot be lawful 
for the righteous man, whose warfare is that of righteous- 
ness itself.”^ Tertullian asks, ‘‘Can it be lawful to 

^ St, Matthew, v. 9, 39, 44. Romans, Christianis, 39 (Migne, Patroiogice 
xii. 17. Ephesians, vi. 12. cuf'stis, Ser. Graeca, vi. 387 sq,). 

^ Isaiah, ii. 4. ^ Lactantius, Divittce institutiones, 

* Justin Martyr, Apologia /. pro vi. (* De vero ciiltu’) 20 (Migne, op, 

cit, vi. 708). 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

handle the sword, when the Lord Himself has declared 
that he who uses the sword shall perish by it ? ” And 
in another passage he states that “ the Lord by his dis- 
arming of Peter disarmed every soldier from that time 
forward.” ^ Origen calls the Christians the children of 
peace, who, for the sake of Jesus, never take up the sword 
against any nation ; who fight for their monarch by 
praying for him, but who take no part in his wars, even 
though he urge them.^ It is true that, even irj early 
times, Christian soldiers were not unknown ; Tertullian 
alludes to Christians who were engaged in military pur- 
suits together with their heathen countrymen."* But the 
number of Christians enrolled in the army seems not to 
have been very considerable before the era of Constantine,'* 
and, though they were not cut off from the Church, their 
profession was looked upon as hardly compatible with 
their religion. St. Basil says that soldiers, after their term 
of military service has expired, are to be excluded from 
the sacrament of the communion for three whole years.® 
And according to one of the canons of the Council of 
Nice, those Christians who, having abandoned the pro- 
fession of arms, afterwards returned to it, “ as dogs to 
their vomit,” were for some years to occupy in the 
Church the place of penitents." 

A divine law which prohibited all resistance to enemies 
could certainly not be accepted by the State, especially at 
a time when the Empire was seriously threatened by 
foreign invaders. Christianity could therefore never 
become a State-religion unless it gave up its attitude 
towards war. And it gave it up. Already in 314 a 
Council condemned soldiers who, from religious motives. 

^ Tertullian, De corona, ii (Migne, 
op. cit. ii. 92). 

* Tertullian, Deidolatria, 19 (Migne, 
op. cit. i. 691). 

3 Origen, Contra Cels uni, v. 33 ; 
viii. 73 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, xi. 
1231 sq., 1627 sq.). 

^ Tertullian, Apologeticus, 42 (Migne, 
op. cit. i. 491). 

® Le Blant, Inscriptions chrcHiennes 
de la Gaule, i. 84 sqq. 

« St. Basil, Epistola CLXXXVIIL, 
ad Amphilochium, can. 13 (Migne, op. 
cit. Ser. Graeca, xxxii. 681 sq,). 

7 Conciliuni Niccenuni, A D. 2 , 2 ^, can. 
12 (Labbe- Mansi, Sacrorurn Concilio- 
rum col lectio, ii. 674). 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

deserted their colours^ The Fathers of the fourth and 
fifth centuries did not altogether disapprove of war. 
Chrysostom arid Ambrose, though seeing the difficulty 
of reconciling it with the theory of Christian life which 
they found in the New Testament, perceived that the 
use of the sword was necessary to preserve the State." 
St. Augustine went much farther. He tried to prove 
that the practice of war was quite compatible with the 
teachings of Christ. The soldiers mentioned in the New 
Testament, who were seeking for a knowledge of salva- 
tion, were not directed by our Lord to throw aside their 
arms and renounce their profession, but were advised by 
him to be content with their wages.® St. Peter baptised 
Cornelius, the centurion, in the name of Christ, without 
exhorting him to give up the military life,^ and St. Paul 
himself took care to have a strong guard of soldiers for 
his defence.® And was not the history of David, the 
“ man after God’s own heart,” an evidence of those being 
wrong who say that “ no one who wages war can please 
God” When Christ declared that “all they that take 
the sword shall perish with the sword,” ^ He referred to 
such persons only as arm themselves to shed the blood of 
others without either command or permission of any 
superior or lawful authority.® A great deal depends on 
the causes for which men undertake war, and on the 
authority they have for doing so. Those wars are just 
which are waged with a view to obtaining redress for 
wrongs, or to chastising the undue arrogance of another 
State. The monarch has the power of making war when 
he thinks it advisable, and, even if he be a sacrilegious 

^ Concililun Arelatense 1 .^ ^ St. Augu.stine Epistola XLVII.^ 

can. 'i (Labbe-Mansi, op. cit. ii. 471). ad Piiblicolam, op. cit. xxxiii. 

Cf. Le Hlant, op. cit. i. p. Ixxxii. 187). 

Gibb, ‘ Christian Church and War,’ St. Au^nrstine, CLXXXIX.., 

in British Quarterly Rezdaw., Ixxiii. 83. ad Bonifacium, 4(Migno, op. cit. xxxiii. 

^ St. Augustine, CXXXVIII.^ 855). 

ad Marcelliniim, 15 (Migne, op. cit. ^ St. Matthew, xxvi. 52. 
xxxiii. 531 sq.). ® St. Augustine, Contra Faiututn 

^ St. Augustine, A/A/. CLXXXJX., Alanichicum, xxii. (Migne, op. cit. 
ad Bonifacium, 4 (Migne, ot>. cit. xxxiii. xlii, 444). 

S55)- 

king, a Christian may fight under him, provided that 
what is enjoined upon the soldier personally is not 
contrary to the precept of God.^ In short, though peace 
is our final good, though in the City of God there is 
peace in eternity,^ war may sometimes be a necessity in 
this sinful world. 

By the writings of St. Augustine the theoretical attitude 
of the Church towards war was definitely settled, and 
later theologians only reproduced or further elaborated his 
views. Yet it was not with a perfectly safe conscience that 
Christianity thus sanctioned the practice of war. There 
was a feeling that a soldier scarcely could make a good 
Christian. In the middle of the fifth century, Leo the 
Pope declared it to be contrary to the rules of the Church 
that persons after the action of penance — that is, persons 
then considered to be pre-eminently bound to obey the law 
of Christ — should revert to the profession of arms.® 
Various Councils forbade the clergy to engage in warfare,** 
and certain canons excluded from ordination all who had 
served in an army after baptism.® Penance was prescribed 
for those who had shed blood on the battle-field.® Thus 

^ St. Augustine, Contra Faiisttim 
Alanicluvttm^ xxii. 75 (Migne, op. cil. 
xlii. 448). 

- St. Augustine, Decivilate Dei^ xix. 

11. 

^ Leo Magnus, Epistoia XC.y ad 
RtisHcnvi, inquis. 12 (Migne, op. cit. 
liv. 1 206 sq . ). 

One of the Apostolic Canons re- 
quire.s that any bishop, priest, or deacon 
who devotes himself to military service 
shall l)e degraded from his ecclesiastical 
rank { Canopies ecclesiastici qiii dicuntur 
Apostolornnty 83 [74] [Bunsen, Analecta 
Ante-Niccenay ii. 31]). The Councils 
of Toulouse, in 633 (ch. 45, in Labbe- 
Mansi, op. cit. x. 630), and of Meaux, 
in 845 (can. 37, ibid. xiv. 827), con- 
demned to a similar punishment those 
of the clergy who ventured to take up 
arms. Gratian says {Decretumy ii. 23. 
8. 4) that the Church refuses to pray for 
the soul of a priest who died on the 
battle-field. Notwithstanding the canons 
of Councils and the decrees of popes, 

ecclesiastics frequently participated in 
battles (Nicolaus I. Plpistoics et Decretay 
83 [Migne, op. cit. cxix. 922]. Robert- 
son, History of the Reign of Charles V. 
i* 330 > 385* Ward, Fotindaiion and 
History of the Law of Nations y i. 365 sq. 
Buckle, History of Civilisation in E^ig- 
landy i. 204 ; ii. 464. Bethune-Baker, 
Influence of Christia 7 iity on iA'ar, p. 
52. Dummler, Geschickte des Ost- 
frdnkischen ReichSy ii. 637). 

® Grotius, De jure belli et pads y i. 2. 
10. 10. Bingham, Antiquities of the 
Christian Churchy iv. 4. i ( WorkSy ii. 

ss)- 

® Pocmtentiale Bigotianumy iv. i. 4 
(Wasserschleben, Bussordmingen der 
abendllindischen R'irchey p. 453). Pcenit. 
Vigilanum, 27 [ibid. p. 529). Pcenit. 
Pseudo-Tkeodoriy xxi. 15 {ibid. p. 587 
sq.). Cf. Mart de Garin le Loherainy 
p, 213: “ Ainz se repent et se claime 
cheti ; Ses pechies plore au soir et au 
matin, De ce qu’il a tans homes mors et 
pris.’* 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

the ecclesiastical canons made in William the Conqueror’s 
reign by the Norman prelates, and confirmed by the Pope, 
directed that he who was aware that he had killed a man 
in a. battle should do penance for one year, and that he who 
had killed several should do a year’s penance for each3 
Occasionally the Church seemed to wake up to the evils of 
war in a more effective way ; there are several notorious 
instances of wars being forbidden by popes. But in such 
cases the prohibition was only too often due to the fact that 
some particular war was disadvantageous to the interests 
of the Church. And whilst doing comparatively little to 
discourage wars which did not interfere with her own 
interests, the Church did all the more to excite war against 
those who were objects of her hatred. 

It has been suggested that the transition from the 
peaceful tenets of the primitive Church to the essentially 
military Christianity of the crusades, was chiefly due to 
the terrors and the example of Islam. “ The spirit of 
Muhammedanism,” says Mr. Lecky, “slowly passed into 
Christianity, and transformed it into its image.” Until 
then, “ war was rather condoned than consecrated, and, 
whatever might be the case with a few isolated prelates, the 
Church did nothing to increase or encourage it.” ^ But 
this view is hardly consistent with facts. Christianity had 
entered on the war-path already before it came into 
contact with Muhammedanism. Wars against Arian 
peoples had been represented as holy wars, for which the 
combatants would be rewarded by Heaven.® The war 
which Chlodwig made upon the Visigoths was not only 
undertaken with the approval of the clergy, but it was, as 
Mr. Greenwood remarks, “ properly their war, and 
Chlodwig undertook it in the capacity of a religious 
champion in all things but the disinterestedness which 
ought to distinguish that character.” Remigius of Reims 
assisted him by his countenance and advice, and the 

^ Wilkins, Concilia Magnet. Britan- ^ Lecky, History of European 
nice et Hibernue^ i. 366. Morals^ ii. 251 sq, 

^ Gibb, loc, cit. p, 86. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

Catholic priesthood set every engine of their craft in 
motion to second and encourage him.^ In the Church 
itself there were germs out of which a military spirit 
would naturally develop itself. The famous dictum, 
“ Nulla salus extra ecclesiam,” was promulgated as early as 
the days of Cyprian. The general view of mediasval 
orthodoxy was, that those beyond the pale of the Church, 
heathen and heretics alike, were unalterably doomed to 
hell, whereas those who would acknowledge her authority, 
confess their sins, receive the sacrament of baptism, partake 
of the eucharist, and obey the priest, would be infallibly 
saved. If war was allowed by God, could there be a more 
proper object for it than the salvation of souls otherwise 
lost ? And for those who refused to accept the gift of 
grace offered to them, could there be a juster punishment 
than death ? Moreover, had not the Israelites fought 
great battles “ for the laws and the sanctuary ” ? ^ Had 
not the Lord Himself commissioned them to attack, sub- 
due, and destroy his enemies ? Had He not commanded 
them to root out the natives of Canaan, who, because of 
their abominations, had fallen under God’s judgment, and 
to kill man and beast in the Israelitish cities which had 
given themselves to idolatry, and to burn all the spoil, 
with the city itself, as a whole offering to Jehovah ? ® 
There was no need, then, for the Christians to go to the 
Muhammedans in order to learn the art of religious war. 
The Old Testament, the revelation of God, gave better 
lessons in it than the Koran, and was constantly cited in 
justification of any cruelty committed in the name of 
religion.'* 

It was thus in perfect consistency with the general 
teachings of the Church that she regarded an exploit 
achieved against the infidels as a merit which might 
obliterate the guilt of the most atrocious crimes. Such a 

^ Greenwood, First Book oj the doctrine, that fighting may be directed 
History of the Germans^ p. 518. to the preservation of divine worship. 

I Maccabees^ xiii. 3. Thomas Deuteronoiny^ xiii. 15 sq. 

Atjuinas [Sitnuna theolo^ica^ ii.-ii. 188. ■* Cf, Constant, De la reli^on^ ii. 

3) quotc.s this passage in support of the 329 sq. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

deed was the instrument of pardon to Henry II. for the 
murder of Becket,' and was supposed to be the means of 
cure to St. Louis in a dangerous illness. Fighting against 
infidels took rank with fastings, penitential discipline, 
visits to shrines, and almsgivings, as meriting the divine 
mercy." He who fell in the battle could be confident 
that his soul was admitted directly into the joys of 
Paradise.® And this held good not only of wars against 
Muhammedans. The massacres of Jews and heretics 
seemed no less meritorious than the slaughter of the 
more remote enemies of the Gospel. Nay, even a slight 
shade of difference from the liturgy of Rome became at 
last a legitimate cause of war. 

It is true that these views were not shared by all. 
At the Council of Lyons, in 1274, the opinion was pro- 
nounced, and of course eagerly attacked, that it was con- 
trary to the examples of Christ and the Apostles to uphold 
religion with the sword and to shed the blood of 
unbelievers.^ In the following century, Bonet maintained 
that, according to the Scriptures, a Saracen or any other 
disbeliever could not be compelled by force to accept the 
Christian faith.'’ Franciscus a Victoria declared that 
“diversity of religion is not a cause of just war”C' and 
a similar opinion was expressed by Soto,^ Covarruvias a 
Leyva,® and Suarez.” According to Balthazar Ayala, the 
most illustrious Spanish lawyer of the sixteenth century, 
it does not belong to the Church to punish infidels who 

^ Lyttelton, History of the Life of 
King Henry the Second, iii. 96. 

Cf, Mil mail, History of Latin 
Christianity , iv. 209. 

^ Cf. Laurent, Pjudes sur iLiistoire 
de V humanity , vii. 257. 

Bethune-Baker, op. cit. p. 73. 

® Bonet, Varh'e des batailles, iv. 2, 
p. 86: “ Selon la sainte E.scripture 

nous ne pouvon.s et si ne deva^n.s con- 
tredire ne cfforcer ung mescreant a 
recepvoir ne le saint bapUme nc la 
sainte foy ainsi les devons laisser en 
leur franche volonte que Dieu leur a 
donnee.” 

^ Franciscus a Victoria, Relectiones 

'Jlieologicie, vi. 10, p. 231 : “ Caussa 
iusti belli non est diuersitas religionis.” 
Yet infidels may be constrained to allow 
the Gospel to be preached {ibid. v. 3. 
12, p. 214 sq.). 

^ Soto, De institia et jure, v. 3. 5, 
fob 154. 

8 Covarruvias a Leyva, Regiihe, 
Peccatum, ii. JO. 2 (Of era on/nia, i. 
496) : “ Infidelitas non priuat infideles 
dominio, quod halient iure huniano, vel 
habuerunt ante legem Eiiangelicam in 
prouinciis et regnis, quae obtinent.” 

Suarez, cited by Nys, Droit de la 
guerre et les prlcurseurs de Grotius^ 
p. 98. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

CHAl>. 

have never received the Christian faith, whereas those who, 
having once received it, afterwards endeavour to prevent 
the propagation of the Gospel, may, like other heretics, 
be justly persecuted with the sword.* But the majority 
of jurisconsults, as well as of canonists, were in favour of 
the orthodox view that unbelief is a legitimate reason for 
going to war.** And this principle was, professedly, acted 
upon to an extent which made the history of Christianity 
for many centuries a perpetual crusade, and transformed 
the Christian Church into a military power even more 
formidable than Rome under Cassar and Augustus. Very 
often religious zeal was a mere pretext for wars which in 
reality were caused by avarice or desire for power. The 
aim of the Church was to be the master of the earth 
rather than the servant of heaven. She preached crusades 
not only against infidels and heretics, but against any dis- 
obedient prince who opposed her boundless pretensions. 
And she encouraged war when rich spoils were to be 
expected from the victor, as a thankoffering to God for 
the victory He had granted, or as an atonement for the 
excesses which had been committed. 

Out of this union between war and Christianity there 
was born that curious bastard, Chivalry. The secular 
germ of it existed already in the German forests. Accord- 
ing to Tacitus, the young German who aspired to be a 
warrior was brought into the midst of the assembly of 
'the chiefs, where his father, or some other relative, 
solemnly equipped him for his future vocation with 
shield and javelin.^ Assuming arms was thus made a 
social distinction, which subsequently derived its name 

^ Ayala, De iure et officiis helHcis et held by infidels. 
disciplina ?nilitan\ i. 2. 29 sq. ^ Tacitus, Germania., 13. According 

2 Nys, op. cit. p 89. Idem, in his to Honor 4 de .Sainte Marie {Disserta- 
Introduction to Bonet’s Ilarbre des tions historiques et critiques stir la 
hatailles, p. xxiv. According to Con- Chevalerie, p. 30 sqq.). Chivalry is of 
radus Brunus { De legationibns. iii. 8, Roman, according to some other writers, 
p. 1 1 5), for instance, any war waged by of Arabic origin. M. Gautier {La Che- 
Christians against the enemies of the valeric, pp. 14, 16) repudiates these 
Christian faith is just, as being under- theories, and regards Chivalry as “un 
taken for the defence of religion and usage germain idealise par I’liglise-” 
the glory of God in order to recover See also Rambaud, Histoire de la civili- 
the possession of dominions unjustly sation /ranfaisCj i. 178 Sjq, 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

XV' 

from one of its most essential characteristics, the riding a 
war-horse. But Chivalry' became something quite different 
from what the word indicates. The Church knew how 
to lay hold of knighthood for her own purposes. The 
investiture, which was originally of a purely civil nature, 
became, even before the time of the crusades, as it were, 
a sacrament.^ The priest delivered the sword into the 
hand of the person who was to be made a knight, with 
the following words, ‘‘ Serve Christi, sis miles in nomine 
Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen.”“ The sword was 
said to be made in semblance of the cross so as to signify 
how our Lord God vanquished in the cross the death of 
human lying”; ^ and the word ‘‘Jesus” was sometimes 
engraven on its hilt.^ God Himself had chosen the 
knight to defeat with arms the miscreants who wished to 
destroy his Holy Church, in the same way as He had 
chosen the clergy to maintain the Catholic faith with 
Scripture and reasons.^ The knight was to the body 
politic what the arms are to the human body : the Church 
was the head, Chivalry the arms, the citizens, merchants, 
and labourers the inferior members ; and the arms were 
placed in the middle to render them equally capable of 
defending the inferior members and the head.*' “ The 
greatest amity that should be in this world,” says the 
author of the ‘ Ordre of Chyualry,’ “ ought to be between 
the knights and clerks.”^ The several gradations of 
knighthood were regarded as parallel to those of the 
Church. And after the conquest of the Holy I.and the 
union between the profession of arms and the religion of 
Christ became still more intimate by the institution of the 
two military orders of monks, the Knights Templars and 
Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. 

^ Scott, ‘ Essay on Chivalry/ in 
MisceUaneoiis Prose IVorks^ vi. i6. 
Mills, History of Chivalry j i. lo sq. 
For a description of th5 various re- 
l%ious ceremonies accompanying the 
investiture, see The Book of the Ordre 
of Chyualry or Knyghthode^ fol. 27 l> 
sqq. Cf also F'avyn, Theater of Horwiir 

and Kniy^ht- floods i. 52. 

Favyn, op. cit. i. 52. 

^ Ordre of Chyualry fol. 31 a jy. 
** Mills, op. iit. i. 71. 

Ordre of Chyualry, fol. 1 1 b. 

Lc /oiiuencef fol. 94 sqq. 

^ Ordre of Chyualry, fol, 1 2 a. 

^ Scott, loc. cit. p. 15. 

VOL. I 

A A 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

The duties which a knight took on himself by oath 
were very extensive, but not very well defined. He should 
defend the holy Catholic faith, he should defend justice, 
he should defend women, widows, and orphans, and all 
those of either sex that were powerless, ill at ease, and 
groaning under oppression and injustice.' In the name of 
religion and justice he could thus practically wage war 
almost at will. Though much real oppression was 
undoubtedly avenged by these soldiers of the Church, the 
knight seems as a rule to have cared little for the cause or 
necessity of his doing battle. La guerre est ma patrie, 
Mon harnois ma maison ; Et en toute saison Combatre c’est 
ma vie,” was a saying much in use in the sixteenth century.'^ 
The general impression which Froissart gives us in his 
history is, that the age in which he lived was completely 
given over to fighting, and cared about nothing else what- 
ever.® The F'rench knights never spoke of war but as a 
feast, a game, a pastime. “ Let them play their game,” 
they said of the cross-bow men, who were showering down 
arrows on them; and “to play a great game,” jouer gros 
jeu, was their description of a battle.' Previous to the 
institution of Chivalry there certainly existed much fight- 
ing in Christian countries, but knighthood rendered war 
“ a fashionable accomplishment.” ® And so all-absorbing 
became the passion for it that, as real injuries were not 
likely to occur every day, artificial grievances were created, 
and tilts and tournaments were invented in order to keep 
in action the sons of war when they had no other employ- 
ments for their courage. Even in these images of war — 
which were by no means so harmless as they have some- 
times been represented to be'’ — the intimate connection 

^ Ordre of Chyuahy^ foil. 1 1 b, 17 a. 
Sainte-Palaye, M^tuoires sur I'ancienne 
Chevalerie^ i. 75, 129. 

^ De la Noue, Discolors poliiiques 
et niilitaires^ p. 215. 

See Sir James Stephen’s essay on 
‘Froissart’s Chronicles,’ in his Hone 
Sabbaticiey i. 22 sqq, 

* Sainte-Palaye, of. cit. ii. 61. 

* Millingen, History of DtieUing^ i. 

70. 

^ Sainte-Palaye, op. cit. i. 179 ; ii. 75. 
Dll Cange, ‘ Di.ssertation.s sur I’histoirc 
de S. Louys,’ in Petitot, Collection des 
liHinoires re/ati/sc} P hisioire de France^ 
iii. 122 S(j. Honorc de Sainte Marie, 
op. cit. p. 186. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

between Chivalry and religion displays itself in various 
ways. Before the tournament began, the coats of arms, 
helmets, and other objects were carried into a monastery, 
and after the victory was gained the arms and the horses 
which had been used in the fight were offered up at the 
church.^ The proclamations at the tournaments were 
generally in the name of God and the Virgin Mary. 
Before battle the knights confessed, and heard mass ; and, 
when they entered the lists, they held a sort of image 
with which they made the sign of the cross/*^ Moreover, 
“ as the feasts of the tournaments were accompanied by 
these acts of devotion, so the feasts of the Church were 
sometimes adorned with the images of the tournaments.” 
It is true that the Church now and then made attempts 
to stop these performances.^ But then she did so 
avowedly because they prevented many knights from 
joining the holy wars, or because they swallowed up 
treasures which might otherwise with advantage have 
been poured into the Holy Land."* 

Closely connected with the feudal system was the prac- 
tice of private war. Though tribunals had been instituted, 
and even long after the kings’ courts had become well- 
organised and powerful institutions, a nobleman had a 
right to wage war upon another nobleman from whom he 
had suffered some gross injury.^’^ On such occasions not 
only the relatives, but the vassals, of the injured man 
were bound to help him in his quarrel, and the same 
obligation existed in the case of the aggressor.^ Only 
greater crimes were regarded as legitimate causes of private 
war,'"^ but this rule was not at all strictly observed.*' As 

^ Sainte-Palaye, op. cit. i. 151. 

“ Ibid. ii. 57. 

^ Ibid. ii. 57 sq. 

Du Cange, loc. cit. p. 124 sqq. 
Honore de Sainte Marie, op. cit. p. 
186. Sainte-Palaye, op. cit. ii. 75. 

Du Cange, loc. cit. p. iz^sq. 

The right of private war generally 
supposed nobility of birth and equality 
of rank in both the contending parties 
{Beaumanoir, Omi times du Beativoisis, 
lix. 5 sq. vol. ii. 355 sq. ; Robertson, 

History of the Rcigti of Charles V. i. 
329). But it was also granted to the 
French communes^ and to the free towns 
in Germany, Italy, and Spain (Du 
Boys, Ilistoire dii droit crimind des 
peiiples moderties, ii. 348). 

^ Du Cange, loc. cit. pp. 450, 458. 

® Ibid. p. 445 sq. Arnold, Deutsche 
Urzeit, p. 341. von Wiichter, Beit rage 
zur dent sc hen Geschichie^ p. 46. 

We read of a nobleman who de- 
clared war against the city of Frankfort, 

A A 2 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

a matter of fact, the barons fled to arms upon every 
quarrel ; he who could raise a small force at once made 
war upon him who had anything to lose. The nations 
of Europe were subdivided into innumerable subordinate 
states, which were almost independent, and declared war 
and made treaties with all the vigour and all the cere- 
monies of powerful monarchs. Contemporary historians 
describe" the excesses committed in prosecution of these 
intestine quarrels in such terms as excite astonishment and 
horror ; and great parts of Europe were in consequence 
reduced to the condition of a desert, which it ceased to be 
worth while to cultivate.^ 

The Church made some feeble attempts to put an end 
to this state of things. Thus, about the year 990, ordi- 
nances were directed against the practice of private war 
by several bishops in the south of France, who agreed to 
exclude him who violated their ordinances from all 
Christian privileges during his life, and to deny him 
Christian burial after his death." A little later, men 
engaged in warfare were exhorted, by sacred relics and by 
the bodies of saints, to lay down their arms and to swear 
that they would never again disturb the public peace by 
their private hostilities.® But it is hardly likely that such 
directions had much effect as long as the bishops and 
abbots themselves were allowed to wage private war by 
means of their vidames, and exercised this right scarcely 
less frequently than the barons.^ Nor does it seem that 

because a lady residing there had pro- 
mised to dance with his cousin, but 
danced with another ; and the city was 
obliged to satisfy the wounded honour 
of the gentleman (von Wachter, op. cit. 
P- S7)- 

1 Robertson, op. cit. i. 332. 

^ ‘ Charta de Treuga et Pace per Ani- 
ciensem Praesulem Widoneni in Con- 
gregatione quamplurium Episcoporum, 
Principium, et Nobilium hujus Terrae 
•sancita,’ in Dumont, Corps iiniversel 
diplomatique du droit des gens^ i. 

41. 

* Raoul Glaber, Historic^ stii tern- 
ri<, iv. 5 (Bouquet, Rcru?n Galli- 

carton et Francicavum Scriptores^ x. 
49). Robertson, op. cit. i. 335, 

Brussel, Nouvel examen de Pusage 
gthidral des fiefs en France., i. 144. How 
much the prelates were infected by the 
general spirit of the age, appears from a 
characteristic story of an archbishop of 
Cologne who gave to one of his vassals 
a castle situated on a sterile rock. 
When the vassal objected that he could 
not subsist on such a soil, the arch- 
bishop answered, “ Why do you com- 
plain? Four roads unite under the 
walls of your castle ” (Du Boys, His- 
toire dll droit crdminel de PEspagne, p. 
504). 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

the Church brought about any considerable change for the 
better by establishing the Truce of God, involving obli- 
gatory respite from hostilities during the great festivals of 
the Church, as also from the evening of Wednesday in 
each week to the morning of Monday in the week 
ensuing.^ We are assured by good authorities that the 
Truce was generally disregarded, though the violator was 
threatened with the penalty of excommunication.' Most 
barons could probably say with Bertram de Born : — “ La 
paix ne me convient pas ; la guerre seule me plait, Je 
n’ai (^gard ni aux lundis, ni aux mardis. Les semaines, les 
mois, les annees, tout m’est ^gal. En tout temps, je veux 
perdre quiconque me nuit.” * The ordinance enjoining the 
treuga Dei was transgressed even by the popes. It was 
too unpractical a direction to be obeyed, and was soon 
given up even in theory by the authorities of the Church. 
Thomas Aquinas says that, as physicians may lawfully 
apply remedies to men on feast-days, so just wars may be 
lawfully prosecuted on such days for the defence of the 
commonwealth of the faithful, if necessity so requires ; 
“ for it would be tempting God for a man to want to keep 
his hands from war under stress of such necessity.” ^ And 
in support of this opinion he quotes the First Book of 
the Maccabees, where it is said, “ Whosoever shall come 
to make battle with us on the sabbath day, we will fight 
against him,” 

It seems that the main cause of the abolition of private 
war was not any measure taken by the Church, but the 
increase of the authority of emperors or kings. In 
France the right of waging private war was moderated 
by Louis IX., checked by Philip IV., suppressed by 

^ Raoul Glaber, op. cit. v. i [loc. cit. ^ Villemain, Co7irs de litt^raiin^e 
p. 59). Dm C'Awgii, Glossarium ad scrip- fram^aise^ Littiraiiire du Moyen 
tores viedue et hijimce Latmitatis, vi. i. 122 sq. 

126'] sq. Nouvei abr^^d chro- ^ Belli, De re militari^ quoted by 

nologique de Phistoire de* France ^ p. Nys, op, cit. p. 115. 

I06. ® Thoma.s Aquinas, op. cit. ii.-ii. 

Du Cange, Glossarinm^ vi. 1272. 40. 4. 

Nys, Droit de la guerre et les prdcur- ^ Maccabees,^ ii. 41. 
seurs de Grot ins y p. 114. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

35 ^ 

Charles VI.^ In England, after the Norman Conquest, 
private wars seem to have occurred more rarely than 
on the Continent, probably owing to the strength of the 
royal authority, which made the execution of justice more 
vigorous and the jurisdiction of the King’s court m6re 
extensive than was the case in most other countries.^ In 
Scotland the practice of private war received its final blow 
only late in the eighteenth century, when the clans were 
reduced to order after the rebellion of 1745.^ Whilst, 
then, it is impossible to ascribe to the Church any con- 
siderable part in the movement which ultimately led to 
the entire abolition of private war, we have, on the other 
hand, to take into account the encouragement which the 
Church gave to the warlike spirit of the time by the 
establishment of Chivalry ^ and by sanctioning war as a 
divine institution. War came to be looked upon as a 
judgment of God and the victory as a sign of his special 
favour. Before a battle, the service of mass was usually 
performed by both armies in the presence of each other, 
and no warrior would fight without secretly breathing a 
prayer.'* Pope Adrian IV. says that a war commenced 
under the auspices of religion cannot but be fortunate ; ^ 
and it was commonly believed that God took no less 
interest in the battle than did the fighting warriors. 
Bonet, who wrote in the fourteenth century, puts to him- 
self the question, why there are so many wars in the world, 
and gives the answer, “ que toutes sont pour le pechii du 
siecle dont nostre seigneur Dieu pour le pugnir permet les 
guerres, car ainsi le mainticnt I’escripture.” * 

Similar opinions have retained their place in the 
orthodox creeds both of the Catholic and Protestant 

^ Robertson, op, cit. -i. 55, 56, 338 Questions in Plodern I}iternatio 72 al 

S(](j, Hallani, View of the State of Lara, p. 254 S(/. 

Europe during the Middle Ages, i. 207. ■* I do not understand ]io\v M. Gau- 

Brussel, op. cit. i. 142. tier can say {op. cit. p. 6) that Chivalry 

Ibid. i. 343 si/. I’rof. Freeman was the most beautiful of those means 

[Comparative rolitics, p. 328 men- by which the Church endeavoured to 

tions as the last instance of private war check war. 

in England one from the lime of ^ VlxW's,, Histoiy of Chivalry, i. 147. 
Edward IV. ® Laurent, op. cit. vii. 245. 

^ Essays on some Disputed 7 JJonet, op. cit. iv., 54, p. 150. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

Churches up to the present day. The attitude adopted 
by the great Christian congregations towards war has 
been, and is still, to a considerable degree, that of sym- 
pathetic approval. The Catechism of the Council of 
Trent brings home that there are on record instances of 
slaughter executed by the special command of God 
Himself, as when the sons of Levi, who put to death so 
many thousands in one day, after the slaughter were 
thus addressed by Moses, “ Ye have consecrated your 
hands this day to the Lord.” ^ Even quite modern 
Catholic writers refer to the canonists who held that a 
State might lawfully make war upon a heretic people 
which was spreading heresy, and upon a pagan people 
which prevented the preaching of the Gospel.’’^ Again, 
when the Protestant Churches became State-Churches, 
their ministers, considering themselves as in the service 
of the State, were ready to champion whatever war the 
Government pleased to undertake. As Mr. Gibb ob- 
serves, the Protestant minister was as ready with his 
Thanksgiving Sermon for the victories of a profligate 
war, as the Catholic priest was with his Te Deum ; “ in- 
deed, the latter was probably the more independent of 
the two, because of his allegiance to Rome.” ® The new 
Confessions of Faith explicitly claimed for the State the 
right of waging war, and the Anabaptists were condemned 
because they considered war unlawful for a Christian.'* Even 
the necessity of a just cause as a reason for taking part 
in warfare, which was reasserted at the time of the Re- 
formation, was subsequently allowed to drop out of sight. 
Mr. Farrer calls attention to the fact that in the 37th 
article of the English Church, which is to the effect that a 
Christian at the command of the magistrate may wear 
weapons and serve in the wars, the word justa in the Latin 
form preceding the word bella has been omitted altogether.'' 

^ Catechism of the Coutfcil of Trent ^ ^ Augsburg Confession^ i. i6. 

iii. 6. 5, Second Helvetic Confession^ xxx. 4. 

Adds and Arnold, Catholic Die- Farrer, Military Manners and 

tionary, p. 944. Customs, p. 208. 

^ Gibb, loc. cit. p. 90. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

Nor did the old opinion that war is a providential 
institution and a judgment of God die with the Middle 
Ages. Lord Bacon looks upon wars as “ the highest 
trials of right ; when princes and states that acknowledge 
no superior upon earth shall put themselves upon the 
justice of God, for the deciding of their controversies by 
such success as it shall please Him to give on either side.”^ 
Real de Curban says that a war is seldom successful 
unless it be just, hence the victor may presume that God 
is on his side." According to Jeremy Taylor, “ kings 
are in the place of God, who strikes whole nations, and 
towns, and villages ; and war is the rod of God in the 
hands of princes.” * And it is not only looked upon as 
an instrument of divine justice, but it is also said, generally, 
“ to work out the noble purposes of God.” ‘‘ Its tend- 
ency, as a theological writer assures us, is “ to rectify and 
exalt the popular conception of God,” there being 
nothing among men “ like the smell of gunpowder for 
making a nation perceive the fragrance of divinity in 
truth.” By war the different countries “ have been 
opened up to the advance of true religion.” '' “ No people 

ever did, or ever could, feel the power of Christian 
principle growing up like an inspiration through the 
national manhood, until the worth of it had been thun- 
dered on the battle-field.” " War is, “ when God sends 
it, a means of grace and of national renovation” ; it is “ a 
solemn duty in which usually only the best Christians and 
most trustworthy men should be commissioned to hold 
the sword.” ^ According to M. Proudhon, it is the 
most sublime phenomenon of our moral life,'* a divine re- 
velation more authoritative than the Gospel itself ’'* The 
warlike people is the religious people ; war is the sign of 

^ Bacon, Letters and Life, \. {JVor/cs, ^ Holland, lime of IVar, p, 14. 
viii. ), 146. ^ Boston Review, iii. 257. 

- Real de Curban, I.a science dn ^ ‘ Christianity and War,’ in C//r;V//<7;/ 
gouvernetneni , v. 394 sq. Revieiv, xxvi. 604. 

® Taylor, Whole Works, xii. 164. ® Proudhon, La guerre et la paix, ii. 

^ ‘ The Sword and Christianity,’ in 420. 

Boston Review devoted to L'heologyf and Ibid, i. 62 ; ii. 435. 

Literature, iii. 261. Ibid, i. 45. 

^ Ibid, iii. 259, 257. ' 

HOMICIDE IN GENERA! 

human grandeur, peace a thing for beavers and sheep. 
“Philanthrope, vous parlez d’abolir la guerre; prenez 
garde de degrader le genre humain.” ' 

In order to prove the consistency of war with Christi- 
anity appeals are still, as in former days, made to the Bible ; 
to the divinely-sanctioned exarhple of the ancient Israelites, 
to the fact that Jesus never prohibited those around Him 
from bearing arms, to the instances of the centurions 
mentioned in the Gospel, to St. Paul’s predilection for 
taking his spiritual metaphors from the profession of the 
soldier, and so on.^ According to Canon Mozley, the 
Christian recognition of the right of war was contained in 
Christianity’s original recognition of nations.* “ By a 
fortunate necessity,” a universal empire is impossible.^ 
Each nation is a centre by itself, and when questions of 
right and justice arise between these independent centres, 
they cannot be decided except by mutual agreement or 
force. The aim of the nation going to war is exactly the 
same as that of the individual in entering a court, and the 
Church, which has no authority to decide which is the 
right side, cannot but stand neutral and contemplate war 
forensically, as a mode of settling national questions, 
which is justified by the want of any other mode.‘^ A 
natural justice. Canon Mozley adds, is inherent not only 
in wars of self-defence : there is an instinctive reaching in 
nations and masses of people after alteration and readjust- 
ment, which has justice in it, and which arises from real 
needs. The arrangement does not suit as it stands, there 
is want of adaptation, there is confinement and pressure ; 
there are people kept away from each other that are made 
to be together, and parts separated that were made to join. 
All this uneasiness in States naturally leads to war. 
Moreover, there are wars of progress which, so far as they 
are really necessary for the due advantage of mankind and 

^ Ibid, i. 43. * Mozley, ‘On War,’ in Sermons 

Sqg, e.g,^hrownQ, Ex/fosi/ionof (ke preached before the University of Ox- 
'^'hirty-Nine Articles^ j'). 827 sq. ; ford^ p. 119. 

Ckristiafi Rez)iew^ xxvi. 603 sq. ; Ec- ^ /bid, p. II2. 
iectic Magazine^ xiii. 372. Ibid, p. 100 sqq. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

cwap. 

growth of society, are approved of by Christianity, 
though they do not strictly belong to the head of wars 
undertaken in self-defence.^ A doctrine which thus, in 
the name of religion, allows the waging of wars for recti- 
fying the political distribution of nationalities and races, 
and forwarding the so-called progress of the world, 
naturally lends itself to the justification of almost any war 
entered upon by a Christian State. As a matter of fact, it 
would be impossible to find a single instance of a war 
waged by a Protestant country, from any motive, to which 
the bulk of its clergy have not given their sanction and 
support. The opposition against war has generally come 
from other quarters. 

There have been, and still are, Christian sects which, on 
religious grounds, condemn war of any kind. In the four- 
teenth century the Lollards taught that homicide in war 
is expressly contrary to the New Testament ; they were 
persecuted partly on that account.*^ Of the same opinion 
were the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century ; and they 
could claim on their side the words of men like Colet and 
Erasmus. From the pulpit of St. Paul’s Colet thundered 
that ‘‘ an unjust peace is better than the justest war,” and 
that, “ when men out of hatred and ambition fight with 
and destroy one another, they fight under the banner, 
not of Christ, but of the Devil.” According to Erasmus 
“ nothing is more impious, more calamitous, more widely 
perliicious, more inveterate, more base, or in sum more 
unworthy of a man, not to say of a Christian,” than war. 
It is worse than brutal ; to man no wild beast is more 
destructive than his fellow-man. When brutes fight, they 
fight with weapons which nature has given them, whereas 
we arm ourselves for mutual slaughter with weapons which 
nature never thought of. Neither do beasts break out 

^ Ibid, 104 sq, of the three ^rcat Phiropean wars of the 

On the principle of progress, Canon last d(^zen years.” This was said in 

Mozley himself justifies {ibid. p. 1 10 i-y. ) 1871. 

not only the wars undertaken against ^ Perry, History of the English 
two Eastern empires which have shut Churchy First Period, pp. 455, 467. 
themselves up and excluded themselves Green, History of the English 

from the society of mankind, but “ two People, ii. 93. 

in hostile rage for trifling causes, but either when 
hunger drives them to madness, or when they find them- 
selves attacked, or when they are alarmed for the safety 
of their young. But we, on frivolous pretences, what 
tragedies do we act on the theatre of war ! Under colour 
of some obsolete and disputable claim to territory ; in a 
childish passion for a mistress; for causes even more 
ridiculous than these, we kindle the flame of war. Trans- 
actions truly hellish, are called holy wars. Bishops and 
grave divines, decrepit as they are in person, fight from 
the pulpit the battles of the princes, promising remission 
of sins to all who will take part in the war of the prince, 
and exclaiming to the latter that God will fight for him, 
if he only keeps his mind favourable to the cause of 
religion. And yet, how could it ever enter into our 
hearts, that a Christian should imbrue his hands in the 
blood of a Christian ! What is war but murder and 
theft committed by great numbers on great numbers ! 
Does not the Gospel declare, in decisive words, that we 
must not revile again those who revile us, that we should 
do good to those who use us ill, that we should give up 
the whole of our possessions to those who take a part, 
that we should pray for those who design to take away 
our lives ? The world has so many learned bishops, so 
many gray-headed grandees, so many councils and senates, 
why is not recourse had to their authority, and the 
childish quarrels of princes settled by their wise* and 
decisive arbitration ? “ The man who engages in war by 

choice, that man, whoever he is, is a wicked man ; he sins 
against nature, against God, against man, and is guilty of 
the most aggravated and complicated impiety.” ‘ I'hese 
were the main arguments of reason, humanity, and 
religion, which Erasmus adduced against war. They 
could not leave the reformers entirely unaffected. Sir 
Thomas More charged Luther himself and his disciples 
with carrying the doctrines of peace to the extreme limits 

^ Erasmibs, Adagia, iv. i, col. 893 sqq. 

3^4 

HOMICIDE m GENERAL 

of non-resistance.^ But, as we have noticed, these peace- 
ful tendencies only formed a passing phase in the history 
of Reformation, and were left to the care of sectarians. 

Among these the Quakers are the most important. By 
virtue of various passages in the Old and the New 
Testament,^ they contend that all warfare, whatever be 
its peculiar features, circumstances, or pretexts, is wholly 
at variance with the Christian religion. It is always the 
duty of Christians to obey their Master’s high and 
holy law — to suffer wrong, to return good for evil, to love 
their enemies. War is also inconsistent with the Christian 
principle that human life is sacred, and that death is 
followed by infinite consequences. Since man is destined 
for eternity, the future welfare of a single individual is of 
greater importance than the merely temporal prosperity of 
a whole nation. When cutting short the days of their 
neighbour and transmitting him, prepared or unprepared, 
to the awful realities of an everlasting state, Christians 
take upon themselves a most unwarrantable responsibility, 
unless such an action is expressly sanctioned by their 
divine Master, as was the case among the Israelites. In 
the New Testament there is no such sanction, hence it 
must be concluded that, under the Christian dispensation, 
it is utterly unlawful for one man to kill another, under 
whatever circumstances of expediency or provocation the 
deed may be committed. And a Christian who fights by 
the command of his prince, and in behalf of his country, 
not only commits sin in his own person, but aids and abets 
the national transgression.’’ 

It must be added that views similar to these are also 
found independently of any particular form of sectarianism. 
According to Dr. Wayland, all wars, defensive as well as 
offensive, are contrary to the revealed will of God, aggres- 
sion from a foreign nation calling not for retaliation and 

^ Farrer, Military Manners and 36. Homans ^ xii. 19 i Peter, 

Customs, p. 185. iii. 9, 

2 Isaiah, ch. ii. sqq. Micah, iv. I sqq, ^ Gurney, Views Cf Practices of the 
St. Matthew, v. 38 sqq.\ .^-^\\. 52. Society of Friends, sqq. 

St. Luke, vi, 27 sqq. St. John, xviii. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

injury, but rather for special kindness and good-willd 
Theodore Parker, the Congregational minister, looks 
upon war as a sin, a corrupter of public morals, a 
practical denial of Christianity, a violation of God’s 
eternal love.^ W. Stokes, the Baptist, observes that 
Christianity cannot sanction war, whether offensive or 
defensive, because war is an “ immeasurable evil, by hurl- 
ing unnumbered myriads of our fellow-men to a prema- 
ture judgment and endless despair.”® Moreover, those 
who compare the state of opinion during the last years 
with that of former periods, cannot fail to observe a 
marked progress of a sentiment antagonistic to war in the 
various sections of the Christian Church."* Yet, speaking 
generally, the orthodox are still of the same opinion as 
Sir James Turner, who declared that “those who condemn 
the profession or art of soldiery, smell rank of Ana- 
baptism and Quakery”;® and war is in our days, as it 
was in those of Erasmus,'* so much sanctioned by authority 
and custom, that it is deemed impious to bear testimony 
against it. The duties which compulsory military service 
imposes upon the male population of most Christian 
countries presuppose that a Christian should have no 
scruples about taking part in any war waged by the State, 
and are recognised as binding by the clergy of those 
countries. With reference to the Church of England, 
Dr, Thomas Arnold asks, “ Did it become a Christian 
Church to make no other official declaration of its 
sentiments concerning war, than by saying that Christian 
men might lawfully engage in it ? ” ’ 

The protest against war which exercised perhaps the 
widest influence on public opinion came from a school of 
moralists whose tendencies were not only anti-orthodox, but 
distinctly hostile to the most essential dogmas of Christian 
theology. Bayle, in his Dictionary, calls Erasmus’ essay 

' Wayland, Elements “of Moral ^ Cf Gibb, loe. cit, p. 81. 

Science, pp. 375, 379- ^ Turner, Pallas Armata, p. 369. 

^ Parker, Sermon of War, p. 23. ^ Krasnnis, op. cit. iv. i. i, col. 894. 

Stokes, All War inconsistent with ^ Arnold, On the Church, p. 136. 
the Christian Religion, p. 41, 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

against war one of the most beautiful dissertations ever 
written.^ He observes that the more we consider the 
inevitable consequences of war, the more we feel disposed 
to detest those who are the causes of it." Its usual fruits 
may, indeed, “ make those tremble who undertake or 
advise it, to prevent evils which, perhaps, may never 
happen and which, at the worst, would often be much less 
than those which necessarily follow a rupture.” ^ To 
Voltaire war is an “ infernal enterprise,” the strangest 
feature of which is that “ every chief of the ruffians has 
his colours consecrated, and solemnly prays to God before 
he goes to destroy his neighbour.” '* He asks what the 
Church has done to suppress this crime. Bourdaloue 
preached against impurity, but what sermon did he ever 
direct against the murder, rapine, brigandage, and universal 
rage, which desolate the world “ Miserable physicians of 
souls, you declaim for five quarters of an hour against the 
mere pricks of a pin, and say no word on the curse which 
tears us into a thousand pieces.” ^ Voltaire admits that 
under certain circumstances war is an inevitable curse, but 
rebukes Montesquieu for saying that natural defence some- 
times involves the necessity of attack, when a nation 
perceives that a longer peace would place another nation 
in a position to destroy it.*' Such a war, he observes, is as 
illegitimate as possible : — “ It is to go and kill your neigh- 
bour for fear that your neighbour, who does not attack 
you, should be in a condition to attack you ; that is to 
say, you must run the risk of ruining your country, in 
the hope of ruining without reason some other country ; 
this is, to be sure, neither fair nor useful.” '' The chief 
causes which induce men to massacre in all loyalty 
thousands of their brothers and to expose their own 
people to the most terrible misery, are the ambitions and 

^ Bayle, Dictioiinairc historique et que^ art. Clucrre [CEuvres couiplites^ 
critique^ vi. 239, art. Erasme. xl. 5^2). 

Ibid. ii. 463, art. Artaxata. ® Ibid. p. 564. 

Ibid. i. 472, art. Alting (Menri). Montesquieu, De lesp)!! des loisy 

Voltaire, Dictionnaire f hilosophi- x. 2 ( CEtivrcs complHeSy p. 256). 

^ Voltaire, loc. cit, p. 565. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

jealousies of princes and their ministers^ Similar views 
are expressed in the great Encyclopedic : — “ La guerre est 
le plus terrible des fleaux qui dc^truisent I’espece humaine ; 
elle n’^pargne pas meme les vainqueurs ; la plus heureuse 
est funeste, . , . Ce ne sont plus aujourd’hui les peuples 
qui declarent la guerre, c’est la cupidite des rois qui leur 
fait prendre les armes ; c’est I’indigence qui les met aux 
mains de leurs sujets.” ^ 

However vehemently Voltaire and the Encyclopedists 
condemned war, they did not dream of a time when all 
wars would cease. Other writers were more optimistic. 
Already in 1713 Abbe Saint-Pierre — whose abbotship 
involved only a nominal connection with the Church — 
had published a project of perpetual peace, which was 
based on the idea of a general confederation of European 
nations.* This project was much laughed at ; Voltaire 
himself calls its author “ un homme moitie philosophe, 
moitie fou.” But once called into being, the idea of a 
perpetual peace and of a European confederation did not 
die. It was successively conceived by Rousseau,'' Bentham,® 
and Kant.'' But on the other hand it met with a formid- 
able enemy in the awakening spirit of nationalism. 

The Napoleonic oppression called forth resistance. 
Philosophers and poets sounded the war trumpet. The 
dream of a universal monarchy was looked upon as absurd 
and hateful, and the individuality of a nation as the only 
possible security for its virtue." War was no longer 
attributed to the pretended interests of princes or to the 
caprices of their advisers. It was praised as a vehicle of 
the highest right,* as a source of national renovation." 

^ Ibid. pp. 466, 564. For Voltaire’s Pierre {Giuvres computes^ i. 606 sqq.). 
condemnation of war, see Morlcy, Vol- ^ Bentham, A Plan for an universal 
laire^ p. 311 sqq. I have availed my.self and perpetual Peare[lVorksf]. sqq.). 

of Mr. Morley’s translation of .some of ^ Kant, Zuvi ewigen Prieden. 
the passages quoted. " Fichte, Reden an die deutsche 

Encyelopddie mdthodique^ Art mili- Nation. Cf. Idcrn^ iJeber den Begriff 
taire, ii. 618 sq. ^ des wahrhaften Kriegcs. 

^Aint- Pierre, Projet de Traitd pour ^ Arndt, quoted by Jiihns, ICrieg, 
re.ndre la paix perpltuelle entre les B'ricden und Kultur, p. 302. 
souverains Chrdtiens. ^ An.selin von Feuerl?ach, Unter^ 

Rousseau, Extrait dii Projet de driickung und IViederbcfreiung Euro^ 
paix perpdtuelle^ de, AI. V Abbd de Saint' pens. 

By war, says Hegel, finite pursuits are rendered unstable, 
and the ethical health of peoples is preserved. Just as the 
movement of the ocean prevents the corruption which 
would be the result of perpetual calm, so by war people 
escape the corruption which would be occasioned by a 
continuous or eternal peace.” ^ Similar views have been 
expressed by later writers. War is glorified as a stimulus 
to the elevated virtues of courage, disinterestedness, and 
patriotism. “ It has done more great things in the world 
than the love of man, says Nietzsche.*^ It is the mother 
of art and of all civil virtues, says Mr. Ruskin.'^ Others 
defend war, not as a positive good, but as a necessary 
means of deciding the most serious international contro- 
versies, denying that arbitration can be a substitute for all 
kinds of war. Questions which are intimately connected 
with national passions and national aspirations, and ques- 
tions which are vital to a nation’s safety, will never, they 
say, be left to arbitration. Each State must be the 
guardian of its own security, and cannot allow its inde- 
pendence to be calmly discussed and adjudicated upon by an 
external tribunal,'" Moreover, arbitration would prove 
effective only where the contradictory pretensions could be 
juridically formulated, and these instances are by far the less 
numerous and the less important.^" And would it not, in 
many cases, be impossible to find impartial arbiters ? 
Would not arbitration often be influenced by a calculation 
of the forces which every power interested could bring 
into the field, and would not war be resorted to where 
arbitration failed to reconcile conflicting interests, or where 
a decision was opposed to a high-spirited people’s sense of 
justice ? These and similar arguments are constantly 
adduced against the idea of a perpetual peace. But at the 
same time the opponents of war are becoming more nume- 

^ Hegel, Grttndlinien der Philosophie ^ Ruskin, C^'own of Wild Olive, 
des Rechts, § 324, p. , 317 (English Lecture on War (Worlds, vi. 99, 105.). 
translation, p. 331). ® Lawrence, op. cit. p. 275 sq. Sidg- 

2 See, e.g.y Mabille, La Gtterre, p. wick, ‘Morality of Strife,’ in Inter- 
139. national Journal of Mihics^ i. 13. 

Also sprach /.arathnslra, ® Geffken, quoted by Jahns, op. cit, 
i. 63. p. 352, n. 2, ^ . 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

rous and more confident every day. Already after the 
fall of Napoleon, when there was a universal longing for 
peace in the civilised world, the first Peace Societies were 
formed ; ^ and the idea of Saint-Pierre, from being the 
dream of a philosopher, has become the object of a 
popular movement which is rapidly increasing in import- 
ance. There is every reason to believe that, when the 
present high tide of nationalism has subsided, and the 
subject of war and peace is no longer looked upon from 
an exclusively national point of view, the objections 
which are now raised against arbitration will at last appear 
almost as futile as any arguments in favour of private war 
or blood-revenge. There is an inveterate tendency in the 
human mind to assume that existing conditions will remain 
unchanged. But the history of civilisation shows how 
unfounded any such assumption is with reference to 
those conditions which determine social relationships and 
the extent of moral rights and duties. 

It is said that, though Christianity has not abolished 
war, it has nevertheless, even in war, asserted the principle 
that human life is sacred by prohibiting all needless 
destruction. The Canon, ‘ De treuga et pace,^ laid down 
the rule that non-resisting persons should be spared ; 
and Franciscus a Victoria maintained not only that 
between Christian enemies those who made no resistance 
could not lawfully be slain, ^ but that even in war against 
the Turks it was wrong to kill children and women. 
However, this doctrine of mercy was far in advance of 
the habits and general opinion of the time.' If the 
simple peasant was often spared, that was largely from 
motives of prudence,^’ or because the valiant knight con- 
sidered him unworthy of the lance. ^ As late as the 
seventeenth century, .Grotius was certainly not supported 
by the spirit of the age when he argued that, if justice 

^ Jiihps, op. cit, p, 307 sq. * ^ Cf. Hall, Treatise on International 

Gregory IX. Decretales^ i. 34. 2. Lazo, p. 395, 11. i. 

^ Franciscus a Victoria, op. cit. vi. ** d’Argenlrc, Ilhistoire de Bretagne 
13, 35, 48 ; pp. 232, 24T, 246 sq. p. 391. 

^ Ibid. vi. 36, p. 241. ” Mills, op. cit. p. 132. 

VOt. 1 P B 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

do not require, at least mercy does, that we should not, 
except for weighty causes tending to the safety of many, 
undertake anything which may involve innocent persons 
in destruction ” ; ^ or when he recommended enemies 
willing to surrender on fair conditions, or unconditionally, 
to be spared.^ Afterwards, however, opinion changed 
rapidly. Pufendorf, in echoing the doctrine of Grotius,® 
spoke to a world which was already convinced ; and in 
the eighteenth century Bynkershoek stands alone in giving 
to a belligerent unlimited rights of violence.'' In reference 
to the assumption that this change of opinion is due to 
the influence of the Christian religion, it is instructive to 
note that Grotius, in support of his doctrine, appealed 
chiefly to pagan authorities, and that even savage peoples, 
without the aid of Christianity, have arrived at the rule 
which in war forbids the destruction of helpless persons 
and captives. 

The prevailing attitude towards war indicates the 
survival, in modern civilisation, of the old feeling that 
the life of a foreigner is not equally sacred with the life 
of a countryman. In times of peace this feeling is 
usually suppressed ; it appears in no existing law on 
homicide, nor does it, generally, find expression in public 
opinion. It dares to disclose itself only in the form of 
national aggressiveness, under the flag of patriotism, or, 
perhaps, in the treatment of the aborigines of some 
distant country. The behaviour of European colonists 
towards coloured races only too often reminds us of the 
manner in which savages treat members of a foreign 
tribe. It is said that the frontier peasants at the Cape 
find nothing] morally wrong in the razzias which they 
undertake against the Bushmans, without any provocation 
whatsoever, though they would consider it a heinous sin 
to do the same to their Christian fellow-men.® In Aus- 

' Grotius, op. cit, iii. ii. 8. publici^ i. i, p. 3 : “ Oinnis enim vis in 

Ibid. iii. sqq. hello justa est.” Hall, Treatise on 

Pufendorf, De jure natune ei International Law^ p. 395, n. I. 
gentium, viii. 6. 8, p. 885^ ^ Waitz, Introduction to Anthro- 

^ van Bynkershoek, Ouestiones juris pology, p. 314. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

tralia there are instances reported of young Colonists 
employing the Sunday in shooting blacks for the sake of 
sport. ‘‘The life of a native,” says Mr. Lumholtz, 
“ has but little value, particularly in the northern part of 
Australia, and once or twice colonists offered to shoot 
blacks for me so that I might get their skulls. On the 
borders of civilisation men would think as little of shoot- 
ing a black man as a dog. The law imposes death by 
hanging as the penalty for murdering a black man, but 
people live so far apart in these uncivilised regions that a 
white man may in fact do what he pleases with the blacks. 

. . . In the courts the blacks are defenceless, for their 
testimony is not accepted. The jury is not likely to 
declare a white man guilty of murdering a black man. 
On the other hand, if a white man happens to be killed 
by the blacks, a cry is heard throughout the whole 
colony.” ‘ 

^ Lumholtz, Afnofii^ Canni/nx/Sy p. 390; Jilxci/rs ions in IVew South 

346 See also Mathew, in Jour. IVales, p. 200 si/. ; Stokes, Discoveries 

Proceed. Roy. Soc. N.S. IVaies, xxiii. i/i Austraiiiiy ii. 459 S(/(/. 

i? 2

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL {concluded') 

In the last two chapters we have only been concerned 
with the statement of facts ; we shall now make an 
attempt to explain those facts. What is the source of the 
moral commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”? And 
what is the cause of its original narrowness and of its 
subsequent extension ? 

Mr. Spencer suggests that the taking of life was 
regarded as a wrong done to the family of the dead 
man or to the society of which he was a member, before 
it came to be conceived of as a wrong done to the 
murdered man himself.' But considering the mutual 
sympathy which prevails in small savage communities, 
it seems extremely probable that sympathetic resentment 
felt on account of the injury suffered by the victim has 
from the beginning been a potent cause of thq^condemna- 
tlon of homicide. Savages^ no less than civilised mankind, 
practically regard a man’s life as his highest good. What- 
ever opinions may be held about the existence after death, 
whatever blessings may be supposed to await the dis- 
embodied soul, nobody likes to be hurried into that 
existence by another’s will. According to early beliefs, 
the soul of a murdered man is furious with the person 
who slew him, and finds no rest until his death has been 
avenged.^ His friends and comrades pity his fate and 

^ S25encer, Principles of 'KthicSy ii, - See infray on Blood^reven^e. 

CH. XVI 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

feel resentment on his behalf ; whereas, in a state of 
culture where sympathy is restricted to a narrow group 
of people, no such resentment will be felt if the victim is a 
member of another group. On the contrary, when he is 
regarded as an actual or potential enemy, or when the 
slaying of him is taken for a test of courage, the man-^ 
slayer will be applauded by his own people, and his deed 
will be styled good or meritorious. In some cases super- 
stition, also, is an encouragement to extra-tribal homicide. 
The Kukis believe that, in paradise, all the enemies whom 
a man has killed will be in attendance on him as slaves.^ 
A similar belief partly lies at the bottom of the custom of 
head-hunting ; ^ whilst, according to other notions, the 
soul of the man whose head is procured is transformed 
into a guardian spirit. * A Kayan chief said of the custom 
in question, “ It brings us blessings, plentiful harvests, 
and keeps off sickness and pains ; those who were once 
our enemies, hereby become our guardians, our friends, 
our benefactors.” Now, progress in civilisation is gener- 
ally marked by an expansion of the altruistic sentiment ; 
and this largely explains why the prohibition of homicide 
has come to embrace more and more comprehensive circles 
of men, and finally, in the most advanced cases, the whole 
human race. 

But whilst homicide is censured as a wrong done to the 
person slain, it is at the same time viewed as an injury 
inflicted upon the survivors. It deprived his friends of 
his company, his family and community of a useful 
member. In Arabia, when a man was killed, his tribes- 
men, instead of mentioning his name, used to say, “ Our 
blood has been spilt.”® According to Lafitau, the loss 
of a single person seemed to the North American India'ns 
a subject of great regret, because it weakened the family. “ 

^ Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of * Furness, IIoyne-Life of Borneo 
Bengal^ p. 46. Head-Himters, p. 59. 

“ lAng KoXh-y Natives of Saraivahfu. ® Robertson Smith, Marriage a?id 

141. liaddon, Head-Hunters^ p. 394. Kinship in Early Arabia^ p. 26. 

^ Wilken, Het animisme bij de volken ^ Lafitau, Mcenrs des satwages ameri- 

van deft Indischen Archipel^ p. 124. qnatns^ ii. 163. 

Among the Basutos, again, ^ murder is condemned “ as a 
violation of the sacred rights of a father, who is deprived 
of the services of his son, or of a widow and orphans, 
who are left without support.” * Especially when a person 
is considered more or less the property of another, the 
taking of his life is largely looked upon as an offence 
against the owner. Mr. Warner states of the Kafirs, 
“ All homicide must ... be atoned for ; the principle 
assumed being, that the persons of individuals are the 
property of the Chief, and that having been deprived of 
the life of a subject, he must be compensated for it.” ^ 
We meet with a somewhat similar notion in the history of 
English legislation. In his book on the Commonwealth 
of England, Thomas Smith observes, “ Attempting to 
impoison a man, or laying a waite to kill a man, though 
hee wound him dangerously, yet if death follow not, it is 
no fellony by the Law of England, for the Prince hath 
lost no man, and life ought to be giuen we say for life 
only.”® In the Middle Ages homicide was conceived as 
a breach of the “ King’s peace ” ; and both before and 
afterwards it has been stigmatised as a disturbance of 
public tranquillity and an outrage on public safety. In 
the Anglo-Saxon wer and wite we find a clear distinction 
between the private and public aspects of homicide.^ 

A manslayer not only causes a loss to the group which 
he deprives of a member, but he also may give trouble to 
his own people, who, in consequence, disapprove of his 
act. Among the Yahgans of Tierra del F'uego, says Mr. 
Bridges, “ many things conspire to make the shedding of 
blood a fearful thing. A murderer imperils all his friends 
and connections more or less, and consequently estranges 
them from himself. This state of things is the greatest 
safeguard to human life we can conceive.” Among the 
Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush, “the mere killing of an 

^ Casalis, Basnlos^ p. 224 sq. ^ Cf. Pollock and Maitland, History 

Warner, in Maclean, Cofnpendium of English Latv before the Time of 
of Kafir LatuSy p. 60 sq. Edward I. i. 48. 

* Thomas Smith, Cor?i mon-tv ealth of ® Bridges, in South 'Ameruati Mis- 

Englamly p. 194 sq. sionary Magazine^ xiii. 153. 

XVl 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

individual is looked upon as a small affair, provided that 
he does not belong to the tribe, or to another near tribe 
with which it is at peace, for in the latter case it might 
result in war.” ^ 

We have still to notice the common idea that a man- 
slayer is unclean. The ghost of the victim persecutes 
him, or actually cleaves to him like a miasma ; and he 
must undergo rites of purification to get rid of the infec- 
tion. Until this is done, he is among many peoples 
regarded as a source of danger, and is consequently cut 
off from free intercourse with his fellows. 

Among the Ponka Indians Mr. Dorsey found the belief that 
a murderer is surrounded by the ghosts, who keep up a constant 
whistling ; that he can never satisfy his hunger, though he eat 
much food ; and that he must not be allowed to roam at large 
lest high winds arise.^ Of the warriors among certain North 
American Indians Adair wrote that, “ as they reckon they are 
become impure by sJiedding human blood,” they hasten to 
observe a fast of three days.^ Among the Natchez, according 
to Charlevoix, those who for the first time have made a 
prisoner or taken off a scalp, must, for a month, abstain from 
seeing their wives, and from eating flesh. They imagine, that 
if they should fail in this, the souls of those whom they have 
killed or burnt, would effect their death, or that the first wound 
they should receive would be mortal ; or at least, that they 
should never gain any advantage over their enemies.” ^ 
The Kafirs and Bechuanas practise various ceremonies of 
purification after their fights.^ The Basutos say, Human 
blood is heavy, it prevents him who has shed it from running 
away.”^ They consider it necessary that, on return from 
battle, the warriors should rid themselves, as soon as possible, 
of the blood they have shed,, or the shades of their victims 
would pursue them incessantly and disturb their slumbers”; 
hence they go in full armour to the nearest stream, and, as a 
rule, at the moment they enter the water a diviner, placed 

^ Scott Robertson, Kafir's of the America^ ii. 203. 

Hindu- Kush ^ p. 194. ® Arbousset and Daumas, Explora- 

\ Dorsey, ‘ Siouan Cults,’ in Ann. tory Tour to the Colony of the Cape oj 
Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 420. Good Hope., p. 394 sqq. Alberti, De 

3 Adair, History of the American Kafers aan de Zuidkust van Afrika^ 
Indians., p. 388. p. 104. 

** Charlevoix, Voyage to North ^ Casalis, op. cit. p. 309. 

higher up, throws some purifying substances into the current.^ 
Among the Bantu Kavirondo, “ when a man has killed an 
enemy in warfare he shaves his head on his return home, and 
his friends rub ‘medicine’ (generally the dung of goats) over 
his body to prevent the spirit of the deceased from worrying 
the man by whom he has been slain/’ ^ Among the Ja-luo, a 
warrior who has slain an enemy not only shaves his hair, but, 
after entering the village, prepares a big feast to propitiate the 
man he has killed so that his ghost may not give trouble.*^ 
Among the Wagogo of German East Africa, the father of a 
young warrior who has shed blood gives to his son a goat “ to 
clean his sword.” ^ After the slaughter of the Midianites, those 
Israelites who had killed any one, or touched the slain, had to 
remain outside the camp for seven days, purifying themselves 
and everything in their possession either by water, or fire, or 
both/'' So, also, if a person had been slain in the land of Israel, 
and the perpetrator of the deed could not be detected, the elders 
of the city which was next unto tlie slain had to undergo a 
ceremony of purification in order to rid the city of “ the guilt of 
innocent blood.” ^ According to the Laws of Mann, a person 
who has unintentionally killed a Brahmana shall make a hut in 
the forest and dwell in it during twelve years ; ^ in order to 
remove the guilt he shall throw himself thrice headlong into a 
blazing firc,"^ or walk against the stream along the whole course 
of the river Sarasvati,^ or shave ofF all his hair.^^ The ancient 
Greeks believed that one who had suffered a violent end, when 
newly dead, was angry with the author of his death.^^ The 
blood-guilty individual, as though infected with a miasma, 
shunned all contact and conversation with other people, and 
avoided entering their dwellings.^’ Even the involuntary man- 
slayer had to leave the country for some time 5 according to 
Plato’s ‘Laws,’ he “must go out of the way of iiis victim for 
the entire period of a year, and not let himself be found in any 
spot which was familiar to him throughout the country.” 

^ Ibid, p. 258. 

Johnston, Uganda Protectorate^ ii. 

* Cole, ‘ Notes on the Wagogo of 
Cierman East Africa,’ in Joitr. Anthr, 
Inst, xxxii. 321. 

® Numbers y xxxi. 19 sqq. 

^ Deuteronomy y xxi. I sqq. 

^ Lazvs of Manuy xi. 73. 

^ Ibid. xi. 74. 

^ Ibid. xi. 78. 

Ibid. xi. 79. 

Plato, Leges y ix. S65. 

Muller, Dissertations on the 
Eutnertides of AischyluSy p. 103. 
Aeschylus says [EumenideSy 448 sqq.) 
it is the custom that a murderer should 
not speak anything until he has been 
sprinkled with the spurted Wood of a 
slain sucking-pig. Cf. Apollonius Rho- 
diiis, Argonauticay iv. 700 sqq, ; Aris- 
totle, Dc republic a Atkeniensi/rm, 57. 

Plato, LegeSy ix. 865' 

Nor must he return to his land until sacrifice had been offered 

and ceremonies of purification performed.^ 

The state of uncleanness incurred by the shedding of 
human blood does not intrinsically involve moral guilt. 
As appears from many of the instances just referred to, 
it results not only from the murder of a tribesman, but 
from so meritorious a deed as the slaying of a foe. • In 
Nukahiva, for instance, a man who has killed the highest 
person, or one of the highest, among the enemy, is 
tabooed for ten days, during which he is not allowed to 
hold intercourse vyith his wife nor to meddle with fire ; 
but, at the same time, he is treated with distinction, and 
presents of pigs are brought to him.“ On the other 
hand, there can be no doubt that in various cases the 
polluting effect attributed to manslaughter has exercised 
some influence upon the moral judgment of the act. 
Whenever the commission of an act of homicide has any 
tendency at all to call forth moral blame, the disapproval 
of the deed will easily be enhanced by the spiritual danger 
attending on it, as also by the inconvenient restrictions 
laid on the tabooed manslayer and the ceremonies of 
purification to which he is subject. I'he deprivations 
which he has to undergo come to be looked upon in the 
light of a punishment, and the rites of cleansing as a 
means of removing guilt. The taboo rules which, among 
the Omahas, a murderer whose life was spared had to 
observe for a period varying from two to four years arc 
spoken of by Mr. Dorsey as his punishment,” and this 
seems also partly to have been the native point of view. 
The murderer sometimes wandered at night, crying, and 
lamenting his offence, until, at the end of the designated 
period, the kindred of his victim heard his crying, and 
said : — It is enough. Begone, and walk among the crowd. 

Demosthenes, Contra Ai'isto- 
cratem^ 71 sqq.y p. 643 sq, Muller, 
Dissertations^ p. 106 sq. Frazer, 
Golden Bough, i. 341- On the unclean- 
ness of manslayers sec also Tylor, 

Pfdmitive Culture, ii. 43^ sq. ; Frazer, 
oD ad i. 331 sqq. 

“ von 1 .angseiorf, Voyages and Travels, 

133 - 

Put on moccasins and wear a good robe.” ’ Moreover, 
the notion of a persecuting ghost may be replaced by the 
notion of an avenging god. Confusions are common in 
the world of mystery ; doings or functions attributed to 
one being are afterwards transferred to another — this is a 
rule of which many important examples will be given in 
following chapters. I'he Jbala of Northern Morocco 
do not nowadays believe in ghosts, yet they regard a 
person who has shed human blood to be in some degree 
unclean for the rest of his life. Poison oozes out from 
underneath his nails ; hence anybody who drinks the water 
in which he has washed his hands will fall dangerously ill. 
The meat of an animal which he has killed is difficult to 
digest, and so is any food eaten* in his company. If he 
comes to a place where people are digging a well, the 
water wjll at once run away. He is said to be mejnun, 
haunted by jtmn a race of beings entirely distinct 

from men, living or dead. The Greenlanders believed 
that an abortion or a child born under concealment was 
transformed into an evil spirit called dngiacj, for the pur- 
pose of avenging the crime. In Eastern Central Africa, 
“ after killing a slave, the master is afraid of Chilope. 
This means that he will become emaciated, lose his eye- 
sight, and ultimately die a miserable death. He therefore 
goes to his chief and gives him a certain fee (in cloth, or 
slaves, or such legal tenders), and says, ‘ Get me a charm 
{luasi)^ because I have slain a man.’ When he has used 
this charm, which may be either drunk or administered in 
a bath, the danger passes away.” ® Among the Omahas 
the ghost of the murdered man was not lost sight of ; the 
murderer “ was obliged to pitch his tent about a quarter 
of a mile from the rest of the, tribe when they were 
going on the hunt lest the ghost of his victim should 
raise a high wind, which might cause damage.” But at 
the same time his deed was considered offensive to 

^ Dorsey, ‘ Omaha Sociology,’ in ^ Rink, Tales and Traditions of the 
Ann, Rep, Bur. Ethn. iii. 369. Eskimo^ pp. 45, 439 sq, '' 

* Macdonald, Africana, i, 168. 

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL 

Wakanda ; no one wished to eat with him, for they said, 
“ If we eat with whom Wakanda hates, for his crime, 
Wakanda will hate us.” ^ In the Chinese books there are 
numerous instances of persons haunted by the souls of 
their victims on their death-bed, and in most of these 
cases the ghosts state expressly that they are avenging 
themselves with the special authorisation of Heaven.* 
The Greek belief in the Erinys of a murdered man no 
doubt originated in the earlier notion of a persecuting 
ghost, whose anger or curses in later times were personified 
as an independent spirit.® And the transformation went 
further still: the Erinyes were represented as the ministers 
of Zeus, who by punishing the murderer carried out his 
divine will. Zeus was considered the originator of the 
rites of purification ; when visited with madness by the 
Erinyes, Ixion appealed to Zeus Hikesios, and at the 
altar of Zeus Meilichios Theseus underwent purification 
for the shedding of kindred blood. Originally, as it 
seems, only the murder of a kinsman was an offence 
against Zeus and under the ban of the Erinyes, but later 
on their sphere of action was expanded, and all bloodshed, 
if the victim had any rights at all within the city, became 
a sin which needed purification. Uncleanness was thus 
transformed into spiritual impurity. When the pollution 
with which a manslayer is tainted is regarded as merely 
the work of a ghost or of some spirit-substitute who, like 
the Moorish has nothing to do with the administra- 
tion of justice, it may be devoid of all moral significance 
in spite of the dread it inspires; but the case is different 
when it comes to be conceived of as a divine punishment, 
or as a sin-pollution in the eyes of the supreme god. 
Such a transformation of ideas could hardly take place 

1 Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in * Farnell, Cu/ls of the Greek States ^ 

Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 369. i. 66 sqq. Rohde, Psyche^ p. 249. 

2 de Groot, Religious * System of Idem^ in Rheinisches Museum^ ^895, 

China^ (vol. iv. bookjii. 441. p. 18. Stengel, Die griechischen Kul- 

^ See Muller, Dissertations^ p. 155 tusalter turner^ p. 140. 
sqq. ; Rohde, Psyche, p. 247 ; Idem^ Farnell, op, cit. i. 68, 71. Rohde, 

‘ Paralipomena,* in Psyche^ i/gj. 

fur Philologies 1895, P- ^ W* 

38o homicide in general ctiAtK 

unless the act, considered polluting, were by itself apt to 
evoke moral disapproval. But it is obvious that the 
gravity of the offence is increased by the religious aspect 
it assumes. 

In yet another way the defiling effect attributed to the 
taking of human life has had an influence on religious and 
moral ideas. Such defilement is shunned not only by men, 
but, in a still higher degree, by gods. The shedding of 
human blood is commonly prohibited in sacred places. 
“ In almost every Indian nation,” says Adair, “ there are 
several peaceable towns, which are called ‘ old-beloved,’ 
‘ancient, holy, or white towns’; they seem to have been 
formerly ‘ towns of refuge,’ for it is not in the memory of 
their oldest people, that ever human blood was shed in 
them ; although they often force persons from thence, 
and put them to death elsewhere.” ' The Aricaras of the 
Missouri, according to Bradbury, have in the centre of the 
largest village a sacred lodge called the “ medicine lodge,” 
which “ in one particular corresponds with the sanctuary 
of the Jews, as no blood is on any account whatsoever to 
be spilled within it, not even that of an enemy.” At 
Athens the prosecution for homicide began with debarring 
the criminal from all sanctuaries and assemblies consecrated 
by religious observances.® According to Greek ideas, 
purification was an essential preliminary to an acceptable 
sacrifice.'* Hector said, “ I shrink from offering a libation 
of gleaming wine to Zeus with hands unwashed ; nor can 
it be in any way wise that one should pray to the son of 
Kronos, god of the storm-cloud, all defiled with blood 

^ Adair, History of the American 
Indians^ p. 159. 

^ Bradlniry, Travels in the Interior 
of America^ p. 165 sq. Our informer 
adds, “ Nor i.s any one, having- taken 
refuge there, to ])e forced from it”; but 
with facts of this kind wc are not con- 
cerned at present. They Vjelong to the 
right of .sanctuary, in the strict sense of 
the term, and, as will be seen, this right 
is based on a different principle, which 
prevents even the polluted manslayer, 

tainted with newly shed blood, from 
being dragged out of the sanctuary to 
which he has fled in the capacity of a 
•suj^pliant. 

^ Aristotle, De republica Athenien- 
sinm, 57. Muller, Disse.rtatio 7 ts^ p. 

103. 

^ Donaldson, ‘ Expiatory and Substi- 
tutionary Sacrifices of the (wrecks,’ in 
'Transactions Toy. Soc, Edinburgh^ 
xxvii. 433. Farnell, op. ciL i. 72. 

and filth.” * In some parts of Morocco, a man who has 
slain another person is never afterwards allowed to kill the 
sacrificial sheep at the “ Great Feast.” " When David had 
in his heart to build a temple, God said to him, “ Thou 
shalt not build an house for my name, because thou hast 
been a man of war, and hast shed blood.” ^ A decree of 
the penitential discipline of the Christian Church, which 
was enforced eveij against emperors and generals, forbade 
anyone whose hands had been imbrued in blood to 
approach the altar without a preparatory period of 
penance.^ 

Whilst, from fear of contaminating anything holy, 
casual restrictions have thus been imposed on ail kinds of 
manslayers, whether murderers or those who have killed 
an enemy in righteous warfare, more stringent rules have 
been laid down for persons permanently connected with 
the religious cult. Adair states that the “ holy men ” of 
the North American Indians, like the Jewish priests, were 
by their function absolutely forbidden to shed human 
blood, “ notwithstanding their propensity thereto, even 
for small injuries.” '^ Herodotus says of the Persian Magi 
that they “kill animals of all kinds with their own hands, 
excepting dogs and men.”'’ The Druids of Gaul never 
went to war,’’ probably in order to keep themselves free 
from blood-pollution ; * it is true, they sacrificed human 
victims to their gods, but those they burnt." 'I'o the 
same class of facts belong those decrees of the Christian 
Church which forbade clergymen taking part in a battle. 
Moreover, if a Christian priest passed a sentence of death 

^ Iliads vi. 266 sqq, Cf Vergil, 
ylineis^ ii. 717 sqq. 

^ I found this custom prevalent among 
the Shluh (Berbers) of Southern Mo- 
rocco and among the Beni Ahsen, an 
Arabic-speaking tribe in the neighbour- 
liood of Rabat. I was told in Dukkala 
t(iat it is a Berber custom. It occurs 
neither there, nor among the Andjra, of 
the Jbdla group. 

^ I Chronicles^ xxviii. 2 sq, 

\,tcV.y ^History of European Morals^ 

ii. 39. 

^ Adair, op. cii. p. 152. 

^ Herodotus, i. 40. The Shluh of 
Southern Morocco consider that not 
only homicide, but the killing of a dog 
for ever after prevents a person from 
performing sacrifice at the “ Great 
Feast.” 

" Cmsar, De hello gallico., vi. 14. 

® dbVrbois de Jubainville, Civilisa- 
tion des CelteSy p. 234. 

^ Cwsar, Dc hello gal lico, vi. 16. 

he was punished with degradation and imprisonment for 
life ; ^ nor was he allowed to write or dictate anything 
with a view to bringing about such a sentence/^ He must 
not perform a surgical operation by help of fire or iron.^ 
And if he killed a robber in order to save his life, he had 
to do penance till his death.^ The hands which had to 
distribute the blood of the Lamb of God were not to be 
polluted with the blood of those for whose salvation it was 
shed.'^ 

It cannot be doubted that this horror of blood- pollu- 
tion had a share In that regard for human life which from 
the beginning, and especially in early times, was a charac- 
teristic of Christianity. But in other respects also, 
Christian feelings and beliefs had an inherent tendency to 
evoke such a-sentiment. The cosmopolitan spirit of the 
Christian religion could not allow, in theory at least, that 
the life of a man was less sacred because he was a foreigner. 
The extraordinary importance it attached to this earthly life 
as a preparation for the life to come naturally increased 
the guilt of any one who, by cutting It short, not only 
killed the body, but probably to all eternity injured the 
soul.*’ In a still higher degree than most other crimes, homi- 
cide was regarded as an offence against God, because man 
had been made in His image." Gratian says that even the 
slayer of a Jew or a heathen has to undergo a severe 
penance, “ quia imaginem Dei et spem futurae conversionis 
exterminat.” ^ 

^ Gratian, Dec^'etiiui^ ii. 23. 8. 30. 

^ Concilium Lat crane nse IV,, A.D. 
1215, ch. 18 (Labbe- Mansi, Sacrorum 
Conciliorum collectio, xxii. 1007). 

3 Concilitt/n Lateranense IV,, A.D. 
1215, ch. 18 (Labbe- Mansi, op. cit. 
xxii. 1007). 

^ Thoma.ssin, Diciionnaire dc disci- 
pline eccUsiastitpic, ii. 1074, 

^ Ibid. ii. 1069. 

’’ Concilium Luc^dunense I., A.D. 
1245, Additio, de Moinicidio (Labbe- 
Mansi, op. cit. xxiii. 670). 

^ von Eicken, Gesc/iichte tind System 
der Mittelaltcr lichen Weltaiischauung, 
p. 568. 

^ Gratian, Dec return, i. 50. 40,

THE KILLING OF PARENTS, SICK PERSONS, CHILDREN 

FETICIDE 

We have found that among mankind at large there 
is a moral rule which forbids people to kill members 
of their own society. We shall now see that the 
stringency of this rule is subject to variations, depending 
on the special relationship in which persons stand to 
one another or on their social status, and that there 
are cases to which it does not apply at all. 

Owing to the regard which children are expected to 
feel for their parents, parricide is considered the most 
aggravated form of murder. Nowhere have parents 
been more venerated by their children than among the 
nations* of archaic culture, and nowhere has parricide 
been regarded with greater horror. In China it is 
punished with the most ignorninious of all capital 
punishments, the so-called “cutting into small pieces”; 
and in some instances, when the crime has occurred in 
a district, in addition to all punishments inflicted on 
persons, the wall of the city where the deed was 
committed is pulled down in parts, or modified in shape, 
a round corner is substituted for a square one, or a 
gate removed to a new situation, or even closed up 
.altogether.^ In Corea the parricide is burned to death.'^ 

1 Social Life of the Chinese^ /twV/V.v, p. 229. 

33 ^ Smith, Chinese Charac- Griffis, Corea^ p. 236. 

THE KILLING OF PARENTS 

Among the ancient Egyptians, we are told, he was 
sentenced to be lacerated with sharpened reeds, and 
after being thrown on thorns he was, burned.’^ In 
Exodus we read of the “smiting ” of parents, but parricide 
is not expressly mentioned, perhaps because the Hebrew 
legislatdf, like Solon at Athens," did not think it possible 
that any one could be guilty of so unnatural a barbarity.® 
Herodotus states that the same notion was held by the 
ancient Persians, who said that no one ever yet killed his 
own father or nKjther, and that all cases of so-called 
parricide, if carefully examined, would be found to have 
been committed by supposititious children or those born 
in adultery, it being beyond the bounds of probability 
that a true father should be murdered by his own son.'* 
Plato says in his ‘Laws’: — “If a man could be slain 
more than once, most justly would he who in a fit of 
passion has slain father or mother undergo many deaths. 
How can he whom, alone of all men, even in defence 
of his life, and when about to suffer death at the hands 
of his parents, no law will allow to kill his father or 
his mother who are the authors of his being, and whom 
the legislator will command to endure any extremity 
rather than do this — how can he, I say, lawfully receive 
any other punishment ? ” At Athens parricides were the 
only persons accused of murder who were not allowed 
the chance of escaping before sentence was passed, but were 
instantly arrested.® According to Roman law, a com- 
mitter of parricidium was not subjected to any of the 
regular modes of^pital punishment, but for “ the most 
execrable of crin^ ” was provided “ the most strange of 
punishments.” The criminal was sewn up in a leathern sack 
with a cur, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and, when cooped 
up in this fearful prison, was hurled into the sea, or into 

^ Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca his- •* Herodotus, i. 137. 
iorica^ i. 77. 8. ® Plato, Leges^ ix. 869. Cf. ibid. ix. 

Diogenes Laertius, So/oHy 10. Ci- 873. 
cero, Pro S. Roscio Aiuerino, 25. Oro- Muller, Dissertations on the En- 

sius, I/istoricr, v. 16. inenides of ^Eschy/nSy p. 91. Cf. 

^ ExodnSy yiyi\. Cf KeW, Manual Euripides, OresteSy 442 S(/(/,^ 
of Biblical Arclueology, ii. 376. 

some neighbouring rivcr.^ But by the term parricidium 
was not understood the murder of a parent only. According 
to the ‘ Lex Pompeia de parricidiis,’ it included the mur- 
der of any of the following persons : an ascendant or 
descendant in any degree,^ a brother or sister, an uncle 
or aunt, a cousin, a husband or wife, a bridegroom or 
bride, a father- or mother-in-law, a son- or daughter- 
in-law, a step-parent or step-child, a patron ; and 
Mommsen suggests that in earlier times it had a still 
wider significance, being applied to intentional homicide 
in general.® But whilst the punishment just referred to 
was in other cases of parricidium replaced by banishment, it 
was, during the Empire at least, actually inflicted upon 
him who murdered an ascendant.* 

Whilst Christianity generally increased the sanctity 
of human life, it could add nothing to the horror with 
which parricide was regarded by the ancients. The 
Church punished it more severely than ordinary murder,® 
and so did, at least in Latin countries, the secular 
authorities.® In France, even to this day, a person con- 
victed of parricide is “conduit sur le lieu de I’execution 
en chemise, nu-pieds, et la tete couverte dun voile 
noir”; and whilst meurtre is excusable if provoked by 
grave personal violence or by an attempt to break into a 
dwelling-house by day, parricide is never excusable under 
any circumstances.® 

^ Insiitutiones, iv. 18. 6. 

^ Unless the descendant was in the 
potestas of him who committed the 
deed. 

3 Mommsen, Romisches Straft'echt, 
pp. 644, 645, 612 sq. 

Ibid. p. 645 sq. 

* Gregory Ilf., Judicia congriia 
pceniteutibus, ch. 3 (Labbe- Mansi, 
Conciliomm collect to, xii. 289). Pccni- 
tentiaU BigoHanumy iv. i (Wasser- 
schleben, Btissordnungen d&r abend' 
Idndischm Kirche^ p. 453)- Pcenitent. 
Pseudo- Theodori, xxi. i 1 ^{ibid. p. 588). 

^ Chauveau and I161ie, Thdorie du 
Code Pdnal., iii. 394 (France). Salvioli, 
Manuale di stoida del diritio italianoy 

VOL. I 

p. 570. In Scotland, also, parricide 
formerly had a place in the list of ag- 
gravated miird^ (Hume, Commen- 
taries on the Scot land ^ i. 459 sq. ; 

for a sentence passed in 1688, see Pit- 
cairn, Cidminal Trials in Scotland^ iii. 
198); though nowadays it is penalised 
in the same way as other forms of mur- 
der (Erskine, Principles of the Law of 
Scotland^ p. 559)* There never was 
any special punishment for parricide in 
English law (Blackstone, Commentaries 
on the Laws of England^ iv. 202. 
Stephen, History of the Criminal T^aw 
of England., iii. 95). 

^ Code PMal, art. 13. 

® Ibid. art. 321 sqq. 

c c 

THE KILLING OF PARENTS chap. 

As regards the feelings with which ordinary parricide is 
looked upon by uncivilised peoples, direct information 
is almost entirely wanting. It is rarely mentioned at all, 
no doubt because it is very unusual.^ Among the Kafirs 
of Natal, though murder is generally punished by a fine, 
death is inflicted on him who kills a parent.^ Among the 
Ossetes a parricide draws upon himself a fearful punish- 
ment : he is shut up in his house with all his possessions, 
surrounded by the populace, and burned alive.® To judge 
from the respect which, among the majority or un- 
civilised peoples, children are considered to owe to their 
parents, it seems very probable that the murder of a 
father or a mother is generally condemned by them as a 
particularly detestable form of homicide. But to this 
rule there is an important exception. According to a 
custom prevalent among various savages or barbarians, a 
parent who is worn out with age or disease is abandoned 
or killed. 

Hearne states that, among the Northern Indians, one 
half at least of the aged persons of both sexes, when no 
longer capable of walking, arc left alone to starve and 
perish of want."* Among the Californian Gallinomero, 
when the father can no longer feebly creep to the forest to 
gather his back-load of fuel or a basket of acorns, and is 
only a burden to his sons, “ the poor old wretch is not 
unfrequently thrown down on his back and securely held 
while a stick is placed across his throat, and two of them* 
seat themselves on the ends of it until he ceases to 
breathe.” ® The custom of killing or abandoning old 
parents has been noticed among several other North 

^ Among the Omahas there have to step into his shoes ” (Emin Faska 
been a few cases of parricide caused by in Central Africa^ p. 230). See also 
drunkenness (Dorsey, ‘ Omaha Socio- Wilson and Felkin, Uganda^ i. 224. 
logy,’ in Ann. Kep. Bur. Eth 7 t. iii. ^ Shooter, Kafirs ^ Natal p. 103. 

369). A Chukchi killed his father for ^ von Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, p. 

charging him with cowardice and 415. 

awkwardness (Sarytschew, ‘Voyage of llQ^ccviQ, Joumtey to the Northern 

Discovery,* in Collectiofi of Modern and Ocean, p. 346. 

Co 7 ite 7 ?iporary Voyages, vi. 51). In ® Powers, Tribes of Calif 07 'nia, p. 
Landa “it is no uncommon thing for 178, 
a son to murder his father in order 

THE KILLING OF PARENTS 

American tribes,^ the natives of Brazil,^ various South Sea 
Islanders,^ a few Australian tribes/ and some peoples in 
Africa and Asia.® According to ancient writers, it 
occurred formerly among many Asiatic and European 
nations, including the Vedic people® and peoples of 
Teutonic extraction.® As late as the fifth or sixth century 
it was the custom among the Heruli for relatives to 
kindle a funeral pile for their old folks, although a stranger 
was employed to give the death wound. And there is an 
old English tradition of “ the Holy Mawle, which they 
fancy hung behind the church door, which when the 
father was seaventie, the sonne might fetch to knock his 
father in the head, as effete and of no more use.” 

However cruel this custom may appear to be, some- 
thing is certainly to be said in its favour. It is particularly 
common among nomadic hunting tribes, owing to the 
hardships of life and the inability of decrepit persons to 
keep up in the march. Mr. Morgan observes that, whilst 

^ Nansen, First Cross hi g of Green- 
land^ ii. 331 (natives on the east coast 
of Greenland). Sceniann, Voyage of 
Herald f ii. 66 (Eastern Eskimo). 
Gatlin, North American Indians y i. 217. 
Lafitaii, Mcenrs des sauvages ameri- 
qnainSy i. 488 sqq. Domcnech, Semen 
Years' Residence in the Great Deserts 
of North A m erica y ii. 325 ( north - 

western tribes). Lewis and Clarke, 
'J'ravels to the Source of the Missouri 
River ^ p. 442 (Dacotahs, A.s.sinihoins, 
the hunting tribes on the Missouri). 

von IViartius, Beitrdge zur Ethno- 
gi'aphie Aincrihalsy i. 126, 127, 393. 
von Eschwege, Brasilien, i. 231 sq. 
(Uerequenas). Among the Fuegians 
the practice in question .seems to occur 
only accidentally (Bridges, in A Voice 
for South America, xiii. 206). 

^ Codrington, Melanesiansy p. 347. 
Romilly, VVestern Pacificy p. 70 (Solo- 
mon Islanders). Brainne, Nouvelle- 
Calddonicy p. 255. Turner, Samoay p. 
335 (Efatese). Seemanft, Vili, p. 
iqi sq. WiUia:ms and Calvert, Fiji, pp. 
116, 157 sq. Angas, Polynesia, p. 342 
(natives of Kunaie). 

^ Eyre, Central Australia, ii. 382. 

Dawson, Australian Aborigines , p. 62 
(tribes in Western Victoria). 

^ Arnot, Garenganze, p. 78 n. An- 
der.sson, I.ake Ngami, p. 197 sq. 
(Damaras). Kolben, Present State of 
the Cape of Good Hope, i. 322, 334 ; 
llahn, The Supreme Being of the 
Khoi-Khoiy p. 86 (Hottentots). Lep- 
siu.s, Letters from Egypt, p. 202 sq. 
(Negro tribes to the south of Kordo- 
fan). Post, Afrikanische jurisprudenz, 
i. 298 sqq. Sartori, ‘ Die Sittc der 
Alton- und Krankentotung,’ in Globus, 
Ixvii. 108, 

Hooper, Ten Months among the 
7'ents of the luski, p. 188 sq. ; l)all, 
Alaska, p. 3S3 sqq. (Chukdii). Rock- 
hill, Land of the Lamas, p. 81 (Koko- 
nor Tibetans). 

Herodotus, i. 216 (Mas.sagetae). 
Strabo, xi. 8. 6 (Massagetae) ; xi. ii. 
3 (Baptrians) ; xi. ii. 8 (Caspians). 

^ TAmm^x, Allindisches I.eben, p. 328. 

^ Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalter- 
thiimer, p. 486 sqq. 

Procopius, Dc bello gothico, ii. 14. 
Cf Grimm, Kleincre Schriften, ii. 241. 

Thoms, Anecdotes and Traditions, 

p. 84. 

c c 2 

“ among the roving tribes of the wilderness the old and 
helpless were frequently abandoned and, in some cases, 
hurried out of existence as an act of greater kindness than 
desertion,” this practice was unknown among the Iroquois, 
who “ resided in permanent villages, which afforded a 
refuge for the aged.” ^ With reference to certain tribes of 
Western Victoria, Mr. Dawson remarks that the old people 
are a burden to the tribe, and, should any sudden attack 
be made by an enemy, the most liable to be captured, in 
which case they would probably be tortured and put to a 
lingering death.^ Moreover, in times when the food- 
supply is insufficient to support all the members of a 
community, it is more reasonable that the old and useless 
should have to perish than the young and vigorous. Hahn 
was told that, among the Hottentots, aged parents were 
sometimes abandoned by very poor people who had not 
food enough to support them.® And among peoples who 
have reached a certain degree of wealth and comfort, the 
practice of killing the old folks, though no longer justified 
by necessity, may still go on, partly through survival of a 
custom inherited from harder times, partly from the humane 
intent of putting an end to lingering misery.^ What 
appears to most of us as an atrocious practice may really 
be an act of kindness, and is commonly approved of, or 
even insisted upon, by the old people themselves. Speak- 
ing of the ancient Hottentot custom of famishing super- 
annuated parents in order to cause their death, Kolben 
remarks : — “ If you represent to the Hottentots, as I have 
done very often, the inhumanity of this custom, they are 
astonished at the representation, as proceeding, in their 
opinion, from an inhumanity of your own. The custom, 
in their way of thinking, is supported by very pious and 
very filial considerations. ‘ Is it not a cruelty,’ they ask you, 
‘to suffer either man of woman to languish any consider- 

^ Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 
p. 171. 

^ Dawson, of, cit. p. 62. 

^ Hahn, of. cit, p. 86 

^ Tylor, ‘ Primitive Society,’ in Con- 
temporary Review, xxi. 705. Idem, 
Anthropology, p. 410 sq. 

THE KILLING OF PARENTS 

able time under a heavy, motionless old age ? Can you see 
a parent or a relative shaking and freezing under a cold, 
dreary, heavy, useless old age, and not think, in pity to 
them, of putting an end to their misery by putting, which 
is the only means, an end to their days ? ’ ” 1 When Mr. 
Hooper, hearing of an old Chukchi woman who was 
stabbed by her son, made some remarks on the frightful 
nature of the act, his native companions answered him ; — 
“ Why should not the old woman die ? Aged and feeble, 
weary of life, and a burden to herself and others, she no 
longer desired to cumber the earth, and claimed of him 
who owned nearest relationship the friendly stroke which 
should let out her scanty remnant of existence.” Catlin 
tells us that, among the North American tribes who roamed 
about the prairies, the infirm old people themselves uni- 
formly insisted upon being left behind, saying “ that they 
are old and of no further use — that they left their fathers 
in the same manner — that they wish to die, and their 
children must not mourn for them.” ® In Melanesia, says 
Dr. Codrington, when sick and aged people were buried 
alive, it is certain that “ there was generally a kindness 
intended”; they used themselves to beg their friends to 
put them out of their misery, and it was even considered 
a disgrace to the family of an aged chief if he was not 
buried alive."* In Fiji, also, it was regarded as a sign of 
filial affection to put an aged parent to death. In his de- 
scription of the Fijians Dr. Seemann observes, “ In a 
country where food is abundant, clothing scarcely required, 
and property as a general rule in the possession of the 
whole family rather than that of its head, children need 
not wait for ‘ dead men’s shoes ’ in order to become well 
off, and we may, therefore, quite believe them when de- 
claring that it is with aching heart and at the repeated 
entreaties of their parents that they are induced to commit 

^ ^olben, op, cit, i. 322. ^ Catlin, North American IndianSy 

^ Hooper, op, cit, p. 188 sq, Cf i. 217. 

Sarytschew, loc, cit. vi. 50 ; Dali, * Codrington, op. cit. p. 347. Turner, 
op. cit. p. 385 ; von Wrangell, Expe~ Samoa^ p. 335 sq. (Elatese). 
dition to the Polar Sea, p. 1 22. 

39 ° 

THE KILLING OF PARENTS chap. 

what we justly consider a crime.” ^ The ceremony is not 
without a touch of tragic grandeur : — “ The son will kiss 
and weep over his aged father as he prepares him for the 
grave, and will exchange loving farewells with him as he 
heaps the earth lightly over him.” ^ One reason why the 
old Fijian so eagerly desired to escape extreme infirmity 
was perhaps “ the contempt which attaches to physical 
weakness among a nation of warriors, and the wrongs and 
insults which await those who are no longer able to protect 
themselves”; but another, and as it seems more potent, 
motive was the belief that persons enter upon the delights 
of the future life with the same faculties, mental and 
physical, as they possess at the hour of death, and that 
the spiritual life thus co'mmences where the corporeal 
existence terminates. “ With these views,” says Dr. Hale, 
“ it is natural that they should desire to pass through this 
change before their mental and bodily powers are so en- 
feebled by age as to deprive them of their capacity for 
enjoyment.” ^ Finally, we have to observe that in many 
cases the old people are not only killed, but eaten, by the 
nearest relatives, and that the motive, or at least the sole 
motive, for this procedure is not hunger or desire for 
human flesh.’^ It is described as “ an act of kindness ” or 
as “ a pious ceremony,” as a method of preventing the 
body from being eaten up by worms or injured by enemies. 
Considering that many cannibals have an aversion to the 
bodies of men who have died a natural death, it is not 
unreasonable to suppose that, in some instances, the old 
person is killed for the purpose of being eaten, and that 
this is done with a view to benefiting him.® But, on the 
other hand, the “ pious ceremony,” like so many other 
funeral customs which are supposed to comfort the dead, 
maybe the survival of a practice which was originally 
intended to promote the selfish interests of the living. 

^ Seemann, Vi/t't p. 193. p. 248. 

2 Fison and Howitt, Kantilaroi and ** For instances, see SteinmeU, En- 
Knrnai^ 1 75. dokannibalismuSy passim, 

* Hale, op, cit, p. 65. William.s and ® Ibid. pp. 3, 5, 17. 

Calvert, op. cit. p. 156. See also ® Cf. Herodotus’ staterhent regarding 
Erskine, Islands of the Western Pacific^ the Massagetae, k 216. 

Closely connected with the custom of doing away with 
decrepit parents is the habit, prevalent among certain 
peoples, of abandoning or killing persons suffering from 
some illness. 

^^The white man,” Mr. Ward observes, ^‘can never, as long 
as he may live in Africa, conquer his repugnance to the callous 
indifference to suffering that he meets with everywhere in 
Arab and Negro. The dying are left by the wayside to die. 
The weak drop on the caravan road, and the caravan passes 
on.” ^ Among the Kafirs instances are not rare in which the 
dying are carried to the bush and left to perish, and among 
some of them epileptics are cast over a precipice, or tied to a 
tree to be devoured by hyenas.^ The Hottentots abandon 
patients suffering from small-pox.^ The southern Tandla in 
Madagascar take a person who becomes insensible during an 
illness, to the spot in the forest where they throw their dead, 
and should the unfortunate creature so cast away revive and 
return to the village, they stone him outright to death. ^ In 
New Caledonia il est rare qu\m malade rend naturellement 
le dernier soupir : quand il n’a plus sa connaissance, souvent 
mSme avant son agonie, on lui ferine la bouche et les narines 
pour r^touffer, ou bien on le tiraille de tons cotds par les jambes 
et par les bras.” ^ In Kandavu, of the Fiji Group, sick 
persons were often thrown into a cave, where the dead also 
were deposited.^ In Efate, if a person in sickness showed signs 
of delirium, his grave was dug, and he was buried forthwith, to 
prevent the disease from spreading to other members of the 
family."^ The Alfura kill their sick when they have no hope 
of their recovery.” ^ Dobrizhoffer says of the Patagonians, 
Actuated by an irrational kind of pity, they bury the dying 
before they expire.” ^ In cases of cholera or small-pox 
epidemics. North American Indians have been known to desert 
their villages, leaving all their sick behind, of whatever age or 
sex.^^ According to Dr. Nansen, it is not inconsistent with the 
moral code of the Greenlanders to hasten the death of those 

^ Ward, Years with (he Congo 

Cannibals^ p, 262. 

^ Shooter, Kafirs of Natal, p. 
238 sq. Kidd, llie Essential Kafir, p. 

247* 

^ Lc Vaillant, Travels into the In- 
terior Parts of A frica , i i . 1 1 2 . 

■ ^ Sibree, The Great African Island, 
p. 291. 

® Crainne, op, cit. p 255. 

® Williams and Calvert, op. cit, p. 

159* 

7 Turner, Samoa, p. 336. 

^ Pfeiffer, A Ladfs Second Jotirney 
round the World, i. 387. 

** Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abi- 
pones, ii. 262. 

Domenech, op, cit, ii. 326. 

who are sick and in great suffering, or of those in delirium, of 
which they have a great horror.”^ Lieutenant Holm states 
that, in Eastern Greenland, when an individual is seriously ill, 
he consents, if his relatives request if, to end his sufferings by 
throwing himself into the sea ; whereas it is rare that a sick 
person is put to death, except in cases of disordered intellect.^ 
At Igloolik “a sick woman is frequently built or blocked up in 
a snow-hut, and not a soul goes near to look in and ascertain 
whether she be alive or dead.” * 

These and similar facts are largely explained by the 
pitiful condition of the invalid, the hardships of a wander- 
ing life, and the superstitious notions of ignorant men. 
In some cases the practice of killing a dying person 
seems to be connected with a belief that the death-blow 
will save his soul.'* In 1 8 1 2 , a leper was burnt alive at 
Katwa, near Calcutta, by his mother and sister, who 
believed that by their doing so he would gain a pure body 
in the next birth.® By carrying the patient away before 
he dies, the survivors escape the supposed danger of 
touching a corpse.® In the poorer provinces of the 
kingdom of Kandy, when a sick person was despaired of, 
the fear of becoming defiled, or of being obliged to change 
their habitation, frequently induced those about him to 
take him into a wood, in spite of his cries and groans, 
and to leave him there, perhaps in the agonies of death. ^ 
But the most common motive for abandoning or destroying 
sick people seems to be fear of infection or of demoniacal 
possession, which is regarded as the cause of various 
diseases.® Among the North American Indians, we are 
told, “ the custom of abandoning the infirm or sick arose 

^ Nansen, Eskimo Life^ p. 163. 

^ ‘ East Greenland Eskimo,’ in 
Science i vii. 172. 

^ Lyon, Private Journal^ p. 357. 
For other instances, see Sartori, in 
Globtis^ Ixvii. nr. 7 sq. ; von Martins, 
op. cit. i. 126, 127, 393 (Brazilian 
tribes) ; Steller, Beschreibtmg von dem 
Lande JCamischatkay p. 354; Dawson, 
op. cit. p. 61, quoted supra ^ p. 27 1. 

^ Sartori, loc. cit. p. 127. 

* Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk- 
Lore of Northern India., ii. 169. 

® Shooter, op. cit. 239 (Kafirs of 
Natal). Kidd, The Essential Kafir ^ p. 
247. 

^ Joinville, ‘ Religion and Manners 
of the People of Ceylon,’ in Asiatick 
Researches^ vii. 437 sq. 

® See Sartori, loc. cit. p. Iio sq. ; 
Lippert, Kulturgeschichte.der Mensck- 
keit, i. no ; ii. 41 1. 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN 

from a superstitious fear of the evil spirits which were 
supposed to have taken possession of them.” * In Tahiti, 
says Ellis, “ every disease was supposed to be the effect 
of direct supernatural agency, and to be inflicted by the 
gods for some crime against the tabu, of which the suf- 
ferers had been guilty, or in consequence of some offering 
made by an enemy to procure their destruction. Hence, 
it is probable, in a great measure, resulted their neglect 
and cruel treatment of their sick.” ^ 

Whilst the regard which children owe their parents 
makes parricide an aggravated form of murder, the 
paternal power sometimes implies that, under certain cir- 
cumstances, the father is allowed to kill even his grown- 
up child. Though the Chinese Penal Code provides a 
slight punishment for parents who punish disobedient 
children with death,^ the crime is practically ignored by 
the authorities.'* Among the Hebrews, in early times, a 
father might punish his incontinent daughter with death.® 
The Roman house-father had jus vit^e necisque — the 
power of life and death — over his children. However, 
this power did not imply that he could kill them without 
a just cause ; ® already in pagan times a father who killed 
his son “ latronis magis quam patris jure,” was punished 
as a murderer.'^ As Dean Milman observes, long before 
Christianity entered into Roman legislation, “ the life of 
a child was as sacred as that of the parent ; and Constan- 
tine, when he branded the murder of a son with the 

^ Dorman, Ori^n of Primitive ^ Douglas, Society in China^ p. 
Superstitions^ p. 392. 78 sq. 

Ellis, Polynesian Researches , i. 395. ^ Genesis^ xxxviii. 24. 

^ 7 a Tsing Leu Lee^ sec. cccxix. p. ® Mittermaier, ‘ Beytrage zur Lehre 
347. — <«if a father, mother, paternal vom Verbrechen des Kindesmordes,’ 
grandfather or grandmother, chastises a inNeues Archiv des Criminalrechts ^ vii. 
di.sobedient child or grandchild in a 4. Walter, Geschichle des Romischen 
severe and uncustomary manner, so that Rechis^ § 537, vol. ii. 147. vonjhering, 
he or she dies, the party so offending Geist des romischen Rechts^ ii. 220. 
shall be punished with 190 blows. — Mommsen, Romisckes Strafrechty p. 
When any of the aforesaid relations are 619. 

guilty of killing such disobedient child ^ DigestUy xlviii. 9. 5. Orosius, 
or grandchild designedly, the punish- Historian v. 16. Mommsen, Rom- 
ment shall be extended to 60 blows and isches Strafrechty p. 618. 
one yearns banishment.” 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN chap. 

name of parricide, hardly advanced upon the dominant 
feeling.” ^ Nor is there any reason to suppose that, 
among savages, the father possesses an absolute right of 
life and death over his children. On the contrary, among 
many of the lower races the existence of such a right is 
expressly denied.^ 

But whilst a father only in rare cases, and then merely 
as a measure of justice, is allowed to put to death his 
grown-up child, he very frequently has the right of des- 
troying a new-born infant. Nay, in many instances in- 
fanticide is not only permitted, but enjoined by custom. 

Among a great number of uncivilised peoples it is usual 
to kill an infant if it is a bastard,® or if its mother dies,^ 
or if it is deformed or diseased,® or if there is anything 
unusual or uncanny about it, or if it for some reason or 
other is regarded as an unlucky child. In some parts of 

^ Milman, History of Latin Christ' 
ianity, ii. 25. 

^ Lang, in Steinmetz, Rechtsver- 
hciltnisse von eingeborenen Volkern in 
Afrika unJ Ozeanien, p. 224 (Wash- 
ambala). Desoignies, ibid. p. 271 
(Msalala). Marx, ibid. p. 349 (Amah- 
lubi). Kohler, ‘ Recht der Ilotlen- 
totten,’ in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechts- 
wiss. XV. 347. Po.st, Afrikanische 
Jurispriidenz^ i. 52 ^<7. 

^ Turner, Samoa ^ p. 304 (Savage 
Islanders). Elton, in Jour. Anthr, 
Inst. xvii. 93 (some Solomon Islanders). 
Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studie?i, p. 
145 (Beduan). Dyveyrier, Exploration 
du Sahara^ p. 428 (Touareg). Burton, 
Sindh., p. 244 (Belochis). Haberland, 

‘ Der Kindermord als Volkssitte,^ in 
Globus., xxxvii. 58. The natives of 
Australia often kill half-caste children 
(Roth, Ethnological Studies among the 
North- West- Central Queensland Abo- 
rigines, p. 184. Curr, Recollections of 
Squatting in Victoria, p. 252. Haber- 
land, loc. cit. p. 58). 

^ Collins, English Colony in New 
South Wales, i. 607 sq. (aborigines .of 
Port Jackson). Dale, ‘ Natives inhabit- 
ing the Bondei Country,' in Jour. 
Anthr. Inst. xxv. 182. Comte de 
Cardi, ‘Ju-Ju Laws and Customs in 

the Niger Delta,’ ibid. xxix. 58. Nan- 
sen, First Crossing of Greenla^id, ii. 
330; Holm, ‘ Ethnologisk Skizze af 
Angrnagsalikerne,’ in Meddelelser om 
Grimland, x. 91 (Cireenlanders). Haber- 
land, loc. cit. p. 28 sq. Ploss, Das 
Kind, ii. 252, 25^, 258 sq. Chamber- 
lain, Child and Childhood in Folk- 
Thought,^. wo sqq. 

^ Daw.son, op, cit. p. 39 (tribes of 
Western Victoria). Kicherer, quoted 
by Moffat, Alissionary Labours and 
Scenes in Southern Africa, p. 15 (Bush- 
mans). Shooter, Kafirs of Natal, p. 
89. Chapman, I'raveis in the Interior 
of South Africa, ii. 285 (Banamjua). 
Reade, Savage Africa, p. 244 (Equa- 
torial Africans). New, Life, Wander- 
ings, and Labours in Eastern Af ica, 
p. 1 1 8 ; Krapf, Travels, p. 1 93 sq. 
(Wanika). Georgi, Russia, iii. 134 
(Kamchadales). Sarytschew, loc. cit. 
vi. 50; von Wrangell, op. cit. p. 122 
(Chukchi). Simp.son, quoted by Mur- 
doch, ‘ Point Barrow Expedition,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 417 (Es- 
kimo). Powers, Tribes of California, 
p. 382 (Yokuts). Guinnard, Three 
Yeard Slavery among the Patagonians, 
p. 144. Haberland, loc. cit, p. 58 sq. 
Ploss, Das Kind, ii. 252, 254, 255, 
258. 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN 

Africa, for instance, a child who is born with teeth, ^ or 
who cuts the upper front teeth before the under,^ or whose 
teeth present some other kind of irregularity,® is put to 
death. Among the natives of the Bondei country a child 
who is born head first is considered an unlucky child, and 
is strangled in consequence.^ The Kamchadales used to 
destroy children who were born in very stormy weather ; 
and in Madagascar infants born in March or April, or in 
the last week of a month, or on a Wednesday or a Friday, 
were exposed or drowned or buried alive.® Among various 
savages it is the custom that, if a woman gives birth to 
twins, one or both of them are destroyed.'^ They are 
regarded sometimes as an indication of unfaithfulness on 
the part of the mother — in accordance with the notion 
that one man cannot be the father of two children 
at the same time ® — sometimes as an evil portent or 
as the result of the wrath of a fetish.® Miss Kingsley 
observes, “ There is always the sense of there being some- 
thing uncanny regarding twins in West Africa, and in 
those tribes where they are not killed they are regarded 

^ Ploss, Das Kind, ii. 257, 259. 
Livingstone, Jllissicntary Tnw^ls^ 
p. 577. Kingsley, Traveds in West 
Africa^ p. 472. Allen and Thomson, 
Expedition to the RKer Niger ^ i. 245 
sq, Mockler-Ferryman, British Ni- 
geria, p. 286(Ibos). 

^ Baumann, Usambara, pp. 131 
(VVabondei), 237 (Waparc). 

^ Dale, in Jonr. Anthr. Inst. xxv. 

183- 

''' Krasheninnikoff, History oj Katn- 
sc hatha, p. 217. 

Ploss, Das Kind, ii. 257. Cf. 
Little, Madagascar, p. 60. 

^ Dawson, op. cit. p. 39 (tribes of 
Western Victoria). Spencer and Gillen, 
Native Tribes of Central A usBalia, p. 
52. lidern. Northern Tribes of Central 
Anstralia, p. 609. Romilly, Western 
Pacific, p. 70 (Solomon Islanders). 
Kolben, op. cit. i. 144 (Jlottentots). 
S'hooter, op. cit. p. 88 (Kafirs of Natal). 
Livingstone, Missionary Travels, p. 
577. Decle, Three Years in Savage 
Africa, p. 160 (Matabele). Chapman, 
op. cit. ii. 285 (Banamjua). Baumann, 

Usambara, p. 131 (Wabondei). New, 
op. cit. pp. 1 18 (Wanika, formerly), 
458 (Wadshagga), Burton, Two Trips 
to Gorilla Land, i. 84. Kingsley, 
Travels in West Africa, p. 472 sqq. 
Schoen and Crowther, p, 49 

(Ibos on the Niger). Comte deCardi, 
in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxix. 57 
(Negroes of the Niger Della). Nyen- 
dael, (pioted by Ling Roth, Great 
Benin, p. 35 (people of Arebo). Ploss, 
Das Kind, ii. 26^ sq. (African peoples), 
274 (some South American Indians). 
Schneider, Die Natunjolher, i. 305 sq. 
(some South American Indians). 
Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p. 217 (Kam- 
chadales). 

^ Wailz, Anthropologic der Natur- 
vblher, iii. 394, 480 (South American 
Indians). I.)apper says {Africa, p, 473) 
that no twins are ever found in the 
country of Benin, because the people 
considered it a great dishonour to give 
birth to twins. 

Allen and Thomson, op. cit. i. 243. 
Baumann, Usambara, p. 131 {Wa- 
bondei). 

as requiring great care to prevent them from dying on 
their own account/^ ^ The Kafirs believe that ufiless the 
father places a lump of earth in the mouth of one of the 
babies he will lose his strength.^ 

In the instances just referred to, the infant is killed 
either because, after the death of its mother, there is 
nobody to nurse it, or on account of the fault of its 
parents, especially the mother, or because it is held 
desirable that the sickly or defective should die at once, 
or out of superstitious fear. However, among many of 
the lower races, infanticide is not restricted to similar 
more or less exceptional cases, but is practised on a much 
larger scale. Custom often decides how many children 
are to be reared in each family, and not infrequently the 
majority of infants are destroyed. 

Infanticide is common among various tribes in North and 
South America.^ Dobrizhoffer says that it was a rare exception 
among the Abipones to find a woman who had brought up two 
or three sons, whilst some mothers killed all the children they 
bore, ‘‘no one either preventing or avenging these murders.’*^ 
According to Azara, the Guanas buried alive the majority ot 
their female infants, and the Mbayas suffered only one boy or 
one girl in a family to live ; ^ but the correctness of his state- 
ments has been questioned.^ On the other hand there can be 
no doubt as to the extreme prevalence of infanticide in the 
islands of the South Seas. In some of the principal groups of 
Polynesia it was practised publicly and systematically, without 
compunction, to an extent almost incredible. During the 
whole period of his residence in the Society Islands, Ellis does 

^ Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, 
p. 473. According to Nyendael, twin- 
births are, on the contrary, esteemed 
good omens in most parts of the Benin 
territory (Ling Roth, Great Benin, p. 
35 )* 

2 Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 202. 

^ Bessels, (quoted by Murdoch, 
‘ Point Barrow Expedition,* in Ann. 
Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 417 (Eskimo of 
Smith Sound). Nelson, ‘Eskimo about 
Bering Strait,* ibid, xviii. 289. Gibbs, 

‘ Tribes of Western Washington and 
Northwestern Oregon, ’ in Contributions 

to North American Ethnology, \. 198. 
Powers, op. cit. pp. 177, 184 (Cali- 
fornian tribes). Yarrow, in Arm. Rep, 
Bur, Ethn. \. 99 (Pimas of Arizona). 
Hawtrey, in Jour, Ant hr, Inst, xxxi. 
295 (Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan 
Chaco). 

^ Dobrizhoffer, op. cit, ii. 98. For 
another account of the infanticides of 
the Abipones, see infra, p. 400. 

* Azaia, Voyages dans V Amirique 
m&idionale, ii. 93, 115. 

® Wied-Neuwied, Reise^ nach Bra- 
silien, ii. 39. 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN 

not recollect having met with a single pagan woman who had 
not imbrued her hands in the blood of her offspring, and he 
thinks that there, as also in the Sandwich Islands, two-thirds ot 
the children were destroyed by their parents.^ No sense ot 
irresolution or horror,” he says, ‘‘appeared to exist in the 
bosoms of those parents who deliberately resolved on the deed 
before the child was born. They often visited the dwellings of 
the foreigners, and spoke with perfect complacency of their 
cruel purpose”; and when the missionaries tried to dissuade 
them from executing their intention, the only answer generally 
received was that it was the custom of the country.^ The 
Line Islanders allowed only four children of a family to get the 
chance of life; the mother had a right to rear one child, 
whereas it rested with the husband to decide whether any more 
should live.^ In Radack every mother was permitted to bring 
up three children, but the fourth and every succeeding one she 
was obliged to bury alive herself, unless she was the wife of a 
chief.^ In Vaitupu, of the Ellice Archipelago, also, “infanticide 
was ordered by law,” and only two children were allowed to a 
family.^ In New Zealand and the Marquesas infanticide, 
though not so general, was yet of frequent occurrence and not 
regarded as a crime.^ In most of the Melanesian groups it was 
very common.'^ In the Solomon Islands there still seem to be 
several places where it is the custom to kill nearly all children 
soon after they are born, and to buy other cjiildren from foreign 
tribes, good care being taken not to buy them too young.® 
The practice of infanticide occurred at least occasionally in 
Tasmania,® and, as it seems, almost universally in Australia. 
Mr. Curr supposes that the Australian woman, as a rule, reared 
only two boys and one girl, the rest of her children being 
destroyed.^® “ In the laws known to her,” says Mr. Brough 
Smyth, “ infanticide is a necessary practice, and one which, if 
disregarded, would, under certain circumstances, be disapproved 

^ Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 
252. Idem, Tour through Hawaii, p. 

325- 

® Idem, Polynesian Researches, i. 
250. 

^ Tutuila, ‘ Line Islanders/ in Jour, 
Polynesian Society, i. 267. 

* von Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery, 

iii- 173- „ / 

® Turner, Samoa, p. 284. 

® Hale, U. S. Exploring Expedition, 
VoL VL Ethnography and Philology, 

P‘ 15- 

^ Codrington, Melanesians, p. 229. 

TMxviQt, Samoa,]}, 333 (Efatese). Gill, 
Life in the Southern Isles, p. 213 
(islands of Torres Straits). Atkinson, 
in Folk-Lore, xiv. 248 (New Cale- 
donians). 

® Romilly, Western Pacific, p. 68 sq, 
Cf Guppy, Solomon Islands, p. 42. 

^ Ling Roth, AboHgines of Tas- 
mania, p. 167 sq. Bon wick, Daily 
Life and Origin of the Tasmanians , p. 
85. Brough Smyth, Aborigines of 
Victoria, ii. 386, 

Curr, The Australian Race, i. 70. 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN chap. 

of i and the disapproval would be marked by punishment/' i 
Mr, Taplin was assured that, among the Narrinyeri, more than 
one-half of the children born fell victims to this custom ; ^ and 
in the Dieyerie tribe hardly an old woman, if questioned, but 
will admit of having destroyed from two to four of her 
offspring.^ 

Among the Todas of India, up to the period of Mr. Sullivan’s 
visit to their hills, about the year 1820, only one female child 
was allowed to live in each family/ With reference to the 
Kandhs, or Khonds, Macpherson observes, ‘‘The practice of 
female infanticide is, I believe, not wholly unknown amongst 
any portion of the Khond people, while it exists in some of the 
tribes of the sect of Eoora to such an extent, that no female 
infant is spared, except when a woman’s first child is a female, 
and that villages containing a hundred houses may be seen 
without a female child.” ^ 

It is said that among the Guanches of the Canary Islands, in 
ancient times, all children, except the first-born, were killed.® 
The people of Madagascar frequently practised infanticide ; but 
Ellis says that they were much less addicted to it than the 
South Sea Islanders, a numerous offspring being generally a 
source of much satisfaction.^ According to Kolben, infanticide 
was common among the Hottentots;® whereas Sparrman only 
states that “ the Hottentots are accustomed to inter, in case of 
the mother’s death, children at the breast alive,” ^ and Le 
Vaillant altogeth^ denies the existence of customary infanticide 
among them/® Among the Swahili, according to Baumann, 
infanticides are very common and hardly disapproved of.^^ But 
the peoples of the African continent are not generally addicted 
to infanticide, except in such special cases as have already come 
under our notice. 

The custom of infanticide, in its extensive form, has 
been attributed to various motives. Among some peoples 
mothers are said to kill their new-born infants on account 

^ Brough Smyth, cii. i. p. xxi. ® Macpherson, Meuioriais of Service 
Cf Obcrlander, ‘ Die Eingeborenen in India,, p. 132. 
der Kolonic Victoria,’ in iv. 279. Floss, Das Kind, ii. 259 

Taplin, ‘ Narrinyeri,’ in Woods, ^ Little, Madagascar, p, 60. Ellis, 
Native IVibes of South Atfstratia, p. History of Madagascar, i. 1 55, 160. 

13. » Kolben, op. cit. i. 333. 

3 Gason, ‘ Manners and Customs of ® Sparrman, Voyage to the Cape of 
the Dieyerie Tribe,’ ibid. p. 259. Good Plope, i. 358 sq. 

^ Metz, 7 'ribes inhabiting the Neil- Le Vaillant, cil. ii. sqq. 

gherry Hills, p. 16. Baumann, Usafubara, p. 42. 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN 

of the trouble of rearing them/ or the consequent loss of 
beauty/ Another cause is the long suckling time, generally 
lasting, among savages, for two, three, four years, or even 
more, owing to want of soft food and animal milk.® When, 
as is very commonly the case, the husband must not 
cohabit with his wife during the whole of this period,'* he 
is naturally inclined to form other connections, and this 
seems in some instances to induce the mother to destroy 
her child.® In another respect, also, the long suckling-time 
is an inducement to infanticide ; among certain Australian 
tribes an infant is killed immediately on birth “when the 
mother is, or thinks she is, unable to rear it owing to there 
being a young child whom she is still feeding.” '' Among 
the Pimas of Arizona, again, infanticide is said to be con- 
nected with the custom of destroying all the property of 
the husband when he dies. “ The women of the tribe, well 
aware that they will be poor should their husbands die, 
and that then they will have to provide for their children 
by their own exertions, do not care to have many children, 
and infanticide, both before and after birth, prevails to a 
great extent. This is not considered a crime.” But 
there can be little doubt that the wholesale Infanticide of 
many of the lower races is in the main due to the hard- 
ships of sava’ge life. The helpless infant may be a great 
burden to the parents both in times of peace and in times 
of war. It may prevent the mother from following her 
husband about on his wanderings in search of food, or 
otherwise encumber her in her work.® Mr. Curr states of 
the Bangerang tribe of Victoria, with whom he was inti- 
mate for ten years, that their habit of killing nearly half 

^ Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 256 
(Tahitians). Idem, Tour th 7 'ough Ha- 
wait, p. 327. Polack, Manners and 
Customs of the New Zealanders , ii. 
92. Gason, loc. cit. p. 258 (Dieyerie 
tribe). 

Williams, Missionary Enterprises, 
p. 565 (Tahitians). * 

See Westermarck, History of Hu- 
man Marriage, p. 484, 

Ibid. p. 483. 

® Schneider, Die Naturvolher, i, 297, 

307- 

® Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes 
of Central Australia, pp. 51, 264. 

lidem, Northern I'rihes of Ce^ttral 
Aicstralia, p. 608. Olierlander, loc. cit. 
p. 279. 

^ Yarrow, loc. cit. p. 99. 

® Turner, Nineteen Years in Poly- 
nesia, p. 394 (people of Vate, New 
Hebrides). Polack, op. cit. ii. 93 
(Maoris). 

THE KILLING OE CHILDREN chap. 

of the children born resulted “ principally from the diffi- 
culty, if not the impossibility, of transporting several 
children of tender age from place to place on their fre- 
quent marches.” ^ Concerning the Abipones, Charlevoix 
observes : — “ They seldom rear but one child of each sex, 
murdering the rest as fast as they come into the world, till 
the eldest are strong enough to walk alone. They think 
to justify this cruelty by saying that, as they are almost 
constantly travelling from one place to another, it is im- 
possible for them to take care of more infants than two at 
a time ; one to be carried by the father, and the other by 
the mother.” ^ Among the Lenguas of the Paraguayan 
Chaco an interval of seven or eight years is always ob- 
servable between children of the same family, infants born 
in this interval being immediately killed. The reasons for 
this practice, says Mr. Hawtrey, are obvious. “ The 
woman has the hard work of carrying food from garden 
and field, and all the transport to do ; the Lenguas are a 
nomadic race, and their frequent moves often entail 
journeys of from ten to twenty miles a day. . . . Travel- 
ling with natives under these circumstances, one is forced 
to the conclusion that it would be impossible for a mother 
to have more than one young child to carry and to care 
for.”® Moreover, a little forethought tells the parents 
that their child before long will become a consumer of 
provisions perhaps already too scanty for the family. 
Savages often suffer greatly from want of food, and may 
have to choose between destroying their offspring or 
famishing themselves. Hence they often have recourse to 
infanticide as a means of saving their lives ; indeed, among 
several tribes, in case of famine, children are not only 
killed, but eaten. Urgent want is frequently represented 
by our authorities as the main cause of infanticide ; ® and 

^ Curr, Squatting in Victoria^ p. 252. ^ Hawtrey, in Jour^ Antkr^ Jnst, 

Oberlancler, ioc. cit, p. 279. Cf. Fison xxxi. 295. 

and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai^ ^ See Steinmetz, EndokannibalismuSy 
p. 259; Fraser, Aborigines of New pp. 8, 13, 14, 17. 

South IVales, P* 5 * ® Nansen, First Crossing of Green* 

^ Charlevoix, History of Paraguay, land, ii. 330. Nelson, in A^in, Kep, 
i. 405, Bur, Ethn, xviii. 289 (Eskimo about 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN 

their statements are corroborated by the conspicuous pre- 
valence of this custom among poor tribes and in islands 
whose inhabitants are confined to a narrow territory with 
limited resources. 

In the chapter dealing with human sacrifice we shall 
notice that infanticide is in some cases practised as a sacri- 
ficial rite. In other cases infants are killed for medicinal 
purposes, without being sacrificed to any divine being. ^ 
Thus in the Luritcha tribe, in Central Australia, ‘‘ it is 
not an infrequent custom, when a child is in weak health, 
to kill a younger and healthy one and then to feed the 
weakling on its flesh, the idea being that this will give to 
the weak child the strength of the stronger one.''^ A 
curious motive for female infanticide is also worth men- 
tioning. That the victims of this practice are most com- 
monly, among several peoples almost exclusively, females,^ 
is generally due to the greater usefulness of the men both 
as food-providers and in war. But the Hakka, a Mon- 
golian tribe in China, often put their girls to a cruel death 
with a view to inducing thereby the soul to appear the 
next time in the shape of a boy.*^ 

Thus various considerations have Jed men to destroy 
their own offspring. Under certain circumstances the 
advantages, real or imaginary, assumed to result from the 
deed have been sufficiently great to silence the voice of 
parental love, which, as will be seen, is to be found even 
in the bosom of a savage father. The resistance offered 
by this instinct would be so much the less as the child is 
killed immediately after its birth, at a period of its life 

Behring Strait). Brough Smyth, op. 

i* 53 ; ii- 3^^ (aboriginal tribes of 
Australia and Tasmania). von Kotze- 
bue, op. cii. iii. 173 (natives of Radack). 
Tutuila, in Jour. Polynesian Soc. i. 263 
(Line Islanders). Campbell, Wild 
Tribes of Khondist an ^ p. 140 (Kandhs 
otsjgporadah). Marshall, A P/u'vnologist 
afmngsl the 'Jodas^ p. 194. Kolben, 
op. cit. i. 144 (Hottentots). See also 
ilaberland, loc. cit. p. 26 ; DimitroflT, 
Die Geringschdtzung des vienschlichen 

VOL. I 

Pebens nnd Hire Ursachen bei den 
Natnrudikern^ p. 162 sqq. ; Sutherland, 
Origin and Growth of the Aloral 
Instinct^ i. 115 S(j(j. 

^ See infra^ p. 458 sq. 

Spencer and (Bllen, Native Tribes 
of Central Australia^ p. 475. Cf. ibid. 
p. 52. 

Cf. Haberland, loc. cit. p. S^sqq. 

Hiibrig, quoted by Tloss, Das 
Kind., ii. 263. 

D D 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN chap. 

when the father’s affection for it is as yet only dawning. 
Even where, at first, infanticide w'as an exception, prac- 
tised by a few members of the tribe, any interference from 
the side of the community may have been prevented by 
the notion that a person possesses proprietary rights over 
his offspring ; and, once become habitual, infanticide easily 
grew into a regular custom. In cases where it was found 
useful to the tribe, it would be enforced as a public duty ; 
and even where there no longer was any need for it, owing 
to changed conditions of life, the force of habit might still 
keep the old custom alive. 

Though infanticide is thus regarded as allowable, or 
even obligatory, among many of the lower races, we must 
not suppose that they universally look upon it in this 
light. Mr. McLennan grossly exaggerated its prevalence 
when he asserted that female infanticide is “common among 
savages everywhere.” ^ Among a great number of them it 
is said to be unheard of or almost so,^ and to these belong 
peoples of so low a type as the Andaman Islanders,® the 
Botocudos,'* and certain Californian tribes.® The Veddahs 
of Ceylon have never been known to practise it.® Among 
the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego, Mr. Bridges informs me, 
it occurred only occasionally, and then it was almost 
always the deed of the mother, who acted from “jealousy, 
or hatred of her husband, or because of desertion and 
wretchedness.” ’’ Mr. Fison, who has lived for a long time 
among uncivilised races, thinks it will be found that 
infanticide is far less common among the lower savages 
than it is among the more advanced tribes.® Considering 

^ McLennan, Studies hi Ancieut ^ Man, in Jour. Ant hr. Inst. xii. 
History, p. 75. 329. 

^ See Westermarck, History of ^ Wied-Neuwied, op. cit. ii. 39. 
Human Marriage, p. 312 sq.\ and, be- Keane, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xiii. 206. 
sides the authorities there referred to, ® Powers, op. cit. pp. 192, 271, 382. 

Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in Ann. ® Sarasin, Ergebnisse natunvissen- 

Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 369 ; Kirke, schaftlicher Forschungen auf Ceylon, 
Twenty Jive Years in British Guiana, iii. 469, 539. 

p. 160; Chalmers, Pioneering in New ^ Bridges, in a letter dated Down- 

Guinca, p. 163 ; Hodgson, Miscellane- east, Tierra del Fuego, August 28lh, 

ous Essays, i. 123 (Bodo and Dhimdls) ; 1888. 

Baumann, Durch Massailand zur ® Fison and Howitt, Kg^milaroi and 
Nthjuelle, p. 16 1 (Masai). Knrnai, p. 134 sqq. Cf. Farrer, 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN 

further that the custom of infanticide, being opposed to 
the instinct of parental love, presupposes a certain amount 
of reasoning or forethought, it seems probable that where 
it occurs, it is not a survival of earliest savagery, but has 
grown up under specific conditions in later stages of 
development^ It is, for instance, very generally asserted 
that certain Indians in California never committed infanti- 
cide before the arrival of the whites;^ and Ellis thinks 
there is every reason to suppose that this custom was 
practised less extensively by the Polynesians during the 
early periods of their history than it was afterwards.^ 

Where infanticide is not sanctioned by custom, the 
occasional commission of it has a tendency to call forth 
disapproval or excite horror. The Blackfeet are said to 
believe that women who have been guilty of this crime 
will never reach the happy mountain after death, but are 
compelled to hover round the seats of their crimes, with 
branches of trees tied to their legs.^ Speaking of another 
North American tribe, the Potawatomis, Keating ob- 
serves : — “ In a few instances, it is said that children born 
deformed have been destroyed by their mothers, but these 
instances are rare, and whenever discovered, uniformly 
bring them into disrepute, and are not unfrequently 
punished by some of the near relations. Independently of 
these cases, which are but rare, a few instances of infanti- 
cide, by single women, in order to conceal intrigue, 
have been heard of ; but they are always treated with 
abhorrence.” ® Among the Omahas “ parents had no 
right to put their children to death.” ® The Aleuts 
believed that a child-murder would bring misfortune 
on the whole village.’^ The Brazilian Macusis** and 
Botocudos” look upon the deed with horror. At Ulea, 

Primitive Marmers arid Customs, p. Richardson, in Franklin, Joumey 

224 ; Sutherland, op. cit. i. 114 sq. to the Shores of the Polar Sea, p. 77. 

^ Cf. Darwin, Descent of Man, p. ® Keating, op. cit. i. 99. 

594. ® Dorsey, in Ann. Pep. Bur. Ethn. 

^ Powers, op. cit. p. 207. Cf. ibid. iii. 268. 
p. 183. ^ Dali, op. cit. p. 399. 

^ Polynesian Researches,\. ^ Waitz, (?/. cit. in. 391. 

♦ * Wied-Neuwied, op. cit. ii. 39. 

D D 2 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN chap. 

of the Caroline Islands, “ the prince would have the un- 
natural mother punished with death.” ^ So, too, Herr 
Valdau tells us of a Bakundu woman who, accused of 
infanticide, was condemned to death. In Ashanti a 
man is punished for the murder of his child.® Among 
the Gaika tribe, of the Kafirs, the killing of a child after 
birth is punishable as murder, the fine going to the chief.'* 
Nay, even peoples among whom infanticide is habitual 
seem now and then to have a feeling that the act is not 
quite correct. Mr. Brough Smyth asserts that the 
Australian Black is himself ashamed of it ; and Mr. Curr 
has no doubt that he feels, in the commencement of his 
career at least, that infanticide is wrong, as also that its 
committal brings remorse.*’ 

The custom of infanticide in most cases requires that 
the child should be killed immediately or soon after its 
birth. Among certain North American Indians “ the 
right of destroying a child lasted only till it was a month 
old,” after which time the feeling of the tribe was against 
its death. Ellis says of the Society Islanders : — “ The 
horrid act, if not committed at the time the infant 
entered the world, was not perpetrated at any subsequent 
period .... If the little stranger was, from irresolution, 
the mingled emotions that struggled for mastery in its 
mother’s bosom, or any other cause, suffered to live ten 
minutes or half an hour, it was safe ; instead of a 
monsler’s grasp, it received a mother’s caress and a 
mother’s smile, and was afterwards nursed with solicitude 
and tenderness.” * Almost the same is said of other 
South Sea Islanders” and of tribes inhabiting the Australian 
continent.*** That the custom of infanticide is generally 

^ von Kotzebue, op. cit, iii. 21 1. ® Elli.s, Polynesian Researches, i. 255. 

Valdau, in Ymer, v. 280. ^ Waitz-Gerland, op. cit, vi. 138, 

^ Bowdich, Mission from Cape Coast 139, 638. Angas, Life and 

Castle to Ashantee, p. .258. Scenes in Australia and New Zealand^ 

** Maclean, Compendium of Kafir i. 313. 

Laws and Customs, p. in. Floss, Das Kind, ii. 255. Spencer 

® Brough Smyth, op. cit. i. 54. and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central 

® Carr, The Australian Race, i. lOO. Australia, p. 51. lidern, Northern 

7 Schoolcraft, quoted by Sutherland, Tribes of Central Australia^ p. 608. 

op. cit. i. 119. 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN 

restricted to the destruction of new-born babies also 
appears from various statements as to the parental love of 
those peoples who are addicted to this practiced In Fiji 
“ such children as are allowed to live are treated with a 
foolish fondness.” ^ Among the Narrinyeri, “ only let it 
be determined that an infant’s life shall be saved, and 
there are no bounds to the fondness and indulgence with 
which it is treated ” ; ® and with reference to other 
Australian tribes we are told that it is brought up with 
greater care than generally falls to the lot of children 
belonging to the poorer classes in Europe.* Among the 
Indians of the Pampas and other Indians of that 
neighbourhood, who abandon deformed or sickly-looking 
children to the wild dogs and birds of prey, an infant 
becomes, from the moment it is considered worthy to 
live, “ the object of the whole love of its parents, who, if 
necessary, will submit themselves to the greatest priva- 
tions to satisfy its least wants or exactions.” ® In 
Madagascar, according to Ellis, “ nothing can exceed the 
affection with which the infant is treated by its parents 
and other members of the family ; the indulgence is more 
frequently carried to excess than otherwise.” ** From 
these and similar facts, as also from the general absence of 
statements to the contrary, I conclude that murders of 
children who have been allowed to survive their earliest 
infancy are very rare, though not quite unknown,’ among 
the lower races. 

The custom of infanticide prevails, or has prevailed, not 
only in the savage world, but among semi-civilised and 

^ See p. 529 ; also, Haber- ® Ellis, History of Madagascar^ i. 

land, loc. cit, p. 29, and Sulherland, 161. 

op. cit. i. 1155^^. ^ Among the Sandwich Islanders 

* Williams and Calvert, op. cit. p. “the infant, after living a week, a 
142. month, ore\’cn a year, was still insecure, 

^ Taplin, in Woods, Native Tribes as some were destroyed when nearly 
of South Atistr alia, 15. able to walk” (Ellis, Tour through 

^ Brough Smith, irf/. i 7 5i. Meyer, Hazaaii, p. 325). Among the Eskimo 
‘Manners and Customs of the Abori- about Behring Strait, “girls were often 
gines of the Encounter Bay Tribe,’ in killed w'hcn from 4 to 6 years of age” 
Woods, Native Tribes of South Aus- (Nelson, in Aun. Kep. Bur. Ethn. 
iralia. p. 186. xviii. 289). 

® Gumnard, op. cit. p. 144. 

4o6 the killing of CHILDREN chap. 

civilised races. In the poorest districts of China female in- 
fants are often destroyed by their parents immediately after 
their birth, chiefly on account of poverty,* Though dis- 
approved of by educated Chinese, the practice is treated 
with forbearance or indifference by the mass of the people, 
and is acquiesced in by the mandarins.^ “ When seriously 
appealed to on the subject,” says the Rev. J. Doolittle, 
“though all deprecate it as contrary to the dictates of 
reason and the instincts of nature, many are ready boldly 
to apologise for it, and declare it to be necessary, 
especially in the families of the excessively poor.”® 
However, infanticide is neither directly sanctioned by the 
government, nor agreeable to the general spirit of the 
laws and institutions of the Empire ; “* and it is prohibited 
both by Buddhism and Taouism.® According to Dr. de 
Groot, the belief that the spirits of the dead may, with 
authorisation of Heaven, take vengeance on the living, 
has a very salutary effect on female infanticide in China. 
“ The fear that the souls of the murdered little ones 
may bring misfortune, induces many a father or mother to 
lay the girls they are unwilling to bring up in the street for 
adoption into some family, or into a foundling-hospital.” “ 
In ancient times the Semites, or at least some of them, 
not only practised infanticide, but, under certain circum- 
stances, approved of it or regarded it as a duty. Accord- 
ing to an ancient Arabic proverb, it was a generous deed' 
to bury a female child ; * and we read of ‘ Osaim the 
Fazarite ’ who did not dare to save alive his daughter 
Lacita, without concealing her from the people, although 
she was his only child. ® Considering that among the 

^ Gutzlaff, Sketch of Chinese History^ 
i. 59. Wells Williams, Middle King- 
dom^ ii. 240 sqq, Douglas, Society in 
Chinay p. 354 sqq. Doolittle, Social 
Life of the Chinese^ ii. 206. 

Doolittle, op. cit. ii. 203, 208 sq. 
Wells Williams, op. cit. i. 836 ; ii. 242. 
Douglas, Society in China., p. 354. 
IMoss, Das Kind., ii. 262. 

^ Doolittle, op. cit. ii. 208. 

^ Staunton, in his translation of Ta 
Tsing Leu Lee, p. 347 n.* 

^ Thdi Shang., 4. Giles, Strange 
Stories from a Chinese Sttidio^ ii. 377. 
Douglas, Confucianism and Taouisnif 
p. 267. Indo-Chinese Gleaner j iii. 164. 

^ de Groot, Religious System of China, 
(vol. iv. book) ii. 457 sqq. 

^ Frey tag, Arabum Droverbia, i. 229. 
^ Robertson Smith, Kimlnp and 
Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 293. 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN 

nomads of Arabia, who suffer constantly from hunger 
during a great part of the year, a daughter is a burden 
to the poor, we may suppose, with Professor Robertson 
Smith, that “ infanticide was as natural to them as to 
other savage peoples in the hard struggle for life.” ^ It 
was condemned, however, by the Prophet : — “ Slay not 
your children for fear of poverty ; we will provide for 
them ; beware ! for to slay them is ever a great sin.”^ In 
the Mosaic law, on the other hand, infanticide is never 
touched upon, and, in all probability, it hardly occurred 
among the Hebrews in historic times. But we have 
reason to believe that, at an earlier period, among them as 
also among other branches of the Semitic race, child- 
murder was frequently practised as a sacrificial rite.® 

The murder of female infants, whether by the direct 
employment of homicidal means, or by exposure to priva- 
tion and neglect, has for ages been a common practice, or 
even a genuine custom, among various Hindu castes.^ 
Yet they are well aware that it is prohibited by their 
sacred books ; according to the Laws of Manu, the king 
shall put to death “ those who slay women, infants, or 
Brahmanas.”” Even the Rajputs, who — out of family pride 
and owing to the expenses connected with the marriage 
ceremony — were particularly addicted to infanticide, con- 
sidered that a family in which such a deed had been per- 
petrated was, in consequence, an object of divine dis- 
pleasure. On the twelfth day, therefore, the family priest 
was sent for, and, by suitable gratuities, absolution was 
obtained. In the room where the infant was born and 
destroyed, he also prepared and ate some food with which 
the family provided him ; this was considered a horn, or 
burnt offering, and, by eating it in that place, the priest 
was supposed to take the whole hutteea, or sin, upon him- 
self, and to cleanse the family from it.*' 

^ Ibid, p, 294. • 431. Chevers, Manual of Medical 

^ Koran^ xvii. 33 ; also, ibid. vi. 141, Ju 7 'isprudence for India^ p. 750 sqq. 

152, and Ixxxi. 8 sq. " Laws of Manu^ ix. 232. 

® See infra^ on Human Sacrifice. ® ‘ Oude as it was before the An- 

Wilkins, Modern Hinduisntj p. nexation,’ in Chtirch Missionary Intel- 
ligencer^ xi. 81 sq. 

Exposure of new-born children was practised by the 
people of the Vedic aged as also by other so-called Aryan 
peoples in ancient timesd The Teutonic father had to 
decide whether the new-comer, whilst still lying on the 
ground, should be accepted as a member of the family, or 
whether it should be exposed. If he lifted it up, and 
some water was poured over it, or a drop of milk or honey 
passed its lips, it was generally safe. But apart from 
these restrictions, custom seems to have been in favour of 
exposure only under certain circumstances, exactly similar 
to those in which infanticide is practised among many 
modern savages : if the child was born out of wedlock, or 
if it was deformed or sickly, or if it was born on an 
unlucky day, or in case of twins — one of whom was 
always supposed to be illegitimate — or if the parents were 
very poor. The exposed infant, however, was not neces- 
sarily destined to die, but was, in many cases, adopted by. 
somebody who could afford to rear it. ® 

The exposure of deformed or sickly infants was 
undoubtedly an ancient custom in Greece ; in Sparta, at 
least, it was enjoined by law. It was also approved of by 
the most enlightened among the Greek philosophers. 
Plato condemns all those children who are imperfect in 
limbs, as also those who are born from depraved citizens, 
to be buried in some obscure and unknown place ; he 
maintains, moreover, that when both sexes have passed 
the age assigned for presenting children to the State, no 
child is to be brought to light, and that any infant which 
is by accident born alive, shall be done away with.^ 
Aristotle not only lays down the law with respect to the 
exposing or bringing up of children, that “ nothing im- 
perfect or maimed shall be brought up,” but proposes that 

^ Rigveda, p. 1 6. Bekehrting des Norwegischen Slammes, 

^ Strieker, ‘ EthnographischeNotizen ii. i8i. Weinhold, AUnordisches J.e- 
iiber den Kindermord und die kiinst- ben, p. 261. Nordstrom, Bidrag till 
liche Fruchtabtreibung,’ in Archtv fur, den svenska samhdllsfdrfattningens hi- 
A ntkro^ologie, V, 4^1 {Celts an6 Slavs). storia, ii. 44. Stemann, Den danske 

3 Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthii- Retshistorie indtil Christian Vi^sLov, 
mer, p. 455 sqq. Wilda, Strafrecht p. 359. 

der Germanen, pp. 704, 725. Maurer, Plato, Respublica, v. 460 

xvir 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN 

the number of children allowed to each marriage shall be 
regulated by the State, and that, if any woman be pregnant 
after she has produced the prescribed number, an abortion 
shall be procured before the fetus has life.^ These views 
were in perfect harmony with the general tendency of the 
Greeks to subordinate the feelings of the individual to the 
interest of the State. Confined as they were to a very 
limited territory, they were naturally afraid of being 
burdened with the maintenance of persons whose lives 
could be of no use. It is necessary, says Aristotle, to 
take care that the increase of the people should not 
exceed a certain number, in order to avoid poverty and its 
concomitants, sedition and other evils.^ Yet the exposure 
of healthy infants, which was frequently practised in 
Greece, was hardly approved of by public opinion, although 
tolerated,® except at Thebes, where it was a crime punish- 
able with death. 

In Rome custom or law enjoined the destruction of 
deformed infants. According to a law of the Twelve 
Tables, referred to by Cicero, monstrous abortions were 
not suffered to live.® With reference to a much later period 
Seneca writes, “ We destroy monstrous births, and we also 
drown our children if they are born weakly or unnaturally 
formed ” ; he adds that it is an act of reason thus to 
separate what is useless from what is sound.® But there 
was no tendency in Rome to encourage infanticide beyond 
these limits. It has been observed that, whilst the Greek 
policy was rather to restrain, the Roman policy was always 
to encourage, population.’^ Being engaged in incessant wars 
of conquest, Rome was never afraid of being over-popu- 
lated, but, on the contrary, tried to increase the number of 
its citizens by according special privileges to the fathers of 
many children, and exempting poor parents from most 

^ Aristotle, Politica^ vii. 16, p. 1335. ^ Aclian, Variir Historur^ ii. 7. 

Jbid. ii. 6, p. 1265. Cicero, De le^ibusy iii. 8. 

^ Schmidt, Ethik der alten G7'iecheity ^ Seneca, De ira, i, 15. 

ii. 138, 463. Hermaiin-Bliimner, ^ Lecky, History of European 

Lehrbuch der griechischen Privatalter- Morals, ii. 27. 
thUnier, p. 77. 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN chap. 

of the burden of taxation.* The power of life and death 
which the Roman father possessed over his children un- 
doubtedly involved the legal right of destroying or exposing 
new-born infants ; but it is equally certain that the act was 
frequently disapproved of.® An ancient “ law,” ascribed 
to Romulus — which, as Mommsen suggests, could have 
been merely a priestly direction ® — enjoined the father to 
bring up all his sons and at least his eldest daughter, and 
forbade him to destroy any well-formed child till it had 
completed its third year, when the affections of the parent 
might be supposed to be developed.* In later times we 
find the exposure of children condemned by poets, his- 
torians, philosophers, jurists. Among nefarious acts com- 
mitted in sign of grief on the day when Germanicus died, 
Suetonius mentions the exposure of new-born babes.'' 
Epictetus indignantly opposes the saying of Epicurus that 
men should not rear their children : — “ Even a sheep 
will not desert its young, nor a wolf ; and shall a man ? 
‘ What ! will you have us to be silly creatures, like the 
sheep ? ’ Yet they desert not their young. ‘ Or savage, 
like wolves.^’ Yet even they desert them not. Come, 
then, who would obey you if he saw his little child fall on 
the ground and cry?”* Julius Paulus, the jurist, pro- 
nounced him who refused nourishment to his child, or 
exposed it in a public place, to be guilty of murder* — a 
statement which is to be understood, not as a legal pro- 
hibition of exposure, but only as the expression of a moral 
opinion.® On the other hand, though the exposure of 
healthy infants was disapproved of in Pagan Rome, 
it was not generally regarded as an offence of very 
great magnitude, especially if the parents were desti- 

^ Montesquieu, De Vesprit des loisy ® Suetonius, Cali^ulay 5. 

xxiii. 20 sq. {(Euv 7 ^eSy p. 398 sqq.). ^ Epictetus, DissertationeSy i. 23. 

Lecky, Jlistory of European Mo 7 'alSy ^ Dioesta, xxv. 3. 4. 
ii. 27. ® Noodt, ‘Julius Paulus, sive de 

- Denis, Histoire des theories et des partus expositione et nece apud veteres,' 
idhs morales dans r ant iqiiiti^y \\. no. . in Opera omnia, i. 465 5^^. Walter, 

^ Mommsen, Romisches Strafrechty - Geschichtc des Komischen Rechts, § 538, 
p. 619. vol. ii. 148 sq, Spangenberg, ‘ Ver- 

^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, A^iti- brechen des Kindermords und der 
quitates Romancey ii. 15. Aussetzung der Kinder,’ in Neues 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN 

tute.^ During the Empire it was practised on an extensive 
scale, and in the literature of the time it is spoken of with 
frigid indifference. Since the life of the victim was fre- 
quently saved by some benevolent person or with a view 
to profit,'^ it was not regarded in the same light as down- 
right infanticide, which, in the case of a healthy infant, 
seems to have been strictly prohibited by custom.® 

As is generally the case in the savage world, so among 
semi-civilised and civilised nations whose customs allow or 
tolerate infanticide, the child, if not suffered to live, has 
to be killed in its earliest infancy. Among the Chinese'* 
and Rajputs it is destroyed immediately after its birth. 
In the Scandinavian North the killing or exposure of an 
infant who had already been sprinkled with water was 
regarded as murder.*' At Athens parents were punished 
for exposing children whom they had once begun to 
rear.'^ 

The practice of exposing new-born infants, so common 
in the Pagan Empire, was vehemently denounced by the 
early Fathers of the Church.® They tried to convince 
men that, if the abandoned infant died, the unnatural 
parent was guilty of nothing less than murder, whilst the 
sinful purposes for which foundlings were often used formed 
another argument against exposure.** The enormity of the 
crime of causing an infant’s death was enhanced by the 
notion that children who had died un baptised were doomed 
to eternal perdition. “ According to a decree of the Council 
of Mentz in 852, the penance imposed on the mother was 
heavier if she killed an unbaptised than if she killed a 

Archiv des CriifiinalrechtSy iii. lo sqq. 
Mommsen, Rouiischcs Strafrecht^ p. 
620, n. I. 

^ Quintilian, Declamationes, 306. 
Plutarch, De a?nore prolis, 5. 

Lecky, History of European 
Morals, ii. 28. Lallemand, Histoire des 
enfanis abandonn^s et d^Iaiss^s, ^ 59. 

^ Mommsen, Rbmisches Strafrecht, 
p. 619. 

Gntzlaflf, op. cit. i, 59. 
f Chureh Missionary Ifitelligencer, 
81. Chevers, op. cit. p. 752. 

® Grimm, Deutsche RechtsalterthU- 
mer, p. 457. 

7 Schoemann, Gricchische Alterihii- 
mer, i. 503. 

^ See Terme and Monfalcon, His- 
toire des enfans trozivh, p. 67 sqq. 

^ Justin Martyr, Apologia /. pro 
Ckristia 7 iis, 29, 27 (Migne, Pat'ologice 
cursiis, Ser. Graeca, vi. 373 sq,, 369 
sqq . ). 

Cf. Spangenberg, in Neues Archtv 
des Cidmintilrechts, iii. 20 ; Lecky, 
History of European A/ora/s, ii. 23. 

THE KILLING OF CHILDREN 

baptised childd In the year 1556, Henry II. o France 
made a law which punished as a child-murderer any woman 
who had concealed her pregnancy and delivery, and whose 
child was found dead, “ priv6, tant du saint sacrement de 
baptesme, que sepulture publique et accoustum^e.” ^ This 
statute — to which there is a counterpart in England in the 
statute 21 Jac. I. c. 27,® and in the Scotch law of 1690, 
c. 21'' — thus went so far as to constitute a presumptive 
murder, avowedly under the influence of that Christian 
dogma to which Mr. Lecky attributes, in the first instance, 
“the healthy sense of the value and sanctity of infant 
life which so broadly distinguishes Christian from Pagan 
societies.” 

If the Pagans had been comparatively indifferent to the 
sufferings of the exposed infant, the Christians became all 
the more cruel to the unfortunate mother, who, perhaps 
in a fit of despair, had put to death her new-born child. 
The Christian emperor Valentinian I. made infanticide a 
capital offence.® According to the Coutume de Loudunois, 
a mother who killed her child was burned. In Germany 
and Switzerland she was buried alive with a pale thrust 
through her body ; ® this punishment was prescribed by 
the criminal code of Charles V., side by side with 
drowning.® Until the end of the eighteenth, or the 
beginning of the nineteenth, century, infanticide was 
a capital crime everywhere in Europe, except in Russia.’® 
Then, under the influence of that rationalistic movement 
which compelled men to rectify so many preconceived 
opinions,” it became manifest that an unmarried woman 

^ Canon Hhidowici regisy 9 (Pertz, ^ Tissot, Le droit phial y ii. 40, 
Monttm. Germania historica yin, 41'^). ® Osenbriiggen, Das alamannische 

2 T.sambert, Decrusy, and Armet, Sirafi'ccht im deufschen Mittelaltery p. 
Recueil ghUral des a?iciennes I ois f ran- 22gsq. Ideniy Stndien zur deiitschennnd 
faisesy xiii. 472 sq. schzveizerischen Kechtsgesckichtey p. 358. 

^ Blackstone, Commentaries on the ^ Charles V.’.s Peinliche Gerichts 
Laivs of Englandy 198, O rdnungy a,it. 131. 

^ Erskine, Principles of the Law of de Feyfer, Verhandeling over den 

Scotlandy p. 560. Kindermocrdy p. 225. von Fabrice, 

® Lecky, History of European Die Lehr e von der Kind sab treibungund 

Moi^alSy ii. 23. vom Kindsmordy p. 251. 

® Codex TheodosianuSy ix. 14. I. In- Berner, Lekrbuch ''des Deutscken 

stituiiomsy ix. 16. 7. Strafrechtesy p, 497. 

FETICIDE 

who destroyed her illegitimate child was not in the same 
category as an ordinary murderess.* It was pointed out that 
shame and fear, the excitement of mind, and the difficulty 
in rearing the poor bastard, could induce the unfortunate 
mother to commit a crime which she herself abhorred. 
That no notice had been taken of all this, is explicable 
from the extreme severity with which female unchastity 
was looked upon by the Church. At present most 
European lawbooks do not punish infanticide committed 
by an unmarried woman even nominally with death.^ In 
France the law which regards infanticide as an aggravated 
form of meurtre ® has become a dead letter * ; and in 
England no woman seems for a long time to have been 
executed for killing her new-born child under the distress 
of mind and fear of shame caused by child-birth.^ 

Hand in hand with the custom of infanticide goes 
feticide, which prevails extensively in the savage world.*' 
The same considerations as induce savages to kill their 
new-born infants also induce them to destroy the fetus 
before it has proceeded into the world from the mother’s 
body. Besides, women procure abortion with a view to 
avoiding the disagreeable incidents accompanying the state 
of pregnancy ; or, very frequently, in order to conceal 
illicit intercourse.’^ Considering that the same degree of 
sympathy cannot be felt with regard to a child not yet 
born as with regard to an infant, it is not surprising to 
find that feticide is practised without objection even by 

^ Benthain maintained ( Theory of 
Legislation^ p. 264 sq. ) that infanticide 
ought not to be punished as a principal 
offence. “ The offence,” he says, “ is 
what is improperly called the death of 
an infant, who has ceased to be, before 
knowing what existence is, — a result of 
a nature not to give the slightest in- 
quietude to the most timid imagination ; 
and which can cause no regret^ but to 
the very person who, through a senti- 
ment of shame and pity, has refused to 
prolong a life begun under the auspices 
of misery.” 

^ de Feyfer, op. cit. p. 228. For 
modern legislation on infanticide, see 
also S pangen berg, in Neues Archiv des 
Cri/ninalrechts^ iii. 360 sqq. ; von 
Fabricc, op. cit. p. 254 sqq. 

» Code PinaL art 300, 302. 

^ Garraud, T 7 ’aitii thJoretiqtte et 
pratique du droit ptlnal ff'ancais^ iv. 
251. 

® Stephen, History of the Criininal 
Law of Engl and y iii. 86. 

^ Floss, Pas Weiby \. 842 sqq. 

7 Ibid. i. 851 sq. 

FETICIDE 

some peoples who never commit infanticide. Thus in 
Samoa, where the latter practice was perfectly unknown, 
the destruction of unborn children prevailed to a melan- 
choly extent, and the same was the case in the Mitchell 
Group,^ Among the Dacotahs, who only occasionally 
killed infants, abortion procured by artificial means was 
not held objectionable.^ On the other hand there are 
savages who consider it a crime. Some Indian tribes in 
North America abhor the practice.® The natives of 
Tenimber and Timor-laut punish it with heavy fines.^ 
Regarding the Kafirs, Mr. Warner states that “ the pro- 
curing of abortion, although universally practised by all 
classes of females in Kafir society, is nevertheless a crime 
of considerable magnitude in the eye of the Law ; and 
when brought to the notice of the Chief, a fine of four 
or five head of cattle is inflicted. The accomplices are 
equally guilty with the female herself.” ® 

Passing to more civilised nations, we notice that, among 
Hindus and Muhammedans, artificial abortion is extremely 
common and is hardly reprobated by public opinion, what- 
ever religion or law may have to say on the subject.® It 
is especially resorted to by unmarried women as a means 
of escaping punishment and shame. “ In a country like 
India,” says Dr. Chevers, “where true morality is almost 
unknown, but where the laws of society exercise the most 
rigorous and vigilant control imaginable over the conduct 
of females, and where six-sevenths of the widows, what- 
ever their age or position in life may be, are absolutely 
debarred from re-marriage, and are compelled to rely 
upon the uncertain support of their relatives, it is scarcely 
surprising that great crimes should be frequently practised 
to conceal the results of immorality, and that the pro- 
curing of criminal abortion should, especially, be an act of 

^ Turner, Samm^ pp. 79, 280, 302. 

^ Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the ® Warner, in Maclean, Compefjfiiuin 
United Slates^ iii. 243. Keating, op. of Kafir Laws and Cnsioms^ p. 62. Cf. 
cit. i. 394. Brownlee, ibid. p. iii ; Holden, Past 

^ Ploss, Das Weib^ i. 848. and Futtrre of the Kaffir Paces, p. 334. 

^ Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige SQ^LawsofAfanUy^v. 90 ; Pish/iu 

r assert tusschen Celebes en Papua, p. Purdna, p. no'j sq. 

FETICIDE 

almost daily commission, and should have become a trade 
among certain of the lower midwives.” ^ In Persia every 
illegitimate pregnancy ends with abortion ; the act is done 
almost publicly, and no obstacle is put in its way.^ In 
Turkey, both among the rich and poor, even married 
women very commonly procure abortion after they have 
given birth to two children, one of which is a boy ; and 
the authorities regard the practice with indifference.® In 
ancient Greece, as we have seen, feticide was under certain 
circumstances recommended by Plato and Aristotle, in 
preference to infanticide. In Rome it was prohibited by 
Septimius Severus and Antoninus, but the prohibition 
seems to have referred only to those married women 
who, by procuring abortion, defrauded their husbands of 
children.'* During the Pagan Empire, abortion was exten- 
sively practised, either from poverty, or licentiousness, or 
vanity; and, although severely disapproved of by some,® 
“ it was probably regarded by the average Romans of the 
later days of Paganism much as Englishmen in the last 
century regarded convivial excesses, as certainly wrong, 
but so venial as scarcely to deserve censure.” ® Seneca 
thinks Helvia worthy of special praise because she had 
never destroyed her expected child within her womb, 
“after the fashion of many other women, whose attrac- 
tions are to be found in their beauty alone.” ^ The 
Romans drew a broad line between feticide and infanticide. 
An unborn child was not regarded by them as a human 
being ; it was a spes animantis, not an in fan s.^ It was said 
to be merely a part of the mother, as the fruit is a part of 
the tree till it becomes ripe and falls down.® 

Very different opinions were held by the Christians. A 
sanctity, previously unheard of, was attached to human 
life from the very beginning. Feticide was regarded as a 

^ Chevers, cit, p. 712. ® \^^cVy,Hisfo?y of European Morals ^ 

2 Polak, Persien, i. 217. , ii. 21 

® Ploss, Das Weib, i. 846 sq. 7 Seneca, Ad Helviam, 16. 

^ Digesta^ xlvii. ii. 4. Cf. 5 ^in, ® Spangenberg, ‘ Vcrbrechen tier 

Criminalrecht der Rbnier^ p. 447. Abtreibung der Lcibesfrucht,’ in Neues 

® Paulus, quoted in Digesta^ xxv. Archiv des Crimmalrechisfn. 22 ^. 

3, 4, ® Ibid, ii. 22. 

FETICIDE 

form of murder. “Prevention of birth,” says Tertullian, 
“ is a precipitation of murder ; nor does it matter whether 
one take away a life when formed, or drive it away while 
forming. He also is a man who is about to be or;e. 
Even every fruit already exists in its seed,” ^ St. 
Augustine, again, makes a distinction between an embryo 
which has already been formed, and an embryo as yet 
unformed. From the creation of Adam, he says, it 
appears that the body is made before the soul. Before 
the embryo has been endowed with a soul it is an embryo 
informatus^ and its artificial abortion is to be punished 
with a fine only ; but the embryo formatus is an animate 
being, and to destroy it is nothing less than murder, a 
crime punishable with death.^ This distinction between 
an animate and inanimate fetus was embodied both in 
Canon ® and Justinian law,^ and passed subsequently into 
various lawbooks.'" And a woman who destroyed her 
animate embryo was punished with death. 

The criminality of artificial abortion was increased by 
the belief that an embryo formatus^ being a person endowed 
with an immortal soul, was in need of baptism for its 
salvation. In his highly esteemed treatise De Fide, 
written in the sixth century, St. Fulgentius says, “ It is to 
be believed beyond doubt, that not only men who are come 
to the use of reason, but infants, whether they die in their 
mother’s womb, or after they are born, without baptism. 

^ Tertullian, Apologeiicns, 9 (Migne, 
r//. i. 319 

St. Augustine, Questiones in Exo- 
dum, 80 ; Idem, Questiones Veteris ct 
Novi I'estamenii, 23 (Migne, op. cit. 
xxxiv.-xxxv. 626, 2229). 

^ Gratian, Decretum, ii. 32. 2. 8 sq, 

* As regards the time from which the 
fetus was considered to be animate a 
curious distinction was drawn between 
the male and the female fetus. The 
former was regarded as animatus forty 
days after its conception, the latter 
eighty days. This theory, however — 
which was derived, as it seems, either 
from an absurd misinterpretation of 
Leviticus, xii. 2-5, or from the views of 

Ari.stotle [De animalibus historue, vii. 
3 ; cf. Pliny, His tor ia naturalis, vii. 6) 
— was not accepted by the glossarist of 
the Justinian Code, who fixed the ani- 
mation of the female, as well as of the 
male, fetus at forty days after its con- 
ception ; and this view was adopted by 
later jurists (Spangenberg, in Neues 
Archiv des Criminalrechts, ii. yj sqq.). 

® von Fabrice, op. cit. p. 202 sq. 
Perner, op. cit. p. 501. Wilda, op. cit. 
p. 720 sqq. 

^ Fleta, i. 23. 12 (England). Charles 
V.’s Peinliche Gerichts Ordnung, art. 
133. Spangenberg, in Neues Archiv 
des Criminalrechts, ii. 16. 

FETICIDE 

in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are 
punished with everlasting punishment in eternal fire, 
because though they have no actual sin of their own, yet 
they carry along with them the condemnation of original 
sin from their first conception and birth.”* And in the 
Lex Bajuwariorum this doctrine is expressly referred to 
in a paragraph which prescribes a daily compensation for 
children killed in the womb on account of the daily 
suffering of those children in hell.“ Subsequently, how- 
ever, St. Fulgentius’ dictum was called in question, and 
no less a person than Thomas Aquinas suggested the 
possibility of salvation for an infant who died before its 
birth.“ Apart from this, the doctrine that the life of an 
embryo is equally sacred with the life of an infant was so 
much opposed to popular feelings, that the law concerning 
feticide had to be altered. Modern legislation, though 
treating the fetus as a distinct being from the moment of 
its conception,"* punishes criminal abortion less severely 
than infanticide.’' And the very frequent occurrence of 
this crime is an evidence of the comparative indifference 
with which it is practically looked upon by large numbers 
of people in Christian countries. 

^ St. Fulgentius, Dc fide, 27 (Mignc, 
op. cit. Ixv. 701). 

- Lex ILijiiwarioriini, viii. 21 (vii. 
20). 

^ Lecky, Histo ry of the Rise and 
I)tflnence of the Spij if of Rationa/is/n 
in Europe, i. 360, u. 2, 

[lerike, Lehiburh der gcricJUlichen 
Medic in, § 99, p. 75. Berner, op. cit. 
P. 502. 

^ von Fabrice, op. cit. p. 199. For 
modern laws referring to criminal abor- 
tion, .see ibid. p. 206 sqq., and Spangen- 
lierg, in Neues clrc/nv des CrintinaL 
r edits, ii. 178 sqq. 

See Floss, Das IVcib, '\. 848 sqq. ; 
Schmidt’s Jahrbiicher der in- iind aus- 
Rindischen Gesannnten Medicin, xciii. 
97 - 

VOL. I 

E E

THE KILLING OF WOMEN, AND OF SLAVES 

THE CRIMINALITY OF HOMICIDE INFLUENCED 
BY DISTINCTIONS OF CLASS 

Among many of the lower races a husband is said to 
possess the power of life and death over his wife ; but 
what this actually means is not always obvious. It is 
quite probable that, in some cases, the husband may put 
his wife to death whenever he pleases, without having to 
fear any disagreeable consequences. In other instances he, 
by doing so, at all events exposes himself to the vengeance 
of her family. Among the Bangerang tribe of Victoria, 
for instance, “ he might ill-treat her, give her away, do as 
he liked with her, or kill her, and no one in the tribe 
interfered ; though, had he proceeded to the last extremity^ 
her death would have been avenged by her brothers or 
kindred.” ^ So, also, among the aborigines of North-West- 
Central Queensland, “ a wife has always her ‘ brothers ’ to 
look after her interests,” and if a man kills his wife he 
has to deliver up one of his own sisters for his late wife’s 
friends to put to death.^ We shall see in a subsequent 
chapter that many statements in which absolute marital 
power is ascribed to savage husbands are not to be inter- 
preted too literally. ^I venture to believe that the 
husband’s so-called power of life and death is generally 

^ Recollections of Squatting in Aborigines ^ p. 141. Cf Fison and 

Victoria^ p. 248. Hovvitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnaiy '^. 281 

^ Roth, Ethnological Studies among (Geawe-gal tribe). 
the North- West- Central Queenslanci 

CH. xvrii THE KILLING OF WOMEN 

restricted by custom to cases where the wife has committed 
some offence, and, especially, where she has been guilty of 
unfaithfulness.) 

The right of punishing the wife capitally, however, is 
by no means universally granted to the husband in 
uncivilised communities. Among the Gaika tribe of the 
Kafirs, “ if he puts her to death, he is punished as a 
murderer.”^ Among the Bakwiri he has to suffer death 
himself if he kills his wife ; if she is unfaithful to him he 
is only permitted to beat her.^ From the information we 
possess of the lower races it does not seem to be the 
general rule that husbands punish their adulterous wives 
with death ; but whether they have the right of doing so 
is a question seldom touched upon by our authorities.® We 
shall see that savage custom often gives to the husband 
only very limited rights over his wife, and requires that he 
should treat her with respect. 

Among various peoples of a higher type the husband 
has, under certain circumstances, had the right of punish- 
ing his wife capitally ; but this seems to be nearly all that 
is involved in that “ power of life and death ” which he is 
said to have possessed over her.^ However, whilst custom 
or law forbade him to kill his wife without sufficient 
cause, such a deed was hardly looked upon with the same 
horror, or treated with the same severity, as the murder 
of a husband by his wife, owing to the former’s superior 
position in the family. Among the Langobardi, according 
to the laws of King Rothar, a husband who killed his wife 
had to pay the same compensation as anybody else would 
have had to pay -for taking her life, but if a wife killed her 
husband, she was put to death, and her property forfeited 

^ Brownlee, in Maclean, Compen- 
dium of Kafir Laws and CustomSy 

p. 1 17. 

^ Schwarz, quoted by Post^ Afrtka- 
nische furisprudens, i. 401. ^ 

^,See Steinmetz, EthnologiscJie Stu- 
dien zur ersten Entwicklung der 
Sirafey ii. 303. 

** Rein, Japan^ p. 424. Hommel, 
Die seniitischen Volker und Sprachen 

i. 417 (Babylonians). Leist, Alt- 
arisches Jus Civile y\, 196, 275 (“Aryan” 
peoples). Wilda, Strafirecht der Ger- 
7 ?ianeny p. 705 ; Nordstrom, Bidrag 
till den svenska samhcillsforfattningens 
historiay ii. 61 sq, ; Weinhold, Alt- 
nordisches Lebe^iy p, 250 ; Keyser, 
Efterladte Skriftery ii. pt. ii. 28 sq. 
(Teutons). 

E E 2 

THE KILLING OF WOMEN 

to the family of the dead.* In Russia, in the seven- 
teenth century, whilst a husband who murdered his wife 
was, according to law, obnoxious to corporal punishment, 
a wife who murdered her husband was buried alive, with 
the head above the ground, and left to perish by hunger.'^ 
According to English law, a woman who killed her 
husband was guilty of “ petit* treason,” that is, murder in 
its most odious degree.^ 

Among many peoples the life of a woman is held 
cheaper than that of a man, independently of the relation- 
ship between the slayer and his victim. In Burma, if a 
woman was accidentally killed, less compensation had to 
be paid than for a man. A Burman explained this in the 
following words : — “A woman is worth less than a man 
in that way. A maidservant can be hired for less than a 
manservant, a daughter can claim less than a son. They 
cannot do so much work ; they are not so strong. If they 
had been worth more, the law would have been the other 
way ; of course they are worth less.” Among Muham- 
medans the price of blood for a woman is half the sum 
which is the price of blood for a free man.'' In ancient 
India the murder of a woman, unless she was with child, was 
in the eye of the law on a par with the murder of a Sddra.'’ 
According to Cambrian ga Ian as, or blood-price, of 

a woman was half galanas of her brother.* Among the 
Teutons the wergeld of a woman varied : sometimes it was 
the same as that for a man, sometimes only half as much, 
but sometimes twice as much, or, if she was pregnant, 

^ Edictus Rothari, 200 sqq. 

^ Macieiowski, Slavische Rechtsge- 
schichte^ iv. 292. For a Corsican law 
concerning mariticide, see Cibrario, 
Econoniia politica del medio eve^ i. 344 ; 
and for the punishment inflicted for the 
same crime on a woman in Nuremberg, 
in 1487, see Du Boys, Histoh^e du droit 
crimhiei des petiples modernes^ ii. 607. 

3 Blackstone, Comnmttaries on the 
Laws of Engl a 7 id^ iv. 203. 

* Fielding, The Soul of a People p. 
171. 

^ Lane, Arabian Society in the 
Middle AgeSy p. 18. 

^ Batidhdyanay i. 10. 19. 3. 

Leist, A It - arise he s Jus Gentium y p. 305 
sqq, 

7 Venedotzan Codoy ii. i. 16. Accord- 
ing to the ‘ Laws of the Brets and 
Scots/ the e.stimate of a married 
woman is less by a third part than that 
of her husband, whereas the estimate 
of an unmarried woman is equal to that 
of her brother Scotland in the 

Middle Ages y p. 181). 

THE KILLING OF WOMEN 

even more.^ These variations depended upon the different 
points of view from which the offence was looked upon. 
By herself she was worth less than a man, as a mother 
she was worth more and, quite apart from her value, 
the natural helplessness of her sex tended to aggravate 
the crime.® Among modern savages and barbarians, also, 
the estimate of a woman’s life is in some instances lower 
than that of a man’s,'* in some equal to it,’' and in some 
higher.” Among the Gallas the killing of a free man 
can be atoned for only by one thousand cattle, whereas 
fifty are deemed sufficient for the killing of a woman." 
On the other hand, among the Iroquois two hundred 
yards of wampum were paid for the murder of a woman, 
and only one hundred for that of a man.® Among the 
Rejangs of Sumatra, whilst the compensation for murder 
is eighty dollars if the victim was an ordinary man or 
boy, it is one hundred and fifty dollars if the person mur- 
dered was a woman or girl.” Among the Agar, a Dinka 
tribe, the murder of a man must be atoned for by a 
fine of thirty cows, that of a woman by forty cows.*” 
Where wives are purchased, the killing of a woman 
involves the destruction of valuable property, and is dealt 
with accordingly. 

As a husband often has “ the power of life and death ” 
over his wife, so we may expect to find, even more often. 

^ Grimm, Deutsche Dechtsa/ler- 
thufner^ p. 404 sqq. 

This point of view is very conspic- 
uous in the Salic Law {Lex Salica 
[Herold’s text], 28). 

^ Wilda, op. cit. p. 571. Keyser, 
op. cit. ii. pt. ii. 29. Brunner, 
Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte^ ii. 614 sq. 
Pardessus, Loi Saliqiie, p, 662. 

^ Post, Anfdnge des Staats- und 
Rechtsleben, p. 192. Idem, Studien 
zur Entwicklungsgeschickte des Fami- 
lienrechts, p. 1 19 sq. Gibbsf ‘ Tribes of 
Western Washington and North- 
western Oregon,’ in Contributions to 
North American Eth^tology, i. 190. 
Georgi, Russia, ii. 261 ; Vambery, 
Tiirkenvolk, p. 305 (Kirghiz), Decle, 

Three Years in Savage Africa, p. 487 
(Wakamba). 

® Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the 
United States, i. 277 (Creeks). Dorsey, 
‘ Omaha Sociology,’ in Ann. Rep. Bu^\ 
Ethn. iii. 370. Woodthorpe, in Jour. 
Anthr. Inst. xxvi. 21 (Shans). 

® Post, Studien zur Entzvicklungs- 
geschichte des Familienrechts, p. 1 19 sq. 

^ Paulitschke, Ethnographic Nordost- 
Afrikas, p. 263. 

® Loskiel, History of the Afission of 
the United Brethren among the Indians 
in North America, i. 16. 

^ Marsden, History of Sumatra, 

p. 222. 

Emin Pasha in Central Africa, 

p- 338- 

that a master has the same power over his slave. The 
latter, as a rule, can hardly count on the support of his 
family, and when, as is frequently the case, he is a prisoner 
of war, the right of killing an enemy easily passes into the 
right of killing the slave. In the literature dealing with 
the lower races we repeatedly meet with the statement 
that the owner may kill his slave at pleasure, or that he 
is not accountable for killing him.* Yet this seems to 
mean rather that, if he does so, no complaint can be 
brought against him, or no vengeance taken on him, than 
that he has an unconditional moral right to put to death 
a slave whom he no longer cares to keep ; we shall see 
that savage custom very commonly requires that slaves 
should be treated with kindness by their masters. In 
many cases the master is expressly denied the right of 
killing his slave at his own discretion.^ Among the 
Bataks the owner, though allowed to punish his slave, 
must take care that the latter does not succumb to the 
punishment.^ Among the Rejangs, if a man kills his 
slave, he pays half his price as compensation to the feudal 
chief of the country.^ In Madagascar “ masters have 
full power over their slaves, excepting as to life”;® and 
the same is said of the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold 
Coast.® The Mandingoes allow the owner to do what he 
likes to a prisoner of war and to a person who has lost his 
freedom through insolvency, but he is forbidden to kill a 
house-slave.'* Among the Barea and Kundma, by putting 

^ Monrad, Bidrag til en Skildring Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdltnisse vo 7 t 

af Guinea-Kysten^ p. 42 (Negroes of eigeborenefi Volkern in Afrika und 
Accra). Bowdich, Mission to Ashaniee^ Ozeanien^ p. 43 (Banaka and Bapuku). 
p. 258 (people of Ashanti). Ward, Five Mademba, ibid. p. 83 (natives of the 
Years with the Congo Cannibals, Sansanding States). Lang, ibid. p. 
p. 105 (Bolobo). Macdonald, ^4^ (Washambala). Desoignies, ibid. 

1. 168 (Eastern Central Africans). p. 278 (Msalala). 

Burton, Zanzibar, ii, 95 (Wanika). ® Glimpses of the Eastern Archi- 

Cooper, Mishmee Hills, p. 238. pelago, p. 114, 

Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago, * Marsden, op. cit. p. 222, 

p. 106 (highlanders of Palembang). ® Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 

Hale, U.S. Exploring Expedition. 196. 

Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology, ® Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of the 
p. 33 (Maoris). Gibbs, loc. cit. p. 189 Gold Coast, p. 291, 

(Thlinkets). Steinmetz, Studien, ii. ^ Post, Afrikanisck^ Jurisprudenz, 
sqq. i. 95* 

THE KILLING OF SLAVES 

to death a slave who is a native of the country, the master 
even exposes himself to the blood-revenge of the family of 
the slain. ^ 

The murder of another person’s slave is of course 
largely regarded as an offence against the property of the 
owner, but, in many cases at least, it is not exclusively 
looked upon in this light. Where the master himself is 
not allowed to kill his slave, the slave possesses the right 
of life in the full sense of the term. Sometimes there is 
in this respect little difference between him and a free- 
man. Among the Beni Amer, whilst the murder of a 
slave who has been bought is merely compensated for by 
the payment of the purchase sum, the murder of a slave 
who belongs to his master by birth is avenged by his 
relatives, or, if he has none, by the master himself ; 
should the murderer be too high a person, the matter 
drops, but there is no question of payment in any case.* 
Where the system of blood-money prevails, the price paid 
for the life of a slave is less than that paid for the life of 
a freeman. Among the Kirghiz the former is only half 
of the latter.® In Axim, on the Gold Coast, according to 
Bosman, the murderer of a slave was usually fined thirty- 
six crowns, whilst five hundred crowns were demanded for 
the murder of a free-born negro.^ 

The rule that the life of a slave is held in less esti- 
mation than the life of a freeman applies to the nations 
of archaic culture ; yet not even the master is among them 
in all circumstances allowed to put his slave to death. In 
ancient Mexico the murder of a slave, though committed 
by the master, was a capital offence.® In Corea a slave 
may not be killed by his owner before the latter has 
obtained the permission of the board of punishments, or 
of the high provincial authorities.® According to the 

^ Munzinger, Osiafrikamsche Stu- 
dittiy p. 484. 

Ibid. p. 309. 

^ Geoi^i, op. cit. ii. 261. 

^ Bosman, New Description of the 
Coast of Guinea^ p. 141 

* Bancroft, op. cit. ii. 223. 

® Rockhill, ‘ Notes on some of the 
Laws, Customs, and Superstitions of 
Korea,’ in American Anthropologist ^ iv. 
180. Cf Griffis, Corea y p. 239. 

THE KILLING OF SLAVES 

Chinese Penal Code, a master who, instead of complain- 
ing to a magistrate privately, beats to death a slave who 
has been guilty of theft, adultery, or any other similar 
crime, shall be punished with one hundred blows. If he 
beats to death, or intentionally kills, a slave who has com- 
mitted no crime, he shall be punished with sixty blows 
and one year’s banishment, and the wife or husband, as 
also the children, of the deceased slave shall be entitled 
to their freedom.^ Again, a freeman who kills another’s 
slave shall be strangled.^ 

According to Hebrew law, a master who smites his 
slave so that he dies under his hand, ‘‘ shall be surely 
punished” ; but if the slave continues to live for a day or 
two after the assault, the master goes free on the score 
that the slave is ‘‘ his money.” ^ Muhammed strongly 
enjoined the duty of kindness to slaves ; yet, according 
to Muhammedan law, the master may even kill his own 
slave with impunity for any offence, and incurs but a 
slight punishment — as imprisonment for a period at the 
discretion of the judge — if he kills him wantonly.^ The 
price of blood for a slave is his or her value; but by the 
Hanafee law a man is obnoxious to capital punishment 
for the murder of another man’s slave.^‘ 

Among the ancient Teutons the master was irrespon- 
sible in the eye of the law as to all dealings between him- 
self and his slave ; legally the slave was on a par with the 
horse and the ox, and to kill him was only to inflict a 
certain loss upon the owner.*' In ancient Wales the 
position of a slave seems to have been very similar ; there 
was no galanas for a bondman, “ only payment of his 
worth to his master, like the worth of a beast.” ' Among 
the Greeks, in the Homeric age, the master evidently 

^ Ta Tsing Leu Lee^ sec. ceexiv. p. ^ Ideniy Modern Egyfptians^ p. 119. 
340. Idem^ Arabian Society^ P* sq. 

2 Ibid, sec. cccxiii. p. 336. ^ Grimm, Deutsche Kechtsalterthii- 

^ Exodus^ xxi. 20 sq. 7 ?ier, jd. 342 sqq. Brunner, Deutsche 

^ Lane, Manners and Customs of the Recktsgeschichte^ i. 96. Kemble, Saxons 

Modern Egyptians^ p. 1 1 5. ide 77 i^ m Engla 7 td/\. 20% sqq, Stemann, 

A/'abiaft Society in the Middle Ages, cit. 281 sqq. Keyser, op. cit. ii. pt. 

p. 251. i. 289. 

7 Ditiietian Code, iii. 3. 8 . 

XVUI 

THE KILLING OF SLAVES 

could punish his slaves with death ; ^ but in later times, 
at least at Athens, he was obliged to hand over to the 
magistrate any slave of his who deserved capital punish- 
ment. What happened to a master who killed his own 
slave we do not know exactly, but at any rate he had to 
undergo a ceremony of purification.** Plato says in his 
‘ Laws,’ that if a person kills the slave of another in 
anger, he shall pay twice the amount of the loss to his 
owner.'* ■ But he adds, “ If any one kills a slave who has 
done no wrong, because he is afraid that he may inform of 
some base and evil deeds of his own, or for any similar 
reason, in such a case let him pay the penalty of murder, 
as he would have done if he had slain a citizen.” ** 

In Rome, in ancient times, the master had by law the 
absolute power of life and death over his slaves ; and he 
who killed another man’s slave was not criminally prose- 
cuted, but had merely to compensate the owner for the 
destruction of his property.*’ Even during the Empire 
a slave was counted a thing, not a person ; himself in- 
capable of suffering an injuria^ he was viewed as a 
mechanical medium only, through which an insult could 
be transmitted to his master." Yet this doctrine was not 
rigidly adhered to. After the publication of the Lex 
Cornelia, the change was introduced that he who killed a 
slave belonging to somebody else could be punished for 
murder ; * and later on even the master’s power of life and 
death was restricted by law. Claudius declared that sick 
slaves who had been exposed by their owners in a lan- 
guishing condition, and afterwards recovered, should be 
perfectly free and never more return to their former 
servitude ; moreover, “ if any one c'nose to kill at once, 
rather than expose, a slave, he should be liable for murder.” ” 

^ Odyssey^ iv. 743 ; xix. 489 sq, ® Ibid, ix. 872. 

^ Schmidt, Ethik der alten Griechm^ ^ Mommsen, Romisches Strafrecht^ 
ii. 217. Hermann-Blumi^r, Lehrbuch p. 616. 
aer griechischen Privatalterthumer, p. ^ histitutiones ^ iv. 4. 3. 

88, n. 3. ^ Gains, Institutionuin juris civilis 

^ Plato, Leges^ ix. 865, 868, Schmidt, commeuiariiy iii. 213. Cf. Mommsen, 
op, cit, ii. 217 sq, Romisches Strafrecht^ p. 616. 

^ Plato, LegeSi ix. 868. ^ Suetonius, Claudius, 25. 

By a constitution of Antoninus Pius he who put his slave 
to death without a sufficient cause (sine causa) was to be 
punished equally with him who killed the slave of another.^ 
Hadrian even made an attempt to induce slave-owners to 
hand over to the authorities slaves who had been guilty of 
some capital crime, instead of themselves inflicting the 
punishment on.the guilty.^ 

Faithful to her principle that human life is sacred, the 
Church made efforts to secure the life of the slave against 
the violence of the master ; but neither the ecclesiastical 
nor the secular legislation gave him the same protection as 
was bestowed upon the free member of the Church and 
State. Various Councils punished the murder of a slave 
with two years’ excommunication only, if the slave had 
been killed “sine conscientia judicis”; ® and the same 
punishment was adopted by some Penitentials.^ Edgar 
made the penanpe last three years, whereas, if a freeman 
was killed, the penance was of seven years’ duration.* 
Facts do not justify Mr. Lecky’s statement that, “ in the 
penal system of the Church, the distinction between wrongs 
done to a freeman, and wrongs done to a slave, which lay 
at the very root of the whole civil legislation, was 
repudiated.” ® 

Beyond a law of Constantine, to the effect that a master 

^ Gaius, op. cic. i. 53. InstUuiiones^ 
i. 8. 2. 

® Spartian, Vita Hadriani, 18. Cf. 
Mommsen yJiomisches St rafreckty p. 617, 

n. 2, 

^ Concilium Agathensey A.D. 506, 
canon 62 (Labbe- Mansi, Sacrorum 
Conciliorum collection viii. 335). Con- 
cilium E^aonensey A.D. 517, canon 34 
{^ibid. viii. 563). Concilium Worma- 
tiensey A.D. 868, canon 38 {ibid. xv. 
876). 

* Pc^mtenttale Cummeanty vi. 29 
(Wasserschleben, Btissordnungen der 
abendldndischen Kirchcy p. 480). 
Pcenit. Pseudo- Theodoriy xxi. 12 {ibid. 

p- 587)- 

® Canons enacted under EdgaVy Mo- 
dus imponendi poenitentiam, 4, ii 
{Ancient Laws and Institutes of Eng- 

land y p. 405 sq.). 

® Lecky, History of European 
Morals y ii. 66. Mr. Lecky states 
{ibid. ii. 66 sq.) that the Council of 
Illiberis excluded for ever from the 
communion a master who killed his 
slave. I have only been able to find 
the following enactment made by a 
Council held at Illiberis in the begin- 
ning of the fourth century : — “ Si qua 
domina furore zeli accensa flagris ver- 
beraverit ancillam suam, ita ut in ter- 
tium diem animam cum cruciatu eifun- 
dat ; eo quod incertum sit, voluntate, 
an casu occiderit ; si voluntate, post 
septem annos ; si casu, post quin- 
quennii tempora, acta legitima pceni- 
tentia, ^ad communionem placuit ad- 
mitti” {Concilium Eliberitanumy ch. 5 
[Labbe-Mansi, op. cit. ii. 6]). 

xvin 

THE KILLING OF SLAVES 

who put his slave to death in a non-judicial way, was to be 
punished as a murderer,^ and a reiteration of some previous 
enactments, the Christian emperors seem to have done 
little to guard the life of the slave. Whilst it was 
provided that any master who applied to his slave certain 
atrocious tortures with the object of killing him should 
be deemed a manslayer, it was emphatically said that no 
charge whatever should be brought against him if the slave 
died under moderate punishment, or under any punish- 
ment not inflicted with the intention of killing him.*^ 
Arcadius and Honorius even passed a law refusing pro- 
tection to a slave who should fly to a church for refuge 
from his master ; ® but this law was, in the West, followed 
by regulations of an opposite character.'* The barbarian 
invasions certainly did not improve the condition of slaves, 
and in Teutonic countries it was only by slow degrees that 
the introduction and spread of a higher civilisation exer- 
cised its humanising influence on the relation between 
master and slave. The Visigothic Code prohibited a 
person from killing any of his slaves who had committed 
no offence.^ According to the Capitularia, the master had 
to pay a penalty for causing the death of a guiltless slave, 
provided that he died at once ; but if he survived the 
injury only a day or two, the master was not punishable 
for his deed, because the slave was his ■pecunia^ In a later 
period any intentional killing of an innocent slave was 
punished by law, but the law probably remained a dead 
letter. In the thirteenth century Beaumanoir, the French 
jurisconsult, could write: — “Plus cortoise est nostre 
coustume envers les sers que en autre pais, car li segneur 
poent penre de lor sers, et a mort et a vie, toutes les fois 

^ Codex Theodosianus, ix. 12. i. Capitulariay vi. ir (Georgisch, 

® Ibid. ix. 12. Lecky, History of Corpus Juris Germanici antiqui^ col. 
European Morals ii. 62 sq. I 5 I 3 )« This law is borrowed from 

* Codex TheodosianuSf ix. 45. 3. Exodus^ xxi. 20 sq. 

^ Babington, TAe Influence of Chris- ^ Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthii- 
tianity in promoting the Abolition of mer^ p. 344 sq. Cf Potgiesser, Corn- 
Slavery in Europe s p. 37. Biot, De muntarii juris Germanici de statu 
V abolition de Vesclavage ancien en servorum veteri perinde atqve novo^ ii. 
Occident, p. 239. 1. lo, 13, 24; iii. 6 (pp. 308, 309, 31 1, 

^ Lex Wisigothorutn, vi. 5, 12. 312, 321, 633 sqq.). 

qu’il lor plest, et tant qu’il lor plet.” ^ Nay, even in quite 
modern times, in Christian countries, v/here negro slavery 
prevailed as a recognised institution, the life of the slave 
was only inadequately protected by their laws. 

In most of the British colonies, it was only by force of 
comparatively recent acts, made for the most part subse- 
quent to the year 1797, that the same punishment was 
prescribed for the murder of a slave as for the murder of 
a free person. Prior to this period the former crime was 
subject only to a small pecuniary penalty, in Barbados not 
exceeding £iS-“ French colonies, according to the 

Code Noir, a master who killed his slave should be punished 
“ selon I’atrocit^ des circonstances.” ® In all the North 
American Slave-States there was a time when the murder 
of a slave, whether by his master or a third person, was 
atoned for by a fine. In South Carolina this was the 
case as late as 1821, and only since then the wilful, 
malicious, and premeditated killing of a slave, by 
whomsoever perpetrated, was a capital offence in all 
the slave-holding States.'* But this does not mean that no 
distinction was made between the killing of a slave and 
the killing of a freeman. In South Carolina, according 
to an enactment of 1821, he who killed a slave on a 
sudden heat or passion was punished simply with a fine of 
five hundred dollars and imprisonment not exceeding six 
months.'* In the Statutes of Tennessee the law referring 
to the wilful murder of a slave contained the provision 
that it should not be extended to “ any person killing any 
slave in the act of resistance to his lawful owner or master, 
or any slave dying under moderate correction and a 
very similar provision was made by the laws of Georgia.'^ 
In other words, a correction causing the death of the victim 

^ Beaiimanoir, Les couttwies du Stroud, Laws relating to Slavery in the 
Beauvoisis, xlv. 36, vol. ii. p. 237. United States of America ^ p. 5S ^. 

^ Stephen, Slavery of the British ® Stroud, d?/. «/. p. 64. 

West India Colonies delineated f\. if ® Caruthers and Nicholson, Corn' 

^ Code Noir, fidit donne au mois de pilation of the Statutes of Tennessee, 
Mars 1724, art. 39, p. 304. P- 677. 

** Digest of the Public Statute Prince, Digest of the Laws of the 

Laiv of South Carolina, ii. 240 sq. State of Georgia, p. 787. 

THE KILLING OF SLAVES 

was not necessarily immoderate in the eye of the law. In 
a still higher degree the life of the slave was endangered 
by another law, which prevailed universally both in the 
Slave-States and in the British Colonies. Neither a slave, 
nor a free Negro, nor any descendant of a native of Africa 
whatever might be the shade of his complexion, could be 
a witness against a white person, either in a civil or criminal 
case.^ This law placed the slave, who was seldom within 
the view of more than one white man at a time, entirely at 
the mercy of this individual, and its consequences were 
obvious. Speaking of slavery in the United States in 
1853, Mr. Goodell remarks ; — “Upon the most diligent 
inquiry and public challenge, for fifteen or twenty years 
past, not one single case has yet been ascertained in which, 
either during that time or previously, a master killing his 
slave, or indeed any other white man, has suffered the 
penalty of death for the murder of a slave.” Neverthe- 
less, murders of slaves by white men had been notoriously 
frequent.^ 

That the life of a slave is held in so little regard is due 
to that want of sympathy with his fate which accounts also 
for his unfree condition, and to the proprietary rights over 
him which, in consequence, have been granted to his master. 
For similar reasons the killing of a freeman by a slave, 
especially if the victim be his owner, is commonly punished 
more severely than if the same act were done by a free 
person. The less the sympathy felt for an individual, the 
more intense is the resentment which he excites by offensive 
behaviour. According to the Chinese Penal Code, a slave 
who designedly kills, or strikes so as to kill, his master, 
shall suffer death “ by a slow and painful execution.” ® 
Plato says that, if a slave voluntarily murders a freeman, 

^ Brevard, op> clt. ii. 242. Stroud, flight throw light on the evidence of 
of>. cit, p. 106 sq, Steplien, Slaifery of other witne.sses ( Code No/r, Edit du 
the British I Vest India Cokmics, i. 166, mois de Mars 1685, art. 30, p. 44). 

174. In the French Colonies, also, Coodell, American Stave Code in 

slave.s could not be legal witnesses, but Theory and Practice^ p. 209 sq. 
their testimony might be lieard by the ^ Ta 'J'sing Leu Lee^ sec. ceexiv. p. 
judge, merely to serve as a suggestion, 338. 
or unauthenticated information, which 

THE INFLUENCE OF CLASS chap. 

the public executioner shall lead him in the direction of 
the sepulchre of the dead man, to a place whence he can see 
the tomb, and after inflicting upon him as many stripes as 
the complainant shall order, put the murderer, if he survives 
the scourging, to death.^ Though the slave has committed 
the act in a fit of passion, the relatives of the deceased 
shall nevertheless be under an obligation to kill him, and 
this may be done in any manner they please ; * nay, even 
in self-defence a slave is not allowed to kill a freeman, any 
more than a son is allowed to kill his father.® At Rome, 
also, a slave was more heavily punished for the commission 
of homicide than a freeman.^ Says the ancient jurist, 
“ Maiores nostri in omni supplicio severius servos quam 
liberos famosos quam integrae famae homines punierunt.” ® 

In the estimate of life a distinction is made not only 
between freemen and slaves, but between different classes 
of freemen. Among certain peoples a person who kills a 
chief is punished with death, though murder is not gene- 
rally a capital offence.* Where the system of compensation 
prevails, the blood-price very frequently varies according 
to the station or rank of the victim.'^ Among the Rejangs 
of Sumatra the compensation for the murder of a superior 
chief is five hundred dollars, for that of an inferior chief 
two hundred and fifty dollars ; for that of a common 
person, man or boy, eighty dollars ; for that of a common 
person, woman or girl, one hundred and fifty dollars ; for 
the legitimate child or wife of a superior chief, two hun- 
dred and fifty dollars.® The body of every Ossetian has 

^ Plato, Leges^ ix. 872. 

2 Ibid, ix. 868. 

® Ibid. ix. 869. 

^ Mommsen, Romisches Strafrechty 
p. 631 sq. 

* Digesta, xlviii. 19. 28. 16. 

^ Woodthorpe, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 
XX vi. 21 (Shans). Shooter, Kajfirs of 
Nataly p. 103. 

^ Maclean, Compendium of Kafir 
Laws and Customs y p. 144. Casalis, 
BasutoSy p. 225. Ellis, TshLspeaking 
Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 301. 

Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studieny pp. 
242 sq. (Marea), 314 (Beni Amer). 
Forbes, A Naha-alisP s Wanderings in 
the Eastern Archipelago y p. 145 (Lam- 
pongers of Sumatra). Modigliani, Vi- 
aggio a Niasy p. 494. Richardson, Arc^ 
tic Searching Expeditiony i. 386 ( Kut- 
chin). Gibbs, loc cit. p. 190 (Indians 
of' Western Washington and North- 
western Oregon). Paget, Hungary and 
Transylvaniay ii. 41 1 n. (Hungarians). 

® Crawfurd, History of the Indian 
ArchipelagOy \\\. 1 12. 

THE INFLUENCE OF CLASS 

a settled value in the eyes of the judges, which seems to 
be fixed by public opinion ; thus the father of a family 
bears a higher value than an unmarried man, and a noble 
is rated at twice as much as an ordinary freemand In 
Eastern Tibet the murderer of a man of the upper class 
is fined 120 bricks of tea, the murderer of a middle-class 
man only 80, and so on down through the social scale, the 
life of a beggar being valued at a nominal amount only ; 
but if the victim was a lama, the murderer has to pay a 
much higher price, possibly 300 bricksd According to 
the doctrine of modern Buddhism, “ when the life of a 
man is taken, the demerit increases in proportion to the 
merit of the person slain.” ® The Laws of the Brets and 
Scots estimated the life of the king of Scots at a thousand 
cows ; that of an earl’s son, or a thane, at a hundred 
cows ; that of a villein, at sixteen cows.^ A similar 
system prevailed among the Celtic peoples generally,® as 
also among the Teutons. A man’s wergeld, or life-price, 
varied according to his rank, birth, or office ; and so 
minutely was it graduated, that a great part of many 
Teutonic laws was taken up by provisions fixing its 
amount in different cases.'' In English laws of the Norman 
age the wer of a villanus is still only reckoned at j^4, 
whilst that of the homo plene nobilis is ^^25.^ 

The magnitude of the crime, however, may depend not 
only on the rank of the victim, but on the rank of the 
manslayer as well.’' Among the Philippine Islanders, 
“ murder committed by a slave was punished with death 
— committed by a person of rank, was indemnified by 

^ von Haxthaiisen, Transcaucasia^ 
p. 409. Kovalewsky, Couturne coitteni’ 
poraine, p. 355 sqq. 

^ Rockhill, Land of the LamaSy p. 
221. 

^ Hardy, Mamial of Budhismy p. 

478. 

^ Innes, Scotland in the Middle AgeSy 
p.'iSoj^. 

^ Ancient Laws of Ireland y iii. 103, 
&c. Skene, Celtic Scotlandy iii. 152. 
de Valroger, Les CelteSy p. 471. 

® Grimnj, Deutsche Rechtsalterthu- 

mery pp. 272-275, 289. Brunner, 
Deutsche RechisgeschichtCy i, 104, 105, 
107, 108, 224, 247 sqq, Kemble, 
Saxons in Englandy i. 276 sqq. 

^ Leges Henrici I. Ixx. i ; Ixxvi. 4. 
CfLaws of William the Conqueror y i. 8. 

® These two principles do not always 
go together. Among the Rejangs the 
amount of the blood-money is not pro- 
portioned to the rank and ability of the 
murderer, but regulated only by the 
quality of the person murdered (Mars- 
den, op. cit. p. 246). 

THE INFLUENCE OF CLASS 

payments to the injured family.” ^ In Fijian estimation, 
says Mr. Williams, offences “ are light or grave according 
to the rank of the offender. Murder by a chief is less 
heinous than a petty larceny committed by a man of low 
rank.” ^ Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave 
Coast, “ in cases of murder and manslaughter, if the homi- 
cide be of rank superior to the person killed, he pays the 
compensation demanded by the family of the latter, or, in 
default of payment, forfeits his own life. If the homi- 
cide be of equal rank with the person killed, the family 
of the deceased have the right to demand his life, though 
compensation is usually accepted ; but when he is lower 
in rank his life is nearly always forfeited.” ^ Very similar 
rules prevail among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold 
Coast."* Among the Marea, if a nobleman kills another 
nobleman, the family of the deceased generally take re- 
venge on him; whereas, if a commoner kills a nobleman, he 
is not only executed himself, but his property is confiscated 
and his nearest relatives become subject to the murdered 
man’s family.’’ According to the religious law of Brah- 
manism, the enormity of all crimes depends on the caste 
of him who commits them, and on the caste of him 
against whom they are committed.** • If a Brahmana 
slays a jBrahmana, the king shall brand him on the 
forehead with a heated iron and banish him from his 
realm, but if a man of a lower caste murders a Brahmana, 
he shall be punished with death and the confiscation of all 
his property.*” If such a person slays a man of equal or 
lower caste, other suitable punishments sliall be inflicted 
upon him.** A fine of a thousand cows is the penalty for 
slaying a Kshatriya, that of a hundred for slaying a 
Vaisya, and that of ten cows only for slaying a Sfidra.*’ 
In Rome, also, at a certain period of its history, the 

^ Bo wring, Visz^ to the Philippine dien^T^. 2^2 sq. Cf, ibid. p. 314 (Beni 
Islands, p. 123. Amer). 

2 Williams and Calvert, Pi/i, p.. 22. ' ® Hopkins, Peligums of India, p. 

3 Ellis, Eive-spcakizig Peoples, p. 223. 263. 

^ Idem, Tshi-speaking Peoples, p. ^ Baudhdyana, i. 10. 18. 18 sq. 

301. ^ Ibid. i. 10. 18. 20.^ 

® Mtinzinger, Ostafrikanische Stu- ^ Ibid, i, 10. 19. I sq. 

. XVIII 

THE INFLUENCE OF CLASS 

offence was magnified in proportion to the insignificance 
of the offender. During the Republic there was no Jaw 
sanctioning such a distinction, with reference to crimes 
comjnitted by free citizens; but from the beginning of the 
Empire, the citizens were divided into privileged classes 
and commonalty - — uterque ordo and plebs — and, whilst a 
commoner who was guilty of murder was punished with 
death, a murderer belonging to the privileged classes was 
generally punished with deportatio only.^ In the Middle 
Ages a similar privilege was granted by Italian and 
Spanish laws to manslayers of noble birtb.'^ 

In a society which is divided into different classes, 
persons belonging to a higher class are naturally apt to 
sympathise more with their equals than with their inferiors. 
An injury inflicted on one of the former tends to arouse 
in them a higher degree of sympathetic resentment than 
a similar injury inflicted on one of the latter. So, also, 
their resentment towards the criminal will, ceteris paribus, 
be more intense if he is a person of low rank than if he 
is one of themselves. Where the superior class, as was 
originally the case everywhere, are the leaders of such a 
society, their feelings will find expression in its customs 
and laws, and thus moral distinctions will arise which are 
readily recognised by the common people also, owing to 
the admiration with which they look up to those above 
them. But in a progressive society this state of things 
will not last. The different classes gradually draw nearer 
to each other. The once all-powerful class loses much of 
its exclusi.veness, as well as of its importance and influence. 
Sympathy expands. In consequence, distinctions which 
were formerly sanctioned by custom and law come to be 
regarded as unjust prerogatives, worthy only of abolition. 
And it is at last admitted that each member of the society 
is born with an equal claim to the most sacred of all 
human rights, the right to live. 

^ Mommsen, Romisekes Strafrecht^ des petiphs modernes^ ii. 402. Idefn^ 
FM’- 650, 1032 S(]q. Histoire dtc droit criniinel de PEspagne, 

Da Boys, Histoire dii droit criminel pp- 357, 359. Cf. ibid. p. 635 sq. 

VOB. I 

F

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

It Still remains for us to consider some particular cases 
in which destruction of human life is sanctioned by custom 
or law. 

Men are killed with a view to gratifying the desires of 
superhuman beings. We meet with human sacrifice in the 
past history of every so-called Aryan race.^ It occurred, 
at least occasionally, in ancient India, and several of the 
modern Hindu sects practised it even in the last cen- 
tury.^ There are numerous indications that it was known 
among the early Greeks.® At certain times it prevailed in 
the Hellenic cult of Zeus ; ■* indeed, in the second century 
after Christ men seem still to have been sacrificed to 
Zeus Lycaeus in Arcadia.® To the historic age likewise 
belongs the sacrifice of the three Persian prisoners of 
war whom Themistocles was compelled to slay before the 
battle of Salamis.® In Rome, also, human sacrifices, though 

^ See Mehn, JVan^erings of Plants Northern India, ii. 167 Chever.s, 

and Animals from their First Home, Manual of Medical Jtirisp 7 'ndence for 
p. sqq. '' India, p. 396 sqq. 

2 Weber, Indisc he Streifen, i. 54 ® See Geusius, Viciima HnmancB, 

sqq. Wilson, ‘Human Sacrifices in passim; von Lasaulx, Suhnofper der 

the Ancient Religion of India,’ in Griechen tmd Romer, passim ; Farnell, 

Works, ii. 247 sqq. Oldenberg, Re- Cults of the Greek States, i. 41 sq.; 

ligion des Veda, p. 363 sqq. Barth, Stengel, Die griechischen Kultusalter-! 

Religfons of htdia, p. 57 sqq. Monier tu?ner, p. 1145^^. 

Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism, ^ Cf Farnell, op. cit. i. 93 ; Stengel, 

p. 24. Hopkins, Religions of India, op. cit. p. 116. 

pp. 198, 363. Rajendralila Mitra, ® Pausanias, viii. 38. 7. 

Indo- Aryans, ii. 69 sqq. Crooke, ** V\\\Xz.Ys\i, Themistocles, 13. 

Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of 

CH, XIX 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

exceptional, were not unknown in historic times 3 Pliny 
records that in the year 97 b.c. a decree forbidding such 
sacrifices was passed by the Roman Senate,® and after- 
wards the emperor Hadrian found it necessary to renew 
this prohibition.® Porphyry asks, “Who does not know 
that to this day, in the great city of Rome, at the festival of 
Jupiter Latiaris, they cut the throat of a man?”^ And 
Tertullian states that in North Africa, even to the procon- 
sulship of Tiberius, infants were publicly sacrificed to 
Saturn.® Human sacrifices were offered by Celts,® Teu- 
tons,^ and Slavs ; ® by the ancient Semites ® and Egyp- 
tians ; by the Japanese in early days ; “ and, in the New 
World, by the Mayas and, to a frightful extent, by the 
Aztecs. “ Scarcely any author,” says Prescott in his 
‘ History of the Conquest of Mexico,’ “ pretends to estimate 
the yearly sacrifices throughout the empire at less than 
twenty thousand, and some carry the number as high 
as fifty thousand.” The same practice is imputed by 
Spanish writers to the Incas of Peru, and probably not 
without good reason. Before their rule, at all events, it 

^ Ideniy Quesiiones Romaiia;, 83. See 
Landau, in Atn Ur^Qmll^ iii. 1892, p, 
283 sqq, 

Pliny, Historia naturalise xxx. 3. 

3 Porphyry, De abstinentia ab esu 
animaliume ii. 56. 

^ Ibid. \\, 56. 

^ Tertullian, ApologeticuSy 9 (Migne, 
PatrologicB cursus^ i. 314). 

® Caesar, De hello gallicoy vi. 16. 
Tacitus, Afinalesy xiv. 30. Diodorus 
Siculus, Bibliothecae v. 31, p. 354. 
Pliny, Historia naturalis, xxx. 4. 
Strabo, iv. 5, p. 198. Joyce, Social 
History of Ancient Ireland y i. 281 sqq. 

^ Tacitus, Germania y 9. Adam of 
Bremen, Gesta Hammciburgensis ec- 
clesicE pontificuuiy iv. 27 (Migne, op. cit, 
cxlvi. 644). Grimm, Teutonic Myth- 
ology, i. 44 sqq. Vigfusson and 
Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, i, 
409 sq. Frey tag, ‘ Riesen jund Men- 
sclienopfer in unsern Sagen und 
Marchen,’ in Am Ur- Quell y i. 1890, 

pp. 179-183. 197 m- 

® Mone, Geschichte des nordtschen 
HeidenthumSy i. 119, quoted by Frazer, 

Golden Bough y ii. 52. Krauss, in Am 
Ur-Quelly vi. 1896, p. 137 sqq. 
(Servians). 

® Ghillany, Die Menschenopfer der 
alten Hebrdery passi?n. Robertson 
Smith, Religion of the Se 7 niteSy p. 362 
sqq. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen 
Heidentumsy p. 115 sq. von Kremer, 
Studien zur vergleichetiden Cultur- 
geschichtey i. 42 sqq. Chwolsohn, 
Die Ssabier tmd der Ssabismus, ii. 147 
sqq. 

Amelineau, V Evolution des idt*es 
mof'ales dans VAg^pte AnciennCy p. 12. 

Griflis, Religions of JapaUy p. 75. 
Lippert, Seelencult, p. 79. 

Bancroft, Native Races of the 
Pcuific States y ii. 704, 725. 

Prescott, History of the Conquest 
of MexicOy p. 38. Cf, Clavigero, 
History of Mexico y i. 281 ; Acosta, 
Natural and Moral History of the 
Indies y ii. 346. 

Acosta, op. cit. ii. 344. de Molina, 
‘Fables and Rites of the Yncas,’ in 
Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the 
Yncasy pp. 55, 56^ 59. According to 

F F 2 

was of frequent occurrence among the Peruvian Indians.^ 
It also prevailed, or still prevails, among the Caribs “ and 
some North American tribes;^, in various South Sea 
islands, especially Tahiti and Fiji ; * among certain tribes in 
the Malay Archipelago ; among several of the aboriginal 
tribes of India ; ® and very commonly in Africa. 

LFrom this enumeration it appears that the practice of 
human sacrifice cannot be regarded as a characteristic of 
savage races. On the contrary, it is found much more 

Cieza (le Leon {Segtuida parte de la 
CrSnica del Peni^ p. lOo), the practice 
of human sacrifice has been much ex- 
aggerated hy Spanish writers, but he 
does not deny its existence among the 
Incas ; nay, he gives an account of 
such sacrifices {djld, p. log syy,). Sir 
Clements Markham seems to attach 
undue importance to the statement of 
Garcilasso de la Vega that human 
victims were never sacrificed by the 
Incas {First Part of the Royal Com- 
mentaries of the Yncasy\. 130, 131, 139 
n. t)- Cf Prescott, History of the 
Conquest of Peru^ p. 50 sq. n. 3. 

^ Garcilas.so de la Vega, of. cit. i. 50, 
130. 

^ Muller, Geschichte der Amerika- 
nischen Urreligioneny p. 212 sq. 

Ibid. p. ijgzsqq. Reville, Rclii^ions 
des peuples non-ciz>ilisis, i. 249 sq. 
Dorman, Origin of Primitive Sttper- 
stitions^ p. 208 sqq. 

■* Schneider, Nattimjblhery i. 191 sq, 
Fornander, Account of the Polynesian 
Race., i. 129. Ellis, Polynesian Re- 
searches, i. 106, 346-348, 357 (Society 
Islanders). Williams, Missionary 
Enterprises in the South Sea Islazids, 
p. 548 sq. (especially the Hervey 
Islanders and Tahitians), von Kotzebue, 
Voyac^e of Discovery, iii, 248 (Sandwich 
Islanders). Lisiansky, Voyage round 
the World, pp. 8 1 sq. (Nukahivans), 
120 (Sandwich Islanders). Gill, Myths 
and Songs from the South Pacific, p. 289 
(Mangaians). Williamsand Calvert, 
Fiji, pp. 188, 195 ; Wilkes, Narrative 
of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, iii. 
97 ; Hale, U. S. Exploring Expedition, 
Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology, 
p. 57 (Fijians). Codrington, Mela- 
nesians, p. 1 34 sqq. 

^ Idng Roth, Natives of Sarawak 
and British North Borneo, ii. 215 sqq. 
Bock, Head-Hunters of Borneo, p. 218 
sq. (Dyaks). 

^ Woodthorpe, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 
xxvi. 24 (Shans, c^c.). Colqulioun, 
Amongst the Shans, p. 152 (Steins 
inhabiting the south-east of Indo* 
China). Lewin, Wild Races of South- 
Eastern India, 244 (J^inkhos and 
Bunjogees). God win- Austen, m Jour. 
Anthr. Inst. ii. 394 (Garo hill tril)cs). 
Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of 
Bengpal, pp. 147 (Bhuiyas), 176 
(Bhumij), 281 (Gonds), 285 sqij, 
(Kandhs). Hislop, Aboriginal I'ribes 
of the Central Provinces, p. 15 sq. 
(Gonds). Maepherson, Memorials of 
Sef'vice in India, p. 113 sqq. \ Camp- 
bell, Wild Tribes of Khondistan, 
passim (Kandhs). 

^ Schneider, Religion der afrika- 
nischen Natjcnjolker, p. 118. Reade, 
Savage Africa, p. 52 (Dahomans, &c. ). 
bang Roth, Great Benin, p. 63 sqq. 
Ellis, Ezhe-speaking Peoples of the Slave 
Coast, p. 1 17 sqq. Idem, Yoruba- 
speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, 
p. 296. Idem, 'Ps hi- speaking Peoples 
of the Gold Coast, p. 169 sqq. Cruick- 
shank, Eighteen Years on the Gold 
Coast, ii. 173. vSehoen and Crowther, 
Expedition ztp the Niger, p. 48 sq. 
(Ibos). Arnot, Garenganze, p. 75 
(Barotse). Arbous.set and Daumas, 
Exploratory Tour to the North-East of 
the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, 
p. 97 (Marimos, a Bechuana tribe). 
Macdonald, Africana, i. 963-^. (Eastern 
Central Africans). ElHs, History of 
Madagascar, i. 422 ; Sibree, The Great 
African Island, p. 303 (Malagasy;. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

frequently among barbarians and semi- civilised peoples 
than among genuine savages, and at the lowest stages of 
culture known to us it is hardly heard of.^ Among some 
peoples the practice has been noticed to become increasingly 
prevalent in the course of time. In the Society Islands 
“ human sacrifices, we are informed by the natives, are 
comparatively of modern institution : they were not 
admitted until a few generations antecedent to the dis- 
covery of the Islands ” ; ^ and in ancient legends there 
seem to be certain indications that they were once pro- 
hibited in Polynesia.'^ /In India human sacrifices were 
apparently much rarer among the Vedic people than 
among the Brahmanists of a later age.® We are told that 
such sacrifices were adopted by the Aztecs only in the 
beginning of the fourteenth century, about two hundred 
years before the conquest, and that, “ rare at first, they be- 
canie more frequent with the wider extent of their empire ; 
till, at length, almost every festival was closed with this 
cruel abomination.” Of the Africans Mr. Winwood 
Reade remarks, “ The more powerful the nation the 
grander the sacrifice.” 

Men offer up human victims to their gods because they 
think that the gods are gratified by such offerings. In 
many cases the gods are supposed to have an appetite for 
human flesh or blood.'* The Fijian gods are described as 
“delighting in human flesh.”" Among the Ooryahs of 
India the priest, when offering a human sacrifice to the 
war-god Manicksoro, said to the god, “ The sacrifice we 
now offer you must eat.”® Among the Iroquois, when an 
enemy was tortured at the stake, the savage executioners 
leaped around him crying, “To thee, Arieskoi, great 
spirit, we slay this victim, that thou mayest eat his flesh 
and be moved thereby to give us henceforth luck and 

^ ILWiSy Polynesian Researches P\. io6. Schneider, Naturvolker^ i. 190. 

Fornander, op. cit. i. 129.* ^ Williams and Calvert, op. cit. p. 

^ Wilson, IVorks, ii. 268 S(/. 195. 

Prescott, History of the Conquest ** Campbell, IVild Tribes of Khan- 
of Mexico., p. 36. distanf p. 21 1. Cf Maepherson, 

Reade, Savage Africa., p. 52. Memorials of Sendee in India., p. 120 

^ See Lippert, Seelencult, p. 77 sqq. ; (Kandhs). 

victory over our foes.”* Among the ancient nations of 
Central America the blood and heart of the human 
victims offered in sacrifice were counted the peculiar 
portion of the gods.* Thus, in Mexico, the high priest, 
after cutting open the victim’s breast, tore forth the yet 
palpitating heart, offered it first to the sun, threw it then 
at the feet of the idol, and finally burned it ; sometimes 
the heart was placed in the mouth of the idol with a 
golden spoon, and its lips were anointed with the victim’s 
blood.® 

But the human victim is not always, as has been 
erroneously supposed,* intended to serve the god as a food- 
offering. The Tshi- speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, 
as Major Ellis observes, maintain that their gods require 
not only food, but attendants ; “ the ghosts of the human 
victims sacrificed to them are believed to pass at once into a 
condition of ghostly servitude to them, just as those sacri- 
ficed at the funerals of chiefs are believed to pass into a 
ghostly attendance.” Cieza de Leon mentions the pre- 
valence of a similar belief among the ancient Peruvians. 
At the hill of Guanacaure, “ on certain days they sacrificed 
men and women, to whom, before they were put to death, 
the priest addressed a discourse, explaining to them that 
they were going to serve that god who was being 
worshipped.” ® 

Moreover, an angry god may be appeased simply by the 
death of him or those who aroused his anger, or of some 
representative of the offending community, or of some- 
body belonging to the kin of the offender. Among the 
E'^e-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, “ in the case of 
human victims the gods are not believed to devour the 

^ Muller, Geschichte der Amerika- 
nischen Urreligionen^ p. 142. 

» Bancroft, cit. ii. 307, 310, 31 1, 

707 m* , . 

* Clavigero, op, ctf. 1. 279. 

^ R^ville, Hibbert Lectures on the 
Native Religions of Mexico and Peru,, 
P* 75 J?* Idem,, Prolegomena of the 
History of Religions^ p. 132. yrum- 

bull, Blood Covenant i p. 189. Stein- 
metz, Endokannibalismus ^ p. 60, n. i- 
Schrader, Reallexikon der iftdogerma- 
fiischen AUertumskunde^t p. 603. 

® Ellis, Tshi-speakmg Peoples of the 
Gold Coast y p. 169, 

® Cieza de Leon, Segiinda parte de 
la CrSnica del Per^^ '^p. 109. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

souls ; and as these souls are, by the majority of the 
natives, believed to proceed to Dead-land like all others, 
the object of human sacrifice seems to be to gratify or 
satiate the malignancy of the gods at the expense of chosen 
individuals, instead of leaving it to chance — the victims 
are in fact slain for the benefit of the community at 
large.” ^ One reason why the human victims are so 
frequently criminals, is no doubt the intention of appeasing 
the god by offering up to him an individual who is 
hateful to him. The Sandwich Islanders “ sacrifice culprits 
to their gods, as we sacrifice them in Europe to justice.”^ 
Among the Teutons the execution of a criminal was, in 
many cases at least, a sacrifice to the god whose peculiar 
cult had been offended by the crime.® Thus the Frisian 
law describes as an immolation to the god the punishment 
of one who violates his temple.^ In ancient Rome the 
corn thief, if he was an adult, was hanged as an offering 
to Ceres and Ovid tells us that a priestess of Vesta who 
had been false to her vows of chastity was sacrificed by 
being buried alive in the earth, Vesta and Tellus being the 
same deity.** In consequence of the sacrilege of Menalip- 
pus and Comaetho, who had polluted a temple of Artemis 
by their amours, the Pythian priestess ordained that the 
guilty pair should be sacrificed to the goddess, and that, 
besides, the people should every year sacrifice to her a 
youth and a maiden, the fairest of their sex." The 
Hebrew cherem^ or ban, was originally applied to male- 
factors and other enemies of Jahveh, and sometimes also 
to their possessions. “ Cherem^' says Professor Kuenen, “ is 
properly dedication to Jahveh, which in reality amounted 
to destruction or annihilation. The persons who were 

^ Ellis, Ewe-speaking Peoples of ihe 
Slave Coast f p. 119. 

2 von Kotzebue, op, cit, iii. 248. Cf, 
Lisiansky, op. cit, 120. 

^ von Amira, in Paul’s Grundriss der 
germanischen Philologie^ ii. pt. ii. 1 77. 
Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte^ ii. 
587, 684 sq, Vigfusson and Powell, 

op. cit. i. 410. Gummere, Germanic 
Origins f p. 463. 

Lex Frisionum^ Additio sapien- 
tium, 12. 

® Granger^ Worship of the Ronians, 
p. 260. 

® Ovid, Fasti, vi. 457 sq, Cf. Momm- 
sen, Romisches Strafrecht, p< 902. 

^ Pausanias, vii. 19. 4. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

‘dedicated/ generally by a solemn vow, to Jahveh, were 
put to death, frequently by fire, whereby the resemblance 
to an ordinary burnt- offering was rendered still more 
apparent ; their dwellings and ^property were also con- 
sumed by fire ; their lands were left uncultivated for ever. 
Such punishments were very common in the ancient world. 
But in Israel, as elsewhere, they were at the same time 
religious acts/’ ^ The sacrifice of offenders has, in fact, 
survived in the Christian world, since every execution 
performed for the purpose of appeasing an offended and 
angry god may be justly called a sacrifice. 

yt is impossible to discover in every special case in what 
respect the worshippers believe the offering of a fellow- 
creature to be gratifying to the deity. Probably they 
have not always definite views on the subject themselves. 
They know, or believe, that, on some certain occasion, 
they are in danger of losing their lives ; they attribute 
this to the designs of a supernatural being ; and, by 
sacrificing a man, they hope to gratify that being's craving 
for human life, and thereby avert the danger from them- 
selves. That this principle mainly underlies the practice 
of human sacrifice appears from the circumstances in 
which such sacrifices generally occur. ^ 

Human victims are often offered in war, before a battle, 
or during a siege. 

Cxsar wrote of the Gauls, “ 'Fhey who are engaged in battles 
and dangers either sacrifice men as victims, or vow that they 
will sacrifice them . . . ; because they think that unless the 
life of a man be offered for the life of a man, the mind of 
the immortal gods cannot be rendered propitious.” ^ The 
Lusitanians sacrificed a man and a horse at the commencement 
of a military enterprise."^ Before going to war, or before the 
beginning of a battle, or during a siege, the Greeks offered a 
human victim to ensure victory.^ When hard-pressed in battle, 

^ Kuenen, Religio 72 of Isf’ael, i. 29(0 ^ Csesar, De hello gallico^ vi. 16. 

sq. K T.ivy, Zipitonic^ 49. 

See siipra^ p. 197 sq. For various Pausanias, iv. 9. 4 sqq. ; ix. 17. i. 

instances of expiatory human sacrifice, Plutarch, The/nlstoeles, 13. Idern^ 
involving vicarious atonement, see Arisiides, 9. Ideni^ Pefopidas, 21 sq, 
supra, p. 66 sq. Lycurgiis, Oratio in Leocratem,{c\\. 24) 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

the King of Moab sacrificed his eldest son as a burnt offering on 
the wall.^ In times of great calamities, such as war, the 
Phenicians sacrificed some of their dearest friends, who were 
selected by votes for this purpose/^ During a battle with king 
Gelo of Syracuse, the general Hamilcar sacrificed innumerable 
human victims, from dawn to sunset ; ^ and when Carthage 
was reduced to the last extremities, the noble families were 
compelled to give up two hundred of their sons to be offered to 
Haal.^ In Hindu scriptures and traditions success in war is 
promised to him who offers a man in sacrifice.'’ In Jeypore 
the blood-red god of battle ” is propitiated by human victims.. 
Thus, on the eve of a battle, or when a new fort, or even an 
important village is to be built, or when danger of any kind is 
to be averted, this sanguinary being must be propitiated with 
human blood.” ^ In Great Benin human blood was shed in a 
case of common danger when an enemy was at the gate of the 
city.^ The Yorubas sacrifice men in times of national need.® 
Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast, such 
sacrifices arc ordinarily only made in time of war, pestilence, 
or great calamity,” The Tahitians offered human sacrifices 
in seasons of war, or when war was in agitation.^^ 

After a victory, captured enemies are sacrificed to the god to 
whose assistance the success is ascribed. I'his sacrifice has been 
represented as a thank-offering but, in many cases at least, it 
seems to be offered either to fulfil a vow previously made, or to 
induce the god to continue his favours for the future. Among 
the Kayans of Borneo it is the custom that, when captives are 
brought to an enemy’s country, ‘‘one should suffer death, to bring 
prosperity and abolish the curse of the enemy in their lands. 

CHuman sacrifices are offered for the purpose of stopping 

or preventing epidemics. ^ 

99. Apollodorus, BihliotheA'a^ iii. 15. 
4. Porphyry, l)e abstiuenlia ob esii 
aniuialhifn ^ ii. 56, Geusius, of>. cit. i. 
ch. 16 sq. Stengel, op. cit. }>. 115 

^ 2 Kiijgs^ iii. 27. 

Porphyry, op. cit. ii. 56. 

^ Herodotus, vii. 167. 

Diodorus Siculus, xx. 14. 

^ Chevers, op. cit. p. 39^. 

Campbell, Wild Tribes of Khou- 
distan^ p. 52. 

^ Ling Roth, Great Benin, p. 72. 
Ellis, Yornba-speaking J^eoples of 
the Slave Coast, p. 296. 

^ Idem, Eiue- speaking Peoples of the 
Slave Coast, p. 117. 

Ellis, Polynesian Researches , i. 276 
346. 

" Diodorus Siculus, xx. 65 (Cartha- 
ginians), de Molina, loc. cit. p. 59 
(Incas) ; &c. 

Ellis, y'shi-speaking Peoples,^. 170. 
Cruickshank, op. cit. ii. 173. Dubois, 
Chaiacter, Planners, and Cnstoins of 
the People of India, p. 488. Jordanes, 
JM originc actibusque Getarinn, 5 (41). 
Cf Jepl it hall’s vow {fudges, xi. 30 ). 

Brooke, 7 'en Years in Sarawak, 
ii. 304 IV/. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

The Phenicians sacrificed some of their dearest friends,’^ 
not only in war, but in times of pestilence.^ In similar circum- 
stances the ancient Greeks had recourse to human sacrifices.^ 
In seasons of great peril, as when a pestilence was raging, the 
ancient Italians made a vow that they would sacrifice every 
living being that should be born in the following spring.^ In 
West Gothland, in Sweden, the people decreed a human 
sacrifice to stay the digerddd^ or Plague, hence two beggar 
children, having just then come in, were buried alive.^ In Fur, 
in Denmark, there is a tradition that, for the same purpose, a 
child was interred alive in the burial ground.^ Among the 
Chukchi, in 1814, when a sudden and violent disease had 
broken out and carried off both men and reindeer, the Shamans, 
after having had recourse in vain to their usual conjurations, 
determined that one of the most respected chiefs must be sacri- 
ficed to appease the irritated spirits.® In Great Benin, ‘‘when 
the doctors declared a man had died owing to Ogiwo, if they 
think an epidemic imminent, they can tell Overami [the king] 
that Ogiwo vex. Then he can take a man and a woman, all 
the town can fire guns and beat drums. I'he man and woman 
are brought out, and the head Jujuman can make this prayer : 
‘ Oh, Ogiwo, you are very big man > don’t let any sickness come 
for Ado. Make all farm good, and every woman born man 
son.’ ” ^ In the same country twelve men, besides various 
animals, were offered yearly on the anniversary of the death 
of Adolo, king Overami’s father. King Overami, calling 
his father loudly by name, spoke as follows : “ Oh, Adolo, 
our father, look after all Ado [that is. Great Benin], don’t 
let any sickness come to us, look after me and my people, 
our slaves, cows, goats, and fowls, and everything in the 
farms.” 8 

[The sacrifice of human victims is resorted to as a 
method of putting an end to a devastating famine, i 

^ Porphyry, (?/, cit, ii. 56. 

2 Geusius, op, cit, i. ch. 13. Stengel, 
op, cit. p. 1 1 6. Frazer, Golden Bough y 
hi. 125 sq, 

* Festus, De verborum signification ey 
‘ Ver sacrum,’ Muller’s edition, p. 379. 
Nonius Marcellus, De proprietaie ser- 
monisy ‘ Versacruin,’ p. 522. Sefvius, 
In Virgilii AineidoSy vii. 796. 

Afzelius, Swenska Folkets Sago- 
Hdpdery iv. 181. 

® Nyrop, Romanske Mosaiker, p. 69, 

n. I, 

^ von Wrangell, Expedition to the 
Polar Seay p. 1 22 sq, 

^ Moor and Roupell, quoted by 
Read and Dalton, Antiquities fro 7 H 
the City of BemUy p. 7 ; also by Ling 
Roth, Great Benin y p. 71 
® Moor and Roupell, quoted by Ling 
Roth, op, cit. p. 70 sq, ; also by Read 
and Dalton, <?/. cit, p. 6. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

Instances of this practice are reported to have occurred among 
the ancient Greeks ^ and Phenicians.^ In a grievous famine, 
after other great sacrifices, of oxen and of men, had proved 
unavailing, the Swedes offered up their own king Domaldi.^ 
Chinese annals tell us that there was a great drought and 
famine for seven years after the accession of T^ang, the 
noble and pious man who had overthrown the dynasty of Shang. 
It was then suggested at last by some one that a human victim 
should be offered in sacrifice to Heaven, and prayer be made for 
rain, to which T^ang replied, If a man must be the victim, I 
will be he.” ^ Up to quite recent times, the priests of Lower 
Bengal have, in seasons of scarcity, offered up children to Siva ; 
in the years 1865 and 1866, for instance, recourse was had to 
such sacrifices in order to avert famine.^ 

For people subsisting on agriculture a failure of crops 
means starvation and death, ^ and is, consequently, attri- 
buted to the murderous designs of a superhuman being, 
such as the earth-spirit, the morning star, the sun, or the 
rain-god. { By sacrificing to that being a man, they hope 
to appease its thirst for human blood ; and whilst some 
resort to such a sacrifice only in case of actual famine, 
others try to prevent famine by making the offering in 
advance.^ \[This I take to be the true explanation of the 
custom of securing good crops by means of human 
sacrifice, of which many instances have been produced 
by Dr. Frazer.^ There are obvious links between this custom 
and that of the actual famine-sacrifice. Thus the ancient 
Peruvians sacrificed children after harvest, when they pre- 
pared to make ready the land for the next year, not every 
year, however, but ‘‘only when the weather was not good, 
and seasonable.” ® In Great Benin, “ if there is too much 

^ Pausanias, vii. 19. 3 st/. Diodorus 
Siculus, iv. 61. I Geusius, op, 

cit, i. ch. 14. 

2 Porphyry, op. cit. ii. 56. 

^ Snorri Sturluson, * Ynglingasaga,’ 
15, in Heimskrmglay i. 30, 

Legge, Religions of Ulhmay p. 54. 

® Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal , 
i. 128. ^ 

® Cf. Sleeman, Rambles anf Recollec- 
tions ^ i. 204 sqq, : — In India, un- 
favourable seasons produce much more 

disastrous consequences than in Eufope. 

. . . More than three-fourths of the 
whole population are engaged in the 
cultivation of the land, and depend 
upon its annual returns for subsistence, 

. . . Tens of thousands die here of 
starvation, under calamities of season, 
which in Europe would involve little of 
suffering to any class.’* 

7 PVazer, Golden Bought ii. 238 sqq. 

^ Herrera, op. cit. ii. iii. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

rain, then all the people would come from farm and beg 
Overami [the king] to make juju, and sacrifice to stop 
the rain. Accordingly a woman was taken, a prayer made 
over her, and a message saluting the rain god put in her 
mouth, then she was clubbed to death and put up in the 
execution tree so that the rain might see. . . . In the 
same way if there is too much sun so that there is a 
danger of the crops spoiling, Overami can sacrifice to the 
Sun God.” ^ The principle of substitution admits of a 
considerable latitude in regard to the stage of danger at 
which the offering is made ; the danger may be more 
imminent, or it may be more remote. This holds good 
of various kinds of human sacrifice, not only of such 
sacrifices as are intended to influence the crops. I am 
unable to subscribe to the hypothesis set forth by Dr. 
FVazer, that the human victim who is killed for the 
purpose of ensuring good crops is regarded as a represent- 
ative of the corn-spirit and is slain as such. So far as I 
can see. Dr. Frazer has adduced no satisfactory evidence 
in support of his hypothesis ; whereas a detailed examina- 
tion of the various cases mentioned by him indicates that 
they are closely related to human sacrifices offered on 
other occasions, and explicable from the same principle, 
that of substitution. 

best known case of luunan sacrifices, systematically 
offered to ensure good crops,” says Dr. Frazer, supplied by 
the Khonds or Kandhs.” The victims, or Meriahs, are repre- 
sented by our authorities*^ as being offered to propitiate the 
Earth goddess, Tari Pennu or Hera Pennu, but from their treat- 
ment both before and after death it appears to Dr. Frazer that 
ithe custom cannot be explained as merely a propitiatory sacri- 
fice. The flesh and the ashes of the Meriah, he observes, were 
believed to possess a magic power of fertilising the land, quite 
independent of the indirect efficacy which they might have as 
an offering to secure the goodwill of the deity. For, though a 
part of the flesh was offered to the Earth Goddess, the rest of it 

^ Moor and Roupell, quoted by Campbell, IVi/d Tribes of Kkon- 

Read and Dalton, op. c/A p, 7; also distan, Maepherson, .^Memorials of 
by Ling Roth, Great Benin, p. 71. Service in India. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

4+5 

was buried by eacli householder in his fields, and the ashes of 
the other parts of the body were scattered over the fields, laid as 
paste on the granaries, or mixed with the new corn. The same 
intrinsic power was ascribed to the blood and tears of the 
Meriah, his blood causing the redness of the turmeric and his 
tears producing rain ; and magic power as an attribute of the 
victim appears also in the sovereign virtue believed to reside in 
anything that came from liis person, as his hair or spittle. Con- 
sidering further that, according to our authorities, the Meriah 
was regarded as something more than mortal,’' or that “ a 
species of reverence, which it is not easy to distinguish from 
adoration, is paid to him,” Dr. Frazer concludes that he may 
originally have represented the Earth deity or perhaps a deity 
of vegetation, and that he only in later times came to be 
regarded rather as a victim offered to a deity than as himself 
an incarnate deity. ^ 

The premise on whicli Dr. Frazer bases his argument appears 
to me quite untenable. It is an arbitrary supposition that the 
ascription of a magical power to the Meriah ‘indicates that he 
was much more than a mere man sacrificed to propitiate a 
deity.” ^ A sacrifice is very commonly believed to be endowed 
with such a power, not as an original quality, but in conse- 
quence of its contact or communion with the supernatural being 
to which it is offered. Just as tlie Meriah of the Kandhs is 
taken round the village, from door to door, and some pluck hair 
from his head, while others beg for a drop of his spittle, so, 
among the nomadic Arabs of Morocco, at the Muhammedan 
‘‘Great Feast,” a man dressed in the bloody skin of the sheep 
which has been sacrificed on that occasion, goes from tent to 
tent, and beats each tent with his stick so as to confer blessings 
on its inhabitants. For he is now endowed with l-haraka del-^id^ 
“ the benign virtue of the feast ” ; and the same power is 
ascribed to various parts of the sacrificed sheep, which arc con- 
sequently used for magical purposes. If Dr. Frazer’s way of 
arguing were correct we should have to conclude that the 
victim was originally the god himself, or a representative of the 
god, to whom it is now offered in sacrifice. But the absurdity 
of any such inference becomes apparent at once when we 
consider that, in Morocco, every offering to a holy person, 
for instance to a deceased saint, is considered to participate 
Jn his sanctity. Wlien the saint has his feast, and animals and 
other presents are brought to his tomb, it is customary for his 
descendants — who have a right to the offerings — to distribute 
^ Frazer, op. 245 sq. ^ lbid» ii. 246. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

some flesh of the slaughtered animals among their friends, 
thereby conferring l-baraka of the saint upon those who eat it ; 
and even candles which have been offered to the saint are given 
away for the same purpose, being instinct with his baraka. 
Of course, what holds good of the Arabs in Morocco does 
not necessarily hold good of the Kandhs of Bengal ^ but it 
should be remembered that Dr. Frazer’s argument is founded on 
the notion that the ascription of a magic power to a victim 
which is offered in sacrifice to a god indicates that the victim was 
once regarded as a divine being or as the god himself ; and 
the facts I have recorded certainly prove the arbitrariness of this 
supposition. 

This is by no means the only objection which may be raised 
against Dr. Frazer’s hypothesis. In his description of the rite 
in question he has emphasised its connection with agriculture to 
a degree which is far from being justified by the accounts given 
by our authorities. Mr. Maepherson states that the human 
sacrifice to Tari Pennu was celebrated as a public oblation by 
tribes, branches of tribes, or villages, both at social festivals held 
periodically, and when special occasions demanded exceptional 
propitiations. It was celebrated ‘^upon the occurrence of 
an extraordinary number of deaths by disease ; or should very 
many die in childbirth ; or should the flocks or herds suffer 
largely from disease, or from wild beasts ; or should the greater 
crops threaten to fail ” ; while the occurrence of any marked 
calamity to the families of the chiefs, whose fortunes were regarded 
as the principal indication of the disposition of Tari towards their 
tribes, was held to be a token of wrath which could not be too 
speedily averted.^ Moreover, besides these social offerings, 
the rite was performed by individuals to avert the wrath of Tari 
from themselves and their families, for instance, if a child, 
when watching his father’s flock, was carried off by a tiger.^ So, 
also, Mr. Campbell observes that the human blood was offered 
to the Earth goddess, in the hope of thus obtaining abundant 
crops, averting calamity, and insuring general prosperity ” ; ^ or 
that it was supposed “ that good crops, and safety from all 
disease and accidents, were ensured by this slaughter.^’ ^ Accord- 
ing to another authority, Mr. Russell, the assembled multitude, 
when dancing round the victim, addressed the earth in the 
following words, O God, we offer this sacrifice to you ; give 
us good crops, seasons, and health.”® Nor was the magic 

^ Maepherson, op. cit. p, 113 sq. ^ Campbell,^/. aV. p. 51. 

See, also, ibid. pp. 120, 128 sqq. ^ Ibid. p. 56. Cf. ibid. p» 73. 

2 Ibid. p. 113 sq. ® Russell, quoted ibid. 54. 

XIX . 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

virtue of the Meriah utilised solely for the benefit of the crops. 
According to one account, part of the flesh was buried near the 
village idol as an olfering to the earth, and part on the bound- 
aries of the village ; ^ whilst in the invocation made by the 
priest, the goddess was represented as saying, Let each man 
place a shred of the flesh in his fields, in his grain-store, and in 
his yard.’* ^ ashes, again, were scattered over the fields, or 

laid as paste over the houses and granaries.” ^ It is also worth 
noticing that, among the Kandhs of Maji Deso, the offering 
was not at all made for the special purpose of obtaining cereal 
produce, “ but for general prosperity, and blessings for them- 
selves and families ” ; ^ and that in the neighbouring principality, 
Chinna Kimedy, inhabited for the most part by Ooryahs, the 
sacrifice was not offered to the earth alone, ‘‘ but to a number of 
deities, whose power is essential to life and happiness,” especially 
to the god of war, the great god, and the sun god.® Now, 
whilst all these facts are in perfect agreement with the theory 
of substitution, they certainly do not justify the supposition that 
the Meriah was the representative of a deity of vegetation. 

The same may be said about other cases referred to by Dr. 
Frazer, when more closely examined. The Indians of Guay- 
aquil, in Ecuador,” he says, ‘^used to sacrifice human blood and 
the hearts of men when they sowed their fields.”® But our 
authority, Cieza de Leon, adds that those Indians also offered 
human victims when their chiefs were sick, “ to appease the 
wrath of their gods.” ^ The Pawnees,” Dr. Frazer writes, 
annually sacrificed a human victim in spring when they sowed 
their fields. The sacrifice was believed to have been enjoined 
on them by the Morning Star, or by a certain bird which the 
Morning Star had sent to them as its messenger .... They 
thought that an omission of this sacrifice would be followed by 
the total failure of the crops of maize, beans, and pumpkins.” ^ 
James, to whom Dr. Frazer refers, and other authorities say 
that the human sacrifice was a propitiatory offering made /o that 
star,^ a planet which especially with the Skidi — the only section 

^ Russell, quoted idtd. p. 55, 

^ Macpherson, o/>. cit, p. 122 sq, 

3 Ibid. p. 128. 

^ Campbell, op. cit. p. 181. 

® Ibid. p. 120, Cf. ibid. p. 197; — 
Among the Ooryahs humafh sacrifice is 
“'performed on important occasions, 
such as going to battle, building a fort 
in an important village, and to avert 
anv threatened danger. 

® Frazer, op. cit. ii. 238. 

^ Cieza de Leon, La CrStiica del Ferd 
[parte primera], ch. 55 {Biblioteca de 
autores espafioleSy xxvi. 409). 

® Frazer, op. cit. ii. 238. 

^ James, Expedition from Pittsburg 
to the Rocky Mountains y i. 357. Grin- 
nell, Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk- 
7 ales y p. 357. Dunbar, ‘ Pawnee 
Indians,’ in Magazine of American 
History^ viii. 738. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

of the Pawnees who offered human sacrifices — was an object of 
superstitious veneration.^ Sickness, misfortune, and personal 
mishaps of various kinds were often spoken of as attributable to 
the incurred ill-will of the heavenly bodies ; ^ and the object of 
the sacrifice to the morning star is expressly said to have been 
to avert the evil influences exerted by that planet.’’ Accord- 
ing to Mr. J^unbar, whose important^ article dealing with the 
subject has escaped Dr. Frazer’s notice, “ the design of the 
bloody ordeal was to conciliate that being and secure a good 
crop. Hence,” he continues, it has been supposed that the 
morning star was regarded by them as presiding over agricul- 
ture, but this was a mistake. They sacrificed to that star 
because they feared it, imagining that it exerted malign influence 
if not well disposed. It has also been stated that the sacri- 
fice was made annually. This, too, was an error. It was 
made only when special occurrences were interpreted as calling 
for it.” ^ At the present day the Indians speak of the 
sacrifice as having been made to Ti-ra’-wa, the Supreme Being 
or the deity who is in and of everything.”^’’ In the detailed 
account of the rite, whicli was given to Mr. Grinnell by an old 
chief who had himself witnessed it several times, it is said : — 
“ While the smoke of the blood and the buffalo meat, and of 
the burning body, ascended to the sky, all the people prayed to 
Ti-ra’-wa, and walked by the fire and grasped handfuls of the 
smoke, and passed it over their bodies and over those of their 
children, and prayed Ti-ra’-wa to take pity on tliem, and to 
give them health, and success in war, and plenteous crops .... 
This sacrifice always seemed acceptable to Ti-ra’-wa, and 
when the Skidi made it they always seemed to have 
good fortune in war, and good crops, and they were always 
well.” ^ According to this description, then, the human 
sacrifice of the Pawnees, like that of the Kandhs, was not an 
exclusively agricultural rite, but was performed for the purpose 
of averting dangers of various kinds. And this is also suggested 
by Mr. Dunbar’s relation of the last instance of this sacrifice, 
which occurred in April, 1838. In the previous winter the 
Skidi, soon after starting on their hunt, had a successful fight 
with a band of Oglala Dacotahs, and fearing that the Dacotahs 
would retaliate by coming upon them in overwhelming force, 

^ Dunbar, loc. cit. p. 738. quent visitor to the tribe in later years ” 

Ibid. p. 736. (Gritinell, op. cit. p. 213). 

^ Grinnell, op. cit. p. 357. ® Dunbar, loc. cit. p. sq. 

Mr. Dunbar is “ born and ® Grinnell, op. cit. pp. 357, 358, 
reared among the Pawnees, familiar xvii. 
with them until early manhood, a fre- ^ Ibid. p. 367. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

they returned for safety to their village before taking a 
sufficient number of buffaloes. With little to eat, they 
lived miserably, lost many of their ponies from scarcity of 
forage, and, worst of all, one of the captives proved to have 
the small-pox, which rapidly spread through the band, and 
in the spring was communicated to the rest of the tribe. 
All these accumulated misfortunes the Ski’-di attributed to the 
anger of the morning star ; and accordingly they resolved to 
propitiate its favour by a repetition of the sacrifice, though in 
direct violation of a stipulation made two years before that the 
sacrifice should not occur again.” ^ 

Nor is there any reason whatever to suppose that the 
Brahman boys whom the Gonds of India used to kidnap 
and keep as victims to be sacrificed on various occasions,‘^ 
were regarded as representatives of the corn spirit. Tliey were 
offered up to Bhimsen, the chief object of worship among the 
Gonds, represented by a piece of iron fixed in a stone or in a 
tree,^ now “ to sanctify a marriage, now to be wedded to the 
soil, and again to be given away to the evil spirit of the 
epidemic raging,” or on the eve of a struggle.” ^ 

Dr. Frazer writes : — At Lagos in Guinea it was the custom 
annually to impale a young girl alive soon after the spring equinox 
in order to secure good crops .... A similar sacrifice used to 
be annually offered at Benin.” ^ But Dr. Frazer omits an 
important fact — mentioned or alluded to by the two authorities 
he quotes — which gives us the key to the custom, without 
suggesting that it has anything to do with the corn-spirit. 
Adams states that the young woman was impaled to 
propitiate the favour of the goddess presiding over the rainy 
season, that she may fill the horn of plenty.”^ And M. Bouche 
observes, Au Benin, on a conserve jusqu’a present un usage qui 
regnait jadis a Lagos et ailleurs : celui d’empaler une jeune 
fille, au commencement de la saison des pluies, afin de rendre 
les orichas propices aux recoltes.” ^ From these statements it 
appears that the sacrifice was intended to influence the rain, on 
which the crops essentially depend. That its immediate object 
was to produce rain is expressly affirmed by Sir R. Burton. 
At Benin he saw “a young woman lashed to a scaffolding upon 
the summit of a tall blasted tree and being devoured by the 
turkey-buzzards. The people declared it to be a ^ fetish,’ or 

\ Dunbar, /o(\ cit. p. 740. ® Frazer, op. cit. ii. 239. 

" Frazer, op. cit. ii. 241. ** Adams, Sketches taken diirhiir Ten 

Panjab Notes and Queries, § 550, Voyages to Africa, p. 25. 
vol. ii. 90. ^ Bouche, Sept ans en Afrique occi- 

* Ibid. § 721, vol. ii. 127 sq. dentate, p. 132. 

VOL. I 

G G 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

charm for bringing rain.” ^ We have previously noticed that 
the people of Benin also have recourse to a human sacrifice if 
there is too much rain, or too much sun, so that the crops are 
in danger of being spoiled.^ The theory of substitution 
accounts for all these cases. 

The practice of offering human victims for the purpose of 
preventing drought and famine by producing rain is appa- 
rently not restricted to West Africa. In the beginning of 
their year, the ancient Mexicans sacrificed many prisoners of 
war and children who had been purchased for that purpose, 
to the gods of water, so as to induce them to give the rain 
necessary for the crops.^ The Pipiles of Guatemala celebrated 
every year two festivals which were accompanied by human 
sacrifices, the one in the beginning of the rainy season, the other 
in the beginning of the dry season.^ In India, among the 
aboriginal tribes to the south-west of Beerbhoom, Sir W. W, 
Hunter heard vague reports of human sacrifices in the forests, 
with a view to procuring the early arrival of the rains.” ^ 
Without venturing to express any definite opinion on a very 
obscure subject which has already led to so many guesses,^ I 
may perhaps be justified in here calling attention to the fact 
that Zeus Lyc^us, in whose cult human sacrifices played a 
prominent part, was conceived of as a god who sent the 
rain.^ It appears from ancient traditions or legends that the 
idea of procuring rainfall by means of such sacrifices was not 
unfamiliar to the Greeks. A certain Molpis offered himself to 
Zeus Ombrios, the rain-god, in time of drought.® Pausanias 
tells us that once, when a drought had for some time afflicted 
Greece, messengers were sent to Delphi to inquire the cause, 
and to beg for a riddance of the evil. The Pythian priestess 
told them to propitiate Zeus, and that Aeacus should be the 
intercessor ; and then Aeacus, by sacrifices and prayers to 
Panhellenian Zeus, procured rain for Greece.^ But Diodorus 
adds that the drought and famine, whilst ceasing in all other 
parts of the country, still continued in Attica, so that the 

^ Burton, Abeoktday i. 19 n.* 

^ Supruy p. 443 sq. 

* Sahagun, Historia general de las 
cosas de Nueva Espaflay i. 50. Tor- 
quemada, Monarchia Indiana y ii. 251. 
Clavigero, op. cit, i. 297. 

* Stol), Ethnologie der Indiamr- 
std?nme von GnalemalUy p. 46. 

® Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal^ 
i. 128. 

^ See Immerwahr, Die KuUe uttd 

Mythen ArkadienSy i. 16 sqq. Pro- 
fessor Robertson Smith suggests 
(‘Sacrifice,* in Encyclop(tdia Britan^ 
nica, XX i. 136) that the human 
sacrifices offered to Zeus Lycoeus were 
originally cannibal feasts of a wolf 
tTil>e. 

^ Pausanias, viii. 38. 4. Farnell, 
op, cit, i. 41. 

® Farnell, ^. rfr. i.^42. , 

® Pausanias, ii. 29. 7 sq. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

Athenians once more resorted to the Oracle. The answer was 
now given them that* they had to expiate the murder of 
Androgens, and that this should be done in any way his 
father, Minos, required. The satisfaction demanded by the 
latter was, that they every nine years should send seven boys and 
as many girls to be devoured by the Minotaur, and that this 
should be done as long as the monster lived. So the Athe- 
nians did, and the calamity ceased.^ 

As an instance of the close relationship which exists 
between human sacrifices offered for agricultural purposes and 
other human sacrifices, the following case may also be 
mentioned. According to Strachey, the Indians in some part 
. of Virginia had a yearly sacrifice of cliildren. These sacrifices 
they held so necessary that, if they should omit them, they 
supposed their gods would let them no deare, turkies, come, 
nor fish,” and, besides, “ would make a great slaughter amongst 

them.” 2 

Men require for their subsistence not only food, but 
drink. Hence when the earth fails to supply them with 
water, they are liable to regard it as an attempt against 
their lives, which can be averted only by the sacrifice of a 
human substitute. 

In India, in former times, human victims were offered to 
several minor gods whenever a newly excavated tank failed to 
produce sufficient water.” ^ In KithiAwar, for instance, if a 
pond had been dug and would not hold water, a man was 
sacrificed ; and the Vadala lake in Bombay refused to hold 
water till the local spirit was appeased by the sacrifice of the 
daughter of the village headman.”** There is a legend that, 
when the bed of the Saugor lake remained dry, the builder “ was 
told, in a dream, or by a priest, that it would continue so till he 
should consent to sacrifice his own daughter, then a girl, and 
the young lad to whom she had been affianced, to the tutelary 
god of the place. He accordingly built a little shrine in the centre 
of the valley, which was to become the bed of the lake, put the 
two children in, and built up the doorway. He had no sooner 
doneso than the whole of the valley became filled with water.” ^ 
When Colonel Campbell was rescuing Merialis among the 

^ Diodorus Siculus, op, cit. iv. 61. i ^ Rajendralala Mitra, op. cit. ii. in. 

sqq. ^ Popular Religion of North- 

StrsichGy.^ History 0/ Travaile into ern India^ ii. 174. 

Vh'ginia Pritannia, p. 9$ sq, ® Sleeman, Rambles ^ i. 129^(7. 

G G 2 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

Kandhs, it was believed by some that he was collecting victims 
for the purpose of sacrificing them on the plains to the water 
deity, because the water had disappeared from a large tank which 
he had constructed.^ According to a story related by Pausanias, 
the district of Haliartus was originally parched and waterless, 
hence one of the rulers went to Delphi and inquired how the 
people should find water in the land. ^^The Pythian priestess 
commanded him to slay the first person he should meet on his 
return to Haliartus. On his arrival he was met by his son 
Lophis, and, without hesitation, he struck the young man with 
his sword. The youth had life enough left to run about, and 
where the blood flowed water gushed from the ground. There- 
fore the river is called Lophis.” ^ 

Human sacrifices are offered with a view to averting 
perils arising from the sea or from rivers. 

When the Greeks were afflicted by stress of weather at 
Aulis, they were bidden to sacrifice Iphigenia, in order to lull 
the winds,^ Menelaus was persecuted by the Egyptians for 
sacrificing two children when he was desirous of sailing away 
and contrary winds detained him.^ According to an Athenian 
writer, the colonists who first went to Lesbos were directed by 
an oracle to throw a virgin into the sea, as an offering to 
Poseidon,^ Sextus Pompeius cast men into the sea as an offer- 
ing to Neptune.^ Hamilcar, also, following a custom of his 
country, threw a company of priests into the sea, as a sacrifice 
to the sea-god,'^ The Saxons, when they were about to leave 
the coast of Gaul and sail home, sacrificed the tenth part of 
their captives.® The Vikings of Scrviidinavia, when launching 
a new ship, seem to have bound a victim to the rollers on which 
the vessel slipped into the sea, thus reddening the keel with 
sacrificial blood. ^ In 1784, at the launching of one of the Bey 
of Tripoli’s cruisers, a black slave was led forward and fastened 
at the prow of the vessel. The Fijians launched their canoes 
over the living bodies of slaves as rollers, or, according to 

^ Campbell, Wild Tribes of Khon- 
distan^ p. 129. 

Pausanias, ix. 33. 4. 

^ Aeschylus, Agamemnon^ 215 sq. 

^ Herodotus, ii. 119. 

® Athenteus, Deipnosophistee, xi. 15. 

® Dio Cassius, Historia Romana^ 
xlviii. 48. 

Diodorus Siculus, xiii. 86, 

® Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistidte, 
viii. 6. 15. 

® Vigfusson and Powell, op, cit. i. 
410 ; ii. 349. 

Simpson, quoted by Grant Allen, 
Evolution of tl^ Idea of God, p. 263. 

Erskinc, Cruise among the Islands 
of the Western Pacific y p. 249. 

xrx 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

another account, when a large canoe was launched, they laid 
hold of the first person, man or woman, whom they en- 
countered, and carried the victim home for a feast4 On the 
deck of a new boat belonging to the most powerful chief in 
the group, ten or more men were slaughtered, in order that 
it might be washed with human blood.‘^ 

The Zuni Indians have a tradition that the waters of their 
valley once rose in a flood and compelled the inhabitants to flee 
to a table-land several hundred feet high for safety ; and when 
the waters still rose, threatening to submerge the table-land 
itself, the priest determined to sacrifice a youth and a maiden 
to propitiate them/^ When Seleucus Nicator founded Antioch 
on the Orontes, the high priest sacrificed a virgin at a place 
between the town and the river,^ presumably in order to prevent 
the town from being flooded by the river. When the converted 
Franks marched to Italy under their king, Thcodebert, to fight 
against the Goths under Vitigis, and were on the point of cross- 
ing the Po, they sacrificed what children and wives of Goths they 
found, and threw their corpses into the river, according to 
Procopius, “as the first fruits of the war.” At Rome, every 
year on the Ides of May, the Vestal Virgins threw from the 
Sublician bridge into the Tiber thirty human effigies formed of 
rushes ; the Romans themselves were of opinion that at an 
earlier period living men had been hurled into the river, and 
that it was Hercules who first substituted images of straw. ^ 
In West Africa human sacrifices arc often offered to rivers. 
Major Ellis states that at each town or considerable village upon 
the banks of the river Prah sacrifice is held on a day about 
the middle of October, to Prah. “As loss of life frequently 
occurs in this river, from persons attempting to cross it when 
flooded, from a sudden rise, or from those hundred minor 
accidents which must always occur in the neighbourhood of a 
deep and strong stream, the gods of the Prah are considered 
very malignant. The sacrifice is, in consequence, proportionate. 
The usual sacrifice in former times was two human adults, one 
male and one female. They. . . . were decapitated on the bank 
of the river, and the stool and image of the god washed with their 

^ Wilkes, U. S. Exploring Expedi- 
tion, iii, 97. Cf, Williams and Calvert, 
op, cit, p. 175. * 

Wilkes, op, cit. iii. 97. 

® Stevenson, ‘ A Chapter of Zufii 
Mythology,’ in Memoirs of the Inter- 
national Congress of Anth^opology^ 
Chicago, p. 316. 

^ Malala, Chronographiay viii. 255 
(200), 

® Procopius, Belliim Gothictivi^ ii. 

25- 

® Ovid, Fasti,, 621 sq, Dionysius of 
Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romance, 1. 
38. Hartland, Legend of I^ersens, iii. 
78. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

blood. The bodies were then cut into a number of pieces, 
which were distributed amongst the mangroves, or the sedge 
bordering the river, for the crocodiles to eat ; crocodiles being 
sacred in Prah.” ^ According to M. le Comte de Cardi, all the 
river-side tribes of the Niger Delta used to propitiate the river 
deity by the sacrifice of a copper-coloured girl^ procured from a 
tribe of Ibos inhabiting a country away in the hinterland of New 
Calabar, or in some places an Albino ; and it seems that this 
custom is still practised in the British Protectorate. The Ibos 
themselves were in the habit of throwing human beings into the 
river to be eaten by alligators or fishes, or to fasten them to trees 
or branches, close to the river, where they were left to perish 
by hunger.-^ In Eastern Central Africa, also, human sacrifices 
are offered to rivers.^ And in the East Indies there are various 
traditions of such sacrifices being made to the divine crocodiles 
of the sea.^' 

In the cases which we have hitherto considered the 
offering of human sacrifices is mostly a matter of public 
concern, a method of ensuring the lives of many by the 
death of one or a few. But human life is also sacrificed, 
by way of substitution, for the purpose of preventing the 
death of some particular individual, especially a chief or a 
king, from sickness, old age, or other circumstances. 

In Guatemala, in the case of a dangerous illness, human 
sacrifice was resorted to when all other attempts to cure the 
patient failed.^ Of the Indians of Guayaquil, Cieza de Leon 
states : — When the chiefs were sick, to appease the wrath of 
their gods, and pray for health, they made .... sacrifices 
of a superstitious nature, killing men (as I was told), and 
believing that human blood was a grateful offering,” Acosta 
writes : — They vsed in Peru to sacrifice yong children of 
foure or six yeares old vnto tenne ; and the greatest parte of 
these sacrifices were for the affaires that did import the 
Ynca, as in sickness for his health, and when he went to the 

^ Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoplesy p. 64 ^ Macdonald, Africana^ i. 96. 

sq. Cf Ideni^ Land of 2 ^'etish, p. 122. ^ Tylor, ‘Anniversary Address,’ in 

^ Comte de Cardi, ‘Ju-Ju Laws and Jour. Anthr. /wj-/. xxi. 408. J-Iartland, 
Customs in the Niger Delta,’ in /<?«/', op, cit, iii. qo sq, 

Anthr, Inst. xxix. 54. cy. Mockler- ^ Stoll, op, cit, p. 48. 

Ferryman, British Nigeria., p. 235, ^ Cieza de Leon, La CrSnica del Peru 

Schoen and Crowther, op. cit. p. [parte primera], ch. ^55 {Bibhoieca de 

auiores espaHoles^ 409). 

49. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

warres for victory, or Avhen they gave the 'wreathe to their new 
Ynca, which is the marke of a King, as heere the Scepter 
and the Crowne be. In this solemnitie they sacrificed the 
number of two hundred children, from foure to ten yeares 
of age .... If any Indian qualified or of the common sorte 
were sicke, and that the Divine told him confidently that 
he should die, they did then sacrifice his owne sonne to the 
Sunne or to Virachoca, desiring them to be satisfied with 
him, and that they would not deprive the father of life.” ^ 
According to Molina, “the Lord Ynca offered sacrifices [of 
children] when he began to reign, that the huacas [or idols] 
might give him health, and preserve his dominions in peace.” 
Herrera tells us that the ancient Peruvians, when any person of 
note was sick, and the priest predicted his death, sacrificed the 
patient’s son, “ desiring the idol to be satisfic’d with him, and 
not to take away his father’s life.”^ Garcilasso de la Vega, 
again, denies the existence of any such custom in the kingdom 
of the Incas, ^ but asserts that, before their reign, the Indians of 
Peru offered up their own children on certain occasions.*'" 
According to Jerez, some of the Peruvian Indians sacrificed 
their own children each month, and anointed with the blood 
the faces of their idols and the doors of their temples.® The 
Tonga Islanders had a ceremony called nawgia^ or the cere- 
mony of strangling children as sacrifices to the gods, for the 
recovery of a sick relative. Our informant says : — “ All the 
bystanders behold the innocent victim with feelings of the 
greatest pity ; but it is proper, they think, to sacrifice a child 
who is at present of no use to society, and perhaps may not 
otherwise live to be, with the hope of recovering a sick chief, 
whom all esteem and whom all, think it a most important 
duty to respect, defend, and preserve, that his life may be of 
advantage to the country.”'^ The Tahitians offered human 
sacrifices during the illnesses of their rulers.^ In the Philip- 
pines, if a prince was dangerously ill or dying, slaves were 
slaughtered in order to satisfy the malignant ancestral soul 
who was supposed to have caused the disease.^ Among the 
Dyaks, when a raja “ falls sick, or goes on a journey, it is 

^ Acosta, op. cit. ii. 344. 

2 de Molina, loc. cit. p. 55. 

® Herrera, General Hisiory of the 
If'est Jndiesy iv. 347. 

4 Garcilasso de la Vega, op. cit. i. 

® Ibid. 1. 50. 

® Jerez, ‘ Conquista del Peni,' in Bib- 

Uoteca de autores espafiolesy xxvi. 327. 

^ Mariner, Natives of the Tonga 
Islands^ ii. 220. 

** Ellis, Polynesian Researches^ 1 . 346. 

® Blumentiitt, quoted by Wilken, 
* Ueber das Haaropfer," in Revue 
coloniale internationaky 1887, i. 364 
sq. 

common for him to vow a head to his tribe in case of 
recovery or of safe return. Should he die, one or two heads 
are usually offered by the tribe as a kind of sacrifice.” ^ Among 
the Banjarilu of Southern India, who are great travelling 
traders, it was formerly the custom “ before starting out on a 
journey to procure a little child, and bury it in the ground up 
to its shoulders, and then drive their loaded bullocks over the 
unfortunate victim, and in proportion to the bullocks thoroughly 
trampling the child to death, so their belief in a successful 
journey increased.”*^ In India human sacrifices were also 
offered to the goddess ChandikA to save the life of a king.'^ 
It is probable that the idea of substitution likewise accounts 
for the sacrifice of a young girl which a certain raja 
is reported to have offered in i86i, at the shrine of the 
goddess Durga, in the town of Jaipur, when he installed 
himself at his fathers decease,^ and for the sacrifice of a 
Brahmin which a raja of Ratanpvir had offered up to Devi every 
year.^ In Great Benin, once a year, at the end of the rainy 
season, all the king’s beads were brought out by the boys in 
whose care they were kept. They were put in a heap, and a 
slave was compelled to kneel down over them. The king cut 
or struck the head of the slave with a spear so that the blood 
ran over the beads, and said to them, Oh beads, when I put 
you on, give me wisdom and don’t let any juju or bad thing 
come near me.” Then the slave was told, So you shall 
tell the head juju when you see him.” The slave was led 
out and beheaded, but his head was brought in again, and the 
beads were touched with it.^ Among the ancient Gauls 
persons who were troubled with unusually severe diseases 
either sacrificed men or promised that they would make such 
sacrifices.^ In the Ynglingasaga we are told that King Aun 
sacrificed nine sons, one after the other, to Odin for the 
purpose of obtaining a prolongation of his life.® According to 
Macrobius, the ancient Romans immolated children to the 
goddess Mania, the mother of the Lares, “ to promote the 
health of the families.” ^ Suetonius states that Nero, frightened 
by the sight of a comet, sacrificed a number of Roman noble- 

^ Pfeiffer, A Lacies Second Journey ® Punjab Notes and Queries^ § 869, 
round the World, i. 86. vol. ii. 162. 

2 Cain, ‘ Bhadrachellam and Reka- ® Moor and Roupell, quoted by Read 
palli Taluqas,’ in Indian Antiquary, and Dalton, i?/. cit. p. 7; also by Ling 
viii. 219. Roth, Great Benin, 71. 

* CxooVq, Popular Peli^'on in North- ^ Caesar, De bello galHco, vi. 16. 

ern India, \\. 168. ® Snorri Sturluson, ‘Ynglingasaga,* 

* North Indian Notes and Queries, 25, in Heimskringla, i.'45 sqq, 

§310, vol. i. 40. ® Macrobias, Satur 7 zalia, i. 7. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

men in order to avert the disaster from himself.^ Antinous, 
according to one account, sacrificed himself to prolong 
the life of Hadrian/^ The notion that the death of one person 
may serve as a substitute for the death of another still prevails 
in the Vatican. When, during Leo XIII. ’s last illness, one 
of the Cardinals died, it was said that his death had saved 
the life of the Pope, Heaven being satisfied with one victim. 
In Morocco, if a son or a daughter dies, it is customary to say 
to the afflicted parents, Wliy are you sorry? Your child 
took away your misfortune (bas),'"'* A similar custom prevails 
in Syria and Palestine.^ 

(jMen are sacrificed not only to preserve the lives of 
other men, but to help other men into existence. Barren- 
ness is attributed to some god keeping back the children 
which would otherwise be born in the due course of 
nature. And in order to remove this obstacle a human 
being, generally a child, is sacrificed to serve, as it were, as 
a substitute. This I take to be the explanation of the 

practice of offering a human sacrifice with a view to pro- 

moting fecundity, a practice which has been particularly 
common in India. 

In the history of ancient Mexico we read of Nezahualcoyotl, 
prince of tlie Tezcucans, who had been married some years 
without being blest with issue. The priests represented that 

it was owing to his neglect of the gods of his country, and that 

his only remedy was to propitiate them by human sacrifice.” ^ 
In Hindu traditions and books a numerous offspring is promised 
to him who offers a man in sacrifice."^ In Jainteapore, east of 
Sylhet, human sacrifices were made to the goddess Kali, in 
hopes of procuring progeny.^ Speaking of the Mahadeo sand- 
stone hills which, in the Sathpore range, overlook the Nerbudda 
to the south, Sir W. H. Sleeman states : — ‘‘When a woman is 
without children she makes votive offerings to all the gods 
who can, she thinks, assist her ; and promises of still greater 
in case they should grant what she wants. Smaller promises 
being found of no avail, she at last promises her first-born, if a 

' ^ Suetonius, Nero, 36. To-day, p. 208. 

^ Spartian, Vita Hadriani, 14. ^ Prescott, History of the Conquest 

Aurelius Victor, De Ccssaribus, 14. of Mexico, p. 91. 

Historia Romana,W\yi, ii. ® Chevers, op. cit. p. 399. 

® Outiiss, Primitive Semitic Te/igion ® Macnaghten, quoted p. 397. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

male, to the god of destruction, Mahadeo. If she gets a son 
she conceals from him her vows till he has attained the age of 
puberty ; she then communicates it to him, and enjoins him 
to fulfil it.” From that moment he regards himself as devoted 
to the god, and, at the annual fair on the Mahadeo hills, throws 
himself from a perpendicular height of four or five hundred 
feet, and is dashed to pieces upon the rocks below. ^ In one of 
the tales of Somadcva an ascetic tells a woman that, if she' 
killed her young son and offered him to the divinity, another son 
would certainly be born to her.^ We meet with a similar idea in 
the story of king Somaka. For some time he did not succeed 
in getting a single son from any of his one hundred wives. 
Finally he got a single son ; but he wanted more, and asked the 
family priest whether there was not a ceremony which could 
help him to a hundred sons. The family priest answered : — 
“O king! let me set on foot a sacrifice, and thou must 
sacrifice thy son, Jantu, in it. Then on no distant date, a 
century of handsome sons will be born to thee. When Jantu’s 
fat will be put into the fire as an offering to the gods, the 
mothers will take a smell of that smoke, and bring forth a 
number of sons, valorous and strong. And Jantu also will 
once more be born as a self-begotten son of thine, in that very 
mother ; and on his back there will appear a mark of gold.” 
The son was sacrificed ; the wives smelt the smell of the 
burnt-ofFering ; all of them became with child ; and when ten 
months had passed one hundred sons were born to Somaka, of 
whom Jantu was the eldest, being born of his former mother. 
But the family priest departed this life, and was grilled for a 
certain period in a terrible hell as a punishment for what he had 
done.^ 

Among certain peoples it is a regular custom to kill the 
firstborn child, or the firstborn son. 

Among some natives of Australia a mother used to kill and 
eat her first child, as this was believed to strengthen her for 
later births.^ In New South Wales the firstborn of every 
lubra used to be eaten by the tribe as part of a religious cere- 
mony.” ^ In the realm of Khai-muh, in China, according to 

^ Sleeman, o/>. cit. i. 1325^. Peoples^ p. 17 n.* Cf. von Scherzer, 

QxooVg, Popular Peligt on 0/ North- Reise der Oesterreichischen PYegatte 

ern India^ ii. 173. Novara um die Erde^ iii. 32. 

^ A/akabharala, Van a Farva, 127 ’ Brough Smyth, Aborigines of 

(pt. vi. p. 188 Victoria, ii. 31 1. 

^ Brinton, Religio?ts of Primitive 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

a native account, it was customary to kill and devour the 
eldest son alive. ^ Among certain tribes in British Columbia 
the first child is often sacrificed to the sun.‘^ The Indians of 
Florida, according to Le Moyne de Morgues, sacrificed the 
firstborn son to the cliief,*^ We are told that, among the 
people of Senjero in Eastern Africa, many families must offer 
up their firstborn sons as sacrifices, because once upon a time, 
when summer and winter were jumbled together in a bad 
season, and the fruits of the field would not ripen, the sooth- 
sayers enjoined it.” The heathen Russians often sacrificed 
their firstborn to the god Perun.'* The rule laid down in 
Exodus® and Numbers,’^ that all the firstborn of men and of 
beasts belonged to the Lord, but that the former were to be 
redeemed, seems to indicate the existence of an earlier custom 
among the Hebrews of offer ing up as a sacrifice, not only the 
firstling of an animal, but the firstborn child. As traces of such 
a custom may probably be regarded the story of Abraham’s 
surrender of his firstborn son to God and the tradition of 
the origin of the Passover.^ Among the Hindus, until the 
beginning of the last century, many parents sacrificed their 
firstborn to the river Ganges.*^ 

In some instances the firstborn seems to be killed, not 
in sacrifice to a god, but for the purpose of being eaten as 
a kind of medicine. In other cases the act is a sacrifice 
in the true sense of the word and, apparently, substitu- 
tional in character. Considering that children are occa- 
sionally sacrificed to save the lives of their parents, or for 
the health of the families, or to promote fecundity, it 
seems probable that the regular sacrifice of the firstborn 
has similar objects in view. This supposition, indeed, is 
strongly supported by some statements in which the 
motive of the act is expressly mentioned. Among the 

^ de Groot, Religions System of ^ Exodus^ xiii. 2, 15. 

China, (vol. ii. book) i. 679. ^ Numbers, xviii, 15. 

^ Boas, in Eifih Report on the ^ See Ghillany, op. cit. p. 494 sqq. ; 
North-Western Tribes of Ca 7 iada, pp. Kuenen, Religion of Israel, ii, 92; 
46, 52. Frazer, op. cit. ii. 47 sqq. 

^ Bry, Narrative of Le Moyne, De- ^ Rajendraldla Mitra, op. cit. ii. 70, 
scriptions of the Illustratfons, 34, p. 13. 76. 

'Cf. Lafitau, Mccurs des sauvages arneri- Cf supra, p. 401. 

quains, i. i8i ; Strachey, op. cit. p. 84. Cf. Micah, vi. 7 : “ Shall I give 

* Krapf, Havels, p. 69 sq. my ftrslb<.)rii for my transgression, the 

® Mone, quoted by Frazer, Golden fruit of iny body for the sin of my 
Bough, ii, 52. soul ? ” 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

Coast Salish of British Columbia the first child is sacrificed 
to the sun “ to secure health and happiness to the whole 
family.” ^ The same Is reported of a neighbouring people, 
the Kutonaqa. The mother prays to the sun: — ‘‘ I am 
with child. When it is born I shall offer it to you. 
Have pity upon us.” “ Among some tribes of South- 
Eastern Africa it Is a rule that, when a woman’s husband 
has been killed in battle and she marries again, the first 
child to which she gives birth after her second marriage 
must be put to death, whether she has it by her first or 
her second husband. Such a child is called “ the child 
of the assegai,” and if It were not killed, death or 
accident would be sure to befall the second spouse, 
and the woman herself would be barren.^ Among some 
peoples, including the ancient Hindus, we find the belief 
that the son is in some sense identical with his father, 
that he is a new birth, a new manifestation of the same 
person/ The new birth might be supposed to endanger 
the life of the father, just as, according to a notion preva- 
lent among the ancient Teutons and in some parts of 
Italy, a person would soon die if his name were given to 
his son or grandson whilst he was still alive. Among 
the Brazilian Tupis the father was accustomed to take a 
new name after the birth of each new son ; ^ whilst, on 
killing an enemy, a person used to take the enemy’s name 
so as to annihilate not only his body but also his soul.^ 
Among the Kafirs, “ if a mother gives birth to twins, one 
Is frequently killed by the father, for the natives think 
that unless the father places a lump of earth in the rnouth 
of one of the babies he will lose his strength.” In some 

^ Boas, oj). Lit. p. 46. ^ Storm, quoted by Noreen, Spridda 

^ Ibid. p. 52. Studier, Andra Samlingen, ]). 4. 

^ Macdonald, Light in Africa, p. Placucci, Us I e pregindizj dei con- 

156. Frazer, op. cit. ii. 51 s<]. tadini della Romagna, p. 23. 

Ilartland, op. cit. i. 217 sq. von ^ von den Steinen, op. cit. p. 337. 

den Steinen, Unter den Naiurvolkern ^ Staden, quoted by Andree, 

Zcntral-Hrasiliens, p. 336 sq. T>eist, pophagie, p. 103. 

Alt-arisches Jus Gentium, p. 98 sqq. Kidd, The Essential Kafir, p. 202. 

Idem, Alt-arisches Jus Civile f\. l%C)sqq. I am indebted to Mr. N. W. Thomas 
Imsvs of Alanu, ix. 8 : “ The husband, for drawing my attention to this state- 
atter conception by his wife, becomes ment. 
an embryo and is born again of her.” 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

cases the practice of killing the firstborn son might 
possibly be traced back to a similar belief. But I can quote 
no fact directly supporting this suggestion. 

(Human sacrifices are offered in connection with the 
foundation of buildings. This is a wide-spread custom, 
which not only occurs among various uncivilised and semi- 
civilised peoples of the present day, but which is proved 
to have existed among the so-called Aryan races. ‘ In 
India we find traces of it in traditions and popular beliefs.'^ 
The Hindu rajas, we are told, used to lay the foundation 
of public buildings in human blood.® a When Mr. Grierson 
wanted to photograph a Bihar peasant house, the grand- 
mother of the family refused to allow any of the children 
to appear in the picture, her reason being that the Govern- 
ment was building the bridge across the Gandak and 
Vv^anted children to bury under the foundations.'* Among 
the ancient Romans the old custom survived in the prac- 
tice of placing statues or images under the foundations of 
their buildings.® In the island of Zacynthus the peasants 
to this day believe that in order to secure the durability 
of important buildings, such as bridges and fortresses, it is 
desirable to kill a man, especially a Muhammedan or a 
Jew, and bury him on the spot.** South Slavonian folk- 
tales speak of the immuration of a woman or a child as 
a foundation sacrifice.^ In Servia no city was thought to 
be secure unless a human being, or at least the shadow of 
one, was built into its walls;® and the Bulgarians, when 

^ Sartori, ‘ Ucbor das Bauopfer,’ in 
Zeitschrift flir Ethnologic, xxx. 5 vy-/. 
Tylor, PriniitLve Culture, i. 104 S(jq. 
Baring* (joit Id, Strange Survivals, p. 4 
Trumbull, Threshold Covenant, 
p. 46 sqq. Giant Allen, Evolution of 
the Idea of God, p. 249 sqq. Licbrecht, 
Zur Volkskunde, p. 284 sqq. Andrce, 
Ethnographische rarallelen, p. 18 sqq. 
Nyrop, Romanske Mosaiker, p. 63 sqq. 
Krauss, ‘ Das Bauopfer bei den Siid- 
slavcn,’ in Alittheilungen der .Inthro- 
pologischen Gesellschaft in IVien, xvii. 
18 sqq. WuUke, Der deutsche Volks- 

aberglaubc der Gegenwart, § 440, 

p. 300 sq. 

- Winternitz, ‘ Beincrkungen liber 
das Bauopfer bei den Indern,’ in 
Alittheil. Ant hr. Gcsellsch. in IVien, 
xvii. [37] sqq. 

^ Wheeler, History of l 7 idia, iv. 278. 

^ Grierson, Bihar Peasant Life, p. 4. 

Coote, ‘ A Building Superstition,’ 
in Folk-Lore fournal, i. 23. 

Schniidl, VPlkslehen der Neu-Grie- 
chen, p. 197. 

^ Krau.ss, loc. cit. p. 19 sqq. 

^ Kalston, Songs of the Russian 
People, p, 127. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

going to build, are still said to take a thread and measure 
the shadow of some casual passer-by, and then bury the 
measure under the foundation-stone, expecting that the 
man whose shadow has been thus treated will soon died 
A similar custom prevails in Roumanian According to 
Nennius, when Dinas Emris in Wales was founded by 
Gortigern, all the materials collected for the fortress were 
carried away in one night ; . and materials were thus 
gathered thrice, and were thrice carried away. When he 
then asked of his Druids, “ Whence this evil ? ” the Druids 
told him that it was necessary to find a child whose father 
was unknown, put him to death, and sprinkle with his 
blood the ground on which the citadel was to be built.® 
A Scotch legend tells that, when St. Columba first 
attempted to build a cathedral on Iona, the walls fell 
down as they were erected ; he then received supernatural 
information that they would never stand unless a human 
victim was buried alive, and, in consequence, his companion, 
Oran, was interred at the foundation of the structure.^ It 
is reported that, when not long ago the Bridge Gate of 
Bremen city walls was demolished, the skeleton of a child 
was found embedded in the groundwork ; ^ and when the 
new bridge at Halle, finished in 1843, was building, “the 
common people fancied a child was wanted to be walled 
into the foundations.” ® 

It seems highly probable that the building-sacrifice, like 
other kinds of human sacrifice, is based on the idea of substi- 
tution. A new house or dwelling-place is commonly regarded 
as dangerous, a wall or a tower is liable to fall down and 
cause destruction of life, a bridge may break, or the person 
who crosses it may tumble into the water and be drowned. 
In the Babar Islands, before entering a new house, offerings 
are thrown inside, that the spirit, Orloo, may not make the 

^ /did. p. 127. Krauss, loc. cit. p. in The Antiquajy^ iii. ii. Carmichael, 
21. Carmina Gadtlica^ ii, 316. 

Folk- Lore Record, iii. 283. ® Baring-Gould, Strange Survivals, 

^ Nennius, /listoria Britonum, Irish p. 5. 

Version, cli. 18, p. 93. ** Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, iii. 

^ Gomme, ‘Some Traditions and 1142. 

Superstitions connected with Building.s,’ 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

inmates ill.^ Before the Sandwich Islanders could occupy 
their houses “ offerings were made to the gods, and pre- 
sents to the priest, who entered the house, uttered prayers, 
went through other ceremonies, and slept in it before the 
owner took possession, in order to prevent evil spirits from 
resorting to it, and to secure its inmates from the effects 
of incantation.” Among the Kayans of Borneo, on the 
occasion of the king or principal chief taking possession 
of a newly-built house, a human victim was killed, and 
the blood was sprinkled on the pillars and under the 
house.® The Russian peasant believes that the building 
of a new house “ is apt to be followed by the death of 
the head of the family for which the new dwelling is con- 
structed, or that the member of the family who is the 
first to enter it will soon die ” ; and, in accordance with a 
custom of great antiquity, the oldest member of a 
migrating household enters the new house first. ^ In 
German folk-tales “ the first to cross the bridge, the 
first to enter the new building or the country, pays 
with his life.” ® Even nowadays, in the North of Europe, 
there is a wide-spread fear of being the first to enter 
a new building or of going over a newly-built bridge ; 
“ if to do this is not everywhere and in all cases 
thought to entail death, it is considered supremely un- 
lucky.” ® This superstition has been interpreted as a 
survival of a previous sacrifice ; ^ but there can be no 
doubt, I think, that the foundation sacrifice itself owes its 
origin to similar notions and fears of supernatural dangers. 
Uncultured people are commonly afraid of anything new, 
or of doing an act for the first time ; ® and, apart from 
this, the erecting of a new building is an intrusion upon 

^ Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige 21 sq. (Southern Slavs). 
rassen tusschen Seiches cn Papua, p. ® Grimm, 7 'eutonic Mythology, i. 45, 

343 * . 

Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iv. ® Baring- Ciould, Strange Surnivah, 
322. , p. 2. For various instances of similar 

, ^ Burns, ‘ Kayans of the North- beliefs, see Sartori, in Zeitsekr. f. 
West of Borneo,’ in Joui'nal of the Ethnol. xxx. 14 sqq. ; Crawley, Mystic 
Indian Archipelago, iii. 145. Rose, p. 25. 

^ Ralston, Songs of the Russian ^ Baring-Gould, op. cit. p. 4. 

People, p. 126. Cf Krauss, loc. cit. p. ^ Crt^wley, op, cit. p. 25. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

the land of the local spirit, and therefore likely to arouse 
its anger. There are houses which remain haunted by 
spirits all their time.’^ It is natural, then, that attempts 
should be made to avert the danger. And, human life 
being at stake, no preventive could be more effective than 
the offering up of a human victim. 

On the other hand it is maintained that the foundation- 
sacrifice is partly, if not exclusively, performed for the 
purpose of converting the soul of the victim into a pro- 
tecting demon.'* This opinion, no doubt, has the support 
of beliefs actually held by some of the peoples who prac- 
tise the rite. When the gate of the new city of Tavoy, 
in Tenasserim, was built. Mason was told by an eye- 
witness that a criminal was put in each post-hole tdl 
become a guardian spirit.** The Burmese kings used to 
have victims buried alive at the gates of their capitals, 
“ so that their spirits might watch over the city.” 
Formerly, in Siam, “ when a new city gate was being 
erected, it was customary for a number of officers to lie in 
wait near the spot, and seize the first four or eight persons 
who happened to pass by, and who were then buried 
alive under the gate-posts, to serve as guardian angels.” 
But whatever be the present notions of certain peoples 
concerning the object of the building-sacrifice, I do not 
believe that its primary object could have been to procure 
a spirit-guardian. According to early ideas, the ghost of 
a murdered man is not a friendly being, and least of all is 
he kindly disposed towards those who killed him. Several 
instances are known in which later generations have put 
upon human sacrifices an interpretation obviously foreign 
to their original purpose.'’ Thus, according to a North 

^ * Westermarck, ‘ Nature of the Arab tori, in Zeitschr. f EthnoL xxx. 32 
illustrated by the i^resent Beliefs sejq. 

of the People of Mt^rocco,’ in Jour. ' ^ Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 107. 

Ant/ir. Inst. xxix. 253, 260. ■* Woodthorpe, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 

Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 106. xxvi. 24. See also vShway Yoc, I'hc 
Grant Allen, op. cit. p. 248 sipj. I.ip- Burman, i. 286. 

pert, Christenthum , I'olksirlauhe unci ^ Alal)aster, Wheel of the Law, p. 
Volksbrauch, p. 456 .vy. Idem, Kullur- 212 sq. Cf. Gaidoz, loc. cit. p. sq. 
geschichte der Menschheit, ii. 270. ^ See Nyrop, Romanske Alosaiker, 

Gaidoz, in Mllusine, iv. 14 sqq. Sar- p. 73 sqq. ; also infra, p. 465 sq. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

German tradition, a master-builder was immured by a 
certain knight in the tower which he had built, as a 
punishment for boasting that he could have built a still 
finer tower if he had liked to do so.^ An Indian raja, 
we are told, was once building a bridge over the river 
Jargoat Chunar, and when it fell down several times he 
was advised to sacrifice a Brahman girl to the local deity ; 
however, “ she has now become the Mari or ghost of the 
place, and is regularly worshipped in time of trouble.” 
Considering that the foundation-sacrifice was offered for the 
purpose of protecting the living against the attacks of the 
spirit of the place, it is quite intelligible that the ghost of 
the victim came in time to be looked upon as a guardian 
spirit ; and it was all the more natural to attribute to 
the dead the function of a guard in cases where he was 
buried at the gate. But he was buried there, I presume, 
simply because that spot was thought to be the most 
dangerous. The gate of a town corresponds to the 
entrance of a house, and the threshold has almost univers- 
ally been regarded as the proper haunt of what the Moors 
call “the owners of the place.” ^ 

Whilst the man who is sacrificed is in some cases 
described as a guardian, he is in other cases regarded as a 
messenger. The Mayas of Yucatan maintained that the 
human victims whom they offered in times of distress were 
sent as messengers to the spirit-world to make known the 
wants of the people/ The same idea prevailed in Great 
Benin. When the head jujuman had said the prayer in 
which he asked Ogiwo to let no sickness come for Benin, 
he thus addressed the slaves who were going to be clubbed 
to death and tied in the sacrifice-trees : — “ So you shall 
tell Ogiwo. Salute him proper.”® A message was like- 
wise sent to the head juju with the slave who was sacrificed 
to it ; ® and a message saluting the rain-god was put in the 

^ Nyrop, op. cit. p. 73. ^ Dorman, op, cit. p. 213. 

Crooke, Popular Religion of North- ^ Moor and Roupell, quoted by Read 
ern India,, ii. 174. and Dalton, op, cit. p. 7 ; also by Ling 

See Triunbull, I^kt'es hold Covenant, Roth, Gi eat Benin, p. 72. 
passitn. ® Supra, p. 456. 

VOL. I 

H H 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

mouth of the woman who was sacrificed when there was 
too much rain.^ Mr. Ling Roth suggests that the main 
object of the human sacrifices which were offered in Benin 
“ was the sending of prayers, by means of the special 
messengers, for the welfare of the community, to the spirits 
of the departed, or to other spirits, such as the spirits of 
the beads, the Rain-God, Sun-God, the God Ogiwo '' ; and 
he thinks that this explains ‘‘ a cult of world-wide pre- 
valence. ^ But considering that in Yucatan and Benin, 
as elsewhere, the human victim was sacrificed for the 
avowed purpose of averting some mortal danger from the 
community or the king, 1 conclude that there, also, the 
primary object of the rite was to ofier a substitute, though 
this substitute came to be used as a messenger. 

I do not affirm that the practice of human sacrifice is in 
every case based on the idea of substitution ; the notion 
that a certain god has a desire for such sacrifices may no 
doubt induce his worshippers to gratify this desire for a 
variety of purposes. But 1 think there is sufficient 
evidence to prove that, when men offer the lives of their 
fellow-men in sacrifice to their gods, they do so as a rule 
in the hopes of thereby saving their own. (^Human sacri- 
fice is essentially a method of Jife-insurance — absurd, no 
doubt, according to our ideas, but not an act of wanton 
cruelty. N When practised for the benefit of the community 
01 in a case of national distress, it is hardly more cruel 
than to advocate the infliction of capital punishment on 
the ground of social expediency, or to^compel thousands of 
men to suffer death on the battle-field on behalf of their 
country, n I he custom of human sacrifice admits that the 
life of one is taken to save the lives of many, or that an 
inferior ^ individual is put to death for the purpose of 
preventing the death of somebody who has a higher right 
to live. Sometimes the king or chief is sacrificed in times 
of scarcity or pestilence, but then he is probably held 
personally responsible for the calamity.^ Very frequently 

^ Supray p. 444. 

Ling Roth, op. cit. p. 72. 

® Cf. P'razer, Golden Bought i. 15 
sq. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

the victims are prisoners of war or other aliens, or slaves, 
or criminals, that is, persons whose lives are held in little 
regard. And in many cases these are the only victims 
allowed by custom. 

This was generally the case among the ancient Teutons,^ 
though they sometimes deemed a human sacrifice the more 
^efficacious the more distinguished the victim, and the nearer his 
relationship to him who offered the sacrifice.^ The Gauls, says 
Ciesar, “ consider that the oblation of such as have been taken 
in theft, or robbery, or any other offence, is more acceptable to 
the immortal gods ; but when a supply of that class is wanting, 
they have recourse to the oblation of even the innocent.” ^ 
Diodorus Siculus states that the Carthaginians in former times 
used to sacrifice to Saturn the sons of the most eminent persons, 
but that, of later times, they secretly bought and bred up child- 
ren for that purpose.^ The chief aim of the wars of the 
ancient Mexicans was to make prisoners for sacrificial purposes; 
other victims were slaves who were purchased for this object, 
and many criminals ‘^who were condemned to expiate their 
crimes by the sacrifice of their lives.” ^ The Yucatans sacri- 
ficed captives taken in war, and only if such victims were want- 
ing they dedicated their children to the altar ‘‘ rather than let the 
gods be deprived of their due.” ^ In Guatemala the victims were 
slaves or captives or, among the Pipiles, illegitimate children from 
six to twelve years old who belonged to the tribe. In bdorida 
the human victim who was offered up at harvest time was 
chosen from among the Spaniards wrecked on the coast.® Of the 
Peruvian Indians before the time of the Incas, Garcilasso de la 
Vega states that, besides ordinary things such as animals and 
maize, they sacrificed men and women of all ages, being captives 
taken in wars which they made against each other.” Among 
the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, the persons 
ordinarily sacrificed to the gods are prisoners of war or slaves. 
When the latter, they are usually aliens, as a protecting god is 
not so well satisfied with the sacrifice of his own people.” In 
Great Benin, according to Captain Roupell, the people who 
were kept for sacrifice were bad men, or men with bad sickness, 

’ Grimm, '/'tuttonu ATytlwl&gy^ i. 45. 

yioltzmaim, Deutsche Mythologies 
. 232. 

^ C?L\sar, De hello gaUicOs vi. 16. 

* Diodorus Siculus, xx. 14. 

® Clavigero, op. cit. i. 282. 

** Bancroft, op. cit. ii. 704. 

” Stoll, op. cit. p. 40. 

” Bry, op. cit. p. 1 1 . 

^ Garcilasso dc la Vega, op. cit. i. 
50. 

Ellis, 'rshi-speaking Peoples 170. 
H H 2 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

and they were all slaves.^ In Fiji the victims were generally 
prisoners of war, but sometimes they were slaves procured 
by purchase from other tribes.*^ In Nukahiva ‘‘the custom of 
the country requires that the men destined for sacrifice should 
belong to some neighbouring .nation, and accordingly they are 
generally stolen.” ^ In Tahiti “ the unhappy wretches selected 
were cither captives taken in war, or individuals who had 
rendered themselves obnoxious to the chiefs or the priests.^ 
I'he Muruts of Borneo “ never sacrifice one of their own 
people, but either capture an individual of a hostile tribe, or 
send to a friendly tribe to purchase a slave for the purpose.”*'' 
It is said to be contrary to the Kayin custom to sell or sacrifice 
one of their own nation. The Garo hill tribes “generally 
select their victims out of the Bengali villages in the plains.”^ 
The Kandhs considered that the victim must be a stranger. 
“ If we spill our own blood,” they said, “ we shall have no 
descendants ” ; ^ and even the children of Meriahs, who were 
reared for sacrificial purposes, were never offered up in the 
village of their birth.^^ 

We find that various peoples who at a certain period 
have been addicted to the practice of human sacrifice, 
have afterwards, at a more advanced stage of civilisation, 
voluntarily given it up. The cause of this is partly an in- 
crease, or expansion, of the sympathetic sentiment, partly a 
Change of ideas. With the growth of enlightenment men 
would lose faith in this childish method of substitution, and 
consequently find it not only useless, but objectionable ; 
and any sentimental disinclination to the practice would 
by itself, in the course of time, lead to the belief that the 
deity no longer cares for it, or is averse to it. 'Brahmanism 
gradually abolished the immolation of human victims, 
incompatible as it was with the precept of ahimsd^ or 
respect for everything that has life ; “ the liberation of 
the victim, or the substitution in its stead and place of a 

^ Lin^ Roth, Great Benirt^ p. 70. ® Burns, in Jour, of Indian Archi- 

^ Hale, U.S. Exploring Expedition. pelago, iii. 145. 

VoL VI. Ethnography and Philology^ Godwin- Austen, in Jour. Anthr . ' 

p. 57. Cf. Wilkes, op. cit. iii. 97. Inst. ii. 394. 

^ Lisiansky, op. cit. p. %\ sq. ® Macpherson, Memorials of Seroice 

Ellis, Polynesian Researches., i. 346. in India, p. I2I, 

^ Denison, quoted l)y Ling Roth, * Campbell, Wild Tribes of Khon- 
Natives of Sarawak, ii. 216. distan, p. 53. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

figure made of flour paste, both of which were at first 
matter of sufferance, became at length matter of require- 
ment.” ^ According to the Mahabharata, the priest who 
performs a human sacrifice is cast into hell.^ In Greece, 
in the historic age, the practice was held in horror at 
least by all the better minds, though it was regarded 
as necessary on certain occasions.* It was strongly con- 
demned by enlightened Romans. Cicero speaks of it as a 
“ monstrous and barbarous practice ” still disgracing Gaul 
in .his day ; * and Pliny, referring to the steps taken by 
Tiberius to stop it, declares it impossible to estimate the 
debt of the world to the Romans for their efforts to put it 
down.* 

The growing reluctance to offer human sacrifice led to 
various practices intended to replace it.® Speaking of the 
Italian custom of dedicating as a sacrifice to the gods every 
creature that should be born in the following spring, 
Festus adds that, since it seemed cruel to kill innocent 
boys and girls, they were kept till they had grown up, 
then veiled and driven beyond the boundaries.’^ Among 
various peoples human effigies or animals were offered 
instead of men. 

Among the Malays of the Malay Penitisula dough models 
of human beings, actually called “the substitutes,” are offered up 
to the spirits bn 'the sacrificial trays j and in the same sense 
are the directions of magicians, that “ if the spirit craves a 
human victim a cock may be substituted.”® We are told that, 
in Egypt, King Amosis ordered three waxen images to be 
burned in the temple of Heliopolis in lieu of the three men who 
in earlier times used to be sacrificed there.” The Romans 
offered dolls ; and in old Hindu families belonging to the sect 
of the Vamacharis a practice still obtains of sacrificing an effigy 

^ Barth, Religions of India^ p. 97. 

^ ^ Siipra^ p. 458. 

^ Stengel, op. cit. p. 117. Cf 
DQnaldson, loc. cit. p. 464. 

Cicero, Pro Fonteio., 10 (21). 

® Pliny, llistoria fiaturalis^ xxx. 4 
(I). 

** Cf Krause, ‘ Die Abldsung der 

Menschenopfer,’ in Abiwtn, 1878, iii. 
76 sqq. 

^ Festus, op. cit. ‘ Ver sacrum,’ p. 
379 - 

^ Skeat, Malay Magic ^ p. 72. 

^ Porphyry, op. cit. ii. 55. 

Leist, Gneco-italische Rechtsge- 
schichte^ p. 272 sqq. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

instead of a living inan.^ In India, Greece, and Rome, animals, 
also, were substituted for human victims.^ Of a similar 
substitution tliere is probably a trace in the Biblical story of 
Isaac being exchanged for a ram, and in the paschal sacrifice.^ 
On the Gold Coast the human victim who was formerly 
sacrificed to the god of the Prah is nowadays replaced by 
a bullock which is specially reserved and fattened for the 
purpose. 

In Other cases human sacrifices have been succeeded by 
practices involving the effusion of human blood without 
loss of life. We are told that, in Laconia, Lycurgus 
established the scourging of lads at the altar of Artemis 
Orthia, in place of the sacrifice of men, which had previously 
been offered to her ; ® and Euripides represents Athena as 
ordaining that, when the people celebrate the festival of 
Artemis the Taurian goddess, the priest, to compensate 
her for the sacrifice of Orestes, “ must hold his knife to a 
human throat, and blood must flow to satisfy the sacred 
claims of the goddess, that she may have her honours.” " 
There are also many instances of bleeding or mutilation 
practised for the same purpose as human sacrifice, prob- 
ably according to the principle of /o/o, though it is 

impossible to decide whether they really are survivals of 
an earlier sacrifice. 

Besides the ceremony of nawgia^ already described,*^ the Tonga 
Islanders had another ceremony called tootoo-nbna^ or cutting off 
a portion of the little finger, as a sacrifice to the gods, for the 
recovery of a superior relation who was ill ; and so commonly 
was this done that, in Mariner’s days, there was scarcely a 
person living in the Tonga Islands who had not lost one or both 
little fingers, or at least a considerable portion of them.^ In 
Chinese literature there are frequently mentioned instances ot 
persons cutting off flesh from their bodies to cure parents 
or paternal grandparents dangerously ill. In most cases 

^ Rajendralala Mitra, op, cit, ii. 109 of Northe)'n India,, ii. 175 sq, 
sq, ^ See supra,, p. 458. 

^ Leist, Grceco-italische Rechtsge- ^ Ellis, Tshi- speaking Peoples^ p. 66. 

schichte^ p. 267 sqq. I'razer, Golden ^ Pausanias, iii. 16. 10. 

Bough, ii. 38, n. 2. Pausanias, ix. 8. 2. ® Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris^ 

For various modifications of human 1458 sqq. 

sacrifice in India, see Wilson, Works, ^ Supra, p. 455 

ii. 267 sq. ; Crooke, Popular Religion ^ Mariner, op. cit. ii. 222. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

it remains urimentioned how the flesh was prepared ; but it is 
sometimes stated that porridge or broth was made of it, or that 
it was mixed with medicine. Dr. de Groot maintains that 
it was in the first place the ascription of therapeutic virtues 
to parts of the human body that prompted such filial self- 
mutilation. But he adds that “ often also we read of thigh- 
cutters invoicing Heaven beforehand, solemnly asking this 
highest power to accept their own bodies as a substitute for the 
patients’ lives they wanted to save ; their mutilation thus assum- 
ing the character of self-immolation.” ^ According to the 
testimony of a native writer, there is scarcely a respectable 
liouse in all Bengal, the mistress of which has not at one time 
or other shed her blood, under the notion of satisfying 
the goddess (.^handika by the operation. “Whenever her 
husband or a son is dangerously ill, a vow is made that on the 
recovery of the patient, the goddess would be regaled with 
human blood. . . . Fhe lady performs certain ceremonies, 
and then bares her breast in the presence of the goddess, and 
with a nail-cutter {naruna) draws a few drops of blood from 
between her breasts and offers them to the divinity.”- Garci- 
lasso de la Vega states that, whilst some of the Peruvian Indians 
before the time of the Incas sacrificed men, there were others 
who, though they mixed human blood in their sacrifices, did 
not obtain it by killing anyone, but by bleeding the arms and 
legs, according to the importance of the sacrifice, and, in the 
most solemn cases, by bleeding the root of the nose where it is 
joined by the eyebrows.^ 

There is one form of human sacrifice which has out- 
lived all others, namely, the penal sacrifice of offenders. 
There can be no moral scruples in regard to a rite which 
involves a punishment regarded as just. Indeed, this kind 
of human sacrifice is even found where the offering of 
animals or lifeless things has fallen out of use or become 
a mere symbol. For this is the only sacrifice which is 
intended to propitiate the deity by the mere death of the 
victim ; and gods are believed to be capable of feeling 
anger and revenge long after they have ceased to have 
material needs. The last trace of human sacrifice has 

^ de Groot, Relii^iom System of Rajendralala Mitra, op. ciiy i. iii 

China^ (vol. iv. l)ook) ii. 386 3v/. sf 

^ Garcilasso de la Vega, op. cii. i. 52. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

disappeared only when men no longer punish offenders ' 
capitally with a view to appeasing resentful gods. 

Human beings are sacrificed not only to gods, but to 
dead men, in order to serve them as companions or 
servants, or to vivify their spirits, or to gratify their 
craving for revenge. 

From various quarters of the world we hear of the 
immolation of men for the service of the dead, the victims 
generally being slaves, wives, or captives of war, or, some- 
times, friends.^ This rite occurs or has occurred, more or 
less extensively, in Borneo" and the Philippine Islands,® 
in Melanesia and Polynesia,^ in many different parts of 
Africa,® and among some American tribes.® In America, 
however, it was carried to its height by the more civilised 
nations of Central America and Mexico^. Bogota and 
Peru.’^ There is evidence to show that the funeral cere- 

See Tylor, Primitive Ctilture, i. 
458 sr/f/. ; Spencer, Principles of Socio- 
logy, i. 203 ; Liebrecht, Zur 

Volkskum/e, p. 380 sq. ; Schneider, 
Naturvblker, i. 202 sqq. ; flehn, op, cit. 
p. 416 sqq. ; Westermarck, History of 
Human Marriage, p. 125 sq. ; Frazer, 
Pausanias, iii. 199 sq. 

Brooke, Ten Years in Sardwak, 
i. 74. Hose and McDougall, ‘Rela- 
tions between Men and Animals in 
Sarawak,’ in four. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. 
20T sq. Bock, Head-Hunters of Borneo, 
pp. 210 n., 2ig sq. 

Blumentritt, ‘ Der Ahnencultus und 
die religidsen Anschauungen der 
Malaieii des Philippinen-Archipeks,’ in 
Miitkeilungen d. Geograpk. Gesellsch. 
in Wien, xxv. 152 sq. 

^ Westermarck, op. cit. p. 125 sq. 
Brenchley, op, cit. p. 208 (natives of 
Tana). Williams and Calvert, op. cit. 
p. 161 sq. (Fijians). Lisiansky, op. cit. 
p. 81 (Nukahivans). Mariner, op. cit. ii, 
220 sq. (Tonga Islander.s). Taylor, 
Te Ika a Maui,^ p. 218 (Maoris), von 
Kotzebue, op, cit, iii. 247 (Sandwich 
Islanders). 

® Africa Unveiled, p. 127. 

Idem, Religion of the Africans, p. 102 
sq. Schneider, Religion der afrika- 

nischenNatm'vdlker,'^, w^sqq, Wester- 
marck, op. cit, p. 125. Ramseyer and 
Klihne, Four Years in Ashantee, p. 50. 
Mockler- Ferryman, British Nigeria, 
PP* 235, 259 sqq. Barton, Mission to 
Gelele, ii. 19 sqq. (Dahomans). 
Idem, Abeokutas i. 220 sq. Idem, 
Lake Regions of Central Africa, i. 124 
(Wadoe) ; ii. 25 sq. (Wanyamwezi). 
WiLson, Western Africa, pp. 203, 219. 
Ellis, i's hi -speaking Peoples pf the Gold 
Coast, p. 159 sqq. Idem, Ewe-speaking 
Peoples of the Slave Coast, pp. 117, 
1 18, 12 1 sqq. Nachtigal, Sahara tmd 
Sudan, ii. 687 (Somrai and Njillem). 
Baker, Ismailia, p. 317 sq. (Wanyoro). 
Casati, Ten Years in Equatoria, i. 170 
(Mambettu). Callaway, Religious Sys- 
tem of the Arnazulu, p. 212 sq. 

^ wSpencer, Principles of Sociology, 
i. 204. Dorman, op. cit, p. 210 sqq. 
Westermarck, op. cit. p. 125. Macfie, 
Vancouver Island and British 
Columbia, p. 448. Charlevoix, Voyage 
to North. America, \\. igG sq. (Natchez). 
R<^chefort, Histoire nature lie et morale 
des lies Antilles, p. sq. (Caribs). 

^ Tylor, Primitive Culture^ i. 461. 
Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 205. 
Dorman, op. cit. 212 sqq. Acosta, op. 
cit. ii. 313, 314, 344 (Peruvians). 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

monies of the ancient Egyptians occasionally included 
human sacrifice at the gate of the tomb, although the 
practice would seem to have been exceptional, at any rate 
after Egypt had entered upon her period of greatness.' 
It has been suggested that in China the burial of living 
persons with the dead dates from the darkest mist of ages, 
and that the cases on record in the native books are of 
relatively modern date only because in high* antiquity the 
custom was so common, that it did not occur to the 
annalists and chroniclers to set down such everyday 
matters as anything remarkable.*^ In the fourteenth cen- 
tury of our era, the funeral sacrifice of men was abolished, 
even for emperors and members of the imperial family,® 
but it has assumed a modified shape under which it still 
maintains itself in China. “ Daughters, daughters-in-law, 
and widows especially imbued with the doctrine that they 
are the property of their dead parents, parents-in-law, and 
husbands, and accordingly owe them the highest degree of 
submissive devotion, often take their lives, in order to 
follow them into the next world.” And though it has 
been enacted that no official distinctions shall be awarded 
to such suttees, whereas honours are granted to widowed 
wives, concubines, and brides who, instead of destroying 
themselves, simply abjure matrimonial life for good, 
sutfteism of widows and brides still meets with the same 
applause as ever, and many a woman is no doubt prevailed 
upon, or even compelled, by her own relations, to become 
a suttee.' Professor Schrader observes that “ it is no 
longer possible to doubt that ancient Indo-Germanic 
custom ordained that the wife should die with her hus- 
band.” ® v It has been argued, it is true, that the burning 
of widows begins rather late in India ; " yet, though the 
modern ordinance of suttee- burning be a corrupt depar- 

^ Wiedemann, AtuierU Egyptian 
Doctrine of the Inirnortality of the Soni^ 
p. 62 n. 

^ de Groot, op, cit. (vol, ii. book) i. 

721. 

^ Ibid, (vol. ii. book) i. 724. 

^ Ibid, (vol. li. ])Ook) 1. 735, 754, 

748. 

® Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities 
of the Aryan Peoples^ p. 391. 

® Hopkins, op. cit, p, 274. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

ture from the early Brahmanic ritual, the practice seems 
to be, not a new invention by the later Hindu priesthood, 
but the revival of an ancient rite belonging originally to 
a period even earlier than the Veda.^ In the Vedic 
ritual there are ceremonies which obviously indicate 
the previous existence of such a rite.^ From Greece we 
have the instances of tivadne throwing herself into the 
funeral pile of her husband,® and of the suicide of the 
three Messenian widows mentioned by Pausanias.'* Sacri- 
fice of widows occurred, as it seems as a regular custom, 
among the Scandinavians,® Heruli,® and Slavonians.' 
“ The fact,” says Mr. Ralston, “ that, in Slavonic lands, a 
thousand years ago, widows used to destroy themselves in 
order to accompany their dead husbands to the world of 
spirits, seems to rest on incontestable evidence ” ; and if the 
dead was a man of means and distinction, he was also 
solaced by the sacrifice of his slaves.® Funeral ofFerings 
of slaves occurred among the Teutons® and the Gauls of 
Ciesar’s time;“ and in the Iliad we read of twelve captives 
being laid on the funeral pile of Patroclus." 

l^According to early notions, men require wives and 
servants not only during their life-time, but after their 
death. The surviving relatives want to satisfy their 
needs, out of affection or from fear of withholding from 
the dead what belongs to them — their wives and their 
slaves. The destruction of innocent life seems justified 
by the low social standing of the victims and their 
subjection to their husbands or masters. » Flowever, with 
advancing civilisation this sacrifice has a tendency to 

^ Priinilive Culture ^\. Afi^sqq, ^ Dithmar of Merseburg, Chronicon^ 

X\mn\cx, Altindisches Leben, 1,^1. viii. 2 (Pertz, Monuwenta Germanue 

- 2llg-Feda, x. i8. S sq. Macdonell, historical v. 86 1). Zimmer, op. cit. p. 

Vedic Mythology., p. 165. Hille- 330. 

l)randt, ‘ Eine Miscelle aus dem ® RaEton, Songs of the Russian 
Vedarilual,’ in Zeitschr. d. Deutschen People, p. 327 sq. 

Morgenldnd. Gesellsch. y\, ^\\. Olden- ^ Orimm, op. cit. p. 344. 

berg, Religion des Veda, p. 587. CiTsar, De hello gallico, vi. 19. 

^ Kuripide.s, Siipplices, 1000 sqq. In the ancient annals of the Irish there 

Pausanias, iv. 2. 7, i.s one trace of human sacrifice being 

^ Cirirnm, Deutsche Rechtsalter- offered as a funeral rite (Cusack, His- 

thiimer, ji. 451. tory of the Irish Nation, p. 115 n.*). 

® Procopius, op. cit. ii. 14. Iliad, xxiii. 175. 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

disappear, partly, perhaps, oti account of a change of ideas ^ 
as regards the state after death, but chiefly, I presume, 
because it becomes revolting to public feelings. It then 
dwindles into a survival. As a probable instance of this may 
be mentioned a custom prevalent among the Tacullies of 
North America : the widow is compelled by the kinsfolk 
of the deceased to lie on the funeral pile where the body 
of her husband is placed, whilst the fire is lighting, until 
the heat becomes intolerable/ In ancient Egypt little 
images of clay, or wood, or stone, or bronze, made in 
human likeness and inscribed with a certain formula, Vere 
placed within the tomb, presumably in the hopes that they 
would there attain to life and become the useful servants 
of the dead.‘^ So also the Japanese'^ and Chinese, already 
in early times, placed images in, or at, the tombs of their 
dead as substitutes for human victims ; and these images 
have always been considered to have no less virtual 
existence in the next world than living servitors, wives, or 
concubines. In China the original immolations were, 
moreover, replaced by the custom of allowing the nearest 
relatives and slaves of the deceased simply to settle on the 
tomb, instead of entering it, there to sacrifice to the 
manes, and by prohibiting widows from remarrying.'^ ) 

The practice of sacrificing human beings to the dead is 
not exclusively based on the idea that they require servants 
and companions. '-^It is extremely probable that the 
funeral sacrifice of men and animals in many cases in- 
volves an intention to vivify the spirits of the deceased 
with the warm, red sap of life."'- This seems to be the 
meaning of the Dahoman custom of pouring blood over 
the graves of the ancestors of the king.*' So, also, in 
Ashanti ‘‘ human sacrifices are frequent and ordinary, to 

^ Wilkes, U, S. Exploring Expedi- 
tion^ iv. 453. 

^ Wiedemann, Ancient Egyptian 
Doctrine of the I in mortality of the Sot cl, 

P- ^3- 

^ Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 463. 

^ de Groot, op. cit. (vol. ii. hook) i. 
794 W* 

® Cf. Principles of Sociology, / 

i. 288 Sij. ; Rockholz, Deutscher Glattbe 
und Branch, i 55 ; Sepp, Volkerbrauck 
bei Hochzeit, Geburt und 7 od, p. 154 ; 
Trumbull, Blood Covenant, p. no 

SgiJ. 

Reade, Savage Africa, p. 51 

HUMAN SACRIFICE 

CH. XIX 

water the graves of the Kings.” ^ In the German folk-tale 
known under the name of ‘ Faithful John,’ the statue said to 
the King, ‘‘ If you, with your own hand, cut off the heads 
of both your children, and sprinkle me with their blood, I 
shall be brought to life again.” ^ According to primitive 
ideas, blood is life ; to receive blood is to receive life ; the 
soul of the dead wants to live, and consequently loves 
blood. The shades in Hades are eager to drink the blood 
of Odysseus’ sacrifice, that their life may be renewed for 
a time.^ And it is all the more important that the soul 
should get what it desires as it otherwise may come and 
attack the living. The belief that the bloodless shades 
leave their graves at night and seek renewed life by draw- 
ing the blood of the living, is prevalent in many parts of 
the world. As late as the eighteenth century this belief 
caused an epidemic of fear in Hungary, resulting in a 
general disinterment, and the burning or staking of the 
suspected bodies.'' It is also possible that the mutilations 
and self-bleedings which accompany funerals are partly 
practised for the purpose of refreshing the departed soul.*' 
The Samoans called it an offering of blood” for the 
dead when the mourners beat their heads with stones till 
the blood ran.^ 

Finally, as offenders are sacrificed to gods in order to 
appease their wrath, so manslayers are in many cases killed 
in order to satisfy their victims’ craving for revenge. In 
the next chapter we shall see that the execution of blood- 
revenge largely falls under the heading of ‘‘human 
sacrifice for the dead.” 

^ Bowdich, Mission from Cape Castle Farrer, Primitive Afanners and 

to Ashatitce^ p. 289. Customs^ p. 23 sq. 

^ Grimm, Kinder- und ITansmdr- ** Cf Spcncor, Princ iples of Soeio/o^yy 
chetty p. 2g Sc/. i. 181 s/. 

Odyssey, xi. 153. ^ d'urner, Nineteen Years in Poly- 

Trumbull, Blood Covenant , p. 114 nesia, p. 227.

BLOOD-REVENGE AND COMPENSATION THE PUNISH- 

MENT OF DEATH 

According to early custom, a person who takes the 
life of another may himself be killed by the relatives of 
his victim, or some other member of his family, clan, or 
tribe may be killed in his stead.^ The custom of blood- 
revenge is found among a host of existing savages and 
barbarians, and has long survived among many peoples 
who have reached a higher degree of culture. 

We meet with blood-revenge in the midst of Japanese 
civilisation, not as a mere fact, but as a legally permitted 
custom. The avenger had only to observe certain pre- 
scribed formalities and regulations : there was a regular 
official to whom he must announce his resolve, and he 
must fix the time within which he would carry it out. 
The way in which the enemy was killed was of no 
importance, except that, even in ancient times, the man 
who had recourse to assassination was reprehensible.‘^ 
Among the Hebrews blood-revenge continued to exist 
during the periods of the Judges and Kings, and even 
later ; under the Old Kingdom, says Wellhausen, ‘‘ the 
administration of justice was at best but a scanty supple- 
ment to the practice of self-help.”^ It is a rule among 

^ The collective responsibility usually Japan/ in Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan, 
involved in the blood -feud has been xiii. 84 sq, 

discussed supra, p. 30 sqq, ^ Wellhausen, Prolegofnena to the 

“ Rein, Japan, p. 326. Dautremer, History of Israel, p. 467. 

‘ The Vendetta or Legal Revenge in 

BLOOD-REVENGE 

all the Arabs that whoever sheds the blood of a man owes 
blood on that account to the family of the slain person.^ 
Says the Koran : — O ye who believe ! Retaliation is 
prescribed for you for the slain.” ^ In ancient Eran 
blood-revenge survived the establishment of tribunals.^ 
There is evidence left of its prevalence in early times 
among the Aryan population of India, though no mention 
is made in the Sutras of blood-revenge as an existing 
custom.^ Among the Greeks it was only in the post- 
Homeric age that it was given up as a fundamental 
principle, the avenger being transformed into an accuser.^ 
In Gaul and Ireland, though justice was administered by 
Druids or Brehons, their judgments seem to have been 
merely awards founded upon a submission to arbitration, 
the injured person being at liberty to take the law into 
his own hands and redress himself.^' In the preface to 
the Senchus Mor we read that retaliation prevailed in Erin 
before Patrick, and that Patrick brought forgiveness with 
him.” Among the clans of Scotland, as is well known, 
the blood-feud has existed up to quite modern times ; in 
the Catholic period even the Church recognised its power 
by leaving the right hand of male children unchristened, 
that it might deal the more unhallowed and deadly a blow 
to the enemy.- In England it was at least theoretically 
possible down to the middle of the tenth century for sC 
manslayer to elect to bear the feud of the kindred of 
the slain, instead of paying the wer;'^ and long after the 
Conquest we still meet with a law against the system of 

^ Biirckhardt, Azotes on the Bedouins prcsenled as objectionable (Mommsen, 
a}id IVa/idhys^ p. 85. History of Ronie^ i. 190). 

“ luirafiy ii. 173. Cf. ibid. xvii. 35. Maine, Early History of Institu- 

^ (ieiger, Civilization of the Eastern lions., lect. ii. d’Arbois de Jubainville, 
Iranians y ii. 31 sqq. ‘ Dcs attributions judiciaires de 

** Leist, Alt-arisilies Jus Cenliuni^ I’autorite publicpie chez les Ccltes,’ in 
p. 422. Revue Celtiijuc, vii. 5, Aneient Lazos 

® Ideniy Griceo-italischc Rcektsge- of Ireland., iii. p. Ixxxix. 
schiihte., § 50 sq.., especially pp. 375, ^ Skene, Celtic Scotland., iii. 1 52. 

381. In Rome Idood-reven^e appears Mackintosh, History of Civilisa- 

to have been very early suppressed. tion in Scotland, ii 279. 

There is an echo of it in certain Pollock and Maitland, Histoiy of 

legends, but even in them it is re- English Law before the Time of 
^ Edward L i. 48. 

BLOOD-REVENGE 

private revenge.^ In Frisland, Lower Saxony, and parts 
of Switzerland, the blood-feud was practised as late as the 
sixteenth century.^ In Italy it prevailed extensively, even 
among the upper classes, in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries/ In Corsica/ Albania,'^ and Montenegro/" it 
exists even to this day. 

Blood-revenge is regarded not only as a right, but as a 
duty. We are told that the holiest duty a West 
Australian native is called on to perform is that of avenging 
the death of his nearest relation. “ Until he has fulfilled 
this task, he is constantly taunted by the old women ; his 
wives, if he be married, would soon quit him ; if he is un- 
m'arried, not a single young woman would speak to’ him ; 
his mother would constantly cry, and lament she should 
ever have given birth to so degenerate a son ; his father 
would treat him with contempt, and reproaches would 
constantly be sounded in his ear,”” Among the tribes of 
Western Victoria a man would consider it his bounden 
duty to kill his most intimate friend for the purpose of 
avenging a brother’s death, and would do so without the 
slightest hesitation.” ^ In his description of the Eskimo 
about Behring Strait, Mr. Nelson states that blood-revenge 
is considered a sacred duty among all the Eskimo, a duty 
incumbent on the nearest male relative ; if the son of the 
murdered man is an infant, it rests with him to seek 
revenge as soon as he attains puberty.'^ Among the 
Dacotahs ‘‘ no one can escape this Jaw of retaliation ; 
public opinion would brand with disgrace whoever fled 
under such circumstances.”^^ The Brazilian aborigines 

^ Cherry, Growth of Critniiial Law 
in Ancient Conunnnities, p. 85. 

Gunther, Lice der IViedenjergcl- 
timgy 'x. 207 Si], Krauensladt, Blutrache 
und Todtschlagsiihne im Deutschen 
Mittelaltery p. 21. Cf. Arnold, 
Deutsche Urzeity p. 342. 

^ Simonde de Sismondi, Histoire des 
rdpublujues italiennes die ntoyen ligc, 
xvi. 456. 

^ Gregorovius, IVanderings in Cor- 
sicay i. 176 s]]. 

^ Gopcevic, Obcralbanieft tend seine 
LigUy p. 322 sqq. 

® K(dil, Reise nach Istricuy i. 406 
sqq. Popov id, Kecht und Gericht in 
Montenegro y p. 69. 

^ Grey, Journals of Expeditions of 
Discovery in North- West and Western 
Austral lay ii. 240. 

® Dawson, Australian Aborigines y p. 

7 ^- 

Nelson, ‘ Eskimo about Bering 
Strait,’ in Ann. Eep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 
p. 292 sq. 

Domcnech, Seven Years'' Residence 
in the Great Deserts of North Aniericay 

ii. 338- 

BLOOD-REVENGE 

consider it a moral obligation, a matter of conscience, for 
a son, a brother, or a nephew, to avenge the death of his 
relative.^ Speaking of the Guiana Indians, Mr. Im 
Thurn observes that, “ in all primitive societies where 
there are no written laws and no n,upreme authority to 
enforce justice, such vengeance has ^een held as a sacred 
duty.” -^ Confucius affirmed, in the strongest and most 
unrestricted terms, the duty of avenging the murder of a 
father or a brother.'^ In Japan “ the man who was weak 
enough not to try to put to death the murderer of his 
father or his lord, was obliged to flee into hiding ; from that 
day, he was despised by his own companions.” ^ The Lord 
said to Moses : — “ The revenger of blood hiriiself shall 
slay the murderer : when he meeteth him, he shall slay 
him.” ° A similar rule, as we have seen, is laid down in 
the Koran.'* The idea that blood-revenge is a sacred duty 
incumbent on the kindred of the deceased was probably 
held by all so-called Aryan peoples.’^ It still prevails in 
Albania,^ Montenegro,''* and. Corsica. “ Not to take 
revenge is considered by the genuine Corsicans as degrad- 
ing. . . . Any one who shrinks from avenging himself 
... is allowed no rest by his relations, and all his 
acquaintances upbraid him with pusillanimity.” “ 

^ von Miirtiii.s, ziir Etluio- Christian K’j Lov^ ]). 574; Keyser, 

graphic Anierika s^ i, 128. Efterladte Skrifter, ii. pt. ii. 95 ; 

- Ini Thurn, Among the Indians of Ro.senl)erg, Nordhoernes AandsliVy 
Guiana, p. 329 sq. i. 487 (Teutons). Miklosich, ‘ Die 

^ Lcgge, Chinese Classics, i. ill. Blutrache bei den Slaven,’ in Denk- 
Douglas, Confucianism and Taoiiism, schriften der kaiserl, Akadetnie d. 
p. 145. Wissenseh. Philos, histor, Classe, 

^ Dautremer, loc. cit. p. 83. Cf. Vienna, xxxvi. 127 sqq. Ewers, Das 
Grififis, Corea, p. 227 (Coreans). dlteste Kecht der Russen, p, 50 sq, 

^ Numbers, xxxv. 19. ^ Mahn, Albanesische Studien, 

^ For modern Arabs, see Burckhardt, i. 176. 

Notes on the Bedouins and Wahdbys, ^ Popovic, op, cit, p. 69. Kohl, op, 
p. 313 sq, ; Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of cit, i, 409, 413 sqq, Miklosich, loc, 
the Euphrates, ii. 207. cit, p. 145 

^ Geiger, op. cit, ii. 32 (Avesta |>qo- Gregorovius, op. cit. i. 1 80 sq. For 

pie). Leist, Alt-arisches Jus Genthim, other instances of blood-revenge as a 
p. 422. Ide 7 n, Gneco-italische Kechts- duty, .see Boas, ‘ Central Eskimo,’ in 
geschichte, p. 323 sqq. de Valroger, Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 582 ; Petroff, 
op. cit. p. 472 (Celts). Nordstrom, ‘ Report on Alaska,’ in Tenth Census 
Bidt'ag till den svenska samhcills- of the United States, p. 158 (Atkha 
fdrfattningens historia, ii. 229 ; Ste- Aleuts) ; Kohler, in Zeitschr, f. vergl. ^ 
mann, Den Danske Retshistorie indtil Rechtswiss. vii. 376 (Papuans of New 

BLOOD-REVENGE 

The duty of blood-revenge is, in the first place, regarded 
as a duty to the dead, not merely because he has been 
deprived of his highest good, his life, but because his 
spirit is believed to find no rest after death until the 
injury has been aveng The disembodied soul carries 
into its new existence an eager longing for revenge, and, 
till the crime has been duly expiated, hovers about the 
earth, molesting the manslayer or trying to compel its 
own relatives to take vengeance on him. 

According to Yakut beliefs, a person who is murdered be- 
comes a yor^ that is, his ghost never comes to rest.^ The 
Cheremises imagine that the spirits of persons who have died a 
violent deatli cause illness, especially fever and ague.? The 
Saoras of India seem to have most fear of the spirits of those 
who have died violent deaths.^ The Burmese believe that per- 
sons who meet a violent death become nats ” and haunt the place 
where they were killed.® The Hudson Bay Eskimo regard the 
island of Akpatok as tabooed since the murder of part of the 
crew of a wrecked vessel, who camped on that island; ‘^not 
a soul visits that locality lest the ghosts of the victims should 
appear and supplicate relief from the natives, who have not the 
proper offerings to make to appease them.’’*^ The Omahas 
believe ^that the spirits of those who have been killed reappear 
after death, their errand being to solicit vengeance on the 
perpetrators of the deed.” ^ According to Genesis, the voice of 

Cuinea) ; Modigliani, Viaggio a N/as, Archipelago). 

Visit to the Philippine ^ See Kohler, Shakespea 7 'e 7 wr devi 

Islands^ p. 177; Maepherson, Memo- Foru?n der Piirisp^'udenz^ p. 131 sq,\ 

rials of Service in India^ p. 82 Steinmetz, Ethnol. Studien znr ersten 

(Kandhs) ; Radde, Die Chews"' uren, Entwicklung der Strafe, i. 291 sqq. ; 

p. I15 ; von Haxthausen, 7 rans- Idem, Pec hts verbal tnisse,Yi. 

caucasia, p. 406 sqq, (Ossetes); Mun- and Bapiiku) ; Nicole, ibid, p. 132 

zinger, Die Sitten und das Recht der (Diakite-Sarrakolese) ; Lang, ibid, p. 

Bogos, p. 87 ; Mungo Park, Ti'avels in 257 ( Washambala). 

the Interior of Africa, p. 13 (Feloops ^ Sumner, in Jour. Atithr. Inst. 
bordering on the Gambia) ; Leuschner, xxxi. loi. 

in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhaltnisse von ^ Abercromby, Pre- and Proto-historic 
eingeborenen Vblkern in Afrika und Finns, i. 168 sq. 

Ozeafiien, p. 23 (Bakwiri) ; ibid. p. 49 ^ Fawcett, in four, Anthrop. Soc. 

(Banaka and Bapuku) ; Nicole, ibid. p. Bombay, i, 59. 

132 (Diakite-Sarrakolese) ; Lang, ibid. ® Schway Yoe, The Biu'man, i. 286. 

p. 2^6 sq. (Washambala) ; Kraft, ibid. ® Turner, ‘ Ethnology of the Ungava 

p. 292 (Wapokomo) ; Viehe, ibid. p. District,’ in A 777/. Rep. Bur. Etlm. xi. 
31 1 (Ovaherero) ; Routanen, ibid. p. 186. 

341 (Ondonga) ; Sorge, ibd. p. 418 Expeditio7t from Pittsburgh 

(Nissan Islanders in the Bismarck to the Rocky Moimtains, i. 267. 

VOL. I I I 

BLOOD-REVENGE 

blood shed cried for vengeance until the murderer was punished.^ 
A similar notion prevailed among the Bedouins, hence they 
thought they might escape the taking of revenge by covering 
up the blood with earth. ^ One of the most popular ghost stories 
in folk-tales is that which treats of the ghost of a murdered person 
flitting about the haunts of the living with no gratification but 
to terrify them.^ According to Rohde, this belief was in full 
force at Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ.^ 
Aeschylus attributes an Erinys to the heinous crime of a man’s 
neglecting his duty as avenger of blood ^ — in other words, the 
soul of the slain turned its anger against the neglectful relative. 
Traces of the same belief still survive in various parts of 
Europe.^ In Warend, in Sweden, the people maintain that the 
unsatisfied ghost of a murdered man visits his relatives at night, 
and disturbs their rest ; and it was an ancient custom among 
them that, if the murderer was not known, the nearest relation 
of the dead, before the knell began, went forward to the corpse 
and asked the dead himself to avenge his murder. ^ 

From one point of view, blood-revenge is thus a form 
of human sacrifice. Sometimes it even formally bears a 
strong resemblance to certain other human sacrifices which 
are offered to the dead. Among some Queensland tribes, 
when the assassin has been caught red-handed, the slayer 
and slain are buried together in the same grave ; ^ and 
among the ancient Teutons the avenger by preference slew 
the culprit at the feet of the murdered man, or at his 
tomb.'^ Blood-revenge also resembles other kinds of 
human sacrifice so far that it serves as a safeguard for 
the sacrificer — in this case the avenger, who would other- 
wise expose himself to the persecutions of the revengeful 
spirit of the dead. 

But the practice of blood-revenge is not exclusively 

^ Genesis^ iv. lo. 

]acob, Leben der vorishhnischen 
Beduinen^ p. 146. Cf. Schwally, Leben 
7 iach deni Tode, p. 52 sq. 

3 See Dyer, The Ghost World, 
p. 65 sqq. ; Anclree, Ethnographische 
Parallelen, p. 80 sqq. 

^ Rohde, Psyche, p. 240. Cf. Idem, 
‘ Para]ipomena,’in Pheinisches Museum 
fur Philologie, 1895, p. \<^sq.\ Schmidt, 
Ethik der alien Griechen, ii. 125 sqq. 

® Aeschylus, Choephori, 2 . 83 sqq, Cf. 
ibid. 400 sqq.\ Plato, Leges, ix. 866. 

® Dyer, op, cit, p. 68 sqq, Thorpe, 
Northern Mythology, ii. 19 sq, 

7 Ilylten-Cavallius, Warend och 
Wirdarne, ii. 274 ; i. 473. 

^ Roth, Ethnological Studies among 
the North-West- Central Queens la7td 
Aborigines, p. 165 

® Wilda, Sh'afrecht der Germayien, 
pp. 170, 692. 

BLOOD-REVENGE 

based on a desire to avenge the injury done to a fellow- 
creature and to gratify the angry passion of his soul. The 
act which caused his death is at the same time an injury 
inflicted upon the survivors. Hence, in many cases, a 
murder committed within the family or kin is left un- 
avenged.^ Among the Iroquois, says Loskiel, any one 
who has murdered his own relative escapes without much 
difficulty, since the family, who alone have a right to take 
revenge, do not choose to weaken their influence by 
depriving themselves of another member, besides the one 
whom they have already lost.*^ Again, when the murderer 
belongs to an extraneous family, the injury inflicted on the 
relatives of the murdered man suggests not only revenge, 
but reparation. 

The taking of life for life may itself, in a way, serve as 
compensation. It seems that, in some cases, the blood of 
the slain homicide is supposed to restore, as it were, to the 
family of his victim the loss of life which he has caused 
them.'^ Such an idea probably underlies a custom which 
Burckhardt heard existed among the Hallenga, who draw 
their origin from Abyssinia. When the slayer has been 
seized by the relatives of the deceased, a family feast is 
proclaimed, at which the murderer is brought into their 
midst. While his throat is then slowly cut with a razor, 
the blood is caught in a bowl and handed round amongst 
the guests, ‘‘ every one of whom is bound to drink of it 
at the moment the victim breathes his last.'’ ^ Among 
various Arabic-speaking tribes in Morocco I have met with 
a practice which also, possibly, involves a vague idea of 
restoration. On the perpetration of his deed the avenger 

^ Stcinmetz, Ethuol(\^ischc Studien Among the Jhdla of Northern Morocct) 
zt/r ersicn Entwickltnig dcr Sh'afcy blood-revenge is taken for the killing of 
ii., 159 sqq. Mauss, ‘La religion et a cousin, but not for the killing of a 
les origines du droit penal,’ in Revue brother. 

de Phistoire des religionSy xxxv. 44. Loskiel, History of the Mission of 

Kovalewsky, ‘ Les origines du devoir,’ the United Brethren aniotig the Indians 
in Revue internationale de Sociologie, ii. in North Ainericay i. 16. 

86. Cf Seebohm, /VzAr/ Custom in Cf Trumbull, Blood Covenant, 

Anglo-Saxon Law, pp. 30, 42 (Welsh) ; p. 126 sqq. 

Robertson Smith, Religion of the Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, 

Semites, p. 420 ; Idem, Marriage and [>. 356. 

Kinship in Early Arabia, p. 25. 

J I 2 

COMPENSATION 

licks ofF the blood from the blade of the dagger with 
which he killed his victim ; and in one instance related to 
me, he bit off a piece of flesh from the dead body and 
sucked its blood.^ Mr. Trumbull even goes so far as to 
believe that, among the Hebrews, the primal idea of the 
goeFs mission was not to wreak vengeance, but “to restore 
life for life, or to secure the adjusted equivalent of a lost 
life.” ^ But it is difficult to suppose that the exacting of 
blood-revenge ever could have been looked upon as an 
equivalent in the full sense of the term. If the loss of life 
is to be compensated some other practice must take its 
place. 

Sometimes the manslayer, instead of being killed, is 
adopted as a member of the family of his victim.® Among 
the Kabyles of Algeria, for instance, a person who has 
killed another unintentionally, goes to the parents of the 
dead and says to them : — “ If you want to kill me, kill 
me, here is my winding-sheet. If not, pardon me, and I 
shall henceforth be one of your children.” And from this 
day the manslayer is considered to belong to the kharouba, 
or gens, of the deceased.^ Among the Jbala of Northern 
Morocco, again, a homicide sometimes induces the avenger 
to abstain from his persecutions by giving him his sister 
or daughter in marriage ; and a similar custom has been 
noticed among the Beni Amer ^’ and Bogos.^ In other 
cases slaves are given to the relatives of the slain in order 
to atone for the guilt ; ^ but most commonly the compen- 
sation consists of cattle, money, or other property. 

By giving presents to the relatives of his victim, the 
offender not only repairs the loss which he has inflicted 

^ C/. Golciziher, in Robertson Smith, p. 322. 

Kinship and Marriage in Early 6 Sitten imd das Recht c(pr 

Arabia, p. 296 n. 1. Bogos, p. 83. Cf, Kohler, Nachwort 

Trumbull, Blood Covenani, pp. 260, zn Shakespeare vor defn Forum der 
263. Jiirisprudenz, p. 15 sq. 

See Steinraetz, Studieni. 410^^17., ^ Squier, ‘Archaeology and Ethno- 

439 j Kovalewsky, in Revue logy of Nicaragua,’ in 'Frans, American 
Inter nationale de Sociologie, n. sq. Ethh. Soc. iii. pt. i. 129. Idem, 

^ Hanoteau and Letourneux, La Nicaragua, ii. 345 (ancient Nicara- 
Kahylie, iii. 68 sq, guans), Macdonald, 'Africana, i. 171 

^ M\xnz\T\\^QX,OstafrikanischeStudieHy (Eastern Central Africans). 

COMPENSATION 

upon them, but also appeases their wounded feelings.^ 
The pleasure of gain tends to suppress their passion, and 
the loss and humiliation which the adversary suffers by 
the gift exercise a healing influence on their resentment.® 
Sometimes the present is chiefly intended to serve as an 
apology. Among the Iroquois, according to Mr. Morgan, 
the white wampum which the murderer sent to the family 
of his victim and which, if accepted, for ever wiped out 
the memory of his deed, “ was not in the nature of a com- 
pensation for the life of the deceased, but of a regretful 
confession of the crime, with a petition for forgiveness.” ® 
Compensation, moreover, has the advantage of saving 
the injured party the dangers involved in a blood-feud, 
the uncertainty of the issue, and the serious consequences 
which may result from the accomplished act of revenge 
Whilst the carrying out of the principle of “ life for life ” 
often leads to protracted hostilities between the parties, 
compensation has a tendency to bring about a durable 
peace. For this reason it is to the interest of society at 
large to encourage the latter practice ; and this encour- 
agement naturally adds to its attractions. 

But in spite of its merits, the practice of composition 
has, in comparison with blood-revenge, various disadvan- 
tages. It is not equally calculated to satisfy a revengeful 
mind. It has to contend with the conservatism of ancient 
custom. It may be taken as a token of cowardice or 
weakness, whereas the blood-feud gives to its perpetrator 
an opportunity to display his courage and skill. It may be 
considered offensive to the dead kinsman. Penally, if it is 
to flourish, it presupposes a certain amount of wealth. 

^ Rce, Enistehujig des Geivissefis, Studicn,, i. 427 sqq.^ and Lippcrt, 
p. 57 sqq. Steinnietz, Studien^ i, 472 KuKurgeschichle der Mcnschheit^ ii. 
sq. 591. Occasionally, however, composi- 

Cf. Miklosich, lor. cit. p. 148; lion occurs even among such a poor 
Kohl, <r?/. i. 426, 436 (Montenegriries people as ihe Vahgans of Tierra del 
and Albanians). Fuego. “ Sometimes,” says Mr. Bridges 

* Morgan, League of the Iroquois^ (in A Voire foi' South A;uerua, xiii. 
PP« 33 ^ f 333 ' Turner, Saihoa, 207), “ the murderer is .suffered to live, 

p. 326 (people of Aneiteum). but he is much beaten and hurt, and 

** Fpr the influence of wealth on the has to make many pre.sents to the 
practice of composition, see Steinnietz, relatives of the dead.” 

COMPENSATION 

The importance of these difficulties depends on the cir- 
cumstances in each special case. Vindictiveness, conser- 
vatism, the desire for fighting, and the estimation in which 
courage and martial ability are held, are naturally subject 
to variations, and so are people’s wealth and their willing- 
ness to compensate. The ideas held concerning the spirits 
of the departed are likewise variable. The readiness with 
which blood-money was accepted among the Greeks of the 
Homeric age has been explained by their belief in the 
disembodied soul’s dreamlike existence in Hades, without 
strong passions and without the power to molest the living ; 
whilst the later custom of demanding life for life has been 
interpreted as the result of a change of ideas which attri- 
buted much greater activity to the dead.^ In other cases 
the deceased is supposed to be appeased by a mere cere- 
mony, or by a vicarious sacrifice. The Ossetes believe 
that he often appears in a dream to some of his descendants, 
“ tantot pour exiger de lui la vengeance, tantot pour lui 
permettre, au contraire, dc la remplacer par un simple 
office des morts .... Revetu d’habits de deuil, les cheveux 
6pars, I’assassin Ossete vient sur la tombe de celui qu’il a 
tu^, pour accomplir une ci^remonie dont Je but av6re est 
de se consacrer lui-meme a sa victime. Cette ccr^monie 
est connue sous le nom de kifaeldmn : le meurtrier se 
livre spontanement au defunt, qui, en la personne de son 
descendant, lui pardonne son offense.” ^ In Eastern Central 
Africa, says Mr. Macdonald, “ if one man slay another, 
the friends of the deceased are justified in killing the 
murderer on the spot. But if they catch him alive they 
put him in a slave-stick, till compensation be made by a 
heavy fine of from four to twenty slaves. When the fine 
is paid the life of the murderer is not demanded, but 
several of the slaves obtained in compensation are killed, 
to accompany the deceased.” ® In other instances the dead 
is perhaps supposed to be appeased by the mere compensa- 

^ Scbmich, Ethik der alten Griechen^ Kovalewsky, Coutume contenipo- 

ii. Rohde, Psyche^ pp. % sqq.^ rainc et loi ancicnne^ p. 238. 

238. ^ Macdonald, Africana^ i. 170 sq. 

COMPENSATION 

tion paid to his descendants, or his feelings are simply 
disregarded when they collide with the interests of the 
living.' Generally speaking, the question whether com- 
pensation is to be accepted or not, must be settled by 
a balancing of advantages and drawbacks. 

We may expect, then, to find the customs regarding 
blood-revenge and compensation to vary exceedingly 
among different peoples. Among many the rule of 
revenge is strictly followed, and compensation never, or 
rarely, accepted, at least for intentional homicide. This 
group includes not only tribes who are in a state of 
savagery, but peoples like the Beni Amer," Marea,® 
Kabyles of Jurjura,‘‘ and Jbala of Morocco. Burck- 
hardt says of the Bedouins : — “ The stronger and the 
more independent a tribe is, the more remote from culti- 
vated provinces, and the wealthier its individuals, the less 
frequently are the rights of the Thar commuted into a 
fine. Great sheiks, all over the Desert, regard it as 
a shameful transaction to compromise in any degree for 
the blood of their relations.” ■’ Among the mountains of 
Daghestan*’ and in parts of Albania^ it is likewise con- 
sidered disgraceful to accept compensation for the murder 
of a relative. 

In some instances the acceptance of compensation does 
not necessarily mean that the family of the slain altogether 
renounce their right of revenge. Among the Ahts, 
“ though it is usual to accept large presents as expiation 
for murder, yet, practically, this expiation is not com- 
plete, and blood alone effectually atones for blood. An 
accepted present never quite cancels the obligation to 
punish in the breast of the offended person or tribe.”** 
Among the Somals, “after the equivalent is paid, the 

^ Cf. Steinmetz, Siudien^ i. 452. Pilgriinage to Al-Madinah and A/eccah, 

^ Mimzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien ^ ii. 103. 
p. 321 sq, K()valewsky,in 

^ Ibid, p. 242. ‘ de Sociologies ii. 87. 

^ Hauoteau and Letourneux, op, cit, ^ Hahn, op, cU, i. 17^^- 
iii, 61 sq, ^ Sproat, Scenes and Studies of 

® Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins Savage Life ^ p. I 53 - 

and WahdbySs p. 178. Cf. Burton, 

COMPENSATION 

murderer or one of his clan, contrary to the spirit of El 
Islam, is generally killed by the kindred or tribe of the 
slain.” ' Among the Berbers (Shluh) of the province of 
SAs, in Southern Morocco, a person who commits homi- 
cide immediately flees to another tribe, and places himself 
under its protection. His relatives then pay ddit^ or 
blood-money, to the family of the victim, but this only 
prevents the offended party from taking revenge on any 
of them, and does not entitle the murderer to return ; if 
he appears outside the tribe to whom he has fled for 
refuge, he is at any time liable to be killed. Among the 
Ossetes, again, it was formerly “ a prevalent custom for a 
murderer to pay a fixed price for a certain time to the 
family of the murdered man, say for a year, during which 
time the blood-revenge remained dormant.”^ 

In many instances, on the other hand, custom allows 
the acceptance of compensation as a perfectly justifiable 
alternative for blood-revenge, or even regards it as the 
proper method of settling the case. Among the Indians 
of Western Washington and North-Western Oregon the 
principle of life for life, though fully recognised, is some- 
times abrogated in favour of material damages.® Among 
the Thlinkets “ the murder of a relative can be atoned 
for by a certain number of blankets.” ^ Among the 
Californian Karok the murder of a man’s nearest relative 
may be compounded for by the payment of money.® The 
Kutchin demand blood-money for a slain kinsman, but 
avenge his death should such be denied.® Among the 
Kandhs the custom of blood-revenge was modified by the 
principle of money compensation, the acceptance of such 
compensation being in no case considered disgraceful.^ In 
the Malay Archipelago, whilst the more ferocious tribes 

^ Burton, First Footsteps in East ^ Petroff, loc. cit. p. 165. 

Africa^ p. 87 n.f. Cf, Paulitschke, Powers, Tribes of Californiay p. 

Ethnog 7 ’aphie N(r>\iost-Afrikas^ p. 263. 21. 

^ von Haxthausen, Transcaucasia y ® Richardson, Arctic Searching Ex^ 

p. 405. peditiony i. 386. 

® Gibbs, * Tribes of.Western Wash- 7 Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengaly 
ington and Northwestern Oregon,’ in ii. 76. Macpherson, Memorials oj 
Contributions to North American Eth- Service m India y p. 82. 
nologyy i. 189. 

COMPENSATION 

insist, in many situations, upon a literal compliance with 
the law of retaliation, other tribes constantly accept a 
pecuniary compensation.' Among the majority of the 
Bedawee tribes of Egypt compensation is generally taken 
in commutation for vengeance ; ® and the same is the case 
among the Aenezes, though it would reflect shame on the 
friends of the slain person if they were to make the first 
overture.® Among the Wadshagga, again, the acceptance 
of blood-money is obligatory.'* The Vendldad forbids the 
followers of Zoroastrianism to refuse the compensation 
offered for a deed of bloodshed.® Among the Irish the 
public opinion of the village held that the quarrels be- 
tween its members should be compromised in a certain 
manner. However, if the guilty party did not pay the 
amount awarded, the community did not compel him to 
do so, and the injured party was then at liberty to avenge 
his own wrongs l)y reprisals or levying of private war.® 
Among the Teutons the kindred of the slain might, in 
early times, choose between taking revenge or accepting 
compensation, just as they liked ; but later on they were 
expected by public opinion, and finally required by 
public authority, not to pursue the feud if the proper 
composition was forthcoming, except in a few extreme 
cases. 

Thus the exaction of life for life, from being a duty 
incumbent on the family of the dead, becomes a mere 
right of which they may or may not avail themselves, as 
they please, and is at last publicly disapproved of or 
actually prohibited. Among the circumstances by which 
this process has been brought about there is still one 
which calls for special attention, namely, the pressure of 
some intervening authority, the elders of the tribe,® or 

^ Crawfurd, History of the Indian ® Ancient Laws of J reland ^ iii. p. 
Archipelago^ iii. iii. Ixxx. 

- Lane, Alanners and Customs of ’’ Keyser, op. cii. ii. pt. ii. 95. 
the Modern Egyptians ^ p. 120. Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. i. 46 

^ Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins sq. Gotlands- Lagen , 13. 

a 7 id IVahdhySy p. 87. ^ Cf. Vambery, Has Tilrkenvolky p. 

^ Merker, quoted by Kohler, in 305 .sq. (Kir^^hiz) ; Munzinger, OsiafrL 
Zeitschr. f vergl. Rechtswiss. xv. 56, kanische Studietiy p. 5cx:> (Barea and 
^ Geiger, op. cit. ii. 34. Kunama). 

COMPENSATION 

the chief, inducing the avenger to lay down his weapon 
and to accept money for blood. I do not say that the 
practice of compensation has originated in such an inter- 
vention ; we meet it among peoples who know nothing of 
courts, judges, or regular arbitrators.^ But when we hear 
of chiefs making efforts to check the blood-feud by 
persuading the injured party to accept remuneration in 
money or property, it is impossible to doubt that some 
connection exists between the system of compensation and 
the judicial power of the chief. Among the Indians of 
Brazil, when blood is shed, either designedly or acci- 
dentally, by one of the same tribe, the chief not seldom 
insists upon the acceptance of compensation by the family 
of the deceased.^ Of the people of Nias, amongst whom 
the offender may suffer death at the hands of the avenger, 
we read that even grave cases, when brought before the 
chief, are often punished by fines only.® Among the 
Dooraunees, in Western Afghanistan, “ if the offended 
party complains to the Sirdar, or if he hears of a murder 
committed, he first endeavours to bring about a compro- 
mise, by offering the Khoon Behau, or price of blood.” '' 
The Teutonic nations, as Kemble observes, in the course 
of time made the State the arbitrator between the parties 
“ by establishing a tariff at which injuries should be rated, 
and committing to the State the duty of compelling the 
injured person to receive, and the wrong-doer to pay, the 
settled amount. It thus engaged to act as a mediator 
between the conflicting interests, with a view to the main- 
tenance of the general peace.” ® 

We have previously discussed the important measure of 
substituting punishment for revenge by transferring the 
judicial and executive power of the avenger to a special 
authority within the body politic, commissioned with 

^ E.g.^ the Fiiegians (Bridges, in 
South Avierican Missionary Magazine, 
xiii. 152. Idtni^ in Voice for South 
yltncrica, xiii. 207). 

von Martins, Beitriige zur Ethno- 
graphie Amerikds, i. 1 30. Idem, in 

Jour. Roy. Geographical Soc. ii. 1 99. 

^ Modigliani, Viaggio a Nias, p. 496. 
^ Elphinstone, Kingdom of Caubul, 
ii. 105 Sij. 

® Kemble, Saxons in Engl<^nd, i. 

270. 

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 

the administration of justice. The system of compensa- 
tion was only one of the methods adopted by such an 
authority for the settling of disputes ; and, on the whole, 
it was a sign of weakness. Speaking of the Rejangs of 
Sumatra, Marsden observes that the practice of expiating 
murder by the payment of a certain sum of money “ had 
doubtless its source in the imbecility of government, 
which being unable to enforce the law of retaliation, the 
most obvious rule of punishment, had recourse to a milder 
scheme of retribution, as being preferable to absolute 
indemnity.” * When the central power of jurisdiction is 
firmly established, the rule of life for life regains its 
sway.^ Thus, in the mature legislation of semi-civilised 
and civilised peoples, up to quite recent times, murder has 
almost invariably been treated as a capital offence — unless, 
indeed, committed by some person belonging to a specially 
privileged class, such as the Peruvian Incas,® the Brah- 
manas of India,'’ or, in England, all who had the Benefit 
of Clergy, that is, every man who knew how to read, with 
the exception of those who were married to widows.’' 
But among many of the lower races, also, manslayers are 
subject to capital punishment, in the proper sense of the 
term — to death inflicted, not by an individual avenger, 
but by the community at large or by some special 
authority.” 

It is not only by the slaying of a fellow-creature that a 
person may forfeit his right to live. Among various 
peoples custom allows, or sometimes even compels, the 
offended party to kill the offender in cases which involve 

^ Marsden, History of Siwiaira^ p. simply exiled from Italy, whereas a slave 
246. wasexccuted for a similar crime ( Momm- 

Cf Brunner, Deutsche Rcchtsge- sen, Rouiisches Strafrecht, j). 631 sq.). 

schichte^ ii. 599 -ry. (Teutonic peoples). ® Siipra^ pp. 171, 172, 189. Venia- 

® R^ville, Hibbett Lectures on the minof, quoted by Pelroff, loc. cit, p. 

Native Religions of Mexico and Pertly 152 (Aleuts). Adair, History of the 

p. 151. American Indians^ p. 150. Morgan, 

^ Laws of Manu, viii. 380 jy. League of the Iroquois^ p. 331. llar- 

^ Stephen, Llistory of the Criminal mow. Journals of Voyages and Vyavels^ 

Law of England, i. 458 j-yy. According p. 348 (Indians on the east side of the 

to the Cornelian law, a free Roman Rocky Mtnmtains). Turner, Samoa, 

citizen could not be punished capitally pp. 178, 295, 334 (Samoans, natives of 
for the commission of murder, but was Arorae, Khite.se). Thomson, in Jour. 

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 

no blood-guiltiness, especially adultery ; ^ and we hear of 
capital punishment being inflicted not only for homicide, 
but for treason,'-* incest,® adultery,* witchcraft,® sacrilege,® 
theft,^ and other olfences.® We have seen that among 
semi-civilised and civilised nations, particularly, the 
punishment of death has been applied to a great variety 
of offences, many of which appear to us almost venial.® 
And we have discussed both the origin of the idea that 
justice requires life for life, and the circumstances that 
have led to the infliction of punishments the severity of 
which, apparently at least, bears no proportion to the 
magnitude of the crime.*® 

But whilst, among peoples of culture, capital punish- 
ment has been inflicted far beyond the limits of the lex 
talionis^ we meet, on the other hand, among such peoples 
with opinions to the effect that it should not be applied 
even in the most atrocious cases. The old philosopher 
Lao-tsze, the founder of Taouism, condemned it both as 
useless and as irreverent. The people, he argued, do not fear 
death ; to what purpose, then, is it to try to frighten them 
with death ? There is only one who presides over the 
infliction of it. “ He who would inflict death in the room 
of him who presides over it may be described as hewing 
wood instead of a great carpenter. Seldom is it that he 
who undertakes the hewing, instead of the great carpenter, 
does not cut his own hands.”*' Nor does Confucius seem 
to have been in favour of capital punishment. When CM 

AntJir. Inst. xxxi. 143 (Savage Morality. Studien zur Entwick- 

Islanders). Hickson, A Nahtralisi in lungsgeschichte des Familierirechts^ 

North Celebes^ p. 198 (Sangire.se, in p. 134 S(j. 
former days). Abreu de Galindo, Supra, p. 189. 

History of the Discovery and Conquest ^ Infra, on vSexual Morality. 

of the Canary Islands, p. 27 (aborigines * Supra, p. 189. Infra, on Sexual 

of Ferro). Johnston, Uganda Frotec- Morality. 

torate), ii, 882 (Miitei). Beltraine, II ® Sup?a, p, 189 sq. 

Finnic Bianco e i Dhika, \). 77. In all ^ Supra, p. 197. 

these ca.ses homicide or murder is said ^ Infra, on the Right of Pro[)erty. 

to be pimi.shed with death ; but it may ® Supra, p. 195. 

be that, in some of them, our authorities Supra, p. 186 sqq. 

have not .sufficiently distinguished be- Supra, ch. vii. 

tween punislnnent and bloori -revenge. Tiio Teh King, 74. 

^ Silpra,^. sqq. /;//) rt, on Sexual 

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 

K’ang asked his opinion as to the killing of “ the un- 
principled for the good of the principled,” Confucius 
replied — “ Sir, in carrying on your government, why 
should you use killing at all ? Let your evinced desires 
be for what is good, and the people will be good.” ^ The 
early Christians generally condemned the punishment of 
death, as well as all other forms of shedding human 
blood ; ^ but when the Church obtained an ascendency, the 
condemnation of it was modified into the doctrine that no 
priest or bishop must take any part in a capital charge.® 
Later on, from the twelfth century at least, the priest 
might assist at judicial proceedings resulting in a sentence 
of death, if only he withdrew for the moment, when the 
sentence was passed.^ And whilst ostentatiously sticking 
to the principle, “ Ecclesia non sitit sanguinem,” the 
Church had frequent recourse to the convenient method 
of punishing heretics by relegating the execution of the 
sentence to the civil power, with a prayer that the culprit 
should be punished “ as mildly as possible and without the 
effusion of blood,” that is, by the death of fire.'* In 
modern times the views of the early Christians regarding 
capital punishment have been revived by the Quakers ; 
but the powerful movement in favour of its abolition 
chiefly derives its origin from the writings of Beccaria and 
the French Encyclopedists. 

The great motive force of this movement has been 
sympathy with human suffering and horror of the 
destruction of human life — feelings which have been able 
to operate the more freely, the less they have been 
checked either by the belief in the social expediency of 

^ Liin Yu^ xii. 19. 

Hetzel, Die Todesstrafe^ p. 71 sqtj. 
Gunther, Die Idee der Wieden)ergel 
tungi Lactantius, Jnsli- 

tutiones^ vi. (‘De vero cultu ’) 20 
(Migne, PatrologUe airs us, vi. 708): 

. occidere hominem sit semper 
nefas, quern Deus .sanctum animal esse 
voluit.” 

3 Supra, p. 381 sq. Lecky, History of 
European Morals^ ii. 39. Laurent, 

Etudes sur t hi stoire de P Hu manitc, 
iv. 223 ; vii. 233. 

Cierhohus, De icdificio Dei, 35 
(Migne, ^7/. cit. cxciv. 1282). 

® Katz, Grtoidriss des kanonischen 
Sirafrechts, p. 54. 

® Lecky, History of European 
Afar at s, ii. 41. 

^ Gurney, Views Practices of the 
Society of Pri ends, pp. 377 n. i, 389. 

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 

capital punishment, or by the notion of a vindictive god 
who can be conciliated only by the death of the offender. 
It has been argued that the punishment of death is no 
more effective as a deterrent from crime than are certain 
other punishments. According to Beccaria, it is not the 
intensity of a pain which produces the greatest effect on 
the mind of man, but its continuance ; hence the execution 
of a culprit, occupying a short time only, must be a 
less deterring example than perpetual slavery, which ought 
to be the penalty for the greatest crimes.^ Moreover, the 
circumstances which unavoidably attend the practical 
application of the punishment of death are such as excite 
the sympathy of the public in favour of the perpetrator of 
the crime, and thereby seriously impair the efficacy of the 
punishment as an example.*'* An execution is regarded as 
less degrading than many other forms of punishment ; 
when a man dies on the scaffold there is a counterpoise to 
the disgrace in the admiration excited by his firmness, 
whereas there is no such counterpoise when a man goes off 
in the prison van to be immured in a cell.*’ Statistical data 
prove, it is said, that, where capital punishment has been 
abolished either for certain crimes or generally, crime has 
not become more frequent after the abolition, whilst the 
re-enactment of capital punishment, or greater strictness in 
its execution, has nowhere diminished the number of 
offences punishable with death.^ And the punishment of 
death is no more required by the dictates of abstract justice 
than it is requisite for the safety of the community. It is 
quite an arbitrary assumption, based on the rude theory of 
talion, that death must be inflicted on him who has caused 
death ; such an assumption can be refuted simply by show- 
ing that there are many degrees of homicide.'’ Nay, far 
from being postulates of the highest justice, laws which 

^ Beccaria, Dei delitti e dellc pene^ Mittermaier, Die Todesstrafe^ p. 

§ 1 6. 1^0 s(jq. Olivecrona, Om dodsstraffet^ 

" Romilly, Punishment of Death, p. 130 S(j(j. 
p. 56 sqq. ^ Mittermaier, op. cit. pp. 62, 133. 

Ibid. p. 47 sq. Ilelzel, of,, cii, p. von Mehring, Frage von der 7 'odes- 
454 jyy. strafe, 19 sqq. 

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 

prescribe capital punishment may lead to the highest 
injustice. As Bentham observes, “ the punishment of 
death is not remissible ” ; error is possible in all judgments, 
but whilst in every other case of judicial error compensation 
can be made, death alone admits of no compensation.^ 
And not only may the innocent have to suffer an 
irreparable punishment, but the criminal easily escapes his 
punishment altogether. Eixperience shows that the punish- 
ment of death has the disadvantage of diminishing the 
repressive power of the legal menace, because witnesses, 
judges, and jurymen exert themselves to the utmost in 
order to avoid arriving at a verdict of guilty in many cases 
where an execution would be the consequence of such a 
verdict.^ Finally, the punishment of death almost entirely 
misses one of the most essential aims of every legitimate 
punishment, the reformation of the criminal. Nay, by 
putting him to a speedy death we actually prevent him 
from morally reforming himself, and from manifesting the 
fruits of sincere repentance ; and we perhaps deprive him 
of the opportunity of making good his claim to mercy at 
the hands of another and a higher Tribunal, on which we 
are arrogantly encroaching in a matter of which we are 
wholly unfit to judge.® 

Under the influence of these and similar arguments, but 
chiefly owing to an increasing reluctance to take human 
life, the legislation of Europe has, from the end of the 
eighteenth century, undergone a radical change with 
reference to the punishment of death. In several 
European and American States it has been formally 
abolished, or is nowadays never inflicted,^ whilst in the 
rest it is practically restricted to cases of wilful murder. 
But it still has as strenuous advocates as ever, and receives 
much support from popular feelings. It is said that the 
abolition of capital punishment would remove one of the 

^ Bentham, Rationale of Punish- ^ Komilly, op, cit. p. 3 sqq, 
ment, p. 186 sqq. Cf Hetzel, op. cit. ^ Gunther, op. cit. iii. 347 sqq. von 
p. 442 sqq. Liszt, Lehrbuch ties Deutschen Straf- 

2 Bentham, cit. p. 1911^. Mittcr- reckts, p. 261. 
maier, op. cit. pp. 98 sqq., 148. 

best safeguards of society ; that it definitely prevents the 
criminal from doing further mischief ; that it is a much 
more effective means of deterring from crime than any 
other penalty ; that its abolition would have the disadvan- 
tage of crimes widely differing in their nature being placed 
on the same footing ; that a person criminally disposed, if 
he knew that he would only be punished with imprison- 
ment for life, would, instead of merely perpetrating rob- 
bery, commit murder at the same time, being aware that 
no higher penalty on that account would be inflicted ; and 
so forth. As usually, religion also is called in to give 
strength to the argument. Several writers maintain that 
the statements in the Bible which command capital 
punishment have an obligatory power on all Christian 
legislators ; * we even meet with the assertion that the 
object of this punishment is not the protection of civil 
society, but to carry out the justice of God, in whose 
name “ the judge should sentence and the executioner 
strike.” ^ But I venture to believe that the chief motive 
for retaining the punishment of death in modern legisla- 
tion is the strong hold which the principle of talion has 
on the minds of legislators, as well as on the mind of the 
public. This supposition derives much support from the 
fact that capital punishment is popular only in the case of 
murder. “ Blood, it is said, will have blood, and the 
imagination is flattered with the notion of the similarity 
of the suffering, produced by the punishment, with that 
inflicted by the criminal.” '* 

^ Mittermaier, op. cit. p. 128 sqq. Bentham, Rationale of Punish- 

^ Clay, The Prisoi Ckaplamy\). 357, menty p. 191.

THE DUEL 

When the system of revenge was replaced by the 
system of punishment, the oifFended party generally lost 
the right of killing the offender. But there are note- 
worthy exceptions to this rule. In a previous chapter we 
have seen that, among various peoples, in cases involving 
unusually great provocation, an avenger who slays his 
adversary is either entirely excused by custom or law, or 
becomes subject to a comparatively lenient punishment.^ 
A few words still remain to be said about the most per- 
sistent survival of the custom of exacting vengeance with 
eventual destruction of life, the modern duel. But in 
connection with this survival it seems appropriate to dis- 
cuss the practice of duelling in general, in its capacity of a 
recognised social institution. 

Duelling, or the fighting in single combat on previous 
challenge, is sometimes resorted to as a means of bringing 
to an end hostilities between different groups of people. 
Among the aborigines of New South Wales the war 
often ends in a single combat between chosen champions.’* ^ 
In Western Victoria quarrels between tribes are sometimes 
settled by duels between the chiefs, and the result is 
accepted as final. At other times disputes are decided 
by combat between equal numbers of warriors, painted 

^ Su/>/a,p. 2.^0 sqq, Fraser, Aborigines New South 

fVa/oSj p. 40. 

VOL, I 

K K 

THE DUEL 

with red clay and dressed in war costume ; but real fighting 
seldom takes place, unless the women rouse the anger 
of the men and urge them to come to blows. Even then 
it rarely results in a general fight, but comes to single 
combats between warriors of each side ; who step into the 
arena, taunt one another, exchange blows with the liangle, 
and wrestle together. The first wound ends the com- 
bat.” ^ Among the Thlinkets feuds between clans or 
families were commonly settled by duels between chosen 
champions, one from each side.^ Ancient writers tell us 
that among the Greeks, Romans, and Teutons, combats 
were likewise agreed upon to take place between a definite 
number of warriors, for the sake of ending a war.® 
According to Tacitus, the Germans had the custom of 
deciding the event of battle by a duel fought between 
some captive of the enemy and a representative of the 
home army.‘‘ In all these cases, as it seems, the duel 
originates in a desire for a speedy peace. 

In other instances daiels are fought for the purpose of 
settling disputes between individuals, either by conferring 
on the victor the right of possessing the object of the 
strife, or by gratifying a craving for revenge and wiping 
off the affront. 

Thus, among the pagan Norsemen, any person who 
confided in his strength and dexterity with his weapons 
could acquire property by simply challenging its owner 
to surrender his land or fight for it. The combat was 
strictly regulated ; the person challenged was allowed to 
strike first, he who retired or who lost his weapon was 
regarded as vanquished, and he who received the first 
wound, or who was most seriously wounded, had to pay a 
fixed sum of money in order to save his life.® In the 

^ Dawson, Atistralian Aborigifies^ p. 

77 - 

2 Holmberg, ^ Ethnographische Skiz- 
zen liber die Volker des rus-sischen 
Amerika,’ in Acta Societatis Scien- 
tiarum Fennica^ iv. 322 sq, 

^ See Grotius, De jure belli et pads, 
iii. 20. 43. I ; Grimm, Deutsche Rechts- 

altertkiimer, p. 928. 

^ Tacitus, Germania, 10. 

® I.,ea, Superstition and Force, p. 
Ill sq. Keyser, Efterladte Skrifter, 
ii. pt. i. 391. Weinhold, Altnordisches 
Lcben, p. 297. von Amira, ‘Recht,’ 
in PauFs Grundriss der germanischen 
Philologie, iii. 217 sq. Arnesen, 

THE DUEL 

islands outside Kamchatka, if a husband found that a rival 
had been with his wife, he would admit that the rival had 
at least an equal claim to her. ‘‘ Let us try, then,” he 
would say, ‘‘ which of us has the greater right, and 
shall have her.” After that they would take off their 
clothes and begin to beat each other’s backs with sticks, 
and he who first fell to the ground unable to bear any 
more blows, lost his right to the woman. ^ Among the 
Eskimo about Behring Strait Mr. Nelson was told by an 
old man that in ancient times, when a husband and a lover 
quarrelled about a woman, they were disarmed by the 
neighbours and then settled the trouble with their fists 
or by wrestling, the victor in the struggle taking the 
woman. ^ Among the Chippewyans Richardson saw more 
than once a stronger man assert his right to take the wife 
of a weaker countryman in consequence of a successful 
combat. ‘‘ Any one,” he says, ‘‘ may challenge another 
to wrestle, and, if he overcomes, may carry off his wife 

as the prize The bereaved husband meets his loss 

with the resignation which custom prescribes in such a 
case, and seeks his revenge by taking the wife of another 
man weaker than himself.” ^ In the tribes of Western 
Victoria, described by Mr. Dawson, a young chief who 
cannot get a wife, and falls in love with one belonging 
to a chief who has more than two, can, with her consent, 
challenge the husband to single combat, and, if the hus- 
band is defeated, the conqueror makes her his legal wife.^ 
In some points,” says Mr. Riedel, “the aboriginal law 
of retaliation in Australia corresponds with the code of 
honour, so called, which certain classes in Europe have 
long maintained. When one blackfellow carries off the 

Hisiorisk Indledning til den. gamle og 
nye Islandske Raettergang, p. 158 sq. 
Rosenberg, Traek af Livet paa Island 
i Fristats- Tiden^ p. 98 n. 

^ Steller, Bcschreibnng von deni 
Lande Kanitschatka^ p. 348. 

Nelson, ‘ Eskimo about Behring 
Strait,’ in Ann. Rep, Bur. Ethn. xviii. 
292. 

3 Richardson, Arctic Searching Ex- 
pedition, ii. 24 sq. 

* Dawson, op. cit. p. 36. For other 
instances of rights to women being 
acquired by duels, see Westermarck, 
History of Hnnian Marriage, p. 159 
sqq. ; Post, Afrikanische Jurispriidenz, 
ii. 23 sq. (people of Kordofan). 

K K 2 

THE DUEL 

wife of another, the injured husband and the betrayer meet 
in mortal combat ; and the spear that spills the life blood 
repairs the wounded honour of the one, or justifies in the 
eyes of society the crime of the other.” * Among the 
aborigines of Western Australia “ duels are common be- 
tween individuals who have private quarrels to settle, a 
certain number of spears being thrown until honour is 
satisfied.” ^ Among the Dieyerie tribe, should anybody 
accuse another wrongfully, he is challenged to fight by 
the person he has accused, and this settles the matter.® Of 
the duels fought among the natives of North-West-Central 
Queensland Dr. Roth gives us an interesting account. Sup- 
posing an individual considers himself aggrieved, a duel 
often takes place at a distance from camp. There is no in- 
tention of killing. With two-handed swords, the combatants 
would only aim at striking each other on the head ; with 
spears, they would only make for the fleshy parts of the 
thighs ; with stone-knives, they would only cut into the 
shoulders, flanks, and buttocks, producing gashes an inch 
or more deep, and up to seven or even eight inches long. 
The lying upon the back on the ground — a posture in 
which no lawful incisions with a stone-knife can be 
made — is the sign of defeat, indicating that the combatant 
has had enough, and gives in. But the matter has not 
yet come to an end ; the duels of these savages are not so 
defective in point of justice as the modern duels of 
Europe. “ I'he fight between the two individuals being 
at length brought to a termination, steps are taken by the 
old men and elders to inquire into the rights or wrongs of 
the dispute. If the victor turns out to be the aggrieved 
party he has to show good cause, as for instance that the 
man whom he had just taken upon himself to punish had 
raped his gin, gave him the munguni [or death-bone], or 
wrought him some similarly flagrant wrong ; under such 
circumstances, no further action is taken by anyone. If, 

^ Riedel, Aborigines of Australia^ ^ Gason, ‘ Manners and Customs of 
p. 6. the Dieyerie Tribe,’ in Woods, Native 

Calvert, Aborigines of Wester n Tribes of South Australia^ p. ^66. 
Australia^ p. 22 . 

THE DUEL 

on the other hand, the victor happens to be the aggrieved 
party only in his own opinion, and not in that of those 
to whom he is answerable, and who do not believe the 
grounds on which he commenced the fight to be sufficient, 
he has to undergo exactly the same mutilations subse- 
quently at the hands of the vanquished as he himself had 
inflicted.” And should one of the combatants be killed 
in the duel, which may sometimes happen, the survivor, 
unless he can show that he had sufficient provocation or 
cause, “ will be put to death in similar manner, at the 
instance of the camp-council, and usually undergo the 
extra degradation of digging his own as well as his 
victim’s grave.” ^ Of the South American Charruas 
Azara writes ; — “ Ce sont les parties elles-memes qui 
arrangent leurs diffcrends particuliers : si elles ne sont pas 
d’accord,eIles se chargent a coups de poing, jusqu’a ce qu’une 
des deux tourne le dos et laisse I’autre, sans reparlcr de 
I’affaire. Dans ces duels, ils ne font jamais usage des 
armes ; et je n’ai jamais ouY dire qu’il y ait eu quelqu’un 
detue.”^ If an Apache kills another, “ the next-of-kin 
to the defunct individual may kill the murderer — if he 
can. He has the right to challenge him to single combat, 
which takes place before all assembled in the camp, and both 
must abide the result of the conflict. There is no trial, 
no set council, no regular examination into the crime or 
its causes ; but the ordeal of battle settles the whole 
matter.” ® Among the Central Eskimo, “ strange as it 
may seem, a murderer will come to visit the relatives of 
his victim (though he knows that they are allowed to kill 
him in revenge) and will settle with them. He is kindly 
welcomed, and sometimes lives quietly for weeks and 
months. Then he is suddenly challenged to a wrestling 
match, and if defeated is killed, or if victorious he may 
kill one of the opposite party, or when hunting, he is 

^ Roth, Ethnological Studies among 
the North- West- Central Queensland 
Aborigines^ p. 139 

Azara, Coj'uges dans P Anuh ique 
mJridionale, ii. l 6 . 

^ Crciuony, Life among the Apachts^ 

P- 293- 

THE DUEL 

suddenly attacked by his companions and slain.” ^ 
Richardson heard that some of the Eskimo “ decided 
their quarrels by alternate blows of the fist, each in turn 
presenting his head to his opponent.”^ The Tunguses 
formerly had a duel with arrows called koutschiguera^ 
which was fought “ only in the presence of the elders, 
who marked out the spot, settled the distance of the com- 
batants, and gave the signal for letting fly.” ® The Santals 
have a tradition that years long since there was a custom 
amongst them “ of deciding their disputes, when the 
parties were males, by the ordeal of single combat. The 
bow and arrow or hanger served in lieu of pistol and 
sword for these rustic duels. Such affairs of honour were 
always fatal to one party, but of late times, as equitable 
remedies have been brought nearer to them, this remnant 
of a barbarous age has disappeared.”"* Mr. Man also 
heard that the Kols at one time preferred the duel to any 
other mode of seeking redress for a wrong.® The ancient 
Swedes were even compelled by law to fight duels to repair 
their wounded honour. The so-called ‘ Hedna-lag,’ a 
fragment of an old pagan law, prescribes that, if any man 
says to another, “ You are not a man’s equal, you have 
not the heart of a man,” and the other replies, “ I am a" 
man as good as you,” they shall encounter in a place 
where three roads meet. If he who has suffered the insult 
does not appear, he shall be held to be what the other one 
called him, and he shall henceforth be allowed neither to 
swear nor to give evidence in any case. If, on the other 
hand, they meet in single combat, and the offended party 
kills the offender, he shall have to pay no compensation 
for it ; but if the offender kills his opponent, he shall pay 
half his price.'* 

^ Boas, ‘ Central Eskimo,’ in Ann. 
Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 582. 

Richard.son, Arctic Searching Ex- 
pedition^ i. 367 sq. 

3 Georgi, Russia^ iii. 83. 

** Man, Sonthalia and the SonthalSy 
p. 90. 

^ Ibid. p. 90. 

^ Lo flier, On: den fornsnenska hed- 
nalagcn, p. 40 sq. (in K. Vitterhets 
Historic och Antiqvifets Akcuiemiens 
Manadshlad^ 1879? P- I39 ^q>)- Bro- 
fe.s.sor Leffler is inclined lo believe that 
this fragment once formed a part of 
the older Vestgotalag {op. cit. p. 35, in 
the Aliiftadsbiady p. 134). 

THE DUEL 

These customs and rules are due to a variety of cir- 
cumstances. To recognise the duel as a means of acquir- 
ing a right to land or women, is a concession to superior 
strength in a society where there is no government, or 
where the government is weak ; whilst in the oppor- 
tunity given to the challenged party to oppose the avenger 
on equal terms we may trace the interfering influence of 
public opinion. The duel is also in a higher degree 
than downright violence calculated to bring about a 
definite arrangement ; and in some cases, as we have seen, 
it is a mere sham-fight, which may serve as a preventive 
against the infliction of more serious injuries, by showing 
which party is the weaker and, consequently, has to give 
in. In other cases, again, the challenge is a method of 
bringing forward an offender who otherwise might be out 
of reach, and of limiting the fight to the parties them- 
selves, so as to prevent whole families fronj making war 
upon each other.^ Moreover, a duel may be preferable 
to an ordinary act of revenge as a means of wiping off an 
affront and of satisfying the claims of honour ; it displays 
more courage, it commands more respect. In several of 
the cases referred to it is obviously a mitigated form of 
revenge, a method of settling a point of honour in a com- 
paratively harmless way, and as such it has certain advan- 
tages over the practice of compensation ; it requires no 
wealth on the part of the offender, and allows of no doubt 
as to the courage of the sufferer.^ The Queensland 
aborigines are said to be very proud of the wounds they 
receive in their single combats,'^ and the duelling Eskimo 
“ consider it cowardly to evade a stroke.” * The duel 

^ C/l Arnesen, op. cit. pp. 150, i66.\v/. rechlsprechenden centralen Regierungs- 

^ According to Dr. Steinmctz, the gewiilt, uiid das nicht Erfiilltsein der 
origin of the duel is “die Beschriin- Entwicklungsbedingungen der Com- 
kung des Rachekampfes. , . . Die position, nainentlich der Mangel an 

treibende Kraft, welche zu dieser duell- ukonomischen Giilern, welche die 
artigen Beschriinkung fuhrte, war die materielle EiUschiidigung unmbglich 
Exogamie, die vefwandtschaftlichen machte ” (Steinmetz, Shtdien zur ersien 
Beziehiingen zwischen Gruppen, der jEntwicklmig der Slrafe, W. 
Friedensverlangen erzeiigende, erwei- ^ Roth, op. cit. p. 140. 
terte Verkehr derselben. Negative ^ Richardson, Arctic Searching Ex- 
Bedingungen waren : das Eehleii einer pedition, i. 368. 

THE DUEL 

may, fina-lly, be regarded as the most equitable form of 
settling disputes in cases where both parties claim to be 
in the right. Sometimes it is even resorted to as a means 
of ascertaining the truth, as an ordeal or “judgment of 
God.” 

The wager of battle is well known to every student of 
mediaeval law. Outside Europe we meet with a similar 
institution in the Malay Archipelago. In his ‘ History 
of the Indian Archipelago,’ Mr. Crawfurd states : — “The 
trial by combat or duel, and the appeal to the judgment 
of God by various descriptions of ordeal, are not unknown. 
The Malay laws direct that the combat or ordeal shall be 
had recourse to in the absence of evidence, in the follow- 
ing words : ‘ If one accuse and another deny, and there 
be no witnesses on either side, the parties shall either fight 
or submit to the ordeal of melted tin or boiling oil.’ ” ' 
The natives of the Barito River basin in Borneo have the 
following ordeal, called the Hagalangang : — “ Both parties 
are placed in boxes at a distance of seven fathoms opposite 
one another, the boxes being made of nibong laths and 
so high as to reach a man’s breast. Then both receive a 
sharpened bamboo of a lance’s length to throw at each 
other at a given signal. The wounded person is sup- 
posed to be guilty.” '^ Among the Teutons the judicial 
combat seems to have developed out of the ancient 
practice of settling disputes by private duelling. In a 
time when the community did its best to suppress acts of 
revenge, it was no doubt a wise measure to adopt the duel 
as a form of judicial procedure, investing it with the 
character of an ordeal.^ It seems probable that the duel 
assumed this character already among the pagan Teutons.^ 
Like other ordeals it was resorted to in cases where there 
was some doubt as to the guilt of the accused.® To 

' Crawfurd, History of the Indian hiilfe . . . war.” Cf Patetta, Le 
Archipelaiio^ iii. 92. ordalie, p. 178. 

^ Schwaner, Borneo^ i. 212. Patetta, op. cit. p. 179. 

* Dahn observes { Bausteine, ii. 57) ^ See Unger, ‘ Der gerechtliche 

that “der Kampf urspriinglich gar Zwcikampf bei den germanischen 
kein Gottesiiitheil, sondern lediglich Volkern,' in Gotti nger Studien, 1847, 
cine Verweisiing der ParleienaiifSelbst- Zweite Abtheilung, p. 358 

THE DUEL 

appeal to “the judgment of God” was an expedient 
substitute for human evidence in a society where nothing 
was more difficult than to procure reliable witnesses, and 
where superstition reigned supreme. Speaking of the 
Franks, M. Esmein observes : — “ En dehors du flagrant 
delit ou de I’aveu de I’acciise, tout etait incertitude. . . . 
Par solidarite forcee, jamais un homme ne temoignera 
centre un autre homme du meme groupe ; il ne temoig- 
nera pas non plus par crainte de la vengeance et des 
represailles centre un homme appartenant a un autre 
groupe.” ' I shall later on try to prove that the ordeal 
is not, as it is often supposed to be, primordially based 
on the belief in an all-knowing, all-powerful, and just 
god, who protects the innocent and punishes the guilty, 
but that it largely springs from the same notion as 
underlies the belief in the efficacy of an oath. The 
ordeal, then, intrinsically involves an imprecation with 
reference to the guilt or innocence of a suspected person, 
and its proper object is to give reality to this impre- 
cation, for the purpose of establishing the validity or 
invalidity of the suspicion. This also holds good of 
the judicial combat. I'he issue of the fight decided 
the question of guilt because of the imprecation involved 
in the oath preceding the duel. Before the conflict 
commenced each party asserted his good cause in the 
most positive manner, confirmed his assertion by a solemn 
oath on the Gospels or on a relic of approved sanctity, 
and called upon God to grant victory to the right. Such 
an oath was an indispensable preliminary to every combat, 
and the defeat was thus not merely the loss of the suit, 
but also a conviction of perjury, to be punished as such.^ 
That the real object of the judicial duel was to correct the 
abuses of compurgation by oath appears from various 

^ Esmein, Co itrs tHdment air e dii droit sqq, \ “ kSIc me Dcus adjuvet ik. haec 
fran^ais^ \i. sq, sancta.” Lea, Superstition and Force^ 

Lex Bahnvarioriim,\\, Jourdan, p. 166 jr/. Brunner, Deutsche Rcchts- 
Decrusy, and Isambert, Reciieil iRndral geschichteLG. 415* von Amira, ‘ Recht,* 
des anciennes tois f?-ancaises^ n. sqq. in Paul’s Grundriss der gerfjf anise hen 
Bracton, De Legihus et C' jisttetndinL Phihlogie^ iii. 218. Unger, loc. cit. p, 
bus Ang/iee, fol. 141 b .ry., vol. ii. 438 386. Tuchmann, in MPlusim yiw. 130. 

THE DUEL 

facts. Gundebald, king of the Burgundians, says ex- 
pressly, in the preamble to a law by which he authorises 
the wager of battle, that his reason for doing so is, that 
his subjects may no longer take oaths upon uncertain 
matters, or forswear themselves upon certain.^ Charle- 
magne urged the use of the duel as greatly preferable to 
the shameless oaths which were taken with so much 
facility, and Otho II. ordered its employment in various 
forms of procedure for the same reason.^ Witnesses 
might have to fight as well as principals. A Bavarian 
law even directed the claimant of an estate to combat not 
the defendant, but his witness ; * and in the later Middle 
Ages, after enlightened legislators had been strenuously 
and not unsuccessfully endeavouring to limit the abuse of 
the judicial combat, the challenging of witnesses was still 
the favourite mode of escaping legal condemnation.^ 
Some codes required the witnesses to come into court 
armed, and to have their weapons blessed on the altar 
before giving their testimony."' The practice of blessing 
the arms before the duel took place ** was no doubt 
intended to enable them the better to carry out the im- 
precation by saturating them with sanctity, or by increas- 
ing their natural sanctity ; weapons are commonly regarded 
with superstitious veneration, hence oaths taken upon 
them are held to be particularly binding.’^ But though 
the judicial duel fundamentally derived its efficacy as a 
means of ascertaining the truth from its connection with 
an oath, it has, owing to the tendency of magic to fuse 
into religion, readily come to be regarded as an appeal to 
the justice of God, just as curses are transformed into 

^ Leges Burgundionufn^ Leges 
Gundebati, 45. 

Lea, op. cit. p, 118. 

^ Lex Bahavariortim^ xvii, 2 (xvi. 
2 ). 

^ Beaumanoir, Coutumes du Beau- 
vozsiSj Ixi. 58, vol. ii. 398. Lea, op, 
cit. p. 120 sq. Unger, ioc, cit, p. 379 

“ Lea,,t?/. cit. p. 120. 

^ Esniein, op. at. p. 95. 

^ For the worship of, and swearing 
by, weapons, see Du Cange, ‘ Juramen- 
tum super arma,’ in Glossarittm ad 
seriptores viedice et infinKB Latiniiatis ^ 
hi. 1616 sq. ; Grimm, Deutsche Rechts- 
alter thiimer.^ pp. 165, 166,896; Pollock, 
Oxford Lectures, 269 sq. n. i ; Joyce, 
Social History of A u dent Ireland, i. 
286 sq. In Morocco, also, an oath 
taken on a weapon is considered a 
particularly solemn form of swearing. 

THE DUEL 

prayers and perjury becomes an offence against the 
Deity. 

In most European countries the judicial duel survived 
the close of the Middle Ages, but disappeared shortly 
afterwards.* Various circumstances contributed to its 
decline and final disappearance. From an early period 
Councils and popes had declared against it," but with little 
success ; many ecclesiastics, indeed, not only connived at 
the practice, but authorised it, and questions concerning 
the property of churches and monasteries were decided by 
combat.^ There were other more powerful causes at 
work — the growth of communes, devoted to the arts of 
peace, seeking their interest in the pursuits of industry and 
commerce, and enjoying the advantage of settled and 
permanent tribunals ; the revival of Roman law, which 
began to undermine all the institutions of feudalism ; * the 
ascendency of the royal power in its struggle against the 
nobles ; the increase of enlightenment, the decrease of 
superstition. But though finally banished from the courts 
of justice, the duel did not die. In the sixteenth century, 
when the judicial combat faded away, the duel of honour 
began to flourish.'* Buckle justly observes that, “ as the 
trial by battle became disused, the people, clinging to 
their old customs, became more addicted to duelling 
hence the judicial duel may be regarded as the direct 
parent of the modern duel.'* The Church and the State 
naturally tried to suppress this sanguinary survival of 
barbarism. The Council of Trent declared that “the 
detestable custom of duelling, introduced by the contriv- 
ance of the devil, that by the bloody death of the body 

^ Lea, op. cit. p. 199 S(iq. In Eng- 
land, however, it was formally abolished 
by law as late as 1819 (Stephen, History 
of the Criminal Law of England, i. 
249 sq . ). 

2 Du Boys, Histoire dn droit criminel 
des petifles modernes, ii, 182. Lea, op, 
cit, p. 206 sqq. 

3 Robertson, History of the Reign 
of the Emperor Charles V. i. 3 $7 
‘Notitia gurpitionis,’ in Bouquet, 

Recueil des hisloriens des Cattles ct de 
la Frattce, ix. 729. 

Lea, op. cit. pp. 200-205, 21 1 sq. 
Unger, loc. cit. p. 392 sqq. 

® Storr, ‘ Duel,’ in Encyclopcedia 
Britannica^ vii. 512. 

^ Buckle, Miscellaneous and Posthu- 
mous IVorks, i. 386. Cf Bosquett, 
'/’realise on Duelling, p. 79. 

^ Storr, loc, cit. p. 5 1 1 . 

THE DUEL 

he may accomplish the ruin of the soul,” was to be utterly 
exterminated from the Christian world, and that not only 
principals and seconds, but anyone who had given counsel 
in the case of a duel, or had in any other way persuaded a 
person thereunto, as also the spectators thereof, should be 
subjected to excommunication and perpetual malediction.^ 
In England, Cromwell’s Parliament made a determined 
effort to check the practice.'^ A Scotch law of 1 600 rendered 
the bare act of engaging in a duel, without license from 
the king, a capital offence.'® About the same period the 
Spanish Cortes passed a law which subjected all parties to 
a duel to the penalties of treason."* In 1602, Henry IV. of 
France issued an edict condemning to death whoever 
should give or accept a challenge or act as second ; and 
already several edicts against duelling had been promulgated 
under Louis XIII.*' when, in 1626, there was published a 
new one punishing with death any person who had killed 
his adversary in a duel, or had been found guilty of send- 
ing a challenge a second time.'' But all these enactments 
had little or no effect. We are told that in the eight 
years between 1601 and 1609, two thousand men of noble 
birth fell in duels in France ; and, according to Lord 
Herbert of Cherbury, who was ambassador at the court of 
Louis XIII., there was scarce a Frenchman worth looking 
on who had not killed his man in a duel.'* As Robertson 
observes, in reference to duelling, “ no custom, how absurd 
soever it may be, if it has subsisted long, or derives its 
force from the manners and prejudices of the age in which 
it prevails, was ever abolished by the bare promulgation 
of laws and statutes.”'-’ In spite of laws which directly 
prohibit duelling, or which punish with great severity 
anyone who kills another in a duel, sometimes even sub- 

^ Camm.s a 7 id Decrees of the Cotutcll ^ I.saml)ert, Taillandier, and Decnisy, 
of 'f'rent^ Se-s.sion xxv. 19, p. 274 sq, Reeueil g<^ 77 dral dcs aiiciennes lots 

- History of Crif?ie in Eupiand, Hancaises. xv. 31:1 sq, 

ii. 192. ^ Hid. xvi. 21, 106, 146. 

^ Hume, CoiJimentaries on the Lazv " Ibid. xvi. 176, 179. 
of Scotland^ ii. 281. Erskine, Erin- Storr, he. cit. jx 512. 

cifles of the T.atv of Scotland., p. 560. Rc)l)ert.son, op. cit. i. 66. 

^ Truman, Field of Honor, p. 70. 

THE DUEL 

jecting him to punishment for murder/ the duel still pre- 
vails in many European countries as a recognised custom, 
so much supported by public opinion that the laws 
referring to it are seldom or never applied. 

This curious practice of taking the law into one’s own 
hands, which we find existing in the midst of modern 
civilisation, is explicable, partly from the indifference with 
which legislators have treated offences against honour,**^ 
partly from the force of habit. The insulted person, 
finding no adequate legal remedy for the affront he has 
suffered, determines to be his own avenger, and challenges 
the offender to fight. Nor is revenge his only motive. 
He desires also to wash off the indignity by showing that 
he respects his honour more than his life. The notion 
that a challenge to mortal combat effaces the blot which 
an insult has imprinted upon a man’s honour is a survival 
from a period when the honourable man was above every- 
thing a brave man.*^ By displaying courage the offended 
party demonstrates that he is not worthy of contempt, by 
showing timidity he condemns himself. So far as justice 
is concerned, the duel, of course, became an absurdity as 
soon as it ceased to be looked upon in the light of an 
ordeal. It compels the insulted person to expose himself 
to a fresh injury from the side of an impudent offender, 
it allows the scoundrel to repay the most condign censure 
with a mortal stroke. But when a man’s honour is at 
stake the voice of justice is easily silenced, and the pres- 
sure of ancient habit is greater than ever. As is usual in 
similar cases, a variety of more or less futile arguments 
are adduced to give their support to the survival. Lord 
Karnes maintained that, if two persons agree to decide 
their quarrel by single combat, the State has nothing to do 
with it, since they need not make use of the protection 
which the State offers them.^* But, as a matter of fact, the 

^ Giinther, Die Idee der Wicdervcr- ^ That the modern duel is a special 
iii. 225, n. 467. Stephen, development of Chivalry has been 
History of the Criminal Law of Eng- pointed out by Buckle [History of 
land^ iii. 99 sqq. Oelli, II duello^ p. 21. Civilization in England^ ii. 136 sq.). 

Cf. Bentliam, Theory of Legisla- Karnes, Sketches of the History of 

tiofty p. 299 sqq. MaUy i. 415 n. 

THE DUEL 

CH. XXI 

duel is not a private affair between two individuals. As 
•Moore observed, “ a refusal of the duel is attended with 
such mortifying circumstances, with such an imputation 
of meanness and cowardice . . . , with such a studied 
contempt in public, and exclusion from the polite 
circle in private, as renders the alternative both cruel and 
inhuman ” ; ^ and it would seem that the State ought to 
protect its members against such a compulsion. It is said- 
that the duel “ grasps the sword of justice, which the laws 
have dropped, punishing what no code can chastise — 
contempt and insult.” '■* But we find that in countries 
where it no longer prevails, laws against insults, courts 
of honour, and especially more refined ideas as regards 
honorary satisfaction, have made it as useless as it is 
absurd, a matter of the past which nobody desires to 
revive. 

^ Moore, Full Inquiry into the Quoted by Millingcn, History of 

Subject of Suicide, ii. 276. Duelling, i. 300.

BODILY INJURIES 

Closely related to the right to life is the right to 
bodily integrity. Indeed, homicide is, generally speaking, 
the highest form of bodily injury which can, in the nature 
of things, be inflicted, although there are some forms of 
ill-treatment which are more terrible than death itself. 

In the case of bodily injuries the magnitude of the 
offence is, other things being equal, proportionate to the 
harm inflicted. At the lower stages of civilisation we 
meet with the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth 
for a tooth, or the offender has to pay an adequate 
compensation for the injury.^ It is said in the Laws of 
Manu that, if a blow is struck against men in order to 
give them pain, the judge shall inflict a fine in proportion 
to the amount of pain caused.® According to Muham- 
medan law, retaliation for intentional wounds and mutila- 
tions is allowed, but a fine may be accepted instead. The 
fine for depriving a man of any of his five senses, or 
dangerously wounding him, or grievously disfiguring him 
for life, or cutting off a member that is single, as the 

^ Cf Stephen, //istorj/o/thd Crimina/ Memorials of Set'vice in India ^ p. 82 
Law of England f\\\. ii. (Kandhs). Earl, Papuans^ p. 83 

2 Post, Afrikanische furisprudenz, (Papuans of Dory). Kubary, Die 
ii. 61 sqq. Munzinger, Osiafrikanische soctalen Einrichtungen dcr Pelauery p. 
Studien, pp. 208 (Takue), 502 (Barea 74 (Pelew Islanders), PetrofF, ‘ Report 
and Kunama). Burton, Two Trips to on Alaska,’ in Tenth Census of the 
Gorilla Land, *i. 105 (Mpongwe). United States, p. 105 (Thlinkets). 

Maclean, Compendium of Kafir Laws ^ Laws of Manu, viii, 286. 
and Customs, p. 6 1 sq. Maepherson, 

BODILY INJURIES ^ 

nose, is the whole price of blood ; the fine for a 
member of which there are two and not more, as 
a hand or a foot, is half the price of blood ; the fine 
for a member of which there are ten, as a finger or a 
toe, is a tenth of the price of blood. ^ The scale of fines 
for bodily injuries contained in many of the early Teutonic 
law-books is minute to a degree.'^ According to various 
texts of the Salic law, loo solidi — that is, a moiety of the 
wergeld — must be paid for depriving a man of a hand, 
foot, eye, or the nose ; the thumb and great toe were 
valued at 50 solidi ; the second finger with which the 
bow was drawn, at 35.* With respect to other acts of 
violence, the fine varied according to several circumstances, 
as, whether the blow was given with a stick or with closed 
fist, whether the brain was laid bare, whether certain bones 
were obtruded and how much, whether blood flowed from the 
wound on the ground, and so forth.^* In the Anglo-Saxon 
codes almost every part and particle of the body, every 
tooth, toe, and nail, had its price. According to the Laws 
of Aethelbirht, for instance, twenty shillings were paid for 
striking off a thumb, three for a thumb nail, eight for the 
forefinger, eleven for the little finger.'' In early Celtic 
law different amounts of injury were taxed with a similar 
affected precision.'' Nothing can better give us an idea of 
the business-like manner in which the whole subject was 
treated than the Irish law against castration. If the 
injured persons be people to whom the organs extirpated 
are of no use, “ such as a decrepit old man or a man in 
orders, there is nothing due to them for the loss of them, 
but body-fine according to the severity of the wound.” ^ 

^ Lane, Manners and Customs of the ^ Lex Sa/icat ediled by l Io.ssels, coll. 
Modern Egyptians, p. 120. Sachaii, 163-167, 170, 172-177, 179. 
Mtihantmedanisches Recht, p. 764. ^ Ibid, col. 100 sqij. 

^ Wilda, Strafrccht der Gerfuanett, Lazos of uL'Ukelbirht, 54. 

p. 729. Steinann, Den danshe Rets- ^ Aneient Lazvs of Ireland, iii. pp. 
historic indtil Christian Vis Lov, p. ci.x., 349. Venedotian Code, iii. 23 
658. Stephen, History of the Criminal {Ancient Lazvs and Institutes of Wales, 
Lazv of England, i. 56. Lappenberg, p. 15 1 Dimeiian Code, ii. 17 

dli story of England under the Anglo- {ibid. p. 246 .vyy.). Gwentian Code, ii. 
Saxon Kings, ii. 422. (s sq. {ibid. 340 .i'y.). 

^ Ancient Lazvs of Ireland, iii. 355. 

xxir BODILY INJURIES 

Alter this one is almost surprised to read in the ancient 
laws of Ireland that, when a person had once been maimed, 
and received part or all of his body-fine, no subsequent 
wrong-doer could insist that the injured person should be 
rated as a damaged articled 

However, the degree of the offence depends not only 
on the suffering inflicted, but on the station of the parties 
concerned; and in some cases the infliction of pain is held 
allowable or even a duty. 

By using violence against their parents, children grossly 
offend against the duty of filial regard and submissiveness. 
It is said in the Laws of JJammurabi, that a man who has 
struck his father shall lose his hands.'^ According to 
Exodus, “ he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall 
be surely put to death.” ® In Corea the man who strikes his 
father is beheaded.^ On the other hand, parents are 
allowed to inflict corporal punishment on their children ; 
but this is not the case everywhere — indeed, among many 
of the lower races children are never, or hardly ever, 
subject to such punishment.'^ Among the Australian 
Dieyerie the children are never beaten, and should any 
woman violate this law, she is in turn beaten by her 
husband.'* The Efatese, says Mr. Macdonald, “ are 
shocked to see Europeans correcting their children ; I 
never saw an Efatese beating a child.” ^ The Eskimo 

* Ibid. iii. pp. cix., cxi., 349, 351. 

^ Laws of Hammurabi y 195. 

^ ExoaiiSy xxi. 15. 

* Griffis, CoreUy p. 236. 

^ Curr, Recollections of Squatting in 
Victoriay p. 252 (Bangerang tribe). 
Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in 
Austj'aliay i. 94 (tribes of the Lower 
Murray). Calvert, Aborigines of West- 
ern AustraUay p. 30 sq. Luniholtz, 
Among CannibcilSy p. 192 sq. (Northern 
Queensland aborigines). Kubary, ‘ Die 
Palau-Inseln in der Siidsee,’ in four^ial 
des Museum Godeffrogy iv. 56 (Pelew 
Islanders). Man, Sonthalia and the 
Sonthalsy p. 78. von Siebold, Die 
Aim auf der Lnsel Vesso, p. ii. 
Murdoch, * Ethnological Results of the 
Point Barrow Expedition,’ in Ann. 

VOL. I 

Ref. Bur. Ethn. ix. 417 (Point Barrow 
Eskimo). Boas, ‘ Central Eskimo,’ 
ibid. vi. 566. Richardson, in Franklin, 
Joujmey to the Shores of the Polar SeUy 
p. 68 (Crees). Lunihollz, Unknown 
Mexico y p. 274 (I'arahumares). Rau- 
tanen, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdltnissey 
p. 329 (Ondonga). See also Steinmetz, 
Ethnologische Studien zur ersten Ent- 
wicklung der Strafey ii. ch. vi. § 2, 
especially p. 203 ; Ideniy ‘ Das LVer- 
hiiltnis zwi.schen Eltern und Kindern 
bei den Naturvolkern,’ in Zeitschrift 
fiir Sociahuissenschafty i. 610 sqq. 

® Gason, ‘ Manners and Customs of 
the Dieyerie Tribe,’ in Woods, Native 
Tribes of South Ausiraliay p. 258. 

^ Macdonald, Oceaniay p. 195. 

L L 

BODILY INJURIES 

5H 

visited by Mr. Hall never inflict physical chastisemen*’ 
upon the children ; “ if a child does wrong — for instance, 
if it becomes enraged, the mother says nothing to it till 
it becomes calm. Then she talks to it, and with good 
effect.”* Among the Tehuelches of Patagonia “the 
children are indulged in every way, ride the best horses, 
and are not corrected for any misbehaviour.”^ Among 
the Gaika tribe of the Kafirs, again, parents may inflict 
corporal punishment on their children, but are fined for 
causing permanent injuries to their persons, such as the 
loss of an eye or a tooth.* 

The power which the husband possesses over his wife 
much more commonly implies the right of inflicting pain 
on her than of punishing her capitally ; but even among 
savages and barbarians the former right is not universally 
granted to him. The Pelcw Islanders do not allow a 
husband to beat his wife.'* Among various Eskimo tribes 
the women are rarely, if ever, beaten.'* Among the 
Central Eskimo the husband “ is not allowed to maltreat 
or punish his wife ; if he does, she may leave him at any 
time, and the wife’s mother can always command a 
divorce.” ** Many, or most, of the North American 
Indians consider it disgraceful for a husband to beat his 
wife.’ Among the Kalmuks a man has no right to raise 
his hand against a woman.* Among the Madis women 
are never beaten.” Among the Ondonga a man is not 
allowed to chastise his wife.*'* Among the Gaika tribe of 
the Kafirs “ a husband may beat his wife for misconduct ; 
but if he should strike out her eye or a tooth, or other- 
wise maim her, he is fined at the discretion of the Chief.” ’* 

^ Hall, Arctic Researches^ p. 568. 

^ Muster.^, At Home 7 vith the Pata- 
gonians^ P- ^ 97 * 

^ Tirownlec, in yi'^e^Q-AW^Compendiiwi 
of Kafir Laws and Customs y p. 1 1 8. 

^ Kubary, ‘ Die Palau-In.scln,’ in 
Jour, des Museum Godeffroy^ iv. 43. 

^ King, in four. EtJin. Soc. i. 147. 
Cf. Murdoch, loc. cit. p. 414. 

^ Boas, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 
579 - 

" Wailz, Anthropologie dcr Natiir- 
volkery iii. loi. Cf Powers, Tribes of 
Californiay p. 178 (Oallinomero). 

^ Liadov, in Jour. Ant hr. Inst. i. 

405- 

Ratzel, History of Mankind y iii. 
40. 

Raulanen, in Stcinmetz, Rcchts- 
verhaltnissey p. 329. 

Brownlee, in Maclean, op. cit. p. 

1 17. 

> According to the native code of Malacca, a man may 
beat his wife, but not as he would chastise a slave, and not 
till blood flows”; if he should do so, he is fined/ 
According to Muhammedan law, a husband may chastise 
an obstinate wife, but he must not cause her great sulFering, 
nor inflict on her a wound/ We read in the Laws of 
Manu : — ‘‘A wife, a son, a slave, a pupil, and a younger 
brother of the full blood, who have committed faults, may 
be beaten with a rope or a split bamboo, but on the back 
part of the body only, never on a noble part ; he who 
strikes them otherwise will incur the same guilt as a 
thief” In Europe the idea expressed by the ancient 
Roman that ‘‘ he who beats his wife or children lays 
hands on that which is most sacred and holy,” ^ was 
shared neither by the ancient Teutons '^ nor by mediaeval 
legislators. According to the Jydske Lov, a husband was 
allowed to chastise his wife with a stick or rod, though 
not with a weapon ; but he had to take care not to break 
any limb of her body.*’ In the Coutumes du Beauvoisis 
it is said that a man may beat his wife if she belies or 
curses him, or disobeys his “reasonable” commands, or for 
some other similar reason, though he must not kill or 
maim her.' Among Russian and South Slavonian^ 
peasants public opinion still permits the husband to inflict 
corporal punishment on his wife. In Russia “ the bride- 
groom, while he is leading his bride to her future home, 
gives her from time to time light blows from a whip, 
saying at each stroke : ‘ Forget the manners of thine own 

^ Newbold, British Setileinents in 
the Straits of Malacca^ ii. 31 1 sq. 

vSachau, Mnhainmedajiisches Becht, 
pp. 10, 44, 849. 

^ lunvs of Mann., viii. 299 sq. 

^ Plutarch, Cato Major., xx. 3, 

® Nordstrom, Bidrag till den svenska 
samhallsforjattningens histcriay ii. 61 
sq. Stemann, op. cit^ p. 323 sq. 

® Jydske Lov, ii. 82. 

^ Beaiimanoir, Coutumes du Beau- 
voisis, Ivii. 6, vol. ii. p. 333 : “II loist 
bien a roinme batre se feme, sans mort 
et sans mehaing, quant ele le meffet ; 

si comme quant ele est en voie de fere 
folic de son cors, ou quant ele dement 
son baron ou inaudist, on (plant ele ne 
vent obeir a ses resnables commande- 
mens (pie prode feme doit fere : en tel 
cas et en sanllables est il bien mestiers 
que li marls soit castierres de se feme 
rcsnal)lement. ... Li man’s le doit 
castier et repenre selonc toutes les 
manieres qu’il verra que bon sera por li 
oster de tel visse, exept(i mort ou 
mehaing.” 

^ Krauss, Sitte und Branch der 
Sudslaven, p. 526. 

L L 2 

5i6 bodily injuries chap, 

family, and learn those of mine.’ As soon as they hav^ 
entered their bedroom, the husband says to his wife, 
‘Take off my boots.’ The wife imniediately obeys her 
husband’s orders, and, taking them oflF, finds in one of 
them a whip, symbol of his authority over her person. 
This authority implies the right of the husband to control 
the behaviour of his wife, and to correct her every time 
he thinks fit, not only by words, but also by blows. The 
opinion which a Russian writer of the sixteenth century 
. . . expresses as to the propriety of personal chastisement, 
and even as to its beneficial effects on the health, is still 
shared by the country people. . . . The customary Court 
seems to admit the use of such disciplinary proceedings 
by not interfering in the personal relations of husband and 
wife. ‘ Never judge the quarrel of husband and wife,’ 
is a common saying, scrupulously observed by the village 
tribunals, which refuse to hear any complaint on the part 
of the aggrieved woman, at least so long as the punishment 
has not been of such a nature as to endanger life or limb.” ^ 
It seems that, wherever slavery exists, the master has a 
right to inflict corporal punishment on his slave, even 
though he be forbidden to deprive him of any of his limbs. 
According to the Chinese Penal Code, the master, or 
relations of the master of a guilty slave, may chastise 
such slave in any degree short of occasioning his death, 
without being liable to any punishment ; whereas “ all 
slaves who are guilty of designedly striking their masters, 
shall, without making any distinction between principals 
and accessories, be beheaded.” ® Among the Hebrews, if 
a man by blows destroyed an eye or a tooth, or any other 
member belonging to his man-servant or maid-servant, he 
was bound to let the injured person go free, though full 
retribution was legally ordained for bodily injuries done to 
free Israelites.^ In the North American Slave States and 

^ Kovalewsky, Modern Customs and ^ Ta Tsing Leu Lec-y sec. cccxiv. p. 
Ancietit Laws of Russiay p. 44 sq. Cf, 340. 

Meiners, Vergleichung des iiltern und ® Ibid, see. cccxiv. p. 338. 

7 teuern Russ tan des y ii. 167 sq. ; Ideniy ^ Exodus , xxi. 24 sqq. 

History of the Female SeXy i. i6o. 

.in the colonies of all European Powers the master could 
inflict any number of blows upon his slave, but if he 
mutilated him he was fined or subjected to a very moderate 
term of imprisonment.' 

The maltreatment of another person’s slave has, even 
by civilised legislators, been regarded as an injury done to 
the master rather than to the slave. According to Mu- 
hammedan law, the fine imposed on a free person for in- 
juring a slave varies according to the value of the slave.^ 
In the Institutes of Justinian it is said that, “if a man 
were to flog another man’s slave in a cruel manner, an 
action would, in this case, lie against him,” but that the 
master has no right of action against a person who has 
struck the slave with his fist.^ In the Negro Act of 1 740 
it was prescribed that, if a slave was beaten by any person 
who had not sufficient cause or lawful authority for so 
doing, and if he was maimed or disabled by such beating 
from performing his or her work, the olfender should pay 
to the owner of the slave “ the sum of 15 shillings current 
money per diem, for every day of his lost time, and also 
the charge of the cure of such slave.” ' But if the beat- 
ing of the slave caused no loss of service to his master, the 
offender was not, as a rule, punished by law. A decision 
of the Supreme Court of Maryland established expressly 
the law to be, in that State, that trespass would not lie by 
a master for an assault and battery on his slave, unless it 
were attended with a loss of service.’' If, on the other 

' ‘Negro Act’ of 1740, § 37, in 
Brevard, Digest of the Public Statute 
Law of South Carolina^ ii. 241. Ste- 
phen, Slavery of the British IVest In- 
dia Colonies^ i. 36 sq. Edwards, History 
of the British West Indies^ ii. 192. 

^ Lane, Manners and Customs of the 
Modern Egyptians^ p. 120. 

3 Institutiones^ iv. 4. 3. 

^ Brevard, op. cit. ii. 231 sq. 

® Harris and Johnson, Reports of Cases 
argued and determined in the General 
Court and Court of Appeals of the State of 
Maryland., i. 4. Of all the Slave States, 
so far as I know, Kentucky was the only 

one where the owner of a .slave might 
bring an action of trespass against any- 
one who whipped, stroke, or otherwise 
abused the slave without theowner’s con- 
sent, notwithstanding the .slave was not 
so injured that the master lost his 
services thereby (Moreheadand Brown, 
Digest of the Statute Laws of KottMchy, 
ii. 1481). In Tennessee, according to 
an act of 1813, a person was punished 
if he “ wantonly and without sufficient 
cause ” beat or abused the slave of ano- 
ther (Caruthers and Nicholson, Compi- 
lation of the Statutes of Tennessee., p. 
678). 

BODILY INJURIES 

hand, the offender was a slave and his victim a white man, 
the injury was regarded in a very different light. We read 
in an act of Georgia passed in 1770 : — “If any slave shall 
presume to strike any white person, such slave . . . shall 
. . . for the second offence suffer death : But in case any 
such slave shall grievously wound, maim, or bruise any 
white person, though it shall be only the first offence, such 
slave shall suffer death.” ^ And to offer violence, to strike, 
attempt to strike, struggle with, or resist any white person, 
was, even by the latest meliorating laws issued in the 
British Colonies, declared to be a crime in a slave which, if 
the white person had been wounded or hurt, and in some 
islands even without that condition, should subject the 
offender to death, dismemberment, or other, severe penal- 
ties." We read in one of the codes of ancient Wales : — 
“ If a freeman strike a bondman, let him pay him twelve 
pence. ... If a bondman strike any freeman, it is just to 
cut off his right hand, or his right foot.” ^ According to 
Chinese law, a freeman striking a slave shall “ be punished 
less severely by one degree than in the ordinary cases of 
the same offence ” ; whereas “ a slave striking a freeman 
shall, in proportion to the consequences, be punished one 
degree more severely than is by law provided in similar 
cases between equals.” ‘‘ 

Very frequently the penalties or fines for bodily injuries 
are influenced by the class or rank of the parties even 
when both of them are freemen. Among the Marea, 
whilst a commoner who wounds another commoner simply 
■pays him compensation for the hurt, a commoner who 
wounds a nobleman must abandon to him all his property 
and become his slave.'"' At Zimme the fines for assaults 
“vary greatly, according to the rank of the party com- 

^ Prince, Digest of the Laws of the p. 339). For ancient Swedish law on 
State of Georgia, p. 781. this subject, .see Got lands - Lagen, 

- Stephen, Slavery of the British i. 19. 37. 

West India Colonies, i. 188. Kd wards, ^ Ta Tsing Len Lee, sec. cccxiii. p. 
History of the British West Indies, ii. 336. 

202 St], ^ Miinzinger, Ostafrikanische Stiidien, 

2 Gweniian Code, ii. 5. 31 sq. {An- . p. 244. 
cient Laws and Institutes of Wales, 

plaining/’ ^ Among the Ossetes the limbs of a noble are 
rated at twice as much as the limbs of an ordinary free- 
man.^ The Laws of Hammurabi contain the following 
provisions : — If a man has caused the loss of a gentle- 
man’s eye, his eye one shall cause to be lost. If he has 
shattered a gentleman’s limb, one shall shatter his limb. If 
he has caused a poor man to lose his eye or shattered a 
poor man’s limb, he shall pay one mina of silver. If a 
man has made the tooth of a man that is his equal to fall 
out, one shall make his tooth fdll out. If he has made the 
tooth of a poor man to fall out, he shall pay one-third of 
a mina of silver.”^ According to the Laws of Manu, 
if a man of a low caste does hurt to a man of any of the 
three highest castes, the offending member shall be cut 
off ; and he who intentionally strikes a Brahmana in 
anger, even if it were only with a blade of grass, “ will 
be born during twenty-one existences in the wombs of such 
beings where men are born in punishment of their sins.” 
In early Teutonic and Celtic codes we meet with the prin- 
ciple that the compensation by which a bodily injury is to 
be atoned for varies according to the rank of the parties 
concerned.'' 

We have noticed that men in their estimation of human 
life, particularly at the earlier stages of culture, discrimi- 
nate between fellow- tribesmen or compatriots and aliens. 
A similar distinction is made with reference to other bodily 
Injuries. It reaches its pitch in the sufferings inflicted on 
vanquished enemies. The treatment to which the Kam- 
chadales subjected their male prisoners of war included 
‘‘ burning, hewing them to pieces, tearing their entrails out 
when alive, and hanging them by the feet.” ‘ Some of the 
Dacotahs, when they had taken a captive, secured him 

^ Colquhoiin, the Shafts^ Aneient Laws of IrelatuL iii. p. cxi. 

p, 132. DirnetianCodefn, ij, {Amiejit Laws 

" von Ilaxthausen, Transcaucasia^ aJid Institutes of IVaies^ p. 2 ^S). (iwcn- 
p. 409, tian. CodCy ii. 7- I3 {ibuL 342)- 

^ Laws of IIa)nmurabi , 196-198,200 Valrogcr, Les Ccltes, p. 470. Innes, 
sq. Cf. ibid. 202 sqq. Scotland in the Middle p. 180. 

^ Laws of ManUy viii. 279. ” Krasheninnikof'f, History of Kant- 

^ Ibid. iv. 166. Cf ibid, iv, 167. sc hatha p. 200. 

Kemble, Saxons in England, i. 134. 

$20 

BODILY INJURIES chap. 

to a stake and allowed their women to torture him by 
mutilating him previous to killing him”; ^ and of many 
other North American Indians it is said that they “ devote 
their captives to death, with the most agonising tortures.” 
The wars of the Society Islanders, Ellis observes, were 
most merciless and destructive ; “ invention itself was 
tortured to find out new modes of inflicting suffering.”® 
On the other hand, there are not wanting instances of 
savage warfare being conducted on more humane princi- 
ples. Dobrizhoffer tells us that “ cruelty towards captives 
and enemies is abhorred by the Abipones, who never tor- 
ture the dying ” ; ■* and among the Somals no injury is done 
to enemies who have been severely wounded in the battle.® 
Civilised nations maintain that, in time of war, no greater 
injuries should be inflicted upon the enemy than are neces- 
sary to obtain the end of the war. 

The right to bodily integrity is influenced by religious 
differences as well as national. According to Muhamme- 
dan law, the compensation for injuries inflicted on a Jew 
or a Christian is a third, for those inflicted on a Parsee 
only a fifteenth, of the sum to be paid for similar injuries 
done to a Moslem.''’ A mediaeval Spanish law prescribes 
that a Christian who beats a Jew shall pay four maravedis, 
but that a Jew who beats a Christian shall pay ten.^ 

The right to bodily integrity may be forfeited by the 
commission of a crime. As has been already noticed, 
physical injuries are frequently resented according to the 
law of like for like ; ® and in other cases, also, the inflic- 

^ Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in 
l\ep. Bur, Ethn. iii. 313. 

2 Adair, History of the American In- 
dians, p. 388. 

Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i, 293. 
Cf Williams, Narrative of Missionary 
Enterprises, p. 533 (Samoans) ; Fore- 
man, Philippine Islands, p. 185 ; Ellis, 
Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, 
p. 172 sq. 

Dobrizhoffer, Account of the A bi- 
hones, ii. 41 1. 

^ raulitschkc, Ethnographie Nordost- 
Afrikas, p. 255. 

^ Sachau, op, cit, p. 764. 

^ ‘Fucrode Sepulveda,’ art. M sq-t 
quoted by Du Boys, Ilistoire du droit 
criminel de lEspagne, p. 74. 

^ Supra, p. 178. See also Laivs of 
Hammurabi, 196, T97, 200 ; Exodus, 
xxi. 24 sq, ; Leviticus, xxiv. 19 jy. ; 
Deuteronomy, xix, 21 ; Koran, v. 49 ; 
Sachau, op, cit, p. 762 (Muhamme- 
dan law); Leist, Alt-arisches Jus Gen- 
tium, p. 426 sq, (Greeks) ; Lex Duo- 
decim Tabulartun, viii. 2 ; Gunther, 
Idee der Wiederz>ergeitung, p, 186 sqq, 
(Teutons). 

xxn 

BODILY INJURIES 

tion of corporal suffering — by mutilation, scourging, and 
so forth — is a common penalty. Amputation or mutila- 
tion of the offending member has particularly been in vogue 
among so-called peoples of culture.^ It is often men- 
tioned in the Code of Hammurabi ^ and in the Laws of 
Manu.* It occurred among the Greeks,^ Romans," and 
Teutons.® Mediasval codes contain numerous instances of 
it.’^ The Laws of Alfred prescribe that a male theow who 
commits a rape upon a female theow shall be emasculated ; ® 
and in a later age Bracton reserves the same punishment 
for the deflowerer of a virgin, with the addition that the 
offender shall also lose his eyes, “ on account of his look- 
ing at the beauty, for which he coveted possession of the 
virgin.”® According to a law of Cnut, an adulteress shall 
have her nose and ears cut off.^® Aethelstan enjoined that 
an illicit coiner should lose his right hand ; “ whereas in 
later times this punishment was restricted to those who 
struck anybody in the king’s presence or in his court. By 
the statute law of Scotland the punishment of forgery, or 
falsifying of writings, was at first the amputation of the 
hand, afterwards dismembering of it, joined with other 
pains.^® In some countries a perjurer lost the offending 
fingers or his right hand,^^ in others he had his tongue cut 

^ For its occurrence in modern Persia, Gunther, op. cit. i. 94 sqij. 

see Polak, Persien, i. 256, 329 sq, ; in ^ Ibid. i. 155 sqq, 

Fe^, sec Leo Africanus, History atid ^ Ibid. i. 195 sqq. Wilda op. cit. p. 

Description of Africa, ii. 470. The 510. Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsaltcr- 
Koran (v, 42) orders theft to be punished thiltner, p. 740. 

by cutting off the hands of the thief, " Du }Joys, Histoirc du droit critnincl 

but this punishment is now seldom des peuples 7 noderucs, ii. 699. Idem, 

practised in Muhammedan countries. Histoire du droit criminei dc P Espagne, 
Among the lower races I have met only p. 94, Cibrario, Economia politica del 
with a few instances of punishing the medio eve, i. 346 sq. 

offending member. In Ashanti in- ® Lazvs of Alfred, ii. 25, 

trigue with the female slaves of the ^ Bracton, De Legibus et Consuctudi- 

royal household is punished by emas- nibus Angluv, fob 147, vol. ii. 480 sq. 

culation (Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples of Laws of Cnut, ii. 54. 

the Gold Coast, p. 287) ; and the Kam- Laws of yEthelstan, 14. 

chadales burn the hands of people who Strutt, View of the Manners, Cus- 

have been frequently caught in theft toms, Psf^c. of the Ifihabitants of Eng- 
(Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p. 179). land, iii. 43. 

Laws of Hammurabi, 192, 194, Erskine, Principles of the Law of 

195, 218, 226, 253. Scotland, p. 571. 

^ Laavs of Manu, viii. 270-272, 279- Stemann, op. cit. p, 645. Charles 

283,322,334,374; xi. 105. V. ’s Peinliche Gerichts Ordmmg, art. 

BODILY INJURIES 

off or pierced with a hot iron ; ^ and in England, before 
the Conquest, a man might lose his tongue by bringing a 
false and scandalous accusation.^. In the seventeenth cen- 
tury a person in Scotland was sentenced to have his tongue 
bored because he had libelled the Lord Justice C^eneral.'* 
In German and Austrian codes we find, even in the 
eighteenth century, traces of the principle of punishing 
the offending member ; * and in France the last survival 
of it — the amputation of the right hand of a parri- 
cide before his execution — disappeared only in 1832.“ 
Growing refinement of feeling has made people averse 
from the use of surgery in the administration of 
justice ; and in most European countries grown-up 
offenders are no longer liable to corporal punishment of 
any kind.'’' 

Corporal punishment has generally been, by preference, 
a punishment for poor and common people or slaves.’^ 
Blows and abusive language, says Plutarch, seem to be 
more fitting for slaves than the freeborn.® According to 
the religious law of the Flindus, a Brahmana shall not 
suffer corporal punishment for any offence." Among the 
Hebrews'" and Muhammedans," among the Romans'^ and 
in the Middle Ages,'® the punishment of mutilation could 
generally be commuted to a fine. For a long period, in 

107, p. 235. Pollock and Maitland, Korpers'trafoi hei alien Volkeni^ passim. 
History of English Lazv before the Time. ^ See, for in.stance, the Laws of 

of Edivard 1 . ii. 453. Gihither, op. cit. Mann, viii. 267, 279. 
ii. 57 * Plutarch, I)e cdueatione pnerorum^ 

^ Hisfoire dn droit o'imincl 12. 

des peuples niodernes^ ii. 699. Idem., Baudhayana^ i. 10. 18* 17. Insii- 

Histoire du droit criminel de I' Espagne^ tntes of VisJurn^ v. 2. 

p. 599 sq. Pitcairn, Criminal Trials Giinthcr, op. cit. i. 5,5. 

in Scotland, iii. 539. Ibid. i. 74 sq. Lane, Manners and 

“ Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. ii. Customs of the Modcrfi E^^yptians, p. 
539. 120. Sachau, op. cit. p. 764. According 

^ Rogers, Social IJfe in Scotland, ii. to Muharnmedan law, it is not obliga- 
35* tory for the injured party to accept com- 

^ Giinther, op. cit, ii. 55-57, 65 ; iii. pensation in lieu of mutilation. 

79 - Giinther, <r/A i. \ 2 C[sqq. Moinm- 

® Chauveau and Helie, Thiorie du sen, Romisches Strafrecht, p. 981. 

Code l^dnal, iii. 394. Du Boys, Ilistoire die droit criminel 

^ See von Liszt, I.e droit criminel des des peuples modernes, ii. 557 sq. Strutt, 
Bats europlens, passim ; Wrede, Die op. cit. ii. 8. 

j^hristian Europe, as well as in Pagan Rome during the 
Empire/ the punishment was more savage in proportion as 
the delinquent was more helpless. “ En crimes,” says 
Loysel, “ les villains sont plus grievement punis en leurs 
corps que les nobles. ... Et ou le vilain perdroit la vie, 
ou un membre de son corps, le noble perdra I’honneur, et 
reponse en cour.” ^ Indeed, whilst the slave incurred the 
penalty of mutilation for the most trifling offence, the 
noble might be exempted from corporal punishment of any 
kind.® In a similar manner the social status of a person 
has influenced his right to bodily integrity with reference 
to judicial torture. According to the Chinese Penal Code, 
“ it shall not, in any tribunal of government, be permitted 
to put the question by torture to those who belong to any 
of the eight privileged classes, in consideration of the re- 
spect due to their character.” ^ In Rome, under the Re- 
public, torture was exclusively confined to the slaves.® In 
mediaeval Christendom it was made use of to an extent and 
with a cold-blooded ferocity unknown to any heathen nation, 
and in cases of heresy and treason it was applied to every 
class of the community.'’ But the tortures inflicted on the 
nobles and the clergy were lighter than in the case of ordi- 
nary laymen, and proof of a more decided character was 
required to justify their being exposed to torment.'*’ 
“ Noble persons and persons of quality,” says Dumoulin, 
“ cannot so easily be subjected to torture as persons 
who are of mean and plebeian rank.” ® Guazzini, an 
eminent Italian jurisconsult and a recognised expositor 
of the law of torture in the days of its highest ascendency 
and ripest maturity, observes that the torment inflicted 

1 Cf. Mackenzie, Sltidies in Ko7?ian 
Law, p. 414 sq, 

^ Loy.sel, Institutes coutu??iih'cs, vi. 
2. 31 sq., vol. ii. 219 sq. 

3 Du Histoire, tin droit criininel 

de PEspagne, p- 469. 

4 Ta Tsing Leu Lee, sec. cccciv. p. 

441- 

® Momirsen, Roinisches Strafrecht, 

p. 405- 

® Suarez tie Paz, Praxis ecclesiasiica 
et secular is, v. i. 3. 12, fol. 154 b. Cf. 
Lcclcy, Pise at id Influence of the Spirit 
of Pationalisni in Europe, i. 328. 

^ Lea, Superstition and I'oire, p. 
526 sq. 

^ Dumoulin, tjuoled by Welling, 
‘ Law of U'orture,’ in The American 
Anthropologist, v, 210 sq. 

BODILY INJURIES 

on a person shall be proportionate to his age, his physical 
constitution, his mental habits, and his social status ; ^ 
and he adds that bishops and others in high civil dignity 
are exempt from torture even under strong presumptions 
of guilt. ^ 

The moral notions regarding the infliction of bodily in- 
juries require little comment. They are based on the 
principle of sympathetic resentment, modified by the 
ascription of particular rights to some and particular duties 
to others, on account of the relation in which the parties 
stand to each other ; and they follow the same rules as the 
ideas concerning homicide, to tbe exclusion, of course, of 
all such considerations as result from fear of the slain 
man’s ghost or from the religious horror of taking life. 
One point, however, calls for special attention. The for- 
cible interference with another person’s body not only 
causes physical pain but commonly entails disgrace upon 
the sufferer. This largely accounts for the fact that a per- 
son’s right to bodily integrity varies so much according to 
his social standing.^ Even among the lower races we meet 
with the notions that an act of bodily violence involves a 
gross insult, and that corporal punishment disgraces the 
criminal more than any other form of penalty. According 
to the Malay Code, “ the persons who may be put to death 
without the previous knowledge of the king or nobles, are 
an adulterer, a person guilty of treason, a thief who cannot 
otherwise be apprehended, and a person who offers another 
a grievous affront, such as a blow over the face.” * Among 
the Maoris a blow with the fist would lead to a combat 
with arms.“ The Thlinkets consider corporal punishment to 

^ Guazzini, Tractatus ad defensatn 
inquisitorutti^ xxx. 4. 24, vol. ii. 86. 

Ibid. xxx. 17, vol. ii. 102 sq. 

^ Cf. Dintetian Code, ii. 17. 17 {Ait- 
cient Laws and Institutes of IVales, p. 
248) : “ The Law says that the limbs of 
all per.sons are of equal worth ; if a 
limb of the king be broken, that it is of 
the same worth as the limb of the vil- 
lain : yet, nevertheless, the worth of 

saraad [or fine for insult] to the king, or 
to a breyr, is more than the .saraad of a 
villain, if a limb belonging to him be 
cut.” See also Gwentian Code, ii. 7. 12 
sq. {ibid. p. 342). 

^ Crawfurd, History of the Indian 
Archipelago, iii. 105 sq. 

® Shortland, Traditions and Supe?'- 
stitions of the New Zealanders, p. 227. 

be the greatest indignity to which a freeman can be sub- 
jected, hence they never inflict itd And civilised nations 
who are ready to punish certain criminals with death, 
hold whipping to be a punishment too infamous to be 
employed. 

' Holmberg, ‘ Ethnograph. Skizzen Ameiika,’ in Jaa Socictatis Scien- 
uber die Volker des russischen tiaruni Feutiiccc^ iv. 321.

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

In previous chapters we have examined the regard for 
the life and physical well-being of others as displayed in 
moral ideas concerning homicide and the infliction of 
bodily harm. We shall now consider the same subject 
from another point of view, namely, the valuation of such 
conduct as positively promotes the existence and material 
comfort of a fellow-creature. 

There is one duty so universal and obvious that it is 
seldom mentioned : the mother’s duty to rear her child- 
ren, provided that they are suffered to live. Another 
duty — equally primitive, I believe, in the human race — is 
incumbent on the married man : the protection and sup- 
port of his family. We hear of this duty from all 
quarters of the savage world. 

Among the North American Indians it was considered 
disgraceful for a man to have more wives than he was able to 
maintain. 1 Mr. Powers says that among the Patwin, a Cali- 
fornian tribe which he believes to rank among the lowest in 
the world, ‘‘ the sentiment that the men are bound to support 
the women — that is to furnish the supplies — is stronger even 
than among us.” ^ Among the Iroquois it was the office of the 
husband ‘‘ to make a mat, to repair the cabin of his wife, or to 
construct a new one.” I'he product of his hunting expeditions, 

^ Waitz, Anthropologie der Natur- p. 367. 
vblker^\\\, 109. Carver, 'Travels through Powers, Tribes of California, p. 

the Interior Parts of North Afnerica, 222. 

CH. xxiii CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

(luring the first year of marriage, belonged of right to his wife, 
and afterwards he shared it equally with her, whether she remained 
in the village, or accompanied him to the chase.^ Among the 
Botocudos, whose girls are married very young, remaining in 
the house of the fatlier till the age of puberty, the husband is 
even then obliged to maintain his wife, though living apart from 
her.^ Among the Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco 
the child of a woman whose husband deserts her is generally 
killed at birth, the mother feeling that it is the man’s part of 
married life to provide meat for his offspring,^ Azara states 
that, among the Charruas/‘du moment ou un hommese marie, 
il forme une famille a part, ct travaillc pour la nourrir.” ^ Of the 
Fuegians it is said that, “as soon as a youth is able to maintain 
a wife, by his exertions in fishing or bird-catching, he obtains 
the consent of her relations.” The wretched Rock Veddahs 
in Ceylon “ acknowledge the marital obligation and the duty 
of supporting their own families.”^' Among the Maldivians, 
“althougli a man is allowed four wives at one time, it is only on 
condition of his being able to support them.” The Nairs, 
we are told, consider it a husband’s duty to provide his wife 
with food, clothing, and ornaments ; ^ and almost the same is 
said by Dr. Schwaner with reference to the tribes of the 
Barito district, in the south-east part of Borneo.'^ Among the 
cannibals of New Britain the chiefs have to see that the families 
of the warriors are properly maintained. Concerning the 
Tonga Islanders Mariner states that “a married woman is one 
who cohabits with a man, and lives under his roof and protect- 
ion.” Among the Maoris “the mission of woman was to 
increase and multiply, that of man to defend his home.” 
With reference to the Kurnai in South Australia, Mr. Howitt 
states that “the man has to provide for his family with the as- 
sistance of his wife. His share is to hunt for their support, and 
to fight for their protection.” In Lado, in Africa, the bride- 
groom has to assure his fiither-in-law three times that he will 

^ Heriot, Travels through the Cana- ^ Rosset, ‘ Maidive Islands/ in Joiti\ 
das, p. 338. Anthf\ Inst. xvi. 168 sq. 

^ von Tschudi, Keisen diirch Siida- ® Stewart, ‘ Notes on Northern 
merika, ii. 283. Cachar/ in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, 

^ Ilawtrey, in [oiir. AntJir. Inst. xxiv. 614. 
xxxi. 295. Schwaner, Borneo, i. 199. 

Azara, Voyages dans V Anitlrique An<^as, Polynesia, p. 373. 

mdridionale, ii. 22. Mariner, Natives of the Tonga 

King and Fitzroy, Voyages of the Islands, ii. 167. 

^V 4 dventure'' amV Beagle,^' ii. 182. Johnston, Alaoria, p. 2S sq. 

^ Tennent, Ceylon, ii. 441. Fison and fiowitt, Kamilaroi and 

Kurnai, p. 206. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY chah. 

protect his wife, calling the people present to witness.' Amo: 
the Touareg a man who deserts his wife is Warned, as he ha! 
taken upon himself the obligation of maintaining her.^ 

Among many of the lower races a man is not even per- 
mitted to marry until he has given some proof of his 
ability to support and protect his family.® Indeed, so 
closely is the idea that a man is bound to maintain his 
family connected with that of marriage and fatherhood, 
that sometimes even repudiated wives with their children 
are, at least to a certain extent, supported by their former 
husbands.' And upon the death of a husband, the 
obligation of maintaining his wife and her children 
devolves on his heirs, the wide-spread custom of a man 
marrying the widow of his deceased brother being not 
only a privilege, but, among several peoples, even a 
duty.'"’ 

Turning to peoples who have reached a higher stage of 
culture : — Abd Shuga‘ says that, among Muhammedans, 
parents are obliged to support their families, “ if the 
children are both poor and under age, or both poor and 
lastingly infirm, or both poor and insane.” ® But that 
this duty chiefly devolves on the father is evident from 
the fact that the mother is even entitled to claim wages 
for nursing them.' Buddhistic law goes so far as to 
prescribe that the parents shall provide their son with a 
beautiful wife, and give him a share of the wealth belong- 
ing to the family.® It has been observed that in the 
Confucian books there is no mention of any real duties 
incumbent upon the father towards his children ; ® nor 
does the Decalogue contain anything on the subject ; nor 
any law of ancient Greece or Rome.'® But, as has been justly 

^ Wilson and Felkin, Uganda^ ii. 
90. 

^ Chavanne, Die Sahara^ p. 209. 
Cf, Hanoteaii and Lctournciix, La 
Kabylie^ ii. 167. 

^ Westermarck, History of Human 
Afarriage^ p. 18. 

Ibid. p. 19. 

Ibid. p. 511 S(j. 

^ Sachau, Miihammedanisches Recht, 
p. 18. 

^ Ibid. p. 99 sq. 

® Hardy, Manual of Budhism^ p. 
495 - 

^ Faber, Digest of the Doctrines of 
Confucius^ p. 82. 

Leist, GrcecO’italische Recktsge- 
stchichie^ P* ^ 3 * 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

l^rgued, if legal prescriptions are wanting, that is because 
they are thought to be superfluous, nature itself having 
sufficiently prepared men for the performance of their duties 
towards their olTspring/ So, also, it is regarded as a matter 
of course that the husband shall support his wife, however 
great power he may possess over her. Among the Romans 
manus implied not only the wife’s subordination to the hus- 
band, but also the husband’s obligation to protect the wife.^ 
The parents’ duty of taking care of their offspring is, 
in the first place, based on the sentiment of parental affec- 
tion. That the maternal sentiment is universal in man- 
kind is a fact too generally admitted to need demonstra- 
tion ; not so the father’s love of his children. Savage 
men are commonly supposed to be very indifferent towards 
their offspring ; but a detailed study of facts leads us to 
a different conclusion. It appears that, among the lower 
races, the paternal sentiment is hardly less universal than 
the maternal, although it is probably never so strong and 
in many cases distinctly feeble. But more often it 
displays itself with considerable intensity even among the 
rudest savages. In the often-quoted case of the Pata- 
gonian chief who, in a moment of passion, dashed his 
little son with the utmost violence against the rocks 
because he let a basket of eggs which the father handed to 
him fall down, we have only an instance of savage 
impetuosity. The same father “ would, at any other 
time, have been the most daring, the most enduring, and 
the most self-devoted ” in the support and defence of his 
child,® Similarly the Central Australian natives, in fits of 
sudden passion, when hardly knowing what they do, some- 
times treat a child with great severity ; but as a rule, to 
which there are very few exceptions, they are kind and 
considerate to their children, the men as well as the 
women carrying them when they get tired on the march, 

^ Ibid. p. 13. Schmidt, Ethik der die rdniische Efie, p. 32. Cf. Laws of 
alien Grieeken, ii. 141. Adam Smith, Mann, ix. 74, 75, 95. 

Thcoiy of Moral Sentiments, p. 199 ^ Fitzroy, op. cit. ii. 155. 

sq. Cf. ibid. ii. 154; Mu.sters, At Home 

2 Kossbach, Untcrsuchungen liber with the Patagonians, p. 196 sq. 

VOL. I MM 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY chap. 

and always seeing that they get a good share of any 
food.^ All authorities agree that the Australian Black is 
affectionate to his children.^ “ From observation of 
various tribes in far distant parts of Australia,” says Mr. 
Howitt, “ I can assert confidently that love for their 
children is a marked feature in the aboriginal character. 

I cannot recollect having ever seen a parent beat or cruelly 
use a child ; and a short road to the goodwill of the 
parents is, as amongst us, by noticing and admiring their 
children. No greater grief could be exhibited, by the 
fondest parents in the most civilised community at the 
death of some little child, than that which I have seen 
exhibited in an Australian native camp, not only by the 
immediate parents, but by the whole related group.” “ 
Other representatives of the lowest savagery, as the 
Veddahs ^ and Fuegians,'^ are likewise described as tender 
parents. Though few peoples have acquired a worse 
reputation for cruelty than the Fijians, even the greatest 
censurer of their character admits that the exhibition of 
parental love among them “ Is sometimes such as to be 
worthy of admiration”;*’ whilst, according to another 
authority, “ it is truly touching to see how parents are 
attached to their children.” ’’ The Bangala of the Upper 
Congo, “ swayed one moment by a thirst for blood and 
indulging in the most horrible orgies, . . . may yet the next 
be found approaching their homes looking forward with 

^ Spencer and Gillen, Wales, pp. 2, 4. Fraser, Aborigines 

of Central Auslralia, p. 50 jv/. of New South I Cates, pp. 2, 44. Lum- 

“ Curr, The Australian Race, i. 402 ; hoUz, A/no/ig Cannibals, p. 193. 
iii. 155. Idem, Recollections of Squat- Fison and llovvitl, t?/. cit, p, 189. 

ting in Victoria, p. 252. Anga.s, Savage Cf ibid. p. 259. 

Life and Scenes in Australia, i. 94. .Bailey, ‘ Wild Tribes of the Ved* 

33 rough Svnyth, Aborigines of Victoria, dabs of Ceylon,’ in 'Trans, Ethn. Soc. 
i. 51 ; ii. 31 1. Bidley, Aborigines of N.S. ii. 291. Deschainps, Carnet cCun 
Australia, p. 23. Ihyre, Journals of im’ageitr au pays des Veddas, p. 380. 
Expeditions of Discovery into Central ® J^ing and Fltzroy, op. cit. i. 76 ; 
Australia, ii. 214^7/. Expedition ii. 186. Weddell, Voyage towards the 

into Central Australia, \\. \yj . Calvert, South Pole, p. 156. Pertuiset, Le 
Aborigines of Western Australia, p. 30 Tresor des Incas ci la Terre de Feu, 
sq. Taplin, ‘ Narrinyeri,’ in Woods, p. 217. 

Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 15. ® Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the 

Ga.son, ‘Manners and Customs of the Fijians, p. 116. 

Dieyerie Tribe,’ ibid. p. 258. Hill and ^ Seemann* Viti, p. 193. Cf ibid. 
Thornton, Aborigines of New South p. 194. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

the liveliest interest to the caresses of their wives and 
children.” * Carver asserts that he never saw among any 
other people greater proofs of parental or filial tenderness 
than among the North American Naudowessies.^ Among 
the Point Barrow Eskimo “ the affection of parents for 
their children is extreme and the same seems to be the 
case among the Eskimo in general."' Concerning the 
Aleuts Veniaminof wrote long ago : — “The children are 
often well fed and satisfied, while -the parents almost 
perish with hunger. The daintiest morsel, the best dress, 
is always kept for them.”® Mr. Hooper, again, found 
parental love nowhere more strongly exemplified than 
among the Chukchi ; “the natives absolutely doat upon 
their children.” ® Innumerable facts might indeed be 
quoted to prove that paternal affection is not a late 
product of civilisation, but a normal feature of the savage 
mind as it is known to us.’^ 

^ Ward, Five Years with the Congo MacCauley, ‘ Seminole Indians of 
Catmibals^ p. 141. Cy'. ibid, jx 139. Florida,’ in A fin. Rep. Bur. Ethn. v. 

^ Carver, op. cit. p. 240 sq. Cf ibid. 491. Dunbar, ^ Pawnee Indian.s,’ in 
p. 378 sq. Magarnn of B/neriean Hi story ^ viii. 

^ fvlurdoch, ‘ Kthnological Results of 745. (Z‘x\X\x\^ N’orth American Indians^ 
the Point Barrow Expedition,’ in Ann. ii. 242. Ten Kate, Reizen en onder- 
Rep. Bur, Ethn. ix. 41 7. zoekingen in jVoord-A meriha, p. 364 

^ Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 568. sq. Sproat, Scenes and Studies of 
Parry, Second PPyage for the Eiscovery Savage dJfe, p. 160 (All ts). Franklin, 
of a North-West Passage, p. 529. Boas, fouuiey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, 
‘Central Kskinio,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. p. 68 (Crees). Pdliott, ‘Report on the 
Ethn. vi, 566. Turner, ‘ ICthnology Seal Islands,’ in Tenth Census of the 
of the Ungava Di.strict,’ ibid. xi. 191. United States, p. 238. Krasheninni- 
Seemann, Voyage of “ lleraldP'^ ii, 65, koff, History of Kamschatka, p. 232 
Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 174. (Koriaks). Georgi, Russia, i. 25 (Eap- 

® Veniaminof, <]uoted by Dal), landers); iii. 13 (Tunguses), 158 (Kain- 

p. 397. Cf. ibid. p. 393 ; Petrofh, chadalcsj. Castren, iVordisha resor och 
‘ Report on Alaska,’ in 'J'efiih Census forshningar, ii. 121 (Ostyaks). Pre- 
of the United States, p. 158. jcvalsky, Alongoiia, i. ii. Scott 

Hooper, Ten Months among the Robertson, Kafrs of the Hindu -Kush, 
7 'ents of the Tuski, p. 201. p. 189. Ijlunt, Bedouin Tribes of the 

't Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abi- Euphrates, ii. 214. Dalton, Descrip- 
pones, ii. 214 sq. Wied-Neuwied, tive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 6S (Garos). 
Reise nach Brasilien, ii. 40 (Botocmlos). Marshall, A Phrenologist amongst the 
Wallace, Travels on the Amazon, p. Todas, p. 200; Shortt, ‘Hill Tribes of 
518 sq. (Amazon Indians* ]>ut on the the Neiigherries,’ in 7 'rans. Ethn. Sac. 
Brazilian Indians generally, cf. von N.S. vii. 254 (Todas). Kloss, In the 
Martins, in four. Roy. Geo. Soc. ii. 198, Andamans and Nicobars, p. 228(Nico- 
and Idem, Beitrage zur Ethnographic barese). Man, Sonthalia and the 
Ameriha^s, i. 125). Im Thurn, Among Sonthats, p. 78. Wallace, Malay 
the Indians of Guiana, pp. 213,219. p. 450 (Malays). Schwaner, 

MM2 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY chap. 

When dealing with the origin of the altruistic sentiment 
we shall find reason to believe that paternal affection not 
only prevails among existing men, savage and civilised, 
but that it belonged to the human race from the very 
beginning, and that the same was the case with the germ 
of marital affection, inducing the male to remain with the 
female till after the birth of the offspring, and to defend 
and support her during the periods of pregnancy and 
motherhood. It is true that among several savage peoples 
conjugal love is said to be unknown ; but what is meant 
by this is, I think, typically expressed in Major Ellis’s 
statement referring to some Gold Coast natives, that 
among them “ love, as understood by the people of 
Europe, has no existence.” ^ The love of a savage is cer- 
tainly very different from the love of a civilised man ; 
nevertheless we may discover in it traces of the same 
ingredients. Even rude savages, such as the Bushmans, 
Fuegians, Andaman Islanders, and Australian aborigines, 
seem often to be lovingly attached to their wives.‘‘‘ 

Op. cit. i. 162 (Millays of the Barilo (Maoris. Dove, ‘Aborigines of Tas- 
River Basin in l^ornco). Low, mania,’ in 7\i.s)nanian Journal of 

p. 148 (Malays). Bock, If rad- Hunters Natural Science^ i. 252. Reade, 
of Borneo, 2\o Ling Roth, Savage Africa, p. 245 (Equatorial 

Natives of Sarawak and British North Africans). Casati, Ten Years in 
Borneo, i. 68 (Land Dyaks). Forbes, Eijuatoria, i. 186 (Central African 
A NatiiralisI s Wander in ;^s in the Negroes). Caillie, Travels through 
Eastern Archipelago, p. 321 (natives of Central Africa, i. 352 (Mandingocs). 
Timor-laut). Forljcs, Insulinde, p. I lolub, Seven Years in South Africa, 
182 (natives of Ritcdjcl). Seligmann, ii. 296 (Marutse). Livingstone, Alis- 
\i\ Reports of the Cambridge Ant hropo- sionary I ravels, p. 126 (Bechuanas). 
logical Expedition to 'Torres Straits, Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, ii. 539 
V. 199; riaddon, ibid. v. 229, 274 (Pigmies). Sparrman, Voyage to the 
(Western Islands). Romilly, From my Cape of Good Hope, i. 219 (Hottentots). 
Verandah in New Guinea, p. 51. Shaw, ‘ Betsileo Country and People,’ 
Chalmers, Pioneering in Neiv Guinea, \x\ Antananarivo Annual and A] adagas- 
p. 163. Christian, Caroline Islands, car A/agazine, iii. 82. See also supra, 
p. 72 ( Ponaiicans). Kiibary, ‘Die p. 405; Steinmetz, ‘ Verhaltnis zwi- 
Bewohner der Mortlock Inseln,’ in .schen liltern und Kindern bei den 
Alittheihingen der Geogr. Gesellsch. in Naturvdlkern,’ in Zeitschrift fur Social - 
Hamburg, 1878-9, p. 261. Macdonald, wissenschaft , i. 610 sqq. ; Ide7fi, Eth- 
Oceania, p. 195 (Efatese). Turner, nologische Studien zur ersten Entwick- 
Samoa, p. 317 (natives of Tana), von lung der Strtife, ii. ch. vi. §2. 

Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery, iii. . ^ P^llis, 7'shi-speakhig Peoples of the 
165 (Natives of Radackk Mariner, Gold Coast, p. 285. I have dealt with 
op. cit. ii. 179 (Tongans). ]i)icffenl>ach, this subject in my History of Human 
Havels in New Zealand, ii. 26, 107 ; Marriage, p. 356 sqq. 

Crozet, Voyage to Tasmania, p. 66 Ibid. p. 358 sq. 

xxni 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

The prevalence of paternal and marital affection accounts 
for the origin of the family (consisting of parents and child- 
ren), and for the functions of the man as father and husband. 
The growing intensity of these sentiments has naturally 
increased the stability of the family tie ; and other factors, 
of a selfish nature, have contributed towards the same 
result. From various points of view it is desirable for a 
man to have children. They are to him objects of pride ; 
when grown-up, they add to his safety and power ; they 
support him when he gets old ; they make offerings to his 
spirit when he is dead. And no less useful is the possession 
of a wife. When the generative power is no longer re- 
stricted to a certain season of the year, she becomes a 
lasting cause of sensual delight ; she is a mother of 
children ; she manages the household ; she acts as a car- 
rier, she works in the field. 

Every social institution has a tendency to become a 
matter of moral concern because of the persistence of 
habit. But the simplest paternal and marital duties have 
a deeper foundation than the mere force of the habitual. If a 
man leaves his wife and children without protection and 
support, the other members of the community will sympa- 
thise with them, and feel resentment towards the neglect- 
ful husband and father. He will be looked upon as the 
cause of their sufferings, because he omitted to do what 
other men in his position would have done. His conduct 
will be repulsive to everyone who himself possesses those 
sentiments of which he proves destitute. He will be held 
guilty of a breach of contract, since by marrying he took 
upon himself the burden of maintaining his wife and their 
common offspring. To thoughtful minds his responsi- 
bility towards his children is further increased by the fact 
that he is the author of their being, and for that reason 
the source of their misery. Finally, the community as a 
whole will suffer by his negligence. 

The parents’ duty of taking care of their offspring lasts 
until the latter are able to shift for themselves. On the 
other hand, when the parents, in their turn, get in need of 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY chap. 

support, their care is to be reciprocated by the children. 
The practice of killing or abandoning decrepit parents is 
an exception even in the savage world, and, as we have 
seen, restricted to extreme cases in which it may be 
regarded as an act of kindness or of hard necessity. 
There are also savage peoples among whom aged parents, 
though suffered to live, are said to be grossly neglected by 
their children. But, so far as I know, these peoples are 
not numerous, and can hardly be regarded as representa- 
tives of a custom common to any larger ethnic group. 

Thus, according to Hearne, old age is the greatest calamity 
that can befall a Northern Indian ; for when he is past labour, he 
is neglected, aiid treated with great disrespect, even by his own 
children. 'Fhcy not only serve him last at meals, but generally 
give him the coarsest and worst of the victuals ; and such of the 
skins as they do not chuse to wear, arc made up in the clumsiest 
manner into clothing for their aged parents.’^ ^ Yet among the 
same people Richardson witnessed ‘^several unquestionable 
instances of tenderness and affection shown by children to their 
parents, and of compliance with their whims, much to their own 
personal inconvenience.” ^ In his work on the tribes of 
California Mr. Powers observes : — Filial piety cannot be said 
to be a distinguishing quality of the Wailakki, or, in fact, of any 
Indians. No matter how high may be their station, the aged and 
decrepit are counted a burden. 'Fhe old man, hero of a 
hundred battles, sometime ‘ lord of the lion heart and eagle eye,’ 
when his fading eyesight no more can guide the winged arrow as 
of yore, is ignominiously compelled to accompany his sons into the 
forest, and bear home on his poor old shoulders the game they have 
killed.”^ But concerning the Indians of Upper California 
Beechey writes, When any of their relations are indisposed, the 
greatest attention is paid to their wants, and it was remarked by 
Padre Arroyo that filial affection is stronger in these tribes than in 
any civilised nation on the globe with which he was acquainted.”^ 
Among the Indians on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, 
the aged are commonly treated with much respect, which they 
consider themselves as entitled to claim ” ; and they are 
not suffered to want any thing which they need, and which 

1 H earne, Journey io the Northern 3 l\)wers, op. cit. p. Ii8 
Ocean ^ p. 345 sq. 4 Beechey, Voyage to the Pacific and 

- Richardson, Arctic Searching Ex- Behrinjs Strait, if 402. 
pedition, ii. 17. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

it is in the power of their relations to procure for them.” ^ The 
religious teachers of the Iroquois inculcated the duty of protect- 
ing aged parents, as divinely enjoined : — “ It is the will of the 
Great Spirit that you reverence the aged, even though they be 
as helpless as infants.”*^ The Aleuts described by Veniaminof 
considered disregard of one’s parents to be the greatest and tnost 
dishonourable of crimes ; we should sincerely love them,” they 
said, do all we could toward their support, remain with them, 
and care for them until their death.” The children of the 
Central Eskimo are very dutiful, obeying the wishes of theii; 
parents and taking care of them in their old age and state- 
ments to the same effect are made with reference to other 
Eskimo tribes.^ Cranz, who did not generally panegyrise the 
moral qualities of the Greenlanders, wrote that the bonds of 
filial and parental love seem stronger in them than amongst 
other nations, and that ingratitude in up-grown children 
towards their old decrepit parents, is scarcely exemplified among 
them.” Among the Botocudos Prince Wied-Neuwied saw a 
young man carrying about his blind father, not leaving him alone 
for a single moment.'^ Among the Fviegians ‘‘grown-up 
children are expected to support their parents when they become 
aged ; the son generally makes his father, if he is past work, a 
canoe every season, and if the aged man is a widower he lives 
entirely under the charge of his eldest son.” ® The Australian 
natives are much praised for the regard with which they treat 
their parents and elders. With reference to the Western tribes, 
Bishop Salvado observes: — “ Lcs fils adultes payent de retour 
I’affection de leurs parents. S’ils sent vieux, ils reservent pour 
eux les mcilleurs pieces de gihier, ou de tout autre mets, et se 
chargent de venger leurs oftenses.”*^ Among the Kukis of 
India, ‘‘when past work, the father and mother are supported by 
their children.” Among the Bodo and Dhimals “ it is 

^ Harmon, Voyages and 7 'ravels in 
the Interior of North America^ p. 348. 
^ Morgan, League of the Noqiwis^ 

p. 171. 

Veniaminof, quoted by Petroft, 
ioc. cU, p. 155* 

^ Boas, ‘Central Eskimo,’ in Atm. 
Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 566. 

^ Murdoch, ‘ Point liarrow Expedi- 
tion,’ in Ann, Rep. Bar. Ethn. ix. 417. 
Turner, ‘ Ungava District,’ ib:d. xi. 191. 

^ Cranz, op. cit. i. 1 74, 150. Cf. 
Egede, Description of Greenland.^ 
p. 147 ; Holm, ‘ Ethnologisk .Skizze af 
Angmagsalikerne,’ in Aleddelelser om 

Grbnlattd x. 

^ Wied-Ncuvvied, op. cit. ii. 40. 

Bridges, ‘ Manners and Customs of 
the Firclandcrs,’ in A Voice for South 
America^ xiii. 206. 

^ Salvado, lillinoires historiques stir 
rAustralie, p. 277. Cf. Curr, The 
Australian Race, iii. 155 5 Gason, 
‘Dieyerie Tril)e,’ in Woods, Native 
Trihes of South Australia, p. 258 ; 
Mathew, ‘ Australian Aborigines,’ in 
four. Cf' Proceed. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales, 
xxiii. 388. 

Lew in, Wild Races of South-East- 
ern India, p. 256, 

deemed shameful to leave old parents entirely alone ; and the 
last of the sons, who by his departure does so, is liable to fine 
as well as disinheritance.” ^ Among the Betsileo of Madagascar 
‘‘the old are never left destitute or to their own devices. . . . 
It is by no means uncommon to see the son carrying the aged 
parent on his back, when necessity or inclination demands 
locomotion.”- Among the Mandingoes “the aged who are 
unable to support themselves are always maintained and treated 
with respect by their children.”*^ That uncivilised races 
commonly regard it a stringent duty for children to maintain 
their aged parents and to administer to their wants, is also obvious 
from statements testifying their filial regard in general terms.^ 
On the otlier hand, the fact that some peoples are said to be 
deficient in this sentiment, does not imply that they fail to 
recognise the simple duty of supporting old and helpless parents. 

At a higher stage of civilisation reverence for parents 
reaches its pitch, and the duty of maintaining them in 
their old age is taken for a matter of course. Among the 
present Hindus “ it would certainly be regarded as a 
most disgraceful thing were a rr^n who could do anything 
for the support of an aged father or mother to allow the 
burden of their maintenance to fall on strangers and 
it is common for unmarried soldiers to stint themselves 
almost to starvation point, that they may send home 
money to their parents.’^ The priesthood of modern 
Buddhism teach that children shall “respect their parents, 
and perform all kinds of offices for them, even though 
they should have servants whom they could command to 
do all that they require.”^ At ancient Athens, before a 
man could become a magistrate, evidence was to be pro- 
duced that he had treated his parents properly ; and a 
person who refused his parents food and dwelling lost his 
right of speaking in the national assembly.’^ According to 

^ Hodgson, Misi'ellaneons Essays^ i. 
123. 

Shaw, in Antattanm'ivo AnnnaL 
iii. 82. 

Caillic, op. fit. i. 352. 

^ ^ See infra., on the Subjection of 
Children. 

® Wilkins, Modern Hinduism^ p. 
418. 

^ Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom, 
p. 440, n. I. 

^ Hardy, op. cit. p. 494. Cf. ibid. 
p. 495- 

^ Schmidt, Ethik der alien Griechen, 

ii. 144. 

the Icelandic Gragas, a man should maintain in the first 
place his mother, in the second his father, in the third his 
own children.^ The Talmud enjoins the duty of main- 
taining parents ; ^ and so does Muhammedan law, “ if the 
parents are both poor and lastingly infirm, or both poor 
and insane.” ® 

Christianity, as will be shown, in one essential point 
changed the notions of antiquity regarding children’s 
duties towards their parents : it made these duties sub- 
ordinate to men’s duties towards God. “ Verily I say 
unto you. There is no man that hath left house, or 
brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or 
children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he 
shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and 
brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and 
lands, with persecutions ; and in the world to come eternal 
life.” * There are numerous legends and lives of saints in 
which the desertion of the nearest relations is recorded as 
one of the leading features of their sanctity, and as one of 
their chief titles to honour.'* Some Catholic writers were 
of opinion that a man might lawfully abandon his parents, 
even though they could not be supported without him, 
and enter religion, committing the care of them to God. 
But Thomas Aquinas says that this would be tempting 
God, adding however that he who has already professed 
religion “ ought not, on any plea of supporting his parents, 
to quit the cloister in which he is buried with Christ, and 
entangle himself again in worldly business.” ® Yet our duties 
towards our parents come next to our duties towards God. 
We ought to aid them when in want, and to supplicate 
God in their behalf that they may lead prosperous and 
happy lives.^ 

The duty of supporting aged parents has its root in 

^ Grdgds^ Omaga-balkr, I, vol. i. ^ Cf. P'arrer, Paganism and Christi- 
232. anity, p. 196. 

Katz, Der wahre Talmudjude, p. ** Thomas Aquinas, Sitmma Theo- 
119. logicay ii.-ii. loi. 4. 

Sachau, op, cit, p. 17 sq. ^ Caiechisvi of the CoKUcil of Trent ^ 

^ St, Marky X, 29 sq, iii. 5. 10 sq. 

the sentiments of affection, gratitude, and regard, and, to 
some extent, in superstitious fear. However feeble they 
be, the parents have in their hands a powerful weapon — 
the curse ; or, when they are dead, their ghosts may 
avenge their wrongs on their neglectful children. All 
these circumstances will be discussed in the chapter dealing 
with the subjection of children. 

We have further to consider the duty of assisting bro- 
thers and sisters and more distant relatives. Among the 
Aleuts, says Veniaminof, a brother “ must always aid his 
brother in war as well as in the chase, and each protect 
the other ; but if anybody, disregarding this natural law, 
should go to live apart, caring only for himself, such a 
one should be discarded by his relatives in case of attack 
by enemies or animals, or in time of storms ; and such 
dishonourable conduct would lead to general contempt.” ^ 
Among the Point Barrow Eskimo “ the older children 
take very good care of the smaller ones ” ; ^ and of the 
Sia Indians (Pueblos) we are told that “ a marked trait is 
their loving kindness and care for younger brothers and 
sisters.” ^ Dr. Schweinfurth writes : — “ Notwithstanding 
. . . that certain instances may be alleged which seem to 
demonstrate that the character of the Dinka is unfeeling, 
these cases never refer to such as are bound by the ties of 
kindred. Parents do not desert their children, nor are 
brothers faithless to brothers, but are ever prompt to 
render whatever aid is possible.” 1 presume that these 
examples of fraternal relations may, on the whole, be 
regarded as expressive of universal facts. According to 
Confucius, the love which brother should bear to brother 
is second only to that which is due from children to 
parents.® 

The duty of assisting more distant relatives is much 
more variable. It may be said that, as a general rule, among 

^ Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, Bur. Eihn. xi. 22. 

cit. p. 155. ^ Schweinfurth, Heart of Africa^ 

Amt. Rep. Bur. Ethn, i. 169. 

ix. 417. ^ l'>ouglas, Confucianism and Taou- 

^ Stevenson, ‘Sia/ in Ann. Rep, is/n, p. 123. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

savages and barbarians— with the exception, perhaps, of 
those who live in small family-groups — as also among the 
peoples of archaic culture, this duty is more prominent 
and extends further than amongst ourselves. The blood- 
tie has much greater strength, related families keep more 
closely together for mutual protection and aid. The 
Angmagsaliks of Eastern Greenland, says Lieutenant 
Holm, consider that the tie of blood imposes mutual 
assistance as a duty under all circumstances.^ The 
Omahas maintain that “generosity cannot be exercised 
toward kindred, who have a natural right to our assist- 
ance.” ^ Among the natives of Madagascar “ the claims 
of relationship are distinctly recognised by custom and 
law. If one branch of a family becomes poor, the mem- 
bers of the same family support him ; if he be sold into 
slavery for debt, they often unite in furnishing the price 
of his redemption. . . . The laws facilitate and encourage, 
and sometimes even enforce, such acts of kindness.” ^ In 
his description of the Australian Bangerang, Mr. Curr 
observes, “ Though their ways were different from ours, 
it always seemed to me that the bonds of friendship be- 
tween blood relations were stronger, as a rule, with savages 
than amongst ourselves.”^ Among the Philippine Is- 
landers “ families are very united, and claims for help and 
protection are admitted, however distant the relationship 
may be.”® Of the Burmans it is said, “No people can. 
be more careful in preserving and acknowledging the 
bonds of family relationship to the remotest degrees, and 
not merely as a matter of form, but as involving the duty 
of mutual assistance.”” Among the ancient Hindus, 
Persians, Greeks, and Romans, persons belonging to the 
four generations of near relatives — the Sapindas, Syn- 
geneis, Anchisteis, or Propinqui — were expected to assist 

^ Holm, in Meddeleher om Gro/i- 
/andy X. 87. 

^ Dorsey, ‘ Omaha Sociology/ in 
^nn. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 274. 

^ Ellis, History of Madagascar ^ i. 
138. Cf. Sibree, The Great African 

1 st and y p. 256 sq. 

^ Curr, Recollections of Squatting in 
Victoria, p. 274. 

Foreman, Philippine Islands^ p. 

186. 

^ Forbes, British Burniay p. 59. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY chap. 

each other whenever it was needed.^ The Scandinavians 
considered him to be a bad man who did not help his 
kindred against strangers, even though there was enmity 
between the relatives.*^ 

But the duty of helping the needy and protecting those 
in danger goes beyond the limits of the family and the 
gens. Uncivilised peoples are, as a rule, described as 
kind towards members of their own community or tribe. 
Between themselves charity is enjoined as a duty, and 
generosity is praised as a virtue. Indeed, their customs 
regarding mutual aid are often much more stringent than 
our own. And this applies even to the lowest savages.^ 

La disposition a la gcnerosite,” says M. Hyades, est un trait 
characteristique des Fucgiens. Ilsaiment a partager ce qu’ils ont 
avcc tons ceux qui les entourent.’" Captain Weddell likewise 
speaks of the philanthropic principle which these people exhibit 
towards one another.’’ ^ Burchell tells us that the Bushmans, 
between themselves, exercise the virtues of hospitality and 
generosity, often in an extraordinary degree.”^ The Veddahsof 
Ceylon are friendly towards each other, and ready to help a person 
in distress.^ The Andamanese display much mutual affection in 
their social relations, and frequently make presents of the best that 
they possess. Every care and consideration,” says Mr. Man, 
“ are paid by all classes to the very young, the weak, the aged, and 
the helpless, and these, being made special objects of interest and 
attention, invariably fare better in regard to the comforts and 
necessaries of daily life than any of the otherwise more fortunate 
members of the community,” ^ The Australian natives are almost 
universally praised for their friendly behaviour towards persons 

^ Lcist, AU-arisches Jus Civile^ i. 
47 S(]q., 231 sqq. 

^ Rosenberg, Nordboerues Aandsliv, 
i. 488. 

The prevalence of mutual aid in 
uncivilised communities has been duly 
emphasised by Prince Kropotkin, 
Mutual A id, p. 76 sqq. 

^ Hyades and Deniker, Mission 
scientifique dit Cap Horn, vii. 243. 

Weddell, op.rit.p. 168. According 
to otheraiuhorities, thcFuegians, though 
free from malevolence and cruelty, are 
not distinguished for active benevolence 

(Bridges, mA Voice for South America, 
xiii. 208, 213. Bove, Patagonia, pp. 
* 33 » 1 37 * Lovisato, ‘Appunti elno* 
grafici sulla Terra del Fuoco,’ in Cos- 
mos di Guida Cora, viii. 145, 15 1. Cf. 
also Hyades and Deniker, op. cit, vii. 
238, 240, 243 ^y.). 

Burchell, Travels in the Interior of 
Southern Africa, ii. 54. 

^ Sarasin, Ergehnisse naturwissen- 
schaftlicher Forschungen auf Ceylon, 
hi- 545, 550- Schmidt, Ceylon, p. 276. 

^ Man, in Jour. Ant hr, Inst, xii, 93 
sq. Cf. Portman, ibid. xxv. 368, 

belonging to their own people.^ Presents given to one of a group 
are speedily divided as far as possible among the rest, and when a 
black man has employment at a station he generally gives away 
most of his earning to his comrades in the camp.‘^ Between 
the males of a tribe,” says Mr. Curr, there always exists a strong 
feeling of brotherhood, so that, come weal come woe, a man can 
always calculate on the aid, in danger, of every member of his 
tribe.” ^ Regarding the Central Australian natives, Messrs. 
Spencer and Gillen observe that their treatment of one another 
is marked on the whole by considerable kindness, that is, of 
course, in the case of memlDers of friendly groups, with every 
now and then the perpetration of acts of cruelty.” Collins 
says that the aborigines about Botany Bay and Port Jackson 
applauded acts of kindness and generosity, for of both these 
they were capable.” ^ 

Passing to savages and barbarians who have reached a some- 
what higher level of culture : — We are told by Mr. Catlin, 
with reference to the North American Indians, that, to their 
friends, . there are no people on earth that arc more kind.” 
According to Adair, they are very kind and liberal to every 
one of their own tribe, even to the last morsel of food they 
enjoy ” ; Nature’s school teaches them the plain easy rule, ‘ do 
to others, as you would be done by.’ ” ^ Harmon praises the 
generosity of the Indians : — 7^hey arc more ready, in proportion 
to their means, to assist a neighbour who may be in want, than 
the inhabitants, generally, of civilised countries. An Indian rarely 
kills an animal, without sending a part of it to a neighbour, 
if he has one near liim.” Tlie Naudowessies ‘‘^supply the 
deficiency of their friends with any superfluity of their own,” 
and “ in dangers they readily give assistance to those of their band 

^ Curr, The Australia 7 i Taee, i. 49. 
Hodgson, Reminiscences of Australia^ 
p. 88. Oldfield, ‘ Aborigines of Aus- 
tralia,’ in Trans. Ethn, Soc. N.S. iii. 
226. Eyre, op cit. ii. 385 sq. Brough 
Smyth, op. cit. ii. 279, Lnmholtz, 
Among Cannibals, p. 176. Mathew, 
in Jour, dr* Proceed. Roy. Soc. N.S. 
IVales, xxiii. 387 sq. Breton, Excur- 
sions in New South J Tales, p. 218. 
Fison and Howitt, op. cit. p. 259. 
Wyatt, ‘ Manners and Superstitions of 
the Adelaide and Encounter Bay Ab- 
original Tribes,’ in Woods, Native 
Tribes of South Australia, p. 162. 
Schuermann, ‘Aboriginal Tribes of 
Port Lincoln,’ ibid. pp. 243, 244, 247. 

Schuermann, loc. cit. p. 2^. Rid- 
ley, Kdmilardi, p. 15S. Fison and 
Howitt, op. cit. p. 256. Lumhollz, 
Among Cannibals, pp. 199, 343* Stir- 
ling, Report of the Ilorn Expeditioft to 
Central Australia. PartJV, Anthro- 
pology, p. 36. 

Curr, ’The Australian Race, i. 62. 

Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes 
of Central Australia, p. 50. 

Collins, English Colony in Neiv 
South Wales, i. 549. 

Catlin, JR or III American Indians, 
ii. 241. 

” Adair, History of the American 
Indians, pp. 431, 429. 

^ Harmon, op. cit. p. 349. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY chap. 

who stand in need of it, without any expectation of return.”^ 
Among the Iroquois kindness to the orphan, hospitality to all, 
and a common brotherhood, were among the doctrines held up 
for acceptance by their religious instructors ” ; an Iroquois would 
surrender his dinner to feed the hungry, vacate his bed to refresh 
the weary, and give up his apparel to clothe the naked.” ^ Among 
the Omahas grades of merit or bravery were of two sorts : to the 
first class belonged such as had given to the poor on many occa- 
sions, and had invited guests to many feasts. To the second class 
belonged those who, besides having done these things many times, 
had killed several of the foe, and had brought home many horses. 
When a person sees a poor man or woman, they said, he should 
make presents to the unfortunate being ; thus he can gain the 
goodwill of Wakanda as well as that of his own people.^ The 
Ahts of Vancouver Island succour any one in need of help, 
without looking for any ulterior benefit. The Aleuts were 
instructed to be kind to others and to refrain from selfishness ; it 
was the custom for the successful hunter or fisher, particularly in 
times of scarcity, to share his prize with all, not only taking no 
larger share, but often less than the others.’"' Among the Eskimo 
about Behring Strait, whenever a successful trader accumulates 
property and food, and is known to work solely for his own wel- 
fare, he becomes an object of enmity and hatred among his fellow- 
villagers, which ends in one of two ways — the villagers may com- 
pel him to make a feast and distribute his goods, or they may kill 
him and divide his property among themselves.^' According to the 
Greenland creed, all those who had striven and suffered for the 
benefit of their fellow-men should find a happy existence after 
death in the abodes of the supreme being, Tornarsuk.^ The 
Greenlander,” says Dr. Nansen, is the most compassionate of 
creatures witii regard to his neighbour. His first social law is to 
help others.”® Captain Hall holds an equally favourable opinion 
of those Eskimo with whom he came in contact. As between 
themselves,” he says, there can be no people exceeding them in 
this virtue — kindness of heart. Take, for instance, times of great 
scarcity of food. If one family happens to have any provisions on 

^ Carver, o/>. cit. p. 247. 

“ Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 
pp. 172, 329. 

^ Dorsey, ‘ Onialia Sociology,’ in 
Ann, Rep, Bur. Rthn, iii. 333, 274. 
Cf, idetn, ‘ Sioiian Sociology,’ ibid. xv. 
232 (Kansas). 

^ Sproat, op. cit. p. 166. 

® Veniamiiiof, quoted by Petroff, toe. 

cit. p. 155, and Dali, Alaska, p. 392. 

’’ Nelson, ‘ Eskimo about Bering 
Strait,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Echn. xviii. 

' Rink, Greenland, p. 141. 

^ Nansen, First Crossing of Green- 
land, ii. 304. Cf. ibid. ii. 334 ; 
Nansen, hskirno Life, pp. 1 16, 177; 
Egedc, op. cit. pp. 123, 126 sq. 

XXIII CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

hand, these are shared with all their neighbours. If one man is 
successful in capturing a seal, though his family may need it all to 
save them from the pangs of hunger, yet the whole of his people 
about, including the poor, the widow, the fatherless, are at once 
invited to a seal-feast.”’ They believe that all Innuits who 
have been good, that is, who have been kind to the poor and 
hungry,” will after death go to Koodleparmiung, or heaven, 
whereas those who have been bad, that is, unkind to one 
another,” \)vill go to Adleparmeun, or hell.‘^ Many of the South 
American peoples are praised for their kind disposition of mind ; ^ 
the Guiana Indians seemed to a Christian missionary to be 
“generous to a fault.” ^ 'Fhe Caribs had all their interests in 
common, lived in great harmony, and loved each other heartily.’'^ 
Among the Tonga Islanders the sentiment of humanity, or 
a fellow-feeling for one another, is universally approved. U"hey 
“are not only not selfish, but admire liberality, and are practic- 
ally liberal.” When any one is about to eat, he always shares 
what he has with those about him without any hesitation, and 
not to do so would be considered exceedingly vile and selfish. 
So, also, “if one chief secs something in the possession of 
another, which he has a strong desire to have, he has only 
to ask him for it, and in all probability it is readily and liberally 
given.” ^ Not even the Fijians, who took great pains to instil 
into the minds of their youth a contempt for compassionate 
impulses and an admiration for relentless cruelty,'^ were destitute 
of humanity and friendly feelings.^ In Aneiteum, of the New 
Hebrides, the people believed that the sin which would be 
visited with the severest punishment in the land of the dead 
was stinginess or niggardliness in giving away food, and that the 
virtue which received the highest reward was a generous 
hospitality and a giving liberally at feasts.^^ In Tana, another 
island belonging to the same group, one man has only to ask 
anything from his neighbours, and he gets it.”’^ Of the New 
Caledonians Mr. Atkinson states that, among themselves, they 
are “ of a generosity that seems to arise mainly from aversion 
to refuse any request.” The Dyaks arc described as hospitable, 

^ Hall, Arctic Researches^ p. 567. 

^ Ibid. p. 571 sq. 

^ von Martius, Beitriige zur Etlmo- 
graphic Amerika's., i. 217, 641 (Gua- 
rayos, Macusis). Musters, op. cit. p. 195 
(Patagonians). 

^ Brett, Indian Tribes of Guiana., 
p. 276. 

® de Poircy-Rochefort, Hisloire natiir- 
elle et morale des lies Antilles, p. 460. 

® Mariner, cit. ii. 153, 154? 165. 

Erskine, Cruise among the Islands 
of the IVestern Pacific, p. 247. 

® Jbid. pp. 247, 273. Williams and 
Calvert, op. cit. pp. 93, 115 sqq. See- 
maiin, Vtti, p. 192. 

Inglis, In the New Hebrides, p. 31. 

Campbell, A Year in the New 
Hebrides, p. 169. 

Atkinson, in Folk-Lore, xiv. 248. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY chap. 

kindly, and humane, to a degree which well might shame our- 
selves ” ; ^ whilst the practice of head-hunting is carried on by 
every tribe at the expense of its neighbour, the members 
of each community have strong feelings of sympathy for each 
other.2 Among the Sea Dyaks, says Crossland, if any are 
sick or unable to work, the rest help ; and there seems to me a 
much stronger bond of union amongst them than I have ever 
seen among the labouring classes in England.”^ 

The Santals arc gentle and very obliging, and sociable to a 
fault among their own people."^ The Hos are charitable to 
those deserving aid.” The Todas believe that, after death, 
the souls of good people will have enjoyment in heaven, 
whilst the souls of bad people will suffer punishment ; “ a good 
man is, in the Toda estimation, one who is given to deeds of 
charity, and a bad man one who is uncharitable (this in order 
of precedence), quarrelsome, thieving, &c.”® Mr. Batchelor 
states that a more kind, gentle, and sympathetic people than 
the Ainos of Japan would be very difficult to find ” ; anything 
given to them they always divide with their friends.^ The 
Samoyedes are ready to share their last morsel with their com- 
panions ^ and it is said that nobody can surpass the poor Ostyak 
in benevolence and other virtues of the heart.'*^ ‘^The finest 
trait in the character of a Bedouin (next to good faith),” 
Burckhardt observes, is his kindness, benevolence, and charity. 

. . . Among themselves, the Bedouins constitute a nation of 
brothers , often quarrelling, it must be owned, with each other, 
but ever ready, when at peace, to give mutual assistance.” ^ 
Generosity is a virtue which always commands particular 
respect in the desert. The Arabs of the Soudan have a saying 
that you must always put other people’s things on your head, 
and your own under your arm. Tlien, if there be danger of 
the things falling off your head, you must raise your arm, and 
let fall your own things to save those of others.” 

^ Boyle, Adventures among the 
IJyahs of Borneo^ p. 215. 

“ liock, Head-Hunters of Borneo, p. 
210 jy. Brooke, Ten Years in Sardwak, 
i- 57- 

Crossland, quoted by Ling Roth, 
Nath^es of Sarawak, i. 85. 

Man, Sonthalia, p. 19 sq. Hunter, 
Annals of Rural Beat gal, i . 215. 

Tickell, ‘ Memoir on the Hode- 
sum,’ in Jour, Asiatic Soc. Bengal, ix. 
(pt. ii.)8o7. 

® Thurston, ‘ Todas of the Nilgiris,’ 

in the Madras Government Museum’s 
Bulletin, i. 166 sq, 

Batchelor, A inu of Japan, p. 19. 
Holland, ‘ Ainos,’ in Jour. Afithr, Inst. 
hi. 235. 

® Castr^n, op. cit, i. 238 ; ii. 55. 

® Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins 
and Wahdbys, p, 208. 

Wallin, Reseanteckningar frht 
Orienten, iii. 244. Blunt, Bedouin 
Tribes of the Euphrates, ii. 224. 

Richardson, Mission to Central 
Africa, i. I17. 

xxin 

CHARITY AND G£:NEROSITY 

The Barea are a benevolent people, kind even to strangers.^ 
Xhe Manganja, in the neighbourliood of Lake Nyassa, arc 
generous in the distribution of food,” and even when starving 
they share the last morsel with their friends.*^ Sir H. Johnston 
says that he has never met with ‘‘a more kindly, sensible, con- 
siderate set of beings ” than the Wa-taveita.^ The Eastern 
Central Africans, the Rev. D. Macdonald observes, ‘•Lire not 
mere animals composed of greed and selfishness. 4'hey often 
shew great bravery and devotedness. I can point to one 
man who saved my life on three separate occasions at the risk 
of his own.” Among the Bechuanas a regard for the poor, 
for widows, and for orphans, is everywhere considered to be 
a sacred duty.^ Among all the virtues the Basutos appreci- 
ate none more than kindness. They have a saying that one 
link only sounds because of another ” — which implies that we 
cannot do without the help of our fellow-creatures, — and 
another saying that ‘S^ne does not skin one’s game without 
showing it to one’s friends ” — that is, when we have been 
successful in our undertakings, it becomes us to be geiierous. 
If any food is brought to tiiem while they arc in each 
other’s society, however small may be the quantity, every 
one must have a tastc.‘" 'Lhe Kafirs are a kindly race ; 
Lichtenstein says that whenever anyone kills an ox he must 
invite all his neighbours to partake of it, and they remain his 
guests till the whole is eaten.”’' Of the Hottentots Kolben 
states : — “ They are certainly the most friendly, the most 
liberal, and the most benevolent people to one another that ever 
appear’d upon earth .... They are charmed with opportuni- 
ties of obliging each other, and one of their greatest pleasures 
lies in interchanging gifts and good offices.” ® A Hottentot,” 
says Barrow, ‘‘ would share his last morsel with his companions.” ^ 
Drury wrote of the people of Madagascar: — -‘‘They certainly 
treat one another with more humanity than we do. Here is no 
one miserable, if it is in tlie power of his neighbours to help 
him. Here is love, tenderness, and generosity which might 

^ Munzinger, Oslafrikanische Stu- 
dien, p. 534. 

“ Rowley, Africa Unveiled^ p. 47. 

Johnston, Kiliaia-iifaro Expedi- 
tion, p. 436. 

^ Macdonald, Africana, i. 270, 266. 
' ® Arbousset and Daumas, Explor- 

atory Tour to the North-East of the 
Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, p, 
402. 

VOL. I 

Casalis, Basutos, pp. 206, 207, 

301, 306, 309 sqq, 

‘ Leslie, A 7 no}i<e; the Zulus and 
Auiatongas, p. 203. Lichtenslein, 
Travels in Southern Africa, i. 272. 

^ Kolljen, Present State of the Cafe 
of Good Hope, i. 334 jy. Cf. ibid. i. 
167. 

^ Barrow, Travels into the Interior 
of Southern Africa, i. 15 1. 

N N 

shame us ; and .... this is .... all over the island.” ^ 
Ellis likewise observes that, in Madagascar, assisting in distress, 
and lending and borrowing property and money, are carried 
on much more commonly and freely than amongst neighbours 
or relatives in England, and that a kindness of heart in these 
things is always esteemed excellent.^ 

Among many savages the old people, in particular, 
have a claim to support and assistance, not only from 
their own children or relatives, but from the younger 
members of the community generally. 

Among the Australian natives the old men get the best and 
largest share of everything, and are allowed to monopolise the 
youngesSt and best-looking women, whilst a young man must 
consider himselt fortunate if he can get an old woman for wife."' 
Among the Tonga Islanders ‘‘every aged man and woman enjoys 
the attentions and services of the younger branches of society.'^ 
In the Kingsmill Islands “generosity, hospitality, and attention 
to the aged and infirm are virtues highly esteemed and gener- 
ally practised among all the natives.” Among the Kafirs, when 
persons advanced in years become sick and helpless, “ everyone 
is eager to aft'ord them assistance.” ^ In the opinion of the 
Aleuts, “ feeble old men must be respected and attended when 
they need aid, and the young and strong should give them a 
share of their booty and help them through all their troubles, 
endeavouring to obtain in exchange their good advice only,” ^ 

The sick, also, are often very carefully attended to. 

Among the coast tribes of British Columbia Mr. Duncan 
“always found one or two nurses to an invalid, if the case was 

^ Drury, Adyefi/ures during Fifteen in Jour, ^ Proceed. Koy. Soc. N.S. 
Years'^ Captivity on the Island of Mada- iVdleSy xxiii. 407. Luinholtz, Among 
gascar,y.i^2 sq. ^ Cannibals, Cf OiGy, Journals 

^ Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. of '/wo lixpeditions of Discovery in 

139. For other African instances, see North-West and Western Australia, ii. 

Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior of 248; Prough Smyth, of. cit. i, 138; 

Africa, p. 17 (Mandingoes) ; Burton, Spencer and Q\\\ew, Native Tribes of 
Abcohuta, i. ^03 (Voruba) ; Idem, I wo Central Australia, p. 51. 

Trips to Gorilla Land, i. 106 (Mpong- ^ Mariner, op. cit. ii. 155. 
we) ; Monrad, Guinea- Kysten og dens ^ llale, D.S. Exploring Expedition. 
Indbyggere, p. 7 ; Johnston, Jxtver Vol. VI. Ethnography and Iliilology, 

Congo, p. 423 (races of the Upper p, 95. 

Congo) ; Wilson and Felkin, op. cit. ® Lichtenstein, op. cit. i. 265. 
i. 225 (Waganda). 7 Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, 

3 Lyre, op. cit. ii. 385 sij. Mathew, loc. cit. p. 155. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

at all bad ; the sympathy of the nurses, too, seemed very 
great.” ^ Beechey says of the wild Indians of Upper California 
The very great care taken of all those who are affected with any 
disease ought not to be allowed to escape a remark. When any 
of their relations are indisposed, the greatest attention is paid to 
their wants.” Keating noticed the kind and humane treat- 
ment which the Potawatomis extended even to the idiots.^ 
The Koriaks ‘‘ carefully attend those who are sick.”^ The same 
is said of the Ainos of Japan, ^ and the Tagbanuas of the Philip- 
pine Islands.^ In Sarawak no relative is abandoned because an 
injury or illness may have incapacitated him for work.^ When 
a Dyak is ill at home, the women nurse the patient in turn.'^ 
In Samoa ^‘the treatment of the sick was invariably humane.” ^ 
In Tana,^^ Humphrey’s Island, Erromanga,^^ and Tasmania,^^ 
they were likewise kindly attended to ; and the same is the case 
at least among many of the Australian tribes.^* Concerning the 
aborigines of Herbert River, in Northern Queensland, 
Lumholtz writes : — “ The natives arc very kind and sympathetic 
towards those who are ill, and they carry them from camp to 
camp. This is the only noble trait I discovered in the 
Australian natives.” In various parts of Australia the blind, 
and especially the aged blind, are carefully tended ; 
travellers on the northern coast of the continent have noticed 
that these are generally the fattest of the company, being 
supplied with the best of everytliing.^^^ No trait in the char- 
acter of the Malagasy,” says Ellis, is more creditable to their 
liumanity, and more gratifying to our benevolent feelings, than 
the kind, patient, and affectionate manner in which they 
attend upon the sick.” A similar praise is bestowed upon the 

^ Duncan, quoted by Mayne, /^'our 
Years in British Columbia, p. 292 .vy, 
Beechey, op. cit. ii. 402. 

^ Keating, Expedition to the Source 
of St. Peter's River, i. 100. 

Krashenimi'ikoff, op. cit. ]). 233. 

^ von Siebold, Die Aino auf dcr 
Insel Vesso, p. 1 1 . 

Worcester, Philippine Islands, p. 

494. 

^ St. John, Life in the Forests of the 
Far East, ii. 323. 

^ Bock, Head- limiters of Borneo, p. 

211. 

® Turner, Samoa, p. 141. Cp\ Prit- 
chard, Polynesian Reminiscences, p. 
146. 

Turner, Samoa, p. 323. 

/bid. p. 276, 

Roljcrtson, Erromanga, p. 399. 
Ting Roth, Aborigines of Tas- 
mania, p. 47. Bon wick, Daily Life 
and Origin of the I'asmanians, p. 10. 

lirough Smyth, op. cit. ii. 284 
(West Australian natives). Schuerniann, 
‘Aboriginal 'bribes of I'ort Lincoln,’ in 
W()ods, Native Tribes of South Aus- 
tralia, p. 225. 

Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 

183. 

Ridley, Kamilaroi, ]x 169. Eyre, 
op. cit. ii. 382. Barrington, History of 
New South [Vales, p. 23. Stirling, op. 
cit. p. 36. 

Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 

231 sq. 

N N 2 

Mandingoes^ and Kafirs/^ Among the Zulus, says Mr. J. 
Tyler, ‘‘work, however important, is at once suspended that 
they may help their afflicted friends.” ^ 

Whilst the information which I have been able to 
gather on the social customs of uncivilised races seems to 
indicate that, in the majority of cases, mutual kindness 
and goodwill prevail within their communities, there 
are not wanting statements of a different character. But 
these statements are, after all, exceptional, and some of 
them are either ambiguous or obviously inexact. Only 
too often travellers represent to us the savage, not as he is 
in his daily life amidst his own people, but as he behaves 
towards his enemy, or towards a stranger who enters his 
country uninvited. As an experienced observer remarks, 
“ the savage, passionate and furious with the feeling of 
revenge, slaughtering and devouring his enemy and drink- 
ing his blood, is no longer the same being as when 
cultivating his fields in peace ; and it would be as unjust 
to estimate his general character by his actions in these 
moments of unrestrained passion, as to judge of Europeans 
by the excesses of an excited soldiery or an infuriated 
mob.” ^ Moreover, many accounts of savages date from 
a period when they have already been affected by contact 
with a ‘‘higher culture,” as we call it, a culture which 
almost universally has proved to exercise a deteriorating 
influence on the character of the lower races. Among the 
North American Indians, for instance, “ there was more 
good-will, hospitality, and charity, practised towards one 
another ” before white people came and resided among 
them ; whereas contact with civilisation has made them 
“false, suspicious, avaricious, and hard-hearted.”^^ As has 
been truly said, “ search modern history, and in the North 

^ CailHe, op, cit, i. 354. •''' Warren, in Schoolcraft, Indian 

^ Lichten.stein, op. cit, i. 266. Tribes of the United States., ii. 1 39. 

Tyler, Forty Years among the ^ Donienecli, Seven Years'' Residence 
Zulus, p. 195. in the Great Deserts of North America, 

Dicffenbach, Travels in New Zea- ii. 69. 
land, ii. 130 sq. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

XXIH 

and South and East and West the story is ever the same — 
we come, we civilise, and we corrupt or exterminate.” ^ 
Among the semi-civilised and civilised nations charity 
has universally been regarded as a du^y, and has often 
been strenuously enjoined by their religions. When Spain 
and Peru first came into contact, the Americans surpassed 
the Spaniards in brotherly love and systematic care for the 
needy. They had a poor-law according to which the 
blind, lame, aged, and infirm, who could not till their own 
lands so as to clothe and feed themselves, should receive 
sustenance from the public stores. The ancient Mexi- 
cans, according to Clavigero, seemed to give without 
reluctance what had cost them the utmost labour to 
acquire.*"^ ‘‘ The great virtue of the Coreans is their 
innate respect for and daily practice of the laws of human 
brotherhood. Mutual assistance and generous hospitality 
among themselves are distinctive national traits.” Accord- 
ing to Chinese law, ^^all poor destitute widowers and 
widows, the fatherless and childless, the helpless and the 
infirm, shall receive sufficient maintenance and protection 
from the magistrates of their native city or district, when- 
ever they have neither relations nor connections upon 
whom they can depend for support.” ‘‘Benevolence,” 
said Confucius, “ is more to man than either water or 
fire.” To assist the needy, to feed the hungry, to clothe 
the naked, to succour the sick, to save men in danger — 
these and similar acts of kindness are, according to 
Chinese beliefs, merits which will be rewarded by the 
unseen powers that watch human conduct, whereas the 
uncharitable and parsimonious are threatened with divine 
punishments.^ In a book of Buddhistic-Confucian flavour. 

^ Boyle, op, cit. p. io8. 

- Garcilasso de la W‘ga, Part 

of the Royal Comfuentaries: of the 
Vneas^ ii. 34. 

^ Clavigero, History of Mexico,, i. 81. 
^ Griffis, Coreay p. 288. 

® Ta Tsing Leu Lee, sec, Ixxxix. p. 
93. On the charitable institutions of 
the Chinese, see Staunton, ibid. p. 93 

n. * ; Smith, Chinese CharactcristicSy 
p. 186 sq. 

Douglas, Confttcianisni and 7 'aou- 
isTtiy p. 109. 

^ ‘ Merits and Errors Scrutinized,’ in 
/ndo- Chinese Gleanery iii. 159, 161 sqq. 
Thai Shangy 3. ‘ Divine Panorama,’ 

in Giles, Strange Stories from a Chinese 
Studio, ii. 370, 371, 374, 379. Douglas, 

as familiar to the youth of Japan as the Sermon on the 
Mount is to us, it is said, “ Above all things, men must 
practise charity; it is by almsgiving that wisdom is fed.” ^ 
According to the Dhammapada, “ the uncharitable do not 
go to the world o^ the gods ; fools only do not praise 
liberality ; a wise man rejoices in liberality, and through 
it becomes blessed in the other world.” ^ Indeed, in the 
didactic poetry of Buddhism the virtue of beneficence 
occupies the most prominent place ; without any regard to 
what is the measure of the real benefit thereby extended 
to the recipient of the gift, the legends set before us as 
a duty the most unbounded generosity, pushed even to 
the extreme of self-destruction.® And in its conception 
of charity and liberality, as in all other points of worldly 
morality. Buddhism does not differ from the standard 
recognised in India since ancient times.'* Already in the 
Yedlc hymns praise is bestowed on those who from their 
abundance willingly dispense to the needy, on those who 
do not turn away from the hungry, on those who are kind 
to the poor.'"' In the Hitopadesa it is said that the good 
man shows pity even to the worthless, as the moon does 
not withdraw its light even from a member of the lowest 
caste." The sacred law-books of India are full of pre- 
scriptions enjoining almsgiving as a duty on all twice- 
born men.^ “A householder must give as much food as 
he is able to spare to those who do not cook for them- 
selves, and to all beings one must distribute food without 
detriment to one’s own interest.” The student “ should 
always without sloth give alms out of whatever he has 
for food.”" The Bnihmana who has completed his 
studentship should without tiring “ perform works of 

Confucianism and Taouistn^ pp, 259, 
272 sq. Davis, Chin i, ii. 48. Edkins, 
Kelijjion in China, p. 89 sq. 

^ Chamberlain, Things Japanese, p. 

309- 

- Dhammapada, 177. 

Oldenbcrg, Buddha, 301. 

^ Cf. Kern, Manual of Indian 
Buddhism, p. 72, 

^ Rig' Veda, x. 117. Kacgi, Rigveda, 
p. 18. 

^ Hitopadesa, Mitralal)ha, 63. 

^ Gautama, v. 21 ; x. i sqq. Insti- 
tutes of Vishnu, lix. 28. Baiidhdyaua, 
i*- 7 - 13* 5 - Luaus of Mann, ix. 333; 
X* 75 » 79 ; xi. I sqq. ^ 

^ Laws of Manu, iv. 32. 

^ Anugitdf 

XXI II 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

charity with faith.” ' Almsgiving confers merit on the 
giver, it frees him from guilt, it destroys sin ; ^ “ for 
whatever purpose a man bestows any gift, for that pur- 
pose he receives in his next birth with due honour its 
reward.” ® On the other hand, he who cooks for himself 
alone eats nothing but sin.'‘ Speaking of the modern 
Hindus, Mr. Wilkins observes : — “ The charity of the 
Hindus is great. . . . There is no poor-law in India, no 
guardians of the poor, no workhouses, excepting for the 
Europeans in the Presidency towns. The poor of a 
family, the halt, the lame, the blind, the weak, the insane, 
are provided for by their family, if it is at all able to do 
it ; in cases where there are few or no relatives, then the 
burden is taken up by others. It is a ‘ work of merit.’ ” 
Of the ancient Persians Thucydides said that they 
preferred giving to receiving.® To be charitable towards 
the poor of their own faith was among them a religious 
duty of the first order.’’ Zoroaster thus addressed 
Vlshtaspa ; — “ Let no thought of Angra Mainyu ever 
infect thee, so that thou shouldst indulge in evil lusts, 
make derision and idolatry, and shut to the poor the door 
of thy house.” ® The holySraosha is the protector of the 
poor.'*' In the Shayast it is said that the clothing of the 
soul in the next world is formed out of almsgiving.’® 

It seems that among the ancient Egyptians charity was 
considered no less meritorious.” “ The god,” M. Maspero 
observes, ” does not confine his favour to the prosperous 
and the powerful of this w'orld ; he bestows it also upon 

^ Laws of Mann, iv. 226. Cf. ibid. Eastern Iranians, i. 164 S(j(/, ; Mills, 
iv. 227. in Sacred Books of the East, xxxi. p. 

Institutes of Vishmt, lix. 15, 30 ; xxii. 
ch. xc. sqq. Gautama, xix. ri, 16. ® Vasts, xxiv. 37. 

Vasishtha, xx. 47 ; xxii. 8. Lazos of Ibid, xi. 3. 

Manu, iii. 95 ; iv. 229 sqq. ; xi. 228. Shayast Ld-Shayast, xii. 4. Cf, 

^ Laws of Mann, iv. 234. Bundakis, xxx. 28. 

^ Institutes of Vishim, Ixvii. 43. Brugseh, History of Egypt under 

Laws of Manu, iii. 1 1 8 . Cf Rig- Veda, the Pharaohs, i. 29 sq. Tide, History 
X. 117. 6. of the Egyptian Religion, p. 226 sq, 

^ Wilkins, Modern Hinduism, p. Renouf, Ilibbert Lectures on the Reli- 
416 sq. gion of Egypt, p. 72 sqq. Amelineau, 

Thucydides, ii. 97. 4. L-t[volution des id/es morales dans 

^ See Geiger, Civilization of the V Egypt Ancienne, pp. 145, 354. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

the poor. His will is that they be fed and clothed, and 
exempted from tasks beyond their strength ; that they 
be not oppressed, and that unnecessary tears be spared 
them.” ^ In the memorial inscriptions, where the dead 
plead their good deeds, charity is often referred to, “ I 
harmed not a child,” says one Egyptian, “ I injured not a 
widow ; there was neither beggar nor needy in my 
time ; none were hungered, widows were cared for as 
though their husbands were still alive.” ^ In the inscrip- 
tion in honour of a lady who had been charitable to 
persons of her own sex, whether girls, wives, or widows, 
it is said, “ The god rewarded me for this, rejoicing me 
with the happiness which he has granted me for walking 
after his way.” 

Charity was urgently insisted upon by the religious law 
of the Hebrews.'^ “ Thou shalt open thine hand wide 
unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy 
land ” ; “ for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in 
all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.” 
Even “ if thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat ; 
and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink ; . . . the 
Lord shall reward thee.” ** Especially in the Old 

Testament Apocrypha and in Rabbinical literature alms- 
giving assumed an excessive prominence — so much so that 
the word which in the older writings means “ righteous- 
ness ” in general, came to be used for almsgiving in 
particular.'^ “Shut up alms in thy storehouses : and it 
shall deliver thee from all affliction.” “As water will 
quench a flaming fire, so alms maketh an atonement for 
sins.”® “For alms doth deliver from death, and shall 
purge away all sin. Those that exercise alms and 

^ Ma.spero, Dawn of Civilizaiion^ p. xxv. 35. 

1 91. Cf. Schiapparelli, Del sent imento ^ Deuteronomy^ xv. ii, 10. 

retij^loso dcgli antic hi egizianf p. 18 ; Proverbs^ xxv. 21 sq. 

Amclineau, op, cit. p. 268. ^ Addis, ‘Alms,’ in Encyclopa’dia 

“ Wiedemann, Religion of the An- Biblica^ i. 118. Cf. Montefiore, Hihbo-t 
dent Egyptians.^ p. 253. Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient 

^ Renouf, op. cit. p. .75. /lebrezus, p. 484.9-/, 

^ Deuteronomy., xiv. 29 ; xv. 7 sqq. ; ^ Ecctesiasticus, xxix. 12. 

xvi. II, 14. T.eviticus., xix. 9 sq. ; ’’ Ibid. iii. 30. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

righteousness shall be filled with life.” ^ The charitable 
man is rewarded with the birth of male issue. ^ Alms- 
giving is equal in value to all other commandments.® He 
who averts his eyes from charity commits a sin equal to 
idolatry To such an extreme was almsgiving carried on 
by the Jews, that some Rabbis at length decreed that no 
man should give above a fifth part of his goods in 
charity.® 

Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting were the three cardinal 
disciplines which the synagogue transmitted to both the 
Christian Church and the Muhammedan mosque.® 
According to Islam, the duty next in importance to 
prayer is that of giving alms.'^ Muhammed repeatedly 
announces that the path which leads to God is the 
helping of the orphans and the relieving of the poor.® 
“Ye cannot attain to righteousness until ye expend in 
alms of what ye love.” ” “ Those who expend their 

wealth by night and day, secretly and openly, they shall 
have their hire with their Lord.” It is said that “ prayer 
carries us half-way to God, fasting brings us to the door 
of His palace, and alms procure us admission.” Certain 
alms, called Zakat, are prescribed by law ; it is an 
indispensable duty for every Muhammedan of full age to 
bestow in charity about one-fortieth of all such property 
as has been a year in his possession, provided that he has 
sufficient for his subsistence and has an income equivalent 
to about per annum.'" Other charitable gifts are 

> voluntary, and confer merit upon the giver. 

By Christianity charity of the religious type which we 

^ 7 obit y xii. 9. Cf. ibid, i. 3, 16 ; 
ii. 14 ; iv. 7 S(/q. ; xii. 8. 

Bava Bathniy fol. 10 B, quoted by 
llershon, I'reasures of the Valmuf 
p. 24. 

^ Rab Assi, quoted by Kohler, ^ Alms/ 
in Jewish Encydopediay i. 435. 

^ Kethubothy fob 68 A, quoted by 
Katz, Dcr wa/rre I'alniudjudCy p. 36. 

® Katz, op, cit. p. 42. 

® Cf. iVbity xii. 8 ; Kohler, in Jetv- 
isJi Encyclopedia y i- 435- 

7 Sec Sale’s ‘ Preliminary Di.scourse,’ 

in Wherry, Coninieutary on the Quj'dn, 
i. 172 ; Lane, Manners and Customs of 
the Alodern EgyptianSy p. 105. 

Koran^ ii. 267, 269, 275 ; viii. 42 ; 
ix. 60 ; xc. 12, 14 sq. ; xciii. 6 sqq. ; 
&c. 

« Ibid, iii. 86. 

Ibid, ii. 275. 

Sell, Eaith of fsldniy p. 284. 

Ibid, p. 283. l^almer, ‘ Introduc- 
tion ’ to his translation of Bhe QurWtiy 
i. p. Ixxiii. x\ineer All, Life and 
I'cac hi ngs of Mohammed, p. 268. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY chap. 

find in the East was introduced into Europe. We have 
certainly no reason to blame the ancient Greeks and 
Romans for neglecting their poor. Among them slavery 
in a great measure replaced pauperism ; and what slavery 
did for the very poor, the Roman system of clientage did 
for those of a somewhat higher rank.’^ Moreover, the 
relief of the indigent was an important function of the 
State. ^ The Areopagus provided public works for the 
poor.*^ At Rome gratuitous distribution of corn was the 
rule for many centuries ; agrarian laws furnished free 
homesteads to the landless, on conquered or public terri- 
tory ; since the days of Nerva a systematic support of 
poor children was enjoined in all the cities of Italy.® A 
few examples of private charity, also, have descended to 
us already from early times, such as Epaminondas collect- 
ing dowers for poor girls,'' and Cimon feeding and clothing 
the poor ; and from the days of the Pagan Empire there 
are recorded several cases of individual beneficence. 
Charitable bequests are alluded to in the burial inscrip- 
tions ; when some great catastrophe happened, relief was 
willingly given to the sufferers ; private infirmaries were 
established for slaves.® The duty of charity was forcibly 
enjoined by some of the moralists. The wise man, says 
Seneca, “ will dry the tears of others, but will not mingle 
his own with them ; he will stretch out his hand to the 
shipwrecked mariner, will offer hospitality to the exile, and 
alms to the needy.” But his alms are not thrown away by 
chance ; his purse will open easily, but never leak. He 
will choose out the worthiest with the utmost care, and 
never give without sufficient reason; for unwise gifts must be 
reckoned among foolish extravagances.” So also Cicero, 

^ See Lecky, Hisloiy of European Aurelius Victor, Epito)}ie^ xii. 8. 

Morals^ ii. 73. ^ Cornelius Nepos, Epaminondas ^ 3. 

2 Boissier, Religion Romaine, ii. 206. ® Plutarch, Cimon^ 10. 

^ Farrer, Paganisniand Chrislianity^ ^ ^Plistory of European Morals^ 

p. 183. ii. 77 sq. Boissier, op. cit. ii. 213 sq. 

^ Naiulet, ‘ Des .secours publics chez p'arrcr, Paganism and Christianity ^ 
Ics Remains,’ in M&moires de PAca- ’•p. 182. 

demie des inscriptions el belles-lettres^ Seneca, De clementia, ii. 6. 

xiii. 43 sq. Idem. De vita beata. Z'l sq. 

^ Ibid. p. 71 sq. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

whilst styling beneficence and liberality “ virtues that are 
the most agreeable to the nature of man,” is anxious to 
warn his readers against imprudence in practising them, 
“ lest our kindness should hurt both those whom it is 
meant to assist, and others.” * 

In a very different light was charity viewed by the 
Christians. Unlimited open-handedness became a cardinal 
virtue. An ideal Christian was he who did what Jesus 
commanded the young man to do ; who went and sold 
what he had and gave it to the poor.^ Promiscuous alms- 
giving was enjoined as a duty : — “ Give to him that 
asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn 
not thou away.” ® The discharge of this duty was even 
more profitable to the giver than to the receiver. There 
is perhaps no precept in the Gospel to which a promise of 
recompense is so frequently annexed as to that concerning 
charity. Eternal life is promised to those who feed the 
hungry, give drink to the thirsty, take in the stranger, clothe 
the naked, visit the sick.' Charity was regarded as an 
atonement. “ God,” says St. Augustine, “ is to be pro- 
pitiated through alms for sins past ” ; and countless times 
is the thought expressed, that almsgiving is a safe invest- 
ment of money at good interest with (iod in heaven." 
Cyprian, who is the father of the Romish doctrine of good 
works, establishes an arithmetical relation between the 
number of alms-offerings and the blotting out of sins." 
“ The food of the needy,” says Eeo the Great, “ is the 
purchase-money of the kingdom of heaven.” “ As long 
as the market lasts,” says St.' Chrysostom, “ let us buy 
alms, or rather let us purchase salvation through alms.”" 
The rich man is only a debtor ; all that he possesses beyond 

^ Cicero, De officiis^ i. 14 sq. ^ Cyprian, De operc ct eleenio^ynis^ 

Cf Acts, ii. 45. 24 (Mi^ne, t?/. t //. iv. 620). C/MIarnack, 

St. Matthew, v. 42. Cf. St. Liihe, llistoy of Dogvia, ii. 134, n. 2. 
vi. 30. > Scr?}io X., de Collectis, 

^ St. Matthew, xxv. 34 sqq, 5 (Mignc, op. cit. liv. 165 -sv/.)* 

^ St, Augu.stine, Enchiridion, 70 St. Chry-so.stoni, Hoinilia VI L, de 

(Migne, Patrologiie cursns, xl. 265). Panitentia (Mignc, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, 

® See Uhlhorn, Die chrisiliche Lie- xlix. sq. 333). 
hesthdtigkcit, i. 270, 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

what is necessary, belongs to the poor, and ought to be 
given away.^ The poor, no longer looked down upon, 
became instruments of salvation. To them was given the 
first place In the Church and in the Christian community. 
St. Chrysostom says of them, As fountains flow near the 
place of prayer that the hands that are about to be raised 
to heaven may be washed, so were the poor placed by our 
fiithers near to the door of the Church, that our hands 
might be consecrated by benevolence before they are raised 
to God.” Gregory the Great announces, and the Middle 
Ages re-echo, “ The poor are not to be lightly esteemed 
and despised, but to be honoured as patrons.’^ Thus it 
happened that even in the darkest periods, when all other 
Christian virtues were nearly extinct, charity survived un- 
impaired.^ Later on Protestantism, by denyrng the 
atoning effect of good deeds, deprived charity of a great 
deal of Its religious attraction. And in modern times the 
enlightened opinion on the subject, recognising the 
demoralising influence of indiscrimiiiate almsgiving, rather 
agrees with the principles laid down by Cicero and Seneca, 
than with the literal interpretation of the injunctions of 
Christ. 

In the course of progressing civilisation the obligation 
of assisting the needy has been extended to wider and wider 
circles of men. The charity and generosity which savages 
require as a duty or praise as a virtue have, broadly speak- 
ing, reference only to members of the same community or 
tribe. Kindness towards foreigners is looked upon in a 
very different light. ‘‘ The virtues of the Negroes,” 
Monrad observes, are entirely restricted to their own 
tribe. The doing good to a stranger they would generally 
find ridiculous.” To the Greenlander a foreigner, 
especially if he be of another race, is an indifferent 
object, whose welfare he has no interest in furthering.” 

^ Uhlhorn, op. ciL p. 294 sq. ^ Quoted by Uhlhorn, op. cit. i. 315, 

“ St. Dc verbis Apostoliy Cf. Milman, Ilisfory of Latin 

TLahentes enuidein spiritirniy iii. il Christianity f\\. 33 .vy. 

{Migne, op. cit. Ser. (jraeca, li. sq. ® Monrad, op. cit. p. 4. 

300)* ® Nansen, Eskimo Life^ p. 159. 

xxni 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

The Bedouin, says Doughty, has two faces, this of gentle 
kindness at home, the other of wild misanthropy and his 
teeth set against the world besides.” ^ At higher stages 
of civilisation the duty of charity embraces a wider group 
of people, in proportion to the largeness of the social 
unit or to the scope of the religion by which it is enjoined. 
But it is still more or less restrained by national or religious 
boundaries. M. Amelineau observes that the charity 
referred to on ancient Egyptian papyri is “ la charlte 
limitee a ceux de la meme nation.” According to 
Zoroastrianism, charity should be restricted to the followers 
of the true religion ; to succour an unbeliever would be 
like a strengthening of the dominion of Evil.^^ The 
Zakat, or legal alms of the Muhammedans, must not be 
given to a non-Muslim, because it is regarded as a 
fundamental pare of worship;^ similarly the Sadaqah, or 
offering on the feast-day known as ‘ Idud-Fitr, is confined 
to true believers.'’ Nor has Christian charity always been 
free from religious narrowness. Eleury says that the early 
Christians, in the care they took of the poor, always 
preferred Christians before infidels, because their 

principal regard was to their spiritual concerns, and to their 
temporal welfare only in order to their spiritual.” '' The 
principle of the Church was, Omnem hominem fidelem 
judica tuum esse fratrem.” ‘ In the seventeenth century 
the Scotch clergy taught that food or shelter must on no 
occasion be given to a starving man unless his opinions 
were orthodox. On the other hand, Christianity of a 
higher type preaches charity towards all men ; and so does 
advanced Judaism and Buddhism. It is said in the Talmud, 
with reference to the treatment of the poor, that no dis- 
tinction should be made between such as are Jews and 
such as are not.'^ In modern times charity now and then 

^ Doughly, Arabia Deserta, i. 36S ® Floury, IManners and Behaviour of 

sq. the Christians^ p. 133 sq. 

Aineliaoau, op. tit. p. 354. " L-iiiront, Etudes sur t hisloire de 

^ Geiger, op. cit. i. 165. P liuniau it iv. 94. 

^ Sell, cit. p. 284. Cf. Kora??., Buckle, Histo?y of Civilizatio?? in 

ix. 60. E?io-ia?id, iii. 277. 

^ Sell, op. cit. p. 318. * Gifin, fol. 6i A, quoted by Katz, 

steps over the barriers of nationality even when the 
sufferers belong to distant nations. Whilst our indigent 
compatriots are generally recognised to have a greater 
claim on our pity than needy strangers, a great calamity 
in one country readily calls forth a charitable response in 
other nations. Mr. Pike believes that the contribution of 
one hundred thousand pounds sterlyig which England, 
in the year 1755, when Lisbon was laid in ruins by 
an earthquake, sent for the relief of the sufferers, in- 
augurated this new era of international charitableness. 
“Compassion,” he observes, “was at last shown by 
Englishmen, not simply for Englishmen and Protes- 
tants, but for foreigners professing a different religion ; 
pity, for once, triumphed over intolerance and national 
prejudice.”^ And in war, in the case of enemies rendered 
harmless by wounds or disease, the growth of human feel- 
ing has passed beyond the simple requirement that they 
shall not be killed or ill-used, and has cast upon belliger- 
ents the duty of tending them so far as is consistent with 
the primary duty to their own wounded.^ However, it 
must not be imagined that this humane principle, which 
has only lately been recognised in Europe, is a unique 
outcome of Christian civilisation at its height. It is said 
in the Mahabharata that, when a quarrel arises among 
good men, a wounded enemy is to be cured in the 
conqueror’s own country, or to be conveyed to his 
home.* Strangely enough, even from the savage world we 
hear of something like an a?iticipation of the Geneva 
Convention. Among certain tribes in New South Wales, 
as soon as the fight is concluded, “ both parties seem 
perfectly reconciled, and jointly assist in tending the 
wounded men.” '' 

Der wahre Talmiidjwie^ p. 38. Cf. the Law of Nations^ ii. Appendix no. 

Apologic des Juifs^ \). 10. vi. Hall, Treatise on International 

^ Pike, History of Crime in Eng- Law, p, 399, Ideffler, Das Euro- 
land, ii. 346. pdische Volkerrecht der Gegernvart , 

‘Convention .signed at Geneva, § 126, p. 267, n. 5. 

August 22, 1864, for the Amelioration of Mahabharata. xii. 3547, quoted by 

the Condition of the Wounded in Annies Lorinier, op. cit. ii. 431. 

in the Field,’ in Lorimer, Institutes of Brough Smyth, op. cit, i, 160. 

CHARITY AND GENEROSITY 

The gradual expansion of the duty of charity is due to 
the fact that this duty, in the first place, is based on the 
altruistic sentiment, and consequently follows the same 
general law of development. Many cases referred to above 
imply that savages are by no means strangers to affection, 
and that in their communities there is not only mutual 
assistance, but general kindness of heart. Numerous 
instances to the same effect might easily be added. 
When a Fuegian is very ill the near relatives show much 
grief ; ^ and Darwin tells us that the Fuegian boy who 
was taken on board the Beagle and brought to Europe, 
used to go to the sea-sick and say, in a plaintive voice, 
“ Poor, poor fellow ! ” " The Veddahs are praised not 
only for their charitable behaviour towards each other, 
but for their natural tenderness of heart.* The aborigines 
of Victoria are said to “ have the greatest love for their 
friends and relatives,” and to testify the liveliest joy 
when a companion after a long absence returns to the 
camp.^ Forster mentions an instance of affection among 
the natives of Tana, which, as he says, “ strongly proves 
that the passions and innate quality of human nature are 
much the same in every climate.”* Melville declares that, 
after passing a few weeks in the 'Fypee valley of the 
Marquesas, he formed a higher estimate of human nature 
than he ever before entertained.** It can hardly be doubted 
that in every human society there is, normally, some degree 
of social affection between its members ; ^ and it seems that 
the evolution of this sentiment in mankind has been much 
more in the direction of greater extensiveness than of 
greater intensity. 

Where the members of a group have affection for 
each other, mutual aid will be regarded as a duty both 
because it will be practised habitually, and because a 

^ Bridges, in A Voice for South ■'* Korsler, Voyago round the Worlds 
America^ xiii. 206, ii. 325. 

2 Darwin, Journal of Researches^ Melv He, Typee^ p. 297, 

p. 207. " See infra^ on the Origin and De- 

^ Sara-^iin, op. cit. iii. 545, 550. velopmeiit of llie Altruistic Sentiment. 

Brough Smyth, op. cit. i. 138. 

56o charity and GENEROSITY chap. 

failure to afford it will call forth sympathetic resentment 
On behalf of the sufferer. But we need, here again, to 
look below the surface. Men may be induced to do 
good to their fellow-creatures not only by kindly feelings 
towards them, but by egoistic motives ; and such motives, 
through having a share in making beneficence a tribal 
habit, at the same time influence the moral estimation in 
which it is held. The Basutos say that “ the knife that 
is lent does not return alone to its master ” — a kindness is 
never thrown away.^ Of the Asiniboin, a Siouan tribe, 
Mr. Dorsey states that “ nothing is given except with a 
view to a gift in return.” When the Andaman Islanders 
make presents of the best that they possess, they tacitly 
understand that an equivalent should be rendered for 
every gift.'^ Among the Makololo “the rich show kind- 
ness to the poor, in expectation of services.” In his 
description of the Greenlanders, Dr. Nansen observes that 
all the small communities depend for their existence on 
the law of mutual assistance, on the principle of common 
suffering and common enjoyment. “A hard life has 
taught the Eskimo that even if he is a skilful hunter and 
can, as a rule, manage to hold his own well enough, there 
may come times when, without the help of his fellows, 
he would have to succumb. It is better, therefore, for 
him to help in his turn.” ® That similar considerations 
largely lie at the bottom of the custom of mutual aid and 
charity both in uncivilised and more advanced communities, 
we may assume from the experience of human nature 
which we have acquired at home. And such motives 
must be particularly active in a society the members of 
which are so dependent on each other’s services and 
return-services, as is generally the case with a horde of 
savages. 

Moreover, by niggardliness a person may expose him- 

^ Ca.s:xli.s, op. cit. p. 310. p. 511. 

- Dor.sey, ‘ Siouan StK'iology/ in ^ Nan.sen, P'irst Crossing of Green- 
Ann. J\tp. Bur. Ethn. xv. 225 S(p land, ii. 304 sq. Cf Cranz, P/istory of 

Man, \\\ four. Anthr. Inst, xii. 95. Greenland, i. 173 ; Parry, op. cit. p. 

‘ l.ivingslunc. Missionary Travels, 525. 

self to supernatural dangers, whereas liberality may entail 
sup^ematural reward. In Morocco nobody would like to 
eat in the presence of other people without sharing his 
meal with them ; otherwise they might poison his food 
by looking at it with an evil eye. So also, if anybody 
shows a great liking for a thing belonging to you, wanting, 
for instance, to buy your gun or your horse, it is best to 
let him have it, since otherwise an accident is likely to 
happen to the object of his desire.^ But baneful energy, 
what the Moors call l-bas^ is transferable not only by the 
eye, but by the voice. The poor and the needy have thus 
in their hands a powerful weapon and means of retaliation, 
the curse. The ancient Greeks believed that the beggar 
had his Erinys,^ his avenging demon, which was obviously 
only a personification of his curse.^ It is said in the 
Proverbs, He that giveth unto the poor shall not Jack : 
but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse.’' 
The same idea is expressed in Ecclesiasticus : — ‘‘ Turn 
not away thine eye from the needy, and give him none 
occasion to curse thee : for if he curse thee in the bitter- 
ness of his soul, his prayer shall be heard of him that 
made him. ... A prayer out of a poor man’s mouth 
reacheth to the ears of God, and his judgment cometh 
speedily.” According to the Zoroastrian Yasts, the 
poor man who follows the good law, when wronged and 
deprived of his rights, invokes Mithra for help, with 
hands uplifted.^’ Mr. Chapman states that, “ though 
the Damaras are, generally speaking, great gluttons, they 
would not think of eating in the presence of any of their 
tribe without sharing their meal with all comers, for fear 
of being visited by a curse from their ‘ Omu-kuru ' [or 
deity], and becoming impoverished.” ' There is all reason 

^ Similar beliefs prevail in modern 
Egy})t (Klunzinger, Upper Egypt ^ j). 
39J)- 

“ Odyssey, xvii. 475. 

Supra, p. 60. 

Proverbs, xxviii. 27. 

Ecclesinsticns, iv. 5 sq. ; xxi. 5. 
Cf. JOeuierononiy, xv. 9. Rabbi Jo- 

banan says lhat almsgiving “ saves man 
from sudden, unnatural death” (Koh- 
ler, \x\ Jewish Encyclopedia, i. 435). Cf. 
Proverbs, x. 2. 

« Vasts, X. 84. 

^ Chapman, I'ravels in the Interior 
of South Af rica, i. 341. 

VOL. I 

O O 

CHARITY. AND GENEROSITY 

to suppose that in this case the curse of the deity was 
originally the curse, or evil wish, of an angry man. 

A poor man is able not only to punish the uncharitable 
by means of his curses, but to reward the generous giver 
by means of his blessings. During my residence among 
the Andjra tribe in the mountains of Northern Morocco, 
our village was visited by a band of ambulant scribes who 
went from house to house, receiving presents and invoking 
blessings in return. When a goat w.as given them they 
asked God to increase the flocks of the giver, when money 
was given they asked God to increase his money, and so 
forth. Some of the villagers told me that it was a pro- 
fitable bargain, since they would be tenfold repaid for their 
gifts through the blessings of the scribes. A town Moor 
who starts for a journey to the country genei'ally likes to 
give a coin to one of the beggars who are sitting near 
the gate, so as to receive his blessings It is said in 
Ecclesiasticus :■ — “ Stretch thine hand unto the poor, that 
thy blessing may be perfected. A gift hath grace in the 
sight of every man living.” ^ Whilst he that withholdeth 
corn shall be cursed by the people, “ blessing shall be 
upon the head of him that selleth it.” ^ Among the 
early Christians those who brought gifts for the poor were 
specially remembered in the prayers of the Church ^ Of 
the Nayadis of Malabar Mr. Iyer says that the purport and 
object of their prayers are, among other things, “ that all 
the superior castes, who give them alms, may enjoy long life 
and prosperity.” ** In various cases the nature of the 
rewards promised for charitable acts suggests that they are 
due to the blessings of the recipient. According to 
Vasishtha, “through liberaiity man obtains all his 
desires, even longevity.” ® In the Yasts it is said that the 
children of a charitable man will thrive.® According to 
Talmudic ideas, men acquire wealth for their children by 

^ Eccksiasiicus^ vii. 32. Cf. Fro- 
7Jerds\ xxii. 9. 

Proverbs^ xi. 26.' 

^ Uhlhorn, op. oil. i. 14 1, 

^ Iyer, in the Madras Government 
Museum’s Bulletin., iv. 72. 

^ Vasishtha, xxix. l sq. 

^ Vasts, xxiv. 36. 

distributing alms among the poor.’ Considering how 
widely spread is the belief in the efficacy of curses and 
blessings, there can be little doubt that charity and 
generosity are connected with this belief in many cases 
where no such connection has been noticed by the 
European visitor. 

The curses and blessings of the poor partly account 
for the fact that charity has come to be regarded as a 
religious duty. Originally, it is true, they had not 
the character of an appeal to a god, but were believed to 
possess a purely magical power, independent of any super- 
human will. This belief is rooted in the close association 
between the wish, more particularly the spoken wish, and 
the idea of its fulfilment. The wish is looked upon in 
the light of energy which may be transferred — by material 
contact, or by the eye, or by means of speech — to the 
person concerned, and then becomes a fact. This process, 
however, is not taken quite as a matter of course ; there 
is always some mystery about it. Hence the words of a 
holy man, a magician or priest, are considered more 
efficacious than those of ordinary mortals. The 
Australian natives believe that the curse of a potent 
magician will kill at the distance of a hundred miles. 
Among the Maoris ‘‘ the anathema of a priest is regarded 
as a thunderbolt that an enemy cannot escape.” “ Among 
the Gal las no man will under any circumstances slay either 
a priest or a wizard, from a dread of his dying curse. 
Some of the Rabbis maintained that a curse uttered by a 
scholar is unfailing in its effect, even if undeserved.** In 
Muhammedan countries the curses of saints or shereefs are 
particularly feared. According to the Laws of Manu, a 
Brahmana “ may punish his foes by his own power alone,” 
speech being his weapon.^ But though a curse may 
derive particular potency from the person who utters it, 

^ Kohler, in Jewish Encyclopedia^ i. iii, 50. 

436. Cf. Proverbs^ xxviii. 27. '* Makkotk^ fol. ii A. Beraichoth^ 

- Polack, Manners and Customs of fol. 56 A. 
the New Zealanders^ i. 248 sq. Lazvs of Mann,, xi. 32 sq. 

® Harris, Highlands of Hithiopiay 

0 0 2 

it is by no means inefFective even in the mouth of an 
ordinary man.^ In the Old Testament children are 
forbidden to curse their parents,^ subjects their rulers,^ men 
their god;^ and according to Talmudic conceptions, a 
curse should not be regarded lightly however ignorant be 
the person who utters it."' All that is required is that the 
words should possess that supernatural quality which alone 
can bring about the result desired, and this quality may 
be inherent in the curse quite independently of the 
person who utters it. It is inherent in certain mystic 
formulas or spells and in the invocations of some spirit or 
god. The will of the invoked being is not considered 
at all ; his name is simply brought in to give the curse 
that mystic efficacy which the plain word lacks. Thus 
both in the Old Testament^ and in the Talmud" there 
are traces of the ancient idea that the name of the Lord 
might be used with advantage in any curse however un- 
deserved. But with the deepening of the religious senti- 
ment this idea had to be given up. A righteous and 
mighty god cannot agree to be a mere tool in the hand 
of a wicked curser. Hence the curse comes to be looked 
upon in the light of a prayer, which is not fulfilled if 
undeserved ; as it is said in the Proverbs, ‘‘ the curse 
causeless shall not come. ” And the same is the case with 
the blessing. Whilst in ancient days Jacob could take 
away his brother’s blessing by deceit,*’ the efficacy of a 
blessing was later on limited by moral considerations.^^’ The 
Psalmist declares that only the offspring of the righteous 
can be blessed ; ’’ and according to the Apostolic Consti- 
tutions, although a widow who eateth and is filled 
from the wicked, pray for them, she shall not be heard.” 

^ Taylor, Te Ika a Mattie ]). 204 ^ Makkolh, fol. ii A. Berakhoth, 

(Maoris). Wellbauson, Resle arahischm foil. 19 A, 56 A. 

Heidentums, p, 139. ® Proverbs, xxvi. 2. 

- Exodus, xxi. 17. Leviiicns, xx. 9. Genesis, xxvii. 23 sqtj. 

Proverbs, xx. 20; xxx. ii. Cheyne, ‘ Ble.ssings and Curses/ 

^ Exodus^ xxii. 28. Ecclesiastes, x. in Encyclopccdia Biblica, i. 592. 

20. J^sal/ns, xxxvii. 26. 

^ Exodus, xxii. 28. Constituiiones Apostoliae, iv. 6. 

^ Meghilla, fol. 15 A. Cf, Jeremiah, vii. 16. 

® Supra, p. 564. 

On the other hand, curses and blessings, when well 
deserved, continued to draw down calamity or prosperity 
upon their objects, by inducing God to put them into 
effect ; this idea prevails both in post-exilic Judaism 
and in Muhammedanism,^ and underlies the Christian 
oath and benediction. The final, but not the original, 
view was that, as an uncharitable man deserves to be 
punished and a charitable man merits reward, the 
curses and blessings of the poor will naturally be heard 
by a righteous God. ‘‘ The Lord will plead their cause.” 

The chief cause, however, of the extraordinary stress 
which the higher religions put on the duty of charity 
seems to lie in the connection between almsgiving and 
sacrifice. When food is offered as a tribute to a god, 
the god is supposed to enjoy its spiritual part only, whilst 
the substance of it is left behind and is eaten by the poor. 
And when the offering is continued in ceremonial sur- 
vival in spite of the growing conviction that, after all, 
the deity does not need and cannot profit by it,^^ the poor 
become the natural heirs of the god, and the almsgiver 
inherits the merit of the sacrificer. The chief virtue of 
the act, then, lies in the self-abnegation of the donor, and 
its efficacy is measured by the sacrifice ” which it costs 
him. 

Many instances may be quoted of sacrificial food being 
left for the poor or being distributed among them. At 
Scillus, where Xenophon had built an altar and a temple 
to Artemis and a sacrifice was afterwards made every year, 
the goddess supplied the poor people living there in tents 
with ‘‘ barley-meal, bread, wine, sweetmeats, and a share 
of the victims offered from the sacred pastures, and of 
those caught in hunting.”^ According to Yasna, sacri- 
fices to Mazda were given to his poor.''" In ancient 
Arabia the poor were allowed to partake of the meal- 

^ Cf, Cheyne, in EncycIopcEdia ^ For such a survival, see Tylor, 
Biblica^ i. 592 ; Goldziher, Ahhand- Fritnitive Culluj-e^ ii. 396 sqq, 
lungen zur arabischen Philologie, i. ^ Xenophon, Anabasis^ v. 3. 9. 

29 sqq. ^ Yasna, xxxiv. 5. 

Proverbs, xxii. 23. 

offering which was laid before the god Uqai^ir.* In 
Zinder, in the Soudan, there are some trees, regarded 
as divine, to which annual offerings of bullocks, sheep, 
and so forth, are made, “ though the poor of the country 
get the benefit of them.” ^ In Morocco even animals 
which are killed as l-'-ar — a sacrifice embodying a con- 
ditional curse — for departed saints or living people, with a 
view to compelling them to grant a request, are commonly 
eaten by the poor, though nobody else would dare to 
partake of them. 

In other cases we find that almsgiving is itself regarded 
as a form of sacrifice, or takes the place of it. In the 
sacred books of India the two things are repeatedly 
mentioned side by side. “ The householder offers sacri- 
fices, the householder practises austerities, the householder 
distributes gifts.” “ Of a Bnihmana who has completed 
his studentship it is said, “Let him always practise, 
according to his ability, with a cheerful heart, the duty of 
liberality, both by sacrifices and by charitable works, if he 
finds a worthy recipient for his gifts.” * “ In the Krita 

age the chief virtue is declared to be the performance of 
austerities, in the Treta divine knowledge, in the Dvapara 
the performance of sacrifices, in the Kali liberality alone.” "’ 
In the Egyptian ‘ Book of the Dead ’ the soul, on ap- 
proaching to the gods who are in the Tuat, pleads ; — “ I 
have done that which man prescribeth and that which 
pleascth the gods. I have propitiated the god with that 
which he loveth. I have given bread to the hungry, 
water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, a boat to the 
shipwrecked. I have made oblations to the gods and 
funeral offerings to the departed.” ° In the Zoroastrian 
prayer Ahuna-Vairya, to which great efficacy is ascribed, 
it is said, “ He who relieves the poor makes Ahura king.”^ 

1 Wellhiiusen, Restc arabischen IIei~ Laws of Mamt^ iv. 227. Cf ibid, 

dentums^ p. 64. Robertson Smith, iv. 226. 

Kelii^iofi of the Semites^ p. 223. ^ Ibid. i. 86. 

“ Ricliardson, Mission lo Cenhal ^ Book of the Dead, 125, Renoufs 

Africa, ii. 259. traii-slation, p. 217. 

histitutes of Vishnu, lix. 28. ^ Vendiddd, xix. 2. 

In the Koran almsgiving is often mentioned in connection 
with prayer ; ‘ and the Zakat, or alms prescribed by law, 
is regarded by the Muhammedans as a fundamental part 
of their religion, hence infidels, who cannot perform 
acceptable worship, have nothing to do with these alms.^ 
Among the Muhammedans of India it is common for 
men and women to vow “ that when what they desire 
shall come to pass, they will, in the name of God, the 
Prophet, his companions, or some zvullee, present offerings 
and oblations.” One of these offerings, called “an 
offering unto God,” consists in preparing particular 
victuals, and in “ distributing them among friends and 
the poor, and giving any sort of grain, a sacrificed sheep, 
clothes, or ready-money in alms to the indigent.” When 
the destruction of the Temple with its altar filled the 
Jews with alarm as they thought of their unatoned sins, 
Johanan ben Zakkai comforted them by saying, “You 
have another means of atonement as powerful as the 
altar, and that is the work of charity, for it is said : ‘ I 
desired mercy, and not sacrifice.’ ” ‘ Many other passages 
show how closely the Jews associated almsgiving with 
sacrifice. “ He that giveth alms sacrificeth praise.” '' 
“As sin-offering makes atonement for Israel, so alms for 
the Gentiles.” ** “Almsdeeds are more meritorious than 
all sacrifices.”^ An orphan is called an “altar to God.” 
And as a sacrificer should be a person of a godly character, 
so it is better to perish by famine than to receive an 
oblation from the ungodly.” Alms were systematically 
collected in the synagogues, and officers were appointed to 
make the collection.*” So, also, among the early Christians 
the collection of alms for the relief of the poor was an 
act of the Church life itself. Almsgiving took place in 
public worship, nay formed itself a part of worship. 

^ Koran^ ii. 40, 104 ; ix. 54. ^ Quoted by Levy, Neuhehniisches 

Sell, op. cit. 284. tind Chaldaisches Worterbuch., iv, 173. 

^ Jafifur Shurreef, Qanoo?i’e-Islam, ^ Quoted ibid. iv. 173. 
p. 179. ^ Comtitiifiones Apos/o/iao, iv. 3. 

Kohler, in Jewish Encyclopedia., i. ^ Ibid. iv. 8. 

467. Hosea, vi. 6. Addis, in Encyclopiedia Bihlica, 

® Ecclesiastic us., xxxv. 2. i. 1 19. 

Gifts of natural produce, the so-called oblations, were 
connected with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. 
They were offered to God as the . first-fruits of the 
creatures {^rimitia creaturarurn)^ and a prayer was said ; — 
“ O Lord, accept also the offerings of those who to-day 
bring an offering, as Thou didst accept the offerings of 
righteous Abel, the offering of our father Abraham, the 
incense of Zachariah, the alms of Cornelius, and the two 
mites of the widow.” These oblations were not only 
used for the Lord’s Supper, but they formed the chief 
means for the relief of the poor. They were regarded as 
sacrifice in the most special sense ; and, as no unclean gift 
might be laid upon the Lord’s altar, profit made from 
sinful occupations was not accepted as an oblation, neither 
were the oblations of impenitent sinners.^ The author of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of almsgiving as a 
sacrifice of thanksgiving which continues after the Jewish 
altar has been done away with.'* Like sacrifice, alms- 
giving is connected with prayer, as a means of making 
the prayer efficacious and furnishing it with wings ; the 
angel said to Cornelius, “ Thy prayers and thine alms are 
come up for a memorial before God.”® When the 
Christians were reproached for having no sacrifices, Justin 
wrote, “We have been taught that the only honour that 
is worthy of Him is not to consume by fire what He has 
brought into being for our sustenance, but to use it for 
ourselves and those who need.” '* So, also, Irenasus ob- 
serves that sacrifices are not abolished in the New 
Testament, though their form is indeed altered, because 
they are no longer offered by slaves, but by freemen, of 
which just the oblations are the proof.’’ And God has 
enjoined on Christians this sacrifice of oblations, not 
because He needs them, but “ in order that themselves 

^ Uhlborn, op, cit. i. 135 sqq, liar- milia FI/., de Poeniteniia, 6 (Migne, 
nack, History of Do^ma, i. 205. Patrologiacursiis^^Qt. Gr. xlix. sq. 332)! 

Hebrews, xiii. 14 sqq. Cf. Addi.s, ^ Justin, Apologia I. pro Chrisiianis 
\xi Encyclopa'dia Bihlica,\. 119. 13. ’ 

^ Acts, X. 4. Cyprian, De ope re et ^ Ircna*us, Adverstts Juercscs, iv. 
e/eemosyais, 4. St. Chrysostom, Ho- 18. 82. ♦ 

might be neither unfruitful nor ungrateful.” ^ St. 
Augustine says, The sacrifice of the Christians is the 
alms bestowed upon the poof.” ^ 

The objection will perhaps be raised that I have here 
tried to trace back the most beautiful of all religious 
virtues to a magical and ritualistic origin without taking 
into due account the benevolent feelings attributed to the 
Deity. But in the present connection I have not had to 
show why charity, like other human duties, has been 
sanctioned by religious beliefs, but why, in the ethics of 
the higher religions, it has attained the same supreme im- 
portance as is otherwise attached only to devotional exer- 
cises. And this is certainly a problem by itself, for which 
the belief in a benevolent god affords no adequate explana- 
tion. That the religious duty of charity is not merely an 
outcome of the altruistic sentiment is well illustrated by 
the fact that Zoroastrianism, whilst exalting almsgiving 
to the rank of a cardinal virtue, at the same time excludes 
the sick man from the community of the faithful until he 
has been cured and cleansed according to prescribed rites.^ 

^ Ibid. iv. 17. 5. ^ Darmeslctor, ‘Introduction’ to the 

" St. Augustine, Scniio XLII, i Zend-yVvesta, in Sacred Books of ike 
(Migne, op. cit. xxxviii. 252). East^ iv. p. Ixxx.

HOSPITALITY 

We have seen that in early society regard for the life 
and physical well-being of a fellow-creature is, generally 
speaking, restricted to members of the social unit, whereas 
foreigners are subject to a very different treatment. But 
to this rule there are remarkable exceptions. Side by side 
with gross indifference or positive hatred to strangers we 
find, among the lower races, instances of great kindness 
displayed even towards persons of a foreign race. The 
Veddahs are ready to help any stranger in distress who 
asks for their assistance, and Sinhalese fugitives who have 
sought refuge in their wilds have always been kindly re- 
ceived.^ Mr. Moffat was deeply affected by the sympathy 
which some poor Bushmans showed to him during an 
illness, although he was an utter stranger to them. Speak- 
ing of the mutual affection which the Andaman Islanders 
display in their social relations, Mr. Man adds that, in 
their dealings with strangers, the same characteristic is 
observable when once a good understanding has been 
established.” ^ We have also to remember the friendly 
manner in which the aborigines in various parts of the 
savage world behaved to the earliest European visitors. 
Nothing could be more courteous than the reception 
which Cook and his party met with in New Caledonia, 
where the natives guided and accompanied them on their 

^ Sarasin, Ergehni sse nainrivissen- “ Man, ‘ Aboriginal Inhabitants of 
schafi/ichcr Forschnngen auf Ceylo 7 i, the Andaman Islands, bin Jour. Anihr, 
iii. 544. hist, xii 93. 

CH. XXIV 

HOSPITALITY 

excursions. Forster says of the Society Islanders, ‘‘ We 
should indeed be ungrateful if we did not acknowledge 
the kindness with which they always treated us7’ ^ De 
Clerque observes with reference to the Papuans on the 
north coast of New Guinea : — The inhabitants seemed 
always ready to help. . . . On our visit to the village 
all the male and female inhabitants with their children 
flocked around me, and offered me cocoanuts and sugar- 
cane ; which, for the first contact with Europeans, is cer- 
tainly remarkable.’' ^ On the arrival of white people in 
various parts of Australia, the natives were not only in- 
offensive, but disposed to meet them on terms of amity 
and kindness.^ In a short intercourse,” says Eyre, “ they 
are easily made friends. . . . On many occasions where I 
have met these wanderers In the wild, far removed from 
the abodes of civilisation, and when I have been accom- 
panied only by a single native boy, I have been received 
by them in the kindest and most friendly manner, had 
presents made to me of fish, kangaroo, or fruit, had them 
accompany me for miles to point out where water was to 
be procured, and been assisted by them In getting at it.” ^ 
Nor must we forget the kind reception which Australian 
Blacks have given to men cast upon their mercy, and 
the tenderness with which the natives of Cooper’s Creek 
wept for the death of Burke and Wills, and comforted 
King, the survivor.^' Unfortunately, native races have 
often received anything but favourable impressions from 
their earliest interviews with liuropeans ; and both in 
Australia and elsewhere prolonged Intercourse with white 
people has, in many instances, induced them to change 

^ Forster, Voyage round ihe fVor/dj Kyre, o/>. cil. ii. 2Ii. 

ii. 157. Mathew, ‘ Australian Aborigines,’ 

De Clcrquc, in Glimpses of the in Jour. rroceed, Roy, Sac. N, S. 
Eastern Archipelago^ p. 14, ll’ales, xxiii. 388. Mrough Smyth, 

Breton, Excursions in New South Ahorietincs of Victoria, ii. 229. Ridley, 
IVales, p. 218. Ciirr, 'Ehe Australian Aborigines of . iustralia, p. 22. 

Race, i. 64. Salvado, Mlmoires his- Seelenleben der 

foriques sur r Australie^ p. 340. Jvidley, Australicr,’ in Mitthcilungcndes Vereins 
Aborigi/ies of Australia, p. 24. Eyre, fur Elrdknndc zu Leipzig, 1877, p. 
fournals of Expeditions of Discaiwry i j sq. 
into Central Australia, ii. 212, 382. 

HOSPITALITY 

their friendly behaviour into unkindness or hostility. The 
Canadian traders, for instance, when they first appeared 
among the Beaver and Rocky Mountain Indians, were 
treated by these people with the utmost hospitality and 
attention ; but by their subsequent conduct they taught 
the natives to withdraw their respect, and sometimes to 
treat them with indignity.^ Harmon writes, “ I have 
always experienced the greatest hospitality and kindness 
among those Indians who have had the least intercourse 
with white people.” “ Many facts seem to verify the state- 
ment made by a missionary who speaks from forty years’ 
experience among the natives of New Guinea and Poly- 
nesia, that our conduct towards savages determines their 
conduct towards us.''* 

The friendly reception which white men have met with 
in savage countries is closely connected with a custom 
which, as it seems, prevails universally among the lower 
races while in their native state,'* as also among the 

^ Mackenzie, Voyage to the Frozen 
and Pacific Ocean p. 149. 

Harmon, Journal of l oyages and 
y'raTJcis in the Interior of N'orfh America^ 

P..3I5- 

Murray^ Forty Yeai-f Missioit Work 
in Polynesia and New Guinea^ ]). 499. 
For other instances of kindness tlis- 
played by savages towards white men, 
see von Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery 
into the South Sea, iii. 174 (people of 
Radack) ; Yate, ylcconnt of New 'Zea- 
land^ p. 102 Si].\ Dieffenbach, Travels 
in New Zealand^ ii. 112 ; Keate, 
Account of the Pelcau Islands, p. 329 
sy.; Earl, Papuans, p. 79 (natives of 
Port Dory, New Guinea) ; Saryt.schew, 

‘ Voyage of Discovery to the Nortli- 
East of Siberia,’ in Collection of Modern 
ami Contemporary Voyages and Travels, 
vi. 78 (Aleuts) ; Kingand kdtzroy, Voyages 
of the Adventure'^ and Beagle f ii. 
168, 174 (Patagonians) ; Wilson and 
Eel kin, Uganda, i. 225. 

A/ara, Voyages dans f Amlrique 
miridionale, ii. 91 (Guanas). Southey, 
History of Brazil, i. 247 (Tapis). 
Davis, El Gringo, p. 421 (Pueblos). 
Lafit-spt, Ala urs des saua.'ages amcri- 
quai}il^\, 106 ; ii. 88. Heriot, Travels 

through the Canadas, p. 318 sq. Ru- 
chanan, North Amei'ican Indians, p. 6. 
Perrot, Memoire sur les nuru)‘s, coiis- 
t nines et iclligion des sauvages de 
I A inerii/ue septentrionale, pp. 69, 202. 
Ncighl'jors, in Schoolcraft, Indian 
Tribes of the United States, ii. 132 
(Comanches), James, Expedition from 
Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains , i. 
321 sq, (Omahas). Morgan, League of 
the Iroquois, p. 327 sqq, ; Loskicl, 
Ilistoiy of the Mission of the United 
lirethren among the Indians in North 
Aineriea, i. 15 ; Golden, in Schoolcraft, 
op. eit. iii. 190 (Iroquois). Powers, 
Tribes of California, p. 183. Sproat, 
Scenes and Studies of Saziage Life, p. 
56 sqq. (Ahts). Boas, ‘ Report on the 
Indians of British Columbia,’ in the 
Report read at the Meeting of the British 
Association, 1S89, p. 36. Keating, 
Expedition to the Source of St. Peter s 
River, i. 10 1 ( Potawatomis) ; ii. 167 
(Chippewas). Richardson, Arctic 
Searching Expedition, ii. 18 (Crees and 
Chippewas). Idem, in Franklin, 
ney to the Shores of the Polar Sea, p. 
66 ; Mackenzie, Voyages to the Fi'ozen 
and Pacific Oceans, p, xevi. (Crees). 
DaJl, Alaska, p. 397 ; Sarytschew, loc. 

peoples of culture at the earlier stages of their civilisa- 

cit. vi. 78 ; Sauer, Billing^ s Expedition 
to the Northern Parts of Russia^ p. 274 
(Aleuts). Lyon, Private Jom'nal^ p. 
349 > Larry, Second Voyage for the 

I)iscove 7 y of a North- IVest /\issage, p. 
526 (Eskimo of Igloolik). Egcdc, De- 
scription of Greenland^ p. 126 ; Cranz, 
History of Grce 7 iia 7 td^ i. l*j 2 sq. ; Kane, 
Af'ctic Explorations^ ii. 122 ; Holm, 

‘ Ethnologisk Skizze af Angmagsali- 
kerne,’ in Meddelelser 0771 G7V7i/a7id, x. 
87, 175 (Greenlanders). Beechey, 
Voyage to the Pacific a)id Behriiifs 
Sti'aitf ii. 571 ; Richardson, Airtic 
Sea 7 'chi 7 ig Expeditio 7 i, i. 367 ; Seernann, 
Voyage of ^Hleraldf ii. 65 (Western 
Eskimo). Hooper, I'cii Mo 7 iths among 
the Tents of the Ttiskiy pj). 1 60, 193, 
194, 208 ; Nordenskioid, Vegas fiuA 
kring Asien och Europa^ ii. 145 
(Chukchi). Dali, op. cif, pp. 381 
(Tuski), 517 (Kamchadales), 526 (Ai- 
nos). Sarytschew, loc, cit. v. 67 (Kam- 
chadalcs), Dobell, Travels ioi Kamt- 
schatkaa 7 id Siberia, i, 63, 82 sq. ( Kamcha- 
dales) ; ii. 42 (jakuts). Sauer, op. cit. 
p. 124 (Jakuts). Vambery, Das Tiir- 
lumvolk, pp. 159 (Jakuts), 336 (natives 
of Eastern Turkestan), 41 1 (Turko- 
mans), 451 (Tshuvashes), 509 (baskirs), 
&c. Ivrasheninnikoff', History of Kam- 
schatka, p. 236 (Kurile islanders). 
Georgi, Russia, i. 113 (Mordvins) ; iii. 
m (Tunguses), 167 (Koriaks) ; iv. 22 
( Kalmucks). Hergmann, Nof 7 iadische 
Streifereie 7 i unler dc 7 i Kalmilkeii, ii. 
281 sqq. Erejevalsky, Mo/igolia, i. 
71 sq. Castren, Nordiska ivsor och 
forshiingar, i. 41 (Laplanders), 319 
(Ostyaks). .Scott Robertson, Kafirs of 
the Hindu- Kush, p. 187 sq. Eraser, 
Tour through the Hiiiidld AIoujitaBis, 
pp. 264 (people of Kuna war), 335 
(Hutias). Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- 
logy of Beaigal, pp. 46 (Kukis), 68 
(Garos). Hunter, A finals of Rural 
Bengal, i. 215 (Santals). Tickell, 
‘Memoir on the Htalcsum,’ in Jour. 
Asiatic Soc. Bengal, ix. (pt. ii.) 807 sq. 
(Hos). Lewin, Wild Races of South- 
Eastern India, p. 217 (Tipperahs). 
Colquhoun, Amongst the .Shans, pp. 160 
sq. (Steins), 371 (Shans). E'oreman, 
Philippi/te Islands, p. 187. de Cres- 
pigny, ‘ Milano ws of Borneo,’ in Jour. 
Ant hr. I fist. v. 34. Low, Sarawak, 

pp. 243 (Hill Dyaks), 336 (Kayans). 
Boyle, Advemtures among the Dyaks of 
Borneo, p. 215. Ling Roth, Natives 
of Sarazvak, i. 82 (Sea Dyaks). Mars- 
den, History of Sumati'a, p. 208 
(natives of the interior of Sumatra). 
Raffles, History of Java, i. 249 ; Craw- 
fiird, History of the Indian Archipelago, 
i. 53 (Javanese). Riedel, .r ///'//(’- 6V/ 
kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en 
Papua, p. 41 (natives of Ambon and 
Uliase). vtm Kotzebue, op. cit. iii. 165 
(natives of Radack), 215 (Pelew Is- 
landers). Hale, U.S. Explorifig Ex- 

peditioii. VoL VI. Ethnography aaid 

Eliiloloqy, p. 95 (Kingsmill Islanders). 
Macdonahl, Oceania, p. 195 (Efatese). 
Erskine, Cruise amo 7 ig the Islands of 
the. IVestern Pacife, ]3. 273 sq. ; 

Williams and Calvert, lu/i and the 
Eijians, p. no; Anderson, 1 ravel in 
P'ijl a 7 id New Caledonia, p. 134 sq. 
(Eijians). Edlis, Polynesian Pesea/rhes, 

i. 95. Idem, Tour 'tluough Hawaii, p. 

346 sq. h'orster, op. cit. ii. 158 
(Taiulians), 364 (natives of Tana), 394 
(South Sea Islanders generally). C<-)ok, 
IPyage round the 11 ' oriel, p. 4.0 
(Tahitians). I'regear, ‘ Niue,’ in Jour. 
Polynesian Soc. ii. 13 (Savage Is- 
landers). Turner, Samoa, ]). 114; 

Bri tchard , Polynesian Rem ini sconces, 
p. 132; Brencldey, duriiig the 

Cruise of H.A/.S. Cura^oa among the 
South Sea Islaiids, j). 76 (Samoans). 
Mariner, Natives of the Tonga Islands, 

ii. 154. Yatc, op. cit. p. 100; Diel- 
fenbach, op. cit. ii. 107 sq. ; Polack, 
Alanners and Customs of the Ncav 
Zealanders, ii. 155 sq. ; Angas, Savage 
Idfe a 7 id Scenes in A us 1 7 alia and jVe 7 .u 
Zealand, ii. 22 (Maoris). Cason, ‘ Man- 
ners and Customs of the Dieyerie Tribe,’ 
in Woods, Elative Tribes of South 
Australia, p. 258 ; Brough Smyth, op. 
cit. \. 25 ; Salvado, op. cit. p. 340 
(Australian aborigines). Ellis, History 
of iMadagascar, i. 198 ; Sil)ree, 'The 
Great African Island, pp. 126, 1 29 ; 
Rochon, Voyage to A/adagascar, p. 62 ; 
Little, AJadagascar, p. 61 ; .Sliaw, 

‘ Betsileo,’ in xlntananarivo Annual 
and Aladagascar Aiagcvmaie, ii. 82. 
Jiurchell, I'raveis in the Interior of 

Soutluvn Africa, ii. 54 (Bushmansj/549 
(Hottentot.s). Kolben, Ipescnt Slate of 

HOSPITALITY 

tion ^ — hospitality towards strangers. This custom pre- 
sents several remarkable characteristics, which, to all 
appearance, ill agree with their tribal or national exclusive- 
ness generally. The stranger is often welcomed with 
special marks of honour. The best seat is assigned to 
him ; the best food at the host’s disposal is set before 

the Cape of Good Hope^ i. r66, 337 ; Le 
Vaillant, 'fravels from the Cape of Good 
Hope, ii. 143 sq. ; vSrhinz, /heatseh- 
Sadwest Afriha, p. 81 (1 loUentDl.s). 
LichtenstL’in, Traiads i)i Southern 
Africa, i. 272 ; Leslie, A?non^the Zulus 
and Amatoigas, p. 203 ( Kafirs). Casalis, 
Basuto^, pp. 209, 224. Andersson, Lithe 
Ngami, p. 198 (Ovanilx)). Macdonald, 
Africana, i. 27, 263 (Kastern Central 
Africans). Wilson and Kells in, op. fit. 
i. 21 1, 225 (Waganda). Rovvdey, Africa 
Unveiled, p. 47 (natives of Maiv^anja, 
in the neiglihourhood of Lake Kyassa). 
Mew, Ldfc, I Panderings, and Labours 
in East Africa, pp, 102 (Wanika), 361 
(Taveta). Thomson, 7 'hrot/gh A/asai 
Land, p. 64 (Wa-kwafi, of the Taveta). 
Tuckey, Expedition to explore the River 
'Zaire, p. 374 (Congo natives). Losman, 
.Description of the Coast of Guitica, p. 
108. ]3iirton, 7 \oo 7 rips to Go)-illa 
/.and, i. 106 ( M])ongwe). Idem, Abco~ 
htifa, i. 303 (Voniha). (.'ail lie, Travels 
through Centro/ A/ f ica, i. 165 (Hagos). 
Chavanne, Die Sahara, p. 185 ( roii- 
areg), ] fanoteau and 1 .etoiirneux, La 
JPcihylie, ii. 45 sqq. Mun/.inger, Ost- 
afrihatiischc Studicn, p. 534 fllarea). 
Lol)o, Ihya^c to Abyssinia, p. 82 sq. 

For the deteriorating inlluenee wliich 
contact with a “higher culture” exer- 
cises on savage hospitality, see Nansen, 
Jnrst Crossing of Greenland, ii. 306 .<•</. ; 
Fdlis, Tour thjough Hawaii, p. 346; 
von Kotzebue, op. cit. iii. 25o(lIawaii- 
ans) ; Mcadta Ride through the Dis~ 
iurbed Districts of H w Zealcutil, p. 164 ; 
Dieffenbach, op. cit. ii. 107, 108, no. 

^ According to a law of the Peruvian 
Incas, strangers and travellers .sliould 
lie treated as guests, and public housc.s 
were provided for them (Garcilasso tie 
la ^Tga, First Part of (he Royal Com- 
mentaries of the Vneas, ii, 34). For 
Yucatan, see Landa, Jlelacion de las 
cosas de Yncalan, p. 134. Though 
hospitality, according to Mr. Wells 

Williams {A fiddle Khtgdom, i. 835), is 
not a trait of the character of the 
modern Chinese, kindness to strangers 
and travellers is enjoined in their moral 
and religious books {(Jhalmers, 
‘ Chinese Natural Theology,’ in China 
Revieav, v. 281. Douglas, Confucian- 
ism atid 7 'aouism, p. 273. Indo- 
Chinese Gleaner, iii. 160). In Corea it 
would be a grave and .shameful thing to 
reyfuse a portion of one’s meal with any 
person. knt)wn or unknown, who pre- 
sents himself at eating-time (Clriffis, 
Corea, p. 288). ]''or the Hebrews, see 

Gcjiesis, xviii. 2 sqq., xxiv. 31 sqq. ; 
Lecd liens, xix. 9 sq., xxv. 35 ; Deute- 
ronomy, xiv. 29, xvi. II, 14 ; Judges, 
xix. 17 sqq. ; Job, xxxiv. 32 ; also 
13ertholet, Die Stellung der Israeliten 
und der Jude n zu. den IDemden, jk 22 
sqq., and Nowack, Lehrbueh der 
hebraisehen Archaologie,\). 186 jy. For 
M uhainmedans, see Lane, Alanners and 
Customs of the Alodcrn Egyptians, p. 
296 sq. ; Purckhardt, Notes on the 
Bedouins and JTahAbys, pp. 100-102, 
192 sqq. ; Wood, four/iey to the Source 
of the River Ox us, p. 148 ; Hamilton, 
/Researches in Asia Alinor, ii. 379. 
For ancient India, see Leist, Alt- 
arisches fits Gentium, pp. 39, 40, 
223 sqq. For (.Lecce, see Schmidt, 
Ethik der aiten Griechen, ii. 325 sqq. 
For Rome, see Leist, Alt-arisches Jus 
Civile, i. 355 sqq. ; von ^ Jhering, 
Geist des romischen Rechts, i. 227 sq. 
For ancient Teutons, see Grimm, 
Deutsche JRechfsaltcrthumer, p. 399 sq. 
Gummere, Germanic Of'igins, p. 162 
sqq. ; Keyser, Eftcrladte Skrifter, ii. pt. 
ik 93 > Weinhold, Altnordisches Leben, 
p. 441 sqq. ; Gudmimdsson and 
K«^limd, ‘Sitte,’ in Paul’s Grundriss 
der gernianisc hen Philologie, iii. 450 sq. 
For Slavonians, see Schrader, Real- 
Icxikon der indogermanischen Alter- 
ttemskunde, i. 270 ; Krauss, Die 
Siidslaven, p. 644 sqq. 

HOSPITALITY 

him ; he takes precedence over all the members of the 
household ; he enjoys extraordinary privileges. M. Hyades 
says of the Fuegians, ‘^Quelque encombree que soit une 
hutte, et si rcduite que soit la quantite d’alimcnts dont on 
dispose, le nouvel arrivant est toujours assure d’av^oir une 
place pres du foyer ct une part de la nourriture.” ^ The 
Mattoal of California, though they are sometimes heart- 
lessly indifferent even to their parents, ‘‘will divide the 
last shred of dried salmon with any casual comer who has 
not a shadow of claim upon them, except the claim of 
that exaggerated and supererogatory hospitality that 
savages use.” ^ A Creek Indian would not only receive 
into his house a traveller or sojourner of whatever nation 
or colour, but would treat him as a brother or as his own 
child, divide with him the last grain of corn or piece of 
flesh, and offer him the most valuable things in his posses- 
sion.^^ Among the Arawaks, “ when a stranger, and 
particularly an Ituropcan, enters the house of an Indian, 
every thing is at his command.” Notwithstanding the 
Karen’s suspicious nature, says Mr. Smeatori, his hospi- 
tality is unbounded. “Fie will entertain every stranger 
that comes, without asking a question. Fie feels himself 
disgraced if he docs not receive all comers, and give them 
the very best cheer he has. The wildest Karen will 
receive a guest with a grace and dignity and entertain 
him with a lavish hospitality that would become a duke. 
Hundreds of their old legends inculcate the duty of re- 
ceiving strangers without regard to pecuniary circum- 
stances either of host or guest.” Among many un- 
civilised peoples it is customary for a man to offer even 
his wife, or one of his wives, to the stranger for the time 
he remains his guest. The Bedouins of Nejd have a 

^ Hyades and Deniker, AHssioji ii. 230. Idcffi, IntUirn A'aficcs, p. 14. 
scieiiiifiqtie du Cap vii. 243. Cf. von Marlius, Beit) a^c zur lithno- 

Powers, op. cit. p. 112, graphie Antcrikd i. 692. 

^ Bartrani, ^ Creek and Cherokee ® Loyal Karens of Bnr 7 }iay 

Indians,’ in Trans. American Ethn. p. 144 sq. 

Soc. iii. pt. i. 42. Westerniarck, J/is/ory of Pluman 

^ Hilhouse, in Jonr. Roy. Geo. Soc. A/a^'riage, p. 73 sqq. 

576 ' f CHAP. 

A'-. . ^ 

saying thit “th6 guest wJIrfle in the house is its lord”^ * 
.and in the Institutes of ’iTishnu we rfead that, as the 
Brahmanas are lords over all other castes, and 'as a 
husband is lord over his wives, so the guest is the lord of 
his host.** 

Custom may require that hospitality should be shown 
even to an enemy. Captain Holm tells us of a Green- 
lander of bad character who, though he had murdered his 
step-father, was received, and for a long time entertained, 
when he paid a visit to the nearest kindred of the murdered 
man ; and this, as it seems, was agreeable to old custom.® 
Among the Aeneze Bedouins, says Burckhardt, all means 
are reckoned lawful to avenge the blood of a slain 
relative, “provided the homicide be not killed while he 
is a guest in the tent of a third person, or if he has taken 
refuge even in the tent of his deadly foe.” ^ In Afghan- 
istan “ a man’s bitterest enemy is safe while he is under 
his roof.” ^ We read in the Hitopadesa : — “ On even an 
enemy arrived at the house becoming hospitality should 
be bestowed ; the tree does not withdraw its sheltering 
shadow from the wood-cutter. . . . The guest is every- 
one’s superior.”® The old Norsemen considered it a duty 
to treat a guest hospitably even though it came out that 
he had killed the brother of his host.’’ A mediaeval 

^ Palgrave, Jotirney through Central 
and Eastern Arabia^ i. 345, 

^'Institutes of Vishnu^ Ixvii. 31. 
For other instances of the precedence 
granted to guests, see Man, in Jour, 
Ant hr. Inst. xii. 94, i4cS (Andaman 
[slanders) ; Buchanan, North American 
Judians^ p, 324 (Indians of rennsyl- 
vania) ; Lyon, Private Journal, p. 350 
(Kskiino of Igloolik) ; Seemann, Poyage 
of Herald f ii. 65 (Western Eskimo); 
Krasheninnikoff, op. cit. p, 21 1 (Kam- 
-chadales) ; Georgi, op. cit. iii. 153 sq. 
(Kamtihadales), 183 sq. (Chukchi). 
Ling Roth, Natives of Sarawak, i. 86 
(Sea Dyaks) ; Mariner, op. cit. ii. 154 
(Toiiga Islanders) ; New, op. cit. p. 102. 
(Wanika) ; llanoteau and Letouriieux, 
op, cit. ii. 45 (Kabyles) ; Wells Williams, 
op, cit. i. 540 (Chinese) ; Krauss, oi>. 
cit, p. 649 sq. (Southern Slavs). / 

^ Nansen, First Crossing of Green- 
land, ii. 305 sq. 

^ B\\\'c\dv3ixd{.,Bcdotiinsa7id IVahiibys, 
p. 87. Cf. Daunias, La vie A Labe , p. 
317 (Algerian Arabs). 

^ Elphinstone, Kingdom of Caubtit, 
i. 296. 

6 Ilitopculesa, Mitralabha, 60, 62. 

^ Grimm, Deutsche Fcchtsalterthff 

mer, p. 400. Weinhold, Altiiordisches 
Leben, p. 441. For other instances of 
hospitality towards enemies, see James, 
Expedition to the Rocky Mount ains, \, 
322 ( Omahas) ; Bartram, , fn . Trctnsl 
American Ethn. Soc. iii. pt. i. 42(CreeKS 
andCherokees); Lomonaco, ‘ Sidle razze 
indigene del 16x2iS\\Qj\n ' Archivio per 
r antropologia e la ctnologia,^-p\'iL, 57 
(Tupis); Krauss, op. cit, pp, 656 
( Mohtenet?rinesk 

ki^ht granted safe conduct tiirough his terrftories tb 
all who required it, including those who asserted pre- 
tensions which, if established, would deprive him of his 
possessions.^ 

To protect a guest is looked upon as a most stringent 
duty under all circumstances. Le Kabyle qui accorde 
son dndia doit, sous peine d’infamie, y faire honneur, dbt-il 
s’exposer a tons les dangers. . . . La violation de leur 
dndia est la plus grave injure que I’on puisse infliger a des 
Kabyles. Un homme qui viole, ou, suivant Texpression 
consacree, qui brise V dndia de son village ou de sa tribu, 
est puni de mort et de la confiscation de tons ses biens ; 
sa maison est d^molie.” ^ Among the Bedouins a breach 
of the law of dakheel would be considered a disgrace 
not only upon the individual but upon his family, and 
even upon his tribe, which never could be wiped out. 
No greater insult can be offered to a man, or to his clan, 
than to say that he has broken the dakheel'^ ^ Among 
the Aenezes, according to Burckhardt, a violation of 
hospitality, by the betraying of a guest, has not occurred 
within the memory of man.’’ In Egypt, most Bedawees 
will suffer almost any injury to themselves or their families 
rather than allow their guests to be ill-treated while under 
their protection.”^ Among the Kandhs, ‘‘for the safety 
of a guest life and honour are pledged ; he is to be con- 
sidered before a child ” ; in order to save his guest a man 
is even allowed to speak falsely, which is otherwise con- 
demned by them as a heinous sin.^ Vambt^ry tells us of 
cases in which the Kara-Kirghiz have preferred being 
harassed with war by the Chinese to surrendering to them 
such Chinese fugitives as have sought and received their 
hospitality.'^ Among the Ossetes the host not only 
considers himself responsible for the safety of his guest,' 

^ Mills, History of Chivalry, p. 154. bys, p. 100. Cf. ibid. p. 192. 

^ Hanoteau and Letourneux, op. ciL p Lane, Alodern Egyptians , p. 297, 
ii. 61 sq. ^ Macpherson, Memorials of Service 

^ Layardj f>iscoveries i?i the Rums itt India, pp. 65, 94. 
of Nineveh and Babylon, p. 317. , > ^ Vambery, Das Turkenvolk, p. 268. 

^ Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wakd^ Cf. ibid, p. 41 1 (Turkomans). 

vol 7 I p p 

HOSPITALITY 

but revenges the murder or wounding of the latter as 
he would that of a kinsman.” ^ In Albania it is considered 
infamous to leave an injury inflicted on a guest unavenged.*^ 
Among the Takue, though a man would accept compensa- 
tion for the murder of a relative, he would in all cases 
exact blood-revenge for the murder of his guest. ^ On 
the other hand, in Sierra Leone a guest is scarcely 
accountable for any faults which he may commit, whether 
through inadvertency or design, the host being considered 
as responsible for the actions of ‘ his stranger.’ ” 

Hospitality is not only regarded as a duty of the first 
order, but has, in a remarkable degree, been associated 
with religion. Among the doctrines held up for accept- 
ance by the religious instructors of the Iroquois there was 
the following precept : — If a stranger wander about 
your abode, welcome him to your home, be hospitable 
towards' him, speak to him with kind words, and forget 
not always to mention the Great Spirit.” '' The natives 
of Aneiteum, of the New Hebrides, maintained that 
generous hospitality would receive the highest reward in 
the Land of the Dead.^' The Kalmucks believe that want 
of hospitality will be punished by angry gods.^ The 
Kandhs say that the first duty which the gods ^have 
imposed upon man is that of hospitality ; and “ persons 
guilty of the neglect of established observances are 
punished by the divine wrath, either during their current 
lives, or when they afterwards return to animate other 
bodies,” the penalties being death, poverty, disease, the 
loss of children, or any other form of calamity. In the 
sacred books of India hospitality is repeatedly spoken of 
as a most important duty, the discharge of which will be 

^ von Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, i. 
p. 412. 214. 

Gopcevic, Oberalbanien 7 md seine ® Morgan, League of the Lroquo^, 
p. 328. p. 172. 

^ Mimzinger, Ostafrikanische Stu~ ^ In^Ws, L71 the Neiv Hebrides, \>, 
diejt, p. 208. Among the Barea and Bergmann, op. cit. ii. 281 sq. 

Kunama a man avenges the death of 8 Maepherson, ‘ Religious Opinions 
his guest by killing the guest of the and Observances of the Khonds,’ in 
murderer [ibid. p. 477). Jour. Toy. Asiatic Soc. vii. 196. 

^ Winterbottom, Native Africans in 

xxrv 

HOSPITALITY 

amply rewarded. “The inhospitable man,” the Vedic 
singer tells us, “acquires food in vain. I speak the 
truth — it verily is his death. . . . He who eats alone 
is nothing but a sinner.” ^ “ He who does not feed 

these five, the gods, his guests, those whom he is bound 
to maintain, the manes, and himself, lives not, though he 
breathes.” ^ According to the Vishnu Purana, a person 
who neglects a poor and friendless stranger in want 
of hospitality, goes to hell.^ On the other hand, by 
honouring guests a householder obtains the highest 
reward.^ “ He who entertains guests for one night 
obtains earthly happiness, a second night gains the middle 
air, a third heavenly bliss, a fourth the world of un- 
surpassable bliss ; many nights procure endless worlds. 
That has been declared in the Veda.” It is said 
in the Mahabharata that “ he who gives food freely 
to a fatigued wayfarer, whom he has never seen 
before, obtains great virtuous merit.” According to 
Hesiod, Zeus himself is wrath with him who does evil 
to a suppliant or a guest, and at last, in requital for his 
deed, lays on him a bitter penalty." Plato says ; — “ In 
his relations to strangers, a man should consider that 
a contract is a most holy thing, and that all concerns 
and wrongs of strangers are more directly dependent 
on the protection of God, than wrongs done to citizens. 

. . . He who is most able is the genius and the god of 
the stranger, who follows in the train of Zeus, the god of 
strangers. And for this reason, he who has a spark of 
caution in him, will do his best to pass through life 
without sinning against the stranger. And of offences 
committed, whether against strangers or fellow-country- 
men, that against suppliants is the greatest.” ** Similar 
opinions prevailed in ancient Rome. Jus hospitii, whilst 

^ I^ig-Veda, x. 117. 6. ^ Mahabharata, Vana Parva, ii. 61, 

2 Laws of Manu, iii. 72. Cf. In- pt. v. p. 5. 
stitutes of Vishnu, \xviu 4^. ^ Hesiod, Opera et dies, 331 s^. 

^ Vishnu Purdha, p. 305. (333 sq.), 

* Institutes of Vishnu, Ixvii. 28, 32. Plato, I.eges, v. 729 sq. 

® Apastamba, ii. 3. 7. 16. 

P P 2 

forming no part of the civil law, belonged to fas \ the 
stranger, who enjoyed no legal protection, was, as a guest, 
protected by custom and religion.^ The dit hospitales and 
Jupiter were on guard over him;^ hence the duties 
towards a guest were even more stringent than those 
towards a relative.® Cassar* and Tacitus ® attest that the 
Teutons considered it impious to injure a guest or to 
exclude any human being from the shelter of their roof. 
The God of Israel was a preserver of strangers.® In the 
Talmud hospitality is described as “the most important 
part of divine worship ,” '' as being equivalent to the duty 
of honouring father and mother,® as even more meritorious 
than frequenting the synagogue.® Mohammedanism like- 
wise regards hospitality as a religious duty.*® “ Whoever,” 
said the Prophet, “ believes in God and the day of resur- 
rection, must respect his guest.” ** But the idea that a 
guest enjoys divine protection prevailed among the Arabs 
long before the tirnes of Muhammed.*® The Bedouins 
say that the guests are “guests of God.”*® The Christian 
Church, again, regarded hospitality as a duty imposed by 
Christ.*^ 

That a stranger, who under other circumstances is 
treated as an inferior being or a foe, liable to be robbed 
and killed with impunity, should enjoy such extraordinary 
privileges as a guest, is certainly one of the most curious 
contrasts which present themselves to a student of the 
moral ideas of mankind. It may be asked, why should 

^ Servius, In Virgilii Alneidos^ iii. ® Psalms, cxlvi. 9. 

55: ‘‘Fas omne ; et cognationis, et ^ T>Q\itiich, Literary Pemains, p. 57. 

iuris hospitii.” von Jhering, Geisl des ^ Kiddushin, fol. 39 B, quoted by 

rdntischen Reckts, i. 227. Leist, Alt- Ilershon, 'Preasures of the Talmud, 
arise hes fits Civile, i. 103, 358 sq. p. 145* 

- Servius, In Virgilii Aineidos, i. ^ Sabbath, fol. 127 A, quoted by 
736. Livy, Historhe Romano:, xxxix. Katz, Per wahre Talmudjude, p. 103. 
51. Tacitus, XV. 52. Plautus, Koran, sqq. 

Peenuli, V. I. 25. "Lane, Arabian Society in the Afiddle 

^ Gellius, Noctes Attica, v. 13. 5 : Ages, p. 142. 

“ In officiis apud maiores ita observa- Wellhausen, Reste a 7 'abischen Hei- 

tum est, primurn tutelae, deinde hospiti, dentnms, p. 223 sq. 
deinde clienti, turn cognato, postea Doughty, Arabia Deserta, i. 228, 

affini.” 504. 

^ Caesar, De hello Gallico, vi. 23. Laurent, Etudes sur Vhistoire de 

^ Tacitus, Ger 77 iania, 21. t HumanitS, vii. 346. 

HOSPITALITY 

he be received at all ? Of course, he stands in need of 
protection and support, but why should those who do not 
know him care for that ? 

One answer is that his helpless condition may excite 
pity ; facts seem to prove that even among savages the 
altruistic feelings, however narrow, can be stirred by the 
sight of a suffering and harmless stranger. Another 
answer is that the host himself may expect to reap benefit 
from his act. And there can be little doubt that the 
rules of hospitality are in the main based on egoistic 
considerations. 

It has been justly observed that in uncivilised countries, 
where there is no public accommodation for travellers, 
“ hospitality is so necessary, and so much required by the 
mutual convenience of all parties, as to detract greatly 
from its merit as a moral quality.” ^ When the stranger 
belongs to a community with which a reciprocity of inter- 
course prevails, it is prudent to give him a hearty reception ; 
he who is the host to-day may be the guest to-morrow. “ If 
the Red Indians are hospitable,” says Domenech, “ they 
also look for their hospitality being returned with the 
same marks of respect and consideration.” Moreover, 
the stranger is a bearer of news and tidings, and as such 
may be a welcome guest where communication between 
different places is slow and rare.^ During my wanderings 
in the remote forests of Northern Finland I was con- 

stantly welcomed with the phrase, “ What news ? ” But 
the stranger may be supposed to bring with him some- 

thing which is valued even 
luck or blessings. 

^ Winterbottom, op. cit. i. 214. 

Domenech, Seven Years' Resilience 
in the Great Deserts of North America., 
ii. 319. Cf Dunbar, ‘Pawnee In- 
dians,’ in Magazine of Amerieaft His- 
tory., viii. 745 ; Brett, Indian Tribes of 
Guiana, p. 347 ; Bernau, Missionary 
Labours in British Guiana, p. 51 ; von 
den Steinen, Unter den Naturvolkem 
Ze^itral-Brasiliens, p. 333 sq. (Bakairi); 
Georgi, op. cit. hi. 154 (Kamchadales) ; 
Smeaton, op. cit. p. 146 (Karens) ; 

more highly, namely, good 

Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 95 
(Society Islanders) ; Pritchard, Poly- 
nesian Reminiscences, p. 132, and 
Brenchley, op. cit. p. 76 (Samoans) ; 
Williams and Calvert, op. cit. p. no, 
and Anderson, Notes of Travel in Fiji 
and New Caledonia, p. 135 (Fijians) ; 
Chavanne, Die Sahara, p. 393. (Arabs 
of the Sahara). 

3 Cf. Wright, Domestic Manners and 
Sentiments in England during the 
Middle Ages, p. 329. 

HOSPITALITY 

During the first days of my stay at Demnat, in the 
Great Atlas, the natives in spite of their hostility towards 
Europeans, said they were quite pleased with my coming 
to see them, because I had brought with me rain and an 
increase of the import of victuals, which just before my 
arrival had been very scarce. So, too, whilst residing 
among the Andjra mountaineers in the North of Morocco, 
I was said to be a person with “ propitious ankles,” 
because, since I settled down among them, the village 
where I stayed was frequently visited by Shereefs — pre- 
sumed descendants of the Prophet Muhammed — who are 
always highly valued guests on account of the baraka, or 
holiness, with which they are supposed in a smaller or 
greater degree to be endowed. The stranger may be a 
source of good fortune either involuntarily, as a bearer of 
luck, or through his good wishes ; and there is every 
reason to hope that he will, if treated hospitably, return 
the kindness of his host with a blessing. According to 
the old traveller d’Arvieux, strangers who come to an 
Arab village are received by the Sheikh with some such 
words as these; — “You are welcome; praised be God 
that you are in good health ; your arrival draws down 
the blessing of heaven upon us ; the house and all 
that is in it is yours, you are masters of it.” * It is said 
in one of the sacred books of India that through a 
Brahmana guest the people obtain rain, and food through 
rain, hence they know that “ the hospitable reception of a 
guest is a ceremony averting evil.” ^ When we read in the 
Laws of Manu that “ the hospitable reception of guests 
procures wealth, fame, long life, and heavenly bliss,” ® it 
is also reasonable to suppose that this supernatural reward 
is a result of blessings invoked on the host. In the 
‘ Suppliants ’ of Aeschylus the Chorus sings : — “ Let us 
utter for the Argives blessings in requital of their bless- 
ings. And may Zeus of Strangers watch to their fulfil- 
ment the rewards that issue from a stranger’s tongue, that 

^ d’Arvieux, Travels in Arabia the Vasishtha^ xi. 13. 

Vesart, p. 131 sq, ® Laws of Manu^ iii. 106. 

HOSPITALITY 

they reach their perfect goal.” ' We can no'^ understand 
the eagerness with which guests are sought for. When a 
guest enters the hut of a Kalmuck, “ the host, the hostess, 
and everybody in the hut, rejoice at the arrival of the 
stranger as at an unexpected fortune.” ^ Among the 
Arabs of Sinai, “ if a stranger be seen from afar coming 
towards the camp, he is the guest for that night of the 
first person who descries him, and who, whether a grown 
man or a child, exclaims, ‘ There comes my guest.’ 
Such a person has a right to entertain the guest that night. 
Serious quarrels happen on these occasions ; and the 
Arabs often have recourse to their great oath — ‘ By the 
divorce (from my wife) I swear that I shall entertain the 
guest ; ’ upon which all opposition ceases.” * It is also 
very usual in the East to eat before the gate of the house 
where travellers pass, and every stranger of respectable 
appearance is invariably requested to sit down and partake 
of the repast.** Among the Maoris, “ no sooner does a 
stranger appear in sight, than he is welcomed with the 
usual cry of ‘ Come hither ! come hither ! ’ from 
numerous voices, and is immediately invited to eat of 
such provisions as the place affords.” 

If efficacy is ascribed to the blessings of even an ordinary 
man, the blessings of a stranger are naturally supposed to 
be still more powerful. For the unknown stranger, like 
everything unknown and everything strange, arouses a 
feeling of mysterious awe in superstitious minds. The 
Ainos say, “ Do not treat strangers slightingly, for you 
never know whom you are entertaining.” ® According to 
the Hitopadesa, “ a guest consists of all the deities.” ’’ It 
is significant that in the writings of ancient India, Greece, 
and Rome, guests are mentioned next after gods as due 
objects of regard.® Thus Aeschylus speaks of a man’s 

^ Aeschylus, SuppHces^ 632 sqq, ® Yate, op. cit. p. 100. Cj. Turner, 

Bergniann, op. cit. ii. 282. Nineteen Vrars in Polynesia, p. 325 

, 8 Bedouins and PPahdbys, (Samoans) ; Sproat, op. cit. p. 57 (Ahts). 

p. 198. ^ Batchelor, Ainu and their Folk- 

4 Idem, Arabic Proverbs, p. 218. Lore, p. 259. 

Travels throtigh ^ Hitopadesa, Mitralabha, 65. 

Syria and E^ypt, i. 413. ® Anugitd, 3, 31 {Sacred Books of the 

“ imf^ous cd^duct to a god, or a stranger, or to his parents 
dear.” ^ According to Homeric notions, “J:he gods, in 
the likeness of strangers from far countries, put on all 
manner of shapes, and wander through the cities, 
beholding the violence and the righteousness of men.” ^ 
The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews writes, “ Be 
not forgetful to entertain strangers : for thereby some 
h^ve entertained angels unawares.” ® 

The visiting stranger, however, is regarded not only as 
a potential benefactor, but as a potential source of evil. He 
may bring with him disease or ill-luck. He is commonly 
believed to be versed in magic ; * and the evil wishes and 
curses of a stranger are greatly feared, owing partly to his 
quasi-supernatural character, partly to the close contact in 
which he comes with the host and his belongings. 

In the Mentawey Islands, in the Malay Archipelago, “ if 
a stranger enters a house where there are children, the 
father or some other member of the family who happens 
to be present, takes the ornament with which the children 
decorate their hair, and hands it to the stranger, who holds 
it in his hands for a while, and then gives it back”; this 
is supposed to protect the child from the evil effect which 
the eye of a stranger might have on it.'* With reference 
to the Californian Porno, Mr. Powers states, “ Let a 
perfect stranger enter a wigwam and offer the lodge-father 
a string of beads for any object that takes his fancy— 
merely pointing to it, but uttering no word — and the 
owner holds himself bound in savage honour to make 
the exchange, whether it is a fair one or not.” When we 
compare this idea of “ savage honour ” with certain cases 
mentioned in the last chapter, we cannot doubt that it is 
based on superstitious fear ; indeed, the next day the 
former owner of the article “ may thrust the stranger 
through with his spear, or crush his forehead with 
a pebble from his sling, and the bystanders will look 

jScts/f viii. 243, 361). Gellius, Nodes ® Heh 7 'ews^ xiii. 2. 

Atticcc^ V. 13. 5. ^ Frazer, Golden Bought i. 298 sqq, 

^ Ae.schylus, Eumenides^ 270 sq. ® Rosenberg, Der Malayische Areht- 

- Odyssey y xvii. 485 sqq. pely p. 198. 

upon it as only the rectification of a bad bargain.” ^ 
Among the African Herero “ no curse is regarded as 
heavier than that which one who has been inhospitably 
treated would hurl at those who have driven him from 
the hearth.” ^ According to Greek ideas, guests and 
suppliants had their Erinyes ® — personifications of their 
curses ; and it would be difficult to attribute any other 
meaning to “ the genius (Sai/icop) and the god of the 
stranger, who follow in the train of Zeus,” spoken of by 
Plato, and to the Roman Mi hospitales, in their capacity of 
avengers of injuries done to guests. Aeschylus represents 
Apollo as saying, “ I shall assist him (Orestes), and rescue 
my own suppliant ; for terrible both among men and 
gods is the wrath of a refugee, when one abandons him 
with intent.” ^ It is no doubt the same idea that the 
Chorus in the ‘Suppliants’ expresses, in a modified 
form, when singing : — “ Grievous is the wrath of Zeus 
Petitionary. ... I must needs hold in awe the wrath 
of Zeus Petitionary, for that is the supremest on earth.” 
Apastamba’s Aphorisms contain a sutra the object of 
which is to show the absolute necessity of feeding a guest, 
owing to the fact that, “ if offended, he might burn the 
house with the flames of his anger ” ; ® for “ a guest comes 
to the house resembling a burning fire,” “ a guest rules 
over the world of Indra.” * According to the Institutes 
of Vishnu, “ one who has arrived as a guest and is obliged 
to turn home disappointed in his expectations, takes away 
from the man to whose house he has come his religious 
merit, and throws his own guilt upon him ”; ■' and the 

^ Powers, cit. p. 153. The same 
privilege as “the perfect stranger” 
possesses among the Porno, was granted 
by the tribes of the Niger Delta to the 
Ibo girl who was destined to be offered 
as a sacrifice. She “ w^as allowed to 
claim any piece of cloth or any orna- 
ment she set her eyes upon, and the 
native to whom it belonged was obliged 
to present it to her” (Comte de 
Card), ‘Ju-Ju Laws and Customs,’ in 
Joui\ Anthr. Inst, xxix. 54), 

^ Ratzel, History of Mankind^ ii. 

480. 

^ Plato, Epistoh?^ viii. 357. Apollo- 
nius Rhodiiis, Argonautica,^ iv. 1042 stj, 

* Aeschylus, Eumenides, 232 sqij. 

® Jdefu^ Suppiices, 349, 489. 

® Sacred Books of the East^ ii. 114, 
n. 3- . 

" Apastamba, ii. 3. 6. 3. 

® Laws of A/anu, iv. 182. 

® Institutes of Vishnu^ Ixvii. 33. 

HOSPITALITY 

same idea is found in many other ancient books of 
India.’ That a dissatisfied guest, or a Brahmana,^ thus 
takes with him the spiritual merit of his churlish host, 
allows of a quite literal interpretation. In Morocco, a 
Shereef is generally unwilling to let a stranger kiss his 
hand, for fear lest the stranger should extract from him 
his baraka, or holiness ; and the Shereefs of Wazzan are 
reputed to rob other Shereefs, who visit them, of their 
holiness, should the latter leave behind any remainder of 
their meals, even though it be only a bone. 

The efficacy of a wish or a curse depends not only upon 
the potency which it possesses from the beginning, owing 
to certain qualities in the person from whom it originates, 
but also on the vehicle by which it is conducted — just as 
the strength of an electric shock depends both on the 
original intensity of the current and on the condition of 
the conductor. As particularly efficient conductors are 
regarded blood, bodily contact, food, and drink. In 
Morocco, the duties of a host are closely connected with 
the institution of /-‘^r, one of the most sacred customs 
of that country. If a person desires to compel another to 
help him, or to forgive him, or, generally, to grant some 
request, he makes l-'-ar for him. He kills a sheep or a 
goat or only a chicken at the threshold of his house, or at 
the entrance of his tent ; or he grasps with his hands 
either the person whom he invokes, or that person’s child, 
or the horse which he is riding ; or he touches him with 
his turban or a fold of his dress. In short, he establishes 
some kind of contact with the other person, to serve as a 
conductor of his wishes and of his conditional curses. It 
is universally believed that, if the person so appealed to does 
not grant the request, his own welfare is at stake, and that 
the danger is particularly great if an animal has been killed 
at his door, and he steps over the blood or only catches a 
glimpse of it. As appears from the expression, “ This is 
l-'-ar for you if you do not do this or that,” the blood, or 

^ V^asishtlm^ viii. 6. Laws of Mami, Vasishtha^ viii. 6, Laws of Manii^ 

ii. 100, Hitopadesa^ Mitralabha, 64. iii. loo. 

HOSPITALITY 

the direct bodily contact, is supposed to transfer to the 
other person a conditional curse : — If you do not help 
me, then you will die, or your children will die, or some 
other evil will happen to you. So also the owner of a 
house or a tent to which a person has fled for refuge must, 
in his own interest, assist the fugitive, who is in his ’•ar ; 
for, by being in his dwelling, the refugee is in close contact 
with him and his belongings. Again, the restraint which 
a common meal lays on those who partake of it is con- 
spicuous in the usual practice of sealing a compact of 
friendship by eating together at the tomb of some saint. 
The true meaning of this is made perfectly clear by the 
phrase that “ the food will repay ” him who breaks the 
compact. The sacredness of the place adds to the efficacy 
of the imprecation, but its vehicle, the real punisher, is 
the eaten food, because it embodies a conditional curse. 

Now the idea underlying these customs is certainly not 
restricted to Morocco. As will be shown in subsequent 
chapters, blood is very commonly used as a conductor of 
conditional curses ; for instance, one object of the practice 
of sacrifice is to transfer an imprecation to the god by 
means of the blood of the victim. Bodily contact is 
another common means of communicating curses ; and 
this accounts for many remarkable cases of compulsory 
hospitality and protection which have been noticed in 
different quarters of the world. In Fiji “ the same native 
who within a few yards of his house would murder a 
coming or departing guest for sake of a knife or a hatchet, 
will defend him at the risk of his own life as soon as he 
has passed his threshold.”^ In the Pelew Islands “an 
enemy may not be killed in a house, especially not in the 
presence of the host.” If an Ossetian receives into his 
house a stranger whom he afterwards discovers to be a man 
to whom he owes blood-revenge, this makes no difference 
in his hospitality; but when the guest takes his leave, the 

^ Wilkes, l/.S. Exploring Expedu Stidsee,’ in Journal des Museum Godef- 
Hon, iii. 77. froy, iv. 25. 

2 Kubary, ‘ Die Palau- Inseln in der 

HOSPITALITY 

host accompanies him to the boundary of the village, and 
on parting from him exclaims, “ Henceforth beware ! ” ^ 
Among the Kandhs, if a man can make his way by any 
means into the house of his enemy he cannot be touched, 
even though his life has been forfeited to his involuntary 
host by the law of blood-revenge.^ In none of these cases 
is an explanation given of the extraordinary privilege 
granted to the stranger ; but it seems highly probable that 
it has the same origin as the exactlysimilar custom prevalent 
among the Moors. In other words, as soon as the stranger 
has come in touch with a person by entering his house, he 
is thought to be able to transmit to that person and his 
family and his property any evil wishes he pleases. So, 
also, in the East any stranger may place himself under the 
protection of an Arab by merely touching his tent or his 
tent-ropes,^ and after this is done “ it would be reckoned 
a disgraceful meanness, an indelible shame, to satisfy even 
a just vengeance at the expense of hospitality.” ■* “ Amongst 
the Shammar,” says Layard, “ if a man can seize the end 
of a string or thread, the other end of which is held by his 
enemy, he immediately becomes his Dakheel [or protegf\. 
If he touch the canvas of a tent, or can even throw 
his mace towards it, he is the Dakheel of its owner. If 
he can spit upon a man or touch any article belonging to 
him with his teeth, he is Dakhal, unless of course, in case 

of theft, it be the person who caught him The 

Shammar never plunder a caravan within sight of their 
encampment, for as long as a stranger can see their tents 
they consider him their Dakheel .” '' But one of the 
Bedouin tribes described by Lady Anne and Mr. Blunt, 
whilst ready to rob the stranger who comes to their tents, 

^ von Haxthausen, Transcaucasia^ 412. 
p. 412. ® Layard, op, cit, p. 317 sq. Burck- 

Macpherson, Memorials of Service hardt says {^Bedouins and Wahdbys^ p. 
m India ^ p. 66. 72) that one of the most common oaths 

^ Robertson Smith, Kinship and in the domestic life of the Bedouins is 
Marriage in Early Arabia j p. 48. “to take hold with one hand of the 
Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates^ wasat, or middle tent-pole, and to 
ii- 21 1, swear ‘ by the life of this tent and its 

* Chasseboeiif de Volney, op, cit, i, owners.’” 

HOSPITALITY 

“ count their hospitality as beginning only from the 
moment of his eating with them.” ^ All Bedouins regard 
the eating of “ salt ” together as a bond of mutual friend- 
ship, and there are tribes who — quite in accordance with 
the Moorish principle, “ the food will repay you ” — 
require to renew this bond every twenty-four hours, or 
after two nights and the day between them, since other- 
wise, as they say, “ the salt is not in their stomachs,” ^ 
and can therefore no longer punish the person who breaks 
the contract. The “ salt ” which gives a claim to protec- 
tion consists in eating even the smallest portion of food 
belonging to the protector.® The Sultan Saladin did not 
allow the crusader Renaud de Chatillon, when brought 
before him as a prisoner, to quench his thirst in his tent, 
for, had he drunk water there, the enemy would have been 
justified in regarding his life as safe.* We find a similar 
custom among the Omaha Indians : “ should an enemy 
appear in the lodge and receive a mouthful of food or 
wafer, or put the pipe in his mouth, he cannot be injured 
by any member of the tribe, as he is bound for the time 
being by the ties of hospitality, and they are compelled to 
protect him and send him home in safety.” ® In these 
and similar cases, where there is no common meal, the 
guest may nevertheless transmit to his host a curse by 
the exceedingly close contact established between him 
and the food or drink or tobacco of the host, accord- 
ing to the principle of pars pro toto. This is an idea 
very familiar to the primitive mind. It lies, for instance, 
at the bottom of the common belief that a person may 
bewitch his enemy by getting hold of some of his spittle 
or some leavings of his food — a belief which has led 
to the custom of guests carrying away with them all they 
are unable to eat of the food which is placed before them, 

^ Blunt, op. cit. ii. 21 1 . MSmoires de P Institut de France^ 

^ Burton, Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah Acad^mie des Inscriptions et Belles’^ 
and Meccahf ii. 1 1 2, Doughty, op. cit. Lettres, xv. pt. ii. 346 jy. 
i. 228, Quatrem^re, loc. cit. p. 346. 

3 Burckhardt, Bedotdns and tVa- ® Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in 
hdbys, p. 187. Quatremere, ‘ Memoire Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 271. 
sur les asiies chez les Arabes,’ in 

HOSPITALITY 

out of dread lest the residue of their meal should be eaten 
by somebody else.^ The magic wire may conduct impre- 
cations in either direction. In Morocco, if a person gives 
to another some food or drink, it is considered dangerous, 
not only for the recipient to receive it without saying, 
“In the name of God,” but also for the giver to give it 
without uttering the same formula, by way of precaution.® 
The stranger thus being looked upon as a more or less 
dangerous individual, it is natural that those who are 
exposed to the danger should do what they can to avert 
it. With this end in view certain ceremonies are often 
performed immediately on his arrival. Many such recep- 
tion ceremonies have been described by Dr. Frazer,® but 
I shall add a few others which for us are of particular 
interest as fresh illustrations, it seems, of the principle 
of transference in connection with hospitality. I am told 
by a native that among some of the nomadic Arabs of 
Morocco, as soon as a stranger appears in the village, 
some water, or, if he be a person of distinction, some milk, 
is presented to him. Should he refuse to partake of it, he is 
not allowed to go freely about, but has to stay in the village 
mosque. On asking for an explanation of this custom, I 
was told that it is a precaution against the stranger ; should 
he steal or otherwise misbehave himself, the drink would 
cause his knees to swell so that he could not escape. In 
other words, he has drunk a conditional curse.'* The 

^ Shortlandj Traditions and Super- 
stitions of the New Zea/anders^ pp. 86, 
97. Cf. Ellis, Tojir through Hawaii, 
p. 347 ; Harmon, op. cit. p. 361 
(Indians on the east side of the Rocky 
Mountain.s). 

Isaac also blessed his son by eating 
of his food {Genesis, xxvii. 4, 19, 
24). The subject of hospitality has 
been incidentally dealt with by Mr. 
Crawley in his interesting book, The 
Mystic Rose (p. 239 sijq. ; cf., also, p. 
124 sqq.). I must leave the reader to 
decide how far the theory I am here 
advocating, which mainly rests upon 
my researches in Morocco, coincides 
with his. All through his book Mr. 
Crawley lays much emphasis on the 

principle of transference ; but, if 1 
understand him rightly, he also regards 
commeiLsality as involving a suppo.sed 
“exchange of personality” between 
the host and the guest, in consequence 
of which “ injury done to R by A is 
equivalent to injury done by A to him- 
self” (p. 237). To this opinion I 
cannot subscribe [cf. infra, on the 
Origin and Development of the Altru- 
istic Sentiment). So far as I can see, 
the mutual obligations arising from eat- 
ing together are fundamentally based 
on the idea that the common meal 
serves as a conductor of conditional 
imprecations. 

^ Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 299 sqq. 

^ Cf, the “trial of jealousy” in 

HOSPITALITY 

Arabs of a tribe in Nejd “ welcome ” a guest by pouring 
on his head a cup of melted butter,^ the South African 
Herero greet him with a vessel of milk.^ Sir S. W. 
Baker describes a reception custom practised by the Arabs 
on the Abyssinian frontier, which is exactly similar to one 
form of l-ar of the Moors : — “ The usual welcome upon 
the arrival of a traveller, who is well received in an 
Arab camp, is the sacrifice of a fat sheep, that should be 
slaughtered at the door of his hut or tent, so that the 
blood flows to the threshold.”'^ Reception sacrifices also 
■‘occur among the Shulis,'* in Liberia,"' and in Afghanistan.'^ 
Among the Indians of North America, again, it is a 
common rule that a dish of food should be placed before 
the new-comer immediately on his arrival, that he should ^ 
taste of it even though he has just arisen from a feast, 
and that no word should be spoken to him or no question 
put to him until he has partaken of the food.^ Among 
the Omahas “the master of the house is evidently ill at 
ease, until the food is prepared for eating ; he will request 
his squaws to expedite it, and will even stir the fire him- 
self.” “ Among many peoples it is considered necessary 
that the host should give food to his guest before he eats 
himself. This is a rule on which much stress is laid 
in the literature of ancient India.'' A Brahmana never 
takes food “ without having offered it duly to gods and 
guests.” “ He who eats before his guest consumes the 
food, the prosperity, the issue, the cattle, the merit which 
his family acquired by sacrifices and charitable works. 

It is probable that this punishment has something to do 

Numbers^ V. w sqq.^ particularly verse 
22: “This water tliat caiiseth the 
curse shall go into thy bowels, to make 
thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to 
rot.” 

^ Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wakdbys^ 

p. 102. 

Ratzel, op. cit. ii. 480. 

3 Baker, Nile Tributaries oj Abys- 
sinia^ p. 94. 

^ Emin Pasha in Central Africa, p. 
107. 

TcmVihcPiX^Tlireshold Covenant 

® Frazer, Golden Bought i. 303. 

" Lafitau, op. cit. ii. 88. James, 
Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 
i. 321 sq. Morgan, League of the 
Iroquois, p. 328. Sproat, op, cit. p. 
57 (Ahts). 

^ James, op. cit, i. 322. 

Gautama, v. 25. 

Alahabharata, Shanti Parva, 

clxxxix. 2. sq., pt. xxviii. sq. p. 281. 

Apastamba, ii. 3. 7. 3. 

with' the evil eye of the. neglected guest," for the idea 
of eating' the evifrxi^sBes^^f others was evidently quite 
faa^ilfer to the aUcient Hindus.. It is sdd in Apastamba^ 
Aphorisnfe ; — “ A guest who is at enmity with his host 
^all ftdt eat his food, nor shall he eat the food of a host 
who hates him or accuses him of a crime, or of one ‘•who’ 
is suspected of a crime. For it is declared in the Veda, 
that he who eats the food of such a person eats' his 
guilt.” ^ In Tonga Islands, “at meals strangers pf 
foreigners are always shewn a preference, and females are 
helped before men of the same rank ” — according tq ou|? 
informant, “ because they are the weaker sex and, fe(iuire 
attention.”* As to the correctness of this explanation, 

» however, I have some doubts ; the Moors, also, at their 
feasts, allow the women to eat first, and one reason 
they give for this custom is that otherwise the hungry 
women might injure the men with their evil eyes. In 
Hawaii the host and his family do not at all partake of 
the entertainment with which a passing visitor is geher- 
ally provided on arriving among them ; ® and that their 
abstinence is due to superstitious fear is all the more 
probable as, among the same people, it is the custom for 
the guest invariably to carry away with him all that 
remains of the entertainment. '* 

Amongthe precautions taken against the visiting stranger'' 
kind and respectful treatment is of particularly great im- 
portance. No traveller among an Arabic-speaking people 
can fail to notice the contrast between the lavish welcome 
and the plain leave-taking. The profuse greetings mean 
that the stranger will be treated as a friend and not as an 
enemy ; and it is particularly desirable to secure his good- 
will in the beginning, since the first glance of an evil eye 
is always held to be the most dangerous. We can 
now realise that the extreme regard shown to a guest, and 
the preference given to him in every matter, must, in a 

^ Ibid. ii. 3. 6. 19 sq. Cf Proverbs^ ^ Mariner, op. cit. ii. 154, 

xxiii. 6: “Eat not the bread of him ^ Ellis, Tour through Hawaii^ p. 

that hath an evil eye. ” 347, Ibid. p. 347. 

' XXIV iffOSPITALITY 

large measure^ be (iue tQ fear of hi^. anger^i aa^ as 
to hope of l^s bte^sings. Evetl tifie pecijfcliat*^ ctistom 
which requires a host to |end his wife to a guest beitfpThes 
more inted when we consider the supposed danger of 
the stranger’s evil eye or his curses, as also the benefit^, 
^nieh may be supposed to result from his love.^ And 
wheit the guest leaves, it is wise of the host to accept jio 
rewatd ; for there may be misfortune in the stranger’s gift. 

Thal^t^ should be free of cost is implied in 

the very meaning of the word. Wherever the custom of 
v^ntertaining guests has been preserved pure and genuine, 
remuneration is neither asked nor expected ; indeed, to 
>ofFef payment would give offence, and to accept it would 
be disgraceful.^ Such a custom might no doubt result 
from absence or scarcity of money, as it cannot be ex- 
pected that the wandering stranger shall carry with him 
heavy presents to all his future hosts ; and where the inter- 
course is mutual, the hospitable man may hope one day to be 
paid back in his own coin. But it seems likely that the 
custom of not receiving payment from a guest is largely 
due to that same dread of strangers which underlies many 
other rules of hospitality. The acceptance of gifts is 
frequently considered to be connected with some danger. 
According to rules laid down in the sacred books of India, 
he who is about to accept gifts, or he who has accepted gifts, 
must repeatedly recite the four Vedic verses called Tarat- 
samandis ; ^ or all gifts are to be preceded by pouring out 

^ E^edc infonns us ((?/. p. 140) Veniaminof, quoted by Dali, aV. 

that the native women of Cireenland p. 397 (Aleuts). Bartram, in I'rans. 
thought themselves fortunate if an An- American Elhn, Soc. iii. pt. i. 42. 
gekokk, or prophet,” honoured them Foreman, Philippuie Islands^ p. 187 
with his caresses ; and some husbands (Tagalogs). Hunter, Annais of Rural 
even paid him for having intercourse Bengal, i. 216. Bogle, Nariaiive of 
with their wives, since they believed Mission to Tibet, p. 109 sq. Vambery, 
that the child of such a holy man could Das Tilt kenvolk, p. 614 (Turks in Asia 
not but be happier and better than Minor), i^tobinson, Biblical Researches 
others. Some similar belief may be in Palesiine, ii. t8 sq.\ Burton, Pil- 
held in regard to intercourse with a grimage to Al-Madinah iMeccah, 
guest, though I can adduce no direct i. 36 ; Blunt, op. cit. ii. 212 ; Lane, 
evidence for my supposition. Cf also Plodern Egyptians, p. 297 (Bedouins), 
the /W prhnae nociis accorded to priests Krauss, Die Sudslavcn, p. 648. 
(Westermarck, History of linifian ® Baudhdyaita, iv. 2. 4. 

Marriage, p. 76 sq.; cf. ibid. p. 80). 

VOL. I 

Q Q 

HOSPITALITY 

water into the extended palm of the recipient’s right handd 
evidently because the water is supposed to cleanse the gift 
from the baneful energy with which it may be saturated. On 
the other hand, “ without a full knowledge of the rules 
prescribed by the sacred law for the acceptance of presents, 
a wise man should not take anything, even though he may 
pine with hunger. But an ignorant man who accepts 
gold, land, a horse, a cow, food, a dress, sesamum-grains, 
or clarified butter, is reduced to ashes like a piece of 
wood. . . . Hence an ignorant man should be afraid of 
accepting any presents ; for by reason of a very small gift 
even a fool sinks into hell as a cow into a morass.”^ 
Moreover, a gift, to be accepted by a Brahmana, ought 
to be given voluntarily, not to be asked for.® So, too, 
Hebrew writers are anxious to inculcate the duty of giving 
alms with an ungrudging eye, as also of not giving any- 
thing before witnesses — the latter, perhaps, with a view to 
preventing the evil influence which is likely to emanate 
from an envious spectator.^ An Atlas Berber, who had 
probably never before had anything to do with a 
European, spat on the coin which I gave him for render- 
ing me a service, and my native friends told me that he 
did so for fear lest the coin, owing to some sorcery on my 
part, should not only itself return to me, but at the same 
time take with it all the money with which it had been in 
contact in his bag. Of the Annamites it is said that “ for 
fear of bringing ill-luck into the place the people even 
decline presents.” 

The duty of hospitality is probably always limited by 
time, even though, among some peoples, a guest is said 
to be entertained as long as he pleases to stay.® According 

^ Apastamba^ ii. 4. 9. 8. Buhler, Mandieans were also forbidden to eat 
in Sacred Books of the East^ ii. 122, food prepared by a stranger or to take 
n.*. a meal in his company (Brandt, Afa;2- 

^ Laws of Manila iv. 187, 188, 191. ddische Religion, p. 94). 

3 Ibid. iv. 247 sq. Ratzel, op. cit. iii. 418. 

^ Tobit, iv. 7. Kohler, in fewish ® Veniaminof, quoted by Dali, op. cit. 
Encyclopedia, i. 436. Cf St. Mattheiv, p. 397 (Aleuts). Morgan, League of 
vi. I sqq. ; Brandt, Mandaische Sck 7 df the Iroqtiois, p. 328. Bartram, in 
te 7 t, pp. 28, 64: “If you give alms Trans. American Ethn. Soc. iii. pt. i. 
do not do it before witnesses.” The 42 (Creeks and Cherokee Indians). 

HOSPITALITY 

to Teutonic custom, a guest might tarry only up to the 
third day.^ The Anglo-Saxon rule was, ‘‘Two nights 
a guest, the third night one of the household,'' that is, a ‘ 
slave.^ A German proverb says, “ Den ersten Tag eih 
Gast, den zweiten eine Last, den dritten stinkt er fast." ^ 
So, also, the Southern Slavs declare that “ a guest and a 
fish stpell on the third day." ^ Burckhardt states that, 
among the Bedouins, if the stranger intends to prolong 
his visit after a lapse of three days and four hours from 
the time of his arrival, it is expected that he should assist 
his host in domestic matters ; should he decline this, “ he 
may remain, but will be censured by all the Arabs of the 
camp."'* The Moors say that “the hospitality of the 
Prophet lasts for three days"; the first night the guest is 
entertained most lavishly, for then, but only then, he is 
“the guest of God." The Prophet laid down the following 
rule : “ Whoever believes in God and the day of resur- 
rection, must respect his guest ; and the time of being 
kind to him is one day and one night ; and the period of 
entertaining him is three days ; and after that, if he does 
it longer, he benefits him more ; but it is not right for a 
guest to stay in the house of the host so long as to 
incommode him." '' According to Javanese custom, it is 
a point of honour to supply a stranger with food and 
accommodation for a day and a night at least.' Among 
the Kalmucks special honour is paid to a stranger for one 
day only, whereas, if he remains longer, he is treated 
without ceremonies,^ Growing familiarity with the 
stranger naturally tends to dispel the superstitious dread 
which he inspired at first, and this, combined with the 
feeling that it is unfair of him to live at his host's expense 
longer than necessity requires, seems to account for the 

^ Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthiim- VVeinhold, op, cit. p. 447. 

p. 400. VVeinhold, A/lnordisches ^ Krauss, op. eit. p. 658. 

Leben^ p. 447. ■ UmckhariUj/sedou/ustiudlfWMbj'S, 

^ Quoted in Leges Edivardi Con- p. loi sq, 
fessof'is, 23: “Tuua nicte geste pe ® Arabiafi Society ^ p. 142 sq. 

|>irdde nicte agen hine.” Cf. Laws of ^ Crawfurd, op. cit. i. 53. 

C 7 iut^ ii. 28 ; Laws of Hlothlui^'e and ^ Bergmann, op. cit. ii. 285. 

EadriCy 15; Leges Henrici I. \\\\. 5. 

HOSPITALITY 

CH. XXIV 

5^6 

rapid decline of his extraordinary privileges and for the 
short duration of his title to hospitable treatment. 

Contrary to what is the case with other duties which 
men owe to their fellow-creatures/ in every progressive 
society we find hospitality on the wane. In the later days 
of Greece and Rome it almost dwindled into a survival.^ 
In the Middle Ages hospitality was extensively practised 
by high and low ; it was enjoined by the tenets of 
Chivalry,^ and the poorer people, also, considered it 
disgraceful to refuse to share their meals with a needy 
stranger.^ However, in the reign of Henry IV., Thomas 
Occlif complains of the decline of hospitality in England ; 
and in the middle of the Elizabethan age, Archbishop 
Sandys says that ‘‘ it is come to pass that hospitality itself 
is waxen a stranger.”^ The reasons for this decline are 
not difficult to find. Increasing intercourse between 
different communities or different countries not only makes 
hospitality an intolerable burden, but leads to the estab- 
lishment of inns, and thus hospitality becomes super- 
fluous. It habituates the people to the sight of strangers, 
and, in consequence, deprives the stranger of that mystery 
which surrounds the lonely wanderer in an isolated 
district whose inhabitants have little communication with 
the outside w^orld. And, finally, increase of intercourse 
gives rise to laws which make an individual protector 
needless, by placing the stranger under the protection 
of the State. 

^ 13ecker-(To]l, Chank/es, ii. 3 sqc/. Wright, Domestic Ma 7 iners and 

Idern^ Cat/us, iii. 28 sqq. Sentiments in England during the 

“ Sainte - Palaye, Afdfuoires sur Aliddle Ages, p. 329 sqq. 

Pancienne chevalerie, i. 310. ^ Sandys, Sermons, p. 401.

THE SUBJECTION OF CHILDREN 

From the modes of conduct which affect the life or 
bodily welfare of a fellow-creature we shall pass to those 
relating to personal freedom. In its absolute form the 
right of liberty may be granted to a perfect being, but has 
no existence on earth. Ever since the conduct of men 
became subject to moral censure, the right of doing what 
they pleased was eo ipso denied them ; and in resisting 
wrong men have not only in various ways interfered with 
the liberty of their fellow-creatures, but have considered 
such interference to be their right or even their duty. 
As to the question what conduct is wrong opinions have 
differed, and so also as to the proper means of interference ; 
but with neither of these questions are we concerned at 
present. Nor shall I deal with the subject of political 
liberty, nor with such restrictions as people lay on their 
own freedom by contract. 1 shall only consider facts 
bearing upon that state of subjection to which large classes 
of individuals are doomed by custom or law, on account 
of their birth or other circumstances beyond their own 
control — the subjection of children, wives, and slaves to 
their parents, husbands, or masters. 

Among the lower races every family has its head, who 
exercises more or less authority over its members. In 
some instances where the maternal system of descent 
prevails, a man’s children are in the power of the head of 

their mother’s family or of their maternal uhcle ; ^ but 
this is by no means the rule even among peoples who 
reckon kinship through females only. The facts which 
have been adduced as examples of the so-called “ mother- 
right ” in most instances imply, chiefly, that children are 
named after their mothers, not after their fathers, and that 
property and rank descend exclusively in the female line ; 
and this is certainly very different from a denial of paternal 
rights.® Among those Australian tribes which have the 
system of maternal descent, the father is distinctly said to 
be the master of his children.^ In Melanesia, where the 
clan of the children is determined by that of the mother, 
she is, to quote Dr. Codrington, “ in no way the head of 
the family. The house of the family is the father’s, the 
garden is his, the rule and government are his.” ® As 
regards the Iroquois — among whom, at the death of a 
man, his property is divided between his brothers, sisters, 
and mother’s brothers, whilst the property of a woman is 
transmitted to her children and sisters ® — we are told that 
the mother superintends the children, but that the word 
of the father is law and must be obeyed by the whole 
household.^ Among the Mpongwe, who reckon kinship 
through the mother, the father has by law unrestricted 
power over his children.® And in Madagascar, where 
children generally follow the condition of the mother,'-* the 
commands of a father or an ancestor are, among all 
the tribes, “ held as most sacredly binding upon his 
descendants.” Whatever might have been the case in 
earlier times, it is a fact beyond dispute that among the 
great bulk of existing savages children are in the power of 

^ Westermarck, History of Human 6i, 69. 

Marriage^ p. 40 sq, Grosse, Die » Codrington, Mela^iesiayis, p. 34. 

Formen der Familie^ p. 183 sq. Post, ® Westermarck, op. cit. p. iio, 

Afrika 7 iische JurisprtidenZy i. 51 sq. ^ Scaver, Narrative of the Life of 
Marsden, History of Sumatra.^ p. 262 Mrs. Mary Jemison^ p. 165. 
sq. ® lliibbe-Schleiden, Ethiopie^iy pp. 

2 Westermarck, op. cit. p. 97. 1 51, 153. 

^ See von Dargun, Mutterrecht und ^ Westermarck, op. cit. p. 103. 
Vaterrecht^ p. 3 sqq. Sibree, The Great African Island^ 

* Curr, The Australian RacOy i. 60, p. 326. 

their fatliC*, though he may to some extent have to share 
his authoi^ty with the mother. 

The extent of the father’s power, however, is subject 
to great variations. Among some savage peoples, as we 
have seen, he may destroy his new-born child ; among 
others infanticide is prohibited by custom. Among some 
he may sell his children,^ among others such a right is 
expressly denied him.^ Frequently he gives away his 
daughter in marriage without consulting her wishes ; but 
in other cases her own consent is required, or she is 
allowed to choose her husband herself.® Marriage by pur- 
chase does not imply that “ a girl is sold by her father 
in the same manner, and with the same authority, with 
which he would dispose of a cow.” ^ It seems that the 
paternal authority is always in some degree limited by 
public opinion. Among the Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush, 
for instance, though the head of the house is described as 
an autocrat in his own family, the son, backed by public 
opinion, may, and does, openly quarrel with and threaten 
his father in cases when the father’s actions have been of 
a particularly gross character.® 

The essence of dependence lies in obedience and sub- 
mission. To judge from what is said about children’s 
behaviour towards their parents, the authority of the 
father must among some savages be practically very slight. 

The South American Charruas “ ne defendent rien a leurs 
enfans, et ceux-ci n’ont aucun respect pour leurs peres.” ® Among 
the Brazilian Indians, according to von Martius, respect and 
obedience on the part of children towards their parents are un- 

1 Schadenberg, ‘Negritos der Philip- 
pinen,’ in Zeitschr. f. Ethnologic, xii. 
137. Post , A frikanisch e Jurisprudenz , 
i. 31 sij. (Bogos, Fantis, Dahomans). 
Paul i tschke , Eth nogyaph ie Nor dost - 
Afrtkasy p. 189. Leuschuer, in Stein- 
metz, Rechtsverhdltnisse, p. 16 sq. 
(Bakwiri). Among the Banaka and 
Bapuku, in the Cameroons, the father 
may give his daughter in payment for a 
(jebt, but not his son {ibid, p. 31). 

Kraft, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdlt- 
Ttissc, p. 285 (Wapokomo), Rautanen, 
ibid. p. 329 (Ondonga). 

^ Westermarck, op, cit, p. 215 sqq. 

^ Leslie, Among the Zulus and 
Amatongasy p. 194. Westermarck, op. 
cit. ch. X. 

® Scott Robertson, Kafirs of the 
Hindu-Kiishy p. 474. 

® Azara, Voyages dans V Ant^rique 
fniridionaky ii. 23. 

6oo THE SUBJECTION OF CHIL]^^||^ chap. 

known. ^ Among the Tarahumares of Mexico |^1:^i^children 
grow up entirely independent, and if angry a boy rn^^^n strike 
his father. ’’ 2 We are told that among the Aleuts pare^l^ “scarcely 
ever enjoy so much authority as to compel their own children 
to shew them the least obedience, or to go a single step in their 
service ^ but this does not seem to hold good of all of their 
tribes.^ Of the Kamchadales Steller states that the children 
insult their parents with all sorts of bad talk, stand in no fear 
of them, obey them in nothing, and are consequently never 
commanded to do anything, nor punished.^ 

Other savages, again, are by no means deficient in filial 
piety. ^ 

Among various Eskimo^ and North American Indian tribes^ 
children are described as very obedient to their parents. Parry 
says of the Eskimo of Winter Island and Igloolik that disobedi- 
ence is scarcely ever known, and that “a word or even a look 
from a parent is enough.”^ The Potawatomis hold the viola- 
tion of the advice and directions of their parents one of the most 
atrocious crimes.^^ In 'Fonga “filial duty is a most important 
duty and appears to be universally felt.” One of the chief 
duties which the Ainos taught their children was obedience to 
parents.^‘^ Among the Central Asiatic I'urks a son, whilst 
young, behaves as if he were his father’s slave.^^ Among the 

^ von Martin.s, in Jour. Roy. Geo. Alii Emin Pascha ins Hcrz tmt Afrika^ 

Soc. ii. 199. Cf. Southey, History oj p. 801 (Latiika). 

Brazil^ iii. 387 ((iuaycuru.s). ^ Hall, Arctic Researches^ p. 568. 

^ Luniholtz, Unknown A/exico^ p. Boas, ‘ Central Eskimo,’ in Ann. Rep, 
275. Bur. Ethn. vi. 566. Murdoch, ‘ Ethnol. 

Georgi, iii. 212. Resultsof the Point Barrow Expedition,’ 

^ Veniaminof, quoted by Petroflf, ibid. ix. 417. Turner, ‘ PElinology of 

‘ Report on Alaska,’ in 7 'enth Census the Ungava District,’ ibid. xi. 191 

of ihl United States, pp. 155, 158. (Koksoagmyut). 

® Steller, Beschreibung zwn dern ® Turner, in Ann, Rep. Bur. Ethn. 
Eande Kamtschatka, p. 353. Cf. xi. 269 (Hudson Bay Indians). Meriot, 

Georgi, op. cit. iii. 158. Travels through the Canadas, p. 530. 

® Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Harmon, fournal of Coyages, p. 347 

Guiana, p. 213. Schwaner, Borneo, i. (Indians on the cast side of the Rocky 
162 (Malays of the Barito River in Mountains). 

Borneo). V^oxq,(z’A.qx, Philippifie Islands, ^ Pnriy, Journal of a Second Voyage 

p. 481. Lewin, Hill Tracts of Chit- for the Discovery of a North- West 

tagong, p. 102 (Kukis). VambcTy, Passage, p. 530. 

Tiirkettvolk, p. 268 (Kara- Kirghiz). Keating, Expedition to the Source 

Maepherson, Alemorials of Service in of St. PetePs River, i. 127. 

India, p. 67 ; Hunter, Annals of Rural Mariner, Natwes of the Tonga 

Bengal, iii. 72 (Kandhs). Granville Islands, ii. 179. 

and Roth, in Jour. Anthr. hist, xxviii. Batchelor, Ainu and their Folk- 

109 (Jekris of the Warri District of the Lore, p. 254. 

Niger Coast Protectorate). *Stuhhnann, Vamb?ry, op, cit, p. 226. 

, SUBJECTION OF CHILDREN 6oi 

Osset^^^l|ie authority of the head of the family, whether 
gran(ife|lw, father, stepfather, uncle, or elder brother, is sub- 
mitted I^Winconditionally ; the young men never sit in his 
presence,^ nor speak with a loud voice, nor contradict him.’’ ^ 
Among the Barea and Kundma a father and a mother are 
respected to the utmost degree. A son never dares to con- 
tradict his parents nor oppose their commands, however unjust 
they be. The mother particularly is much beloved and tenderly 
cared for at her old age.” Among the Mandingoes children 
have a great veneration for their parents,” and “ would feel 
extreme reluctance to disobey their father.”^ Of the 
Bachapins, a Bechuana tribe, it is said that “ filial obedience is 
strenuously enforced.”'* Among the Kafirs ^‘’anyone who 
should fail in respect for his father, or show any neglect of him, 
would draw on himself the contempt of the whole horde ; there 
have been even instances in which want of filial duty has been 
punished with infamy and banishment.” ^ 

The period during which the paternal authority lasts 
varies. The daughter is in her father’s power till she 
marries, and as a rule no longer ; ^ but in some instances 
his authority over her continues even after her marriage.^ 
This, we have reason to believe, is particularly the case 
when the husband, on marrying, does not take his wife to 
his own home, but goes himself to live with her in the 
house or community of her father."^ A father’s authority 
over his son frequently comes to an end as the young man 

^ von liaxthausen, Transcaucasia , 
p. 414 

Munzinger,Ostafrikaiuschc Stuclien, 

p. 474. 

^ Caillie, Travels through Cent 7 'al 
Africa, i. 352 sq, 

^ Burchell, Travels in the rjitcrior of 
Souther)! Africa, ii. 557 * 

® Lichtenstein, Travels in Southern 
Africa, i. 265. Alberti, De Kaffers 
aan de Zuidkust van Afriha, p. i r6 
sqq. Shooter, Kafirs of Natal, p. 98. 

^ See, e,g., Leiischner, in wSteinmelz, 
Rechtsverhdlt nissc , p. 17 (Bakwiri) ; 
Fama Mademba, ibid. p. 65 (natives of 
the Sansanding States) ; Nicole, ibid, 
p. 100 (Diakite) ; Lang, ibid. p. 224 
(Washambala) ; Kraft, ibid. p. 286 

(Wapokoino) ; Marx, ibid, p. 349 
( Aniahlubi) ; Sorge, ibid, p. 404 (Nissan 
Islanders of the Bismarck Archipelago). 

^ See, c.g., Beverley, in Steinmetz, 
Rechtsverhdltnisse, p. 206. What is 
said, ibid. p. 31, concerning the Baiiaka 
and Bapuku does not seem to agree 
with the statement p. 30, that the 
husband is the head of his household 
and the possessor of his wives. 

^ Cf. Mazzarella, La condizione 
giuridica del niarito nella farniglia 
/natriarcale, passim : infra, on the 
Sul)jection of Wives. The point in 
question, like the whole subject of the 
father’s authority among the lower races, 
requires much further investigation. 

6o2 the subjection OF CHILDREN chap. 

grows up. Among the Fuegians a son becoihes indepen- 
dent of his parents at a very early age, being allowed to 
leave their wigwam if he pleases.^ Among th6 Togiaga- 
mutes, an Eskimo tribe, “ the youth, as soon as he is 
able to build a kaiak and to support himself, no longer 
observes any family ties but goes where his fancy takes 
him.” ^ Of the Australian natives it is said that sons 
become independent when they have gone through the 
ceremonies by which they attain to the status of man- 
hood ; ^ among the Bangerang tribe of Victoria “ after 
his twelfth year or so the boy was very little subject to the 
father, though parental affection always endured.” * Among 
the Bedouins “ the young man, as soon as it is in his 
power, emancipates himself from the father’s authority, 
still paying him some deference as long as he continues in 
his tent ; but whenever he can become master of a tent 
himself (to obtain which is his constant endeavour), he 
listens to no advice, nor obeys any earthly command but 
that of his own will.” ^ That a son is emancipated from 
the father’s power by getting full-grown or by leaving 
the household is probably the rule among the great 
majority of the lower races.® But here again instances 
to the contrary are not wanting.^ In Flores the sons 
even of rich families are dressed like slaves at public 
feasts, so long as the father lives, as also at his funeral. 
This, our authority adds, is apparently the external sign 
of a strict f atria potestas, which remains in force till the 
funeral ; until then the son is the father’s slave.® 

^ Bove, Patagonia^ Terra del Fiioco^ 

P* 133 * 

Petroff, loc. cit. p. 135. 

3 Curr, The Australian Race^ i. 61. 

^ Idem^ Recollections of Squatting in 
Victoriay p. 248. 

^ Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins 
and WahdhySy p. 201. 

® For other instances, see Munzinger, 
Die Sitten tmd das Reckt der Bogos, p. 
36; Post, Afrikanische JurisprtidenZy 
i. 51 (Somals); Leuschner, in Stein- 
metz, Rechtsve 7 'hdltniss€y p. 17 (Ba- 
kwiri) ; Nicole, ibid. p. 100 (Diakite) ; 

Beverley, ibid. p. 206 (Wagogo) ; Marx, 
ibid. p. 349 (Amahlubi) ; Sorge, ibid. 
jD. 404 (Nissan Islanders). 

^ Sarbah, Fanti Customary Laws, p. 
5. Stuhlmann, op. cit. p. 8oi (Latuka). 
Steimnetz, Rechtsverhalhiissey p. 31 
(Banakaand Bapuku). Fama Mademba, 
ibid. p. 65 (natives of the Sansanding 
States). Kraft, ibid. p. 286 (Wapo- 
komo). Abercromby, Pre- and Proto- 
historic P'uinSy i. i8i (Mordvins). 

® von Martens, quoted by Nieboer, 
Slavery as an Industrial System^ p. 26, 
n. 2. 

However, the expiration of the paternal power, in the 
proper sense of the term, does not necessarily imply the 
loss of all authority over the children. The father, at all 
events, retains the rights incident to his superior age, and 
among many uncivilised peoples these are great. Old age 
commands respect and gives authority. 

Among the Fuegians in each family the word of an old 
man is accepted as law by the young people ; they never dispute 
his authority.*' ^ The Patagonians ‘‘ pay respect to old people, 
taking great care of them.” - The Caribs portent un grand 
respect aus vieillards.’* ^ The same is the case among many of 
the North American Indians.^ Among the Naudowessies, 
whilst the advice of a father will seldom meet with any extra- 
ordinary attention from the young Indians, they will tremble 
before a grandfather, and submit to his injunctions with the 
utmost alacrity. The words of the ancient part of their 
community are esteemed by the young as oracles.” ^ Among 
the Eskimo about Behring Strait the old men are listened to with 
respect ; ^ and among the Point Barrow Eskimo respect for 
the opinions of elders is so great that the people may be said to 
be practically under what is called ^ simple elder rule.’ ’* ^ Among 
the Veddahs of Ceylon the oldest man is regarded with a sort 
of patriarchal respect when accident or occasion has brought 
together any others than the members of one family.” ^ Among 
the Jakuts an old man is implicitly obeyed as a father of a 
family j “ a young man ever gives his opinion with the great- 
est respect and caution ; and even when asked, he submits his 
ideas to the judgment of the old.”^ Regard for the aged is 
found among the Ainos,^® Kurilians,^^ Mongols, Ossetes,^^ 

^ King and Fitzroy, Voyages of the 
“ Adventure ” and “ Beagle, \i. 1 79. 
Ibid. ii. 172. 

^ de Poircy-de Rochefort, Histoire 
des Isles Antilles, p. 461. 

^ Buchanan , North A merican Indians^ 
p. 7. Prescott, in Schoolcraft, Indian 
Tribes of the United States, ii. 196. 

® Carver, Travels through the Interior 
Parts of North America, p. 243. 

® Nelson, ‘ Eskimo about Bering 
Strait,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 

304- 

^ Murdoch, in Ann, Rep. Bur. Eth 7 i. 
ix, 427. 

® Hartshorne, ‘Weddas,’ in Indian 

Antiquary, viii. 320. Cf. Deschamps, 
Carnet d^un voyageur, p. 395. 

^ Sauer, Billings' Expedition to the 
Norlhern Parts of Russia, p. 124. 

Batchelor, Ainu and their Folk- 
Lore, p. 254. von Siebold, Ethnol. 
Studien iiber die Aino auf der Insel 
Vesso, p. 25. 

Krasheninnikoff, History of Kam- 
schatka, p. 236. 

Prejevalsky, Mongolia, i. 71. 

von Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, 
p. 414. Strabo (xi. 4. 8) reports the 
same of the Albanians of the Eastern 
Caucasus. 

6o4 the subjection OF CHILDREN chap. 

Kiikis/ Nicobarese,^ Negritos of the Philippine Islands/^ Papuans 
of New Guinea,’*' New Caledonians,^ Caroline Islanders,^- 
Tonga Islanders/ and, in a remarkable degree, among the 
Australian aborigines.® ‘‘Among the Kurnai,” says Mr. 
Howitt, “age meets with great reverence. ... It may be 
stated as a general rule that authority attaches to age. It follows 
from this that there is no hereditary authority and no hereditary 
chieftain. The authority which is inherent in age attaches not 
alone to the man, but also to the woman.” And he justly 
adds that this principle regulating authority seems to be, not 
peculiar to the Kurnai, but general to the whole Australian 
racc.^ 

Turning to African peoples : among the Danakil the aged of 
both sexes, but especially the males, are held in great veneration, 
and the old men are consulted on every occasion of any import- 
ance.^^ “The real religion of the Barea and Kunama,” says 
Munzinger, “consists in an extraordinary reverence for old age. 
Among these peoples only the old, the weak, or the blind com- 
mand respect.” The Ewe-speaking peoples on the Slave 
Coast have a proverb, “Respect the elders, they are our fathers.”^*^ 
Winterbottom doubts whether the ancient Lacedaemonians paid 
greater regard to old age than do the natives of Sierra Leone.^® 
Mr. Leighton Wilson says of the Mpongwe : — “ I'here is no 
part of the world where respect and veneration for age is carried 
to a greater length than among this people. . . . All the younger 
members of society are early trained to show the utmost defer- 
ence to age. They must never come into the presence of aged 
persons or pass by their dwellings without taking off their hats, 
and assuming a crouching gait. When seated in their presence 

^ Lewin, Hill Tracis of Chittagong, 

p. 102. 

- Kloss, In the Andamans and 
Nicobar s, p. 243. 

Scliadenberg, in Zeiischr.f. EthnoL 
xii. 135. Earl, Papuans, p. 1 33. 
Foreman, Philippine Islands, p. 209. 

^ Earl, op, cit. p. 81. 

° Atkinson, in Folk-Lore, xiv. 248, 

® Christian, Caroline Islands, p. 72. 
Angas, Polynesia, p. 382. 

^ Mariner, op, cit, ii. 155. 

8 Roth, North- West- Central Queens- 
land Aborigines, p. 1 41. Fraser, 
Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 5. 
Schuermann, ‘ Aboriginal Tribes of Port 
Lincoln,’ in 'Woods, Native Tribes of 
South Australia, p. 226. Hale, U.S. 
Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI. Efk- 

7 iograpky and Philology, p. 113. 
Mitchell, Expeditioois hi to the Interior 
of Easiei'u Australia, ii. 346. Brough 
Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 137 
sq. See also Steinmetz, Ethnol. 
Studien zur Entwicklungsgeschichie der 
Strafe, ii. 26 sqq. 

^ Fison and Howitt, Kaniilaroi and 
Kurnai, p. 21 1 sq. 

Scaramucci and Giglioli, ‘ Notizie 
.sui Danakil,' in Archivio per lantropo- 
logia e la etnologia, xiv. 36. 

Munzi nger, Ostafrikanische Studien , 
P-474-. 

Ellis, Ewe-speaking Peoples, p. 268. 
Winterbottom, Native Africans in 
the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, i, 

211. 

it must always be at a ^ respectful distance ’ — a distance propor- 
tioned to the difference in their ages and position in society. If 
they come near enough to hand an aged man a lighted pipe or a 
glass of water, the bearer must always fall upon one knee. Aged 
persons must always be addressed as ‘ father ’ {rera)^ or ^ mother ’ 
(ngwe). Any disrespectful deportment or reproachful language 
toward such persons is regarded as a misdemeanour of no 
ordinary aggravation. A youthful person carefully avoids com- 
municating any disagreeable intelligence to such persons, and 
almost always addresses them in terms of flattery and adulation.” ^ 
Among the P"or tribe of Central Africa great consideration is 
shown towards women when they are old, as well as towards 
aged men.” Regard for old age is, in fact, a very general trait of 
the African character.*'^ 

Not only old age, but superiority of age, gives a certain 
amount of power. 

The Australian natives have a well-regulated order of pre- 
cedence and authority. When the individual reaches the full 
development of puberty, he or she undergoes a ceremony which 
entitles him or her on its successful completion to a certain 
social rank or status in the community. As life progresses, 
other and higher ranks are progressively attainable for each sex, 
until the highest and most honourable grade, that enjoyed by 
an old man, or an old woman, is reached.'’ All North 
American Indians hold that superior age gives authority ; and 
every person is taught from childhood to obey his superiors and 
to rule over his inferiors. The superiors are those of greater 
age ; the inferiors, those who are younger,” The same 
influence of age makes itself felt in the relations between elder 

^ Wilson, IVes/ern Africa^ p. 392 sq. 

“ Felkin, ‘ Notes on the For Tribe of 
Central Africa,’ in Proceed. Koy. Soc. 
Edinburgh^ xiii. 224 sq. 

^ Mon rad, Bidrag til en Skildi'insr af 
Guinea- Ay s/eu, p. 37 (Negroes of Accra). 
Granville and Roth, in lour. Ant hr. 
Inst, xxviii. 109 (Jekris). Kingsley, 
Travels in West Africa^ p. 460 (Calabar 
tribes). Caillie, op\ cit. i. 352 (Man- 
dingoes). Stuhlmann, op. cit. pp. 789, 
801 (Latuka). Casati, Ten Yea 7 's in 
Equatoria, i. 1 86. Chanler, Thf'ough 
Jungle arid Desert., p. 246 (Embe). 
New, Life., Wanderings^ and Labours 

in Eastern Aftica., p. lor (Wanika). 
Johnston, Kilinia-njaro Expedition^ 
p. 419 (Masai). Arnot, Garenganse, 
p. 78, note. Lichtenstein, op. cit. i. 
265; Alberti, op. cit. p. 118; Shooter, 
op. cit. p. 98 (Kafirs). Schinz, Deutsch- 
Siidwest-Afrika., p. 82 (Hottentots). 

** Roth, op. cit. p. 169. Cf. ibid. p. 
65 sq . ; Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of 
Discovery into Central Australia, ii. 

Powell, ‘Sociology, in American 
Anthropologist, N. S. i. 700, Cf. 
Idem, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn» iii. p. 
Iviii. 

6o6 THE SUBJECTION OP CHILDREN chap. 

and younger brothers and sisters.^ Navaho myths indicate that 
even among twins, the younger must defer to the elder.” 2 
The eldest brother comes next to the father in authority, and, 
in case of his death, succeeds him as the head of the family. The 
Aleuts described by Father Veniaminof maintained that ^‘if 
one had no father he should respect his oldest brother and serve 
him as he would a father.”® Among the Kalmucks ‘^the elder 
brother is the despot of the younger ones, and is even allowed 
to punish them.” ^ In Madagascar so great respect is paid to 
seniority ‘^that if two slaves who are brothers are going a journey, 
any burden must be carried by the younger one, so far at least as 
his strength will allow.” ^ In Tonga custom decrees that all 
persons shall be in the service of their older and superior 
relations, if those relations think proper to employ them ” ; and 
every chief shows the greatest regard for his eldest sister.® 
Among the Hottentots “ the highest oath a man could take and 
still takes, was to swear by his eldest sister, and if he should 
abuse this name, the sister will walk into his flock and take his 
finest cows and sheep, and no law could prevent her from doing 
so.” ^ Among the Point Barrow Eskimo, again, seniority 
gives precedence when there are several women in one hut, and 
the sway of the elder in the direction of everything connected 
with her duties seems never disputed.”® 

It must be added, however, that the reverence for old 
age may cease when the grey-head gets so old as to be an 
incumbrance to those around him;*’ and imbecility may 
put an end to the father’s authority over his family. We 
have previously noticed that parents worn out with age 

^ Nachtigal, Sahara und Sudan, i. 
450 (Teda). Chavanne, Die Sahara, p. 
396 (Arabs of the Sahara). Paulitschke, 
op. cit, p. i92(GaUas). von Haxthausen, 
Transcaucasia, p. 415 (Ossetes). Buch, 
‘ Die Wotjaken/ in Acta Societatis 
Scientiarum Fenn{c(e,yA\.^S<) (Votyaks). 
Sumner, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. 75 
(Jakuts). Batchelor, Aim/ and their 
Folk-Lore, p. 254. 

2 Matthews, ‘ Study of Ethics among 
the Lower Races,’ in Journal of 
America?/ Folk-Lore, xii. 9. 

Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, loc, 
cit. p. 155. 

^ Bergmann, No??iadische St?’eif€r€ie?t 
unter den Kal??iuken, ii. 305. 

® Sibrec, op. cit. p. 182. 

^ Mariner, op. cit. i. 226; ii. 155. 

^ Hahn, The Supreme Being of the 
Khoi - Khoi, p. 21. 

® Simpson, quoted by Murdoch, in 
An??. Rep. Bur. Etlrn. ix. 427. 

® Curr, Squatting i?t Victoria, pp. 
245, 265 sqq.\ Eyre, op. cit. ii, 316 
(Australian aborigines). Sumner, in 
Jour. A?ithr. hist, xxxi. 76 (Jakuts). 
Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 177 sq. 
(Greenlanders). Supra, p. 534. 

Steinmetz, Rechtsverhditnisse , p. 
31 (Banaka and Bapuku). 

and disease are among some peoples killed or abandoned 
by their own children/ 

When passing from the savage and barbarous races of 
men to those next above them in civilisation, we find 
paternal, or parental, authority and filial reverence at 
their height. In ancient Mexico “ necessitous parents 
were allowed to dispose of any one of their children, in 
order to relieve their poverty,” whereas a master could not 
sell a well-behaved slave without his consent/ A youth 
was seldom permitted to choose a wife for himself, but 
was expected to abide by the selection of his parents ; ® 
and “ children were bred to stand so much in awe of their 
parents, that even when grown up and married they 
hardly durst speak before them.”'* So, too, in Nicaragua 
a father might sell his children as slaves in cases of great 
necessity,^ and matches were in the larger part of the 
country arranged by the parents.® In ancient Peru dis- 
obedient children were publicly chastised by their own 
parents ; ^ and Inca Pachacutec confirmed the law that 
sons should obey and serve their fathers until they reached 
the age of twenty-five, and that none should marry with- 
out the consent of the parents and of the parents of the girl.® 

In China a house-father reigns almost supreme in his 
family, and, according to ancient Chinese ideas, not even 
marriage withdraws the son from his power.® The law, 
it is true, prohibits him from killing or selling ** his 
children ; but it is only in supreme cases that the State 
interferes between the head of a household and his family 
belongings, and the sale of children is practically allowed.*^ 
No person, of whatever age, can act for himself in matri- 

^ Supra^ p. 386 sq. 

Clavigero, History of Jl/exioo, i. 

360. 

^ Westermarck, op, cit. p. 226. 

Clavigero, op. cit. i. 331. 

^ Squier, Nicaragita., p. 345. 

® Bancroft, Native Races of the 
Pacific States^ ii. 667. 

7 Herrera, General History of the 
West iTtdies^ iv. 339. 

^ Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part 

of the Royal Cor/imentaries of the 
VncaSf ii. 207, 

^ de Groot, Religious Syste/u of 
China, (vol. ii. book) i. 507. 

Supra, p. 393. 

'Pa Tsing Leu Ixe, sec. cclxxv. p. 

292. 

Douglas, Society in China, p. 78. 
Staunton, in his translation of Ta Tsing 
Leu Lee, p. 292, n.* Doolittle, Social 
Life of the Chinese, ii. 209. 

6o8 THE SUBJECTION OF CHILDREN cum. 

monial matters during the lifetime or in the neighbour- 
hood of his parents or near senior kinsfolk.^ The law 
provides that disobedience to the instructions an^ com- 
mands of parents or paternal grandparents shall be 
punished with one hundred blows, ^ and that a still greater 
punishment shall be inflicted on a son accusing hh father 
or mother and on a grandson accusing his paternal grand- 
parent, even though the accusation prove true.^ Indeed, 
from earliest youth the Chinese lad is imbued with such 
respect for his parents that it becomes at last a religious 
sentiment, and forms, as he gets older, the basis of his 
only creed — the worship of ancestors/ Confucianism 
itself has been briefly described as an expansion of the 
root idea of filial piety.” The Master said : — “ Filial 
piety is the root of all virtue, and the stem out of which 
grows all moral teaching. . . . Filial piety is the constant 
method of Heaven, the righteousness of Earth, and the 
practical duty of Man. . , . Of all the actions of man 
there is none greater than filial piety. In filial piety there 
is nothing greater than the reverential awe of one’s 
father. In the reverential awe shown to one’s father there 
is nothing greater than the making him the correlate of 
Heaven.” ^ But the idea that filial piety is the funda- 
mental duty of man was not originated by Confucitis, it 
had obtained a firm hold of the national mind long before 
his time.^ It also prevails in Corea ^ and Japan, where 
the authority of a house-father is, or, in the case of Japan, 
until lately has been/^ as great as in China. ‘‘ The Japanese 
maiden, as pure as the purest Christian virgin, will at the 
command of her father enter the brothel to-morrow, and 
prostitute herself for life. Not a murmur escapes her lips 

^ Medhurst, ‘ Marriage, Affinity, and 
Inheritance in China,’ in Trans. Roy, 
Asiatic Soc. China Branchy iv. ll. 

Ta Tsing Leu Lee^ sec. cccxxxviii. 
P. 374* 

^ Ibid. sec. cccxxxvii. p. 371 sq. 

^ Wells Williams, Middle Kingdomy 
i. 646. 

® Griffis, Corea y p. 32S sq. 

® Hsiao Kingy i, 7, 9 (Sacred Books' 
of the Tasty iii. 466, 473, 476). 

^ Douglas, Confucianism and Taou- 

isfiiy p. 1 18. 

^ Griffis, CoreUy pp. 236, 259. 

® Rein, Japatiy p. 427. Griffis, 
Religions of fapaHy p. 122 sq. 

Griffis, Religions offapariy p. 148. 

as sl^ thus filially obeys.’* ^ In Corea, whilst the first thing 
inculcated in a child’s mind is respect for his father, little 
respect ds felt for the mother ; the child soon learns that 
a mother’s authority is next to nothing.^ 

It is the general opinion of Assyriologists that in 
ancient Chaldaea, at least in the early period of its history, 
the father had absolute authority over all the members of 
his household.^ Anything undertaken by them without 
his consent was held invalid in the eyes of the law,^ and a 
disobedient son might be sold as a slave.^ According to 
the Laws of Jdammurabi, a man might give his son or 
daughter as a hostage for debts ; ^ but he could not disown 
his children at discretion. It is said that if he wishes to 
cut off his son he must declare his intention to the judge, 
whereupon the judge shall enquire into his reasons, and 
if the son has not committed a heavy crime which cuts 
off from sonship, the father shall not cut off his son from 
sonship.” ^ Professor Hommel believes that the mother’s 
authority over her children was as great as the father’s,^ 
whereas Meissner concludes that it was less, from the fact 
that her children are not seldom found to be at law with 
her in matters of succession.^ Among the Hebrews a father 
might sell his child to relieve his own distress, or offer it to a 
creditor as a pledge. He had not only unlimited power 
to marry his daughters, but even to sell them as maids 
into concubinage, though not to a foreign people. He 
also chose wives for his sons ; and there is no indication 
that the subjection of sons ceased after a certain age.^^ 
How important were the duties of the child to the 

^ Idem, Mikadd s Empire, p. 555. 
Cf. Kcin, /apau, p. 427. 

- Griffis, Corea, p. 259. 

^ Oppert, in Gdttin^sche gelehrte 
Anzeigen, 1879, p. \6o^sq<]. Ilommel, 
Die semiiischen Volker und Sprachen, 
i. 416. Meissner, Beit rage zum aliba- 
by Ionise hen P?'ivatrecht , p, 14 sq. 

^ Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, p. 

734. 

® Hommel, op. cit. i. 416. Meissner, 
op. cit. p. I . 

VOL. I 

^ Laws of Hanrmurabi, 117. 

7 Ibid. 168. 

® Hommel, op. cit. i. 416. 

^ Meissner, op. cit. p. 15. 

Ewald, Antiquities of Israel, p. 
190. Wellhauseii, the 
History of Israel, p. 465. 

Exodus, xxi. 7 sq. 

Genesis, xxiv. 4 ; xxviii. l sq. 
Exodus, xxxiv. 16. Deuteronomy, vii. 3. 

^ Cf. Michaelis, Conwientaries on the 
Laws of Moses, i. 444. 

X R 

6io THE SUBJECTION OF CHILDREN chap. 

parents is shown in the primitive typical relation of Isaac to 
Abraham, and may be at once learned from the placing of 
the law on the subject among the Ten Commandments, 
and from its position there in the immediate proximity to 
the commands relating to the duties of man towards God.^ 
Philo Judasus observes that it occupies this position 
because parents are something between divine and human 
nature, partaking of both — of human nature inasmuch as it 
is plain that they have been born and that they will die, 
and of divine nature because they have engendered other 
beings, and have brought what did not exist into exist- 
ence. What God is to the world, that parents are 
to their children; they are “the visible gods.” ^ In 
Muhammedan countries parents have practically great 
authority over their children. Should a father exceed the 
bounds of moderation or justice in chastising his son, the 
idea of prosecuting him would hardly occur to anyone, 
the injured party being prevented by public opinion, if 
not by habit and feeling, from appealing against his own 
father.^ Disobedience to parents is considered by Moslems 
as one of the greatest of sins, and is put, in point of 
heinousness, on a par with idolatry, murder, and deser- 
tion in an expedition against infidels. “ An undutiful 
child,” says Mr. Lane, “ is very seldom heard of among 
the Egyptians or the Arabs in general. . . . Sons scarcely 
sit or eat or smoke in the presence of the father, unless 
bidden to do so.” * In Morocco it is curious to see big, 
grown-up sons sneak away as soon as they hear their 
father’s steps, or to notice their absolute reticence in his 
presence. Children’s deference for their mothers is less 
formal, but almost equally great.** 

Among the ancient Romans, in relation to the house- 
father, “all in the household were destitute of legal rights — 
the wife and the child no less than the bullock or the 

^ Cf. Ewald, o/). cit. p. i88 ; Cans, 440 
Das Erbrecht in xveltgeschichtlicher ^ Lane, Manners and Customs of the 
Entwickelung, i. 134. Moderji Egyptians^ p. 70. Cf Pool, 

- Philo Judreus, Opera^ i. scjq. Studies in Mohammedanism^ p. 171. 

3 Urquhart, Spirit of the East, ii. ® Cf Urquhart, op. cit. ii. 265 sq. 

XXV THE SUBJECTION OF CHILDREN" 6ii 

slave.” ^ The father not only had judicial authority over 
his children — implying the right of inflicting capital 
punishment on them,^ — but he could sell them at dis- 
cretion.® Even the grown-up son and his children were 
subject to the house-father’s authority/ and in marriage 
without conventio in manum a daughter remained in the 
power of her father or tutor even after marriage.^ Filial 
piety, including reverence not only for the father but for 
the mother also, was regarded as a most sacred duty.^ To 
the ancient Roman the parents were hardly less sacred 
beings than the gods/ 

It has been suggested by Sir Henry Maine and others 
that the patria potestas of the Romans was a survival of 
the paternal authority which existed among the primitive 
Aryans.® But no clear evidence of the general prevalence 
of such unlimited authority among other so-called Aryan 
peoples has been adduced. The ancient jurist observed, 
The power which we have over our children is peculiar 
to Roman citizens ; for there are no other nations possess- 
ing the same power over their children as we have over 
ours.”® That among the Greeks and Teutons the father 
had the right to expose his children in their infancy, to 
sell them, in case of urgency, as long as they remained in 
his power, and to give away his daughters in marriage, 
does not imply the possession of a sovereignty like that 
which the Roman house-father exercised over his descend- 
ants of all ages. In Greece and among all the Teutonic 

^ Mommsen, History of A^ome, i. 74. de Cuulanges, La citd antique^ p. 96 
Stipra^ p. 393. sqq. Hearn, Aryan Household^ p. 92. 

^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Anti- ^ Instiiutiones, i. 9. 2. 
quitates Romanos, ii, 27. Leist, Grce.co-italische Rechtsge- 

/nstitutiones^ i. 9. 3. schichte^ p. 60 sq. Grimm, Deutsche 

® Westermarck, op. cit. p. 230. Rechtsalterihunier^ p. 461 sq. Brunner, 

® Leist, Grceco-italische Rechtsge- Deutsche Rechtsgeschichie, i. 76. In 
schichte^ ll sqq. Idem, Alt-arisches France the parents’ right of selliuj^^ their 
Jus Gentium., p. 185. children gradually disappeared under 

^ Valerius Maximus,!. l. 13: “Pari the kings of the third race (de Lauriere, 
vindicta parentum ac deorum violatio in Luysel, Institutes cotitumieres, \. 82). 
expianda est.” Serviu.s, In Virgi/ii Westermarck, op. cit. p. 232 sqq. 

Geo?gico7t, ii. 473 : “ Sacra deorum I.eist, Grieco-italische Rechtsge- 

sancta apud illos sunt, sancti etiam schichte., p. 62 sq. Can vet, ‘ De I’organi- 
parentes.” sation de la famille k Ath^nes,’ in 

® Maine, Ancient Law, p. 138. Fustel Revue de legislation., xxiv, 138. 

R R 2 

6i2 the subjection OF CHILDREN chap. 

nations^ the father’s authority over his sons came to an 
end when the son grew up and left his home. But here 
again we must distinguish between the legal rights of 
parents and the duties of children. There are numerous 
passages in the Greek, writings which put filial piety on 
a par with the duties towards the gods.^ 

Nor is there any evidence that the patria potestas of the 
Roman type ever prevailed in full in India, great though 
the father’s or parent’s authority has been, and still is, 
among the Hindus.® Among the Vedic people the father 
seems to have been the head of the family only as long as 
he was able to be its protector and maintainer,^ decrepit 
parents being even allowed to die of starvation.® Accord- 
ing to some sacred books from a later age, the father and 
the mother have power to give, to sell, and to abandon 
their son, because “ man formed of uterine blood and 
virile seed proceeds from his mother and his father as an 
effect from its cause ” ; however, an only son may not be 
given or received in adoption, nor is a woman allowed to 
give or receive a son except with her husband’s permission.® 
In other books it is said that “ the gift or acceptance of a 
child and the right to sell or buy a child are not recog- 
nised,” ^ and that he who casts off his son — unless the son 
be guilty of a crime causing loss of caste — shall be fined 
by the king six hundred panas? But whatever be the 
legal rights of a parent, filial piety is a most stringent 
duty in the child.® A man has three Atigurus, or specially 
venerable superiors : his father, mother, and spiritual 
teacher. To them he must always pay obedience. He 
must do what is agreeable and serviceable to them. He 
must never do anything without their leave.^® “ By honour- 
ing these three all that ought to be done by man is ac- 

^ Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalter- 
thiimer^ p. 462. Brunner, Deutsche 
Rechtsgcschichte ^ i* 75 
^ Schmidt, Ethik der alten Griechen^ 
ii. 141 sq. 

Westermarck, op. cit. p. 231 sq, 

^ Rig- VedUy i. 70. 5. 

^ ZimmttyAliindtsches LebeUy p.328. 

® Vasts kt ha y xv, i sqq, Baudhdyaua 
Parisishtay vii. 5. 2 sqq. 

^ Apastavihay ii. 6. 1 3. ii. 

® Laws of Mamiy viii. 389. Cf ibid. 
xi. 60. 

® Apastamba, i. 4. 14. 6. Lazvs of 
Mamiy ii. 225 sqq. ; iv. 162 ; &c. 
Institutes of VishnUy ch. 31. 

complished ; that is clearly the highest duty, every other 
act is a subordinate duty.” ^ Similar feelings prevail 
among the modern Hindus.* Sir W. H. Sleeman observes, 
“ There is no part of the world, I believe, where parents 
are so much reverenced by their sons as they are in India 
in all cUsses of society.” The duty of daughters is from 
the day of their marriage transferred entirely to their hus- 
bands and their husbands’ parents, but between the son 
and his parents the reciprocity of rights and duties which 
have bound together the parent and child from infancy 
follows them to the grave. The sons are often actually 
tyrannised over by their mothers.* 

According to ancient Russian laws, fathers had great 
power over their children ; * but it is not probable that a 
son could be sold as a slave.* Baron von Haxthausen, 
who wrote before the Emancipation in 1861, says that 
“ the patriarchal government, feelings, and organisation 
are in full activity in the life, manners, and customs of the 
Great Russians. The same unlimited authority which the 
father exercises over all his children is possessed by the 
mother over her daughters.” " It was a common custom 
for a father to marry his young sons to full-grown 
women ; and in Poland, also, according to Nestor, a 
father used to select a bride for his son.^ According to 
Professor Bogisic, the power of the father is not so great 
among the Southern Slavs as among the Russians ; * but 
a son is not permitted to make a proposal of marriage 
to a girl against the will of his parents, whilst a daughter, 
of course, enjoys still less freedom of disposing of her own 
hand.® According to a Slavonian maxim, “a father is like 
an earthly god to his son.” 

^ Laws of Alanu, ii. 237. ® von Haxthau.sen, Russian Empire^ 

Nelson, View of the Hindu Law, ii. 229 sq. 
p. 56 sq, Ghani, ‘ Social Life and ^ Westermarck, op. cit. p. 234. 
Morality in India,’ in Internatiofial Macieiowski, op. cit. ii. 189. 
fournal of Ethics, vii. 312. ^ Maine, Early Lazu amt Custom, p. 

® Sleeman, Rambles and Recollec- 244, note. 
tions of an Indian Official, i. 330 sqq- •• Krau.ss, Sitte und Branch der SiuL 

* Accurse, quoted by de Lauri^re, in slazjtn, pp. 314, 320. 

Loysel, op. cit. i. S2. Maine, Early Lazv and Custom, p. 

® Macieiowski, Slavische Rechtsge- 243. 
schickte, iv. 404. 

6i4 the subjection OF CHILDREN chap. 

Among this group of peoples, also, we meet with rever- 
ence for the elder brother, for persons of a superior age 
generally, and, especially, for. the aged. 

Obedience on the part of the younger to the cider brother 
is strongly inculcated by Confucianism and Taouismd In 
ancient China the eldest son of the principal wife held so high 
a position that even his own father had to mourn for him at his 
death in the selfsame degree in which the son was bound to 
mourn for his father ; and in some provinces of Japan the 
elder brother or sister did not even go to the funeral of the 
younger.**^ In Babylonia the elder brother occupied a privileged 
position in the family in relation to the younger.^ In one of 
the Mandnean writings it is said, Honour your father and your 
mother and your elder brother as your father.” According to 
the sacred books of the Hindus, the feet of elder brothers and 
sisters must be embraced, according to the order of their 
seniority ” ; ^ towards a sister of one’s father and of one’s 
mother, and towards one’s own elder sister, one must behave as 
towards one’s mother,” though the mother is more venerable 
than they.'^ 

Again, in ancient Mexico respect was paid not only by 
children to their parents but by the young to the old.® Among 
the Yucatans ^‘the young reverenced much the aged.” ^ In 
China persons of the lowest class who have attained to an unusual 
age have not infrequently been distinguished by the Emperor,^® 
and even criminals with grey hairs are treated with regard.^^ 
“ Respect for elders,” says Mencius, is the working of right- 
eousness”;^'^ and it is said in Thai Shang that the good man 
‘^will respect the old and cherish the young.” A Japanese 
proverb runs, Regard an old man as thy father.” We read 
in Leviticus, Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and 
honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God.” Venera- 

^ Douglas, Confucianism a 7 id Taou- 
ism, pp. 123, 124, 259. Griffis, Jieli- 
gions of fapan, p. 125 s^. 

de Groot, op. cii. (vol. ii. book) i. 

509. 

^ Griffis, Religions of Japan, p. 127. 

Ilommel, op. cit. i. 417 sq. 

® Brandt, Mandaische Schriften, p. 
64, , 

** Apastamha, i. 4. 14. 9. Cf thid. 
i. 4. 14. 14 ; Laws of Manu, ii, 225. 

^ Laws of Manu, ii. 133. 

® Clavigero, op. cit. i. 81. Cf. ibid. 

i- 332. 

^ Landa, Relacmn de las cosas de 
Yucatan, p. 178. 

Davis, China, ii. 97. 

Wells Williams, Middle. Empire, i. 

805. 

Mencius, vii. i. 15. 3. 

Thdi Shang, 3. 

Griffis, Mikadds Empire, p. 505. 
Leviticus, xix. 32. Cf. Job, xxxii. 
4 ; Proverbs, xvi. 31, and xx. 29. 

tion for the aged is emphatically inculcated by Islam.^ In the 
sacred books of India it is represented as a virtue.^ Herodotus 
states that the Egyptians resembled the Lacedaemonians in the 
reverence the young men paid to their elders.^ Plato says in 
his ^ Laws ’ that everybody ought to consider that the elder has 
the precedence of the younger in honour, both among the gods 
as also among men who would live in security and happiness ; 
wherefore it is a foolish thing and hateful to the gods to see an 
elder man assaulted by a younger in the city. Everybody 
ought to regard a person who is twenty years older than himself, 
whether male or female, as his father or mother, and to abstain 
from laying hands on any such person out of reverence to the 
gods who preside over birth.'' ^ Regard for old age lies behind 
such words as presbyter and the Anglo-Saxon ealdorinonn ; and 
all travellers among the Southern Slavs have noticed their 
extraordinary respect for old people/^ 

In Europe the paternal authority of the archaic type 
which we have just considered has gradually yielded to a 
system under which the father has been divested of the 
most essential rights he formerly possessed over his 
children — a system the inmost drift of which is expressed 
in the words of the French Encyclopedist, Le pouvoir 
paternel est plutot un devoir qu’un pouvoir.” ^ Already 
in pagan times the Roman patria potestas became a 
shadow of what it had been. Under the Republic the 
abuses of paternal authority were checked by the censors, 
and in later times the Emperors reduced the father's power 
within comparatively narrow limits. Not only was the 
life of the child practically as sacred as that of the parent 
long before Christianity became the religion of Rome,^ but 
Alexander Severus ordained that heavy punishments should 
be inflicted on members of a family by the magistrate only. 
Diocletian and Maximilian took away the power of selling 
freeborn children as slaves. The father’s privilege of 

^ Ameer Ali, Ethics of Istdm, p. 27 ® Maine, Early Law and Ctistoni^ p. 

sq. 243. 

Apastamba^ i. 5! 15. Laws of ** Encyclopildie 7ncHhodiqite^ Jurisprii- 

Mamiy n. 121. Dka 7 ?unapaday loc). dence, vii. 77, art. J^iissance pater- 

^ Herodotus, ii. 80. nclle. 

^ Plato, Leges, ix. 879. Cf Idem, ^ Supra, p. 393 sq. 

Respublica, v, 465. 

6i6 THE SUBJECTION OF CHILDREN chap. 

dictating marriage for his sons declined into a conditional 
veto ; and it seems that the daughters also, at length, 
gained a certain amount of freedom in the choice of a 
husband.^ 

The new religion was anything but unfavourable to this 
process of emancipation. The ethical precept of filial 
piety was changed by Christ. His church was a militant 
church. He had come not to send peace but a sword, 
“ to set a man at variance against his father, and the 
daughter against her mother.” ^ Being chiefly addressed to 
the young, the new teaching naturally caused much dis- 
order in families. Fathers disinherited their converted 
sons,® and children thought that they owed no duty to 
their parents where such a duty was opposed to the 
interests of their souls. According to Gregory the Great, 
we ought to ignore our parents, hating them and flying 
from them when they are an obstacle to us in the way of 
the Lord ; * and this became the accepted theory of the 
Church.® Nay, it was not only in similar cases of conflict 
that Christianity exercised a weakening influence on family 
ties which had previously been regarded with religious 
veneration. In all circumstances the relationship between 
child and parent was put in the shade by the relationship 
between man and God. “ Call no man your father upon 
the earth : for one is your Father, which is in 'Heaven^’ “ 
“ If any man come to me, and hate not his father,' and 
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, 
yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” ’ At 
the same time the fifth commandment, though modified 
by considerations which would never have occurred to 
the mind of an orthodox Jew, was left formally intact. 
Obedience to parents was, in fact, repeatedly enjoined Sy 
St. f’aul as a Christian duty.® It was regarded as a pre- 

^ ^ Westermarck, op, cit, p. 236. Ixxvi. 1275). 

* St. Matthew^ x. 34 sq. St. Luke, ® Thomas Aquinas, Stinima tkeolo- 

xii. 51 sqq. gica, ii.-ii. lOI. 4. 

^ TGnu\\i3.n, LIpotoget 7 Cus, (Migne, ^ St. Mutthew, f ^ 

Patrohgice 2 %o sq.). St. Luke, 'idv . 

St. Gregory the Great, Homilue in ® Ephesians, vi. i sqq,^ ColdUians, 
Evangeiia^ xxxvii, 2 (Migne, cit, iii. 20. ^ , 

requisite for the veneration of God. “ If we do not 
honour and reverence our parents, whom we ought to love 
next to God, and whom we have almost continually before 
our eyes, how can we honour or reverence God, the 
supreme and best of parents, whom we cannot see ? ” ^ 
Ancient, deep-rooted ideas die slowly. Whilst among 
Teutonic peoples the grown-up child is recognised both by 
custom and law as independent of the parents, and. the 
parental authority over minors is regarded merely in the 
light of guardianship,^ the Roman notions of paternal 
rights and filial duties have to some extent survived in 
Latin countries, not only through the Middle Ages, but 
up to the present time. “ Above the majesty of the feudal 
■baron,” says M. Bernard, “ that of the paternal power was 
held still more sacred and inviolable. However powerful 
the son might be, he would not have dared to outrage his 
father, whose authority was in his eyes always confounded 
with the sovereignty of command.” ^ Du Vair remarks, 
“ Nous devons tenir nos peres comme des dieux en 
terre.” * Bodin wrote, in the later part of the sixteenth 
century, that, though the monarch commands his subjects, 
the master his disciples, the captain his soldiers, there is 
none tO‘^whom nature has given any command except the 
father, “ who is the true image of the great sovereign God, 
uMversal father of all things.”® According to edicts of 
Henry III., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV., sons could not 
marry before the age of thirty, nor daughters before the 
age of twenty-five, without the consent of the father and 
mother, on pain of being disinherited.® And even now in 
France considerable power is accorded to parents, not only 
b^, custom and public sentiment, but by law. A child can- 
®6t quit the paternal residence without the permission of 
the father before the age of twenty-one, except for .enrol- 

^ Catechism of the Council of Trent, ^ Du Vair, quoted by de Ribbe, Les 
iii. 5. I. : families et la soci^t^ en France avant la 

- Sttarekei jClessings and curses would for that reason also be 
efficacious in an exceptional degree.^ 

However, the facts which we have hitherto considered 
are hardly sufficient to account for the extraordinary 
development of the paternal authority in the archaic State. 
Great though it be, the influence which magic and religious 
beliefs exercise upon the paternal authority is, as we have 
just seen, largely of a reactive character. A father’s bless- 
ings would not be so eagerly sought for, nor would his 
curses be so greatly feared, if he were a less important 
personage in the family. So, too, as Sir Henry Maine 
aptly remarks, the father’s power is older than the practice 
of worshipping him. “ Why should the dead father be 
worshipped more than any other member of the household 
unless he was the most prominent — it may be said, the 
most awful — figure in it during his life ? ” ® We must 
assume that there exists some connection between the 
organisation of the family and the political constitution of 
the society. At the lower stages of civilisation — though 
hardly at the very lowest — we frequently find that the 
clan has attained such an overwhelming importance that 
only a very limited amount of authority could be claimed 
by the head of each separate family. But, as will be shown 
in a following chapter, this was changed when clans and 
tribes were united into a State. The new State tended to 
weaken and destroy the clan-system, whereas at the same 
time the family-tie grew in strength. In early society 
there seems to be an antagonism between the family and the 
clan. Where the clan-bond is very strong it encroaches 
upon the family feeling, and where it is loosened the 
family gains. Hence Dr. Grosse is probably right in his 

^ Mariner, op, cit, ii. 238. ^ Maine, Early Law and Custom, p. 

^ C/. Nowack, in Jewish Encyclo- 76. 
pediuy iii. 243 sq. 

S S 2 

assumption that the father became a patriarch, in the true 
sense of the word, only as the inheritor of the authority 
which formerly belonged to the eland 

But whilst in its early days the State strengthened the 
family by weakening the clan, its later development had 
a different tendency. When national life grew more 
intense, when members of separate families drew nearer to 
one another in pursuit of a common goal, the family 
again lost in importance. It has been observed that in 
England and America, where political life is most highly 
developed, children’s respect for their parents is at a par- 
ticularly low ebb.^ Other factors also, inherent in pro- 
gressive civilisation, contributed to the downfall of the 
paternal power — the extinction of ancestor-worship, the 
decay of certain superstitious beliefs, the declining influence 
of religion, and last, but not least, the spread of a keener 
mutual sympathy throughout the State, which could not 
tolerate that the liberty of children should be sacrificed to 
the despotic rule of their fathers. 

^ Grosse, Die Formen der Familie, ^ Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom^ 
p. 219. p. 440, n. I.

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

Among the lower races, as a rule, a woman is always 
more or less in a state of dependence. When she is 
emancipated by marriage from the power of her father, 
she generally passes into the power of her husband. But 
the authority which the latter possesses over his wife varies 
extremely among different peoples. 

Frequently the wife is said to be the property or slave 
of her husband. In Fiji “ the women are kept in great 
subjection. . . . Like other property, wives may be sold 
at pleasure, and the usual price is a musket.”^ “The 
Carib woman is always in bondage to her male relations. 
To her father, brother, or husband she is ever a slave, and 
seldom has any power in the disposal of herself.” ^ Many 
North American Indians arc said to treat their wives much 
as they treat their dogs.® Among the Shoshones “ the 
man is the sole proprietor of his wives and daughters, and 
can barter them away, or dispose of them in any manner 
he may think proper.” * Among the East African 
Wanika a woman “ is a toy, a tool, a slave in the very 
worst sense ; indeed she is treated as though she were a 

^ Wilkes, 17 . S. Explormg Expedi- Harmon, Journal of Voyages in 

lion, iii. 332. l/ie Interior of North America, p. 344. 

^ Breti, Indian Tribes of Guiana, Lewis and Clarke, Travels to the 

p. 353. Source of the Missouri River, p. 307, 

mere brute.” ^ Many other statements to a similar effect 
are niet with in ethnographical literature.^ 

y et it seems that even in cases where the husband’s 
power over his wife is' described as absolute custom has 
not left her entirely destitute of rights. Of the 
Australian aborigines in general it is said that “ the 
husband is the absolute owner of his wife (or wives) ” ; ^ 
of the natives of Central Australia, that “ each father of 
a family rules absolutely over his own circle ” U of certain 
tribes in West Australia, that the state of slavery in which 
the women are kept is truly deplorable, and that the 
mere presence of their husbands makes them tremble.® 
But we have reason to believe that there is some exag- 
geration in these statements, and they certainly do not 
hold good of the whole Australian race. We have 
noticed above that custom does not really allow the 
Australian husband full liberty to kill his wife.® For 
punishing or divorcing her he must sometimes have the 
consent of the tribe.^ There are even cases in which a 
wife whose husband has been unfaithful to her may 
complain of his conduct to the elders of the tribe, and he 
may have to suffer for it.® In North- West-Central 
Queensland the women are on one special occasion 

1 New, Life^ Wanderings^ and 
Labourings in Eastern Africa^ p. 1 19. 

^ (libbs, ‘ Tribes of Western Wash- 
ington and Northwestern Oregon,’ in 
Contributions to N. American EthnO' 
Martins, Beit rage 
zur Ethnographie AtnerikcCsy i. 104 
(Brazilian Indians). Reade, Savage 
Africa^ p. 548 (Negroes of Equa- 
torial Africa). Proyart, ‘ History of 
Loango,’ in Pinkerton, Collection 
of Voyages and Travels^ xvi. 570 
(Negroes of Loango). Andersson, 
Notes on T^'avel in South Africa^ p. 
236 (Ovambo). Castr^n, Nordiska 
resor och forsknmgar^ i, 310; ii. 56 
(Ostyaks). In all these cases women 
are said to be mere articles of com- 
merce, or slaves, or kept in a state of 
dependence bordering on slavery. In 
other instances women are said to be 
oppressed by their husbands, or treated 

as inferior beings (Waitz [-Gerland], 
Anthropologic der Naturvolker, iii, lOO 
[North American Indians] ; vi. 626 
[Melanesians]. Bancroft, Native Races 
of the Pacific States, i. 121 [Hare and 
Sheep Indians]. Powers, Tribes oj 
California, p. 133 [Yuki]. Tuckey, 
Expedition to Explore the River Zaire, 
p. 371 [Negroes]. Idng Roth, Abo- 
rigines of Tasmania, p. 54). 

^ Curr, The Australian Race, i. 109. 

^ Eyre, Expeditions of Discovery 
into Central Australia, ii. 317. 

^ Salvado, RNmoires historiques sur 
r Australie, p. 279. For other similar 
statements referring to the Australian 
aborigines, see Nieboer, Slavery as an 
Industrial System, p. ii. 

^ Supra, p. 418. 

^ Nieboer, op. cit. p. 17. 

8 Ibid. p. ik 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

allowed themselves to inflict punishments upon the men : 
at a certain stage of the initiation ceremony “ eac^Woman 
can exercise her right of punishing any man wlio may 
have ill-treated, abused, or ‘ hammered ’ her, and for 
whom she may have waited months or perhaps years to 
chastise.” ^ Of the natives of Central Australia Messrs. 
Spencer and Gillen say that “ the women are certainly not 
treated usually with anything which could be called 
excessive harshness ” ; ^ and we hear from various 
authorities that in several Australian tribes married people 
are often much attached to each other, and continue to be 
so even when they grow old.® Among the aborigines of 
New South Wales, for instance, “ the husbands are as a 
general rule fond of their wives, and the wives loyal and 
affectionate to their husbands.” Nay, white men who 
have lived among the blacks assure us that there hre 
henpecked husbands even in the Australian desert.® 

Other instances may be added to show that the so-called 
absolute authority of husbands over their wives is not to 
be taken too literally. Of the Guiana Indians Mr. Im 
Thurn observes ; — “ The woman is held to be as com- 
pletely the property of the man as his dog. He may 
even sell her if he chooses.”*' But in another place the 
same authority admits not only that the women in a quiet 
way may have a considerable influence with the men, but 
that, “ even iP the men were — though this is in fact quite 
contrary to their nature — inclined to treat them cruelly, 
public opinion would prevent this.” ^ Of the Plains Indians 
of the United States Colonel Dodge writes: — “The 
husband owns his wife entirely. He may abuse her, beat 
her, even kill her without question. She is more absolutely 
a slave than any negro before the war of rebellion.” But 

^ Roth, EfknoL Studies among the Australia^ Anthropology, p. 36. 

North- West- Central Queensland Abo- Hill and Thornton, Aborigines of 

riginesy pp. 14 1, 176. Ne 7 v South Wales, p. 7. 

- Spencer and Gillen, Nathfe Tribes ® Calvert, Aborigines of Western 
of Central Australia, p. 50. Australia, p. 31. 

® Westermarck, History of Human Im Thurn, hidians of Guiana, 

Marriage, p. 359, Stirling, Report of p. 223. 
the Horn Expedition to Central Ibid. p. 2 1 5. 

on the following page we are told that custom gives to 
every married woman of the tribes “ the absolute right to 
leave her husband and become the wife of any other man, 
the sole condition being that the new husband must have 
the means to pay for her.” * Among the Chippewyans 
the women are §aid to be “ as much in the power of the 
men as any other articles of their property,” although, at 
the same time, “ they are always consulted; and possess a 
very considerable influence in the traffic with Europeans, 
and other important concerns.”^ Among the Mongols a 
woman is “ entirely dependent on her husband ” ; yet “ in 
the household the rights of the wife are nearly equal to 
those of the husband.” “ Dr. Paulitschlce tells us that 
among the Somals, Danakil,- and Gal las, a wife has no 
rights whatever in relation to her husband, being merely a 
piece of property ; but subsequently we learn that she is 
his equal, and “a mistress of her own will.” We must 
certainly not, like Mr. Spencer, conclude that where 
.women are exchangeable for oxen or other beasts they are 
I “ of course ” regarded as equally without personal rights.’’ 
The bride-price is a compensation for the loss sustained in 
the giving up of the girl, and a remuneration for the 
expenses incurred in her maintenance till the time of her 
marriage ; ® it does not eo ipso confer on the husband 
absolute rights over her. With reference to certain tribes 
in South-Eastern Africa, the Rev. James Macdonald 
observes : — “ A man obtains a wife by giving her father a 
certain number of cattle. This, though often called such, 
is not purchase in the usual sense of the word. The 
woman does not become a chattel. She cannot be resold 
or ill-treated beyond well-defined legal limits. She retains 
certain rights to property and an interest in the cattle paid 
for her. They are a guarantee for the husband’s good 

^ Dodge, Our Wild Indimis^ p. 4 Paulitschke, Eth 7 iographie Nordost- 
205 sq, Afrikas^ pp. 189, 190, 244. 

" Mackenzie, Voyages to the Frozen ® Spencer, Principles of Sociology^ i. 
and P&rific Oceans ^ p. cxxii. sq, 7 50. 

Schoolcraft, Af'chives of Abo^'ighial ** Westermarck, History of Human 
A'nozvledge, v. 176. Mai'riage^ p. 402. 

^ Prejevalsky, A/ongcdia, i. 69 sq(q. 

behaviour,” ^ There are even peoples among whom the 
husband’s authority hardly exists, although he has had to 
pay for his wife.^ 

Among many peoples the hardest drudgeries of life 
are said to be imposed on the women. Among the 
Kutchin “the women are literally beasts of burden to 
their lords and masters. All the heavy work is performed 
by them.” ® The Californian Karok, while on a journey, 
lays by far the greatest burdens on his wife, whom he regards 
as a drudge.* Among the Kenistenos the life of the 
women is an uninterrupted succession of toil and pain, 
hence “ they are sometimes known to destroy their female 
children, to save them from the miseries which they 
themselves have suffered.” ® “ The condition of the 

women among the Chaymas,” says von Humboldt, “ like 
that in all semi-barbarous nations, is a state of privation 
and suffering. The hardest labour is their share.” ® 
Among the Australian aborigines “ wives have to undergo 
all the drudgery of the camp and the march, have the 
poorest food and the hardest work.” ’’ In Eastern Central 
Africa “ the women hold an inferior position. They are 
viewed as beasts of burden, which do all the harder 
work.” ^ Among the Kakhyens “ the men are averse to 
labour, but the lot of all women, irrespective of rank, is 
one of drudgery”; '■* and so forth.*® But it seems that 

^ Macdonald, Light in Africa^ 
P- 159- 

2 E,g.^ the Navahos and Pelew 
Islanders (Westermarck, op. dt. pp. 
392, 3935 39^ -f^/* the position of 

wives among these peoples, see infra^ 
pp. 638, 643). 

^ Hardisty, ‘ Loucheux Indians,’ in 
Smithsonian Report^ 1866, p. 312. 

* Powers, op. dt. p. 23 sq. 

^ S choolcraft , A rch ives of A boriginal 
ICnotvledft, v. 167. 

® von Humboldt, Personal Narrative 
of Travels ^ iii. 238.- 

Curr, Lhe Australian RacCy i. 

no. 

® Macdonald, Africanay i. 35. 

^ Anderson, Mandalay to Momien, 
P- 137- 

P'or other instances, see Mackenzie, 
Voyages to th^ Frozen and Pacific 
Oceans f p. 147 (Rocky Mountain 
Indians) ; Parker, in Schoolcraft, 
Archives, v. 6S4 (Comanches) ; Im 
Thurn, op. dt. p. 215 (CRiiana Indian.s) ; 
Keane, ‘ Botociidos,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
Inst. xiii. 206 ; Weddell, Voyage to- 
wards the South Pole, p. 156, Darwin, 
Journal of Researrhes, p. 216, and 
Rove, Patagonia, p. 13 1 (P'uegians) ; 
Nieboer, op. dt. p. 13 sqq. (Australian 
aborigines) ; Williams and Calvert, 
Fi/i, p. 145 ; Forster, Voyage round 
the VVorld, ii. 324 (natives of Tana, 
of the New Hebrides) ; Zimii^rmann, 
Inseln des indischen und stillen Meeres, 
ii. 17 (New Caledonians), 105 (New 
Irclanders) ; Lewin, Wild Races of 

634 the subjection OF WIVES chap. 

these and similar statements, however correct they be, 
hardly express the whole truth. In early society each sex 
has its own pursuits. The man is responsible for the 
protection of the family, and, ultimately, for its support. 
His occupations are such as require strength and agility — 
fighting, hunting, fishing, the construction of implements 
for the chase and war, and, frequently, the cutting of trees 
and the building of lodges.^ The woman may accompany 
him as a helpmate on his expeditions, sometimes even 
participating in the battle,'^ and when they travel she 
generally carries the baggage. But her principal occupa- 
tions are universally of a domestic kind : she procures 
wood and water, prepares the food, dresses skins, makes 
clothes, takes care of the children. She, moreover, 
supplies the household with vegetable food, gathers roots, 
berries, acorns, and so forth, and among agricultural 
peoples very frequently cultivates the soil. Whilst 
cattle-rearing, having developed out of the chase, is 
largely a masculine pursuit,* agriculture, having developed 
out of collecting seeds and plants, originally devolves on 
the women. ^ 

South - Eastern India^ pp. 192 
(Toungtha), 254 i'r/. (Kukis) ; Rowiiey, 
Wild Tribes of Ijidia^ p. 214 (most of 
the wild tribes of India) ; Reade, op. 
cit. pp. 51, 259, 545 (various African 
peoples) ; Waitz, Ant/iropologie der 
Nafit^'twlker, ii. 117 (Negroes) ; Valdau, 

‘ Cm Ba-kwileh folkct,’ in Ynicr^ 
V. 167, 169. 

^ See Spencer, Principles of Socio- 
logy, i. 750 -W* 

For women taking part in battles, 
see Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the 
United States^ i. 236 (Comanches) ; 
Powers, op. cit. pp. 246 (Shastika 
Indians of California), 253 (Modok 
Indians of California) ; Waitz[-Ger- 
land], op. cit. iii. 375 ((iaribs), vi. 121 
(Maoris) ; Wilkes, op. cit. v. 93 (Kings- 
rnill Islanders) ; Kotzebue, Voyage of 
Discovery into the South Sea., iii. 171 
(natives of Radack). 

* (jrosse. Die For men dcr Fa/nilie, 
p. 92 s(y/. 

Ibid. p. 159. Hildebrand, Rechl 

und Sittc ait f den verse hi edenen wirth- 
sc haft lichen Kulturstufen, p. 44 sqq, 
Dargun, ‘Ursprung und Entwicklungs- 
geschichte dcs Eigenthums,* in Zeitschr. 
f. vergl. Pecktsiviss. v. 39, 1 10. Biicher, 
Die Entstehung dcr Volhswirthschaft, 
p. 36 sqq. Schurtz, Das afrikanische 
G ewer be, p. 7. Ling Roth, ‘ Origin of 
Agriculture,’ in Jour, Ant hr. Inst. xvi. 
1 19 sq. Mason, WomaFs Share in 
Primitive Culture, pp. 15 sqq., 146 
sqq., 277 sq. Havelock P'llis, Alan 
and Woman, p. 5. von den Steinen, 
Unter den Naturvldkern Zentral- 
Brasiliens, p. 214. von Schuctz-Holz- 
hausen, Der Amazonas, p. 67 (Peruvian 
Indians). Waitz, op. cit. iii. 376 
(Caribs). Prescott, in Schoolcraft, 
Indian Tribes of the United States, i. 
235 (Dacotahs). Colden, ibid. iii. 191 ; 
Seaver, Narrative of the Life of Mrs. 
Mary Jemison, p. ,168 (Iroquois). 
‘Die Baliiga - Negritos der Provinz 
Pampanga (Luzon),’ in Globus, xli. 
238. Zbller, Kamerun, iii. 58 (Banaka 

The various occupations of life are thus divided 
between the sexes according to rules ; and, though the 
formation of these rules no doubt has been more or less 
influenced by the egoism of the stronger sex, the essential 
principle from which they spring lies deeper. They are 
on the whole in conformity with the indications which 
nature herself has given. Take, for instance, the appar- 
ently cruel custom of using the women as beasts of 
burden. To the superficial observer, as M. Pinart 
remarks — with special reference to the Panama Indians, — 
it may indeed seem strange that the woman should be 
charged with a heavy load, while the man walking before 
her carries nothing but his weapons. But a little reflec- 
tion will make it plain that the man has good reason for 
keeping himself free and mobile. The little caravan is 
surrounded with dangers : when traversing a savannah or 
a forest a hostile Indian may appear at any moment, or a 
tiger or a snake may lie in wait for the travellers. Hence 
the man must be on the alert, and ready in an instant to 
catch his arms to defend himself and his family against 
the aggressor.^ Dobrizholfer writes, “ The luggage being 
all committed to the women, the Abipones travel armed 

and Bapnku). Mdllcr, Pagels, and 
Gleeriip, Tre ar i Kongo ^ i. 129, 137 
(Kuilu Negroes), 270 (Bakongo). Val- 
daii, in Ynier^ v. 165 (Bakwileh). 
Burro vv.s, ‘ Natives of the Upper Welle 
District,’ in [our. Anihr. Inst, xxviii. 
41 (Niain-Niam). New, op. cif. pp. 
1 14 (Wanika), 359 (Wataveta). SUihl- 
mann, Mit Eniin Pas c ha ins IIe?'z von 
Afrika, p. 182 (Waganda). Pogge, 
Jni Reiche des Muata [amtvo, p. 243 
(Kaltinda of Mu.ssumlm). Decle, Three 
Years in Savage A/riea, pp. 78, 79, 85 
(Barotse), 160 (Malabele). von Weber, 
Vier Jahre in Afrika.^ ii. 195 (Zulus). 
There are, however, exceptions to the 
rule. Among the Creeks and Cherokee 
Indians not a third part as many women 
as men are seen at work in their plan- 
tations (Bartram, in Trans. American 
Ethn. Soc. iii. pt. i. 31). Among the 
Wakamba both sexes work in the fields, 
all heavy work, such as clearing and 

breaking new ground, being done by 
men (Decle, op. cit. p. 493). Among 
various peoples, indeed, such agricul- 
tural work as requires con.siderable 
•Strength devolves on the male sex 
(Hildebrand, op. cit. p. 44 sqq. Have- 
lock Ellis, Man and Woman., p. 5). 
In the Malay Archipelago the men are 
chiclly engaged in the field-work (Ratzel, 
History of Mankind, i. 441). In the 
Kingsmill Islands (Wilkes, op. cit. v. 
91), Tonga (Cook, Voyage to the Pacific 
Ocea 7 i, i. 390 siyq.)^ and the Caroline 
Group (Cantova, quoted idid. i. 392, 
note) the soil is cultivated by the men. 
Among the Gallas, “ whilst the women 
tend the sheep and oxen in the field, 
and manage the hives of bees, the men 
plough, sow, and reap ” (Harris, High- 
lands of Aethiopia, iii. 47). 

^ Pinart, quoted by Nieboer, op. cit. 
p. 21. 

with a spear aloiie, that they may be disengaged to fight 
or hunt, if occasion require.” ^ 

Moreover, whatever may have been the original reason 
for allotting a certain occupation to the one sex to the 
exclusion of the other, any such restriction has subse- 
quently been much emphasised by custom, and in many 
cases by superstition as well.‘^ In Africa it is a common 
belief that the cattle get ill if women have anything to do 
with them,'^ Hence among most Negro races milking is 
only permitted to men.'^ In South-Eastern Africa a 
woman must not enter the cattle fold.”^ The Bechuanas 
never allow women to touch their cattle, hence the men 
have to plough themselves.^’ In North America Indian 
custom and superstition ordain that the wife must care- 
fully keep away from all that belongs to her husband’s 
sphere of action.*^ On the other hand, among the 
Dacotahs the men do not often interfere with the 
work of the women ; neither will they help them if they 
can avoid it, for fear of being laughed at and called a 
woman.” ® In Abyssinia “ it is infamy for a man to go 
to market to buy anything. He cannot carry water or 
bake bread ; but he must wash the clothes belonging to 
both sexes, and, in this function, the women cannot help 
him.” ^ Among the Beni Ahsen tribe in Morocco the 
women of the village where I was staying were quite 
horrified when one of my native servants set out to fetch 
water ; they would on no account allow him to do what 
they said was a womans business. The Greenlander 
regards it as scandalous for a man to interfere with any 
occupation which belongs to the women. When he has 
brought his booty to land, he troubles himself no further 
about it ; for it would be a stigma on his character, 

^ Dobrizhoflfer, Account of the Abi- ^ Macdonald, IJ^/it tn A/nca,Y). 221. 

pones, ii. 118. Cf Wied-Neuwied, ® Hoiub, ‘Central South African 

Reise nach Brasilien, ii. 17, 37 (Boto- Tribes,’ in Jour. Ant hr. Just. x. ii. 
cudos) ; Giddings, Principles of Socio- ^ W«aitz, op. cit. iii. 100. 
logy, p. 266 sc/. Prescott, in Schoolcraft, Indian 

See Crawley, Mystic Rose, p. \^sq. Tribes of the United States, iii. 235. 

^ Schurtz, Das afrikanische Gewerbe, ^ Bruce, Travels to Discover the 
p. 10. Source of the Nile, iv. 474. 

^ Ratzel, op. cit. ii. 419. 

if he so much as drew a seal out of the water.” ^ Among 
the Bakongo a man would be much ridiculed by the 
women themselves, if he wanted to help them in their 
work in the field.^ Sometimes agriculture is supposed 
to be dependent for success on a magic quality in woman, 
intimately connected with child-bearing.® Some Orinoco 
Indians said to Father Gumilla : — “ When the women plant 
maize the stalk produces two or three ears ; when they set 
the manioc the plant produces two or three baskets of roots ; 
and thus everything is multiplied. Why ? Because women 
know how to produce children, and know how to plant the 
corn so as to ensure its germinating. Then, let them 
plant it ; we do not know so much as they do.” * 

It is obvious that this strict division of labour is apt to 
mislead the travelling stranger. He sees the women hard 
at work, and the men idly looking on ; and it escapes him 
that the latter will have to be busy in their turn, within their 
own sphere of action. What is largely due to the force 
of custom is taken to be sheer tyranny on the part of the 
men ; and the wife is pronounced to be an abject slave of 
her husband, destitute of all rights. And yet the strong 
differentiation of work, however burdensome it may be 
to the wife, is itself a source of rights, giving her 
authority within the circle which is exclusively her own. 
Among the Banaka and Bapuku the wife, though said to 
be her husband’s property and slave, is nevertheless an 
autocrat in her own house, strong enough to bid defiance 
to her lord and master.® Among the North American 
Indians, Schoolcraft observes, “ the lodge itself, with all 
its arrangements, is the precinct of the rule and govern- 
ment of the wife. . . . The husband has no voice in this 
matter.” *' Many other statements to a similar effect will 
be quoted below. 

^ Nansen, Firs/ Crossing of Green- ^ Gumilla, El Orinoco ilustrado, ii. 
land^ ii. 313. Craftz, History of Green- T]\s(j. 

land, i. 138, 154. ° Steinmetz, Rechlsverhaltnisse, p. 

2 Moller, Pagels, and Gleernp, op, 29 sq. 
cit, i. 270. ^ Schoolcraft, Indian in his Wig- 

^ See Payne, History of the New warn, p. 73. 

World, ii. 8. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

We have reason, then, to believe that the authority 
which savage husbands possess over their wives is not 
always quite so great as it is said to be. And we must 
distinctly reject as erroneous the broad statement that the 
lower races in general hold their women in a state of 
almost complete subjection.^ Among many of them the 
married woman, though in the power of her husband, is 
known to enjoy a remarkable degree of independence, to 
be treated by him with consideration, and to exercise no 
small influence upon him. In several cases she is stated 
to be his equal, and in a few his superior. 

Among many of the South American Indians the women 
have been noticed to occupy a respected position in the family 
or community. “ d'hus, among the Goajiros of Colombia, in 
a quarrel or drunken brawl, women often save bloodshed by 
stepping in and tearing the weapons out of their husband’s or 
brother’s liand. Travelling with women is cojisequently per- 
fectly safe, and in case of danger, if one undertakes to protect a 
stranger, he may rely upon coming out all right.” Among 
the Tarahuinarcs of Mexico — in spite of their saying that one 
man is as good as five women — the woman “ occupies a com- 
paratively high position in the family, and no bargain is ever 
concluded until the husband has consulted his wife in the 
matter.”'^ Among the Navahos of New Mexico the women 
exert a great deal of influence”;^ they “are very inde- 
pendent of menial duties, and leave their husbands upon the 
slightest pretext of dislike ” ; “ by common consent the house 

and all the domestic gear belongs entirely to the wife.” ^ In 

^ Thus Mciners says o/ //i£ vo/ker^ iii. 472 (Guaycurus), 530 

Female Sex., i, 2), “Among savage (Morotocos). von den Stein en, Unter 
nations, the entrance into the married deii Natiirvolkern Zeuiral-Brasiliens, 
state is for the female the commence- p. 332 (Bakairi). 

ment of the most cruel and abject ^ Simons, ‘ Exploration of the 

slavery ; for which reason many women (ioajira Peninsula,’ in Proceed. Roy. 
dread matrimony more than death.” Geo. Soc. N.S. vii. 792. See also Can- 

In a recent work on the primitive delicr, Rlo-//ac/ia, p. 256, 

family an Italian writer regards it as Lumholtz, Unknown Alexlco^ i. 

perhaj)S the most fundamental fact in 265. 

the family institution that the woman is I.etherman, in Ann. Rep. Smifh- 

always and everywhere “ sottoposta al sonlan Inst. 1855, p. 294. 
pill gravoso viundium maritale ” (Ama- ® Eaton, in Sclnadcraft, A?rkives, 
dori- Virgilj, Uistituto famigliare nclle iv. 217. 

socletd primordlali., p. 138). Stephen, in A?nerican Anthropolo- 

- Waitz, Anihropologie der Natur- plst, vi. 354. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

his description of North American Indians Mr. Grinnell 
observes : — 7'he Indian woman, it is usually thought, is a 
mere drudge and slave, but, so far as my observations extend, 
this notion is wholly an erroneous one. It is true that the 
women were the labourers of the camp ; that they did all the 
hard work, about which there was no excitement . . ., but 
they were not mere servants. On the contrary, their position 
was very respectable. They were consulted on many sub- 
jects, not only in connection with family affairs, but in more 
important and general matters. Sometimes women were even 
admitted to the councils and spoke there, giving their advice. 
... In ordinary family conversation women did not hesitate 
to interrupt and correct their husbands when the latter made 
statements with which they did not agree, and the men lis- 
tened to them with respectful attention, though of course this 
depended on the standing of the woman, her intelligence, etc.” ^ 
Another competent observer, Ten Kate, strongly protests 
against the statement that, among the North American 
Indians, women are treated as beasts of burden, and affirms 
that their condition, as compared with that of the women of 
the lower classes in civilised countries, is rather better than 
worse. Among the Omahas the women had an equal standing 
in society with the men ; both the husband and wife were at 
the head of tlie family and the joint owners of the lodge, 
robes, and so forth, so that the man could not give away any- 
thing if his wife was unwilling.'^ Among the Senecas, 
usually, the female portion ruled tlie house, and were doubt- 
less clannish enough about it. The stores were in common ; 
but woe to the luckless husband or lover who was too shiftless 
to do his share of the providing. No matter how many 
children, or whatever goods he might have in the house, he 
might at any time be ordered to pick up liis blanket and 
budge.” ^ From documentary references,” says Mr. Mooney, 
it is apparent that there existed among the Cherokee a 
custom analogous to that found among the Iroquois and 
probably other Eastern tribes, by whicli 'the decision of im- 
portant questions relating to peace and war was left to a vote 
of the women.” Among the Salish, or Flathcads, ^‘although 
the women are required to do much hard labour, they are 

^ Grinnell, S(o 7 y of the Indian^ p. 46 Ann. Rep. Ilitr. Ethn. iii. 266, 366. 
sq. Cf. VVaitz, op. cit. iii. loi sq. Morj^an, Houses' and House-Life of 

'^T^Xi¥joXo:fReizeneno}idei-zo€kinge}i the. A/noLcan Ahorigines., p. 65 sq. 
in Noord-Avierika^ p. 365. Cf. ihid. See also Dixon, New Afiicrica, ]9. 46. 
459. ^ Mooney, ‘ Myths of the Cherokee/ 

^ Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in in Rep. Bur. Ethn. xix. 489. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

by no means treated as slaves, but, on the contrary, have 
much consideration and authority.” ^ Among the Nootkas 
‘‘ wives are consulted in matters of trade, and in fact seem to 
be nearly on terms of equality with their husbands, except 
that they are excluded from some public feasts and cere^ 
monies.” Among the Indians about Puget Sound, also, 
women are always consulted in matters of trade before a 
bargain is closed,” and acquire great influence in the 
tribe.” The Thlinket woman is not the slave of her 
husband ; she has determinate rights, and her influence is con- 
siderable. Among the natives of Cross Cape she even 
possesses ^^acknowledged superiority over the other sex.”^ 
Among the Western Tinneh the women do only a fair 
share of the work and have a powerful voice in most 
affairs.” ^ In Kadiak they were held in much respect, and 
enjoyed great liberties.'^ Among the Kamchadales they had 
the command of everything, and the husbands Were their 
obedient slaves.^ Nordenskiold says of the Chukchi : — ‘‘The 
power of the woman appears to be very great. In making the 
more important bargains, even about weapons and hunting 
implements, she is, as a rule, consulted, and her advice is 
taken. A number of things which form women’s tools she can 
barter away on her own responsibility, or in any other way 
employ as she pleases.” ^ Mr. Bancroft’s statement concerning 
the Western Eskimo, that “ the lot of the women is but little 
better than slavery,” must be understood as chiefly involving 
the fact that they have much hard work to do. According to 
Dr. Seemann they “ are treated, although not as equals, at 
least with more consideration than is customary among bar- 
barous nations” ; nay, “ it not infrequently happens that the 
woman is the chief authority of the house,” and “ the man 

^ Hale, U.S. lLxplori 7 }g Rxpedilion. ^ Steller, BeschreihiDig V071 dem 
Vo/. VI. E/Juiography and B/iiVo/ogy, J.ande /Pa/n/soka/dca^ j^. 287. 
p. 207. Nordenskiold, Vegas fat'd kring 

Bancroft:, op, cit. i. 196. Cf. Asien oc/i Europa.^ ii. 144. 

Sproal, Scenes atid Studies of Savage Bancroft, op, cit. i. 65 sq. Mr. 

JJfe.^ pp. 93, 95 (Ahts). Bancroft’s authority is probably Arm- 

Bancroft, op, cit. i, 218. stron<^, who says that the women are, 

^ Krause, T/in/cit-Indiancr, p. 161. to all intents and purposes, the slaves 

Meares, Voyages to the North-West of the men, and do tlie greater part of 

Coast of A/tierica^ p. 323. the outdoor work, except hunting and 

Dali, Alas/ia, p. 431. hshing ; but he adds that they never- 

^ Ilolmberg, ‘ I'ahnographische Skiz- theless enjoy a higher position and more 

zen liber die Vdlker des russischen consideration than is usual amongst 

EvacxW.\P in Acta Soc. Scient. E'enniciPy savages (Armstrong, Personal Narra- 

iv. 399. iive of the Discovet'y of the North- West 

Passage, p. 195). 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

never makes a bargain without consulting his wife, and if she 
does not approve, it is rejected.” ^ Among the Point Barrow 
Eskimo the women appear to stand on a footing of perfect 
equality with the men both in the family and in the com- 
munity. The wife is the constant and trusted companion of 
the man in everything except the hunt, and her opinion is 
sought in every bargain or other important undertaking.” ^ In 
Greenland, also, though the woman is considered much inferior 
to the man, she is in no way oppressed,^ and her husband con- 
sults with her on important matters.'* 

Among the nomadic Tangutans the women’s rights in the 
household seemed to Prejevalsky to be equal to those of the 
men.*'’ Of the Todas of India it is said that their women 
hold a position in the family quite unlike what is ordinarily 
witnessed among Oriental nations. "I'hey are treated 
with respect, and are permitted a remarkable amount of 
freedom.” Among the Kandhs women “ are uniformly 
treated with respect ; the mothers of families generally with 
much honour. Nothing is done either in public or in private 
affairs without consulting them, and they generally exert upon 
the councils of their tribes a powerful influence.” A wife may 
quit her husband at any time, except within a year of her 
marriage, or wheii she expects offspring, or within a year after 
the birth of a child, though, when she quits him, he has a right 
to reclaim immediately from her father the whole sum paid for 
her.^ Among the peasants of the North-Western Provinces of 
India the wife is an influential personage in the household, not 
a mere drudge. Little is done without her knowledge and 
advice. If she is badly wronged the tribal council will protect 
her, and on the wliole her position is, perhaps, not worse than 
that of her sisters in a similar grade of life in other parts of the 
world. ^ Among the Kdttis the men are much ■ under the 
authority of their wives. Among the Bhecls women have 
much influence in the society,” and married men have always 
had tlie credit of allowing their wives to domineer over them.*^ 
A Kol or Ho,” says Dr. Hayes, makes a regular companion 

^ Seeniann, Narrative of the Voyage ® Marsliall, A Phrenologist amongst 
of Herald f ii. 66. the Todas ^ P- 43 * 

^ Murdoch, ‘ Ethnological Results of ^ Maepherson, Memorials of Service 
the Point Barrow Expedition,^ in Atm. in Jndia^ pp. 69, 132 .ry. 

Pep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 4 1 3. ^ Crooke, North-VVesterti Provinces 

Nansen, First Crossing of Green- of India ^ p. 230 sq. 
land, ii. 312. ^ Rowney, IVild Tribes of India, 

Den andra Dicksoti- p. 47. 

'^ka expeditionen till Grimland, p. 509. %\'A\co\m, Memoir of Central Ittdia, 

® Prejevalsky, Mongolia, ii. 121. ii. 180. Rowney, op. cit. p. 38. 

VOL. I 

T T 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

CHA1\ 

of his wife. She is consulted in all difficulties, and receives the 
fullest consideration due to her sex”;^ and Colonel Dalton 
adds, As a rule, in no covintry in the world are wives better 
treated.’" “ 'Flic Garos are kind husbands, and their conduct 
generally towards the weaker sex is marked by consideration and 
respect.”'*^ The lfi>do and Dhimals ‘‘use their wives and 
daughters well, treating them with confidence and kindness.”^ 
The Santa] “ treats the female members of his family with 
respect.”"' Among the Kukis women are generally held in 
consideration; “tlieir advice is taken, and they have much 
influence.”,^ Mr. Colquhoun observes that among the Indo- 
Chinese races equality of tlie sexes prevails, and prevailed long 
before Buddhism took any hold upon the country/ 

Among the Nicoharese “the position of women is, and 
always has been, in no way inferior to that of the other sex. 
They take their full share in the formation of public opinioji, 
discuss publicly with the men matters of general interest to the 
village, and their opinions receive due attention before a 
decision is arrived at. In fact, they are consulted on every 
matter, and the henpecked husband is of no extraordinary 
rarity in the Nicobars.”^ Mr. Crawfurd thinks that in the 
Malay Archipelago “ the lot of women may, on the whole, be 
considered as more fortunate than in any other country of the 
East” ; they associate with the men “in all respects on terms 
of such equality as surprise us in such a condition of society.”-' 
In Bali they are on a perfect equality with the mend^ 'The 
Dyak shows great respect for his wife, and always asks her 
opinion he regards her “ not as a slave, but as a companion.” ^-' 
Among the Bataks the married womeji often have a great 
influence over their faniiliesd^ Li Serang they have in all matters 
equal rights with the men, and are, consequently, treated well.^^ 
The women of Sulu “have the reputation of ruling their 

^ Tlaycs, quoted by Dalton, Descrip- 
th;e Ethnology of Bengal, }>. 194. Cf. 
Bracllcy-Birl, Cliota-Nagpore, p. 100 sij. 
Dalton, op. clt, p. 194. 

3 Ibid. p. 68. 

^ Hodgson, Miscellaneoits Essays, i. 

150. 

^ Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal, 
i. 217. Cf. Ymer, v. p. xxiv. 

I^ewin, Wild Races of South- 
East tn'u India, p. 254. 

^ Colquhoun, Amongst the Slians, 
p. 234. Cf P'ytche, Burma, ii. 72. 

^ Kloss, In the Andamans and 
Hicobars, ji. 242. 

Crawfurd, History of the Indian 
Archipelago, i. 73. 

Raffles, History of fava, ii. p. 
ccxxxi. 

Bock, Head-Hunters of Borneo, 
p. 210 sq. 

Selenka, Son?rige Wet ten, p. 33. 
Cf Wilkes, op. cit. v. 363. 

Steinmetz, Ethnol. Sludien zur 
ersten Entwicklung der Strafe, ii. 299. 

Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige 
rassen tusschen Selehes en Papua, p. 97 * 

lords, and possess much weight in the government by the 
influence they exert over their husbands.” ^ 

In Melanesia the women generally have to work hard, supply- 
ing the place of slaves ; - but at least in various islands their 
condition is otherwise fairly good. In the Western islands of 
Torres Straits “ the women appear to have had a good deal to 
say on most questions and were by no means downtrodden or 
ill-used.” In some parts of New Guinea their position is 
described as one of high esteem.'* They have a large voice 
in domestic affairs, and occasionally lord it over their masters”; 
and their influence is felt not only in domestic matters, but also 
in affairs of statc.^ In Erromanga, of the New Hebrides, 
although the women did all of the hard plantation work, they 
were on the wliole well treated by tlieir husbands. ^ The 
same is said to be the case in the Solomon Islands ; " in the 
eastern part of New Georgia they do not even seem to do much 
work.^ In Micronesia the position of woman is decidedly 
good. In the Marianne Group the wife is absolute mistress 
in her house, the husband not daring to dispose of anything 
without her consent ” ; nay, the men are said to be actually 
governed by their wives, the women assuming those preroga- 
tives which in most other countries are invested in the other 
sex.”^^ In the Pelew Islands the women are in every respect 
the equals of the men ; the oldest man, or Obokul, of a family 
can do nothing without taking advice with its oldest female 
members.*^* In t)ie Caroline Group the weaker sex enjoys a 
perfect equality in public estimation with the other.”** Among 
the Mortlock Islanders tlie wife is quite independent of her 
husband. In the ICingsmill Islands very great consideration is 
awarded to the women : ^Hhey seem to have exclusive control 
over the house,” whilst all the hard labour is performed by the 

^ Wilkes, op. cit. v. 343. 

Nioboer, op. cit. p. ^g2S//</. Waitz- 
Gerland, op. cit. vi. 626, 

^ Iladdon, in Reports of the Cam- 
bridge Anthropological Expedition to 
'for res Straits, v. 229. 

^ Ratzel, op. cit. i. 274. 

^ Pitcairn, T^vo Years among the 
Savages of New Guinea^ p. 61. Cf 
liink, in Bulletin Soc. d^ Anthrop. dc 
Paris, xi. 392 ; Ha^en, Unter den 
Papuals, pp. 226, 243. 

^ Robertson, Erro/nanga, p. 397. 

Parkinson, Zur Ethnographie der 
nordwest lichen Salonio Insein, p. 4. 

^ Somerville, ‘ Elhnogr. Notes in 
New Geor<4ia,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 
xxvi. 405 s^/. 

Afoore, Alarriagc Customs, p. 187, 
Waitz, op. cit. v. pt. i. p. 107 scj. 

Kiiljary, Pie socialeji Ei nr icht un- 
gen der Pelauer, p. 38 S(j. Cf. Idem, 
‘ Die Palau- Inseln,’ in Jotirnal des 
Museum Godeffroy, iv. 43 ; Keate, 
Account of the Pelew Islands, p. 331. 

" Hale, op. l it. p. 73, 

Kuljary, ‘ Die Pewohner der MoiT- 
lock Inseln,’ in Miitheilungen der Geo- 
graph. Gesellscli. in Hamburg, 1878-9, 
p. 261. 

T T 2 

men,^ Among the Line Islanders no difference is made 
in the sexes ; a woman can vote and speak as well as a man^ 
and in general the women decide the question, unless it is one 
of war against another island.’^ In many Polynesian islands, 
also, their position is by no means bad.^ In Tonga “ women 
have considerable respect shewn to them on account of their 
sex, independent of the rank they might otherwise hold as 
nobles ” ; they are not subjected to hard labour or any very 
menial work,'^ and their status in society is not inferior to that 
of men.^ In Samoa they ^‘are held in much consideration, . . . 
treated with great attention, and not suffered to do anything but 
what rightfully belongs to them.” ^ In the valley of Typee, in 
the Marquesas Group, tlie women are allowed every possible in^- 
dulgence, the religious restrictions of the taboo alone excepted ; 
they are exempt from toil, and nowhere are tliey more sen- 
sible of their power.” ^ Rochon wrote of the Malagasy: — Man 
here never commands as a despot ; nor does the woman ever 
obey as a slave. The balance of power inclines even in favour 
of the women.” ^ At the present day, in Madagascar, the 
woman is not scorned as essentially inferior to man,” but 
enters into her husband’s cares and joys, and shares his life, 
much in the same way as a wife does amongst ourselves.^ 

Turning, finally, to the African continent, we find 
that among the Negro races the woman, though often 
heavily burdened and more or less subservient to her 

husband, is by no means without infiucnce.^^ ^‘When 
we become more closely acquainted with family conditions,” 
Herr Biittner observes, ‘‘we notice that there, as else- 
where, husbands are under petticoat government, and 

those most of all who like to pose before the outer world as 
masters of their house. The women, including the aunts, have 
on all occasions, important and unimportant alike, a weighty 

^ Wilkes, op. oit. v. 91. Tra 7 M?ls^ xvi. 747. Cf. Waitz, op. cil. 

^ Tiituila, in Jour. Polynesian Soc. ii. 438. 
i. 269. ” Little, A/cufay’ascar, p. 63. 

^ See WailZ'Gerland, op. cit. vi. 120 Waitz, op. cil. ii. 117. Ratzel, 

S(p/. op. cit. ii. 332. Buchner, Kamcrun, 

Mariner, Natives of the Tonga p. 32 Mdller, Pag;cl.s, and Gleerup, 

islands, ii. 97. op. cit. i. 171 (Lukungu). Steinmetz, 

Krskine, Cruise among the Islands Recktsverhdltnisse, p. 29 (Banaka and 

of the Western Pacific, p. 158. Bapuku). Lang, ibid. p. 225 (Wa- 

Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 148, Cf. Waitz- shainbala). Burrows, Land of the 

Gerland, op. cit. vi. 121. Pigmies, p. 62 (Niam-Niam). Chan- 

” Melville, I'ypee, p. 299. ler. Through Jungle and Desert, 

^ Rochon, ‘ Voyage to Madagascar,’ p. 485 (Wakamba). 
in Pinkerton, Collection of Voyages and 

word to contribute.”^ The Monbuttu women, according to 
Dr. Schweinfurth, exhibit towards their husbands the highest 
degree of independence; ‘‘the position in the household 
occupied by the men was illustrated by the reply which would 
be made if they were solicited to sell anything as a curiosity, 
‘Oh, ask my wife; it is hers.’ ” ^ Among the Momvus 

“ the women are on a footing of equality with the men, 

and go hunting with them, and accompany them to the 
wars, taking their part in the combat.” Among the 

Madi or Moru tribe of Central Africa “ women are 

treated with respect and politeness by the men, who 
always show them preference, resigning to their use the 
best places, and paying them such like courtesies.” 'I'hc 

women associate with the men on equal terms, being consulted 
and honoured ; and any insult to a woman is revenged, nay is 
frequently the cause of war. ^ In a Hottentot’s house the 
woman is the supreme ruler, and the husband has nothing at 
all to say. “While in public the men take the prominent part, 
at home they have not so much power even as to take a mouth- 
ful of sour milk out of the tub, without the wife’s permission. 
If a man ever should try to do it, his nearest female relations 
will put a fine on him, consisting in cows and sheep, which is 
to be added to the stock of the wife.” Among the peoples 
of Berber race the women exercise considerable influence 
over the men. Among the Guanches of the Canary Islands 
they were much respected. Among the 'rouareg “ la 
fenime est I’egale de riiomme, si meme, par certains 
cotes, elle n’est dans une condition meillcure.”" Among the 
Beni Amer a husband undertakes notliing before consulting 
his wife, on whose goodwill he largely depends. Of tlie 
AulM Soliman, an Arab tribe in the Sahara, Dr. Nachtigal 
observes that it was curious to sec how powerless those much 
feared robbers and throat-cutters were in their own houses. ^ 
Both in the Sahara and in the East the Bedouin women 

^ Blittner, quoted by Ratzel, op, cit. 
ii. 334. 

^ Schweinfurth, Heart of Africa^ ii. 
91 - 

Burrows, op, eit. p. 128- 

^ Felkin, ‘ Notes on the Madi or 
Moru Tribe,’ in Proceed. Roy. Soc, 
JRdinhurgh, xii. 329. 

^ Hahn, The Supreme Behig of the 
Hhoi-Khoi, p. 19. 

® Bory de St. Vincent, Essais stir Ics 
Isles Fo7'tiin^eSy p. 105. Mantegazza, 
Rio de la Plata e Tenerife^ p. 630. 

Dyveyrier, Explo?'ation du Sahara^ 
P* 339* V' Chavanne, Die Saha?'ay 
p. 181 ; Hours!, Sur le Niger ct an 
pays des Toiiaregs,, p. 209. 

ATunzinger, Ostafrikanische Stu~ 
dien, p. 325. 

'■ Nachtigal, Sahara und Sudan, ii. 
93- 

Chavanne, op. cit. p. 397. 

Wallin, Reseantechningar fran 
Orienten, iii. 15 1, 152, 269. Blunt, 
Bedouin 'Tribes of the Euphrates, ii. 
214, 226, 228. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

enjoy a considerable degree of freedom, and sometimes actually 
rule ov^er their husbands. 

All these statements certainly do not imply that the 
husband has no recognised power over his wife, but they 
prove that his power is by no means unlimited. It is 
true that many of our authorities speak rather of liberties' 
that the woman takes herself than ot privileges granted 
her by custom ; but, as we have seen before, customary 
rights are always more or less influenced by habitual 
practice. It should be added that among many savage 
peoples the husband has a right to divorce his wife only 
under certain conditions U among a very considerable 
number custom or law permits the wife to separate either 
for some special cause or, simply, at will.“ In certain 
parts of Eastern Central Africa divorce may be effected if 
the husband neglects to sew his wife’s clothes, or if the 
partners do not please each other.^ Among the Shans of 
Burma the woman has a right to turn adrift a husband 
who takes to drinking or otherwise misconducts himself, 
and to retain all the goods and money of the partnership.'^ 
Among the Irulas of the Neilgherries the option of 
remaining in union, or of separating, rests principally 
with the woman,'"' Among the Savaras, an aboriginal hill 
people of the Madras Presidency, a woman may leave 
her husband whenever she pleases"' This, to be sure, is 
something very different from that absolute dominion 
which hasty generalisers have attributed to savage 
husbands in general. 

It is often said that a people’s civilisation may be 
measured by the position held by the women. But at 
least so far as the earlier stages of culture are concerned, 
this opinion is not supported by facts. Among several 
of the lowest races, including peoples like the Veddahs, 
Andaman Islanders, and Bushmans, the female sex is 

' Westcrniarck, ofi. cit. p, 523 Description of a Singular 

•' JhiiL ]:>. 526 S(j(]. Ahorii^inal Race inhabiting thc: Neil- 

•' Macdonald, A/ricana, \, 140. gherry Hilh, p. 92. 

^ Colquhoun, A/nongst the Shans, ^ Fawcett, in Jour. Antiu'op. Soc. 
p. 295. Bombay, i. 28. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

•647 

treated with far greater consideration than among many of 
the higher savages and barbarians. Travellers have not 
seldom noticed that of two neighbouring tribes the less 
cultured one sets in this respect an example to the other. 
“Among the Bushmans,” says Dr. Eritsch, “the female 
sex makes life-companions, among the A-bantu beasts of 
burden.” ' Lewis and Clarke affirm that the status of 
woman in a savage tribe has no necessary relation even to 
its moral qualities in general. “ The Indians,” they say, 
“ whose treatment of the females is mildest, and who pay 
most deference to their opinions, are by no means the 
most distinguished for their virtues. . . . On the other 
hand, the tribes among whom the women are very much 
debased, possess the loftiest sense of honour, the greatest 
liberality, and all the good qualities of which their situa- 
tion demands the exercise.”" That the condition of 
woman, or her relative independence, is no safe gauge of 
the general culture of a nation, also appears from a com- 
parison between many of the lower races and the peoples 
of archaic civilisation. 

In China the condition of woman has always been 
inferior to that of man, and no generous sentiment 
tending to the amelioration of her social position has ever 
come from the Chinese sages.'* Her children must pay 
her respect, but she in her turn owes to her husband the 
subjection ot a child;* a wife is an infinitely less 
important personage than a mother in the Chinese social 
scale.“ The husband has certainly not absolute power 
over his wife : he may not kill her, nor sell her without 
her consent,*’ nor even divorce her, except for certain 
causes specified by law.^ But these causes are very elastic ; 

^ Fritsch, Z^ic Eingcborencn Siui- ^ Doolittle, Social Life of the 
Af'iha's, ]7. 444. Chinese, ii. 209. 

“ Lewis and Cdarke, op. ciL p. 441. ^ Medhiirst, ‘ Marriage, Affinity, and 

Religions of China, \s\). \o''j , Inheritance in China,’ in Trans, Roy, 

lo8, III. As. Soc. China JZ ranch, iv. 25 sq. 

de Groot, Religions .S'ysle/n of C>ray, China, i. 219, Midler, Reise 
China, (vol. ii. book) i. 550, der Rregi/te Nozkira, Ethriographie, 

® Gile.s, Strange Stories from a p. 164. 

Chinese Studio, i. 315, n. 3. 

it is said that when a woman has any quality that is not 
good, it is but just and reasonable to turn her out of 
doors.’’ ^ And in a book containing the cream of all the 
moral writings of the Chinese, and intended chiefly for 
children we read : — Brothers are like hands and feet. 
A wife is like one s clothes. When clothes are worn out, 
we can substitute those that are new. When hands and 
feet are cut ofF, it is difficult to obtain substitutes for 
them.” A woman, on the other hand, cannot obtain 
legal separation on any account.^ Confucius says that 
“ man is the representative of Heaven, and is supreme 
overall things. Woman yields obedience to the instruc- 
tions of man, and helps to carry out his principles. On 
this account she can determine nothing of herself, and is 
subject to the rule of the three obediences. When young, 
she must obey her father and elder brother ; when 
married, she must obey her husband ; when her 
husband is dead, she must obey her son.” In Japan, 

also, a woman was formerly, in the eye of the law, a 
chattel rather than a person. Flaving all her life under 
her father’s roof reverenced her superiors, she is expected 
to bring reverence to her new domicile, but not love. 
She must always obey but never be jealous. She must not 
be angry, no matter whom her husband may introduce 
into his household. She must wait upon him at his meals 
and must walk behind him, but not with him. When she 
dies her children go to her funeral, but not her husband.” 
In Japan a man might repudiate his wife for the same 
reasons as in China,^' and till the year 1873 a wife could 
not obtain separation according to law.' However, 
though the Japanese wife is the first servant of the 
household,” training and public opinion require that she 
should be treated with respect, if the marriage be blessed 

^ Navarette, ' Account of the Empire Le"ge, Chinese Classics, i. 103 sq. 

of China,’ in A\Misham and Churchill, ® Criflis, Religions of Japan, p. 124 
Collection of 'Coyages and Travels, i. sq. 

73 * ^ Westermarck, op. cit, p. 525. 

“ Indo-Chinese Gleaner, i. 164. ^ \<Cm, Japan, p. 424 sq. 

'' Co'ay, op. cit. i. 219. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

with children.^ She is addressed as “ the honourable lady 
of the house,” and her position is sa.id»to be higher than 
in any other Oriental country.^ 

From various quarters of the ancient world we hear of 
the rule that the husband shall command and the wife 
obey. The Lord said to the woman, “ Thy desire shall 
be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” ® How 
great the husband’s power was among the Hebrews we do 
not know exactly. He could divorce his wife if she did 
not please him because he had “ found some uncleanness 
in her,” whereas a wife could not legally separate from 
her husband.’' In later times her condition evidently 
improved.® From the old Jewish point of view it is 
surely surprising to find Sirach putting the companionship 
of a wife not only above that of a friend, but even above 
children. In the Talmud a husband is admonished to 
love his wife like himself and to honour her more than 
himself,'* though he should take care not to be ruled by 
her ; and the wife also is authorised to demand a divorce 
under certain circumstances, namely, if the husband 
refuses to perform his conjugal duty, if he continues to 
lead a disorderly life after marriage, if he proves impotent 
during ten years, if he suffers from an insupportable 
disease, or if he leaves the country for ever.“ 

In the Zoroastrian Yasts a holy woman is defined as 
one who is “ rich in good thoughts, good words, and good 
deeds, well-principled, and obedient to her husband,” 
whereas the fiendish woman is “ ill-principled and. dis- 
obedient to her husband.” ” According to Brahmanic law, a 
woman must in childhood be subject to her father, in youth 

^ Ibid, p. 425. 

^ Norman, The Real fapan^ p. 184. 
Griffis, Religions of Japans p. 318. 

^ Geiiesis^ iii. 1 6. 

^ Deuleronomy^ xxiv. i. 

^ Josephus, Antiquitales Romamr, 
XV. 7. 10. Keil, Manual of Biblical 
Arckaology, ii. 175. 

^ Cf Klugmann, Die Frau hn Tal- 
mud^ p. 63 sq. 

Fcclesiaslicusy xl. 19, 23. Cf 

IMontcfiorc, Hibbert Lectures on the 
Religion of the Ancient Hebrews ^ j). 
491' 

^ Deutscli, Literary Remains , p. 56. 
Beza, fol. 32 1 ^, quoted by Katz, 
Der walu'e Tabnudjudey p. 1 14. 

Glas.son, Lc mariagc civil et le 
divorce^ p. 1 49 sq. 

YastSy xxii. 18, 36. Cf. Dind-t 
Main 6 g~i Khirady xxxix. 38 sq. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons ; “ a 
woman must never.be independent.”^ Not even in her 
own house is she allowed to do anything independently. 
Him to whom her father may give her, or her brother 
with the father’s permission, she shall obey as long as he 
lives.® She must never do anything that might displease 
him ; ■* even though he be destitute of virtue, or unfaithful 
to her, “ a husband must be constantly worshipped as a 
god by a fiiithful wife.” ’’ A wife who shows disrespect 
to a husband who is addicted to some evil passion, is a 
drunkard, or diseased, shall be deserted for three months, 
and be deprived of her ornaments and furniture.'^ If a 
wife obeys her husband, she will for that reason alone be 
exalted in heaven ; but by violating her duty towards 
him, she is disgraced in this world, and after death she 
enters the womb of a jackal, and is punished with disease 
for her sin.'^ There is no indication that a woman can 
obtain legal separation on any account, though she may 
with impunity “ show aversion ” towards a mad or outcast 
husband, a eunuch, one destitute of manly strength, or one 
afflicted with such diseases as punish crimes.'^ Again, if 
she is sold or repudiated by her husband, she can never 
become the legitimate wife of another who may have 
bought or received her after she was repudiated.^*’ But 
the husband is not allowed to divorce her indiscriminately. 
A wife who drinks spirituous liquor, is of bad conduct, 
rebellious, quarrelsome, diseased, mischievous, or wasteful, 
may at any time be superseded by another wife ; a barren 
one may be superseded in the eighth year ; one whose 
children all die, in the tenth ; one who bears daughters 
only, in the eleventh ; whereas a sick wife who is kind to 
her husband and virtuous in her conduct, may be super- 
seded only with her own consent, and must never be 

^ Laws of Mann, v. 148. Cf ibid. 
ix, 2 s ( j . 

Ibid. V. 147. 

Ibid. V. 15 1 . 

Ibid. V. 156. 

Ibid. V. 154. 

^ Ibid. ix. 78. 

^ Ibid. V. 155. Cf ibid. ix. 29. 

^ Ibid. V. 164 ; ix. 30. 

^ Ibid. ix. 79. 

Ibid. ix. 46. See also the note in 
Blihler’s lran.slation, Sacred Books of 
the East, xxv. 335, 

disgraced/ The rule, ‘H^et mutual fidelity continue until 
death,” may be considered the summary of the highest law 
for husband and wife;" women must be honoured and 
adorned by husbands who desire their own welfare/ 
Various passages in the Mahabharata and Ramayana 
indicate that women in India were subjected to less social 
restraints in former days than they are at present according 
to the rules of Brahmanism, and even enjoyed considerable 
liberty;^ and the Vedic singers know no more tender 
relation than that between the husband and his willing, 
loving wife, who is praised as his home, the darling 
abode and bliss in his house.” "' Yet it is noteworthy 
that goddesses play a very insignificant part in the Veda.® 
In this respect the Pantheon of the Vedic people essen- 
tially differs from that of the ancient Egyptians,'^ a 
difference which may be due to the remarkably high 
position which woman seems to have occupied in Egypt.® 
In Greece, also, a wife appears to have been a more 
influential and independent personage in ancient times, in 
Homeric society, than she became afterwards.® In the 
historic age her position was simply that of the domestic 
drudge ; her virtues were reduced to the maintenance 
of good order in her household, and obedience to her 
husband ; her greatest ornament was silence/® Aristotle, 
always a faithful exponent of the most enlightened opinion 
of his age, gives the following description of what he 
considers to be the ideal relation of a woman to her 
husband : — “A good and perfect wife ought to be mistress 

^ Laizrs of Matiu^ ix. 8o sqq. 

Ibid. ix. 1 01. 

^ Ibid. iii. 55 sqq. 

Zimmer, Altindisches Lcbcrty p. 316 
sqq. Monier \I\\\mms^Ijid/anWisdom, 
p. 437 sq. 

^ Kaegi, Rigveda, p. 15. 

^ Macdoneli, Hedic Mythology, p. 
124 sq. 

Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, 
p. 10 1 sq. 

^ Ibid. p. 52. Maspero, Life in 
Ancient Lgypt and Assyria, p. ll. 
Amelincau, Vidvolution des id^es 

morales dans P figypte Ancienne, p. 68 
sqq. Flinders Petrie, Religion and 
Conscience in Ancient Rgypt, p. 131 
sq. Brugsch, Aegyptologie, p. 61 sq. 

^ Hermann -Blu Miner, I.elirbnch der 
gricchisclien rrwataltertliunier, p. 64 
sqq. Mahaffy, Social IM'e in Greece, 

P- 53 -. 

Dickinson, Grech Vieav of Life, 
p. 16 r. Ddl linger, The Gentile and 
the Jew, ii. 234. ‘ Slate of Female 

Society in Greece,’ in Quarterly Re- 
in ew, xxii, 172 iv/y. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES chap. 

of everything within the house. . . . But the well- 
ordered wife will justly consider the behaviour of her 
husband as a model of her own life, and a law to 
herself, invested with a divine sanction by means of 
the marriage tie and the community of life. . . . The 
wife ought to show herself even more obedient to the 
rein than if she had entered the house as a purchased 
slave. For she has been bought at a high price, for the 
sake of sharing life and bearing children, than which 
no higher or holier tie can possibly exist.” ^ So also, 
according to Plutarch, the husband ought to rule his wife, 
but by sympathy and goodwill, as the soul governs the 
body, not as a master does a chattel.^ The law invalidated 
whatever a husband did by the counsel, or at the request, 
of his wife, whereas the wife, on her part, could transact 
no business of importance in her own favour, nor by will 
dispose of more than the value of a bushel of barley.^ 
Yet whatever may have been the exact compass of the 
husband’s power in Greece, it was not unlimited. At 
Athens a woman could demand divorce if she was ill- 
treated by her husband, in which case she merely had to 
announce her wishes before the archon.*^ 

In Rome, in ancient times, the power which the father 
possessed over his daughter was generally, if not always,^ 
by marriage transferred to the husband.^’ When marrying 
a woman passed in manum viri^ as a wife she was filicc 
loco^ that is, in law she was her husband’s daughter.' And 
since the Roman house-father originally had the jus vit^ 
necisque over his children, the husband naturally had the 
same power over his wife. But from her being destitute 
of all legal rights we must not conclude that she was 

^ Aristotle, CEconomna^ i. 7 * 

Idern^ De animalihus historia^ ix. i. 2 

sqcf. 

Plutarch, Conj ugalia prcFrepla., 33. 
^ Isaeus, Oratio de Aristarchi 
hereditaie^ lo, p. 259. Dol linger, op. 
cit, ii. 234. 

^ (Passon, Le Diariagr. civil et le 
divorce^ p. 152 sq. Meier and Schd- 

mann, Dcr attische Process^ p. 512. 

Rossbach, Romische Ehe, p. 64. 
Maine, Ancient Law, p. 155. 

Or, properly speaking, to the hus- 
band’s father, if he was still alive (Ross- 
bach, op. cit. p. ii). 

^ Lcist, Alt-arisches Jus Civile, i. 
175. Maine, op. cit. p. 155. 

treated with indignity. On the contrary, she generally 
had a respected and influential position in the family ; ^ and 
though the husband could repudiate her at will, it was 
said that for five hundred and twenty years a condita urbe 
there was no such thing as a divorce in Rome.^' As 
Mr Bryce points out, we cannot doubt that the wide 
power which the law gave to the husband was in point 
of fact restrained within narrow limits, not only by 
affection, but also by the vigilant public opinion of a 
comparatively small community.’'^ Gradually, however, 
marriage with manus fell into disuse, and was, under the 
Empire, generally superseded by marriage without manus^ 
a form of wedlock which conferred on the husband hardly 
any authority at all over his wife. Instead of passing 
into his power, she remained in the power of her father ; 
and since the tendency of the later law, as we have seen, 
was to reduce the old patria poteslas to a nullity, she 
became practically independent.^ 

This remarkable liberty granted to married women, 
however, was only a passing incident in the history of the 
family in Europe. From the very first Christianity 
tended to narrow it. Already the latest Roman law, so 
far as it is touched by the Constitutions of the Christian 
Emperors, bears some marks of a reaction against the 
liberal doctrines of the great Antonine jurisconsults, who 
assumed the equality of the sexes as a principle of their 
code of equity.^ And this tendency was in a formidable 
degree supported by Teutonic custom and law. Among 
the Teutons a husband’s authority over his wife was the 
same as a father’s over his unmarried daughter.'" This 
power, which under certain circumstances gave the husband 
a right to kill, sell, or repudiate his wife,' undoubtedly 

^ Rossl)ach, op. cit. pp. 36, 117. Ko/ns, i. 252 

" Valerius Maximus, ii. i {Do nialri- Maine, op. oit. pp. 156, 154. 

moniornni rilti)^ 4. Aulus Gelliiis, Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsic^eschiciitc., 

Noctes Atticie^ iv. 3. r. i. 75. Steniann, /)eu danske Reishis- 

Ijiyce, Studies in History and torie indlil Christ iiui ICs J.o 7 j, p. 323. 
J'urisp rude nee j ii. 3S9. " Grinnn, Deutsche Rechtsa/tcr- 

Kossbach, op. cit. pp. 30, 42. ihiifner, p. 450 sq. Brunner, op. cit. i. 

Maine, aV. p. 155 Friedlaencler, 75. Schroder, fAihrhuch der dcutschcn 

Darstellungcn aiis dcr Sittcngcschicfile Rcchtsgeschichle.^ p. 303. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES chap. 

contained much more than the Church could approve of, 
and so far she has helped to ameliorate the condition of 
married women in Teutonic countries. But at the same 
time the Church is largely responsible for those heavy 
disabilities with regard to personal liberty, as well as 
with regard to property, from which they have suffered 
up to recent times. The systems, says Sir Henry Maine, 
‘‘ which are least indulgent to married women are 
invariably those which have followed the Canon Law 
exclusively, or those which, from the lateness of their 
contact with European civilisation, have never had their 
archaisms weeded out.’’ ' 

Christianity enjoins a husband to love his wife as his 
own body,“ to do honour unto her as unto the weaker 
vessel.^ However, man is not of the woman ; but the 
woman of the man. Neither was the man created for 
the woman ; but the woman for the man. Lor this cause 
ought the woman to have power on her head.” ^ The 
husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of 
the church ; hence, as the church is subject unto Christ, 
so let the wives be to their own husbands in every 
thing.” It is difficult to exaggerate the influence 
exercised by a doctrine, so agreeable to the selfishness of 
men, and so readily lending itself to be used as a sacred 
weapon against almost any attempt to extend the rights 
of married women, as was this dictum of St. Paul’s. In 
an essay on the position of women among the early 
Christians Principal Donaldson writes, ‘Hn the first three 
centuries I have not been able to see that Christianity had 
any favourable effect on the position of women, but, on 
the contrary, that it tended to lower their character and 
contract the range of their activity.” And in more 
modern times Christian orthodoxy has constantly been 
opposed to the doctrine which once sprang up in pagan 

^ Maine, op, cit, p. 1 59. ^ Ephesians^ v. 23 sq, 

- Ep/iesiajts, v. 28. ^ Donaldson, ‘ Position of Women 

^ I Peter^ iii. 7. among the Early Christians,’ in Contem- 

I Corinthians, xi. 8 sqq, Cf porary Review, Ivi. 433. 

I Timothy, ii. ii sqq. 

Rome and is nowadays supported by a steadily growing 
number of enlightened men and women, that marriage 
should be a contract on the footing of perfect equality 
between husband and wife. 

The position of married women among the various 
peoples on earth depends on such a variety of circum- 
stances that it would be impossible to enumerate them all. 
We shall here consider only the most important. 

A few words must first be said about the hypothesis 
that the social status of women is connected with the 
system of tracing descent. Dr. Steinmetz has tried to 
show that the husband’s authority over his wife is, broadly 
speaking, greater among those peoples who reckon kinship 
through the fiither than among those who reckon kinship 
through the mother onlyd The cases examined by 
Dr. Steinmetz, however, are too few to allow of any 
general conclusions, and the statements concerning the 
husband’s rights are commonly so indefinite and so in- 
complete that I think the evidence would be difficult to 
produce, even if the investigation were based on a larger 
number of facts. Besides, the paternal and maternal 
systems of descent are often so interwoven with each other 
among one and the same people, that it may equally well 
be referred to the one class as to the other — a difficulty 
which Dr. Steinmetz must surely have felt in his attempt 
to treat the subject statistically. There is, moreover, the 
weak point of the statistical method generally, the question 
of selecting ethnographical units, which I have discussed 
in another place. ^ How, for instance, are we to deal with 
the various tribes of Australia ? They can certainly not, 
all in a lump, be counted as one single unit ; among some 
of them the maternal system prevails, among others the 
paternal. But then, shall we reckon each tribe as one 

^ Steinmetz, Ethnologische Siudien des institutions prehistori<|Ucs k propos 
zur ersten Entwic khiug der Strafe, (Tun ouvrage du professeur Kohler,’ in 
ii. ch. 7. Revue interuatiotate de Socio logic, v. 

Cf. Westermarck, op. cit. p. 451. 

^ Idem, ‘ Methode pour la recherche 

unit by itself, or, if not, into how many groups shall we 
divide them ? When I compare with each other peoples 
of the same race, at the same stage of culture, living in 
the same neighbourhood, under similar conditions of life, 
but differing from one another in their method of 
reckoning kinship, I do not find that the prevalence of 
the one or the other line of descent conspicuously affects 
the husband’s authority. Nothing of the kind has been 
noticed in Australia, nor, so far as I know, in India, where 
the paternal system among many of the aboriginal tribes 
is combined with great, or even extraordinary, rights on 
the part of the wife. Among the West African Negroes 
the position of women is, to all appearance, no less 
honourable in tribes like the Ibos, among whom inheritance 
runs through males, than in tribes which admit inheritance 
through females only and of the Fulah, among whom 
succession goes from father to son,‘‘^ Mr. Winwood Reade 
observes that their women are the most tyrannical wives 
in Africa,” knowing ‘‘ how to make their husbands kneel 
before their charms, and how to place their little feet 
upon them.” ^ But we have reason to believe that when 
the man, on marrying, quits his home and goes to live 
with his wife in the house or community of her father, 
his authority over his wife is commonly more or less 
impaired by the presence of her father or kinsfolk/ In 
Sumatra, in the mode of marriage called ambel anak^ he 
lives with his father-in-law in a state between that of a son 
and that of a debtor.'' But it should be noticed that 
neither his living with the fimily of his wife, nor even 
his dependence on her father, necessarily implies a total 
absence of marital power. Among the Californian 
Yokuts, though the husband takes up his abode in his 

^ Ratzel, op^ cit. iii. 124. (Spokane Indians). It seems, however, 

Waitz, t?/. aV. ii. 469. that Dr. Mazzarclla in several cases 

^ Reade, Savage Africa^ p. 452. infers the husband’s complete subjection 

^ See Mazzarella, La condizione to his father-in-law from statements in 

giuridica del maf'ito nella famiglia which such a subjection is not really 
inatrianale^ passim ; Grosse, Die implied. 

Formen der Fami/ie, p. 76 ; Wilkes, ® Marsden, History of Sumatra^ 
US. Exploring Expedition^ iv. 447 p. 262. 

wife’s or father-in-law’s house, he is expressly stated to 
have the power of life and death over herd So, also, in 
the Western islands of Torres Straits, though a man after 
marriage usually left his" own people and went to live with 
those of his wife, he had complete control over her. “ In 
spite of the wife having asked her husband to marry her, 
he could kill her should she cause trouble in the house, 
and that without any penal consequence to himself. The 
payment of a husband to his wife’s father gave him all 
rights over her, and at the same time annulled those of 
her father or her family.” " 

k. In the first place, wives’ subjection to their husbands is 
due to the men’s instinctive desire to exert power apd to 
the natural inferiority of women in such qualities of body 
and mind as are essential for personal independence. 
Generally speaking, the men are their superiors in strength 
and courage. They are therefore not only the protectors 
of their wives, but also their masters, j 

In the sexual impulse itself there are elements which 
lead to domination on the part of the man and to sub- 
mission on the part of the woman. In courtship, animal 
and human alike, the male plays the more active, the 
female the more passive part. During the season of love 
the males even of the most timid animal species engage in 
desperate combats with each other for the possession of 
the female, and there can be no doubt that our primeval 
human ancestors had, in the same way, to fight for their 
wives ; even now this kind of courtship is far from being 
•nknown among savages.® Moreover, the male pursues 

d tries to capture the female, and she, after some resist- 
' .ice, finally surrenders herself to him. The sexual 
impulse of the male is thus connected with a desire to 
win the female, and the sexual impulse of the female with 
a desire to be pursued and won by the male. In the 
female sex there is consequently an instinctive appreciation 
of manly strength and courage ; this is found in most 

^ Powers, Tribes of California^ “ Haddon, Head-Hunters^ p. 160 stj, 
p. 382. ^ Westermarck, of. cit. p. 159 sqq. 

VOL. I U U 

women, and especially in the women of savage races, who, 
like the females of the lower Vertebrates, commonly give 
the preference to “ the most vigorous, defiant, and mettle- 
some male.”' And woman enjoys the display of manly 
force even when it turns against herself. It is said that 
among the Slavs of the lower class the wives feel hurt if they 
are not beaten by their husbands ; that the peasant women 
in some parts of Hungary do not think they are loved by 
their husbands until they have received the first box on 
the ear ; that among the Italian Camorrists a wife who is 
not beaten by her husband regards him as a fool.” Dr. 
Havelock Ellis believes that the majority of women would 
probably be prepared to echo the remark made by a 
woman in front of Rubens’s ‘ Rape of the Sabines,’ “ I 
think the Sabine women enjoyed being carried off like 
that.”® The same judicious student of the psychology of 
sex observes ; — “ While in men it is possible to trace a 
tendency to inflict pain, or the simulacrum of pain, on the 
women they love, it is still easier to trace in women 
a delight in experiencing physical pain when inflicted 
by a lover, and an eagerness to accept subjection to 
his will. Such a tendency is certainly normal. To 
abandon herself to her lover, to be able to rely on his 
physical strength and mental resourcefulness, to be swept 
out of herself and beyond the control of her own will, to 
drift idly in delicious submission to another and stronger 
will — this is one of the commonest aspirations in a young 
woman’s intimate love-dreams.”' 

But although a certain degree of submissiveness come; 
within the normal limits of female love, though “ i 
woman may desire to be forced, to be roughly forced, to 
be ravished away beyond her own will,” she all the time 
only desires to be forced towards those things which are 
essentially agreeable to her.’’ If the man’s domination is 
carried beyond those limits, it is no longer enjoyed by the 

^ We.stermarck, op. cit. p. 255 sq. * Ibid. p. 75, 

" Ifiivelock Ellis, Sf tidies in the ^ Ibid. p. 74. 

Psychology of Sex, ‘Analysis of the ^ Ibid. p. 85. 

Sexual Impulse,’ &c. p. 66 sq. 

woman, but is felt as a burden, and may call forth resist- 
ance. In extreme cases of oppression, at any rate, the 
community at large would sympathise with her, and the 
public resentment against the oppressor would gradually 
result in customs or laws limiting the husband’s rights^ 
Yet perfect impartiality is hardly to be expected from the 
community. The men are the leaders of public opinion, 
and they have a tendency to favour their own sex. On 
the other hand, the offended woman may count upon the 
support of her fellow- sisters, and thus the women com- 
bined may influence tribal habits and, ultimately, the rules 
of custom. Among the Papuans of Port Moresby, for 
instance, “ it is a rare occurrence for a man to beat his 
wife, and he does not like to be reminded of the fact if 
hasty temper has led him into this mistake. The other 
women generally make a song about it, and sing it 
whenever he appears ; and as no one is so sensitive of 
ridicule as a New Guinean savage, he will etidure a great 
deal, even from a shrew wife, before he attempts to lift 
his hand.'’ ^ Among the West African Fulah, if a man 
repudiates his wife, the women 'of the village attack him 
en masse ; ‘‘ like the members oF a priesthood, they hate 
but protect each other/’ ’ We have, moreover, to con- 
sider that the children’s aflfection and regard for their 
mother gives her a power which is no less real because it 
is not definitely expressed in custom or law. In Oriental 
countries, for example, the mother is always an important 
personage in the family. Children are afraid ot their 
father but love their mother, and when grown-up would 
certainly be ready to protect her against a cruel husband.^ 

It has often been said that the position of women and 
the degree of their dependence among a certain people are 
largely influenced by economic conditions. Thus Mr. 

^ Nisbet, A Colonial Traj?ip, ii. Cf, Burton, Sindh Revisited^ i. 

181 JY/. ' 293 ; Urcjuharl, Spirit of the East, ii. 

“ Reade, Sarttfge Africa, p. 452. 265 sq, ; Doughty, Arabia Deserta, i. 

See also Mbller, PageLs, and Gleerup, 239; Wcstcrmarck, ‘ l\xsition of 
op, cit. i. 171 (Lukungu) ; Munzingcr, Woman in Early Civilisation,’ \\\ Socio' 
Ostafrikanische Stndieti, p. 324 (Beni logical Papers, [i.] p. 160. 

Amer). 

U U 2 

66o 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES chap. 

Hale maintains that the condition of women is “a question 
of physical comfort, and mainly of the abundance or lack 
of food. . . . When men in their full strength suffer 
from lack of the necessaries of existence, and are themselves 
slaves to the rigours of the elements, their better feelings 
are benumbed or perverted, like those of shipwrecked 
people famishing ©n a raft. Under such circumstances 
the weaker members of the community — women, children, 
the old, tjie sick — are naturally the chief sufferers.”* 
With reference to the North American Indians the 
observation has been made that, where the women can aid 
in procuring subsistence for the tribe, they are treated 
with more equality, and their importance is pro- 
portioned to the share which they take in that labour ; 
whereas in places where subsistence is chiefly procured 
by the exertions of the men, the women are con- 
sidered and treated as burdens. Thus, the position of 
women is exceptionally good in tribes living upon fish 
and roots, which the women procure with the same 
expertness as the men, whereas it is among tribes living 
by the chase, or by other means in which women can 
be of little service, that we find the sex most oppressed.^ 
Dr. Grosse, again, emphasises the low status of women 
not only among hunters, but among pastoral tribes as well. 
“ The women,” he says, “ not being permitted to take 
part in the rearing of cattle, and not being able to take 
part in war, possess nothing which could command 
respect with the rude shepherd and robber.”® Among 
the lower agricultural tribes, on the other hand, Ur. 
Grosse adds, the position of the female sex is often higher. 
The cultivation of the ground mostly devolves on the 
woman, and among peoples who chiefly subsist by agri- 
culture it is not an occupation which is looked down upon, 
as it is among nomadic tribes. This gives the woman a 

^ Hale, ‘ Language a.s a Test of Waitz, op. cit. iii. 343. Bancroft, 
Mental Capacity,’ Native Races of the Pacific States^ i. 
xxi. 427. 242 S(/. 

Lewis and Clarke, Travels to the ^ Grosse, op. cit. pp. 48, 49, 74, 75, 
Source of the Missouri River ^ p. 44I. 109 sqq. 

XXVI THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

66i 

certain standing, owing to her importance as a foocl^ 
provider.^ 

In these generalisations there is no doubt a great deal 
of truth ; but they do not hold good universally or 
without modifications. Among several peoples who sub- 
sist chiefly by the chase or the rearing of cattle, the 
position of women is exceedingly good. To mention 
only one instance out of many. Professor Vambery 
observes that among the nomadic Kara-Kirghiz the 
female sex is treated with greater respect than among 
those Turks who lead a stationary life and practise 
agriculture.^ Indeed, the general theory that women are 
more oppressed in proportion as they are less useful, is 
open to doubt. Commonly they are said to be oppressed 
by their savage husbands just by being compelled to work 
too hard ; and that work does not necessarily give 
authority is obvious from the institution of slavery. But 
at the same time the notion, prevalent in early civilisation, 
that the one sex must not in any way interfere with the 
pursuits of the other sex, may certainly, especially when 
applied to an occupation of such importance as agriculture, 
increase the influence of those who are engaged in it. 
Considering further that the cultivated soil is not in- 
frequently regarded as the property of the women who 
till it,^ it is probable that, in certain cases at least, the 
agricultural habits of a people have had a favourable effect 
upon the general condition of the female sex, and at 
the same time oii the wife’s position in the family. 

The status of wives is in various respects connected 
with the ideas held about the female sex in general. 
Woman is commonly looked upon as a slight, dainty, and 
relatively feeble creature, destitute of all nobler qualities.^ 
Especially among nations more advanced in culture she 
is regarded as intellectually and morally vastly inferior to 
man. In Greece, in the historic age, the latter recognised 

^ Ibid. p. 182. ^ (’rawlLy, the A/j's/tr /\o.u’y p. 204 

Vanil)ory, Das llirkcnvolk, ]). 268. si/. 

Grosse, op. cit. p. 159 sq. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES chap. 

in her no other end than to minister to his pleasure or to 
become the mother of his children. There was also a 
general notion that she was naturally more vicious, more 
addicted to envy, discontent, evil-speaking, and wantonness, 
than the mand Plato classes women together with 
children and servants, “ and states generally that in all 
the pursuits of mankind the female sex is inferior to the 
male.^ Euripides puts into the mouth of his Medea the 
remark that ‘‘ women are impotent for good, but clever 
contrivers of all evil.’'^ According to the Vcdic singer, 
again, ‘‘ woman’s mind is hard to direct aright, and her 
judgment is small. To the Buddhist, women are of all 
the snares which the tempter has spread for men the most 
dangerous ; in women are embodied all the powers of 
infatuation which bind the mind of the world.'’ The 
Chinese have a saying to the effect that the best girls are not 
equal to the worst boys.^ Islam pronounces the general 
depravity of women to be much greater than that of 
men.'^ According to Muhammedan tradition, the Prophet 
said : — ‘‘ I have not left any calamity more hurtful to man 
than woman, . . . O assembly of women, give alms, 
although it be of your gold and silver ornaments ; for 
verily ye are mostly of Hell on the Day of Resurrection.”'^ 
I'he Hebrews represented woman as the source of evil 
and death on earth : — ‘‘ Of the woman came the beginning 
of sin, and through her we all die.” This notion passed 
into Christianity. Says St. Paul, “ Adam was not 
deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the trans- 
gression.”^^ Tertullian maintains that a woman should go 
about in humble garb, mourning and repentant, in order 
to expiate that which she derives from Eve, the ignominy 

^ Dickinson, o/>. cit. p. 159. D 61 * ^ vSmith, Proverbs Oj the Chinese^ 

linger, op. cit. ii. 234. p. 265. 

“ IMato, Rcspublica, iv. 431. ® Lane, Arabian Society, p. 219. 

^ Ibid. V. 455. Cf. Doughty, Arabia Deserta, i. 238. 

Euripides, Medea, 406 sqq. ' •' Lane- Poole, Speeches of Mo ham- 

Piq-Feda, viii. 33. 17. mad, pp. 161, 163. 

“ 01 denl)erg, Buddha, p. 165. Cf. Ecclesiasticus, xxv. 24. 

Ivern, Manual of Indian Buddhism, I Tvnothy, ii. 14. 

p. 69. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

of the first sin, and the odium attaching to her as the 
cause of human perdition. ‘‘ Do you not know,” he 
exclaims, ‘‘ that you are each an Eve ? The sentence of 
God on this sex of yours lives in this age ; the guilt 
must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway ; 
you are the unsealer of that [forbidden] tree ; you are 
the first deserter of the divine law ; you are she who 
persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough 
to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. 
On account of your desert — that is, death — even the Son 
of God had to die.”^ A t the Council of Macon, towards 
the end of the sixth century, a bishop even raised the 
question whether woman really was a human being. 
He answered the question in the negative ; but the 
majority of the assembly considered it to be proved by 
Scripture that woman, in spite of all her defects, yet was 
a member of the human race." However, some of the 
Fathers of the Church were careful to emphasise that 
womanhood only belongs to this earthly existence, and that 
on the day of resurrection all women will appear in the 
shape of sexless beings.'^ 

Progress in civilisation has exercised an unfavour- 
able influence on the position of woman by widening 
the gulf between the sexes, as the higher culture was 
almost exclusively the prerogative of the men. More- 
over, religion, and especially the great religions in 
the world, have contributed to the degradation of the 
female sex by regarding woman as unclean. During 
menstruation, or when with child, or at child-birih, 
she is considered to be polluted, to be charged with mys- 
terious baneful energy, which is a danger to all around 
her.^ The cause of this notion seems to lie in the 

^ TcrinlXiaxi, De acUu fa^fnijiaru/n^ \. 1045 Si. lloifiilia in 

1 (Migne, Patrologics curstis^ i. 1305). Psahnnm ^rxw. 5 (Mignc, op. cit. 
See also Laurent, Pindes sur niistoirc Scr. (Iracca, xxix. 488). 
de r humanitd, \m. 113. ^ l^loss- Bart els, Das JPeii, i. 420 

Gregory of Tours, Ilistoria Fran- ^<]q. ; ii. 10 .ryy., 402 sqq. Frazer, 
cortint^ viii. 20. Golden Bought i. 325 sqq. ; iii. 222 sqq. 

‘‘ St. Ililar. , Cofufucnlartiis in Mat- Crawley, at. p. 16^ sqq. ; Mathew, 
tlitcnm, xxiii, 4 (Migne, op, cit. ix. Eagleharvk and Cro7u, p. 144 (Aiistra- 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

superstitious dread of those marvellous processes which 
then take place, and it reaches its height where there 
is appearance of blood.^ On such occasions woman is 
shunned not only by men, but in an even higher degree 
by gods, for the obvious reason that contact with the 
unclean woman would injure or destroy their holiness. 
Indeed, the danger is considered so great, that many 
religions regard women as defiled not only temporarily, 
but permanently, and on that ground exclude them from 
religious worship. 

In the Society Islands a woman was forbidden to touch what- 
ever was presented as an offering to the gods, so as not to 
pollute it.‘’ In Melanesia women are generally excluded from 
religious rites.'^ Among the Shaman ists of Siberia women 
are interdicted the worship of the deities, and dare not pass 
round the common hearth of their habitations, because fire is 
sacred to the gods,”'^ The women of the Voguls are 
generally prohibited from approaching idols or holy places. 
A Votyak woman may not be present at the sacrifices made 
to the lud^ or evil spirit.^ Among the Lapps a woman was 
not allowed to touch a noaid\y or wizard’s, drum ; nor, as a 
rule, to take part in sacrificial rites ; nor even to look in the 
direction of a place where sacrifices were offered.^ Among 
the Ainos of Japan, though a woman may prepare a divine 
offering, she may not offer it. . . . Accordingly, women are 
never allowed to pray, or to take any part in any religious 

lian aborigines), de Rochas, Nomadic her hair, nail-pairings, and occupations 
CalMonie^ p. 283. Mooney, ‘ Myths of can hardly be avoided from a fear of 
the Cherokee,’ in /vVy>. AV////. her blood; and that there is also the 

xix. 469. Sumner, \x\Jour. Anthr. Inst. female side of the question to be taken 
xxxi. 96 (Jakuts). Georgi, Russia, iii. into account. 

25 .r<7.*(Samoyedcs), 245^7/. (Shamanists ^ Ellis, Rolymsian Researches, i. 129. 
of Siberia generally) ; &c. Cf. Wegener, Geschichie der christlichen 

^ Professor Durkheim maintains (‘La Kirche auf dein Gescllschafis-Archipcl, 
prohibition de Tincestc cl ses origines,’ p. 181. 

in i'aiiitt^e socioloi^ique, i. especially ^ Codrington, Alelanesians , p. 127. 

p. 48 sqq.) that the origin of the occult ^ Georgi, op. cil. iii. 245. Cf. ibid. 

powers attributed to the feminine iii- 25. 

organism is to be found in primitive ^ Abercromby, Pre- and Prolo-his- 
ideas concerning blood, any kind of loric Finns, i. 18 1. 
blood, not only menstrual, being the ^ Wichmann, Tietoja Votjaakkien 
object of similar feelings among savages Mytoloi^iiasta, p. 17. See also ibid. 
and barl>arians. Mr. Crawley justly p. 27. , 

remarks {op. cit. p. 212) that there is von Diihiiin, Lappiand oeh Lapparne, 

no flux of blood during pregnancy, p. 276. ¥h\s, Lappish Mytkolo^, p. 

when woman is regularly taljoo ; that 147. 

exercise.” ^ In China women are not allowed to go and 
worship in the temples.*^ 

In ancient Nicaragua women were held unworthy to perform 
any duty in connection with the temples, and were immolated 
outside the temple ground of the large sanctuaries, and even 
their flesh was unclean food for the high priest, who accordingly 
ate only of the flesh of males.*^ In Mexico, although some 
women were employed in the immediate service of the temples, 
they were entirely excluded from the oflice of sacrificing, and 
the higher dignities of the priesthood.^ i 

According to the sacred books of India, “ women are considered 
to have no business with the sacred texts ” ; ^ and, being desti- 
tute of the knowledge of Vedic texts, they ‘Stic as impure as 
falsehood itself, that is a fixed rule.” ^ Although, according to 
a Vedic ordinance mentioned in the Laws of Manu, husband 
and wife ought to perform religious rites together,*^ they have, 
among the present Hindus, no religious life in common ; the 
women are not allowed to repeat the Veda, or to go through 
the morning and evening Sandhyil services.^ If a woman, a 
dog, or a Sddra, touch a consecrated image, its godship is de- 
stroyed ; the ccrcrnonies of deification must therefore be per- 
formed afresh, whilst a clay image, if thus defiled, must be 
thrown away. If women should worship before a consecrated 
image, they must keep at a respectful distance from the 
idol> 

Islam is chiefly a religion for men. T'hough Muhammed 
did not forbid women to attend public prayers in a mosque, he 
pronounced it better for them to pray in private, as the presence 
of females might inspire in the men a difFercnt kind of devotion 
from that which is requisite in a place dedicated to the worship 
of God.^*^ Women arc absolutely excluded from many 
Muhammedan places of worship, and are frowned upon if they 
venture to appear in others, at any rate while men arc thcre^.^^ 

In Christian Europe, as ascetic ideas advanced, the women 
sat or stood in the church apart from the men, and entered by a 
separate door.^‘^ They were excluded from sacred functions. 

^ Howard, op. cif. p. 195. 

“ Indo-Chinese Glean 67 '.^ iii. 156. 
Bancroft, op. cit. iii. 494. 

Clavigero, History of Mexico^ i. 
274 sq. 

^ Baud hay ana y i. 5. ll. 7. 

^ Taiws of ManUy ix. iS. Cf. ibid. 
ii. 66 ; iii. 121. 

Ibid. ix. 96. 

^ Monier Williams, Brdhinanism and 

Hindu isi/iy p. 398. 

** Ward, yid 7 u of the Hi Storys Cfe.y 
of the HiudooSy ii. 13, 36. 

Lane, Manners and Customs of the 
Modern Egyptians y j^. 94. 

Bool, Studies in Moham jjiedaotism y 
|). 39 sq. 

Donaldson, in Conlonforary A'e- 
7 ne 7 Vy Ivi. 438, 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES chap. 

In the early Church, it is true, there were deaconesses ” and 
clerical widows,” but their offices were merely to perform some 
inferior services of the church ; ^ and even these very modest 
posts were open only to virgins or widows of a considerable 
age/^ Whilst a layman could in case of necessity administer 
baptism, a woman could never, as it seems, perform such an 
act/^ Nor was a woman allowed to preach publicly in the 
church, either by the Apostle’s rules or those of succeeding 
ages and it was a serious complaint against certain heretics 
that they allowed such a practice. ‘‘ The heretic women,” 
Tertullian exclaims, how wanton are they ! they who dare to 
teach, to dispute, to practise exorcisms, to promise cures, per- 
chance, also, to baptise ! ” A Council held at Auxerre at the 
end of the sixth century forbade women to receive the 
Eucharist into their naked hands and in various Canons 
women were enjoined not to come near to the altar while 
mass was celebrating/ 'Fo such an extent was this oppo- 
sition against women carried that the Church of the Middle 
Ages did not hesitate to provide itself with eunuchs in order 
to supply cathedral choirs with the soprano tones inhering by 
nature in women alone.^ 

But the notion that woman is either temporarily or 
permanently unclean, that she is a mysterious being 
charged with supernatural energy, is not only a cause of 
her degradation it also gives her a secret power over 
her husband, which may be very considerable. During 
my stay among the country people of Morocco, Arabs 
and Berbers alike, I was often struck by the superstitious 
fear with which the women imbued the men. They are 
supposed to be much better versed in magic, and have 
also splendid opportunities to practise it to the detriment 

^ Zscharnack, Der Dienst der Ftati Co)icilium Aulisiodoreme, A.n. 

in den er^teii JahrJmnderten der Christ- 578, can. 36 (Labbe- Mansi, Sacrorum 
lichen Kirche^ p. 99 sqq, Robinson, Conciliortifu collection ix. 915). 

A'linislry of Deaconesses, passim. Canoties Concilii Laodicenin 44 

“ Ibid. pp. 1 13, 1 14, 125. (Labbe-Mansi, op. cit. ii. 581, 589). 

Bingham, Works, iv. 45. Zschar- ‘ Epitome canonum, quam I ladrianus I. 

nack, op. cit. p. 93. Car o 1 o M a g n o o b t u I i I , A. D. 

^ Bingham, op. cit. v. 107 sqq. DCCLXXIII.,’ in Labbe-Mansi, op. 

Zscharnack, op. cit. p. 73 sqq. cit. xii. 868. Canons enacted tinder 

^ Tertullian, Dc pnescriptionibus King Edgar, 44 {Ancient Laius and 

adversns InercticoSn 41 ( M igne, op. cit. Institutes of England, p. 399). 
ii. 56). Cf,Tc:x\.\x\X\c\.\\, De baptismo,i*j ® Cf. Gage, Woman, Church and 

(Migne, op. cit. i. 1219). State, p. 57. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES 

of their husbands, as they may easily bewitch the food 
they prepare for them. For instance, the wife only needs 
to cut off a little piece of a donkey’s ear and put it into the 
husband’s food. What happens ? By eating that little 
piece the husband will, in his relations to his wife, become 
just like a donkey ; he will always listen to what she says, 

and the wife will become the ruler of the house. I also 

believe that the men on purpose abstain from teaching 

the women prayers, so as not to increase their supernatural 
power.^ In the Arabian Desert men are likewise afraid of 
their women with their sly philters and maleficent 
drinks.” ' In Dahomey the husband may not chastise 
or interfere with his wife whilst the fetish is ‘ upon ’ her, 
and even at other times the use of the rod might be 

dangerous.”*'^ Women, and especially old ones, are very 
frequently regarded as experts in magic. ^ Among the 
ancient Arabs, ^ Babylonians,’’ and Peruvians, ‘ as in Europe 
during the Middle Ages and later, the witch appeared 
more frequently than the male sorcerer. So, also, in 
the Government of Tomsk in Southern Siberia, native 
sorceresses are much more numerous than wizards ; and 
among the Californian Shastika all, or nearly all, of the 

^ Wc arc told that among the Ainos “ cat up tho family with impunity when 

of Japan women are forbidclen to pray, the protection of its gods has been 

not only in conformity with ancestral withdrawn ”( Risley, 7 'ribes attd Castes 
custom, but because the men arc afraid of Bengal^ Ethnographic Glossary^ ii. 
of the prayers of the women in general, 232). 

and of their wives in particular. An Doughty, Arabia Deserta^ ii. 3S4. 

old man said to Mr. Batchelor: — ‘‘The ^ Burton, Atission to Gelele^ ii. 155. 

women as w^ell as the men used to be Ploss-Bartels, op, cit. ii. 664, 666 

allowed to wa)rship the gods and take sqq. Mason, op. cit. p. 255 sqq. 

part in all religious exercises ; Ijut our Landtman, Origin of Priesthood^ p. 

wise honoured ancestors forbade them 198 sq. Angas, Savage IJfe and 

to do so, because it was thought they .Scenes in Australia and New Zealand.^ 

might use their prayers against the i* 317 (iVJaoris). Connolly, ‘Social 
men, and more particularly against Tale in Pdintidand,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
their husbands. Wc therefore think Inst. xxvi. 150. 

with our ancestors that it is wiser to ''' Wellhauscn, Restc arahischen 
keep them from praying” (Batchelor, J/iidentu?ns, p. 159. 

Ainu and their Polk-Lore^ p, 550 sq. Jastrow', Religion of Babylonia^ 

Howard, op. cit. p. 195). Among the pp. 267, 342. 

Santals the men are careful not to Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part 

divulge the names of their household of the Royal Co/ninentaries 0/ the Yncas^ 
gods to their wives, for fear lest the i. 60. 

latter should accpiirc undue influence ^ Kostroff, quoted by Landtman, op^ 
with the gods, become witches, and cit. p. 199. 

THE SUBJECTION OF WIVES chap. 

shamans are women. ^ The curses of women are greatly 
feared. In Morocco it is considered even a greater 
calamity to be cursed by a Shereefa, or female descendant 
of the Prophet, than to be cursed by a Shereef. Accord- 
ing to the Talmud, the anger of a wife destroys the 
house ; ^ but, on the other hand, it is also through woman 
that God’s blessings are vouchsafed to it.® We read in 
the Laws of Manu : — ‘‘Women must be honoured and 
adorned by their fathers, brothers, husbands, and brothers- 
in-law, who desire their own welfare. Where women are 
honoured, there the gods are pleased ; but where they 
are not honoured, no sacred rite yields rewards. Where 
the female relations live in grief, the family soon wholly 
perishes ; but that family where they are not unhappy 
ever prospers. The houses on which female relations, 
not being duly honoured, pronounce a curse, perish com- 
pletely, as if destroyed by magic. Hence men who seek 
their own welfare should always honour women on 
holidays and festivals with gifts of ornaments, clothes, 
and dainty food.” A Gaelic proverb says, “ A wicked 
woman will get her wish, though her soul may not see 
salvation.” '' Closely connected with the belief in the 
magic power of women, and especially, I think, in the 
great efficacy of their curses, is the custom according 
to which a woman may serve as an asylum.^ In various 
tribes of Morocco, especially among the Berbers and 
Jbala, a person who takes refuge with a woman by touch- 
ing her is safe from his persecutor. Among the Arabs 
of the plains this custom is dying out, probably owing 
to their subjection under the Sultan’s government ; but 
amongst certain Asiatic Bedouins, the tribe of Shammar, “ a 
woman can protect any number of persons, or even of tents. 

* Powers, 'I'ribcs of Califoniia, p. ^ Carmichael, Carmina GadcHcay 
246. ■ ^ 1*^317. 

Sofa^ fol. 3 13 , quoted l>y Kafz, De 7 - For some instances of tliis custom 

7 vahre 7 'alfuifdjndcy \y. wo sq. see vVndree, ‘Die Asy 1 e,^ in G/obuSy 

^ Baba Aleziahy to). 59 A, (juoted xxxviii. 302 ; ]>acliofen, Das MiUter- 
ibid. p. 1 12. Deutsch, Idterary Re- rcchty p. 420 (Pasques). 
niainsy p. 56. " Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins 

Gaivs of ManUy iii. 55 sq(j. of Nineveh and Babylo 7 iy p. 31 8. 

Among the Circassians a stranger who intrusts himself 
to the patronage of a woman, or is able to touch with 
his mouth the breast of a wife, is spared and protected 
as a relation of the blood, though he were the enemy, 
nay even the murderer of a similar relative/' ^ The inhabi- 
tants of Bareges in Bigorre have, up to recent times, 
preserved the old custom of pardoning a criminal who 
has sought refuge with a woman/ 

Yet another factor remains to be mentioned as a cause 
of the subjection in which married women are held by 
many peoples of culture. We have noticed that in archaic 
civilisation the father’s power over his children is extreme, 
that the State whilst weakening or destroying the clan-tie 
strengthened the family-tie, and that the father was invested 
with some part of the power which formerly belonged to 
the clan/ This process must also have affected the status 
of married women. The husband’s power over his wife 
is closely connected with the father’s power over his 
daughter ; for, by giving her in marriage, he generally 
transfers to the husband the authority which he himself 
previously possessed over her as a paternal right. 

In modern civilisation, on the other hand, we find, 
hand in hand with the decrease of the father’s power, 
a decrease of the husband’s authority over his wife. 
But the causes of the gradual emancipation of married 
women are manifold. Life has become more com- 
plicated ; the occupations of women have become much 
more extensive ; their influence has expanded corre- 
spondingly, from the home and household to public 
life. Their widened interests have interfered with that 
submissiveness which is an original characteristic of their 
sex. Their greater education has made them more respected, 
and has increased their independence. Finally, the decline 
of the influence exercised by antiquated religious ideas is 
removing what has probably been the most persistent 
cause of the wife’s subjection to her husband’s rule. 

^ Pallas, Travels through the " Fischer, Bergreisen^ i. 6o. 
Southern Provinces of the Russian ^ Supra^ ch. xxv. especially p. 627 
E??ipirey i. 404. sq.

SLAVERY 

Slavery is essentially an industrial institution, which 
implies compulsory labour beyond the limits of family 
relations. The master has a right to avail himself of the 
working power of his slave, without previous agreement 
on the part of the latter. This I take to be the essence 
of slavery ; but connected with such a right there are others 
which hardly admit of a strict definition, or which belong 
to the master in some cases though not in all. He is 
entitled to claim obedience and to enforce this claim with 
more or less severity, but his authority is not necessarily 
absolute, and the restrictions imposed on it are not every- 
where the same. According to a common definition of 
slavery, the slave is the property of his master,^ but this 
definition is hardly accurate. It is true that even in the 
case of inanimate property the notion of ownership does 
not involve that the owner of a thing is always entitled to 
do with it whatever he likes ; a person may own a thing 
and yet be prohibited by law from destroying it. But it 
seems that the owner’s right over his property, even when 
not absolute, is at all events exclusive, that is, that nobody 
but the owner has a right to the disposal of it. Now the 
master’s right of disposing of his slave is not necessarily 

^ Nicbocr, Slavery as an Indiistrial one man is the property or possession 
System^ p. 4 s(/(/. Dr. Nieboer him- of another beyond the limits of the 
self defines slavery as “the fact, that family proper ” {zdzd. p. 29). 

exclusive ; custom or law may grant the latter a certain 
amount of liberty, and in such a case his condition differs 
essentially from that of a piece of property. The chief 
characteristic of slavery is the compulsory nature of the 
slave’s relation to his master. Voluntary slavery, as when 
a person sells himself as a slave, is only an imitation of 
slavery true and proper ; the person who gives up his 
liberty confers upon another, by contract, either for a 
limited period or for ever, the same rights over himself as 
a master possesses over his slave. If slavery proper could 
be based upon a contract between the parties concerned, 
I fail to see how to distinguish between a servant and a 
slave. 

Dr. Nieboer has recently with much minuteness ex- 
amined the distribution of slavery and its causes among 
savage races. It appears from his work that slavery is 
unknown in Australia, and in Oceania is restricted to 
certain islands. In the Malay Archipelago, on the other 
hand, it prevails very extensively. Among the aboriginal 
tribes of India and the Indo-Chinese Peninsula it is fairly 
common, whereas no certain traces of it are found among 
the lower races of Central Asia and Siberia, with the 
exception of the Kamchadales. In North America it 
exists along the Pacific Coast from Behring Strait to 
the northern boundary of California, but beyond this 
district it seems to be unknown. In Central and South 
America there are at any rate several scattered cases of 
it, and if our knowledge of the South American Indians 
were less fragmentary, many other instances might perhaps 
be added. In savage Africa there are only one or two 
districts where no certain cases of slavery arc encountered, 
whilst large agglomerations of slave-keeping tribes occur 
on the Coast of Guinea and in the district formed by 
Lower Guinea and the territories bordering the Congo.^ 

Slaves are kept only where there is employment for them, 
and where the circumstances are otherwise favourable 
to the growth of slavery. Its existence or non-existence 

^ Nieboer, op, cit. p. 47 sqq. 

SLAVERY 

in a tribe largely depends on the manner in which that 
tribe lives. Among hunters it hardly occurs at all. Mr. 
Spencer justly observes that, “in the absence of industrial 
activity, slaves are almost useless ; and, indeed, where 
game is scarce, are not worth their food.” ^ Moreover, 
they would have to be procured from foreign tribes, and 
to prevent such slaves from running away would be almost 
impossible for hunters who roam over vast tracts of land 
in pursuit of game, especially if the slaves also were 
engaged in hunting. For a small community of hunters 
— and their communities generally are small ^ — it might 
even be dangerous to keep foreign slaves in their midst.® 
Among fishing tribes, on the other hand, slavery is much 
more common, attaining a special importance among those 
who live on or near the Pacific Coast of North-Western 
America. These tribes have an abundance of food, they 
have fixed habitations, they live in comparatively large 
groups, and trade and industry, property and wealth, are 
well developed among them. In consequence, they find 
the services of slaves useful, and, at the same time, the 
slaves have little chance of making their escape.^ 

Of the pastoral tribes referred to in Dr. Nieboer’s list 
only one half keep slaves, and among some of these slave- 
keeping is said to be a mere luxury. To pastoral peoples, 
as such, slave labour is of little moment. Among them 
subsistence depends much more on capital than on labour, 
and for the small amount of work which is required free 
labourers are easily procured. As Dr. Nieboer observes, 
“ among people who live upon the produce of their cattle, 
a man who owns no cattle, i.e. no capital, has no means 
of subsistence. Accordingly, among pastoral tribes we 
find rich and poor men ; and the poor often offer them- 
selves as labourers to the rich.” ® Pastoral peoples have 
thus no strong motives for making slaves, but at the same 

^ Spencer, Principles of Sociology^ ^ Nieboer, op. cit. p. 191 
iii. 459. ^ Ibid. p. 199 sqq. 

Westermarck, History of Hurnan ° See also Hildebrand, op. cit. 
Marriage., p. 43 sqq. Hildebrand, p. 38 sq, 

Recht und Sitte., p. I sqq. 

SLAVERY 

time “ there are no causes preventing them from keeping 
slaves. These tribes are, so to speak, in a state of equili- 
brium ; a small additional cause on either side turns the 
balance. One such additional cause is the slave-trade ; 
another is the neighbourhood of inferior races.” All those 
pastoral peoples who keep slaves live in districts where an 
extensive slave-trade has for a long time been carried on. 
The slaves are often purchased from slave-traders, and in 
several cases they belong to an inferior race.^ 

Among agricultural peoples slavery prevails more exten- 
sively ; further, it is more common among such tribes as 
subsist chiefly by agriculture than among incipient agri- 
culturists, who still depend on hunting or fishing for a 
-large portion of their food. In primitive agricultural 
communities nobody voluntarily serves another, because 
subsistence is independent of capital and easy to procure. 
All freemen in new countries,” says Mr. Bagehot, 
must be pretty equal ; every one has labour, and every 
one has land ; capital, at least in agricultural countries (for 
pastoral countries are very different), is of little use ; it 
cannot hire labour ; the labourers go and work for them- 
selves.” “ Hence in such countries, if a man wants 
another to work for him, he must compel him to do it — 
that is, he must make him his slave. This holds true of 
most savage countries, namely, of all those in which there is 
much more fertile land than is required to be cultivated for 
the support of the actual population ; but it does not hold 
true of all. Where every piece of land fit for cultivation 
has been appropriated, a man who owns no land cannot 
earn his subsistence independently of a landlord ; hence 
free labourers are available, slaves are not wanted, and 
slavery is not likely to exist. And even where there are 
no poor persons, but everybody has a share in the resources 
of the country, the use of slaves cannot be great, since 
a man who owns a limited capital, or a limited quantity 
of land, can" only employ a limited number of labourers. 

^ Niel)()er, op. cit. p. 261 sqq. Bagehot, Physics and Politics^ 

p. 72. 

VOL^ I 

X X 

SLAVERY 

For instance, the absence of slavery in many Oceanic 
islands may be accounted for by the fact that all land had 
been appropriated, which led to a state of things incon- 
sistent with slavery as a social system.’ 

These are the main conclusions at which Dr. Nieboer 
has arrived by means of much admirable and painstaking 
research. Most of them, I think, are undoubtedly correct ; 
yet it seems to me that the influence of economic condi- 
tions upon the institution of slavery has perhaps been 
emphasised too much at the cost of other factors. The 
prevalence of slavery in a savage tribe and the extent to 
which it is practised must also depend upon the ability of 
the tribe to procure slaves from foreign communities and 
upon its willingness to allow its own members to be kept as 
slaves within the tribe. It may be very useful for a group 
of savages to have a certain number of slaves, and yet they 
may not have them, for the reason that no slaves are to 
be had. It is only in extraordinary cases that a person 
is allowed to enslave a member of his own community. 
Intra-tribal slavery is a question not only of economic but 
of moral concern, whilst extra-tribal slavery originally 
depends upon success in war. 

We have reason to believe that the earliest source of 
slavery was war or conquest, and that slavery in many 
cases was a substitution for putting prisoners of war to 
death. ~ Savages, who have little mercy on their enemies, 
naturally make no scruple in reducing them to slavery 
whenever they find their advantage in doing so. Among 
existing savages, in fact, prisoners of war are very fre- 
quently enslaved.^ They and their descendants, together 

^ Nieboer, r?/. r//. pp. 294-347, 420 

- Cf. Millar, Origin of the Distinttion 
of Ranks ^ p, 245 ; Jacob, Historical 
Inquiry into the Production and Con- 
sumption of the Precious Aletais, i. 
136; Buckle, Miscellaneous and 
Posthumous Works ^ iii. 413 ; Comte, 
Conrs de philosophie positiue, v. 
186 sqq. ; Cibrario, Della schiavitii e 
del seri’aggio, i. 16. 

Rink, Eskimo I'ribes^ p. 28 

(Western Eskimo). Petroff, ‘ Report 
on Alaska,’ in Tenth Census of the 
United States, pp, 152 (Aleuts), 165 
(Thlinkets). Richardson, Arctic 
Searching Expedition , i. 412 (Kutchin). 
Gil)bs, ‘ Tribes of Western Washington 
and Northwestern Oregon,’ in Con- 
tributions to JSkorth A rnerican Ethno- 
logy, i. 18S. von Marlins, Bcitrdge 
zur Ethnographie Amerikci s, i. 232 
Giiaycurus), 298 (Carajas). Azara, 
Voyages dans P Amlriqiie mdridionale, 

with persons kidnapped or purchased from foreign tribes, 
seem generally to form by far the majority of the slave 
population In uncivilised countries. 

Whilst little regard Is paid to the liberty of strangers, 
custom everywhere, as a rule, forbids the enslaving of 
tribesmen. Yet sometimes a father’s power over his 
children,^ as also a husband’s power over his wife, “ involves 
the right of selling them as slaves ; and among various 
peoples a person may be reduced to slavery for committing 
a crime, or for insolvency.^ Among the tribes of Western 

ii. 109 sq. (Mbnyas). Lewin, Hill 
Tracts of Chittagong^ p, 35. Jde/n^ 
l^Vild Tacos of South-Eastern. India., 
p. 194 (Toungtha). Modigliani, 
Viaggio a Alias., p. 521. Kohler, 

‘ Recht: der Papiias aiif Neu-Guinca,^ 
in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtsiviss. vii. 
370. Williams and Calvert, Fiji’, 
p. 25. Polack, Maniiers and Customs 
of the New Zealanders., ii. 52 ; Hale, 
U.S. Exploring Expedition, Vol. VJ. 
— Ethnoq^i'aphy and Philology, p. 33 
(New Zealanders). I^llis, History of 
Madagascar, i. 192. Andersson, J.ake 
Nga/ni, p. 231 ; Kohler, in Zeitschr. f 
vergl. Rechtswiss. xiv. 31 1 (Herero). 
Vcllen, Sitten und Ccbranche der 
Snaheli, p. 305. Baumann, Usanihara, 
p. 141 (Wabondei). Felkin, ‘ Notes on 
the VVaganda Tribe,’ in Proceed. Roy. 
Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 746. Mungo 
Bark, 'Travels in the Interior of A fica, 
p. 19 (Mandingoes). Rowley, Africa 
Unveiled, p. 176, Tuckey, Expedition 
to Explore the River Zaire, p. 367 
(Negroes of Cong(j). Sarbah, luinli 
Ciistofnary laws, p. 6. Burton, 
Abcokula, i. 301. Ellis, 'Pshi-speaking 
Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 2S9. 
Mun/dnger, Ostafrihanische Studicn, 
p. 309 sq. (Beni Amer). Mademba, 
in Steinmetz, Rechlsverhdltnisse von 
eingeborenen Volkem in Afrika 7 /nd 
Ozeanien, p. 83 (natives of the 
Sansanding States). Nicole, ibid. 
p. (Diakile-Sarracolese). Tel- 

lier, ibid. pp. 168, 17 1 (Kreis Kita 
of the French Soudan). Beverley, 
ibid. p. 213 (Wagogo). Fang, ibid. 
p. 241 (Washambala). Desoignies, 
ibid. p. 278 (Msalala). Nieboer, op, 
cit. pp. 49, 52, 73 " 7 < 3 , 78, 100. 

^ Supra, p. 599. 

2 Stipra, p. 629 sq. 

2 Butler, 7 'rai^eh ana Adventures 
in Assam, j). 94 (Kukis). Mason, 

‘ Dwellings, Nc., of the Karens,' in 
Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxwii. 
pt. ii. p. 146 jy. ; Smeaton, l-oyal 
Karens of Bur/na, p. 86. Wilken, 

‘ 1 let slrafrecht bij de volken van het 
maleische ras,’ in Bijdragen tot de 
laal- land- e/t volke/ihunde va/i Neder- 
land sc h- Indie, 1883, Land- cn vol- 
kenkunde, p. 108 sq. Junghuhn, 
Die Bat laid fider auf Sumatra, ii. 
145 .sv/. (Bataks). Rallies, History of 
Java, ii. p. ccxxxv. (peojde ol Bali). 
For DCS, A Naturalisf s IVai/dcrings in 
the Eastern Archipelag'o, p. 320 
(people of Timor-lavit). von Rosen- 
l)erg, Per malayische .-Ire hi pel, p. 166 
(Niase). Hickson, A Naturalist in 
North Celebes, p. 194 (Sangirese). 
Post, Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, ii. 
87. Pa'ulitschkc, Ethnographic Nord- 
ost-Afrihas, p. 261. Munzinger, Ost- 
afrikanische .Sludien, p. 244 sq. 
(Marea). Petherick, y'rti'r'tA' /// Cez/tral 
Africa, ii. 3 (Shilluk of the White 
Nile). Bowdich, Missio/i to Ashantee, 
p. 238 n.* (Fantis). Hiiblre-Schleiden, 
Ethiopien, p. 152 (M|K)ngwe). Burton, 
Abeokuta, i. 301. Tuckey, op. cit. 
p. 367 (Negroes of Congo). Mungo 
J^ark, op. cit. p. 19 (Mandingoes). 
Tellier, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdlt- 
nisse, p. 171 (Kreis Kita of the krench 
Soudan). Lang, ibid. p. 241 (Washam- 
bala). Dale, ‘ Customs of the Natives 
inhabiting the Bondei C'ountry,’ in 
Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxv. 230. ^ P 211 is, 
History of Madagascar, i. 193 Velten, 
op. cit. p. 305 sq. (Waswahili). 

^ Gibbs, loc. cit. p. 188 (Indians of 
Western Washington and North- 
western Oregon). Lewin, Hill Tracts 
of Chittagong, p. 34. Idem Wild 

X X 2 

SLAVERY 

Washington and North-Western Oregon, if an Indian has 
wronged another and failed to make compensation, he 
may be taken as a slave.^ The Papuans of Dorey had a 
Jaw according to which an incendiary with his family 
became the slave of the late proprietor of the burned 
house. ^ Among the Line Islanders of Micronesia, if a man 
of low class stole some food from a person belonging to 
the “gentry,” he became the slave of the latter and lost 
all his property.® Sometimes a man is induced by great 
poverty to sell himself as a slave."* But most intra-tribal 
slaves are born unfree, being the offspring of parents one 
or both of whom are slaves.*' 

In descriptions of slave-holding savages it is often said 
that a master has absolute power over his slave. But even 
in such instances, when details are scrutinised, it frequently 
appears that custom or public opinion does not allow a 
person to treat his slave just as he pleases. We have 
noticed above that in many cases the master is expressly 
denied the right of killing him at his own discretion.'* 
More commonly than one would imagine the master has not 

J^aces of SoiUJi-Easiern liidia^ [tp. 194 
(Khyoun^lha), 235 (Mrus). Mason, 
‘ Religion, of the Karens,’ in four, 
Asiatic Soc, xwiv. pi. ii. 216. 

l^lumentrill, ‘ Die Sitlen und Brauche 
dcr alien Tagalen,’ in Ze it sc hr, f 
ElhnoL XXV. 13 Lala, J'^hilipfine 

Js/cuids^ p. Ill (iiatives of .Sulu). Low, 
Sarenvah^ p. 301. Bock, Head- Hu filers 
of Borneo,, ]). 210 (Dyak lriV>es). 

Junghuhn, op. ciL ii. 15 1 sq. Kaflles, 
op. cit. i. 353 n. {Javane.se ) ; ii. 
p. ccxxxv. ([)eopIe of Bali). Nieboer, 
op. lit. pp. no, III, 114, 1 19 sij. 
(various peoples in Ihe Malay 
Archipelago). .Munzinger, Ostafrikan- 
ischc Siudien., pp. 207 (Takue), 245 
(Marea). Kingsley, West African 
Studies^ p. 370. Ifiibbe-Schleiden, 
op. cit. p. 152 (Mpongwe). Burton, 
Abcoknta^ i. 301. Mungo Park, op. 
cit. p. 19 (Mandingoes). Dale, in 
Jour. Ant/ir. lust. xxv. 230 (Wabondei). 
Baskerville, in Sleinmelz, Rcchtsver- 
haltnisse^ p. 193 sq. (Waganda). laing, 
ibid. p. 240 (Washambala). Waller, 
ibid. p. 381 (Natives of Nossi-Be and 

Mayotte, Madagascar). Post, Afrikan- 
ische JnrisprudenZy i. 90 sq. Jdeui., 
Grundriss der ethnologischcn Juris- 
prudeuz, i. 363 sqq. ; ii, 564 sqq. 
Kohler, Shakespeare vor deui P'orinn 
der Jit risprudenz, p. 14 sq. 

^ (dbbs, toe. (it. p. 188. 

Karl, Papuans., p. 83. 

Tiiluila, in Jour. Ihdynesian Soc. 
i. 268 sq. 

^ Azara, op. cit. ii. 109 (Mbayas). 
Hale, op. cit. p. 96 (Kingsmill 
Islanders). Burton, Abeokula, i. 301. 
Anders.soii, Lake Hqanii, p. 231 
(Herero). Ellis, History of Madagas- 
car., i. 192 sq. 

^ Cf. Post, Afrikanische Juris- 
priidenz, i. 89 sq. ; Mademba, in 
Steininetz, Rechtsvcrhiiltnisse, p. 83 
(natives of the Sansanding States)* 
Nicole, ibid. p. 119 ( Diakite-Sarra 
colese). Baskerville, ibid. p. 194 
(Waganda) ; Desoignies, ibid. p. 278 
(Msalala) ; Dale, in four. Anthr. 
Inst. xxv. 230 (Wabondei) ; Kllis, His- 
tory of Aladagascar, i. 193. 

^ Supra, p. 422 sq. 

SLAVERY 

even an unlimited right to sell his slave. Among some 
peoples he may sell at will such slaves only as have been 
captured 'in war or purchased, not such as have been born 
in the house. ^ In several instances a slave, and especially 
a domestic slave, cannot be sold unless he has been guilty 
of some crime or misdemeanour.“ Among the Banaka 
and Bapuku in the Cameroons the master may chastise 
or send away a slave who has behaved badly, but is not 
allowed to sell him.^ There are, moreover, instances in 
which the master is entitled not to all the services of his 
slave, but only to a limited portion of them. In some 
parts of Africa the slave is obliged to work for his master 
on certain days of the week or a certain number of hours, 
but has the rest of his time free.‘^ In the highlands of 
Palembang, Sumatra, a slave may carry on trade and hire 
himself out as a day labourer on his own behalf, and when 
he works in the field one-half of his harvesting belongs to 
him and the other half to his master. Where the slave 
is allowed to possess property of his own he may in some 
cases,^' though not in all,^ buy his freedom ; and debtor 
slaves are as a rule entitled to regain their liberty by 
paying off the debt.'^ Many peoples even permit a dis- 
satisfied slave to change his master. Among the Washam- 
bala, if a person does not fulfil his duties towards any of 
his slaves, the latter has a right to complain of him to the 
chief, and should the accusation prove true the chief buys 
the slave of his master for an ox and two cows, and keeps 

^ Post, AfyikaiiiscJie J urisprudenz^ 
i. 05 

/hid. i. 96 sq. lellicr, in Stcin- 
inetz, IxCiditsiu-rJidl/iiisst:, p. 169 (Kicis 
Kita). thid, p. 241 (Wasliani- 

bala). 

Stein met/, Rech/sverhaltnissr., 
p. 43- 

Post, Afrikanische Jtirispriidenz., 
i. loi. Mademba, in Stcinmtaz, 
Kechtsvcrhalinisse^ p. 83 (natives of 
the Sansandin^ States). Nicole, ibid. 
p. 1 18 (Diakile-Sarracolese). Tcllier, 
ibid. p. 169 sqq. (Kreis Kita). 

^ Glimpses of the Eastern Archi- 

pelago., ]:). 106. 

Post, Afrikanisidic furisprudenz^ 

i. Ill sq. 

Ibid. i. Ill sq. Tcllier, in Stein- 
metz, J\e<hts 7 h'rh(i//iiisse, p. 170 (Kreis 
Kita). Senfft, ibid. ]). 442 (Marshall 
Islanders). 

Post, Gnrndriss dcr ethnologisehcn 
Jnrispnideiiz.^ i. 366. Nieboer, op. rit. 
PP- 3 ^? 432. Nicole, in Steinmetz, 
/yeehtsverhal/nisse, p. 1 18 (Diakite- 
Sarracolese). Ikaskerville, ibid. p. 194 
(Wagantia). Lan^, ibid. p. 240 sqq. 
(VVashambala). 

SLAVERY 

him for himself.’ Among other peoples a slave, in order 
to get a new master, has only to cause a slight damage to 
somebody’s property, or to commit some other trifling 
offence, in which case he must be given up to the person 
he ‘‘injured.”^’ It is astonishing to notice how readily, 
in many African countries, slaves are allowed by custom to 
rid themselves of tyrannical or neglectful masters.^ I'he 
Barea and Bazes have a law according to which a slave 
becomes free by simply leaving his lord.^ Among the 
Manipuris, in Further India, if a slave flics from one master 
and selects for himself another, it is presumed that he has 
been badly treated by the first one, and the fugitive can 
consequently not be reclaimed."’ 

A slave among the lower races can thus by no means 
be described as a being destitute of all rights. As a rule, 
it seems, he is treated kindly, very commonly as an 
inferior member of the family.^' Among the Aleuts a 
slave suffering want would bring dishonour upon his 
master.’' The South American Mbayds, says Azara, 

^ Oang, in Steinmetz, Rcchtsver’ Islanders), 293 (people of Teniml)cr 

halinisse^ p. 242. and Timor-laut), 434 (people of 

l\).st, Afrilcafiisrhc Jitrisp 7 'i{deuz^ Wetter). Earl, op. cif. p. 81 

i. 102 sqg, IdcDi, Griuidriss der (I’apuan.s of Dorey). New, Life^ 

eth}toloq:[ischen Jurispritdoiz., i. 377. Wandcyi^tgs^ and Labours in Kastern 

Steinmetz, Kcchtsvcrlnil/nisse., p. 168. A/r/ra, p. 128 (Wanika). Chanler, 

rcchuel-Loesche, ‘ Aus dem Lcben I'hrough Jungle and Desert., p. 404 

der Loango-Neger,’ in Globus, xxxii. (Ikistcrn Africans). Baumann, Usani- 

238. bara, p. 141 (Wabondei). Felkin, in 

See also Post, Afrikanische Juris- Proceed. Poy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 

prudenz, i. 102 sqq. ; Miinzinger, Ost- 746 ; Ikiskerville, in Steinmetz, Rechis- 

afrikanische Studicui, p. 309 (Beni verhiiltnisse, p. 194 (Waganda). 

Amer) ; Idefii, Die Siiten und das Ibid. p. 43 (Banaka and Bapuku). 

Recht der Bogos, p. 43. Madeniba, ibid. p. 84 (natives of the 

^ ^'V\m'Lm<ggx,OstaJrikanischeSiudien, San.sanding States). Nicole, ibid. 

p. 484. p. 1 18 (Diakite-Sarracolese). Lang, 

Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology oj ibid. p. 242 (Washambala). De- 
Bcngal, p. 51. soignies, ibid. p. 278 (IMsalala). Kraft, 

^ Ibid. pp. 51 (Manipuris), 58 ibid. p. 291 (VVapokomo). Reade, 

(Garos). l^ewin, Hill Iracls of Smfage Africa, p. 582. Rowley, 

Chittagong, p. 34 sq. Idem, IVild Africa Lltiveiled, p[). 174, 176. 

Races of South-Eastern India, p. 90 Steinmetz, Eth/iologische Studien zur 

(Chittagong Hill tribes), Colqiiboun, eo'sten Entivichlung der Strafe, i. 313. 

Ajnongst the Shans, p. 267. Mouhot, Nicboer, op. cii. pp. 52, 78, 79, 81, 

Travels in the Central Parts of Indo- 141-143, 305, 439 sq. 

China, i. 250 (Stiens). Rieciel, De t Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, 
sluik- en kroesharige r as sen tusschen loc. cit. p. 152. 

Sclebes en Papua, pp. 194 (Watubela 

SLAVERY 

‘‘ aiment extraordinairement tous leurs esclaves ; jamais 
ils ne ]eur commandent d’un ton impcrieux ; jamais ils ne 
les reprimandent, ni ne les chatient, ni ne Jes vendent, 
quand meme ce seraient des prisonniers de guerre. . . . 
^uel contraste avec le traitement que les europeens font 
eprouVer aux africains ! ” ^ In West Africa the con- 
dition of slavery is not regarded as degrading, and a slave 
is not considered an inferior being.” “ On the Gold 
Coast, with the exception of the unpleasant liability of 
being sent at any moment to serve his master in the other 
^ world, the lot of a slave is not generally one of hardship, 
but is on the whole far better than that of the agricultural 
labourer in England. The slave is generally considered 
a member of the family, and if native-born succeeds in 
some cases in default of an heir to the property of his 
master.'^ In the Yoruba country it was quite common 
for a slave to be named by his master in his last will to 
be the factor or general manager of the estate, and to be 
left to take care of the entire establishment." Among 
the Kreis Kita, of the French Soudan, the master calls his 
domestic slaves his sons, and they call him their father ; 
nay, the natural guardian of an heir who is not yet of age 
is not his mother, but the eldest domestic slave of the 
household.'^ Speaking of the natives in the region of 
Lake Nyassa, Mr. Macdonald remarks that most Africans 
like to see their slaves become rich ; Are they not,” 
they say, ‘‘ our own children ? ” Among the Wabondei, 
if a man buys a slave, he calls his own children and 
says, ‘Behold your brother.’ The slave is treated as a 
son, and is neither beaten nor tied.” ^ In Madagascar 
the slaves “ are kindly treated by their masters, they are 
considered as a kind of inferior members of the family 
to whom they belong, and many of the slaves have a 

^ Azara, op. cit. ii. Iio. and Ihc Alakc,’ in Joii 7 \ African Soc. 

“ lUlis, .Eioe-speaking Peoples of fhe 1904, p. 473. 

Slave Coast., p. 219. See also Wilsrui, Tellicr, in Sleinmetz, Eecktsver- 

Wester }i- Africa^ pp. 1 79, l8o, 27 1 sq. hatlnisse., p. 169. 

laiis, Ts hi -speaking Peoples of i he ’’ Macdonald, in four. Antlir, Inst, 

Gold Coasts p. 290- xxii. 102. 

^ MacGregor, ‘ Lagos, Abeokuta, Dale, ibid. xxv. 230. 

68o 

SLAVERY 

practical freedom of action to which the free population 
are quite strangers.”^ The slavery prevalent among 
the native races of the Malay Archipelago is generally 
mild. In Borneo, says Mr. Boyle^ “ we always found a 
difficulty in distinguishing the servile portion of a house- 
hold from the freeborn population, and the honours and 
distinctions open to the latter class are likewise accessible 
to the former.” ^ The slave-debtors of the Dyaks are 
“just as happy in this state — living in their creditors’ 
houses and working on their farms — as if perfectly free, 
enjoying all the liberty of their masters.”*'^ Among 
the Chittagong Hill tribes the debtor-slaves were treated' 
as members of the creditor’s family, and were never 
exposed to harsh usage.^ Among the Kafirs of the 
Hindu-Kush slaves are sometimes chosen among the 
annually elected magistracy, and Sir Scott Robertson 
knew of a case in which a master and his slave went 
through the ceremony of brotherhood together. 

It appears that intra-tribal slaves, especially such as are 
born in the house, are generally treated better than extra- 
tribal or purchased slaves,” and that slaves are most 
oppressed by their masters when they belong to a different 
race.' We are told that among the South American 
Guaycurus the two causes of slavery, captivity and birth, 
imply a certain difference of caste, which is maintained 

^ Sibree, I'he Great African Island^ 
p. I Si. Sec also l .iLlle, Aladai^ascar, 
p. 77 ; Ellis, I di story of Afadayascar^ 
i. 196. 

Eoyle, Advoit iires among the 
Dyaks of Borneo^ p. 284. 

^ Low, Sarawak^ p. 302. See als<; 
SL John, Life in the Forests of the Far 
East^ i. 83 ; Bock, Head- fj nut ers of 
Borneo, p. 210 ; Kiikenthal, Ergetf- 
nisse einer zoologischcn Forschmigs- 
rcisc in den Alolukken ttnd Borneo, 

i. 276 (Kyans); Crawfurd, History of 
the Indian A > chipelago, i, 52 ; Raffles, 
op. tit. i. 352 ; Marsden, History of 
Sumatra, p. 2‘;3 ; [unirhuhn, op. cit. 

ii. i5o{Bataks). . 

^ I.e\vin, Hill Tracis of Chittagong, 
P- 34 * 

Scott Robertson, Hafirs of the 
Hindu- Hush, p. 1 00 stj. 

M u nzi n^er, Ostafrikanische Sludicn , 
p. 484 (Ikireaand Kunama). New, 

op. cit. p. 56 ( Waswahiii). Hauniann, 

Usamhara, p. 6 1 (natives of the Tanga 
Coast). Sarbah, of. cit. p. 6 sq . 

(Kantis). Nicole, in Sleinnielz, Rcchls- 
verhaltnissc, p. 118 sq. (Diakite- 
Sarracolese). Tellier, ihid. p. 169 
(Kreis Kita). Beverley, ihid. p. 213 
(Wagogo). Sibree, op. cit. p. 256 sq. 
(natives of Madagascar). Post, 

Afrikanische Jurisprndenz, i. 88 sq. 

Mademba, in Steinmetz, Kechts- 
verhaltnisse, p. 84 (natives of the 
Sansanding States). Siliree, op. cit, 
p. 1 81 (natives of Madagascar). 

SLAVERY 

68i 

with great rigour.^ Mungo Park observes that in Africa 
the domestic slaves or such as are born in their master’s 
house are treated more leniently than those who are 
purchased/^ I was told,” he says, ‘‘ that the Mandingo 
master can neither deprive his slave of life, nor sell him 
to a stranger, without first calling a palaver on his 
conduct, or, in other words, bringing him to a public 
trial ; but this degree of protection is extended only to 
the native or domestic slave.” ^ Tuckey makes exactly 
the same observation as regards the natives of Congo.^ 
On the Gold Coast slaves are of three kinds — ^native-born, 
’imported, and prisoners of war; and “a distinction is 
always made between the first and the two latter, who are 
treated with far less consideration.”^ Speaking of the 
Central African tribes generally, Mr. Rowley states that 
slavery assumes a much severer character among the 
pastoral than among the agricultural tribes, because the 
slaves of the former are for the most part captives of 
war, whereas those of the latter have rarely been acquired 
by conquest but mostly by inheritance. Among the 
agricultural tribes, he adds, persons who are in bondage 
are not called slaves but children, and those to whom they 
are in bondage are not called masters but fathers.'* Among 
the Kafirs of the liindu-Kush all slaves ‘‘are not of the 
same social position, for the house slave is said to be 
much higher in grade than the artisan slave. . . . The 
domestic slaves live with their masters.” ‘ 

Among the nations of archaic civilisation slavery 
presents essentially the same characteristics as among the 
lower races. In ancient Mexico there were various 
classes of slaves — prisoners of war, criminals condemned 
to lose their freedom, children sold by their parents, and 
persons who had sold themselves. The relations between 
master and slave are represented as friendly. '' “Slavery 

' von Spix and von Martins, Travels Rowley, Africa Unveiled^ p. 

in Brazil^ ii. 74. 174 sqq. 

“ Mungo Park, op, cit. p. 262. Scott Robertson, vp. cit, p. 99 sq. 

Ibid. p. 19. ^ Pancroft, Mative Races of the 

Tuckey, op. cit. p. 367. Pacific States ^ ii. 217, 221, 

^ Ellis, Ts hi- speaking Peoples y p. 2S9. 

SLAVERY 

In Mexico,” says Mr. Bancroft, was, according to all 
accounts, a moderate subjection, consisting merely of an 
obligation to render personal service, nor could that be 
exacted without allowing the slave a certain amount of 
time to labour for his own advantage.”^ Masters could 
not sell their slaves without their consent, unless they 
were slaves with a collar, that is, runaway, rebellious, or 
vicious slaves, who In spite of two or three warnings did 
not mend their behaviour.^ Their children were"* In- 
variably born free ; ^ and when their masters died they 
generally became free themselves.'* 

In China the slave class is composed of prisoners of 
war, of persons who sell themselves or are sold by others, 
and of the children of slaves ; and in former days public 
slavery was a punishment for crime.^' It is true that the 
penal code forbids the sale of free persons ; according to 
the letter of the text even the father of a family must not 
sell his children,^ and persons who voluntarily submit 
themselves to be sold are punished by law.'"^ But these 
regulations arc frequently transgressed ; in times of dis- 
tress children are often sold by their parents, and the 
kidnapping of children is an even more common source 
from which the supply of slaves is kept up.'- The 
master's power over his slave Is not quite absolute, but 
it seems to be fully as great as the father’s power over 
his child. A master who falsely accuses his slave suffers 
no punishment for it ; on the other hand, a slave cannot 
complain in a court of justice of ill-treatment from his 
master.*-^ Yet the condition of slaves In China is generally 
easy enough.*'^ ‘‘In all Chinese families of ‘the upper ten 

^ liancroft, A^alive Races of the Pacific 
Stales^ ii. 220 j^v/. 

“ Ckivigcro, History of Mexico^ 1. 360. 

Pancroft, op. cii. ii. 221. 

Clavjgcro, op. cii. i. 360 

Plot, ‘ Memoiie sur la condition 
dcs esc laves el de.s servi tears gages en 
Chine/ in JoiiDial AsiatiquCy ser. iii. 
vol. iii. 257 sqq. 

Ibid. 249 sqq. 

Supra, p. 607. 

^ 7 a 7 "siny Ixu Lee, sec. cclxxv. 
p. 291. 

Biot, loc. cit. p. 260. Giles, 
Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, 
p. 211, n. 8. Gray, China, i. 241, 
242, 246. 

Supra, p. 424. 

Gray, op. cit. \. 243 sqq. 

Plot, op. cit. p. 292. Ta Tsing 
Leu I^cc, .sec. cccxxxvii. p. 373. 

Piot, loc. cit, p. 296 sq. Giles, 
op. cit. i. 21 1 sq. n. 8. Gray, op. cit. 
i. 245. Wells Williams, Middle 

Kingdom, i. 413. Douglas, Society in 
China, p, 349. 

SLAVERY 

thousand/ an intimacy exists between masters and men- 
servants on the one hand, and mistresses and female 
servants on the other. Servants not unfrequently make 
suggestions in reference to the well-being of the family, 
and in many instances, domestic matters of a grave nature 
are discussed before them/’ ^ In Chinese novels the servant 
is the confidant of his master, and harsh behaviour towards 
slaves is only attributed to vicious persons according to 
the •Divine Panorama, he who beats or injures his slave 
without estimating the punishment by the fault is tor- 
mented in hell.’^ Many travellers have pointed out the 
difference between the comparatively happy condition of 
slaves in China and the degraded position of the former 
negro slaves in European colonies and the United States 
of America.^ ‘‘In China,’’ it is observed, “the identity 
of blood, colour, race, and habits between master and 
servant, operates as a restraint on the avarice, vices, and 
cruelty of the former, which would not be the case if they 
were of different races as in America.”^ 

It has been suggested that in ancient Egypt the 
aboriginal inhabitants of the country were made slaves 
by the conquering race. “Si nous consultons les monu- 
ments,” says M. Amelineau, “ nous remarquons dans 
les peinturcs equi ornent les parois des tombeaux de 
Saqqarah une certaine race d’hommes sur laquelle Mariette 
avait deja appele /attention. . . . Je crois que ce sont la 
des csclaves, vieux restes des populations primitives sou- 
mises par les conquerants nouvellement arrives dans la 
vallee du Nil, descendants des premieres tribus humaines 
qui s’etaient installeesen Egypt.”'' During the eighteenth 
and nineteenth dynasties, which form the chief period of 
Egypt’s foreign conquests, mention is frequently made of 
the employment of prisoners of war as slaves. Every 
Pharao of these dynasties recounts how he filled the god 
Amon’s storehouses with male and female slaves from his 

^ (iniy, op. cit. i. 247. Chiiiese Repository xviii. 3^2. 

" Biot, loc. cit. p. 296. ^ Amelineau, Rssai sitr Ph'olution 

3 Giles, op. l it. ii. 377. des idJ.es morales dcuis P Egypt Ancienne.^ 

Biot, loc. cit. p. 297 sq. p. 78, 

SLAVERY 

Spoil. These slaves are occasionally represented in tombs; 
thus in the tomb of Rekhmere some slaves who are making 
bricks and building a wall are designated as the spoil 
which his Majesty brought for the construction of the 
temple of Amon.” ^ M. Am61ineau believes that slavery 
was in Egypt milder than in Greece and Rome.^ Ac- 
cording to the Book of the Dead, the pity of the god 
extends to slaves ; not only does he command that no 
one should ill-treat them himself, but he forbids that their 
masters should be led to ill-treat them." 

In ancient Chaldasa, beneath the free Semite and 
Sumerian population, there was a class of slaves largely 
consisting of captives from foreign races and their de- 
scendants, but continually reinforced by individuals of 
the native race, such as foundlings, women sold by their 
husbands, children sold by their fathers, and probably 
debtors whom their creditors had deprived of their 
liberty. Their position was evidently not one of ex- 
cessive hardship.'* As a rule, they were permitted to 
marry and bring up a family ; and it seems that masters, 
when selling their slaves, as much as possible avoided 
separating parents and children.^’ 'The master often 
apprenticed the children of his slaves, and as soon as 
they knew a trade he set them up in business in his own 
name, allowing them a share in the profits.^ A slave 
could hire himself out for wages, and could himself 
acquire slaves to work for him.^ He was even entitled 
to purchase his freedom.’^ “La loi babylonienne,” says 
M. Oppert, “ laissait aux esclaves sur quelques points 

' For thest? stalcmcMits T am indebted Mas])ero, op. cit. p. 743. 
to my friend Mr. Alan Gardiner. Meissner, op. cit. p. 7. Oppert, 

" Amelineau, op. cit. p. 349. loc. cit, p. 12I .svyy. 

^ Book of the Btead, ch. 125. Cf, ^ ()})}xn-t, hoc. cit. )). 125 sqq. 
Maspero, Dawn of Civilization.^ Koliler and beiser, Aus deni 

p. 1 91. baby Ionise hen Bechts/eben ^ ii. 52 sqq. 

^ Meissner, Bcitriige ztir altbabylon- ^ Oppert, loc. cit. pp. 122, 128. 
ischen Privatreeht.^ p. 6. Oppert, ‘ Ixi ^ Meissner, op. cit. p. 7. Oppert, 
condition des esclaves a liabylone,’ in loc. cit. p. 122. 0 ])pert and Menant, 
Acadlniie des Inscriptions c.t Belles- Doc untent s jniidiqnes de I Assy rie cl de 
J.etlres—Coniptes rendus des stances de la Chaldle, p. 14. 
f annde 1888, ser, iv. vol. xvi, 122. 

plus de prerogatives que le Code fran^ais n’en accorde 
a nos Spouses.’’ ^ 

Among the Hebrews the slave class consisted of 
captives taken in war ; ^ of persons bought with money 
from neighbouring nations or from foreign residents in 
the land ; ^ of children of slaves born in the house ; 
of native Hebrews who had been sold by their fathers;"' 
or who either alone or with their wives and children 
had fallen into slavery in consequence of poverty,^ or 
who had been sold by the authorities as slaves on account 
of theft when unable to pay compensation for the stolen 
property.^ To deprive an Israelite of his freedom for 
any other reason, to steal him, use him as a slave, or sell 
him, was a crime punishable with death/ And even the 
Israelite who lost his liberty because he had become poor 
on account of poverty was not to be treated in the same 
way as the slave of foreign origin. He could not be 
compelled to serve as a bondservant, only as a hired 
servant.’^ He should not be ruled over with rigour.^^^ He 
might not only be redeemed at any time by his relatives, 
but if not redeemed he was bound to receive his freedom 
without payment in the seventh year, and then the master 
should not let him go away empty, but furnish him 
liberally out of his flock, his floor, and his wine-pressd' 
Slaves of foreign extraction, on the other hand, were not 
to be emancipated, but should remain slaves for ever, 
descending to children and children’s children. But in 
no case had the master absolute power over his slave. 
Whether the latter was an Israelite or a foreigner, his 
life, and to some extent his body, were protected by 
law ; and if a slave escaped from a hard master, he 

^ Oppert, (it. p. I2l. 

.Deuterononiyy xx. 14. 

•' Le 7 '?tii iis, XXV. 44 S(j(j. 

Gc 7 tcsis'^ xiv. 14. 

Exodus', xxi, 7. 

Ilnd. xxi. 2 sq. LeviticuSy xxv. 

39 » 47 - 

Exodus, xxii. 3. 

^ Ibid. xxi. 16. Deuteronoiuyy 
xxiv. 7. 

^ Leviticus, xxv. 39, 40, 53. 

Ibid. xxv. 43, 46, 53. 

Exodus, xxi. 2. Leviticus, xxv. 
40, 41, 48 sqq. Deuterotiomy, xv. 

12 sqq. 

Leviticus, xxv. 44 sqq. 

Supra, pp. 424, 516. 

SLAVERY 

should not be given up, but be allowed to live unmolested 
in the place which he should choose in one of the cities of 
Israel.^ From everything that we read about slaves among 
the Hebrews it appears that they were regarded as in- 
ferior members of the family, and that the house-father 
cared for their well-being hardly less than for that of his 
own children.'-* In the Talmud masters are repeatedly 
admonished to treat their slaves with kindness ; ’ traffic 
in human beings is regarded as an occupation which 
incapacitates the dealer to sit as judge ; and emancipa- 
tioti of slaves is practically encouraged in various ways,'’ 
in spite of the dictum of certain rabbis that he who 
emancipates his slave transgresses the positive precept 
of I.eviticus XXV. 46, “ They shall be your bondmen for 
ever. ^ 

According to Islam, a Muhammedan who is born free 
can never become a slave. The slave,” says Mr. Lane, 
“ is either a person taken captive in war or carried off* by 
force from a foreign country, and being at the time of 
capture an infidel; or the offspring of a female slave by 
another slave, or by any man who is not her owner, or by 
her owner if he do not acknowledge himself to be the 
fiither.” ^ The slave should be treated with kindness; the 
Prophet said, man who behaves ill to his slave will 
not enter into Paradise.” ^ The master should give to his 
slaves of the food which he eats himself, and of the 
clothes with which he clothes himself.‘‘ Pie should not 

^ Dc2itei'ono?}iy^ xxiii. 15 scj. 

^ See Mielziner, Die Verhiilinisse 
tier Sklaven hei den alien Hebrdern^ 
p. 61 sqq. ; Andre, IJ esc lavage ehez les 
anciens Ht%renx^ p. 149 sqij. ; Benzin- 
ger, ‘ Slavery,’ in Cheyne and Black, 
Ji JicyclopeEdia Biblica^ iv. 4657 sq. 

^ Katz, Der wahre 'Talniudjnde, 
p. 59 sqq. See also Eeelesiasticusy 
xxxiii. 31 : — “ If thou have a servant, 
entreat him as a brother : for thou hast 
need of him as of thine own soul.” 

Benny, Criminal Code of the Jews 
according to the Talmud Massecheth 
Synhedrin, p. 36. 

^ Winter, Die Stellung der Sklaven 

bci dot Jude.} i , p. 41. 

Berakhoth, fol. 47 B, (pioted by 
llershon, I'reasnres of the Talmud^ 
p. 81. R. Sat/inel, qiuMed by Andre, 
op. cit, p. 180 ry. 

^ Lane, Alanners and Ct/sioms of 
the Afodoni Egyptians^ p. 116. Cf. 
Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studieti, 
p. 245 sq. ; Ameer Ali, Eife a>id 
'Teachings of AIo hammed., p. y](i sq. 

^ I.ane, Arabian Society in the 
Aliddle Ages, p. 255, Lane-Boole, 
Speeches and 'J 'able- 'Talk of the Prophet 
Alohartimad., p. 163. 

Lane, Arabiati Socie/y, 1:1. 254. 
Lane -Poole, Speeches^ p. 163. 

XXVfl 

SLAVERY 

order them to do anything beyond their power, and in the 
hot season, during the hottest hours of the day, he should 
let them rest/ He may marry them to whom he will, but 
he may not separate them when married.^ He may, 
generally, give them away or sell them as he pleases, but 
he must not separate a mother from her child. The 
Prophet said, Whoever is the cause of separation between 
mother and child, by selling or giving, God will separate 
him from his friends on the day of resurrection.’'^ Nor 
is a* master allowed to alienate a female slave who has 
borne to him a child which he recognises as his own ; and 
at his death the mother is entitled to emancipation.^^ To 
fiberate a slave is regarded as an act highly acceptable to 
God, and as an expiation for certain sins."’ These rules, it 
should be added, are not only recognised in theory, but 
derive additional support from general usage. In the 
Muhammedan world the slave generally lives on easy 
terms with his master. He is often treated as a member 
of the family, and occasionally exercises much influence 
upon its affairs.^' In certain countries at least, it is held 
disreputable or disgraceful for a person to sell his slave, 
except perhaps in case of absolute necessity or in con- 
sequence of intolerable behaviour on the part of the 
slave. In Persia custom demands that on certain festive 
occasions, such as the birth of a child or a wedding, one 

^ Lane, Arabian Soriefy^ ]). 254. 
Lane-Puole, Speeches, p. 163. Sachau, 
Aluham?nedanisckcs Recht, pp. 18, 
102. 

" Lane, JModern Egyptians, p. 115. 

^ Ibid. p. 1 1 5, I>ane, Arabian 
Society, p. 255. Ameer Ali, Life of 
Mohammed, ]:>. 374 sij. 

Lane, Abodern Egyptia/is, p. 116. 

® Koran, xxiv. 33. Amcor Ali, 
Life of Mohammed, pp. 373, 377. 
Bellrame, II Sennaar e lo Sciangallah, 
i. 46. Lane, Alodcrn Egyptians, 
p. 1 19. 

^ Lane, Arabian Society, p. 253 sgt/. 
Fulak, Fersien, i. 251, 255. Urqu- 
harl, Spirit of the East, ii. 403, 
Barton, Fi/grimage to A l-AIadinah PsF 
Meccah, i. 61. Munzinger, Ostafrikan- 

ischc Stndien, p. 1 55. Bellrame, // 
Sennaar, i. 46 sejg. Loir, ‘ L’esclavage 
en Timisie,’ in Reznie scientifique, 
.scr. iv. vol. xii. 592 sq. Villot, 
Air nr s, coutnmes et institutions des 
indigenes de F AIgtrie, [). 250. Meakin, 
Moors, p. 133. Chavanne, Die 
Sahara, p. 389 (Arabs of the Salaira). 
]k)mmerol. Among the IVomen of the 
Sahara, p. 161 sqq. Dyveyrier, 
Exploration du Sahara, p. 339. 
Hoiirst, Snr le Niger et an pays des 
Tonaregs, p. 206 (Tiniarcg). 1 lanoteau 
and Letourneux, La Kabylie, ii. 143. 
Reade, Saimge Africa, p. 582. 

" Bolak, Fersien, i. 250. Bellrame, 
II Sinnaar, i. 47, 248. Munzinger, 
Ostafri ha nisc he Stndien, p. 155. 

SLAVERY 

or several of the slaves of the family should be set free ; ^ 
and both there and in other Muhammedan countries 
testamentary manumissions are of frequent occurrence.''^ 
In Morocco a slave is sometimes allowed j||pertain amount 
of liberty that he may earn enough to buy his freedom ; ® 
whilst among the Bedouins of the Arabian Desert described 
by Burckhardt, slaves are always emancipated after a 
certain lapse of time.'* No stigma attaches to the 
emancipated slave. It has been truly said that in Islam 
slavery is regarded as an accident, not as a “ constitution 
of nature,”"’ hence the freedman is socially on an equal 
footing with a free-born citizen. He 'may without dis- , 
credit marry his former master’s daughter, and become the 
head of the family. Eimancipated slaves have repeatedly 
risen to the highest offices, they have ruled kingdoms and 
founded dynasties.*' 

According to the Laws of Manu, the mythical legislator 
of ancient India, there are slaves of seven kinds, namely, 

“ he who is made a capt've under a standard, he who 
serves for his daily food, he who is born in the house, he 
who is bought and he who is given, he who is inherited 
from ancestors, and he who is enslaved by way of punish- 
ment.” ^ The last mentioned class consists of persons 
who have lost their freedom because they have been unable 
to pay a debt or a fine, or because they have left a religious 
order. “ The slave is not necessarily a Sfidra, or member 
of the lowest of the four Indian castes, but Kshatriyas 
may become the slaves of Brahmanas and Vaisyas of 
Brahmanas and Kshatriyas.*’ On the other hand, the 
Sfidras as such were not slaves, though it was their duty 
to serve the other castes ; they chose the persons to whom 
they would offer service, and claimed adequate compensa- 

1 Polak, op. cit. i. 250. ^ Ibid. p. 375 sq. Bosworth Smith, 

^ Ibid. i. 250. Mcakin, op. cit. Mohanuned and Alohammedanism, 
p, 139. PP- 206, 21 1 sq. 

Meakin, op. cit. p. 139. Laws of Manu, viii. 415. 

^ Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins ® BUhlcr, in hi.s translation of the 
and Wahdbys, p. 202. Laws of Mann, in Sacred Books of the 

® Ameer Ali, Life of ALohawmedf Bast, xxv. 326, n. 415. 
p. 375 - ^ P- 326, n. 415. 

xxvri 

SLAVERY 

tion/ The power which a house-holder in India 
possessed over his slaves is not exactly defined ; but he 
is admonished not to have quarrels with them, and if 
offended by any of them, to bear it without resen tment.“ 
In Apastamba’s Aphorisms it is said that a person may at 
his pleasure stint himself, his wife, or his children, but 
by no means a slave who does his work.’’ Elphinstone 
wrote in 1839 ^History of India’ : — “Domestic 

slayes are treated exactly like servants, except that they are 
more regarded as belonging to the family. I doubt if they 
are ever sold ; and they attract little observation, as there is 
•nothing apparent^to distinguish them from freemen.”^ 
The priesthood of modern Buddhism teach that there are 
five ways in which a master ought to assist his slave : — 
“ He must not appoint the work of children to men, or 
of men to children, but to each according to his strength ; 
he must give each one his food and wages, according as 
they are required ; when sick, he must free him from 
work, and provide him with proper medicine ; when the 
master has any agreeable and savoury food, he must 
not consume the whole himself, but must impart a portion 
to others, even to his slaves ; and if they work properly 
for a long period, or for a given period, they must be set 
free.” 

In Greece, especially in earlier times, capture in war, 
piracy, and kidnapping were common causes of slavery,^ 
and the condition washereditary. Other legitimate sources 
were exposure of infants, except at Thebes,'^ and sale of 
children by their parents.^ At Athens insolvent debtors 
became the slaves of their creditors up to the time of 
Solon ; and metics — that is, resident aliens — who did not 
discharge the obligations imposed on them by the State, 

’ Ingrai)!, Hii^ioiy of Slavery and VValion, Ilisfoire de P esclavage 

Serfdo/n, p. 272. dans P anfii/uilt^, i. 161 sq^/, Richter, 

- Trains of Manic y iv. iSo, 185. /die Sk/roerei ini grieeJiischen A Iter - 

^ A/as/aw da, ii. 4. 9. 11. tn/ne, p. 39 sqq. 

Elphinstone, History of India, Aelian, Ilisloria varia, ii. 7. 

p. 203. ^ VValion, op. cii. i. 1 59 .sv/. 

Hardy, Manual of /iudhisin, ^ IMutarcji, Pdta Sotonis, xiii. 4. 

p. 500. 

VOL. I 

Y y 

SLAVERY 

were sold as slaves, as were also foreigners who had fraudu- 
lently possessed themselves of the rights of citizens.^ At 
least in a later age the majority of slaves seem to have 
been of barbarian origin ; ^ indeed, after the Peloponnesian 
war the principle that captives taken in wars between 
Greek states should be ransomed and not enslaved was 
commonly recognised, though not always followed in 
practice/*^ As we have seen, the master had not the power 
of life and death over his slave.** At sanctuaries the lifter 
found a refuge from cruel oppression.^^ If maltreated he 
could demand to be sold ; and he could purchase his 
liberty with his peculium by agreement with his master.^' 
But by manumission he only entered into an intermediate 
condition between slavery and complete freedom ; thus, at 
Athens the freedman was in relation to the State a metic 
and in relation to his master a client.^ Domestic slaves 
often lived on terms of intimacy with their masters,^ but 
as a class slaves were regarded with contempt even by men 
like Plato and Aristotle. The former, whilst warning his 
hearers against insolent and unjust behaviour towards 
slaves, observes that they should be treated with severity, 
not admonished as if they were freemen, but punished, 
and only addressed in words of command. Aristotle 
compares the relation of the master to his slave with that 
of the soul to the body and of the craftsman to his tool, 
and adds that there can be friendship between them only 
in so far as the slave is regarded not as a slave but as a 
fellow human being. But whilst the state of slavery 
always entailed disgrace, the question was raised whether 
the master’s power over his slave was based on justice or 

^ Wallon, op. cit. i. 160 $q. Richter, op. cif. p. 140 sq. 
op. cit. p. 46. ^ Ingram, op. cit. p. 27 sq. Wallon, 

Hermann- Uliimner, Lehrbuch dcr op. cit. i. 335 sq. Richter, op. cit. 
gricchisckoi Privatalicrthiinicr., p. 86. p. 151. 

Richter, op. cit. p. 48. ^ Richter, op. cit. p. 157. Wallon, 

^ Schmidt, Eihik der alten Griechen, op. cit. i. 346 sqq. 
ii. 204, 205, 283. Hermann- Blumner, ® Schmidt, op. cit. ii. 212. Richter, 
op. cit. p. 86 sq. op. cit. p. 15 1. 

Supra, p. 425. ^ Plato, Leges, vi. 777 sq. 

Wallon, op. cit. i. 310 sq. Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, viii. 

Schmidt, op. cit. ii. 218 .n/. Richter, 11. (> sq. Idem^ Politica, i. 5, p. 1254. 

SLAVERY 

on force, and in Greece, for the first time, we meet with 
the opinion that the institution of slavery is contrary to 
Nature, and that it is the law which, unjustly, makes one 
man a slave and another free.^ However, Aristotle was 
no doubt in general agreement with his age when he 
declared that the barbarians, on account of their inferiority, 
are intended by Nature to be the slaves of the Greeks.- 
The Roman jurists held up slavery as a mitigation of 
the ^horrors of war : the capture and preservation of 
enemies, they said, was its sole and exclusive origin in the 
past.^ But in Rome as elsewhere, when once established, 
it contained in itself the germ of extension ; all the 
children of a female slave followed the condition of the 
mother, according to the principle applicable to the off- 
spring of the lower animals- — ^^H^artus sequitur ventrem.’’ 
And sooner or later, when these sources proved insufficient 
to maintain the supply, a regular commerce in slaves was 
established, which was based on the systematically prose- 
cuted hunting of men in foreign lands.^ To a much 
smaller extent the slave class was recruited by Roman 
citizens — by children sold by their fathers, by insolvent 
debtors, or by criminals condemned to servitude as a 
punishment for some heinous offence.'^ The idea of a 
Roman becoming the slave of a fellow-citizen was never 
quite agreeable to the Roman mind. According to an 
ancient law the debtor, after being made over to the 
creditor, should be sold abroad or traris Tiberim!' Sub- 
sequently, in 326 B.C., the creditor’s lien was restricted to 
the goods of his debtor, if the latter was a Roman 
citizen ; ' and during the Pagan Empire the sale of free- 

^ Idem., Poliika^ i. 3, p. 1253 b. 

Ibid, i. 2, 6, pp. 1252 b, 1255 a. 
See Euripides, Iphigcnia in d/dide, 
1400 S(/. 

^ M iiD ter, Exposition of Roman Iaiw^ 
p. 160 stj. Insti/ntiones, i. 3. 3: — 
“Slaves are called se 7 'zn\ because 
generals are wont to sell their captives, 
and so to preserve {seo-tnif'c), and not 
to destroy tlieni. They are also called 
tnancipia^ because they are taken from 

the enemy with the strong hand [manu 
capinnim'], ” 

■* Mommsen, History of Rome, iii, 
305 S(j, Wall on, op, ciL ii. 46 sqq. 
Ingram, op. cit. p. 38. 

^ Wallon, op. lit. ii, l8 sqq. Ingram, 
op. cit. ]). 39. Inst itntiones, i. 12. 3. 

® Mackenzie, Stttdies in Roma?i 
Law, p. 94. 

" Livy, Ilistorice Ro 7 /ia 7 nv, viii. 28. 
Wallon, op. cit. ii. 29, n. i. 

Y Y 2 

SLAVERY 

born children by their fathers was prohibited.^ The 
power^ originally unlimited, which the master had over 
his slave was also, in the course of time, subjected to 
limitations. We have seen that since the days of Claudius 
and Antoninus Pius legal check was put on the master’s 
right of killing his slave. The Lex Petronia, a.d. 61, 
forbade masters to compel their slaves to fight with wild 
beasts.'*^ In the time of Nero an official was appointed to 
hear complaints of the wrongs done by masters to their 
slaves.'^ Antoninus Pius directed that slaves treated with 
excessive cruelty, who had taken refuge at an altar or 
imperial image, should be sold ; and this provision was 
extended to cases in which the master had employed a 
slave in a way degrading to him or beneath his character.*' 
In public auctions of slaves regard was paid to the claims 
of relationship/' and in the interpretation of testaments it 
was assumed that members of the same fiimily were not 
to be separated by the division of the succession.' In 
those days when Roman slavery had lost its original 
patriarchal and, to speak with Mommsen,^ in some 
measure innocent’’ character, when the victories of Rome 
and the increasing slave trade had introduced into the city 
innumerable slaves, when those simpler habits of life which 
in early times somewhat mitigated the rigour of the law 
had changed — the lot of the Roman slave was often 
extremely hard, and numerous acts of shocking cruelty 
were committed.'^ But we also hear, from the early days 
of the Empire, that masters who had been cruel to their 
slaves were pointed at with disgust in all parts of the city, 
and were hated and loathed. And with a fervour which 
can hardly be surpassed Seneca and other Stoics argued that 
the slave is a being with human dignity and human rights, 
borji of the same race as ourselves, living the same life, 

^ Supra^ p. 615. p. 159. 

- Supra., p. 425 Si/. ' VVallon, op. cit. iii. 53. 

Diiirs'ta., xlviii. 8. il. 2. ^ Mommsen, Iftslory of Rorie^ iii. 

^ Seneca, I)c hencficiis., iii. 22. 3. 305. 

Wallem, op. cit. iii. 57 sq. Ingram, Sec Lecky, History of Piiiropean 

p. 63. Morals., i, 302 sq. 

^ WwwXrix, Exposition of Roman La%v^ Seneca, Do ctemoitia, i. 18. 3. 

SLAVERY 

and dying the same death — in short, that our slaves are 
also men, and friends, and our fellow-servants.” ^ Epictetus 
even went so far as to condemn altogether the keeping of 
slaves, a radicalism explicable from the history of his own 
life. ‘‘ What you avoid suffering yourself,” he says, 
‘‘seek not to impose on others. You avoid slavery, for 
instance ; take care not to enslave. P'or if you can bear 
to exact slavery from others, you appear to have been 
yourself a slave.” These teachings could not fail to 
influence both legislation and public sentiment. Imbued 
with the Stoic philosophy, the jurists of the classical period 
declared that all men are originally free by the law of 
Nature, and that slavery is only an institution of the 
Law of Nations, by which one man is made the property 
of another, in opposition to natural right.” ^ 

Considering that Christianity has commonly been 
represented as almost the sole cause of the mitigation and 
final abolishment of slavery in Europe, it deserves 
special notice that the chief improvement in the condition 
of slaves at Rome took place at so early a period that 
Christianity could have absolutely no share in it. Nay, 
for about two hundred years after it was made the official 
religion of the Empire there was an almost complete 
pause in the legislation on the subject.^ Under Justinian 
certain reforms were introduced : — enfranchisement was 
facilitated in various ways ; the rights of Roman citizens 
were granted to emancipated slaves, who had previously 
occupied an intermediate position between slavery and 
perfect freedom ; *’ and though the law still refused to 
recognise the marriages of slaves, Justinian gave them a 
legal value after emancipation in establishing rights of 
succession.^ But the inferior position of the slave was 
asserted as sternly as ever. He belonged to the 

^ Ideui^ Epislolcc^ 47. Ident, De Insfitiitioncs^ i. 3. 2. 

bene/ifiis^ iii. 28. r/picletus, Diss^r/a- ^ Cf. Lecky, History of European 
tiones^ i. 13. See also the collection Alorais^ ii. 64. 
of statements referring to slavery made Justituiiones, i. 5 sqq. 

by Holland, /uu'yn of the Stoics^ Ibid. i. 5 - 3 5 7 - 4 - 

p. 186 sqij. Ibid. iii. 7 pr. 

^ bvpictetus, Fragmenta^ 42. 

SLAVERY 

“corporeal” property of his master, he was reckoned 
among things which are tangible by their nature, like 
land, raiment, gold, and silverd The constitution of 
Antoninus Pius restraining excessive severity on the part 
of masters was enforced, but the motive for this was not 
evangelic humanity.'-^ It is said in the Institutes of 
Justinian, “This decision is a just one; for it greatly 
concerns the public weal, that no one be permitted to 
misuse even his own property.” • 

It is curious to note that the inconsistency of slavery 
with the tenet, “ Do to others as you would be done by,” 
though emphasised by a pagan philosopher, never seems* 
to have occurred to any of the early Christian writers. 
Christianity recognised slavery from the beginning. The 
principle that all men are spiritually equal in Christ does 
not imply that they should be socially equal in the world. 
Slavery does not prevent anybody from performing the 
duties incumbent on a Christian, it does not bar the way 
to heaven, it is an external affair only, nothing but a 
name. He only is really a slave who commits sin.'^ 
Slavery is of course a burden, but a burden which has 
been laid upon the back of transgression. Man when 
created by God was free, and nobody was the slave of 
another until that just man Noah cursed Ham, his 
offending son ; slavery, then, is a punishment sent by 
Him who best knows how to proportionate punishment 
to offence.'' The slave himself ought not to desire to 
become free,^ nay, if the master offers him freedom he 
ought not to accept it.*^ Not one of the Fathers even 

^ InstitKiiones^ ii. 2. I. 

" Cf, Mil man, History of Latin 
Christianity^ ii. 14. 

^ [nsiitntio/tosy i. 8. 2. 

Gregory Nazianzen, OrationeSy xiv. 
25 (Migne, Patrolog^iu’ cursus, Ser. 
Graeca, xxxv. 891 IdoHy Car- 

})iinay i. 2. 26. 29 {ibid, xxxvii, 853) ; 
i- 2. 33. \ZlS(iii. \ihid. xxxvii. 937^ .sv/.). 
St. Chrysostom, In cap. IX. Genes. 
Homilia XXIX. 7 {ibid. liii. 270). 
Idem, In Epist. I. ad Cor. Hofnilia 

XIX. 5 {ibid. Ixi. 158)- St. Ambrose, 
In Epist olavi ad Cotossenses, 3 (Migne, 
op. tit. Ser. Lat. xvii. 439). 

® St. Augustine, De civitate Dei, 
xix. 15 (Migne, op. cit. xli. 643 sq.). 

St. Ignatius, Epistola ad Poly- 
carpnm, 4 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, 
V. 723 sq.). St. Augustine, Ennaratio 
in Psalmnm CXXIV. 7 (Migne, op. 
cit. xxxvii. 1653). 

Laurent, Etudes sur Ihistoire de 
r hntnanitdy iv, 117. 

xxvti 

SLAVERY 

hints that slavery is unlawful or improper.' In the early 
age martyrs possessed slaves, and so did abbots, bishops, 
popes, monasteries, and churches ; ^ Jews and pagans only 
were prohibited from acquiring Christian slaves.® So 
little was the abolition of slavery thought of that a 
Council at Orleans, in the middle of the sixth century, 
expressly decreed the perpetuity of servitude among the 
descendants of slaves.' On the other hand, the Church 
shojved a zeal to prevent accessions to slavery from 
capture, but her exertions were restricted to Christian 
prisoners of war.’’ As late as the nineteenth century the 
•right of enslaving captives was defended by Bishop 
Bouvier.'' 

The Apostles reminded slaves of their duties towards 
their masters and masters of their duties towards their 
slaves.’^ The same was done by Councils and Popes. 
The Council of Gangra, about the year 324, pronounced 
its anathema on anyone who should teach a slave to despise 
his master on pretence of religion ; ® and so much 
importance was attached to this decree that it was inserted 
in the epitome of canons which Hadrian I. in 773 presented 

to Charlemagne in Rome." 
instances in which masters 
humanity to their slaves.'® 

^ Cf. IJabington, Influence of 
Christianity in Promoting the AboJi- 
iion of Slavery in Europe^ p. 29. 

" Ibid. }i. 22. Potgic.sser, Com- 

nientarii juris Gcrnianici dc statu 
seroornm^ i. 4. 8, p. 176. Muratori, 
Dissertazioni sopra le antic hita italiane, 
i. 244. 

^ Concilium Toletamtrn IV. a.d. 
633, can. 66 (Labi.)e'Mansi, Sacrorum 
Conciliorum collect io, \. 635). Elakey, 
Temporal Benefits of Christianity., 
P- 397 * Mores Catholici, ii. 

^*41. Cibrarin, Della schiavitu e del 
senmyflo, i. 272. Jxivicrc, II Eglise et 
I esc lavage, }). 350. 

Concilium Aureliancnse IV. aiiout 
A.D, 545, can. 32 (Labbe-Mansi, op. 
cii. ix. 1 18 Si].). 

^ Concilium Rhemense, al.)out a.d. 
630, can. 22 (Labbe-Mansi, op. cit. x. 

But there are also many 
are recommended to show 
According to Gregory IX. 

597). (Iratian, Derretum, ii. 12. 2. 
13 s]]. Baroniu.s, Annales Ecclesiastici, 
A.D. 1263, ch. 74, vol. xxii. 124. 
Le lilant, Inscriptions chrAiennes de la 
Gaule, ii. 284 S]]. l>al;)ingti)n, op. cit. 
pp. 51 s]]., 94 s]. Nys, le droit de 
la guerre ct les prlcurseurs dc Grotius, 
p. 1 1 4. 

'• Eouvier, Instihitiones philosophic^, 

p. 566. 

' Ephesians, vi. 5 s]q. Coloss lans, 
iii. 22 sqq.'y iv. I. 

^ Concilium Gaugrense, about A.D. 
324, can. 3 (Labl)c-Man.si, op. cit. ii. 
1102, 1 106, n 10). 

‘ l^pitoine caipjiuiin, (juain lla- 
(.Irianus I. Carolo inagno obtulit, 
A.D. I)C(E. XXIII. ’ in Labbe-Mansi, 
op. cit. xii, 863. 

liabington, op. cit. p. 58 sqq. 

SLAVERY 

‘‘ the slaves who were washed in the fountain of holy 
baptism should be more liberally treated in consideration 
of their having received sO great a benefit.’’ ^ Slaves who 
had taken refuge from their masters in churches or 
monasteries were not to be given up until the master had 
sworn not to punish the fugitive ; or they were never 
given up, but became slaves to the sanctuary.^ The 
Church, as we have seen, protected the life of the slave by 
excommunicating for a couple of years masters \^ho 
killed their slaves.*^ She prohibited the sale of Christian 
slaves to Jews and heathen nations. The Council 
of Chalons, in the middle of the seventh century, 
ordered that no Christians should be sold outside the 
kingdom of Clovis, so that they might not get into 
captivity or become the slaves of Jewish masters ; and 
some Anglo-Saxon laws similarly forbade the sale of 
Christians out of the country, and especially into bondage 
to heathen, that those souls perish not that Christ 
bought with his own life.” ^ The clergy sometimes 
remonstrated against slave markets ; but their indignation 
never reached the trade in heathen slaves,'^ nor was the 
master’s right of selling any of his slaves whenever he 
pleased called in question at all. The assertion made by 
many writers that the Church exercised an extremely 
favourable influence upon slavery surely involves a great 
exaggeration. As late as the thirteenth century the 
master practically had the power of life and death over 
his slave. Throughout Christendom the purchase and 

^ Baronins, Aiinales Ecc/esias/iri, 
A.D. 1238, ch. 62, vo]. xxi, 204. 

Mil man, oj). cil, ii. 51, Riviere, 
op. cit. p. 306. Dll Boys, Ifistoire du 
droit cr I mined dcs peiipics moder/ieSj ii. 
246, n. I. 

^ ‘Concilium Kin^esburiense sub 
Bertulpho,’ in Wilkins, Concilia 
Magtue Britan nice et JJihernnE., i. 18 1. 
Snpra, p. 426. 

^ Concilium Bhemense^ about A.J). 
630, can. II (Labbe-Mansi, op. cit. x. 
596). Concilium, /.iptinense., a.d. 
743, can. 3 {ihid. xii. 371). Hefele, 
Beitrdge zur Kirchengeschichte, i. 218. 
Jde?n.^ History of the Councils of the 

Church. V. 21 1. 

Concilium Citin' lonense, about A.D. 
650, can. 9 (Labbe-Mansi, op. cit. x. 

1191). 

" Julius of Ittheln:d.f v. 2 ; vi. 9. 
Lazus of Cnut., ii. 3. 

Ilullniann, Sticdtezvcsen des MitteB 
allerSy i. 80 s//. Loring ]:lrace, Gesta 
Cludsti, p. 229. Riviere, op. cit. 
P* 325- 

‘‘ \anoski, De Vahohtion de Pescla- 
vage ancien an moycn a^e, p. 74 Sf/. 
Allard, Bes eschwes chigHiois dipuis 
les premiers temps de P Eglise, p. 487 ; 
&c. 

Supra i p. 427 sc/. 

slav?:ry 

the sale of men, as property transferred from vendor to 
buyer, was recognised as a legal transaction of the same 
validity with the sale of other merchandise, land or cattled 
Slaves had a title to nothing but subsistence and clothes 
from their masters, all the profits of their labour accruing 
to the latter ; and if a master from indulgence gave his 
slaves any or fixed allowance for their subsistence, 

they had no right of property in what they saved out of 
that, but all that they accumulated belonged to their 
master/^ A slave or a freedman was not allowed to bring 
a criminal charge against a free person, except in the case 
of a crimen majestatis^ and slaves were incapable of 

being received as witnesses against freemend The old 
distinction between the marriage of the freeman and the 
concubinage of the slave was long recognised by the 
Church : slaves could not marry, but had only a right of 
coniubernmm^ and their unions did not receive the nuptial 
benediction of a priest/^ Subsequently, when conjunction 
between slaves came to be considered a lawful marriage, 
they were not permitted to marry without the consent of 
their . master, and such as transgressed this rule were 
punished very severely, sometimes even with death/* 

The gradual disappearance of slavery in Europe during 
the latter part of the Middle Ages has also commonly 
been in the main attributed to the influence of the 
Church/ But this opinion is hardly supported by facts. 
It is true that the Church in some degree encouraged the 
manumission of slaves. I’hough slavery was considered a 

^ Potgiesscr, op. ci( . ii. 4. 5, p. 429. 
Miliiian, op. cit. li. 16. 

Potgiesser, op. cit. ii. 10, p. 528 .sv/i/. 
Du Cange, Giossariu/ji ad scriptorcs 
niedue et injinuc Latiiiitaiis, vi. 451* 
RoberLson, History of the Keiyn of the 
Emperor Charles V. i. 274. 

Polgiessor, op. cit. iii. 3. 2, p. 612. 

** Bcaunianoir, Coutumes dii Beait- 
7Joisis, xxxix. 32, vol, ii. 103. Du 
Cange, op. cit. vi. 452. Potgicsstrr, 
op. cit. iii. 3. I, p. 611. 

^ Potgiesser, op. cit. ii. 2. 10 S(/., 
P- 354 -'Y- 

Jhid. ii. 2. 12, p. 355 sq. 

Clarkson, Essay on Slavery 

]). T9 s<]. P>iot, De raholition de 
desc/ai'a^e ancien err Occident, p. xi. 
'Pherou, l.e Christ ianisme ct I'cschis'ayc, 
p. 147. Marlin, /■//.v/<7/;v; d'rcince jns- 
quen 1789, iii. ii, n. 2. Palmes, Rt 
Protest ant is mo corn par ado con cl Catoli- 
cismo, i. 285. Plakey, op. cit. p. 170. 
Vanoski, op. cit. p. 75. Cochin, 
H abolition de P esclavage, ii. 349, 45S. 
PilLre, Etudes snr tes Par'bares et le 
A/oyen Age, p. 230 sq. Allard, op. cit. 
p. 490. Tedeschi, La schiaviih, p. 68. 
I.ecky, History of Rationalism in 
Kiii'ope, ii. 216, 236 sqq. Maine, 

Inlernational Laiu , p. 160. Kidd, 
Social Evolution^ p. 168. 

SIAVERY 

perfectly lawful institution, the enfranchisement of a 
fellow-Christian was deemed a meritorious act, and was 
sometimes strongly recommended on Christian principles. 
At the close of the sixth century it was affirmed that, as 
Christ had come to break the chain of our servitude and 
restore our primitive liberty, so it was well for us to 
imitate Him by making free those whom the law of 
nations had reduced to slavery ; ^ and the same doctrine 
was again proclaimed at various times down to fhe 
sixteenth century. “ In the Carlovingian period the abbot 
Smaragdus expressed the opinion that among other good 
and salutary works each one ought to let slaves go free, 
considering that not nature but sin had subjected them to 
their masters.^^ In the latter part of the twelfth century 
the prelates of France, and in particular the Archbishop 
of Sens, pretended that it was an obligation of conscience 
to accord liberty to all Christians, relying on a decree of a 
Council held at Rome by Pope Alexander III.^ And in 
one of the later compilations of German mediaeval law 
it was said that the Lord Jesus, by his injunction to 
render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto 
God the things that are God’s, indicated that no man is 
the property of another, but that every man belongs to 
God/' Slaves were liberated for God’s love,” or ‘‘for 
the remedy” or “ransom of the soul.” In the 
formularies of manumission given by the monk Marcuifus 
in the seventh century we read, for instance : — “ He that 
releases his slave who is bound to him, may trust that 
God will recompense him in the next world ” ; ‘ For the 
remission of my sins, I absolve thee” “For the glory 

^ St. Greg(^ry the Great, Episiohp^ ast, Col/ectio consiiehidhuifji et legum 
vi. 12 (Migne, Patrologue cursus^ imperiaiiuni^ 158). 

Ixxvii. 803 Gratian, op. cit. ii. Du Cange, op. cit. iv. 460 sqq. 

12. 2. 68. l^jtgiesser, op. cit. iv. I. 3, Potgicsser, op. cit. iv. 12. 5, p. 751 sqq. 

p. 666 sq. Murat{)ri, op. cit. i. 249. Robertson, 

“ Rabington, op. cit. p. 180. op. cit. i. 323. Mibnan, op. cit. ii. 

^ Smaragdus, Via Kegia., 30 51 sq, 

(d’Achery, Spiciicgiiini , i. 253). Marcuifus, Forniida:^ ii. 32 (Migne, 

fie Roulaiin-illiers, Ilistoirc de op. cit. Ixxxvii. 747)- 
l\i)icicn gouvcnieinent de la France.^ i. ^ Ibid. ii. 33 (Migne, op. cit. Ixxxvii. 

3 '?- ... , 748). 

'' Sfcculum Saxonum, iii. 42 (Gold- 

SLAVERY 

of God's name and for my eternal retribution,” &cd 
Too much Importance, however, has often been attached 
to these phrases ; the most trivial occurrences, such as 
giving a book to a monastery, are commonly accompanied 
by similar expressions, and it appears from certain 
formulas that slaves were not only liberated, but also 
bought and sold, ‘Mn the name of God.”" Nor can we 
suppose that It was from religious motives only that 
manumissions were encouraged by the clergy. It has 
been pointed out that, as dying persons were frequently 
inclined to make considerable donations for pious uses, it 
was more immediately tor the interest of churchmen, 
that people of inferior condition should be rendered 
capable of acquiring property, and should have the free 
disposal of what they had acquired.” It also seems that 
those who obtained their liberty by the influence of the 
clergy had to reward their benefactors, and that the 
manumission should for this reason be confirmed by the 
Church.*^ And whilst the Church favoured liberation of 
the slaves of laymen, she took care to prevent liberation 
of her own slaves ; like a physician she did not herself 
swallow the medicine which she prescribed to others. 
She allowed alienation of such slaves only as showed a 
disposition to run away.'^ The Council of Agatho, in 
506, considered it unfair to enfranchise the slaves of 
monasteries, seeing that the monks themselves were daily 
compelled to labour ; and, as a matter of fact, the slaves 
of monasteries were everywhere among the last who were 
manumitted.' In the seventh century a Council at 
Toledo threatened with damnation any bishop who should 
liberate a slave belonging to the Church, without giving 

^ IMarculfus, ii. 34 (Migne, /yanks, p. 274.^7/. 
op. at. Ixxxvii. 748). ® Gratian, op, cit. ii. 12. 2. 54. 

" Jiabini^ton, op. cii. p. 61, n. 6. ^ Conciliuin Agathoise, A.n. 506, 

/^'ormake 2, ^ Vcndiiio cun. 56 (Lal^be-Mansi, op. cit. viii. 

cle servo’ (lialiize, Capitularia regum 334). 

ii. 497) Domino mag- ' liallam, Viczu of the State of’ 
nilico fiatri illi empturi, ego in Dei litirope dm/ng the Middle Ages (eel. 
nomine ille vciulitor.” 1837), i. 221. 

■* Millar, Origin of the Distinction of 

SLAVERY 

due compensation from his own property, as it was 
thought impious to inflict a loss on the Church of 
Christ ; ^ and according to several ecclesiastical regulations 
no bishop or priest was allowed to manumit a slave in the 
patrimony of the Church unless he put in his place two 
slaves of equal value/^ Nay, the Church was anxious not 
only to prevent a reduction of her slaves, but to increase 
their number. She zealously encouraged people to give 
up themselves and their posterity to be the slaves ^of 
churches and monasteries, to enslave their bodies — as 
some of the charters put it — in order to procure the 
liberty of their sou Is. And in the middle of the seventh 
century a Council decreed that the children of incontinent 
priests should become the slaves of the churches where 
their fathers officiated.'^ 

The disappearance of mediaeval slavery has further, to 
some extent, been attributed to the efforts of kings to 
weaken the power of the nobles.'" Thus Louis X. and 
Philip the Long of France issued ordinances declaring 
that, as all men were by nature free, and as their kingdom 
was called the kingdom of the bVanks, they would have 
the fact to correspond with the name, and emancipated all 
persons in the royal domains upon paying a just com- 
pensation, as an example for other lords to follow.*" 
Muratori believes that in Italy the wars during the 
twelfth and following centuries contributed more than 
anything else to the decline of slavery, as there was a 
need of soldiers and soldiers must be freemend Ac- 
cording to others the disappearance of slavery was largely 
effected by the great famines and epidemics with which 
Europe was visited during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth 

^ Conciliuni Toletanuni IV. A.I>. 29). 

633, can. 67 (Labbe-Mansi, op, cit. x. •’ Robertson, op. cif. i. 47 ,ry. 
635). Millar, op. cit. p. 276 .^qq, 

Gratian, op. cit. ii. 12. 2. 58. ^ Decrusy, IsainIx-rL, and Jourdan, 

Pot^iesser, op. cit. iv. 2, 4, p. 673. Recticil c^tUnU-al. dcs ancioines lois 

Du Canine, op. cit. iv. 1286. fj-aiicaiscs., iii. 102 sqq. 

PotL^lesser, op. cit. i. i. , p. 5 sqq. " Aluratori, op. cit. i. 234x7. Idem., 
Rol)ei'lson, op. cit. x. 326. Kemim Ifalicariwi scriptores., xviii. 

Concilium Toletanum IX. a.d. 268, 292. 

655, can. lo (Labbe- Mansi, op. cit. xi. 

XXVIt 

SLAVERY 

centuries.^ The number of slaves was also considerably 
reduced by the ancient usage of enslaving prisoners of 
war being replaced by the more humane practice of 
accepting ransom for them, which became the general 
rule In the later part of the Middle Ages, at least in 
the case of Christian captives.'-^ But it seems that the 
chief cause of the extinction of slavery in Europe was 
its transformation into serfdom. 

This transformation has been traced to the diminished 
supply of slaves, which made it the interest of each family 
to preserve indefinitely its own hereditary slaves, and to 
• keep up their number by the method of propagation. 
The existence and physical well-being of the slave became 
consequently an object of greater value to his master, and 
the latter found it most profitable to attach his slaves to 
certain pieces of land.’^ Moreover, the cultivation of the 
ground required that the slaves should have a fixed 
residence in different parts of the master’s estate, and 
when a slave had thus been for a long time engaged in 
a particular farm, he was so much the better qualified 
to continue in the management of it for the future. By 
degrees he therefore came to be regarded as belonging to. 
the stock upon the ground, and was disposed of as a 
part of the estate which he had been accustomed to 
cultivate.*^ 

But serfdom itself was merely a transitory condition 
destined to lead up to a state of entire liberty. As 
the proprietor of a large estate could not oversee the 
behaviour of his villeins, scattered over a wide area of 
land, the only means of exciting their industry would be 
to offer them a reward for the work which they per- 
formed. Thus, besides the ordinary maintenance allotted 

^ Biot, op. rit. p. 318 .?////• S:ico, towns make mention of tlie sale of 

Ilisioria de la esclavihid, iii. 241 sifij. slaves, who jnobahly were Turkish 

Ward,* Rjiuiiiry into the Fouiida- eaj)tivos (Nys, l.e droit dc la yiierre et 
tion and Hi story of the I.anv of N^at ions les preonrseurs dc Grot ins ^ p. I40). 
in Europe.^ i. 298 sq. Ikilungton, op. Storch, Conrs dEcononiie politique, 

cit. p. 147. Ayala, De jure ct ofjiciis iv. 260. Ingram, op. cit. p. 72. 
bellicis, i. 5. 19. In the sixteenth ^ Millar, op. cit. p. 263 sqq. 
century the statutes of some Italian 

SLAVERY 

to them, they frequently obtained a part of the profits, 
and became capable of having separate property.’ In 
many cases this no doubt enabled the serf to purchase 
his liberty out of his earnings ; whilst in others the 
master would have an interest in allowing him to pay 
a fixed rent and to retain the surplus for himself The 
landlord was then freed from the hazard of accidental 
losses, and obtained not only a certain, but frequently 
an additional, revenue from his land, owing to tjie 
greater exertions of cultivators who worked for their 
own benefit;^ and at the same time the personal sub- 
jection of the peasants naturally came to an end, as it 
was of no consequence to the landlord how they con- 
ducted themselves provided that they punctually paid the 
rents. Nor was there any reason to insist that they 
should remain in the firm longer than they pleased ; 
for the profits it afforded made them commonly not more 
willing to leave it than the proprietor was to put them 
away.'^ Another factor which led to the disappearance of 
serfdom was the encouragement which sovereigns, always 
jealous of the great lords, gave to the villeins to encroach 
upon their authority.'' We have convincing proof that in 
England, before the end of Edward IIl.’s reign, the 
villeins found themselves sufficiently powerful to protect 
one another, and to withhold their ancient and accustomed 
services from their lord.’^ In Germany, again, the land- 
lords sometimes furnished their villeins with arms to 
defend the cause of their master, and this undoubtedly 
tended to their enfranchisement, as persons who are taught 
to use and allowed to possess weapons will soon make 

^ ciV. p. 264. Simonde de ^ Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations^ 

Sismondi, Ilistoire des rtlpuhlhjues p. 173. Millar, op. rit. p. 267 
italienries du nioyen Age., xvi. 365 sq. Mill, Prineiples of Political Pcoaomy, 
Gueranl, Cartulaire de P Abbaye de i. 309, 31 1. Dunham, op. cit. i. 
Saint- Pire de Chartres^ i. p. xli. 228 sq. On the inctliciency of slave 
Dunham, History of the Germanic labour, see also Storch, op. cit. iv. 
Empit'e., i. 230. 275 sqq. 

Sec Vinogradolf, Villai?tage in ^ Millar, op. cit. p. 269 sq. 

England., p, 87 ; Pollock and Mait- ® Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations., 

land, History of English Law before p. 1 73. 

the Time of Edivard /. i. 36, 427. Eden, State of the Poor^ i. 30. 

xxvn 

SLAVERY 

themselves respected.^ A great number of villeins also 
shook ofF the fetters of their servitude by fleeing for 
refuge to some chartered town,^ where they became free 
at once,'^ or, more commonly, after a certain stipulated 
period — a year and a day,'^ or more ; and it seems, 
besides, that the rapid disappearance of serfdom in the 
prospering free towns indirectly, by way of example, 
promoted the enfranchisement of rural serfs. ^ There are, 
further, instances of lords liberating their villeins at the 
intercession of their spiritual confessors, the clergy avail- 
ing themselves of every opportunity to lessen the formid- 
able power of their great rivals, the temporal nobility.^ 
But the influence which the Church exercised in favour of 
the enfranchisement of serfs was even less than her share 
in the abolition of slavery proper.^ She represented 
serfdom as a divine institution, as a school of humility, 
as a road to future glory. She was herself the greatest 

^ Dunhain, op. cit. i. 229. 

Guil)erlns de Novi^ij^ento, ‘ De vila 
sua,’ in ] 5 ouquet, Kt')‘ni}i Calli- 
caritin ct Frauricanivi sor/ploros, xii. 
257. Fra^tncnluin historicum vitain 
Liidovici VfT. sumniatini cuniplcctens,’ 
ibid. xii. 286. Heaiunanoir, op. ci(. xiv. 
36, vul. ii, 237. Eden, op. cU. i. 30. 
Laurent, op. cit. vii. 531 sq. Saco, op. 
cit. iii. 252 

I.aurcnt, op. fit. vii. 532. 

^ Gian vide, Tract at ns de Lepibits ct 
Consuctitdinihus Rciqni v. 5. 

Lracton, Dc Legibus ct Consueiudinihus 
Jtfzg/ne, fol. 198 b, vol. iii. 292 sq. 
lieaninanoir, op. cit. xlv. 36, vol. ii. 
237, Pollock and Maitland, op. cit. 
i. 429, 648 sq. Grimm, Deutsche 
Rechtsaitcrthii/uer^'p. 337 . tv/. Laurent, 
op. cit. vii. 532. 

^ l.aurent, op. cit. vii. 532. 

Ibid. vii. 533 sq. 

Thomas Smith, Coiumon-zvcalth of 
Enghvid^ ]). 250. Eden, op. cit. i. 10. 
Sugenheim, Geschichtc dcr A iifhcbung 
der Leibeigezi schaft tind Hdrigkcit in 
Europa^ p. 109. 

^ Cf. Riviere, op. cit. p. 51 1. 
Babington says {op. cit. p. 148 sq.) 
that in the live-hundred pages of 

Wilkins’ CoucHia^ which com]")rise the 
ecclesiastical documents of the British 
churches in tlm tlnrtccnth century, we 
only find the follf>wirig regulations 
concerning the unfree po|nilation ; — 
that neither freemen nor villeins are to 
be impeded in making their wills when 
death approaches ; that monks are not 
to alienate their less useful skives 
{famulos) ; that Jews aie not allo^ved 
to ])ossess Christian slaves. — -It was 
said that “he puts a disgrace on God 
who raises a villein above his station ” 
{ibid, jx 150). 

Adalliero, Car/nen ad Rotbertunz 
regeziz Frazzeorunz., 291, 292, 297 sqq. 
(Bouquet, op. cit. x. 70): — “The- 
saurus, vest is, cunctis sunt pascua servi. 
Nam valet ingenuus sine servis vivere 
nullus. , . . Trijvlex ergo Dei domus 
est, qum credilur una. Nunc orant 
alii ; pugnant ; aliique la bo rant : Quie 
tria simt simul, et scissuram non 
patiuntur.’' St. Bonaventura, ({noted 
by I.aurent, op. cit. vii. 522: — “Non 
solum sectmdum humanam institu- 
tionem, sed etiam secundum divinam 
dispensationem, inter Ciiristianos sunt 
domini et servi.” 

Laurent, op. cit. vii. 523. 

SLAV^ERY 

serf-holder;' and so strenuously did she persist in re- 
taining her villeins, that after Voltaire had raised his 
powerful outcry in favour of liberty and Louis XVI. 
himself had been induced to abolish “ the right of 
servitude ” in consideration of “ the love of humanity,” 
the Church still refused to emancipate her serfs.'^ But 
whilst the cause of freedom owes little to the Christian 
Church, it owes so much the more to the feelings of 
humanity and justice in some of her opponents. • , 

Not long after serfdom had begun to disappear in 
the most advanced communities of Christendom a new 
kind of slavery was established in the colonies of Eiuropean ‘ 
states. It grew up under circumstances particularly 
favourable to the employment of slaves. Whether slave 
labour or free labour is more profitable to the employer 
depends on the wages of the free labourer, and these 
again depend on the numbers of the labouring population 
compared with the capital and the land. In the rich and 
underpeopled soil of the West Indies and in the Southern 
States of America the balance of the profits between free 
and slave labour was on the side of slavery. Hence 
slavery was introduced there, and flourished, and could be 
abolished only with the greatest difficulty.^ 

From a moral point of view negro slavery is interesting 
chiefly because it existed in the midst of a highly developed 
Christian civilisation, and nevertheless, at least in the 
British colonies and the United States, was the most 
brutal form of slavery ever known. It may be worth 
while to consider more closely some points of the legisla- 
tion relating to it. 

In America, as elsewhere, the state of slavery was here- 
ditary. The child of a female slave was itself a slave and 
belonged to the owner of its mother even if its father 
was a freeman, whereas the child of a free woman was 

^ Laurent, op. cit. vii. 524. Sugenheim, op. cit. p. 156 sqq. 

' Hettncr, (ieschichto der jranzosischen Laurent, op, cit. vii. 537 sq. 

Lileratiir itn achlzehnten Jahrhitndert^ Mill, Principles of Political 

p. 169. Babington, op. cit. p. 108. Economy.^ i. 31 1. 

SLAVERY 

rXJtVII 

free even if its father was a slave.' When the slave-trade 
was prohibited, heredity remained the bnly legitimate 
source of slavery ; but even then a freeborn negro was far 
from safe. In the British colonies and in all the Slave 
States except one, every negro was presumed to be a slave 
until he could prove the reverse.^ A man who, within 
the limits of a slave-holding State, could exhibit a person 
of African extraction in his custody was exempted from 
all necessity of making proof how he had obtained him or 
by what authority he claimed him as a slave. Nay more, 
through the direct action of Congress it became law that 
^persons known to be free should be sold as slaves in 
order to cover the costs of imprisonment which they had 
suffered on account of the false suspicion that they were 
runaway slaves. This law was repeatedly put into effect. 
“ How many crowned despots,” says Professor von Hoist, 
“ can be mentioned in the history of the old world who 
have done things which compare in accursedness with this 
law to which the democratic republic gave birth ? ” ^ 

Slaves were defined as “ chattels personal in the hands 
of their respective owners or possessors, and their executors, 
administrators, and assigns, to all intents and purposes 
whatsoever.”' In the British colonies and the American 
Slave States they were at all times liable to be sold or 
otherwise alienated at the will of their masters, as abso- 
lutely as cattle, or any other personal effects. They were 

^ Stroud, Lows relating to Slave rj in 
the Urzited States 0/ Anier/ai^ p. \(ysqq. 
Cobb, Inquiry into the Law of Negro 
Slavery in the United States of 
America^ p. 68. Stephen, Slavery of 
the British West India Colonics, i. 
122; Code Noir, 6dit du inois de 
Mars 1685, art. 13, p. 35 sq. ; Ii^dit 
donne au mois de Mars 1724, art. 10, 
p. 288 sq. In Maryland, according to 
an early enactment, which obtained 
till the year 1699 or 1700, all the 
children born of a slave were slaves 
“as their fathers were” (Stroud, op. 
cit. p. 14 sqq , ). In Cuba the nobler par- 
ent determined the rank of the offspring 
(Newman, Aztglo- Saxon Abolition of 

VOL. I 

Negro Slavery, p. 17). 

Stephen, op, cit, i, 369 sq. 
Stroud, op, cit, pp. 125, 126, 130. 
Cobb, op, cit. p. 67. Wheeler, 'J'reatise 
071 the Law of Slavery, p. 5 - 

von Holst, Const it utioiial azid 
Political Histozy of the United States, 
i. 305. 

Ikevard, Digest of the Public 
Statute Law of South- Carolina, p. 229. 
IViuce, Digest of the Laws of Geo 7 -gia, 
p.^ 777. In the French Code Noir 
(l.Cdit du^ mois de Mars 1685, art. 44, 
p. 49 ; Edit donne au niois de Mars 
1724, art. 40, p. 305) slaves are 
declared to be “ meubles.” 

Z Z 

SLAVERY 

also liable to be sold by process of law for satisfaction of 
the debts of a living, or the debts or bequests of a deceased 
master, at the suit of creditors or legatees. They were 
transmitted by inheritance or by will to heirs at law or to 
legatees, and in the distribution of estates they were dis- 
tributed like other property.^ No regard was paid to 
family ties. Except in Louisiana, where children under 
ten years of age could not be sold separately from their 
mothers,'^ no law existed to prevent the violent separation 
of parents from their children or from eacli other.^ And 
what the law did not prevent, the slave-owners did not 
omit doing ; thus Virginia was known as a breeding-place 
out of which the members of one household were sold 
into every part of the country.^ All this, however, 
holds true of the British colonies and Slave States only. 
In the Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonies plantation 
slaves were real estate, attached to the soil they cultivated. 
They partook therewith of all the restraints upon volun- 
tary alienation to which the possessor of the land was 
there liable, and they could not be seized or sold by credi- 
tors, for satisfaction of the debts of the owner." As 
regards the sale of members of the same family the Code 
Noir expressly says, “ Ne pourront etre saisis et vendus 
sdparement, le mari et la femme, et leurs enfans impu- 
beres, s’ils sont tous sous la puissance du meme Maitre.” '' 

A slave could make no contract ; he could not even 
contract marriage, in the juridical sense of the. word. The 
association which took place among slaves and was 
called marriage was virtually the same as the Roman 
contubernium, a relation which had no sanctity and to which 
no civil rights were attached." The master could when- 

^ Stephen, o/>, cii, i. 62. Stroud, 
op. cit. p. 84. Goodell, A juerii an Slave 
Code in Theojy and Practice^ p. 63 sqq. 

Peirce, Taylor, and King, Con- 
solidation arid Kcvision of the Statutes 
of the State [Louis iarnt], pp. 523, 
550 i-y. 

^ Stephen, op. eit. i. 62 sq. Stroud, 
op. cit. p. 82. 

^ J *earson, National Life and Char- 
acter^ p. 210. 

^ Stephen, op. cit. i. 69. 

® Code Noir, Kdit du pnois de Mars, 
1685, art. 47, p. 51 ; Edit dtmne au 
mois de Mars 1724, art. 43, p, 306. 

Cobb, op. cit. |). 240 sqq. Stroud, 
op. cit. p. 99. Goodell, American 
Slave Code, p. 105 sqq, Wheeler, op. 

SLAVERY 

ever he liked separate the ‘‘husband” and “wife”; 
he could, if he pleased, commit “ adultery ” with the 
“wife,” and was the absolute owner of all the children born 
by her. A slave had “ no more legal authority over his 
child than a cow has over her calf.” On the other hand, 
the common rules of sexual morality were not enforced on 
the slaves. They were not admonished for incontinence, 
nor punished for adultery, nor prosecuted for bigamy. 
Incontinence was rather thought a matter of course in the 
slave. We are told that even in Puritan New England 
female slaves in ministers’ and magistrates’ families bore 
^children, black or yellow, without marriage, that no one 
inquired who their fathers were, and that nothing more 
was thought of it than of the breeding of sheep or swine. 
And concerning the “ slave-quarters ” connected with the 
plantations the universal testimony was that the sexes were 
there “ herded together promiscuously, like beasts.” ^ 

Yet though slaves were regarded as chattels, the master 
could not do with his slave exactly what he pleased. We 
have noticed that the life of the slave was in some degree, 
though very insufficiently, protected by law,“ and that a 
master who mutilated his slave was subject to a slight 
penalty.^ The law also took care to prohibit the master 
from doing things which were considered injurious to the 
community or the State. There was a great fear of teach- 
ing negroes to read and write. William Knox, in a 
tract addressed to “ the venerable Society for propagation 

cit. p. 199. Accordinn: to the Civil 
Code of Louisiana, “slaves cannot 
marry without the consent of their 
masters, and their marriages do not 
produce any of the civil effects which 
result from such contract” (xMorgan, 
Civil Code of Lotiisiana, art. 182, p. 29). 

^ Goodell, Anierican Slave Code, 
p. III. In 1835 the cpiery was pre- 
sented to a -Baptist Association of 
ministers, “ whether, in case of in- 
voluntary separation of such a character 
as to preclude all future intercourse, 
the parties may be allowed to marry 
again ?” The answer was, “ that .such 
separation among persons situated as 

our slaves are, is civilly a separatit)n 
by death, and they believe that, in the 
sight of (iod, it would Ije so viewed. 
d\) forbid second marriages in such 
cases would be to ex])ose the parties 
not only to greater hardships and 
stronger temptations, but to church 
censure for acting in obedienee to their 
masters f Incidentally here the fact 
leaks out that slave cohabitation is 
enforced by the authority of the 
masters for the increase of their human 
chattels (Goodell, Slavery ajtd Anti- 
Slavery, p. 185). 

Supra, p. 428 sq. 

Supra, p. 517. 

Z Z 2 

7o8 

SLAVERY 

of the Gospel in foreign parts” in the year 1768, remarks 
that “ instruction renders them Jess fit or less willing to 
labour,” and that, if they were universally taught to read, 
there would undoubtedly be a general insurrection of the 
negroes leading to the massacre of their owners.^ A 
similar fear underlies the laws on the subject which we 
meet with in the codes of some of the Slave States. 
According to the Negro Act of 1740 for South Carolina, 
any person who instructed a slave in writing was subject to 
a fine of one hundred pounds ; ' but this enactment was 
later on considered too liberal. A law of 1834 placed 
under the ban all efforts to teach the coloured race eithen. 
reading or writing, and the punishment was no longer a 
pecuniary fine only, but, besides, imprisonment for six 
months or a shorter time or, if the offender was a free 
person of colour, whipping not exceeding fifty lashes.® In 
Georgia a law of 1770, which prohibited the instruction of 
slaves in reading and writing, was in 1833 followed by an 
act which extended the prohibition to free persons of 
colour.^ In Louisiana the teaching of slaves was punished 
with imprisonment for not less than one month nor more 
than twelve months."' North Carolina allowed slaves to 
be made acquainted with arithmetical calculations, but 
sternly interdicted instruction in reading and writing;® 
whilst Alabama warred with the rudiments of reading, 
forbidding any coloured persons, bond or free, to be taught 
not only reading and writing, but spelling.' In all these 
States the prohibitions referred to the master of the slave 
as well as to other persons. In Virginia, on the other hand, 
the master might teach his slave whatever he liked, but 
others might not.® 

^ Knox, Three Iracts respecting the 
Conversion and Instruction of the Free 
Indians and Negroe Slaves iji the 
Colonies^ p. 15 sq. 

2 Brevard, op. cit. ii. 243. 

McCord, Statutes at large of South 
Carolina, vli. 468. 

^ Prince, op. cit. pp. 785, 658. 

^ Peirce, Taylor, and King, op. cit. 

p. 552. 

Revised Statutes of North Carolina 
passed hy the General Assembly at the 
Session of 1836-7, xxxiv. 74, cxi. 27, . 
vol. i. 209, 57S. 

Clay, Digest of the Laws of Ala- 
bama, p, 543. ^ 

Cade of Virginia, cxcviii. 31 sq., 
vol. ii. 747 j-f/. Stroud, op. cit. p. 142. 

SLAVERY 

There is yet another point in which the master’s power 
was restricted in a most unusual way : in many cases he 
was not allowed to liberate his slave, or formidable 
obstacles were put in the way of manumission. Thus, in 
North Carolina a slave could formerly not be enfranchised 
except for meritorious services ; ‘ but this enactment was 
altered by the Revised Statutes of 1836- 1837, according 
to which any emancipation granted to any slave shall be 
upqji the express condition, that he, she or they will leave 
the State, within ninety days from the granting thereof, 
and never will return within the State afterwards.” “ The 
-•Civil Code of Louisiana required that a slave, to be 
emancipated, should have attained the age of thirty years 
and behaved well at least for four years preceding the 
emancipation, unless, indeed, the slave had saved the life 
of his master or of one of his children, in which case he 
might be set free at any age; and, according to a statute 
of 1852, the emancipated slave should be sent out of the 
United States within twelve months after his emancipation. 
In several other States manumission was likewise hampered 
by various regulations ; and throughout the British 
West Indies there were restraints on manumission prior to 
the Emancipation Act.*’ By an act passed in Saint Christ- 
opher in the year 1802, a tax of £ 1^000 was imposed on 
the manumission of any slave who was not a native of, or 
had not resided for two years within, the island, whilst 
natives or residents might be enfranchised at half that 
price. But the authors of this act went further still. 
They considered that a master, though unwilling to pay 
^500 or ^1,000 for the legal enfranchisement of a slave, 
might, during his own life, make him or her practically 
free by not exercising his own rights as master. Hence 

^ Stroud, cit, p. 233. Caroli/ui). Prince, op. a'l. j>, 787 

“ Revised ^tatnies of North Caro/ifta, ((^'or^ia). Stroud, op. eit, ]>. 23 1 

cxi. 58, vol. i. 583. (Alaliaiiia). Alduii aiul van IJocscii, 

^ Morgan, Civil Code of Loiiisiano , Digest oj the Laivs of Ahssissippi, 
art. 185 » P* 'ID P- 7 ^^^* Haywood and CobVjs, 

Ibid. Stat. I Sill March, 1852, §1, Statute Laws of the State (f I'cnuessee, 
p. 29. ^ i. 327 sf. 

^ Brevard, of. eit. ii, 255 sq. (South ^ Cold), op. at. p. 282, 

SLAVERY 

they enacted “ that if any proprietor of a slave should, by 
any contract in writing or otherwise, dispense with the slave’s 
service, or should be proved before a justice of peace not 
to have exercised any right of ownership over such slave, 
and maintained him or her at his own expense, within a 
month, the slave should be publicly sold at vendue by the 
provost marshall; and should become the property of the 
purchaser, and the purchase-money should be paid into 
the colonial treasury.” ’ In St. Vincents one hundred 
pounds sterling was required to be paid into the treasury 
for each slave sought to be manumitted, whilst in 
Barbados a person minded to manumit a slave should pay 
^50 to the churchwarden of the parish in which he 
resided. Very different were the Spanish laws on the 
subject of manumission. According to a law of 1528 a 
negro slave who had served a certain length of time was 
entitled to his liberty upon the payment of a certain sum, 
not less than twenty marks of gold, the exact amount to 
be settled by the royal authorities.'^ In 1540 a law was 
issued to the effect that ‘‘ if any negro, or negress, or any 
other persons reputed slaves, should publicly demand their 
liberty, they should be heard, and justice be done to them, 
and care be taken that they should not on that account be 
maltreated by their masters.” Nay, a slave who wished 
to change his master and could prevail on any other 
person to buy him by appraisement, could demand and 
compel such a transfer,^’ and a master who treated his 
slaves inhumanly could be by the judge deprived of 
them.^ In most of the British colonies and American 
Slave States, on the other hand, the slave had no 
legal right to obtain a change of master when cruel treat- 
ment made it necessary for his relief or preservation. ® 

^ Stcplien, dp. cit. i. 401 sq. 

“ Col.)b, op. lit. p. 282 sq. 

^ Moore, Puhlic ^Uts passed by the 
1 A'gislature of B a j-bados, p. 224 sq. 

Helps, Spanish Conquest in 
A/ne?'ica, iv. 373. 

^ Recopilacioti dc Icyes de /os reiuQS do 

las Indias, vii. 3. 8, vol. ii. 32 1. 

1 Jarre Saint Venant, quoted by 
Stephen, op. cit, i. 119 sq. 

^ Edwards, History of the British 
West Indies y iv. 451. 

^ Stephen, op. cit. i. 106. Stroud, 
op. cit. p. 93, 

SLAVERY 

xxvn 

yri 

The exceptions to this rule ' were few and of little practi- 
cal value. 

This system of slavery, which at least in the British 
colonies and the Slave States surpassed in cruelty the 
slavery of any pagan country ancient or modern, was not 
only. recognised by Christian governments, but was sup- 
ported by the large bulk of the clergy, Catholic " and 
Protestant alike. In the beginning of the abolitionist 
movement the Churches acknowledged slavery to be a 
great evil, but with the making of this acknowledgment 
they believed that they had done their share, and denied 
that there was any obligation on them, or even that they 
had any right, to proceed against the slave-holders. But 
things did not stop here. The lamentations of resignation 
were gradually changed into excuses, and the excuses into 
justifications.® The Bible, it was said, contains no pro- 
hibition of slavery ; on the contrary, slavery is recognised 
both in the Old and New Testaments. Abraham, the 
father of the faithful and the friend of God, had slaves ; 
the Hebrews were directed to make slaves of the sur- 
rounding nations ; St. Paul and St. Peter approved of the 

^ Morgan, Civil Code of Louisiana^ 
art. 192, p. 33. Morelicad and Brown, 
Digest of the Statute Laws of Kentucky^ 
ii. 1481. Edwards, of. eii. ii. 192 
(Jamaica). Stephen, op. d(. \. 106 

(some other British colonics). In the 
French islands a negro who had been 
cruelly treated, contrary to royal 
ordinances, w'^as forfeited to the crown, 
and acquired, if not freedom, at least 
deliverance from a tyrannical master 
{Code Noir^ Edit du moi.s dc Mars 
1685, art. 42, p. 48 Si}. ; lulit donne 
an mois de Mars 1724, art. 38, 
p. 303 sq.')\ but the Court which 
adjudged the offence might also decree 
the sufferer to be manumitted (Stephen, 
op. cit. i. 1 19). 

2 The attempts to represent the 
Roman Catholic clergy as ardent 
abolitiohists (Cochin, /laholition de 
Pesclasmge^ ii. 443 ; de Locqueneuille, 

esclashige^ ses proniofeurs ct ses 
adversaires^ p. 193) are certainly not 
justified by facts. Among the Ca.tholics 

of the Uniksl Stales there were some 
advocates of emancipation, lait tlieir 
number was not large (Coodell, 
Slavery and A}iii-Slave)y^ [>. 195 sq. ; 
Barker, Colleeled IVorhs, vi. 127 sq.). 
Dr. Ihigland, the Catliolic bisliop of 
Charleston, South Carolina, undertook 
in public to |)rove that the Catholic 
Cluirch had always been the uncom- 
jiromising friend of slave-holding (Bar- 
ker, op. eii. V. 57). In Brazil it was 
common for clergymen not only to 
pos.se.ss slaves, fait to buy and sell them 
with as little scruple as other mer- 
chandises (da Fonseca, A esra 7 ddao, 0 
elcro c o aholicioiiis}iu\ pj). 28, 33). 
Bishop B>ouvier wrote {op. cit. p, 568) : 
— “ Servi autem dominis suis obedire, 
sortem .siiam patienter tolerare et officia 
sibi imposita fideliter exserjiii debent, 
quoad usque libertas ijisis coneedatur. 
Memincrint prmsentem vitam e.sse 
momentaneam, futuram vero tTteinam.” 
von Holst, ot). cit. ii. 231 sqq. 

SLAVERY 

7 I 2 

relation of master and slave when they gave admonitions 
to both as to their reciprocal behaviour ; the Saviour 
himself said nothing in condemnation of slavery, although 
it existed in great aggravation while was upon earth. 
If slavery were sinful, would it have been too much to 
expect that the Almighty had directed at least one little 
word agaitist it in the last revelation of His will ? ^ Nay, 
God not only permitted slavery, but absolutely provided 
for its perpetuity;'^ it is the very legislation of Heaven 
itself ; '* it is an institution which it is a religious duty to 
maintain,* and which cannot be abolished, because “ God 
is pledged to sustain it.” According to some, slavery 
was founded on the judgment of God on a damned race, 
the descendants of Ham ; according to others, it was only 
in this way that the African could be raised to a parti- 
cipation in the blessings of Christianity and civilisation.*^ 
With the name of “ abolitionist ” was thus associated the 
idea of infidelity, and the emancipation movement was 
branded as an attempt to spread the evils of scepticism 
through the land.’^ According to Governor Macduffie, of 
South Carolina, no human institution is more manifestly 
consistent with the will of God than slavery, and every 
community ought to punish the interference of aboli- 
tionists with death, without the benefit of clergy, “ re- 
garding the authors of it as enemies of the human race.” ** 
It is true that religious arguments were also adduced in 
favour of abolition. I'o hold men in bondage was said to 
be utterly inconsistent with the inalienable rights which 
the Creator had granted mankind, and still more obviously 

^ Barnes, The Church and Slavery' ^ 
p. 15. Birney, Letter to the Churches^ 
p. 3 sq. Bledsoe, Essay/ on Liberty 
and Slavery^ pp. 138 sqq. Gerrit 
Smith, Letter to Rez/. Ja/ties S/nylie, 
p. 3. Cobb, op. cit. p. 54 sqq. 
Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, 
pp. 154 156, 167, 176, 181, 1S4, r86, 
i^c. Barker, Collected li o/hs, v. 157. 

" Thornton, quoted by Goodell, 
Slavery and Anti-Slavery, p. 147. 
Fisk, quoted ibid. p. 147. 

^ Bledsoe, op. cit. p. 138. 

^ Smylie, quoted by Gerrit Smith, 
op.^cit. p. 3. 

^ ()uoted by Goodell, Slavery and 
Anti-Slavery/, f). 347. 

Barnes, op. cit. p. 16. 

/bid. p. 18. Newman, Anglo- 
Saxon Abolition of Negro Slavery, 
p. 56. i^ledsoe, op. cit. p. 223. 

Newman, op. cit. p. 53. von 
Holst, op. cit. ii, 118, n. i. 

SLAVERY 

at variance with the dictates of Christian loved Many 
clergymen also joined the abolitionists. But it seems that 
in the middle of the nineteenth century the Quakers and 
the United Brethren were the only religious bodies that 
regarded slave-holding and slave-dealing as ecclesiastical 
offencesd The American Churches were justly said to be 
‘Hhe bulwarks of American slavery.’’^ 

Nobody would suppose that this attitude towards slavery 
.W4g due to religious zeal. It was one of those cases, only 
too frequent in the history of morals, in which religion is 
called in to lend its sanction to a social institution agreeable 
to the leaders of religious opinion. Many clergymen and 
missionaries were themselves slave-holders,^ the chapel 
funds largely rested on slave property,'^ and the ministers 
naturally desired to be on friendly terms with the more 
important members of their respective congregations, who 
were commonly owners of slaves. Adam Smith observes 
that the resolution of the Quakers in Pennsylvania to set 
at liberty all their slaves, was due to the fact that the 
principal produce there was corn, the raising of which 
cannot afford the expense of slave cultivation ; had the 
slaves ‘‘ made any considerable part of their property, such 
a resolution could never have been agreed to.”^ 

To explain the establishment of colonial slavery, the 
difficulties in the way of its abolition, and the laws relating 
to it, it is necessary to consider not only economic condi- 
tions and the motive of self-interest, but, as a factor of 
equal importance, the want of sympathy for, or positive 
antipathy to, the coloured race. The negro was looked 
upon almost as an animal, according to some he was a 
being without a soul.' Even when free he was a pariah, 
subject to special laws and regulations. In the Code of 

^ Gurney, Views arid Prar/ las of t/ie Slavery and Anti- Slavery, pp. 151, 
Society of Fric 7 ids, p. 390. ‘Anti- 186 

Slavery Declaration of 1833,’ (luotcil ^ Newman, op. cit. p. 53. 

\yy Ge>oC7.eW, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, ^ Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, 

p. 398. Birney, Second Letter, p. 1. p. 172. 

‘ Barker, op. cit. v. 56. von Holst, op. cit. ’i. 279. Mal- 

von Holst, c?/. Y/V. ii. 230, loch, ‘How the Church dealt with 

4 Barnes, op. cit, p. 13. Goodell, Slavery,’ in 77 ^:^ xxvii. 454. 

SLAVERY 

71 + 

Louisiana it is said : — “ Free people of colour ought never 
to insult or strike white people, nor presume to conceive 
themselves equal to the whites; but, on the contrary, they 
ought to yield to them on every occasion, and never speak 
or answer them but with respect> under the penalty of 
imprisonment, according to the nature of the offence.” ^ 
The Code Noir prohibited white men and women from 
marrying negroes, “ a peine de punition et d’amende 
arbitraire ” ; ^ and in the Revised Statutes of North 
Carolina we read ; — “ If any white man or woman, being 
free, shall intermarry with an Indian, negro, mustee or 
mulatto man or woman, or any person of mixed blood to 
the third generation, bond or free, he shall, by judgment 
of the county court, forfeit and pay the sum of one 
hundred dollars to the use of the county.” ® In Mississippi 
a free negro or mulatto was legally punished with thirty- 
nine lashes if he exercised the functions of a minister of 
the Gospel.* Coloured men in the North were excluded 
from colleges and high schools, from theological seminaries 
and from respectable churches, as also from the town 
hall, the ballot, and the cemetery where white people 
were interred."’ The Anglo-Saxon aversion to the black 
race is thus expressed by an English writer : — “ We hate 
slavery, but we hate the negroes still more.”® Among the 
Spaniards and Portuguese racial antipathies were not so 
strong, and their slaves were consequently better treated.’^ 
Thus we notice in the opinions regarding slavery 
throughout the same distinction as in the judgments on 
other matters of moral concern. A person is, as a rule, 
allowed to enslave or to keep as slaves only persons belong- 
ing to a different community or a different race from his 
own, or their descendants. To deprive anybody of his 
liberty is to inflict an injury on him, and is regarded as 

^ Quoted by Stroud, op. cit. p. 157. ® Parker, op. cit. v. 58. Goodell, 

^ Code Noir^ Edit donne au niois de Slavery and A^iti-Slavery., p. 200. 

Mars 1724, art. 6, p. 286. ^ Seward, quoted by Newman, 

^ Revised Statutes of Norih Carolina^ Abolition of Negro Slavery^ p. 54. 

Ixxi. 5, vol. i. '386 sq. Gouty, V esclavage au Bntsily p. 8 

Alden and van Iloescn, op, cit, sqq, 

P* 771 - 

SLAVERY 

*715 

wrong whenever the act gives rise to sympathetic resent- 
ment, whereas nothing is thought of it where no sympathy 
is felt for its victim. Thus, whilst slavery grows up only 
under economic conditions favourable to slave labour, it is 
always limited by feelings of an altruistic character, and 
where these feelings are sufficiently broad and powerful it 
is not tolerated at all. The same factor also influences 
the condition of the slaves where slavery exists. We have 
••seftn that native slaves are better treated than foreign ones, 
and slaves born in the household better than those who 
have been captured or purchased. The advancement 
of a nation, again, is frequently attended with greater 
severity in the treatment of the slaves, because, whilst 
the simplicity of early ages admits of little distinction be- 
tween the master and his servants in their employments 
and manner of living, the introduction of wealth and 
luxury gradually destroys the equality. Besides, the 
number of slaves maintained in a wealthy nation makes 
them formidable both to their owners and to the State, 
hence it is necessary that they should be strictly watched 
and kept in the utmost subjection.^ 

The condition of slaves is in various respects influenced 
by the selfish considerations of their masters. Stuart Mill 
observes : — “ When, as among the ancients, the slave- 
market could only be supplied by captives either taken in 
war, or kidnapped from thinly scattered tribes on the 
remote confines of the human world, it was generally more 
profitable to keep up the number by breeding, which 
necessitates a far better treatment of them, and for this 
reason, joined with several others, the condition of slaves 
. . . was probably much less bad in the ancient world, 
than in the colonies of modern nations.” Among the 
Bedouins, says Burckhardt, “ the slaves are treated with 
kindness^ and seldom beaten, as severity might induce 
them to run away.” Superstition may also help to 

1 Millar, op. cit. p. 256 sqq. " ^ Burckhardt, Bedouitfs and JVahd- 

2 Mill, Principles of Political Econ- hys., p. 103. 
omy, i. 307. Cf supra, p. 701. 

7i6 

SLAVERY 

CH. XXVII 

improve the lot of the slave. In West Africa “the 
authority which a master exercises over a slave is very 
much modified by his constitutional dread of witchcraft. 
If he treats his slave unkindly, or inflicts unmerited 
punishment upon him, he exposes himself to all the 
machinations of witchcraft which that slave may be able to 
command.”^ It is said in the Proverbs, “ Accuse not a 
servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be 

found guilty.” ^ The same danger threatens the cr'iel-’ 
master. We read in the Apostolic Constitutions, “ Thy 
man-servant or thy maid-servant who trust in the same 
God, thou shalt not command with bitterness of spirit ; 
lest they groan against thee, and wrath be upon thee from 

God. 

> > 

^ Wilson, Western Africa^ p. 271. 
See also ibid, p. 179 ; Cruickshank, 
Eighteen Years on the Gold Coasts ii. 
180 sqq, ; Du Chaillu, Explorations 
and Adventures in Equatorial Africa^ 

p. 331 ; Lancltman, Origin of Priest- 
hood^ p. 198, n. 2. 

^ Proverbs^ xxx. 10. 

^ Constitutiones ApostoliaSy vii. 13. 

Recapitulation of the theory of the moral consciousness set forth in vol. I., pp. 
738-741.—This theory supported by the fact that not only moral emotions 
but non-moral retributive emotions are felt with reference to phenomena 
exactly similar in their general nature to those on which moral judgments 
are passed, p. 741.—As also by the circumstance that the very acts, for- 
bearances, and omissions which are condemned as wrong are also apt to call 
forth anger and revenge, and that the acts and forbearances which are praised 
as morally good are apt to call forth gratitude, p. 741 sg.—The variations of the 
moral ideas partly due to different external conditions, p. 742.—But chiefly 
to psychical causes, pp. 742-746.—The duties to neighbours have gradually 
become more expansive owing to the expansion of the altruistic sentiment, 
P- 743 sg-—The influence of reflection upon moral judgments has been 
increasing, p. 744 sg.—The influence of sentimental antipathies and likings has 
been decreasing, zé¢d.—The influence which the belief in supernatural 
forces or beings or in a future state has exercised upon the moral ideas of 
mankind, p. 745 sg.—Remarks as to the future development of the moral 
ideas, p. 746. 

AUTHORITIES QUOTED . pp. 747-824 

SUBJECT INDEX . ; ; : . pp. 825-852 

+ at 

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
OF THE MORAL IDEAS

Y) 

THE SRIG Bt (OP SP ROP PREY 

Tue right of property implies that a certain person or 
certain persons are recognised as having a right to the 
exclusive disposal of a certain thing. The owner is not 
necessarily allowed to do with his property whatever he 
likes ; but whether absolute or limited, his right to dis- 
posal is not shared by anybody else, save under very 
exceptional circumstances, as in the case of ‘ compulsion 
by necessity.’ Property in a thing thus means not only 
that the owner of it is allowed, at least within certain 
limits, to use or deal with it at his discretion, but also that 
other persons are forbidden to prevent him from using or 
dealing with it in any manner he is entitled to. 

The most common offence against property is illicit 
appropriation of other persons’ belongings. Not the mere 
fact that individuals are in actual possession of certain 
objects, but the public disapproval of acts by which they 
are deprived of such possession, shows that they have 
proprietary rights over those objects. Hence the universal 
condemnation of what we call theft or robbery proves that 
the right of property exists among all races of men known 
to us. 

1 Supra, \. 285 sgq- 
VOL. II B 

Travellers often accuse savages of thievishness.! 

But 

then their judgments are commonly based upon the treat- 
ment to which they have been subject themselves, and 
from this no conclusions must be drawn as regards intra- 

tribal morality. 

Nor can races who have had much to do 

with foreigners be taken as fair representatives of savage 
honesty, as such contact has proved the origin of thievish 

propensities - 

In the majority of cases uncivilised peoples 

seem to respect proprietary rights within their own 
communities, and not infrequently even in their dealings 

with strangers. 

1 Beni, ‘Notizie sopra gli indigeni 
di Mexico,’ in Archivio per 1 antropo- 
logia e la etnologia, xii. 15 (Apaches). 
Burton, City of the Saints, p. 125 
(Dacotahs and Prairie Indians). Powers, 
Tribes of California, p. 127 (Yuki). 
Macfie, Vancouver [sland and British 
Columbia, p. 468. Heriot, Zravels 
through the Canadas, p. 22 (New- 
foundland Eskimo). Coxe, Aussian 
Discoveries between Asia and America, 
p. 300 (Kinaighi). Georgi, Azssza, iv. 
22 (Kalmucks), 133 (Buriats). Scott 
Robertson, Kafirs of the Hindu- Kush, 
p- 193 sg. Modigliani, Viaggio a Nias, 

468. Powell, Wanderings in a 
Wild Country, p. 23 (South Sea Is- 
landers). Romilly, From my Verandah 
zn New Guinea, p. 50; Comrie, ‘ An- 
thropological Notes on New Guinea,’ 
in Jour. Anthr. Inst. vi. 109 sg. de 
Labillardiére, Voyage tn Search of La 

rouse, 1. 275; Moseley, Votes by a 
Naturalist on the *‘ Challenger,” p. 39% 
(Admiralty Islanders). Brenchley, 
Jottings during the Cruise of H. M.S. 
Curacoa, p. 58 (natives of Tutuila), 
Lisiansky, Voyage round the World, 
p- 88 sg. (Nukahivans). Williams, 
Missionary Lnuterprises in the South 
Sea Islands, p. 126 (natives of Raro- 
tonga). Cooke, Journal of a Voyage 
round the World, p. 40 ; Montgomery, 
Journal of Voyages and Travels by 
Tyerman and Bennet, ii. 11 (Society 
Islanders). 
New South Wales, p. 22 ; Breton, Bx- 
curstons in New South Wales, p. 221 ; 
Collins, Account of the English Colony 
zu New South Wales, i. 599 sy. ; 

Hodgson, Remtniscences of Australia, 

Barrington, Hzstory of 

Many of them are expressly said to con- 

p- 79; Mitchell, Axpeditions into the 
Interior of Eastern Australia, i. 204, 
304; Lumbholtz, Among Cannibals, 
p- 71 sg. (Australian tribes). Reade, 
Savage Africa, p. 579 (West African 
Negroes). Bosman, Description of the 
Coast of Guinea, p. 324 sg. (Negroes of 
Fida and the Gold Coast). Caillié, 
Travels through Central Africa, 1. 353 
(Mandingoes). Beltrame, 2 Fame 
Bianco, p. §3 (Shilluk). Wilson and 
Felkin, Uganda and the Egyptian 
Soudan, ii. 310 (Gowane people of 
Kordofan). Krapf, Zravels, Researches, 
and Misstonary Labours in Eastern 

Africa, p. 355 (Wakamba). Burton, 
Zanzibar, ii. 92 (Wanika). Bonfanti, 

‘Vincivilimento dei negri nell’ Africa 
intertropicale,’ in Archivio per P antro- 
pologta e la etnologia, xv. 133 (Bantu 
races). Arbousset and Daumas, Z.r- 
Ploratory Tour to the North-East of the 
Colony of the Cafe of Good Hope, 
p- 323 (Bechuanas). Andersson, Lake 
Neamt, pp. 468 sg. (Bechuanas), 499 
(Bayeye). Leslie, Among the Zulus 
and Amatongas, p. 256. Fritsch, Die 
Eingeborenen Stid-Afrika’s, pp. 53 
(Kafirs), 372, 419 (Hottentots and 
Bushmans). 

2 Domenech, Great Deserts of North 
America, ii. 321. Mackenzie, Voyages 
to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, p. 
xcvi. note (Crees). Burton, Highlands 
of the Brazil, i. 403 sg. Moorcroft 
and Trebeck, Zyavels in the Himalayan 
Provinces, i. 321 (Ladakhis). Anderson, 
Mandalay to Momien,p.151 (Kakhyens). 
Earl, Papuans, p. 80. Tyler, Forty 
Years among the Zulus, p. 192. 

demn or abhor theft, at any 
themselves. 

rate when committed among 
And that all of them disapprove of it may 

be inferred from the universal custom of subjecting a 
detected thief to punishment or revenge, or, at the very 
least, of compelling him to restore the stolen property to 

its owner. 

The Fuegians have shown themselves enterprising thieves 
on board European vessels visiting their shores ;1 but, when 
presents were given to them, a traveller noticed that “if any 
present was designed for one canoe, and it fell near another, it 
was invariably given to the right owner.” The boys are 
taught by their fathers not to steal; *® and in case a theft has 
been committed, “quand le coupable est découvert et chatié, 
Popinion publique est satisfaite.’* In his dealings with the 
“‘Tehuelches Lieutenant Musters was always treated with fair- 
ness, and the greatest care was taken of his belongings, though 
they were borrowed at times. He gives the following advice 
to the traveller :—‘‘ Never show distrust of the Indians ; be as 
free with your goods and chattels as they are to each other... . 
As you treat them so they will treat you.”®> Among the 
Abipones doors, locks, and other things with which civilised 
men protect their possessions from thieves, were as unnecessary 
as they were unknown ; and if children pilfered melons grown 
in the gardens of the missionaries or chickens reared in their 
houses, “they falsely imagined that these things were free to 
all, or might be taken not much against the will of the 
owner.”® Among the Brazilian Indians theft and robbery 
were extremely rare, and are so still in places where strangers have 
not settled.’ We are told that the greatest insult which could 
be offered to an Indian was to accuse him of stealing, and that 
the wild women preferred the epithet-of a prostitute to that of a 

1 Weddell, Voyage towards the South 
Pole, pp. 151, 154, 182. King and 
Fitzroy, Voyages of the ‘‘ Adventure” 
and ‘* Beagle,” i. 128; ii. 188. 

2 Darwin, Journal of Researches, p. 
242. See also Snow, ‘ Wild Tribes of 
Tierra del Fuego,’ in Jour. Lthn. 
Soc. London, N.S. i. 264. 

3 Bridges, in A Voice for South 
America, xiii. 204. ; 
4 Hyades and Deniker, J/¢sszon 

sctentifique du Cap Horn, vil. 243. 
5 Musters, 4¢ Home with the Pata- 

gonians, pp. 195, 197 59: 

6 Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abi- 
pones, ii. 148 sg. 

7 von Martius, Beztrage sur Hthno- 
eraphie Amertka’s, i. 85, 87 sg. Ldem, 
in Jour. Roy. Geo. Soc. it. 196. von 
Spix and von Martius, Travels in 
Brazil, ii. 242. Southey, Hzstory of 
Brazil, i. 247. von den Steinen, 
Onter den Naturvilkern Zentral-Bra- 
siliens, p. 332. Burton,? Highlands of 
the Brazil, i. 403 sg. 

THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY CHAP. 

thief.| When detected a thief was not only obliged to restore 
the property he had stolen, but was punished with stripes and 
wounds, the chief often acting as executioner.2 Among the 
Indians of British Guiana theft and pilfering rarely occur ; “if 
they happen to take anything, they do it before one’s eyes, 
under the notion of having some claim to it, which, when 
called to an account, they are always prepared to substantiate.” 8 
If anything is stolen from his house during his absence, the 
Guiana Indian thinks that the missing article has been carried 
off by people of some other race than his own.4 Formerly, 
when the Caribs lost anything, they used to say, “ Lhe 
Christians have been here.”® In Hayti the punishment of a 
thief was to be eaten.°® 

It is known that many North American tribes had a very 
high standard of honesty among themselves. Domenech 
wrote :—-“ The Indians who do not come in contact with the 
Palefaces never appropriate what belongs to others ; they have 
no law against theft, as it isa crime unknown among them. ‘They 
never close their doors.”" According to Colonel Dodge, theft 
was the sole unpardonable crime amongst them ; a man found 
guilty of stealing even the most trifling article from a member 
of his own band was whipped almost to death, deprived of 
his property, and together with his wives and children driven 
away from the band to starve or live as best he could.® 
Among the Rocky Mountains Indians visited by Harmon 
theft was frequently. punished with death.2 Among the 
Omahas, “‘ when the suspected thief did not confess his offence, 
some of his property was taken from him until he told the 
truth. When he restored what he had stolen, one-half of his 
own property was returned to him, and the rest was given to 
the man from whom he had stolen. Sometimes all of the 
policemen whipped the thief. But when the thief fled from 
the tribe, and remained away for a year or two, the offence was 
not remembered,” !° Among the Wyandots the punishment for 
theft is twofold restitution! The Iroquois looked down upon 

1 Burton, Wighlands of the Brazil, 7 Domenech, of. céz. ii. 320. 

i, 404. 8 Dodge, Our Wild Indians, pp: 
2von Martius, Beztrige, i. 88. 64, 79. Cf. Charlevoix, Journal of a 

Idem, in Jour. Roy. Geo. Séc. ii. 196. Voyage to North America, ii. 26, 28 
® Bernau, JZisstonary Labours in  (Hurons). 

british Gurana, p. 51. ® Harmon, Voyages and Travels tr 
4 Brett, Zudian Tribes of Guiana, p. the Interior of North America, p. 348. 

348. 10 Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,” in 
° Kames, Sketches of the History of Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 367. 

Man, iv. 133 sq. 1! Powell, ‘Wyandot Government, 

6 von Martius, Beztrage, i. 88, n.* in dun. Rep, Bur. Ethn, i. 66. 

Saw 

theft with the greatest disdain, although the lash of public 
indignation was the only penalty attached to it. The 
Potawatomis considered it one of the most atrocious crimes.? 
Among the Chippewas Keating found a few individuals who 
were addicted to thieving, but these were held in disrepute.* 
Richardson praises the Chippewyans for their honesty, no 
precautions for the safety of his and his companions’ property 
being required during their stay among them. Mackenzie 
was struck by the remarkable honesty of the Beaver Indians ; 
“in the whole tribe there were only two women and a man 
who had been known to have swerved from that virtue, and 
they were considered as objects of disregard and reprobation.” * 
Among the Ahts “larceny of a fellow-tribesman’s property is 
rarely heard of, and the aggravation of taking it from the house 
or person is almost unknown” ; nay, “anything left under an 
Indian’s charge, in reliance on his good faith, is perfectly 
safe.”° The Thlinkets generally respect the property of their 
fellow-tribesmen ; but although they admit that theft is wrong 
they do not regard it as a very serious offence, which disgraces 
the perpetrator, and if a thief is caught he is only required to 
return the stolen article or to pay its value.” Among the 
Aleuts “theft was not only a crime but a disgrace”; for the 
first offence of this kind corporal punishment was inflicted, for 
the fourth the penalty was death. According to Egede, the 
Greenlanders had as great an abhorrence of stealing among 
themselves as any nation upon earth ;® according to Cranz, 
they considered such an act “excessively disgraceful.” 1° Similar 
views still prevail among them, as also among other Eskimo 
tribes.1!. A Greenlander never touches driftwood which another 

Indian iy, 322. Petroff, Report on Alaska, p. 

1 Colden, in Schoolcraft, 
191. 170. Dall, Alaska, p. 416. 

Tribes of the United States, ii. 

Morgan, League of the Iroguots, p. 
333 sg. Loskiel, AHzstory of the Mes- 
sion of the United Brethren among the 
Indians, \. 16. 

2 Keating, Lxpedition to the Source 
of St. Peter's River, i. 127. 

= Jord. i. 108. 

4 Richardson, Arctic Searching Ex- 
pedition, ii. 19 sg. 

5 Mackenzie, Voyages to the [Frozen 
and Pacific Oceans, p. 148. 

8 Sproat, Scenes and 
Savage Life, p. 159. 

7 Krause, Die Tlinkit-[ndianer, p. 
167. Holmberg, ‘ Ethnographische 
Skizzen itber die Volker des russischen 
Amerika,’ in Acta Soc. Sevent, Fennice, 

Studies of 

8 Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, of. 
cit. pp. 155, 152- 

9 Egede, Description of Greenland, 
p. 124. See also Dalager, Gr¢nlandske 
Relationer, p. 69. 

10 Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 
160. 

1 Nansen, 7zrst Crossing of Green- 
land, ii. 335. dem, Eskimo Life, p. 
158. Rink, Danesh Greenland, p. 224. 
Hall, Arctic Researches, pp. 567, 571. 
Richardson, Arctic Searching ELxpedt- 
tion, 1. 352. Larry, Second Voyage for 
the Discovery of a North-West Passage, 
p. 522; Lyon, Private Journal, p. 347 
(Eskimo of Igloolik). Seemann, 
Voyage of ‘“* Herald,” it. 65 (Western 

Eskimo). 

THE RIGH THO PROPERTY 

has placed above high-water mark, though it would often be 
easy to appropriate it without fear of detection,’ Parry states 
that, during his stay at Igloolik and Winter Island, a great 
many instances occurred in which the Eskimo scrupulously 
returned articles that did not belong to them, even though 
detection of a theft, or at least of the offender, would have been 
next to impossible.? 

Among the Chukchi it is held criminal to thieve “in the 
family and race to which a person belongs” ;* and incorrigible 
thieves are sometimes banished from the village. In Kamchatka, 
if anybody was found to be a thief he was beaten by the person 
from whom he had stolen, without being allowed to make 
resistance, and no one would ever after be friends with him.° 
The three principal precepts of the Ainu are to honour old age, 
not to steal, not to lie ;° theft is also uncommon among them, 
and is severely punished.’ Among the Kirghiz “ whoever com- 
mits a robbery on any of the nation must make restitution to nine 
times the value.” ® Among the Tunguses a thief is punished 
by a certain number of strokes ; he is besides obliged to restore 
the things stolen, and remains covered with ignominy all the 
rest of his life.? The Jakuts,!° Ostyaks," Mordvins,!” Samoyedes,™ 
and Lapps,' are praised for their honesty, at least among their 
own people; and so are the Butias, Kukis,!® Santals,! the hill 
people in the Central Provinces of India,!8 and the Chittagong 
Hill tribes.!° The Kurubars of the Dekhan are of such known 
honesty, that on all occasions they are entrusted with the 
custody of produce by the farmers, who know that they would 
rather starve than take one grain of what was given them in 

Nelson, ‘Eskimo about 10 Tbid. ii. 397. Sauer, Expedition 

Bering Strait,’ in Azz. Rep. Bur. 
Ethn. xviii. 293. Among the Point 
Barrow Eskimo, however, ‘‘men who 
were said to be thieves did not appear 
to lose any social consideration” 
(Murdoch, ‘ Ethnological Results of 
the Point Barrow Expedition,’ in Azz. 
Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 41). 

! Nansen, Lskzmo Life, p. 162. 

2 Parry, op. c2é. p. 521. 

3 Georgi, op. ctt. iii. 183. 

ED Dall Nopwec mpm 2. 

5 Steller, Beschrezbung von Kanit- 
schatha, p. 356. See also sapra, i. 
ZI sq. 

6 von Siebold, Dze Azno auf der 
Insel Yesso, p. 25. 

1 Tbid. pps 11 34 Sao See also 
supra, 1. 312. 

8 Georgi, op. cit. ii, 262. 

9 Ibid. iii. 83 59. Cf. ibid. iii, 78. 

to the Northern Parts of Russia, p. 122. 
 Castrén, Wordiska resor och forsh- 
nimngar, 1. 319. 

12 Georgi, op. cét. i. 113. 

13 Jbid. iii. 13. von Struve, in Das 
Ausland, 1880, p. 796. 

14 Jessen, Afhandling om de Norske 
inners og Lappers Hedenske Religion, 
p-. 72. Castrén, of. cet. i. 118 sg. 

15 Fraser, Zour through the Himala 
Mountains, p. 335. 

16 Lewin, Weld Races of South- 
Eastern India, p. 256. Cf. Butler, 
Travels tn Assam, p. 94. 

7 Man, Sonthalia, p. 20. 

8 Hislop, Pagers relating to the 
Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Pro- 
vinces, p. I. 

Lewin, Wild Races of South- 
Eastern India, p. 341. 

XXVIII tite niet Ol PROPERTY / 
charge.t “ Honest as a Pahari,” is a proverbial expression. In 
fact, among these mountaineers theft i is almost unknown, and the 
men “carry treasures, which to them would be priceless, for 
days and days, along wild mountain tracks, whence at any 
moment they might diverge, and never be traced, Even money 
is safely entrusted to them, and is invariably delivered into the 
right hands.” 2 Harkness says of the ‘Todas :—‘“TI never saw a 
people, civilised or uncivilised, who seemed to have a more 
religious respect for the rights of meum et tuum. ‘This feeling 
is taught to their children from the tenderest age.” ® Among the 
Chukmas “theft is unknown.” * Among the Karens habitual 
thieves are sold into slavery. Among the Shans theft of 
valuable property is punishable with death, though it may be 
expiated by a money payment ; but in cases of culprits who can- 
not pay, or whose relatives cannot pay, death is looked upon as 
a fitting punishment even for petty thefts. At Zimmé, “if a 
theft is proved, three times the value of the article is decreed to 
the owner ; and if not paid, the offender, after suffering imprison- 
ment in irons, is made over with his family, to be dealt with as 
in cases of debt.”7 Among the hill tribes of North Aracan a 
person who commits theft is bound to return the property or its 
value and pay a fine not exceeding Rs. 30.8 Among the 
Kandhs, on the other hand, the restitution of the property 
abstracted or the substitution ‘of an equivalent is alone required 
by ancient usage ; but this leniency extends to the first offence 
only, a repetition of it being followed by expulsion from the 
community.” he Andaman Islanders call theft a yzbda, or sin.'° 
Among those Veddahs who live in their natural state, theft and 
robbery are not known at all." “They think it perfectly incon- 
ceivable that any person should ever take that which does not 
belong to him,” and death only would, in their opinion, be the 
punishment for such an offence.'* 

1 Buchanan, quoted by Elliot,  xxvi. 21. 
‘Characteristics of the Population of 7 Colquhoun, 
Central and Southern India,’ in Jour. 131. 

Ethn. Soc. London, N.S. i. 105. 8 St. John, in Jour. Anthr. Inst, ii. 

* Cumming, Jz the Himalayas, p. 241. 

350. 9 Macpherson, AZemortals of Service 

Amongst the Shans, p. 

3 Harkness, Description of a Singular 

Aboriginal Race inhabiting the Nett- 

gherry Hills, p. 17 sq. 

4 Lewin, Wild Races of South- 
Eastern India, p. 188. 

> Mason, ‘Dwellings, &c., of the 
Karens,’ in Jour. Astattc Soc. bengal, 
XXXVil, pt. ii, p. 146 sg. Smeaton, 
Loyal Karens of Burma, p. 86. 

§ Woodthorpe, in Jo. Anthr. Inst. 

7 India, p. 82. 

10 Man, in Joz. Anthr. Inst. xii. 112. 

U Sarasin, Axgedbstsse natuswerssen- 
schafilicher Forschungen auf Ceylon, 
iii. 548. Deschamps, Carnet a’un 
voyageur, p. 385. Nevill, ‘ Vaeddas of 
Ceylon,’ in Zaprobanzan, 1. 192. 

12 Hartshorne, ‘ Weddas,’ in Zravan 
Antiquary, Vili. 320. 

13 Sarasin, of. cv¢. 11, 549. 

CHAP: 

In the Malay Archipelago native custom punishes theft with 
a fine, most frequently equivalent to twice the value of the stolen 
article,! or with slavery,? mutilation, or even death ;* and in 
many islands it was lawful to kill a thief caught in the act.° 
Among the Malays of Perak,® Dyaks,” Kyans,® Bataks,® and 
the natives of Ambon and Uliase,!° theft is said to be unknown 
or almost so, at least within their own communities. 

Many of the South Sea Islanders have been described as 

honest among 
towards Europeans.!! 

g themselves, and some of them as honest even 
In the opinion of Captain Cook the. 

light-coloured Polynesians have thievish propensities, but the 

dark-coloured not. 

1 Wilken, ‘Het strafrecht bij de 
volken van het maleische ras,’ in 
Bijdragen tot de taal- land- en volken- 
kunde van Nederlandsch-Indié, 1883, 
Land- en volkenkunde, p. 109 sg. 
Crawfurd, History of the Indian Archt- 
pelago, iii. 117. Marsden, Hestory of 
Suvatra, pp. 221 (Rejangs), 389 

(Bataks). von Brenner, Besuch bet 
den Kannibalen Sumatras, p. 213 
(Bataks). Junghuhn, Die Battalinder 

auf Sumatra, i. 145 (Bataks), 308 
(natives of Passumah in Central 
Sumatra), 317 (Timorese), 339 (natives 
of Bali and Lombok). Modigliani, 
op. cit. p. 496; von Rosenberg, Der 
malaytsche Archipel, p. 166 (Niase). 
Worcester, Phzlippine Islands, p. 108 
(Tagbanuas of Palawan). 

2 Wilken, /oc. cet. p. 108 sg. Jung- 
huhn, cp. czt, il. 145 sg. (Bataks). 
Raffles, Azstory of Java, il. p. ccxxxv. 
(people of Bali). Forbes, A Maturalist’s 
Wanderings inthe Eastern Archipelago, 
p. 320 (people of Timor-laut). von 
Rosenberg, of. czt. p. 166 (Niase). 

3 St. John, Lzfe 2 the Horests of the 
tar East, i. 297 (natives of the 
kingdom of Borneo, formerly). Low, 
Sarawak, p. 133. Marsden, of. cet. p. 
404 (Achinese of Sumatra). Hickson, 
A Naturalist in North Celebes, p. 198 
(Sangirese). Crawfurd, of. ct. ili. 
107, 115. Crawfurd thinks (zdzd. iil. 
107) that the punishment of mutilation 
was introduced by Muhammedanism. 

4 Crawfurd, of. cz, iii.115 (Javanese). 
Kiikenthal, Argebnisse ener zoologischen 
forschungsreise tn den Molukken und 
Borneo, i. 188 (Alfura of. Halmahera). 
Marsden) of. 27. pi 47 Te (bore 
Islanders). Among the Bataks (von 

In the Vonga Islands theft was considered 

Brenner, of. cz¢. p. 212) and Achinese 
of Sumatra (Marsden, of. czt. p. 404) 
robbery is punished with death. 

5 Wilken, Joc. czt. p. 88 sgg. von 
Rosenberg, of. cet. p. 166 ; Modigliani, 
op. cit. p. 496 (Niase). 

® McNair, Perak and the Malays, p. 
204. 

7 Boyle, Adventures 
Dyaks of Borneo, p. 235. Bock, 
flead-Hunters of Borneo, p. -209. 
Selenka, Sounige Welten, p. 19. Ling 
Roth, WMatives of Sarawak, 1. 81, 82, 

among the 

8 Low, op. cit. p. 336. 

9 Marsden, of. cit. p. 389. 
huhn, of. czt. 1. 148. 

1 Martin, Rersen in den Molukken, 
p. 63. 

1 Earl, Papwans, pp. 49, 80, 105. 
Seemann, V7tz, p. 46 sg.; Anderson, 
Li AUBAS iP SET My NRO SIBLE, (66 SS. 
Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI. 
Ethnography and Philology, p. 73 
(Micronesians). Melville, Zyfee, pp. 
294 (Marquesas Islanders), 295 n. I 
(various Polynesians). Williams, J7Z7s- 
stonary Enterprises in the South Sea 
Islands, p. 530 (Samoans). von 
Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery into the 
South Sea, iii. 164 {people of Radack), 
255 (Sandwich Islanders). Lisiansky, 
op. cit. p. 125 (Sandwich Islanders). 
Dieffenbach, 7ravels in New Zealand, 
ii, 105; Meade, Rade through the dis- 
turbed Districts of New Zealand, p. 
162 sg.; Thomson, Story of New Zea- 
land, i. 86; Colenso, AfZaort Races, p. 
43. Bonwick, Dazly Life and Origin 
of the Tasmanians, p. 9. 

2 Seemann, V2tz, p. 47. 

Jung- 

XXVITI 

an act of meanness rather than a crime,! whereas in many other 
islands it was regarded as a very grave offence.? Sometimes the 
delinquent was subject to private retaliation,? sometimes to a 
fine,* or blows,’ or the loss of a finger,® or the penalty of 
death.” 

Among the natives of Herbert River, Northern Queensland, 
there is “ considerable respect for the right of property, and they 
do not steal from one another to any great extent. . . . If the 
hunt they will not take another person’s game, all the members 
of the same tribe having apparently full confidence in each 
other.”S When a theft does occur, “the thief is challenged by 
his victim to a duel with wooden swords and shields ; and the 
matter is settled sometimes privately, the relatives of both parties 
serving as witnesses, sometimes publicly at the borboby, where 
two hundred to three hundred meet from various tribes to decide 
all their disputes. “The victor in the duel wins in the dispute.” ® 
So also among the Dieyerie tribe, “should any native steal from 
another, and the offender be known, he is challenged to fight by 
the person he has robbed, and this settles the matter.” !° Of the 
Bangerang tribe of Victoria we are told that, amongst them- 
selves, they were scrupulously honest ; / and, speaking of West 
Australian natives, Mr. Chauncy expresses his belief that ‘“ the 
members of a tribe never pilfer from each other.” In their 
relations to Europeans, again, Australian blacks have been some- 
times accused of thievishness,!? sometimes praised for their 

1 Mariner, Vatives of the Tonga Account of New Zealand, p. 104. 

Tslands, ii. 162. In Ponapé (Christian, 
Caroline Islands, p. 72) and among the 
Maoris (Meade, of. czt. p. 162) thieves 
are said to be despised. 

2 Earl, of. cét. p. 80 (Papuans of 
Dorey). Ellis, Zour through Hawait, 
p. 429; &c. 

* Turner, Samoa, pp. 278 (natives of 
Humphrey’s Island), 343 (New Cale- 
donians). Lisiansky, of. czt. p. 80 sg. 
(Nukahivans). Williams, JZssconary 
Enterprises, p. 127 (natives of Raro- 
tonga). Ellis, Polynesian Researches, 
iv. 420 (Sandwich Islanders). 

4 Earl, of. czt. p. 83 (Papuans of 
Dorey). Sorge, in Steinmetz, Rechés- 
verhaltnisse von eingeborenen Volkern 
in Afrika und Ozeanien, p. 421 
(Nissan Islanders of the Bismarck 
Archipelago). Williams and Calvert, 
Fit, p. 22. Turner, Samoa, p. 281 
(natives of the Mitchell Group). 

> Cook, Journal of a Voyage round 
the World, p. 42 (Tahitians). . Yate, 

6 Williams and Calvert, 4772, p. 23. 

7 Gill, Life zn the Southern Isles, p. 
47. Turner, Samoa, pp. 290 (natives 
of Hudson’s Island), 295 (natives of 
Arorae), 297 (natives of Nikumau of 
the Gilbert Group), 300 (natives of 
Francis Island), 337 (Efatese, of the 
New Hebrides). Tutuila, in /ozr. 
Polynesian Soc. 1. 268 (Line Islanders). 
Ellis, Polynesian Researches, 1v. 421 
(Sandwich Islanders). Cook, /owrnal 
of a Voyage round the World, p. 41 sq. 
(Tahitians). 

8 Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 
147. 
9 Tbid. p. 126. 

1 Gason, in Woods, ative Tribes of 
South Australia, p. 266. 2 

1 Curr, Recollections of Squatting tn 
Victoria, p. 298. 

2 Chauncy, in Brough 
Aborigines of Victoria, ii. 278. 
LO SAG wl anaes 

Smyth, 

il. 

ll. 

honesty.!. From his own observation Mr. Curr has no doubt 
that they feel that theft is wrong.2 Of the aborigines of West 
Australia we are told that they occasionally speared the sheep 
and robbed the potato gardens of the early settlers simply because 
they did not understand the settlers’ views regarding property, 
having themselves no separate property in any living animal 
except their dogs or in any produce of the soil. But “only 
entrust a native with property, and he will invariably be faithful 
to the trust. Lend him your gun to shoot game, and he will 
bring you the result of his day’s sport ; send him a long journey 
with provisions for your shepherd, and he will certainly deliver 
them safely. Entrust him with a flock of sheep through a 
rugged country to a distant run, and he and his wife will take 
ayer generally more safely than. a white man would.” 3 

“The Arab,” says Burckhardt, “robs his enemies, his friends, 
and his neighbours, provided that they are not actually in his 
own tent, where their property is sacred. ‘L’o rob in the camp, 
or among friendly tribes, is not reckoned creditable to a man ; 
yet no stain remains upon him for such an action, which, in 
fact, is of daily occurrence. But the Arab chiefly prides himself 
on robbing his enemies.” 4 This, however, seems to hold true 
only of Bedouin tribes inhabiting rich pasture plains, who are 
much exposed to attacks from others, whereas in more sheltered 
territories a person who “attempts to steal in the tents of his 
own tribe, is for ever dishonoured among his friends.” “Thus 
among the Arabs of Sinai robberies are wholly unknown ; any 
articles of dress or of furniture may be ee upon a rock without 
the least risk of their being taken away.> According to Wahaby 
law, a robber is obliged to eon n the stolen goods or their value, 
but if the offence is. not attended with circumstances of fi ane: 
he escapes without further punishment, except a fine to the 
treasury.©. Among some Bedouins of Hadhramaut theft from a 
tribesman is punished with banishment from the tribe.’ Lady 
Anne and Mr, Blunt state that, with regard to honesty, the 
pure Bedouin stands in marked contrast to his half-bred 
brethren. Whilst the Kurdish and semi-Kurdish tribes of 
Upper Mesopotamia make it almost a point of honour to steal, 
the genuine Arab accounts theft disgraceful, although he holds 

' Howitt, in Brough Smyth, of. ct. and Wahdbys, p. 90. 
306. Fraser, Aborigines of New > Jbid. p, 184 sg. Wallin, Forsta 

South Wales, p. 90. resa fran Cairo till Arabiska oknen, p. 
9 aa) 7 . . ca 
* Curr, Zhe Australian Race,i. 100. 64. 
3 Chauncy, in Brough Smyth, of. cz¢ § Burckhardt at 3 
z ve gh smyth, of. caf. ~ Burckhardt, op. c2 - Pp. 301. 
278, 7 von Wrede, Rese 72 Haahramaut, 

* Burckhardt, Motes on the Bedoutns p. 51. 

err 

THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY Il 

highway robbery to be a right. In the large tribes persons of 
known dishonesty are not tolerated.! 

In Africa honesty between members of the same tribe is no 
uncommon characteristic of the native races, and some of them 
have displayed the same quality in their dealings with European 
travellers.” Andersson, for instance, tells us that the Ovambo, 
so far as they came under his observation, were strictly honest 
and appeared to entertain great horror of theft. ‘Without 
permission,” he says, “the natives would not even touch 
anything ; and we could leave our camp free from the least 
apprehension of being plundered. As a proof of their honesty, 
I may mention, that, when we left the Ovambo country, the 
servants forgot some trifles ; and such was the integrity of the 
people, that messengers actually came after us a very consider- 
able distance to restore the articles left behind.”® A few 
African peoples are said to look upon petty larceny almost with 

indifference.* 

Among others thieves are only compelled to 

restore stolen property, or to return an equivalent for it,® but at 

the same time they are disgraced or laughed at.° 
elsewhere, theft is frequently punished with a fine.’ 

1 Blunt, Bedouzn of the 
Euphrates, ii. 204, 225. 

2 St. John, Village Life in Egyft, ii. 
198. Tristram, Zhe Great Sahara, p. 
193 sg. (Beni Mzab). Nachtigal, 
Sahara und Sudan, i. 188 (inhabitants 
of Fezzin). Dyveyrier, Hxfloration 
du Sahara, p. 385 (Touareg); of. 

Tribes 

Chavanne, Dée Sahara, p. 188. Mun- 
zinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 
531 sg. (Barea and Kunama). Scara- 

mucci and Géiglioli, ‘Notizie sui 
Danakil,’ in Archivio per Pantropologia 
é la} etnologia xiv. 25. Baumann, 
Durch Massailand zur Nilguelle, pp. 
165 (Masai), 179 (Wafiomi). Thomson, 
Through Masai Land, p. 64 (Wakwaf 
of the Taveta). Baker, /smarlia, p. 

56; Petherick, Zravels in Central 
Africa, ii. 3 (Shilluk). Macdonald, 
Africana, i. 182 (Eastern Central 

Africans). Mungo Park, Zvravels in 
the Intertor of Africa, p. 239; Caillié, 
Travels through Central Africa to 
Timbuctoo, 1. 353 (Mandingoes). Ward, 
five Years with the Congo Cannibals, 
p. 93; Tuckey, Axfpedztion to explore 
the River Zaire, p. 374. Johnston, 
Uveanda Protectorate, i. 590 (Wanyoro). 

Kolben, Present State of the Cape of 
> ~ 

Good Hope, i. 326; Hahn, The Supreme 

In Africa, as 

Thus 

Being of the Khoi-Khot, p. 32 (Hot- 
tentots) ; of. Fritsch, Dze Eingeborenen 
Stid-Afrika’s, p. 307. Tyler, Forty 
Years among the Zulus, ~. 191 sq. 

3 Andersson, Lake Megamz, p. 197. 
Cf. Idem, Notes on Travel tn South 
Africa, p. 236. 

4 Monrad, Skeldring af Guznea- 
Kysten, p. 6, n.*; Reade, Savage 
Africa, p. 580 (West African Negroes). 
Ellis, Astory of Madagascar, \. 144. 

5 Munzinger, Ostafrzkantsche Studien, 
pp- 389 (inhabitants of Saraé), 494 
(Barea and Kunama). Arbousset and 
Daumas, of. cét. p. 66 (Mantetis). 
Cunningham, Uganda, p. 293 (Baziba). 
Rautanen, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhalt- 
nisse, Ps» 343 (Ondonga). Warner, in 
Maclean, Compendium of Kafir Laws 
and Customs, pp. 65, 67. Post, 
Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, ii. 84. 

“6 Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, 
pp. 386 (inhabitants of Saraé), 531 
(Barea and Kunama). Arbousset and 
Daumas, of. czt. p. 66 (Mantetis). 

7 Scaramucci and Giglioli,in Archivio 
per Vantropologia e la etnologia, xiv. 39 
(Danakil). Nachtigal, of. c7t. 1. 449 
(Teda). Bosman, Description of the 
Coast of Guinea, p. 142 (Negroes of 
Axim, on the Gold Coast). Ellis, 

CHAR: 

among the Bahima,! Wadshagga,? and ‘Tanala of Madagascar,* 
thieves are made to pay twice the value of the stolen goods ; 
among the T'akue,* Rendile,> and Herero,® three times their 
value ; among the Bechuanas double or fourfold.’ Among the 
Taveta, if a man commits a theft, he has to refund what he has 
robbed, and five times the value of the stolen property can be 
claimed by the person who has suffered the loss.6 Among the 
Kafirs, “in cases of cattle stealing, the law allows a fine of ten 
head, though but one may have been stolen, provided the 
animal has been slaughtered, or cannot be restored.” ® Among 
the Masai, according to Herr Merker, the fine for stealing 
cattle is likewise a tenfold one; 1° whilst, according to another 
authority, “if a man steals one cow, or more than one cow, all 
his property is given to the man from whom he has stolen.” 1 
Among the Basukuma all thieves, it seems, are punished with the 
confiscation of everything they possess. Other punishments. for 
theft are imprisonment,'* banishment,!* slavery, flogging,!® muti- 
lation,” and, especially under aggravating circumstances, death." 

18 Mademba, in Steinmetz, Rechtsver- : 
hiltnisse, p. 90 (inhabitants of the 
Sansanding States). 

14 Chavanne, Dze Sahara, p. 315 
(Beni Mzab). 

1 Bowdich, AZesston to Ashantee, p. 
258, n.* (Fantis). Petherick, of. cz¢. 
i. 3 (Shilluk of the White Nile). Post, 
Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, ii. 87. 

16 Reade, Savage Africa, p. 261 
(West ~ Equatorial Africans). Ellis, 
Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave 
Coast, p. 191. Volkens,” of. cat p. 
250 (Wadshagga). Velten, Sz¢lez and 
Gebréuche der Suahelt, p. 363. Camp- 

Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, 
p. 303. dem, Etbe-speaking Peoples of 
the Slave Coast, p. 225. Lmin Pasha 
7m Central Africa, p. 86 (Wanyoro), 
Cunningham, Uganda, p. 322 (Man- 
yema). Steinmetz, Rechtsverhiltnzsse, 
p- 52 (Banaka and Bapuku). Beverley, 
zbid. p. 215 (Wagogo). Lang, zdzd. p. 
259 (Washambala). Wandrer, zdzd. p. 
325 (Hottentots). Post, Afrikanische 
Surisprudens, u. 85 sq. 

' Cunningham, Uganda, p. 20. 

2 Volkens, Der Avlimandscharo, p. 
250. 
® Richardson, ‘Tanala Customs,’ in 

Antananarivo Annual, ii. 95 Sq. 

4 Munzinger, Ostafrtkanische Stu- 
dien, p. 208. 
® Chanler, Through Jungle and 

Daesext, p. 317. 
6 Francois, Mama und Damara, p. 
eas 7 , 
‘ Holub, Seven Vears 14% South 
Africa, i. 395. Casalis, Basztos, -p. 
228. 

8 Ffollis, in Jour. African Soc. i. 
123% 

® Dugmore, in Maclean, Comepenidzzi 
of Kafr Laws and Customs, p. 36. 
Cf bid. pp. Li2, 143. 

10 Merker, Dze Masaz, p. 208. 

1 Hinde, Zhe Last of the Masa, p. 
107. 

Cunningham, Ugazda, p. 304. 

bell, Zravels t2 South Africa, p. 510. 
Post, Afrikanzsche Jurisprudenz, ii, 88. 
7 de Abreu, Déescovery and Conquest 
of the Canary Islands, p. 27 (abori- 
gines of Ferro). Ellis, Yoruba-speak- 
ing Peoples, p. 191. Beltrame, // 
Fiume Bianco, p. 280 (Dinka). Casati, 
Ten Years in Hguatoria, \. 163 (Mam- 
bettu and Wanyoro). Wilson and 
Felkin, Uganda and the Egyptian 
Soudan, i. 201 (Waganda). Holub, 
op. cit. 1. 395 sg. (Bechuanas). Post, 
Afrikantsche Jurisprudenz, i. 87 sq. 

18 Ellis, Yoruba-speaking Peoples, 
p- 191; Burton, Adeokuta, i. 304 
(Yoruba). Ellis, Tshi- speaking 

Yeoples, p. 303. Bosman, of. ct. p. 
143 (Negroes of Axim). Cunningham, 
Uganda, pp. 69 (Banabuddu), 102 

THE RIGHY OF PROPERTY Eo 

In some African countries a thief caught in the act may be 
killed with impunity.1 

The condemnation of theft, in one and the same people, 
varies in degree according to a variety of circumstances. 

_ It is influenced by the value of the goods stolen, as appears 

from the different punishments inflicted in cases where the 
value differs.” Thus, when the penalty consists of a fine, 
its amount is often strictly proportioned to the loss 
suffered by the owner, the thief being compelled to pay 
twice, or three, or four, or five, or ten times the worth of 
the appropriated article.* Among the Aztecs a petty thief 
became the slave of the person from whom he had stolen, 
whilst theft of a large amount was almost invariabl 

punished with death.* According to the Koran, theft is 
to be punished by cutting off the offender’s right hand for 
the first offence ; but a Sunneh’ law ordains that this 
punishment shall not be inflicted if the value of the stolen 
property is less than a quarter of a deenar.’ Ancient 
Scotch law proportioned the punishment of theft to the 
value of the goods stolen, heightening it gradually from a 
slight corporal to a capital punishment, if the value 

(Bakoki), 346 (Karamojo). Francois,  ethiologischen Jurisprudenz, il. 420. 
op. cit. p. 175 (Herero). Andersson, Za Tseng Lew Lee, sec. cclxix. sgg. p. 
Lake Neami, p. 197 (Ovambo). 284 sgg. (Chinese). Keil, Manual of 
Casalis, of. cit. p. 228 (Basutos).  Bzblical Archeology, ii. 366. Laws of 
Shooter, afirs of Natal, p. 155. Manu, viii. 320 sgg. Wilda, Das 

Tyler, of. cet. p. 192 (Zulus). Kolben, 
op. cit. i. 158 (Hottentots).~ Post, 
Afrikanische Jurtsprudens, ii. 88 sq. 

1 Hiibbe-Schleiden, Z¢thzopien, p. 
143 (Mpongwe). Cunningham, Uganda, 
p- 333 (Lendu). Burton, Zamzzbar, ii. 
94 (Wanika). Macdonald, Africana, 
1. 162, 183 (Eastern Central Africans). 
Macdonald, ‘East Central African 
Customs,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst, xxii. 
109. Szzpra, i. 289. 

2 Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdlinisse, p. 
52 (Banaka and Bapuku). Nicole, 
wbid. p. 133  (Diakité-Sarracolese). 
Beverley, zbzd. p. 215 (Wagogo). 
Bosman, of. cit. p. 142 (Negroes of 
XSi) EIMGe Ope cela D. LOT. 
(Masai). Post, <Afrikanische Jurts- 
prudenz, i. gt. Ldem, Grundriss der 

Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 870 sgq. ; 
Nordstrom, Bzdrag till den svenska 
samhialls-forfattningens historia, ii. 296 
sqg.; Stemann, Dew danske Retshis- 
torte tndtil Christian V.’s Lov, pp. 
621, 677 sg.; Brunner, Deutsche 
Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 639 syg. (ancient 
Teutons). ~Du Boys, Hestotre du droit 
criminel de [ Espagne, p. 721. 

3 Supra, i. 4, 6-8, 12. 

* Bancroft, ative 
Pacific States, ii. 450. 

5 Koran, v. 42. Lane, Manners and 
Customs of the Modern Egyptians, p. 
120 sg. Jdem, Arabian Society in the 
Middle Ages, p. 20. Sachau, AZuham- 
meaanisches Recht, pp. 810, 811, 825 

Sgq- 

Races 

of the 

amounted to thirty-two pennies Scots, which in the reign 
of David I. was the price of two sheep. ' In England a 
distinction wasmade between “ grand ” and “ petty larceny,” 

the line between them being drawn at twelve pence, and 
grand larceny was capital at least as early as the time of 
Edward I.2~ Among various peoples custom or law 
punishes with particular severity the stealing of objects of 
a certain kind, such as cattle, horses, agricultural imple- 
ments, corn, precious metals, or arms.* The Negroes of 
Axim, says Bosman, “ will rather put a man to death for 
stealing a sheep, than killing a man.” “< The SOG 
regard horse-stealing as the greatest of all crimes.° The 
ancient Teutons held cattle-lifting and robbery of crops to 
be particularly disgraceful. According to Roman law, 
people who stole an ox or horse from the pastures or from 
a stable, or ten sheep, or four or five swine, might be 
punished even with death.” The natives of Danger Island, 
in the South Seas, punished with drowning anyone who 
was caught stealing food, “the most valuable property 
they knew of.” * In Tahiti, on the other hand, those who 
stole clothes or arms were commonly put to death, whereas 
those who stole provisions were bastinadoed.° 
other peoples the appropriation of a small quantity of food 
belonging to somebody else is not punished at all."° The 
Masai do not punish a person for stealing milk or meat." 
Among the Bakoki “it was not a crime to steal bananas.” 
In ancient Mexico “ every poor traveller was permitted to 

Among | 

1 Erskine, Principles of the Law of 
Scotland, p. 508. Innes, Scotland in 
the Middle Ages, p. 190. Mackintosh, 
History of Civilisation in Scotland, i. 
Baile 

2 Pollock and Maitland, W7estory of 
English Law before the Time of Edward 
I. it. 495 sg. Brunner, Deztsche 
Réchtsgeschichte, ii. 640. Stephen, 
History of the Criminal Law of Eng- 
land, lil, 129. 

3 Post, Grundriss der ethnologischen 
Jurisprudenz, i. 421 sgq. 

4 Bosman, of. cit. p. 143. 

> Bergmann, Wormadische Stretfereien 
unter den Kalmtiken, ii. 297. 

§ Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthii- 
mer, p. 636 sg. Wilda, of. ct. p. 875 
sg. Nordstrém, of, cé¢. 11. 307. Brunner, 
Deutsche Rechisgeschichte, i li. 645 5g. 

(Dicesta, xlvil. .iAaaelion PGin etsnes > 
xlvii. 14. 

8 Gill, Life zn the Southern Isles, p. 

® Cook, Journal of a Voyage round 
the World, p. 41 sq. 

10 (Supra, i. 286 sg. Post, Gundriss 
der ethnol. Jurisprudenz, ii. 426. Ellis, 
fTistory of Madagascar, 1. 385. 

1 Hollis, Aasaz, p. 310. 

2 Cunningham, Uganda, p. 102 sy. 

Ye 

XXVIII THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY rs 

take of the maize, or the fruit-bearing trees, which were 
planted by the side of the highway, as much as was 
sufficient to satisfy immediate hunger.”' Among the 
Hebrews a person was allowed to go into his neighbour’s 
vineyard and eat grapes at his own pleasure, or to pluck 
ears in his field, but the visitor was forbidden to put any 
grapes in his vessel or to move a sickle into the standing 
corn.” It is said in the Laws of Manu that “a twice-born 
man, who is travelling and whose provisions are exhausted, 
shall not be fined, if he takes two stalks of sugar-cane or 
two esculent roots from the field of another man.’’® 
According to ancient Swedish laws, a passer-by could take 
a handful of peas, beans, turnips, and so forth, from 
another person’s field, and a traveller could give to his 
fatigued horse some hay from any barn he found in the 
wood.* However, whilst the punishment of theft is 
commonly, to some extent, influenced by the worth or 
nature of the appropriated property, there are peoples who 
punish thieves with the same severity whether they have 
stolen little or much. Among the North American 
Indians described by Colonel Dodge “ the value of the 
article stolen is not considered. The-crime is the theft.” ° 
Among the Yleou, a Manchurian tribe mentioned by 
ancient Chinese chroniclers, theft of any kind was punished 
with death.° The Beni Mzab in the Sahara sentence a 
thief to two years’ banishment and the payment of fifty 
francs, independently of the value of the thing he has 
stolen.’ 

The degree of criminality attached to theft also depends 
on the place where itis committed. To steal from a house, 
especially after breaking the door, is frequently regarded 
as an aggravated form of theft.“ According to Muham- 

' Clavigero, Zistory of Mexico, i. 7 Chavanne, Die Sahara, p. 315. 
358. 8 Post, Graundriss der ethnol. /uris- 
2 Deuterononty, xxiii. 24 sq. prudenz, ii. 423 sg. von Rosenberg, 
3 Laws of Manu, viii. 341. Cf. Der malayische Archipel, p. 166 
ibid. vill. 339. (Niase). Riedel, De slurk- en kroes- 
4 Nordstrom, of. cet. il. 297. harige vrassen tusschen Selebes en 
° Dodge, of. cet. p. 64. Papua, p. 103 (Serangese). Lang, in 

6 Castrén, op. cet. Iv. 27. Steinmetz, echtsverhaltnisse, p. 259 

CHAR: 

medan law, the punishment of cutting off the right hand 
of the thief is inflicted on him only if the stolen property 
was deposited in a place to which he had not ordinary or 
easy access ; hence a man who steals in the house of a near 
relative is not subject to this punishment, nor a slave who 
robs the house of his master.‘ Among some peopies a 
theft committed by night is punished more heavily than 
one committed by day.’ 

A distinction is further made between ordinary theft and 
robbery. ‘The robber is treated sometimes more severely,’ 
sometimes more leniently than the thief, and is not infre- 
quently regarded with admiration. Among the Wanyam- 
wezi thieves are despised, but robbers are honoured, 
especiaily by the women, on account of their courage.* ~ In 
Uganda robbery is not thought shameful, although it is 
rigorously punished.’ In Sindh no disgrace i is attached to 
larceny when the perpetrators are armed.° Among the 
Ossetes, ‘‘ where open robbery has been committed outside 
a village, the court merely requires the stolen article or an 
equivalent to be restored ; but in cases of secret theft, five 
times the value must be paid. Robbery and theft within 
the boundaries of a village are rated much higher. A 
proverb says, ‘ What a man finds on the high-road is God’s 
gift’ 7 and in fact highway robbery is hardly regarded as a 
crime.”" The Kazak Kirghiz go so far as to consider it 
almost dishonourable for a man never to have taken part 
in a baranta, or cattle-lifting exploit... According to 

(Washambala). Wilda, of. cét. p. 
878 sg.3 Brunner, Deudsche KRechtsge- 
schichte, ii. 646 (ancient Teutonic law). 

p. 283 (Chinese law). Dévesta, xlviii. 
19. 28. 10. Erskine, Prevciples of the 
Law of Scotland, p. 566. Post, Greda- 

Digesta, xivii. 11. 7; xlvii. 18. 2. 
1 Lane, Modern Heyptians, p. 121. 
Cf. Burckhardt, Bedoutns and Wahdbys, 

p- 301. 
2 Wilken, Joc. czt. p. 109 (people of 
isk), Dees, slit Wy), Sin 1256 

Saxonum, 32, 343; Wilda, of. 
877; Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalter- 
thiimer, p. 637; Brunner, Deztsche 
Rechtsgeschichte, i. 646 (ancient Teu- 
tonic law). 

$ Ta Tsing Leu Lee, sec. 

Dey Dr 

cclxvill. 

riss der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz, 
li. 445 sg. 

+ Reichardt, quoted by Steinmetz, 
Rechtsverhiltnisse, p, 281. 

° Ashe, Zwo Kings of Uganda, p. 
204. 

6 Burton, Szzdh, p. 195. 

7 von Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, p. 
411. Cf. Kovalewsky, Coztume con- 
temporaine, |. 342. 

8 Vambéry, Das Ttirkenvolk, p. 306. 
Cf. Georgi, op. cét. ii. 270 sq. (Kirghiz). 

% med 
a 

* fest theft. 

THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY 

XXVIII sig 
Bedouin notions, there is a clear distinction between 
“‘taking and stealing.’ To steal is to abstract clandes- 
tinely, ‘‘ whereas to take, in the sense of depriving another 
of his property, generally implies to take from him openly, 
by right of superior force.” The Arabian robber, says 
Burckhardt, considers his profession honourable, and “ the 
term haramy (robber) is one of the most flattering titles 
that could be conferred on a youthful-hero.”? In ancient 
Teutonic law theft and robbery were kept apart ; the one 
was the secret, the other the open crime. In most law- 
books robbery was subject to a milder punishment than 
theft, and was undoubtedly regarded as far less dishonour- 
able. Indeed, however illegal the mode of acquiring 
property may have been, publicity was looked upon as a 
palliation of the offence, if not as a species of justification, 
even though the injured party was a fellow-countryman.® 
This difference between theft and robbery seems still to have 
been felt in the thirteenth century, when Bracton had to 
argue that the robber is a thief.* But in later times rob- 
bery was regarded by the law of England as an aggravated 
kind of theft.° 

A line has been drawn between manifest and non-mani- 
Among many peoples thieves who are caught 
in the act may be killed with impunity,° or are punished 
much more heavily than other thieves, frequently with 

death.’ We also hear that the worst part of the offence 

1 Ayrton, in Wallin, Votes taken tudinibus Anglie, fol. 150 b, vol. ii. 
during a Journey through Part of 508 sgg. Pollock and Maitland, of, 
Northern Arabia, p. 29, n. (in Jour. cit. ii. 494. 

Roy. Geo. Soc. XxX. 317, n. tf). 5 Coke, Third Part of the Institutes 

2 Burckhardt, Bedouznsand Wahdbys, 
p. 90. Cf. Burton, Pelerimage to Al- 
Madinah & Meccah, ii. 101; Blunt, 
op. cit. ii. 204 Sg. 

3 Wilda, of. czt. pp. 860, 911, 914. 
Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthtimer, p. 
634 sg. Nordstrom, of. c?t. il. 314 sg. 
Maurer, Bekehrung des Norwegischen 
Stammes, ii. 173 sy. Brunner, Deztsche 
Rechtsgeschichte, 11. 647 sg. Thrupp, 
The Anglo-Saxon Home, p. 288. 
Pollock and Maitland, of. c?¢. il. 493 
Sg. 

4 Bracton, De Legibus et Consue- 

VOL. Il 

of the Laws. of England, p. 68. Black- 
stone, Commentaries on the Laws of 
England, iv. 252, Stephen, W2story 
of the Crimtnal Law of England, ii. 
149. Pollock and Maitland, of. czt. i. 
493. Cf. Wilda, op. cit. p. 914. 

6 Supra, i. 293; 1. 8, 13. Brunner, 
Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, il. 642. Post, 
Grundriss der ethnologischen Jurispru- 
denz, li. 441 sq. 

7 Mommsen, Mémdsches Strafrecht, 
p- 750 sg. Du Boys, Hrstotre du 
droit crimtnel de [ Espagne, p. 378. 
Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii 

(e 

CHAP? 

consists in being detected, and that a successful thief 1s 
admired rather than disapproved of. 

Pee pate 

Jurisprudenz, il. 443. 

232. 

It is said of the Navahos that “ the time is evidently not long 
gone by when with them, as among the Spartans, adroit theft 
was deemed honourable.” ! Among the Californian Yuki 
“thieving is a virtue . . . , provided the thief is sly enough not 
to get caught.” The Ahts “have a: tendency to ype 
with some forms of theft, in which dexterity is required.” 
Among the Thlinkets “ theft does not seem to be considered a 
disgrace ; the detected thief is at most ashamed of his want of 
skill.’4 The Chukchi “have but a bad opinion of a young girl 
who has never acquitted herself cleverly in some theft ; and 
without such testimony of her dexterity and address she will 
scarcely find a husband.”® In Mongolia “known thieves are 
treated as respectable members of society. As long as they 
manage well and are successful, little or no odium seems to 
attach to them; and it is no uncommon thing to hear them 
spoken of in terms of high praise. Success seems to be 
regarded as a kind of palliation of their crimes.” ® Among the 
Kukis, according to early notices, the accomplishment most 
esteemed was dexterity i in thieving, * whilst the most contemptible 
person was a thief caught in the act.’ The Persians say that 
‘“‘it is no shame to steal, only to be found out.”® ‘The same 
view seems to be held by the Motu tribe of New Guinea, the 
natives of Tana (New Hebrides),!° the Maoris,!! and several 
African peoples.” In Fiji “success, without discovery, is 
deemed quite enough to make thieving virtuous, and a participa- 
tion in the ill-gotten gain honourable.” ® Among the Matabele 

642 sg.; Dareste, Etudes @histoire du 
droit, p. 299 sg. Pollock and Maitland, 
. cit. Il. 495 (ancient Teutonic law). 
Post,  Grundriss der ethnologischen 

Bengal, p. 45. 

8 Polak, Persden, ii. 81. 

® Stone, A few Months in New 
Guinea, p. 95. 

10 Brenchley, of. cz¢. p. 208. 

11 Shortland, Zyaditions and Super- 
stitions of the New Zealanders, p. 

1 Matthews, ‘Study of Ethics among 
the Lower Races,’ in /ournal of 
American Folk-Lore, xii. 4. 224. Waitz-Gerland, Azthropologie der 
2 Powers, Zribes of California, p.  Naturvolker, vi. 224. Dieffenbach, 
Ay, Travels in New Zealand, ii, 111. 
3 Sproat, of. czt. p. 158 sq. 12 Zoller, Forschungsreisen im der 
4 Krause, of. c2t. p. 167. deutschen Colonie Kamerun, ii. 64 
> Georgi, of. czt. iii, 183. Krashe-  (Dualla). Wilson and Felkin, of: ct. 
ninnikoff, Azstory of Kamschatka, p. i, 224 (Waganda). Leslie, of. céz. p. 
3 256 (Amatongas). 
§ Gilmour, Ayong the Mongols, p. 3 Williams and Calvert, of. cé¢. p. 
Ol. IO, 
* Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of 

“the thief is not despised because he has stolen, but because he 
has allowed himself to be caught, and if his crime remains un- 
detected he is admired by all.”1_ | Among the aborigines of 
Palma, in the Canary Islands, “he was esteemed the cleverest 
filon who could steal with anes address as not to be dis- 
covered,” 2 
4 The moral valuation of theft varies according to the 
~ social position of the thief and of the person robbed. 
Among the Marea a nobleman who commits theft is only 
obliged to restore the appropriated article; but if a 
commoner steals from another commoner, the whole of his 
property may be confiscated by the latter’s master, and if 
he steals from a nobleman he becomes the nobleman’s serf.* 
Among the Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush the penalty for 
theft is theoretically a fine of seven or eight times the 
value of the thing stolen; “but such a punishment 
in ordinary cases would only be inflicted on a man of 
inferior mark, unless it were accompanied by circumstances 
which aggravated the original offence.”’* In Rome, 
according to an old law, a freeman caught in the act 
of thieving was scourged and delivered over to the party 
aggrieved, whereas a slave in similar circumstances was 
scourged and then hurled from the Tarpeian rock ;° and 
according to an enactment of Hadrian, the punishment for 
stealing an ox or horse from the pastures or from a stable 
was only relegation if the offender was a person of rank, 
though ordinary persons might have to suffer death for fe 
same offence. In ancient India, on the other hand, | 
the punishment increased with the rank of the criminal. | 
According to the Laws of Manu, “in a case of theft the 
guilt of a Sidra shall be eightfold, that of a Vaisya sixteen- 
fold, that of a Kshatriya two-and-thirtyfold, that of a 
Brahmana sixty-fourfold, or quite a hundredfold, or even 
twice four-and-sixtyfold ; each of them knowing the nature 

1 Decle, Zhree Vears in Savage 4 Scott Robertson, Adjfirs of the 
Africa, p. 165. Hindu-Kush, p. 440. _ ov. 

2 de Abreu, of. cet. p. 138. > Mommsen, Aédmdsches Strafrecht, 

3 Munzinger, Osta/rtkanische Stu- a 75he 

BRO 7eesta, SIN) 14.0 ln Phas 32 

en 

dien, p. 243 Sg. 

CHAP: 

of the offence.” ' In other cases, again, the degree of 
guilt is determined by the station of the person robbed.’ 
Among the Gaika tribe of the Kafirs, for instance, the fine 
by which a theft is punished “is fixed according to the 
rank of the person against whom the offence is committed, 
confiscation of property being. the general punishment 
imposed for offences against chiefs.”* Among many other 
peoples theft or robbery committed on the property of a 
chief or king is treated with exceptional severity.* Some- 
times difference in religion affects the criminality of the 
thief. According to modern Buddhism, “to take that 
which belongs to a sceptic is an inferior crime, and the 
guilt rises in magnitude in proportion to the merit of the 
individual upon whom the theft is perpetrated. To take 
that which belongs to the associated priesthood, or to a 
supreme Buddha, is the highest crime.”’ But the com-, 
monest and most important personal distinction influencing | 
the moral valuation of theft and robbery is that between a | 
tribesman or fellow-countryman and a stranger. : 

Among uncivilised races intra-tribal theft _is carefully 
distinguished from extra-tribal theft. Whilst the former 
is forbidden, the latter is commonly allowed, and robbery - 
committed on a stranger is an object of praise.* 

The Tehuelches of Patagonia, “although honest enough 
as regards each other, will, nevertheless, not scruple to 
steal from any one not belonging to their party.”7 The 
Abipones, who never took anything from their own country- 
men, “cused to rob and murder the Spaniards whilst they 
thought them their enemies.”® Among the Mbayds the 
law, Thou shalt not steal, “applies only to tribesmen and 

1 Laws of Manu, viii. 337 sq. Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, 

2 Crawfurd, of. cé#. ill, 115 (Java- op. 73. Post, Afrikandsche Jurispru- 
nese), Desoignies, in’ Steinmetz, dena, ii. g1. Laws of Athelbirht, 4, 
Rechtsverhaltnisse, p. 281 (Msalala). 9 (Anglo-Saxons). 

Maclean, Compendium of Kafr Laws 
and Customs, p. 143. 

3 Brownlee, in Maclean, of. cé¢. p. 
Lil: 

es Lillis; 
429 sq. 
the Slave Coast, p. 225 (Dahomans). 

Tour through Hawatt, p. 

Ellis, Bwve-speaking Peoples of 

> Hardy, Alanual of Budhism, p. 
483. 

° Cf. Tylor, ‘Primitive Society,’ in 
Conteniporary Review, xxi. FUSS us 
Anthropology, p. 413 sq- 

* Musters, of. cet. p. 195. 

8 Dobrizhoffer, of. cét. ii. 148. 

allies, not to strangers and enemies.”! ‘The high standard of 
honesty which prevailed among the North American Indians 
did not refer to foreigners, especially white men, whom they 
thought it no shame to rob or cheat.2 “A theft from an 
individual of another band,” says Colonel Dodge, “is no crime. 
A theft from one of the same band is the greatest of all crimes.” ® 
Among the Californian Indians, for instance, who are proverbi- 
ally honest in their own neighbourhood, “a stranger in the gates 
who seems to be friendless may lose the very blankets off him in 
the night.” Among the Ahts thieving “isa common vice 
where the property of other tribes, or white men, is concerned.” ® 
Of the Dacotahs we read that, though the men think it un- 
dignified for them to steal even from white people, “they send 
their wives thus unlawfully to procure what they want.”® Of 
the Greenlanders the old missionary Egede writes :—“ If they 
can lay hands upon any thing belonging to us foreigners, they 
make no great scruple of conscience about it. But, as we now 
have lived some time in the country amongst them, and are 
look’d upon as true inhabitants of the land, they at last have for- 
borne to molest us any more that way.”’ Another early 
authority states, “If they can purloin or even forcibly seize the 
property of a foreigner, it is a feather in their cap” ;® and, 
according to Dr. Nansen, it is still held by the Greenlanders 
“to be far less objectionable to rob Europeans than their own 
fellow-countrymen.”® Many travellers have complained of the 
pilfering tendencies of Eskimo tribes with whom they have 
come into contact.!° Richardson believes that, in the opinion of 
an Eskimo, “‘ to steal boldly and adroitly from a stranger is an 
act of heroism.” ™ Of the Eskimo about Behring Strait Mr. 
Nelson writes :—“ Stealing from people of the same village or 
tribe is regarded as wrong. . . . To steal from a stranger or 
from people of another tribe is not considered wrong so long as 
it does not bring trouble on the community.” ” 

land, ii. 335 sg. Cf. Idem, Eskimo 

1 Tylor, in Contemporary Review, 
xxl. 716. 

2 [bid. p. 716. 

3 Dodge, of. czt. p. 79. 

4 Powers, Tribes of California, p. 
410 Sq. 

5 Sproat, of. cét. p. 159. Cf. Macfie, 
Vancouver Island and British Columéza, 
p. 468. . 

8 Eastman, Dacotah, p. xvii. 

7 Egede, of. cet. p. 124 5g. 

8 Cranz, op. cet. 1. 175. 
Dalager, of. ct. p. 69. 

9 Nansen, Furst Crossing of Green- 

See also 

Life, p. 159 Sq. 

10 Murdoch, ‘Ethnological Results 
of the Point Barrow Expedition,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 41. See- 
mann, Voyage of ‘* Herald,” ii. 65 ; 
Armstrong, Déescovery of the North- 
West Passage, p. 196 (Western Es- 
kimo). 

1 Richardson, Arctec Searching Ex- 
pedition, i. 352. 

12 Nelson, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. 
XVlll. 293. 

phy) THE RIGHT 7OF* PROPER Ba CHAP. 

The Chukchi! and Koriaks? consider theft reputable or 
glorious if committed on a stranger, though criminal if com- 
mitted in their own communities. The hill people of the 
Central Provinces of India, whilst observant of the rights of 
property among themselves, do not scruple to Prusey those to 
whom they are Sunder no obligation of fidelity.? “The Bataks 
of Sumatra, who hardly ever steal among themselves, are expert 
at pilfering from strangers when not restrained by the laws of 
hospitality, and think it no moral offence to do so. Other 
tribes in the Malay Archipelago likewise hold it allowable to 
plunder the same stranger or traveller who, when forlorn and 
destitute, would find a hospitable reception among them.? “ “The 
strict honesty,” says Mr. Melville, “ which the inhabitants of 
nearly all the Polynesian Islands manifest towards each other, is 
in striking contrast with the thieving propensities some of them 
evince in their intercourse with foreigners. It would almost 
seem that, according to their peculiar code of morals, the pilfer- 
ing of a hatchet or a wrought nail from a European is looked 
upon as a praiseworthy action. Or rather, it may be presumed, 
that bearing in mind the wholesale forays made upon them by 
their nautical visitors, they consider the property of the latter as 
a fair object of reprisal.” ® In Fiji theft is regarded as no offence 
at all when practised on a foreigner.’ The Savage Islanders 
consider theft from a tribesman a vice, but theft from a 
member of another tribe a virtue.8 Ofthe Sandwich Islanders, 
again, we are told that they stole from rich strangers on board 
well loaded ships, whereas Europeans settled among them left 
their doors and shops unlocked without apprehension. 9 Speak- 
ing of the honesty of the Herbert River natives, Northern 
Qucensland, Mr. Lumholtz adds :—“It is, of course, solely 
among members of the same tribe that there is sO great a 
difference between mine and thine; strange tribes look upon 
each other as wild beasts.” 1° “The aborigines of West Australia 
“would not consider the act of pillaging base when practised on 
another people, or carried on beyond the limits of their own 
fie: 

Among the For tribe of Central Africa “it is not considered 

1 Georgi, op. c2t. iii. 183. (Micronesians), 

2 [btd. iii. 170.  Krasheninnikoff, 7 Williams and Calvert, of. cz. p. 
op. cit. Pp. 232. 110, 

2D inbiseyo, Ot es jDa ie 8 Thomson, Savage Jsland, p. 94. 

4+ Marsden, of. czt. p. 389. 9 von Kotzebue, of. c?t. iii. 255. 

5 Crawfurd, of. cet. i. 72. 10 Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 

6 Melville,- Zyfee, p. 295, n. I. See 148. 
also Williams, JZisstonary Enterprises, I Chauncy, in Brough Smyth, of. e7¢. 
p. 530 (Samoans); Hale, of. crt. p. 73 ii. 278 sq. 

right to rob strangers, but the chiefs wink at this offence, and 
the stranger runs but a poor chance of obtaining justice.” 1 Of 
the Mandingoes Caillié observes that, whilst they do not steal 
from each other, “their probity with respect to others is very 
equivocal and in particular towards strangers, who would be 
very imprudent to shew them any thing that might tempt their 
cupidity.”? When an Eastern Central African is plundered 
by a companion, he may be heard exclaiming, “ If you had stolen 
from a white man, then I could have understood it, but to steal 
from a black man——.”? Among the Masai the warriors and 
old men have a profound contempt for a thief, but “ cattle- 
raiding from neighbouring tribes they do not consider stealing.” 4 
The Wafiomi?® and Shilluk ® regard theft or robbery committed 
on a stranger as a praiseworthy action, though they never or 
rarely practise it on members of their own people. ‘The Barea 
and Kundama’ and the inhabitants of Saraé® consider it 
honourable for a man to rob an enemy of his tribe. The 
Kabyles of Djurdjura, who demand strict mutual honesty from 
members of the same village, see nothing wrong in stealing from 
a stranger.® Among the Bedouins “ travellers passing without 
proper escort from or introduction to the tribes, may expect to 
lose their beasts, goods, clothes, and all they possess. ‘There is 
no kind of shame attached to such acts of rapine.... By 
desert law, the act of passing through the desert entails 
forfeiture of goods to whoever can seize them.” 1° Indeed, the 
Arab is proud of robbing his enemies, and of bringing away by 
stealth what he could not have taken by open force.! The 
Ossetes “distinguent . . . le vol commis au préjudice d’une 
personne étrangére a la famille, et le vol commis au préjudice 
d’un parent. Le premier, a proprement parler, n’est pas un acte 
criminel ; le second, au contraire, est tenu pour un délit.” ” 

Similar views prevailed among the ancient Teutons. 

‘“¢ Robberies,” says Caesar, ‘‘ which are committed beyond 

1 Felkin, ‘ Notes on the For Tribe 
of Central Africa,’ in Proceed. Loy. 
Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 234. 

2 Caillié, of. cit. 1. 353- 
Park, of. czt. p. 239 5g. 

3 Macdonald, Africana, i. 182. 

4 Hinde, of. cz. p. 104. Cf. John- 
ston, Atléma-njaro Expedition, p. 419. 

5 Baumann, Durch Massatland, p. 
179. 

6 Petherick, 
Africa, ii, 3. 

Cf. Mungo 

Central 
il Fiume 

Travels in 
3eltrame, 

Bianco, p. 83. 

7 Munzinger, 
dien, p. 531. 

8 Jbid. p. 386. 

® Kobelt, Retseertnnerungen aus 
Alvgerien und Tunis, p. 223. 

10 Blunt, of. cz¢. ii. 204 sg. 

1 Burckhardt, Bedouznsand Wahdbys, 
p. 90. 

© Kovalewsky, Coutewme contempo- 
raine, P. 343. 

Ostafrikanische  Stu- 

the boundaries of each state bear no infamy, and they 
avow that these are committed for the purpose of 
disciplining their youth and of preventing sloth.”' The 
same was the case with the Highlanders of Scotland until 
they were brought into subjection after the rebellion 
of 1745.2 “ Regarding every Lowlander as an alien, and 
his cattle as fair spoil of war,” says Major-General Stewart, 
‘they considered no law for his protection as binding. . . 

Yet, except against the Lowlanders, or a hostile clan, these 
freebooters maintained, in general, the strictest honesty 
towards one another, and inspired confidence in their 
integrity... . In the interior of their own society, 
all property was safe, without the usual security of bolts, 
bars, and locks.” * Inthe Commentary to the Irish Senchus 
Mor it is stated that, whilst an ordinary thief loses his full 
honour-price at once, committing theft in another territory 
deprives a person of only half his honour-price, until it is 
committed the third time.* Throughout the Middle Ages 
all Europe seems to have tacitly agreed that foretgners 
were created for the purpose of being robbed.* In the 
thirteenth century there were still several places in France 
in which a stranger who fixed his residence for a year 
and a day became the serf of the lord of the manor.’ In 
England, till upwards of two centuries after the Conquest, 
foreign merchants were considered only as sojourners 
coming toa fair or market, and were obliged to employ 
their landlords as brokers to buy and sell their commodities ; 
and one stranger was often arrested for the debt, or 
punished for the misdemeanour, of another.’ In a later 
age the old habit of oppression was still so strong that, 
when the State suddenly wanted a sum of money, it seemed 
quite natural that foreigners should be called upon to 

1 Caesar, De bello Gallico, vi. 23. ties, p. 285. 

2 Tylor, in Contemporary Review, § Beaumanoir, Les coutumes du Beat- 
Xxi. 716. vorsts, Xlv. 19, vol. ii. p. 226. 

3 Stewart, Sketches of the Character, " Chitty, Zreatise on the Laws of 
&c., of the Highlanders of Scotland, Commerce and Manufactures, i. 131. 
Pp. 42 Sg. Cf. Cibrario, Della economia polttica 

4 Ancient Laws of Ireland, i. 57. del medio eve, 1. 192, 

5 Of. Marshall, (ternational Vant- 

‘presi bai i Lt i Aas it bain ines hit eal 

XXVIII THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY Na 

provide a part of it.! The custom of seizing the goods of 
persons who had been shipwrecked, and of confiscating 
them as the property of the lord on whose manor they 
were thrown, seems to have been universal ; ? and in some 
European countries the laws even permitted the inhabitants 
of maritime provinces to reduce to servitude people who 
were shipwrecked on their coast.* The sea laws of 
Oléron, which probably date from the twelfth century, tell 
us that in many places shipwrecked sailors meet with 
people more inhuman, barbarous, and cruel than mad 
dogs, who slaughter those unhappy mariners in order to 
obtain possession of their money, clothes, and other 
property.* In the latter part of the Middle Ages attempts 
were incessantly made by sovereigns and councils to 
abolish this ancient right, so far as Christian sailors 
were concerned,’ whereas the robbing of shipwrecked 
infidels was not prohibited.° But for a long time these 
endeavours were far from being successful ;* and it was 
even argued that, as shipwrecks were punishments sent by 
God, it was impious to be merciful to the victims.* 

The readiness with which wars are waged, and the 
destruction of property held legitimate in warfare, are 
other instances of the little regard felt for the proprietary 
rights of foreigners. Grotius maintained that “such ravage 
is tolerable as in a short time reduces the enemy to seek 

peace’’;° and in the practice of his time devastation was 

1 See Marshall, nternational Vanz- ii. p. cxv. sgg.3 ill. p. clxxix. von 

Ties Pa ZOU Sos Eicken, Geschichte und System der 

2 Du Cange, Glossarium ad scrip- 
tores media et infime Latinitatis, iv. 22 
sq. Robertson, Aéstory of the Reign 
of Charles V. i. 395. 

PaDuy Cange, op. 62t. IV.) 23) Sq. 
Cleffelius, Aztiguztates Germanorum 
pottssimum septentrionalium, x. 4, p- 
362. Dreyer, Stectmen juris publict 
Lubecensts, p. cxcii. Potgiesser, Com- 
mentaria juris Germantct de statu ser- 
vorunt, i. I. 17, p. 18 Sg. 

4 Ancient Sea-Laws of Oleron, art. 
30, p. II. bap 

5 Du Cange, op. cit. iv. 24 Sgqg. 
Pardessus, Collection de lots maritimes, 

mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, p. 
569 sgg. —Constitutiones Neapolitane 
sive Sicule,i. 28. Concilium Ronmanune 
IV. A.D. 1078 (Labbe-Mansi, Sacro- 
rum Conctliorune collectio, xx. 505 sq.). 

6 Laurent, Ltudes sur [histoire de 
Phumanité, vil. 323, 413 n. 3. von 
Eicken, of. czt. p. 570. 

7 Pardessus, of. c2¢. ii. p. cxv. Lau- 
rent, of. cz, vii. 314. Marshall, /iz¢er- 
national Vanities, pp. 287, 295. 

8 von Eicken, of. czt. p. 570 sg. 

9 Grotius, De sere belle et pacts, i. 

X tig By 

ab 

constantly used independently of any immediate military 
advantage accruing from it. In the eighteenth century 
the alliance of devastation with strategical objects became 
more close, but it was still regarded as an independent means 
of attack by Wolff,’ Vattel,’ and others ; * and even at the 
beginning of the nineteenth century instances of devastation 
of a not necessary kind occasionally occurred.? In later 
days opinion has decisively laid down that the measure of 
permissible devastation is to be found in the strict necessities 
of war.’ Yet there is an exception to this rule: during the \ 
siege of a fortified town custom still permits the houses | 
of the town itself to be bombarded, with a view to inducing © 
the commandant to surrender on account of the misery 
suffered by the inhabitants.’ Under the old customs of war 
a belligerent possessed a right to seize and appropriate all, 
property belonging toa hostile state or its subjects, of 
whatever kind it might be and in any place where acts of 
war were permissible.* Subsequently this extreme right has 
been tempered by usage, and in a few directions it has dis- 
appeared.” Thus the principle proclaimed, but not always 
acted on, by the Revolutionary Government of France, 
that private property should be respected on a hostile as on a| 
friendly soil,” isfavoured by present opinion and usage,'! and 
pillage by the soldiers of an invading < army is expressly for- | 
bidden.”” At the same time there is unfortunately no doubt 

1 Yall, Zvreatise on International of. cit. pp. 41 8. 
a PP 417, 43 

Law, p. 533- Hall, op. czt. p. 419 sqq. 
2 Wolff, Jus Gentium, §823, p. 300. 10 Bernard, ‘Growth of Laws and 
3 Vattel, Le drozt des gens, iil. 9.167, Usages of War,’ in Oxford Essays, 
vol. ii. 76 sg. 1856, p. 109. 
4 Tall, of. cet. p. 533 sg. Conférence de Bruxelles, art. 38. 
5 Tbid. p. 534 5g. Instructions for the Government of 

6 Tord. p. 535. Bluntschli, Ze drott Armies of the United States in the 
international, § 663, p. 385. Heffter,  verd, art. 37. Conférence de La Haye, 
Das europidische Volkerrecht, § 125, p. : Réglement concernant la guerre sur 
262, Wheaton, “lements of Inter- terre,’ art. 46, pt. i. 248. Hall, of, 
national Law, p. 473. Conférence de cit. p. 441. Geffken, in Heffter, op. 

Bruxelles, art. 13, g. Conférenceinter-  ctt. § 140, p. 297, n. 5. 

nationale de la paix, La Haye 1899, © Conférence de Bruxelles, art. 39. 

‘ Réglement concernant les lois et cou- Znstructions of the United States, arte 

tumes de la guerre sur terre,’ art. 23.9, 44, Conférence de La Haye, ‘ Régle- 

pt. 1. 245. ment concernant la guerre sur terre,’ 
7 Hall, of. c2t. p. 536 sq. art. 28, 47, pt. 1. 246, 248. 

8 Grotius, ef. cé, ill. 6. 2. Hall, 

XXVIII THe MGHl OF PROPERTY vey, 
that in all wars pillage does continue with impunity ;* and \ 
we sometimes hear of a captured town being sacked, and | 
the houses of the inhabitants being plundered, on the | 
plea that it was impossible for the general to restrain his — 
soldiers.” Moreover, private property taken from the 
enemy on the field of battle, in the operations of a siege, or 
in the storming of a place which refuses to aa is 
usually regarded as legitimate spoils of war.* Military 
contributions and requisitions are levied upon the inhabi- 
tants of the hostile territory. And whilst the progress of 
civilisation has slowly tended to soften the extreme severity 
of the operations of war by land, it still remains unrelaxed 
in respect to maritime warfare, the private property of the 
enemy taken at sea or afloat in port being indiscriminately 
liable to capture and confiscation. In justification of this it 
is said that the object of maritime wars is the destruction of 
the enemy’s commerce and navigation, and that this object 
can only be attained by the seizure of private property.’ 

Not only does the respect in which the right of property 
is held vary according to the satus of the owner, but 
in many instances certain persons are deemed incapable 
of possessing such a right. 

The father’s power over his children may imply that the 
latter, even when grown-up, have no property of their own, 
the father having a right to the disposal of their earnings. 
This is the case among some African peoples,’ and the 

1 Maine, /rternational Law, p. 199. 
Halleck, Jnternational Law, ii. 73, 
note. 443 5Sqq. 

2 Halleck, of. cz. 0. 32: If we 6 Sarbah, Fante Customary Laws, 
may believe Garcilasso de la Vega pp. 51. Kraft, in Steinmetz, Rechtsver- 
(First Part of the Royal Commentaries — hiltnasse, p. 285 (Wapokomo). Mun- 
of the Yncas, i, 151) the officers of the zinger, Ueber dze Sitten und das Recht 
Incas in ancient Peru were more der Sogos, p. 36. Among the Barea 

Law of Nations, p. 141. 

Heffter, of. 
ies By ps 2576 

Hall, op. cet. p. 

humane, never allowing the pillage of 
a captured town. 

3 Halleck, of. cz¢. il. 73 sg. Wheaton, 
op. cit. p. 467. 

’ Wheaton, op. cit. p. 467. Hall, 
op. cit. p. 427 sgg. Conférence de La 
TEMG TE, Reglement concernant la guerre 
sur terre,’ art. 49, 52, pt. i. 248. 

5 Wheaton, of. ct. p. 483. 

Twiss, 

and Kunama a man’s earnings belong 
to his father until he builds a house 
for himself, that is, until he marries 
(Munzinger, Ostafrikanesche Studten, 
p- 477). Among the Basutos parents 
can deprive their sons of their earnings 
at pleasure (Endemann, ‘ Mittheilungen 
iiber die Sotho-Neger,’ in Zez¢schr. f. 
Ethnol. vi. 39). 

CHAPS 

Kandhs of India.! In the Laws of Manu, the mythical 
legislator of the Hindus, it is said, “A wife, a son, and a 
slave, these three are declared to have no property ; the 
wealth they earn is acquired for him to whom they 
belong.” ? But according to the standard commentators 
this only means that the persons mentioned are unable to 
dispose of their property independently ;* and it is 
expressly stipulated that property acquired by learning 
belongs exclusively to the person to whom it was given, 
and so also the gift of a friend.* In Rome the Aeculium, 
or separate property, allowed to a son, was originally 
subject to the authority of the house-father, should he 
choose to exercise such authority ; and it was only by very 
late legislation that sons were secured the independent 
holding of their peculium.? Even now it is the law in 
many European countries that, during the minority of a 
child, the father or mother has the usufruct of its property, 
with the exception of certain kinds of property expressly 
specified.° 

Among some uncivilised peoples women are said to be | 
incapable of holding property ;‘ but this is certainly not the | 
rule among savage tribes, not even among the very 
lowest. When Mr. Snow wished to buy a canoe from 
some Fuegians, his request was refused on the ground that 
the object in question belonged to an old woman, who 
would not part with it ;* and among the blacks of 
Australia Mr. Curr has often heard husbands ask per- 
mission of their wives to take something out of their bags.° 
There are instances in which the property owned by a 

1 Macpherson, AMemorzals of Service 
in India, p. 62. 

2 Laws of Manu, 
also WVdrada, v. 41. 

° Buehler, in his translation of the 
Laws of Manu, Sacred Books of the 
Last, xxv. 326, n. 416. 

4 Laws of Mant, 1x. 200. 

5 Hunter, Axposttion of Roman Law, 
p- 292 sgg. Maine, Déessertations on 
Larly Law and Custom, p. 252. 
Girard, JfZanuel Eémentatre de drott 
romaim, Pp. 135, 138 sgq. 

Vill. 416. See 

8 Bridel, Le drott des femmes et le 
mariage, Pp. 156. 

7 Nassau, Fetichtsm in West Africa, 
p- 13 (tribes of the Cameroons). Mar- 
shall, 4 Phrenologist amongst the Todas, 
p- 206. Waitz, Anthropologie der 
Naturvolker, Wi. 129 (some Indian 
tribes of North America). 

8 Snow, ‘ Wild Tribes of Tierra del 
Fuego,’ in Jour. Ethn. Soc. London, 
NiS. i. 264: 

* Curr, Zhe Australian Race, i. 66. 

woman is by marriage transferred to her husband ;! but 
more commonly, it seems, the wife remains mistress of her 
own property during the existence of the marriage relation.’ 

Among many savages considerable proprietary privileges 
are granted to the female sex. We have seen that the 
household goods are frequently regarded as the special 
property of the wife.? Among the Navahos of New 
Mexico everything, except par and cattle, practically 
belongs to the married women.‘ Among the Kafirs 
of Natal, “‘when a man takes his first wife, all the cows he 
possesses are regarded as her property,” and the husband 
can, theoretically, neither sell nor otherwise dispose of 
them without his wife’s consent. The Mandans of North 
America have a custom that all the horses which a young 
man steals or captures in war belong to his sisters.° 
Among the Koch of India, we are told, “the men are so 
gallant as to have made over all property to the women.’’’ 
As regards woman’s right of ownership nations of a higher 
culture compare unfavourably with many savages. In 
Japan the husband formerly had full rights over the 
property of his wife.* We have already noticed the 
disabilities in point of ownership to which women were 
once subject in India ; but the development of the stridhana, 
or peculium of the female members of a family, shows that 
they gradually became less dependent on their husbands in 

1 Mason, in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, 172 (Gold Coast natives). Ellis, 75/2- 
XXXxvil. pt. ii. 142(Karens). Sumner, sfeaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 
in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. 94(Jakuts). 298. Sarbah, Fante Customary Laws, 

Post, Studéen sur Entwicklungsge- p.5. Lang, in Steinmetz, Rechtsver- 
schichte des Famtlhienrechts, p. 291. hiltnisse, p. 223 (Washambala). Bur 
2 von den Steinen, Unter den Natur- ton, Lake Regions of Central Africa, 11. 

volkern Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 330 25 (Wanyamwezi). Post, Lydwick- 
(Bakairi) Morgan, League of the lungsgeschichte des Familienrechts, p: 
Lroqguois, p. 326. Lala, Philippine 292 sqq. 

Lslands, p. 91. Hagen, Unter den 3 Supra, i. 637 Sgq- j 
Papuas, pp. 226, 243 (Papuans of 4 Mindeleff, ‘ Navaho Houses,’ in 
Bogadjim, Kaiser Wilhelm Land). Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn, xvii. 485. 
Kubary, ‘Die Palau-Inseln in der ® Shooter, Aafirs of Natal, p. 84. 
Siidsee,’ in /owsr. des Museum Godef- 8 Wied-Neuwied, Zravels i the 
froy, iv. 54. Ratzel, Wzstory of Man-  Intertor of North America, Pp. 350. 
kind, i. 279 (various South Sea 7 Buchanan, quoted by Hodgson, 

Islanders). Kingsley, West African Miscellaneous Essays, i Rey 
Studies, p. 373. Bosman, of. cz. p. 8 Rein, Japan, p. 424. 

30 tHeEeRIGH [SOR RROPERASY 

matters relating to property... Among the ancient 
Hebrews women appear to have been in every respect 
regarded as minors so far as proprietary rights were con- 
cerned.” In Rome a marriage with conventio im manum, 
which was the regular form of marriage in early times, 

gave the husband a right to all the property which the 

wife had when she married, and entitled him to all 

she might acquire afterwards whether by gift or by her 
own labour.® Later on marriage without manus became 
the ordinary Roman marriage, and this, together with the 
downfall of the ancient patria potestas, led to the result 
that finally all the wife’s property was practically under 
her own control, save when a part of it had been converted 

by settlement into a fund for contributing to the expenses 
of the conjugal household.* But, as we have noticed in 
another place, the new religion was not favourable to the 

remarkable nee granted to married women during 
the pagan Empire ;° and the combined influence of Teutonic \ 
custom and Canon law led to those proprietary incapacities | 
of wives which up to quite recent times have disfigured the | 
lawbooks of Christian Europe.® In England, before 1857, 
even a man who had abandoned his wife and left her 
unaided to support his family might at any time return to 

appropriate her earnings and to sell everything she had 
acquired, and he might again and again desert her, 

and again and again repeat the process of spoliation. In 
1870 a law was passed securing to women the legal control 
of their own earnings, but all other female property, with 
some insignificant exceptions, was left absolutely unpro- 
tected. And it was not until the Married Women’s 

1 Jolly, ‘Recht und Sitte,.in  p, 312. Bryce, Studées <n History and 

Buehler, Grandriss der tndo-arischen Jurisprudence, ii. 387. Girard, of. cit. 
Philologie, ii. 78, 79, 87 sgg. Wohler,  p. 163. 

‘Indisches Ehe- und Familienrecht,’ in 4 Hunter, Roman Law, p. 295 sgy. 
Zettschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. ii. 424 Maine, Larly History of Institutions, 
WE p. 317 sgg. Friedlaender, Darvstel- 

* Benzinger, ‘Law and Justice,’ in 
Cheyne and Black, Lncyclopedia 
Biblica, iii. 2724. 

~ lelineiern, seagpen MakiDy. jo, PAO). 
Maine, ZLarly History of Lnstitutions, 

lungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms, 
i. 252. Girard, of. ca. p. 164. 

5 Supra, i. 653 5g. 

8 Maine, Azczent Law, p. 157 sqq. 

XXVIII PIER? ORF PROPERTY 41 

Property Act of 1882 that a full right to their own 
property was given to English wives." 

A third class of persons who in many cases are con- 
sidered incapable of holding property of their own is the 
slave class.” It _may indeed be asked whether a slave ever 
has the right of ownership in the full sense of the term. 
Yet slaves are frequently said to be owners of property ; 
and though this “ownership” may have originally been a 
mere privilege granted to them by their masters and sub- 
ject to withdrawal at the discretion of the latter,® it is 
undoubtedly in several cases a genuine right guaranteed by 
custom. Among the Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush, if the 
slaves work for others, they do not hand the wages over to 
their masters, but keep the pay themselves. In Africa, in 
particular, it is a common thing for slaves to have private 
property 5° in Southern Guinea there are slaves who are 
wealthier than their masters.° In some African countries, 
as we have seen, the slave is obliged to work for his 
master only on certain days of the week or a certain num- 
ber of hours, and has the rest of his time free.” So also in 
ancient Mexico the slave was allowed a certain amount of 
time to labour for his own advantage.* A Babylonian 
slave had his peculium, of which, at least under normal 
circumstances, he was in safe possession.’ In Rome any- 
thing a slave acquired was legally his master’s ; but he was 

1 Lecky, Democracy and Liberty, ii. + Scott Robertson, of. cz¢. p. 100. 
536 sg. Cleveland, Woman under the ® Kingsley, West African Studies, 
English Law, p. 279 sqqg. For the  p. 366. Ellis, Awe-speaking Peoples of 
laws of other European countries see ¢he Slave Coast, p. 219. Steinmetz, 
Bridel, of. cz¢. p. 61 sgg., and for the  Rechtsverhdltnisse, p. 43 (Banaka and 
history of the subject see Gide, A¢wde Bapuku). Tellier, zd¢d. pp. 169, 171 
sur la condition de la femme, passim. (Kreis Kita), Baskerville, zbzd. p. 193 

2 Post, Grundriss der ethnol. Juris- (Waganda). Beverley, zzd. p. 213 
prudenz, i. 370, 381. Holmberg, in (Wagogo). Dale, in Jour. Anthr. 
Acta Soc. Scientiarum Fenntice, iv. 330  Lnst. xxv. 230 (Wabondei). Munzinger, 
sg. (Thlinkets). Kohler, ‘Recht der D7e Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, p. 

Marschallinsulaner,’ in Zeztschr. f. 43. dem, Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 
vergl, Rechtswiss. xiv. 428 sg. Vol- 309 sg. (Beni Amer). 
kens, of. cét. p. 249 (Wadshagga). 6 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 271. 
Lang, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdlinzsse, Y Supra, 1. 677. 
p- 241 (Washambala). 8 Bancroft, of. czt. 1. 221. 

® Nicole, in Steinmetz, Mech¢sver- 9 Kohler and Peiser, Aus dem baby- 
hdlindsse, p. 119 (Diakité-Sarracolese).  owdschen Rechtsleben, i. 1. See also 

Senfft, 25d. p. 442 (Marshall Islanders). — segra, 1. 684. 

oe THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY CHAP. 

in practice permitted to enjoy and accumulate chance 
earnings or savings or a share of what he produced, which 
was regarded not as his property in the full sense of the 
term, but as his _peculium. In the Middle Ages slaves, 
and in many instances serfs also, were, strictly speaking, 
destitute of proprietary rights.” fic England it was held 
that whatever was acquired by a villein was acquired by 
his lord. At the same time his chattels did not eo zps50 
lapse into the lord’s possession, but only if the latter 
actually seized them ; and if he for some reason or other 
refrained from doing so the villein was practically their 
owner in respect of all persons but his lord.* In the 
British and French colonies and the American Slave States 
the negro slaves had no legal rights of property in things 
real or personal. According to the laws of Georgia, 
masters must not permit their slaves to labour for their 
own benefit, at a penalty of thirty dollars for every such 
weekly offence ;° and in other States they were expressly 
forbidden to suffer their slaves to hire out themselves.® In 
some places, however, negro slaves might hold a peculium. 
In Arkansas a statute was passed granting masters the right 
of allowing their slaves to do work on their own behalf on 
Sundays ;’ and in the British colonies Sunday was made a 
marketing day for the slaves so as to encourage them 
to labour for themselves.° In the Civil Code of Louisiana 

1 Digesta, xv. 1. 39. Wallon, Ais- zu the several States of the United 
totve de Vesclavage dans Pantiguité, ii. States of America, p. 74. Goodell, 
181 sg. Ingram, Héstory of Slavery, American Slave Code, p. 89 sgg. 

p: 44. Hunter, Roman Law, pp. 157, 5 Prince, Digest of the Laws of 
290 sg. Girard, of. czt. p. 95. Georgia, p. 788. 

2 Supra, i. 697. Guérard, Cartu- 6 Caruthers and Nicholson, Com- 
laire de [Abbaye de Saint-Pire de  pilation of the Statutes of Tennessee, 
Chartres, i. p. xvii. p. 675. Alden and van [Floesen, 

3 Vinogradoff, Villainage in Eng- Digest of the Laws of Mississippi, p. 
land, p. ©7 sg. Pollock and Maitland, 751. Morehead and Brown, Dzgest of 
op. cet. 1. 416, 410. the Statute Laws of Kentucky, u. 1480 

4 Stephen, Slavery of the British sq. 

West India Colonies, i. 58. Code Nor, * Ball and Roane, Revesed Stateutes 
Hdit du mois de Mars 1685, art. 28, p. of Arkansas, xliv. 7. 2. 8, p. 276 sq. 
42 sg.; Edit donné au mois de Mars 8 Edwards, “7story of the Lritish 

Lica aku 22 en 20 5) eS ee OLTOUG West Indes, \. 181. 
Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery 

XXVITI_ 

it is said that the slave “ possesses nothing of his own, 
except his peculium, that is to say, the sum of money, or 
movable estate, which his master chooses he should possess.” 
The Spanish and Portuguese slave laws were more humane. 
According to them the money and effects which a slave 
acquired by his labour at times set apart for his own use or 
by any other means, were legally his own and could not be 
seized by the master.’ : 

Among many peoples, finally, we find the theory that 
nobody but the chief or king has proprietary rights, and 
that it is only by his sufferance that his subjects hold 
their possessions.* The soil, in particular, is regarded 
as his.* But even autocrats are tied by custom,’ and 
in practice the right of ownership is not denied to their 
subjects. 

In the next chapter we shall try to explain all these 
facts :—the existence of proprietary rights, the refusal of 
such rights to certain classes of persons, the different 

1 Morgan, Czuvzl Code of Louisiana, own people (Brownlee, in Maclean, 

art. 175. 

2 Stephen, of. ct. i. 60, 
Lesclavage au Brészl, p. 9. 

3 Butler, Zravels iz Assam, p. 94 
(Kukis). Beecham, Ashantee, p. 96. 
Spencer, Descriptive Sociology, African 
Races, p. 12 (Abyssinians). Decle, of. 
cit. p. 70 sgg. (Barotse). Kidd, 7he 
Essential Kafir, p. 353. Ellis, Azs- 
tory of Madagascar, 1. 342. Post, 
Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, i. 171. 
Percy Smith, ‘Uea, Western Pacific,’ 
in Jour. Polynesian Soc. i. 112. Tre- 
gear, ‘Easter Island,’ zdzd. i. 99. In 
Samoa it is a maxim that a chief cannot 
steal ; he is merely considered to ‘‘take” 
the thing which he covets (Pritchard, 
Polynesian Reminiscences, p. 104). In 
Uea, when a chief enters a house, he 
enjoys the right to take all in it that he 
pleases (Percy Smith, in Jour. Poly- 
nestan Soc. i. 113). Among the Kafirs 
no case can be brought against a chief 
for theft, except if it be committed on 
the property of a person belonging to 
another tribe ; and even the children of 
chiefs are permitted to steal from their 

VOL. Il 

Couty, 

Compendium of Kafir Laws and Cus- 
toms, p. 112 sg. Trollope, South 
Africa, ii. 303. Holden, Past and 
Future of the Kaffir Races, p. 338). 

4 Waitz, of. cit. ili. 128 (Indian 
tribes of North America); v. pt. i. 
153 (Malays). Ellis, Polynesian Re- 
searches, iil. 115 (Sandwich Islanders). 
Bory de St. Vincent, Zssazs sur les 
Isles Fortunées, p. 64 (Guanches). 
Nicole, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdlt- 
nisse, p. 136 (Diakité-Sarracolese). 
Baskerville, zd¢d. p. 201 (Waganda). 
Beverley, zdzd. p. 216 (Wagogo). Lang, 
zbed. p. 262 (Washambala). Rautanen, 
zbid. p. 343 (Ondonga). Stuhlmann, 
Mit Emin Pasha ins Herz von Africa, 
p- 75 (Wanyamwezi). Post, A/rzka- 
nische Jurisprudenz, ii. 170 sg. ; Ratzel, 
op. cit. i. 126; de Laveleye-Biicher, 
Das Uretgenthum, p. 275 (various 
African peoples). WKohler, Rechtsver- 
gleichende Studien, p. 235 (Kandian 
law). Giles, Strange Stories from a 
Chinese Studio, i. 369, n. 21 (Chinese). 

5 Supra, i. 162. 

degrees of condemnation attending theft under different 
circumstances. But before we can understand the psycho- 
logical origin of the right of ownership and the regard in 
which it is held, it is necessary to examine the methods by 
which it is acquired, the external facts which give to 
certain individuals a right to. the exclusive disposal of 
certain things.

THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY (concluded ) 

Accorp1nG to an old theory set forth by Roman jurists, 
and afterwards much emphasised by Grotius,' the original 
mode of acquisition is occupation, that is, a person’s taking 
possession of that which at the moment belongs to nobody 
(res nudlius), with the intention of keeping it as his 
property. That occupation very largely, though by no 
means exclusively, lies at the bottom of the right of owner- 
ship seems obvious enough, and it is only by means of 
strained constructions that Locke and others have been 
able to trace the origin of this right to labour alone.? The 
principle of occupation is illustrated by innumerable facts 
from all quarters of the world—by the hunter’s right to 
the game which he has killed or captured ;* by the nomad’s 
or settler’s right to the previously unoccupied place where 

Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 428 (Point Barrow 

1 Grotius, De jure bellt et pacts, ii. 
Ahlqvist, ‘Unter Wogulen 

3 Eskimo). 

; 2 Locke, Treatises of Government, 
ti53.27 S7gs, Pp. 200 sgg. Thiers, De 
la propriété, p. 94 sgq. Hume remarks 
(Treatise of Human Nature, ii. 3 
[ Philosophical Works, ii. 276, n. 1)) :— 
‘‘There are several kinds of occupa- 
tion, where we cannot be said to join 
our labour to the object we acquire ; 
as when we possess a meadow by 
grazing our cattle upon it.” 

3 Curr, Recollections of Squatting in 
Victoria, p. 265 (Bangerang tribe). 
Murdoch, ‘Ethnol. Results of the 
Point Barrow Expedition,’ in Azz. 

und Ostjaken,’ in Acta Soc. Scientiarum 
Fennice, xiv. 166 (Voguls). Stein- 
metz, Rechtsverhaltnisse, p. 53 (Banaka 
and Bapuku). Post, A/rzkanzsche Juris- 
prudenz, ii. 162 sg. Andree, ‘ Ethnogr. 
Bemerkungen zu einigen Rechtsge- 
brauchen,’ in G/odus, xxxvili. 287. 
Among some Indian tribes of North 
America it was customary for indi- 
viduals to mark their arrows, in order 
that the stricken game might fall to the 
man by whose arrow it had been de- 
spatched (Powell, in Anz. Rep. Bur. 
Lthn. iii. p. lvii.). 
ip) 2 

he has pitched his tent or built his dwelling ;’ by the 
agriculturist’s right to the land of which he has taken 
possession by cultivating the soil 5°? by a tribe’s or com- 
munity’s right to the territory ich it shas occupied.* 
Among the Kandhs of India “the right of possession of 
land is simply founded in the case of tribes upon priority 
of appropriation, and in the case of individuals upon priority 
of culture.’ * Among. the Herero, “notwithstanding the 
loose notions generally entertained by them as to meum 
and tuum, there is an understanding that he who arrives 
first at any given locality, is the master of it as long as he 
chooses to remain there, and no one will intrude upon him 
without having previously asked and obtained his per- 
mission. The same,’ our authority adds,‘ is observed even 
with regard to strangers.” °. Again, among some of the 
Australian natives a man who had found a bees’ nest and 
did not wish to rob it for some time, would mark the tree 
in some way or other, and ‘it was a crime to rob a nest 
thus indicated.”’® In Greenland anyone picking up pieces 

1 von Martius, Vow dem Rechtszu- Religion of the Semites, pp. 95, 96, 143 
stande unter den Ureinwohnern Brasi- (ancient Semitic custom and Muham- 
liens, p. 34 (Brazilian aborigines). medan law). Waitz, Anthropologie der 
Dalager, Grgnlandske Relationer, p. 15;  Naturvolker, i. 440. _Dargun, ‘ Ur- 
Nansen, Eskimo Life, p, 109 (Green-._ sprung und Entwicklungs-Geschichte 
landers). Marsden, Azstory of Sumatra, des Eigenthums,’ in Zezéschr. f. verel. 
pp. 68, 244 (Rejangs). Steinmetz,  Rechtswzss.v. 71 sgg. Post, Entwick- 
Rechtsverhaltnisse, p. 53 (Banaka and lungsgeschichte des Famdlienrechts, p. 
Bapuku). Kraft, zdzd. p. 293 (Wapo- 283 sgq. Liem, Grundriss der ethnol. 
komo). Decle, Three Vearsin Savage Jurisprudenz, i. 342 sqg. See also 
Africa, p. 487 (Wakamba). Robertson HUD Pp. 39 sg. 

Smith, Weligzon of the Semztes, pp. 95, 3 Thomson, Story of New Zealand, 

96, 143 (ancient Semitic custom and i. 96; Polack, op. cit. li. 71 (Maoris). 

Muhammedan law). Mademba, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdlt- 
2 Thomson, Savage Island, p. 137. missé, Pp. 90 (natives of the Sansanding 

Polack, Manners and Customs of the States). 

New Zealanders, ii. 69 ; Thomson, Story * Macpherson, Aemorials of Service 

of New Zealand,i.97. Munzinger, Dze zn EE’ p. 62. 

Sztten und das Recht der Bogos, p. 69. 5 Andersson, Lake Ngami, p. 115 

Cruickshank, Zighteen Years on the ce also Viehe, in Steinmetz, Rechtsver- 
Gold Coast, ii. 277. Leuschner, in hélinesse, p. 310. 

Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdltnisse, p. 24 ° Mathew, in Curr, The Australian 
(Bakwiri). /dz7d@. p.53 (Banaka and Race, iii. 162. On the finder’s right 
Bapuku). Tellier, zd¢d. p. 178 (Kreis to wild honey see Munzinger, Die 
Kita). Dale, in Jour, Anthr. Inst.  Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, p. 70 ; 
xxv. 230 (Wabondei). Laws of Manu, Steinmetz, Rechtsverhiltnisse, ms §3 
ix. 44. Wellhausen, 2este arabischen (Banaka and Bapuku); Post, Afrzka- 
Heidentums, p. 108. RobertsonSmith, sche Jurdsprudenz, ii. 165 ; Hyde 

XXIX THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY a 
of driftwood or goods lost at sea or on land was considered 
the rightful owner of them; and to make good his 
possession he had only to carry ae up above high-water 
mark and put stones upon them, no matter where his 
homestead might be.t But the finder’s right to the dis- 
covered article is not always restricted to objects which 
have no owner or the owner of which is unknown: in 
some instances his era panon of it makes it his property 
in all circumstances,” whilst in other cases he at any rate 
has a claim to part of its value.® Among the Hurons 
“every thing found, tho’ it had been lost but a moment, 
belonged to the person that found it, provided the loser 
had not claimed it before.’* The Kafirs “are not 
bound by their law to give up anything they may 
have found, which has been lost by some one else. 
The loser should have taken better care of his property, 
is their moral theory.”° Among the Chippewyans 
any unsuccessful hunter passing by a trap where a deer 
is caught may take the animal, if only he leaves the 
head, skin, and saddle for the owner ;° and among the 
Tunguses whoever finds a beast in another man’s trap may 
take half the meat.’ Among the Maoris boats or canoes 
which were cast adrift became the property of the captors. 
“Even a canoe . of friends and relatives upsetting off 
a village, and drifting on shore where a village was, became 
the property of the people of that village; although it 
might be that the people in the canoe had all got safely to 
land or were coming by special invitation to visit that very 

Desoignies, in Steinmetz, Aechtsver- 

Clarke, ‘ Right of Property in Trees on 
haltnisse, -p. 281 (Msalala). Post, 

the Land of Another,’ in Jour. Anthr. 

Inst. xix. 201. 

1 Dalager, of. cet. p. 23. Rink, 
Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 
28. 

2 Nicole, in Steinmetz, Mechtsver- 
hiltnisse, p. 137 (Diakité-Sarracolese). 
Beverley, zdzd. p. 216 (Wagogo). 
Walter, zd¢d. p. 395 (natives of Nossi- 
Bé and Mayotte). Sorge, zdzd. p. 423 
(Nissan Islanders). 

3 Merker, Die Masat, p. 204. 

Grundriss der ethnol. Jurisprudenz, il. 
605. 

4 Charlevoix, Voyage to WNorth- 
America, ii. 26 sq. 
5 Leslie, Among the Zulus and 

Amatongas, Pp. 202. 

6 Schoolcraft, Archives of Aboriginal 
Knowledge, v. 177. 

7 Ratzel, Hestory of Mankind, ii. 
226, 

village.”! We have previously noticed the customary 
treatment of shipwrecked mariners in mediaeval Europe. 
And another instance of occupation establishing a right of 
property in things which already have an owner is conquest 
or capture made in war. The Romans regarded spoils 
taken from an enemy as the most excellent kind of 
property.” 

The occupation of a thing may take place in various 
ways. Hegel says that “taking possession is partly the 
simple bodily grasp, partly the forming and partly the 
marking or designating of the object.” * But there are 
still other methods of occupation, in which the bodily con- 
tact with the object is involuntary, or in which there is no 
bodily contact at all. Among the Maoris a man acquired 
a peculiar right to land ‘ by having been born on it (or, in 
their expressive language, ‘ where his navel-string was cut’), 
as his first blood (ever sacred in their eyes) had been shed 
there” ; * or, generally, ‘‘ by having had his blood shed upon 
it’; or “by having had the body, or bones, of his deceased 
father, or mother, or uterine brother or sister, deposited or 
resting on it”; or “ by having had a near relative killed, or 
roasted on it, or a portion of his body stuck up or thrown 
away upon it.” ° Among many peoples an animal belongs 
entirely or chiefly to the person who first wounded it, 

1 Colenso, Maori Races of New 
Zealand, p. 34. Polack, of. czt. p. 68 
Sg. 

ty 4 Maxima sua esse credebant quae 
ab hostibus cepissent” (quoted by 
Ahrens, Vaturrecht, ii. 137). 

> Hegel, Graundlinien der Philo- 
sophie des Rechts, § 54, p. 54; English 
translation, p. 59. 

4 Of certain tribes of Western Vic- 
toria we are likewise told that, ‘‘ should 
a child of another family have been 
born on the estate, it is looked upon as 
one of the family, and it has an equal 
right with them to a share of the land, 
if it has attained the age of six months 
at the death of the proprietor” (Dawson, 
Australian Aborigines, p. 7). The 
Rev. John Bulmer (quoted by Brough 
Smyth, Adorigznes of Victoria, i. 146) 

testifies the prevalence of such a birth- 
right among the Murray tribes, and 
suspects it is common to most of the 
tribes of Australia :—‘‘ The fact that an 
aboriginal is born in a certain locality 
constitutes a right to that part, and it 
would be considered a breach of privi- 
lege for any one to hunt over it without 
his permission. Should another black 
have been born in the same place, he, 
with the former, would have a joint 
right to the land. Otherwise, no 
native seems to have made a claim to 
any particular portion of the territory 
of his tribe.” Cf. Schurtz, ‘Die 
Anfange des Landbesitzes,’ in Zeztschr. 

J. Soctalwissenschaft, iii. 357 599. 

5 Colenso, of. czt. p. 31. See also 
Polack, of, czt. ii. 82, 

however slightly,’ or who first saw it,” even though it was 
killed by somebody else. Thus among the Greenlanders, 
if a seal or some other sea-animal escapes with the javelin 
sticking in it, and is afterwards killed, it belongs to him 
who threw the first dart ; * if a bear is killed, it belongs to 
him who first discovered it ;* and when a whale is taken, 
the very spectators have an equal right to it with the 
harpooners.° 

Besides occupation, or the taking possession of a thing, 
the keeping possession of it may establish a right of owner- 
ship. That these principles, though closely connected with 
each other, are not identical is obvious from two groups of 
facts. First, a proprietary right which is based on occupa~ 
tion may disappear if the object has ceased to remain in the 
possession of the person who had appropriated it. The 
place occupied by a nomad is his only so long as he 
continues to stay there ;° and among agricultural savages 
the cultivator frequently loses his right to the field when he 
makes no more use of it’--though, on the other hand, 
instances are not wanting in which cultivation gives pro- 

1 Dalager, op. c2t. p. 24 sg. (Green- 
landers). Boas, ‘Central Eskimo,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 582. Dall, 
Alaska, p. 394 (Aleuts). Ratzel, of. 
cet. il. 227 (Asiatic Hyperboreans). 

Campbell, Second Journey tn the Interior 

of South Africa, ii. 212 (Bechuanas). 
Livingstone, Afisstonary Travels, p. 
599 (natives of South Africa). von 
Heuglin, Reise nach Abessinien, p. 290 
sg. (Woitos). Laws of Manu, ix. 44. 
Post, Afrikanische /Jurisprudenz, il. 
163. dem, Grundriss der ethnol. 
Jurisprudenz, ii. 707 sq. Andree, in 
Globus, xxxvili, 287 sq. 

2 Boas, ‘Central Eskimo,’ in Azz. 
kep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 582. Ratzel, of. 
cit. ii. 227 (Asiatic Hyperboreans). 
See also Semper, Dée Palau-Inseln, p. 
86. 

3 Dalager, of. czt. p. 24. 

4 Rink, Zales and Traditions of the 
Eskimo, p. 29. 

5 Dalager, of. cet. p. 25. 

6 Cf Post, Afrikanische Juris- 
prudenz, ii. 167. 

7 Morgan, League of the Lroquozs, 
p- 326. Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ 
in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 366. 
Bourke, Sxzake-Dance of the Moquzs, 
p. 261. Shooter, Kajfirs of Natal, 
p. 16; Lichtenstein, 7ravels 2m Southern 
Africa, i. 271 (Kafirs). MacGregor, 
in Jour. African Soc. 1904, p. 474 

(Yoruba). Leuschner, in Steinmetz, 
Rechtsverhaltnisse, p. 25. Lang, zbzd. 
p. 264 (Washambala), Marx, zdzd. 
p- 358 (Amahlubi). Sorge,  zézd. 

(Nissan Islanders). Waitz, 
op. ctt. i. 440. Dargun, in Zeztschr. /. 
vergl. lechtswiss. v. 71 sgg. Post, 
Entwicklungsgeschichte des Familien- 
rechts, p. 283 sgg. /dem, Grundriss 
der ethnol. Jurisprudenz, i. 343 sg. 
de Laveleye-Biicher, Das Ureigenthum, 
ch. xiv. p. 270 sgg. Among the 
Rejangs of Sumatra a planter of fruit- 
trees or his descendants may claim the 
ground as long as any of the trees subsist, 
but when they disappear ‘‘ the land re- 
verts to the public ” (Marsden, of. c?¢, 

p- 245), 

Pp. 422 

THE RIGHT OF, PROPERTY, 

prietary rights of a more lasting nature.’ Loss of 
possession may, indeed, annul or weaken ownership gained 
by any method of acquisition. In the Hindu work 
Panchatantra it is said that the property in “ tanks, wells, 
ponds, temples, and choultries” will no longer rest with 
persons who once have left them.” Among the natives of 
the Sansanding States the right to a house is lost by 
its being abandoned.* In Greenland, if a man makes a fox 
trap and neglects it for some time, another may set it and 
claim the captured animal.‘ So also the finder’s title to the | 
discovered article springs from the fact that the original | 
owner’s right has been relaxed by his losing the possession | 
of it. Secondly, the retaining possession of an object for a 
certain length of time may make it the property of 
the possessor, even though the occupation of that object 
conferred on him no such right, nay though the acquisition 
of it was actually wrongful.? According to the Roman 
Law of the Twelve Tables, commodities which had been 
uninterruptedly possessed for a certain period—movables 
for a year, and land or houses for two years—became the 
property of the person possessing them.® This principle, 
known to the Romans as usucapio, has descended to 
modern jurisprudence under the name of “ prescription.” 
It also prevailed in India since ancient times. The older 
law-books laid down the rule that, if the owner of a thing 
is neither an idiot nor a minor and if his chattel is enjoyed 

1 yon Martius, Von dem Rechtszu- 
stande unter den Uretnwohnern 
Brasiliens, p. 35 sg. (Brazilian abori- 
gines). Steinmetz, Rechtsverhalinisse, 
p- 53 (Banaka and Bapuku). Kohler, 
‘ Banturecht in Ostafrika,’ in Zeztschr. 
f. vergl. Rechtswiss. xv. 48 (natives of 
Lindi). Trollope, of. czt. ii. 302 
(Kafirs). Post, Afrzkanische Juris- 
prudenz, ii. 169. Ldem, Entwick- 
lungsgeschichte des Familienrechts, p. 
285 sg. Schurtz, in Zeztschrift frir 
Soctalwessenschaft, ii. 255. Among 
the Angami Nagas any member of a 
village ‘‘may choose to leave his fields 
untilled for one year and cannot be 

ness prevent him from overtaking 
the work, his village insists on the 
fields being let” (Prain, ‘Angami 
Nagas,’ in Revue coloniale inter- 
nationale, v. 484). 

2 Panchatantram, iii. p. 15. 

3 Mademba, in Steinmetz, Rechts- 
verhalinisse, p. 91. 

4 Dalager, of. cit. p. 27. 

® See Mill, Prénciples of Political 
Economy, 1. 2723; Thiers, of. cet. p. 
108 ; Waitz-Gerland, of. czt. vi. 228 
(Maoris). 

6 Hunter, Roman Law, p. 265 sq. 
Maine, Anczent Law, p. 284. Girard, 

compelled to grow his crops during the 
next, but after that, if illness or idle- 

Manuel élémentaire de droit romain, 
p- 296 sgg. Puchta, Curses der Institu- 
tionen, il. 202 sgq. 

by another before his eyes during ten years and he says 
nothing, it is lost to him, and the adverse possessor shall 
retain it as his own property ;' but it seems that later on the 
period of prescription was extended to thirty years or even 
more.” In this connection it should also be noticed that 
the division of labour, implying the use of certain articles, 
often confers proprietary rights to those articles upon the 
persons who make habitual use of them, as in the case of 
women becoming the owners of the household goods.® 

A further source of ownership lies in the principle that 
a person has a title to the products of his own labour. 
Grotius—in criticising the Roman jurist Paulus, who long 
before Locke had made labour a justification of property, —* 
argues that this is no special mode of acquisition, but that 
the labourer’s claim to what he produces is based on 
occupation. ‘ Sincein the course of nature,” Grotius says, 
‘nothing can be made except but of pre-existing matter, 
if that matter was ours, the ownership continues when 
it assumes a new form ; if the matter was no one’s property, 
this acquisition comes under occupation ; if the matter 
belonged to another, the thing made is not ours alone.” ° 
This argument contains its own refutation. If a thing 
which we make of matter belonging to another person is 
not “ours alone,” our partial right to it can be due only 
to our labour. Again, if we make a thing of materials 
belonging to ourselves, our right to it is certainly held to 
be increased by our exertions in producing it. It should, 
moreover, be remembered that there is ownership in the 
products not only of manual but of mental labour, and in 
the latter case the ownership can hardly be considered to 
be due to occupation at all. We may say with Mr. 
Spencer that from the beginning things identified as 
products of a man’s labour are recognised as his. Even 

1 Gautama, xii. 39. Vasishtha, xvi. the rules of prescription in ancient 
16 sg. Laws of Manu, viii. 147 sg. India see also Jolly, p. 91 sgg., and 
See also Panchatantram, iii. p. 15; Kohler, Altendisches Prozessrecht, p. 
Benfey’s translation, vol. ii. 233. 55 5g. 

2 Brihaspatz, ix. 7. Jolly, ‘ Recht 3 Supra, i. 637 sgq. 
und Sitte,’? in Buehler, Grzndriss der 4 Cf. Girard, of. cit. p. 316. 

tndo-arischen Phtlologie, ii. 92. For 5 Grotius, of, ¢z¢. il. 3. 3. 

among the rudest peoples there is property 1n weapons, 
implements, dress, decorations, and other things in which 
the value given by labour bearsa specially large proportion 
to the value of the raw material.1 If a Greenlander finds 
a dead seal with a harpoon in it, he keeps the seal, but 
restores the harpoon to its owner.” Among the same 
people, when somebody has built dams across salmon- 
rivers to catch the fish, it is not considered proper for 
strangers to come and meddle with them.’ In various 
parts of Africa he who has dug a well has a right to the 
exclusive disposal of it. In West Africa, according to 
Miss Kingsley, that which is acquired or made by a man 
or woman by their personal exertions is regarded as his or 
her private property.” The Moquis of Arizona “are co- 
operative in all their labours, whether as hunters, herders, 
or tillers of the soil ; but each man gathers the spoils of his 
individual skill and daring, or the fruits of his own 
industry.” ° In the Nicobars, whilst everything which the 
village as a whole. makes or purchases is common property, 
the result of individual work belongs to the individual.’ 
In old Hindu law-books the performance of labour 
is specified as one of the lawful modes of acquiring pro- 
perty.© According to Narada, when the owner of a field 
is unable to cultivate it, or dead, or gone no one knows 
whither, any stranger who undertakes its cultivation 
unchecked by the owner shall be allowed to keep the pro- 
duce ; and if the owner returns while the stranger is 
engaged in cultivation, the owner, in order to recover his 
field, has to pay to the cultivator the whole expense incurred 
in tilling the waste.” Thus, though cultivation does not 
give a right to the land, it gives a right to the produce 

l Spencer, Prenciples of Sociology, ii. 
646. Jldem, Princeples of Ethics, ii. 
98. Cf. Waitz, of. czt. 1. 440 sq. 

2 Dalager, of. czt. p. 25. 

3 Nansen, first Crossing of Green- 
land, il. 299. 

+ Munzinger, Dee Sitten und das 
Recht der Bogos, p. 70. Lang, in 
Steinmetz, Rechtsverhalinisse, p. 264 
(Washambala). von Frangois, Nama 

und Dumara, p. 175 (Herero). 
> Kingsley, West African Studies, p. 

8 Bourke, Srake-dance of the Moguis, 
p. 260 sg. 

7 Kloss, Jz the Andamans and 
Nicobars, p. 240. 

8 Gautama, x. 42. Laws of Mant, 
xe 015. 

® Nérada, xi, 23 sq. 

——— 

_of the labour performed. Among uncivilised races we 
/ frequently find that the land itself and the crops or trees 
growing on it have different owners, the latter belonging 
to the person who planted them.' 
The right of ownership may, further, be established by 
ar ite. of_property by its owner, either by way of gift 
t by sale or exchange or some other form of contract. 
The conditions necessary for this method of acquisition 
are, that the owner shall have a right to alienate the 
article in question, and that the other party shall be 
capable of owning such property. As has been said before, 
ownership does not necessarily imply an unrestricted power 
of disposition. Property in land, for instance, is frequently 
considered inalienable ;* and, to take another example, the 
power of testation, if recognised at all, is often subject to 
restrictions.* The customary law of the Fantis of West 
Africa does not permit any person to bequeath to an out- 
sider a greater portion of his property than is left for his 
family.* Among the Maoris Jand obtained by purchase or 
conquest may be given away or willed by the owner 
to anybody he thinks fit, but the case is different with 
patrimony.® With regard to the so-called Aryan peoples 
Sir Henry Maine thinks “it is doubtful whether a true 
power of testation was known to any original society 
except the Roman.’”’ ° Even in Rome bequest seems not 
to have been permitted in pre-historic times, and afterwards 
a legitima portio was compulsorily reserved for each child." 
Such is still the law of some continental nations. 

1 Colenso, of. cé#. p. 31 (Maoris). Famdlienrechts, p. 286 sgg. Lubbock, 
Leuschner, in Steinmetz, Rechtsver- Origin of Crvilisation, p. 483 sq. 
héltnisse, p. 25 (Bakwiri). Lang, 3 Post, Grundriss der ethnol. Juris- 
zbid. p. 264 (Washambala). Munzinger,  predenz, ii. 200 sgg. Ldem, Afri- 
Die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, kantsche Jurisprudenz, ii. 19. 

p. 69. Hanoteau and Letourneux, 4 Sarbah, of. czt. p. 85. 
La Kabylie, ii. 230; Kobelt, Rezseer- > Polack, of. cet. il. 69. 
innerungen aus Algerien und Tunis, ® Maine, Azczent Law, p. 196. See 

p- 293 (Kabyles of Jurjura) Hyde also Fustel de Coulanges, La cédé 
Clarke, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xix. 199 antique, p. 95. 

sqq. Post, Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, 7 Fustel de Coulanges, of. czt. p. 96. 
tee 72) Schurtz, i in Zettschr. f. Soctal- Hunter, Roman Law, p. 780 sgq. 
wessenschaft, iil. 250 sq. Girard, of. cit. p. 854 sgq. 

2 Post, Lxtwicklungsgeschichte des 

THE RIGH TAO BROEPER GY 

44. CHAP. 

Closely connected with the restrictions imposed on 
a proprietor’s power of testation is the rule of inheritance, 
one of the most common methods of acquiring property. 
At the earlier stages of civilisation the property of a 
deceased person is not in every case subject to this rule. 
Apart from the practice of testation, which, though hardly 
primitive, is not infrequently found among savages,’ there 
are other ways of dealing with it besides inheritance. The 
private belongings of the dead, or part of them, are 
destroyed or buried with him, or his dwelling is burned 
or abandoned;? but Dr. Dargun goes too far when 
saying that among rude savages this custom is generally 
practised to such an extent as to exclude heirship in 
property altogether.? Nor must we infer the general 
prevalence of a stage where there were no definite rules of 
inheritance* from the fact that among some North 
American tribes, when a man dies leaving young children 
who are unable to defend themselves, grown-up relatives 
or other persons come in and seize whatever they please. : 
The ordinary custom of savages is that the dead man’s 
property is inherited either by his own children, if kinship 
is reckoned through the father, or by his sister’s children 
or other relatives on the mother’s side, if kinship is 
reckoned thrcugh females only.°- Sometimes the rules of 
inheritance make little or no distinction between men and 

women ;’ sometimes a decided preference is given to the 

1 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iii. 
115 sg. (Tahitians), Wilkin, in 2e- 
ports of the Cambridge Anthrop. 
Expedition to Torres Straits, v. 286 
(natives of Mabuiag). Kingsley, West 
African Studies, p. 373. Lang, in 
Steinmetz, Rechtsverhalinisse, p. 238 
(Washambala). Desoignies, zézd.. p. 
277 (Msalala). Rautanen, zdzd. p. 336 
(Ondonga). Dale, in /owr. Anthr. 
TSE MEIN 224A (OSI, 
ethnol. Jurisprudenz, ii. 199. 

2 See zzfra, on Regard for the Dead. 

3 Dargun, in Zeztschr. f. vere. 
Rechtswiss. v. 99 sqq. 

4 bid. p. 102 sg. 

5 Prescott, in Schoolcraft, 
Tribes of the United States, ir. 

Indian 
194 sg. 

Grundriss der 

(Dacotahs). Hale, U.S. Exploring Ex- 
pedition. Vol. VI. Ethnography and 
Philology, p. 208 (Salish). Dalager, 
GR ip i) 30 G8 Weve, gh Wars 
i, 176 (Greenlanders). 

6 See Westermarck, of. czt. p. 97 5qq. 

7 Kloss, op. czt. p. 241 (Nicobarese). 
Wilkin, in ep. Cambridge Anthr. 
Exped. v. 285 sg. (natives of Mabuiag). 
Wilkes, U.S. Exploring Expedition, 
v. 85 (Kingsmill Islanders). Senfft, in 
Steinmetz, Rechtsverhaltnisse, p. 441 
(Marshall Islanders). Dawson, of. c7z. 
p. 7 (certain tribes of Western Victoria). 
Post, Afrikantsche Jurisprudenz, ii. 14. 
Idem,  Entwicklungsgeschichte des 
Familienrechts, p. 299. ldem, Grund- 
riss der ethnol. Jurisprudenz, i. 225. 

an gee 
° 

THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY 

men ;* sometimes the women inherit nothing ; ? whereas in a 
few exceptional cases the women are the only inheritors.’ 
Among various savages the widow also has a share in the 
inheritance, or at any rate has the usufruct of property left 

by her deceased husband.* 

Very frequently the eldest 

son,’ or, where the maternal system of descent prevails in 

1 Sarbah, Fanti Customary Laws, 
p. 87. Post, Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, 
li. 13 sg. Jdem, Entwicklungsgeschichte 
des Familienrechts, p. 298 sq. Ident, 
Grundriss der ethnol. Jurisprudenz, i. 
222 sgg. Among several uncivilised 
peoples landed property descends 
exclusively (Macpherson, AZemortals of 
Service tn India, p. 62 [Kandhs]; 
Sumner, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxl. 
79 [Jakuts]; Curr, Zhe Australian 
Race, i. 64; Johnston, Uganda Pro- 
tectorate, ii. 694; Post, Entwick- 
lungsgeschichte des Familenrechts, p. 
298 sq. ; dem, Grundriss der ethnol. 
JSurisprudenz, i. 224) or by preference 
(Thomson, Story of New Zealand, 
i. 963; Post, Grundriss ‘der ethnol. 
Jurisprudenz, i. 224 sg.) to men. 

2 Castrén, Wordiska resor och forsk- 
ningar, i, 312 (Ostyaks). Marshall, 4 
Phrenologist amongst the Todas, p. 206. 
Hodgson, Miscellaneous Essays, 1. 
122 (Bodo and Dhimals). Hislop, 
Papers relating to the Aboriginal Tribes 
of the Central Provinces, p. 12, n. 

(Gonds). Soppitt, Account of the 
Kuki-Lushat Tribes, p. 16; Stewart, 
‘Notes on Northern Cachar,’ in Jour. 
Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxiv. 640 (Kukis). 
Risley, Census of India, 1901, vol. 1. 
Ethnographic Appendices, pp. 146 
(Santals), 156 (Mundas), 209 (most of 
the Angami Nagas). Fryer, Ahyeng 
People of the Sandoway District, p. ©. 
Marsden, of. czt. p. 244 (Rejangs). 
Eyre, Expeditions of Discovery into 
Central Australia, ii. 297. Munzinger, 
Die Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, 
p- 73. Hinde, Last of the Masaz, p. 
105; Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, 
il, 828 (Masai). Dale, in Jour. Anthr. 
Inst. xxv. 224 (Wabondei). Kingsley, 
Travels in West Africa, p. 485 (some 
West African tribes). Nassau, Petichdsm 
in West Africa, p. 13 (natives of the 
Cameroons). Leuschner, in Steinmetz, 
Rechtsverhilinisse, p. 20 (Bakwiri). 

Mademba, 262d. p. 81 (pagan Bambara). 
Lang, zdzd. p. 238 (Washambala). 
Kraft, 7zzd. p. 289 (Wapokomo). 
Rautanen, zézd. p. 335 (Ondonga). 
Decle, of. ct. p. 486 (Wakamba). 
Campbell, Zravels tx South Africa, p. 
520 (Kafirs). Post,  <A/frékandsche 
JSurisprudenz, ii. 5. Ldem, Entwick- 
lungsgeschichte des Familienrechts, p. 
296 sgqg. Idem, Grundréss der ethnol. 
Jurisprudenz, i. 218 sq. 

3 Hamy, in Bull. Soc. ad Anthr. 
LOIS, Ser. Me Vol.  among the Eskimo of Behring 
Strait, “‘if there are several sons the eldest gets the fees 

the most valuable things being given to the youngest.” 

In Greenland a foster-son inherits all the property of ee 
foster-father, if the latter dies without offspring or if his 
sons are still young children ;’ and of the West African 
Fulah we are told that, though they have sons and 
daughters, the adopted child becomes heir to all that they 
leave behind.’ Among the Kukis, in default of legitimate 
issue, a natural son succeeds to his father’s property before 
all other male relations ;” among the Bédo and Dhimals 
sons by concubinage or adoption get equal shares with sons 
born in wedlock ;'° the Wanyamwezi of Eastern Africa 
have the habit of leaving property to their illegitimate 
children by slave girls or concubines even to the exclusion 
of their issue by wives.'' Among other uncivilised peoples, 
493 sgg. Post, Grendriss der ethnol. 
JSurisprudenz, i. 218, 221 sg. Lieb- 
recht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 432 

4 Tickell, * Memoir on the 
Hodésum,’ in four. Asiatic Soc. 

African tribes). Bosman, of. cz¢. pp. 
173 (natives of the Gold Coast), 322 
(natives of the Slave Coast). 
Leuschner, in Steinmetz, Rech¢sver- 
haltntsse, p. 20 (Bakwiri). _Mademba, 

zbid. p. 81 (pagan Bambara). Desoi- 
gnies, zbzd. p. 276 (Msalala). Marx, 
zbtd. p. 355 (Amahlubi). Chanler, 
Through Jungle and Desert, p. 316 
(Rendile). Post, Afrikanische Juris- 
prudenz, ii. 12 sgg. Idem, Grendrass 
der ethnol. Jurisprudenz, i. 217, 218, 
220 Sq. 

1 Proyart, ‘ History of Loango,’ in 
Pinkerton, Collection of Voyages and 
Travels, xvi. 571. 

2 Kingsley, West African Studies, 
p- 373 5g. (some West African tribes). 
Sorge, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhaltnisse, 
p. 413 (Nissan Islanders). 

3 Risley, of. czt. p. 227 (Lusheis). 
Lubbock, Ovzgzn of Crvilsation, p. 

Bengal, ix. pt. il. 794, n.* 

DIN Oh EPS js  Aeeh Cie 
Mason, in Jour. Aszatec Soc. Bengal, 
XXXvll. pt. il. 142 (Karens). 

6 Nelson, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. 
XV111. 307. 

7 Dalager, of. cét. p. 33- 

8 Denham and Clapperton, quoted 
in Spencer’s Descriptive Sociology, 
African Races, p. 8. 

9 Stewart, in ovr. 
Bengal, xxiv. 640. 

0 Hodgson, Aéscellaneous Essays, i. 
122. 

11 Burton, Lake Regions of Central 
Africa, ii. 23 sg. Cf. Post, Afrika- 
nische Jurisprudenz, ii. 6. 

Astatic Soc. 

a ot ee 

THE RIGHF OF PROPERTY 

X X1X 47 
again, slaves cannot inherit at all,’ and where they 
are allowed to possess property the master is sometimes 
the legitimate heir of his slave.’ 

At higher stages of civilisation the rules of inheritance 
present the same characteristics as among many savages. 
During historic times, at least, the nations of culture have 
reckoned kinship through the father, and succession has 
been agnatic.? In China women only inherit in the very 
last resort, failing all male relatives.* Among the Hebrews, 
in ancient times, only sons, not daughters, still less wives, 
could inherit ;° but the later law conferred on daughters 
the right of heirship in the absence of sons.° The Muham- 
medan law of inheritance in most cases awards to a female 
a share equal to half that of a male of the same degree of 
relationship to the deceased ; ’ but according to the old law 
of Medina women could not inherit at all.6 Of all 
the ancient nations with whose rules of inheritance we are 
acquainted, the Romans seem to have been the only one 
who gave daughters the same right of inheritance as sons.° 
In India women had originally no such right at all, but in 
this, asin other matters relating to property, their position 

subsequently improved.” In Attic law sons excluded 
1 Nicole, in Steinmetz, Rechtsver- 147. Benzinger, ‘Law and Justice,’ 

hilinisse, pp. 115, 119 (Diakité- in Cheyne and Black, Eyxcyclopedia 

Sarracolese). Lang, zdzd. 238, Szblica, iii. 2728. 

242 (Washambala). Kraft, zd¢d. pp. 8 Numbers, xxvii. 8. Gans, of. cit. 

289, 291 (Wapokomo). Mautanen, i. 147. Benzinger, /oc. czt. p. 2729. 

zb¢d. p. 335 (Ondonga). Post, Grund- 
riss der ethnol, Jurisprudenz, 1. 383. 

2 Munzinger, Die Sitten und das 
Recht der Bogos, p. 73. Steinmetz, 
Rechtsverhiltnisse, p. 43 (Banaka and 
Bapuku). Mademba, zézd. p. 83 
(natives of the Sansanding States). 
Post, Grundriss der ethnol. Juris- 
prudenz, i. 383. 

3 See Westermarck, of. cz/. p. 
104. 

4 Alabaster, ‘ Law of Inheritance,’ in 

China Review, v. 193. ‘ Inheritance 
and ‘Patria Potestas” in China,’ 
zb7d. v. 400. 

5 Genesis, xxxi. 14 sg. Numbers, 
xxvii. 4. Gans, Das LErbrecht in 

weltgeschichtlicher Entwickelung, 1. 

It is only by exceptional favour that 
the daughters inherit along with the 
sons (/od, xlil. 15). 

(Koran. iv. 202, 175. Lane, 
Manners and Customs of the Modern 
Egyptians, p. 116 sg. Kohler, Rechts- 
vergleichende Studien, p. 102 sgq. 

8 Robertson Smith, Azuship and 
Marriage in Early Arabia, pp. 65, 
117. 

2 Gams, op.-cr. 1. 367° sg: Gide, 
Etude sur la condition privée de la 
femme, p. 102. 

10 Jolly, Zoc. cit. pp. 83, 86. Kohler, 

‘Indisches Ehe- und Familienrecht,’ 
in Zettschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. ili. 
424 sgq. Leist, <A/t-arisches Jus 
Civile, i. 48. 

daughters from succession," and the same was the case 
among the Scandinavian peoples still in the later Middle 
Ages.’ In England women are even to this day postponed 
to men in the order of succession to real property.’ Special 
privileges in the division of the father’s property were 
granted to the eldest son by the Hebrews * and Hindus,’ 
and traces of primogeniture are met with in ancient Greek 
legislation.® In the history of English law we find not 
only primogeniture, but ultimogeniture as well.’ As 
regards the question of legitimacy, we notice that in China 
all sons born in the household have an equal share in the 
inheritance, whether born of the principal wife or a concu- 
bine or a domestic slave.6 Among the Hebrews the sons 
of concubines had a right of inheritance,’ but whether on 
an equality with the other sons we do not know." 
According to Muhammedan law no distinction in point of 
inheritance is made between the child of a wife and that 
borne by a slave to her master, if the master acknowledge 
the child to be his own.” In Hindu legislation the legiti- 

1 Gans, op. cit. i. 338, 341. Gide, part, for the glory of the House” 
op. cit. p. 79. (‘Inheritance and ‘‘ Patria Potestas”’ 
2 Nordstrom, Szdrag till den in China,’ in China Review, v. 406; 

svenska samhalls-forfattningens histori, 
ll. 95, 190. Stemann, Den danske 
Retshistorte tndtil Christian V.’s Lov, 
p- 311 sg. Keyser, Zfterladte Skrifter, 
li. pt. 1. 330, 339. 

3 Renton, Azcyclopedia of the Laws 
of England, xi. 75. 

4 Deuteronomy, xxi. 17. Gans, op. 
cit. i. 148. Benzinger, in Cheyne and 
Black, ELncyclopedia Biblica, ili. 2729. 
Mr. Jacobs suggests (Studves tx Biblical 
Archeology, p. 49 sq.) that ultimo- 
geniture was once the rule in early 
Hebrew society, and was succeeded by 
primogeniture only when the Israelites 
exchanged their roving life for one in 
which sons became more stay-at-home. 

5 Apastamba, ii. 6. 14. 6, 12. Laws 
of Manu, ix. 114. Jolly, loc. cét. pp. 
77, 82. Maine, Dissertations on Early 
Law and Custom, p. 89 sg. In China, 
though sons inherit in equal shares, 
“it is not uncommon for the brothers 
to temporarily yield up their share to 
the elder brother, either in whole or in 

cf. Doolittle, Soczal Life of the Chinese, 
ll. 224; Davis, China, i. 343). 

6 Fustel de Coulanges, of. c2¢. p. 99. 

7 Elton, Origins of English History, 
p- 178 syg. Pollock and Maitland, 
fTistory of English Law till the Time 
of Edward f. i1. 263 sgqg. The custom 
of ultimogeniture has also been traced 
in Wales, parts of France, Germany, 
Friesland, Scandinavia, Russia, and 
Hungary (Elton, of. cz¢é. p. 180 sgq. ; 
Liebrecht, of. cz¢. p. 431 sg.). 

8 Parker, ‘Comparative Chinese 
Family Law,’ in China Review, 
vill. 79. ‘Inheritance and ‘‘ Patria 

Potestas ” in China,’ zdzd. v. 406. 
Medhurst, ‘ Marriage, Affinity, and 
Inheritance in China,’ in 7rans. Roy. 
Astatic Soc. China Branch, iv. 31. Sim- 
cox, Primitive Civilizatzons, ii. 351. 

9 Genesis, xxi. 10 sqq. 

© Benzinger, in Cheyne and Black, 
Encyclopedia Biblica, iii. 2729. 

"| Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 118. 

mate sons have the nearest right to the inheritance of their 
father, but a son begotten by a Sidra on a female slave 
may, if permitted by his father, take a share of it.! The 
Roman law on the subject may be summed up thus :— 
With regard to its father a natural child has no right at all, 
and differs in no respect from a stranger ; with regard to 
its mother it has the same right as a legitimate child.? In 
Teutonic countries the position of illegitimate children as to 
succession was much more favourable in earlier times than 
later on when Christianity made its influence felt, depriving 
them of all title to inheritance.’ Strangers were formerly 
unable both to inherit and to transmit property. Fora long 
time it was the custom in Europe to confiscate their effects 
on their death ; and not only persons who were born in a 
foreign country were subject to this droit d’aubaine, as it 
was called in France, but in some countries it was applied 
even to persons who removed from one diocese to another, 
or from the lands of one baron to another.* Indeed, it is 
only in recent times that foreigners have been placed on a 
footing of equality with citizens with regard to inheritance. 
In 1790 the French National Assembly abolished the right 
of aubaine as being contrary to the principle of a human 
brotherhood.’ Later on, when the Code Napoléon was 
drawn up, a backward step was taken by restricting the 
abolition of this right to nations who acted with reciprocity ; 
but this limitation only lasted till 1819, when all 
inequalities were finally removed in France.® In England 
it was not until 1870 that foreigners were authorised 
to inherit and bequeath like British subjects.’ 

Besides acquisition by occupation, possession for a 
certain length of time, labour, voluntary transfer, and 
inheritance, there are instances in which ownership in a 

1 Jolly, Joc. cit. p. 85. Laws of général des fiefs en France, ii. 944 59g. 

Manu, ix. 179. de Lauritre, Glossacre du  drozt 
2 Gide, of. cit. p. 567 sgg. francois, p. 47 Sq. pemena 
es 

3 Nordstrim, of. cét. ii. 67, 200 sgg.  Hastotre de la condition ctvile 
See also Alard, Condition et droits des étrangers en France, p. 107 Sqq. 
enfants naturels, pp. 9, 11; supra, 2 Demangeat, op. cit, p. 239. 

i. 8 Jbid. p. 250 sqgq. 
7 Naturalization Act, 1870, § 2. 

E 

47. 
+ Brussel, Mouvel examen de Vusage 

VOLE LE 

thing directly follows from ownership in another thing. 
It is a general rule that the owner of an object also owns 
what develops from or is produced by it.’ The owner of 
a cow owns her calf, the owner of a tree its fruits, the 
owner of a piece of land anything growing on it, at least 
if no labour has been necessary for its production. Owner- 
ship in land also gives a certain right to the wild animals 
which are found there. Among the Fantis, for instance, 
if anybody kills game on another person’s land, its pro- 
prietor is entitled to the shoulder or a quarter of such 
game.” In this connection we have further to notice the 
mode of acquisition which the Roman jurists called accessio. 
When that which belongs to one person is so intermixed 
with the property of another, that either it cannot be 
separated at all, or cannot be separated without inflicting 
damage out of proportion to the gain, the owner of the 
principal becomes the owner of the accessory, though, as a 
rule, he would have to pay compensation for it.* 

All these methods of acquisition apply not only to 
individual property but to common property as well. 

Occupation may establish ownership whether there be. 

many occupants or only one ; joint labour may lead to 
joint ownership in the produce ; property may be trans- 
ferred to a body of persons as well as to a single indi- 
vidual. But the custom which prescribes community of 
goods may also itself be an independent method of 
acquisition : by belonging to an association of people who 
hold property in common a person may be part owner of 
a thing which has been occupied or produced by some 
other member of the association. Communism of one 
kind or another is undoubtedly a very ancient institution,’ 
though its prevalence at the lower stages of civilisation has 
otten been exaggerated.’ But the whole question of 

1 See Post, Grundriss der ethnol. 4 Cf. Kovalewsky, TZuableau des 
Jurisprudenz, ii. 612; Goos, Foreles- origines et de V &volution de la famille et 
ninger over den almindelige Retslere, de la propriété, p- 51 sgq. ; 

ii. 159 599. ° Dr. Dargun (in Zeztschr. f. vergl, 

* Sarbah, of. czt. p. 48. Rechtswiss. v. 76, &c.) even goes so 

* Hunter, Roman Law, p. 274 sq. far as to say that savages know of no 

St 

i 

common ownership is too complicated and lies too much 
apart from our special subject to admit of a detailed treat- 
ment. 

From the statement of facts we shall now proceed to an 
explanation of these facts. First, why do men recognise 
proprietary rights at all? Why do the moral feelings of 
mankind grant to certain persons a right to the exclusive 
disposal of certain things, in other words, why does the 
disposal of an object without the consent of the person 
called its owner give rise to moral disapproval? The 
‘“‘right of property,” it is true, is generally used as a term 
for a legal right. But in this, as in so many other cases, 
the legal right is essentially a formulated expression’ of 
moral feelings. 

As Mr. Spencer observes, the desire to appropriate, and 
to keep that which has been appropriated, lies deep not 
only in human but in animal nature, being, indeed, a 
condition of survival.' Sticklebacks show obvious signs 
of anger when their territory is invaded by other stickle- 
backs.?. Birds defend their nests against the attacks of 
intruders.* The dog fights for his kennel or for the prey 
he has caught. A monkey in the Zoological Gardens of 
London, which made use of a stone to open nuts, always 
hid it in the straw after using it, and would not allow any 
other monkey to touch it. We find the same propensity 
in man from his earliest years. At the age of two, 
Tiedemann’s son did not let his sister sit on his chair or 
take any of his clothes, though he had no scruples against 
appropriating things which belonged to her.” Owing to 
this tendency to keep an appropriated object, and to resist 
its abstraction, it is dangerous for an individual to try to 
seize anything held by another of about equal strength ; 

other property but such as belongs to  p. 68. 

individuals; but this statement is 4 Darwin, Descent of Alan, i. 125. 
hardly justified by facts. See also Fischer, ‘ Notes sur lintelli- 
1 Spencer, Principles of Sociology, gence des singes,’ in Revue sceentifique, 
li. 644. Xxxll. 618. ai 
BU Pal. 22) > Compayré, L’évolution tntellectuelle 

3 Perty, Das Seelenleben der Thtere, et morale de Penfant, p. 312. 
E 9 

and in human societies this naturally led to the habit of 
leaving each in possession of whatever he had attained, 
especially in early times when the objects possessed were of 
little value, and there was no great inequality of wealth.’ 
This habit was further strengthened by various circum- 
stances, all of which tended to make interference with other 
persons’ possessions the subject of moral censure. From 
both prudential and altruistic motives parents taught their 
children to abstain from such interference, and this, by 
itself, would readily give rise to the notion of theft as a 
moral wrong. Society at large also tried to prevent acts 
of this kind, partly in order to preserve peace and order, 
partly out of sympathy with the possessor. Resentment 
is felt not only by him who is deprived of his possession, 
but by others on his behalf. This is seen even among 
some of the lower animals. The Pomeranian dogs of 
German carters watch the goods of their masters ;* Mr. 
Romanes’s terrier protected meat from other terriers, his off- 
spring, which lived in the same house with him, and with 
which he was on the very best of terms ;* Captain Gordon 
Stables’s cat, which had her place on the table at meals, 
never allowed any unauthorised interference with the 
viands.* In men such sympathetic resentment naturally 
develops into genuine moral disapproval. 

All this applies not only to proprietary rights based on 
occupation, but also to the principle of continued 
possession as a ground of ownership. Indeed, the longer a 
person is in possession of a certain object, the more apt are 
both he and other individuals to resent its alienation ; whereas 
the loss or abandonment of a thing has a tendency to 
loosen the connection between the thing and its owner.® 
This is undoubtedly the chief source of the rule of pre- 

_ |) Cf. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, 
ii. 634, 644; Dargun, in Zez¢tschr. f,. 
vergl. Rechtswiss. v. 79 sg.3 von 
Martius, Beztraége zur LEthnographie 
Amertka’s, i. 88, 90. 

2 Peschel, Races of Man, p. 240, 

3 Romanes, ‘ Conscience in Animals,’ 
in Quarterly Journal of Sctence, xiii. 
D5Oqte 

4 <Studies in Animal Life,’ in 
Chambers's Journal, 1884, p. 824. 

> Cf. Hume, Treatise of Human 
Nature, i. 3 (Philosophical Works, 
il. 274) :—** What has long lain under 
our eye, and has often been em- 
ployed to our advantage, ¢hat we are 
always the most unwilling to part 
with.” 

scription, though there may be other circumstances as well 
which help to justify it. Thus it has been said that it is 
necessary to the security of rightful possessors that they 
should not be molested by charges of wrongful acquisition 
when by the lapse of time witnesses must have perished 
or been lost sight of, and the real character of the transac- 
tion can no longer be cleared up ;' whilst another argument 
adduced in favour of prescription is, that long possession 
generally implies labour and that labour gives ownership. 
The reason why property is gained by labour is obvious 
enough. Not only do exertions in producing an object 
make the producer desirous to keep it and to have the exclu- 
sive disposal of it, but an encroachment upon the fruit of 
his labour arouses sympathetic resentment in outsiders, who 
feel that an effort deserves its reward. 

As the recognition of ownership thus ultimately springs 
from a desire in the owner to keep and dispose of what he 
has appropriated or produced, it is evident that, in 
ordinary circumstances, there would be no moral dis- 
approval of a voluntary transfer of property to another 
person. But the case is different if such a transfer is 
injurious to the interests of persons who have a special 
claim to consideration. ‘Thus testation is frequently held 
to be inconsistent with the duties which parents owe to 
their children or other near relatives to one another. The 
father, though the lord of the family’s possessions, may 
indeed be regarded only as the first magistrate of an 
association, and in such a case his share in the division 
naturally devolves on the member of the family who 
succeeds to his authority.» The right of inheritance, then, 
may be intimately connected with the idea that the heir 
was, in a manner, joint owner of the deceased person’s 
property already during his lifetime.‘ But there are 

1 Mill, Préncéples of Political Econ- op. cit. i. 274. Kovalewsky, Coztame 

ony, 1. 272. contemporaine et lot anctenne, p. 198 
4 Thiers, of. cz. p. 103) 597. (Ossetes). 
3 Plato, Leges, xi. 923. Maine, 4 It is interesting to note that in the 
Ancient. Law, p. 184. Fustel de Chinese penal code stealing from a 
Coulanges, of. cit. p. 85. Leist, relative is punished less severely than 

Alt-arisches Jus Civile, ii. 48. Mill, other cases of theft, and that the 

various other facts which account for the existence of this 
right. In early civilisation the rule of succession is part of 
a comprehensive system of rights and duties which unite 
persons of the same kin. Professor Robertson Smith 
observes that in ancient Arabia .all persons on whom the 
duty of blood-révenge lay originally had the right of. 
inheritance ;! and a similar connection between inheritance 
and blood-revenge is found among other peoples. This 
system of mutual rights and duties is generally one-sided, 
it has reference either to paternal or to maternal relatives, 
but not to both at once. Now, whatever be the reason why 
the one or the other method of reckoning kinship prevails 
among a certain people, it is in the present place sufficient 
to point out the influence which the idea of a common 
descent exercises upon the right of inheritance owing to its 
power of knitting together the persons to whom it refers. 
Besides, the duty connected with this right may also be of 
such a nature as to require a certain amount of wealth for 
its performance ; among the Hindus, Greeks, and Romans, 
the right to inherit a dead man’s property was exactly co- 
extensive with the duty of performing his obsequies and 
offering sacrifices to his spirit. A further cause of 
children inheriting their father’s property may be that they, 
to some extent, have previously been in joint possession of 
it ; for, as we know, possession readily leads to ownership. 
They would have an additional claim to succeed to his 
property when it had been gathered by their labour, as well 
as his, or when they stood in need of the support which it 
had been the father’s duty to give them had he been alive. 
Moreover, where a person’s children are present on the spot 
at his death, they are apt to be the first occupants of his 

mitigation of the punishment is pro- 
portionate to the nearness of the 
relationship (Za Zszng Lew Lee, sec. 
cclxxiil. p. 287). The reason for this 
is that, ‘‘according to the Chinese 
patriarchal system, a theft is not in this 
case a violation of an exclusive right, 
but only of the qualified interest which 
each individual has in his share of the 
family property” (Staunton, zézd. p. 

PAIS inl *\\. 

' Robertson Smith, Azuship and 
Marriage in Early Arabia, pp. 55, 56, 
66 sq. 

* Laws of Manu, ix. 186 sg. Isaeus, 
Oratio de Philoctemonis heredttate, 51. 
Cicero, De legibus, ii. 19 sg. Fustel 
de Coulanges, of. czt. p. 84. Maine. 
Ancient Law, p. 191 sq. 

a a ee oy eel 

eet 

X XIX THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY Os 
property ; ‘and we have noticed the importance of first 
occupancy as a means of establishing proprietary_rights. 
The influence of these latter considerations, which are inde- 
pendent of the method of tracing descent, is apparent from 
the fact that among several peoples inheritance runs in the 
male line even though children take the mother’s name and 
are considered to belong to her clan.’ -It may be added 
that a reason which modern writers often have assigned for 
giving the property of a person who dies intestate to his 
children or other near relatives is the supposition that in so 
disposing of it the law is only likely to do what the pro- 
prietor himself would have done, if he had done any- 
thing.® 

In details the rules of succession are influenced by 
a variety of circumstances. Women may be excluded from 
inheritance or receive a smaller share than the men because 
the latter, being the stronger party, appropriate everything 
or the larger portion of the property for themselves ; * or 
because the women are less in need of property, being sup- 
ported by their male relatives or husbands ;° or because 
they are exempt from the heaviest duties connected with 
kinship, as the duty of blood-revenge ; ° or, as was the case 
in the feudal system, because a female tenant is naturally 
unable to attend the lord in his wars ;’ or for the purpose 
of preventing the estate from passing to another family or 
tribe. The idea of keeping together the property of the 
house also largely lies at the bottom of the rule of primo- 

1 Cf. Mill, of. czt. i. 274. 

2 Westermarck, Astory of Human 
Marriage, pp. 104, III. 

3? Hume, 7yeatzse of Human Nature, 
ii. 3 (Philosophical Works, ii. 280). 
Godwin, Lnguiry concerning Political 
Justice, ii. 438. Mill, of. czt. i. 275. 

4 Cf. Campbell, Zravels tn South 
Africa, p. 520 (Kafirs). 

Pa Gym Granzam Opa cite lel 7. On ( Green- 

landers) ; Macpherson, AZemortals of 

Service in India, p. 62 (Kandhs) ; 
Hinde, of. czt. p. 51 (Masai) ; ‘ Inherit- 
ance and ‘‘ Patria Potestas ” in China,’ 
in China Review, v. 406; Jolly, oc. 
cit. p. 83 (ancient Hindus); Post, 

Entwicklungsgeschichte des Famzlien- 
rechts, p. 296 sg.; Ldem, Grundriss 
der ethnol. Jurtsprudenz, i. 218 sq. 

6 Cf. Robertson Smith, Azushzp ana 
Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 65 59. ; 
Stemann, Dez danske Retshtstorte 
imatil Christian V.’s Lov, p. 311 sg. 

7 Cf. Cleveland, Woman under the 
English Law, p. 83. 

8 Shortland, 7radztions and Supei- 
stetions of the New Zealanders, p. 256. 
Kingsley, Travels in West Africa, 
p- 485. Post, Grundriss der ethnol. 
Jurisprudenz, i. 214. Cf. Numbers, 
XXXVI. I Sg. 

geniture. Besides, the eldest son is the most respected 
“among the children, sometimes he is regarded quite as a 
sacred being. On the death of the head of the family he 
is generally better suited than anybody else to take his 
place ; and his privileged position with regard to inheritance 
is justified by the duties connected with it, especially the 
duty of looking after and supporting the other members of 
the household.? In feudalism, where tenancy implied duties 
as well as rights, it was also, from the lord’s point of view, 
the simplest arrangement that when a tenant died?a 
single person should fill the vacant place.’ But there are 
many other points of view which may determine the rules 
of succession. It may be thought just that each child 
should have an equal share in the inheritance, and that 
something should be given also to the widow, whose main- 
tenance devolved on the husband and who, whilst he was 
alive, had been in joint possession of many of his belongings. 
Or the youngest son may be the chief or the exclusive heir, 
partly perhaps for the sake of preventing a division of the 
property, or because the lord would have but one tenant,‘ 

but partly also because he had remained with his father till - 

his death,’ or “‘on the plea of his being less able to help 
himself on the death of the parents than his elder brethren, 
who have had their father’s assistance in settling them- 
selves in the world during his lifetime.’® The 
Wanyamwezi, again, justify the practice of leaving property 

1 Supra, i. 605, 606, 614. Gill, 
Life in the Southern Isles, p. 46 sq. 

4 iDalerese, Gh Ge jX0, Bo, Bib 
Cranz, op. cit. 1. 176 (Greenlanders), 

son nearly always inherits his father’s 
house, because sons, when marrying, 
leave the paternal mansion and build 
houses of their own (zézd. p. 209). It 

Munzinger, Dze Sztten und das Recht 
der Bogos, p. 74. Hinde, of. cz. 
p- 51 (Masai). Of the Bagdis of 
Bengal Mr. Risley expressly says 
(op. cit. p. 183) that the extra share 
which is given to the eldest son ‘‘ seems 
to be intended to enable him to support 
the female members of the family, who 
remain under his care.” 

3 Pollock and Maitland, of. cz¢. ii, 
274. 
4 bid. ii. 280. 

® Risley, of. czt. p. 227 (Lusheis). 
Among the Angami Nagas the youngest 

has been suggested that the custom 
of ultimogeniture ‘‘would naturally 
arise during the latter stages of the 
pastoral period, when the elder sons 
would in the ordinary course of events 
have ‘set up for themselves’ by the 
time of the father’s death” (Jacobs, 
Studies in Biblical Archeology, p. 47 ; 
Gomme, quoted zbzd. p. 47, n. 1; 
Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws 
of England, ii. 70 sq.). 

6 Tickell, in Jour. Aszatic Soc. 
Bengal, ix. pt. ii. 794, n.* 

————— 

a ee ee) ae pee ee ae we 

= 

xix THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY ka 

to their illegitimate children by slave girls or concubines, 
to the exclusion of their legitimate offspring, ‘“ by the fact 
of the former requiring their assistance more than the 
latter, who have friends and relatives to aid them.’ ! 
Generally there seems to be aclose. connection between 
illegitimate children’s. right to-inheritance and the legal 
recognition of polygamous practices. This is indicated by 
a comparison between Oriental and Roman legislation on 
the subject, and, in Teutonic countries, between ancient 
custom and the later law, which was influenced by 
Christianity’s horror of sexual acts falling outside the 
monogamous marriage relation. The privileges which 
Hindu law grants to the illegitimate children of Sddras are 
due to the notion that the marriage of a member of this 
caste is itself considered to be of so low a nature as to be on 
a par with irregular connections.” 

Of the incapacity of children, wives, and slaves to acquire 
property for themselves little needs to be said, in the 
present connection, by way of explanation. Their ex- 
clusion from the right of independent ownership is an 
incident of their subjection to their parents, husbands, or 
masters. But we must remember that, whilst the latter 
have a right to dispose of the earnings of their subordi- 
nates, they also have the duty of supporting them, and that 
in early civilisation the child and the wife, sometimes 
even the slave,® are practically, as it were, joint owners of 
goods which in theory belong to the head of the family 
alone. 

We have still to explain the variations of moral judg- 
ments with regard to different acts of theft. That the 
condemnation of the offence varies in degree according to 
the value of the stolen goods follows from the fact that 
theft is disapproved of on account of the injury done to 
the owner. But in many cases, when the injury is very 
slight, the appropriation of another person’s property 1s 

1 Burton, Lake Regions of Central 3 Volkens, of. czt. p. 249 (Wad- 
Africa, il. 23 59. shagga). 
2 Jolly, loc. czt. p. 85. 

justified by the needs of him who took it. And frequently, 

also, the condemnation of the thief is more concerned with 
his encroachment upon a neighbour’s right than with 
measuring the exact amount of harm inflicted. Among 
the Basutos, says Casalis, “the idea of theft is expressed 
by a generic word which refers to the violation of right, 
much more than to the damage caused.”' Burglary is 
regarded as an aggravated form of theft partly because it 
adds a fresh offence, the illicit entering into another person’s 
house, to that against property, partly because it proves 
great premeditation in the offender.’ Robbery is likewise a 
double offence, implying, as it does, an act of violence, and 
may on that account be more severely censured than 
ordinary theft ; but in other cases the courage and strength 
displayed by the robber is looked upon as a mitigating 
circumstance and sometimes substitutes admiration for dis- 
approval, whereas the secret offender is despised as a 
coward. So, too, the secrecy of nocturnal theft may 
aggravate the crime, whilst at the same time the difficulty 
in providing against it may induce society to increase the 
punishment. But men are apt to admire not only bravery 
and force, but also dexterity and pluck, hence the apprecia- 
tion of adroit theft. The same tendency in some measure 
accounts for the distinction between manifest and non- 
manifest theft ; but here we have in the first place to 
remember that strong emotions are more easily aroused by 
the sight of an act than by the mere knowledge of its com- 
mission.» That the moral valuation of theft varies accord- 
ing to the station of the thief and the person robbed is due 
to the same causes as are similar variations with regard to 
other injuries ; and so is the distinction between offences 
against the property of a tribesman or fellow-countryman 
and offences against the property of a stranger. The 
theory of the Roman jurists according to which the property 
of an enemy in war belongs to nobody as long as the 
hostilities last and therefore becomes the property of the 

Casalis, Basutos, p. 304. Teutons). 
Cf. Wilda, of. cit. p. 878 (ancient 3 Supra, i. 204. 

THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY 

captor by the right of occupation,’ is only a play with words 
intended to give a reasonable justification to a practice. 
which is really due to lack of regard for the feelings 
of strangers. When men at an early stage of civilisation 
respect a stranger’s property the motive is undoubtedly in 
the main prudential. Savages may be anxious to prevent 
theft from a neighbouring tribe in order to avoid dis- 
agreeable consequences.” And I venture to think that the 
honesty they often display with regard to objects belonging 
to strangers who visit them, and especially with regard 
to things left in their charge,® largely springs from super- 
stitious fear. We have noticed before that even the 
acceptance of gifts is supposed to be connected with 
supernatural danger, owing to the baneful magic energy 
with which the gift is suspected to be saturated. Would 
not the same apply to the illicit appropriation of a 
stranger's belongings, and especially to trusts, which 
naturally call for great precaution on the part of the 
owner? This leads us to a subject of considerable import- 
ance in the history of property, namely, the influence which 
magic.and_.religious beliefs have exercised on the regard for 
proprietary rights. 

Theft is not only punished by men, but is supposed to be 
avenged by supernatural powers. The Alfura of Halmahera 
are said to be honest only because they fear that they other- 
wise would be subject to the punishment of spirits.° The 
natives of Efate, in the New Hebrides, maintained that 
theft was condemned by their gods.° In Aneiteum, another 
island belonging to the same group, thieves were supposed 
to be punished after death.’ In Netherland Island they 

1 Hunter, Roman Law, p: 257. pine Islands, p. 413 (Mangyans) ; 
Puchta, of. ct. 11. 220. Colenso, of. czt. p. 43 (Maoris) ; 
2 Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Macdonald, Light in Africa, jon ie 
Savage Life, p. 159 (Ahts). Scott (Bantu); Campbell, Zravels tn South 

Robertson, Kdjirs of the Hindu- Kush, 
. 440. 

3 See, besides statements referred to 
above, Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, 
i. 420, and ii. 477; Nordenskiold, 
Vegas fird kring Asien och Europa, ii. 
140 sg. (Chukchi) ; Worcester, PAz/ep- 

Africa, p. 517, and Leslie, Among the 
Zulus and Amatongas, p. 201 (Kafirs). 

4 Supra, i. 593 59. 

5 Kiitkenthal, Forschungsreise a den 
Molukken, p. 188. 

8 Macdonald, Oceanza, p. 208. 

7 Turner, Samoa, p. 326. 

were said to go to a prison of darkness under the earth ;' 
according to the beliefs of the Banks’ Islanders they were 
excluded from the true Panoi or Paradise.? On the Gold 
Coast, ‘if a man had property stolen from his house, he 
might go to the priest of the local deity he was accustemed 
to worship, state the loss that had befallen him, make an 
offering of a fowl, rum, and eggs, and ask the priest to 
supplicate the god to punish the thief.”° In Southern 
Guinea fetishes are inaugurated to detect and punish certain 
kinds of theft, and persons who are cognisant of such 
crimes and do not give information about them are also 
liable to be punished by the fetish. The Bechuanas speak 
of an unknown being, vaguely called by the name of Lord 
and Master of things (Mongalinto), who punishes theft. 
One of them said :—‘“‘ When it thunders every one 
trembles ; if there are several together, one asks the other 
with uneasiness, Is there any one amongst us who devours 
the wealth of others? All then spit on the ground saying, 
We do not devour the wealth of others. If a thunderbolt 
strikes and kills one of them, no one complains, no one 
weeps ; instead of being grieved, all unite in saying that the 
Lord is delighted (that is to say, he has done right) with 
killing that man ; we also say that the thief eats thunder- 
bolts, that is to say, does things which draw down upon men 
such judgments.’’° According to the Zoroastrian Yasts, 
Rashnu Razista was “the best killer, smiter, destroyer of 
thieves and bandits.” ® In ancient Egypt property was 
under the protection of the god Ptah.” In Greece Zeus 
xTnovos was a guardian of the family property ;® and accord- 
ing toa Roman tradition the domestic god repulsed the 
robber and kept off the enemy.? The removing of land- 

© MEO FOr Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, p. 

a ee 

* Codrington, Melanesians, p. 274. 

> Ellis, 7shz-speaking Peoples of the 
Gold Coast, p. 75. See also Cruick- 
shank, of. cit. ii. 152, 160, 184; 
Schultze, Der Fetzschismus, p. 91. 

* Wilson, Western Africa, p. 275. 

® Arbousset and Daumas, Zxplora- 
tory Tour to the North-East of the 

322 sq. 

8 Vasts, xii. 8. 

" Tiele, History of the Egyptian 
Religion, p. 229. 

® Aeschylus, Supplices, 445. Farnell, 
Cults of the Greek States, i. 55. 

9 Ovid, Fastz, v. 141. 

THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY a 

marks has frequently been regarded as sacrilegious.’ It was 
strictly prohibited by the religious law of the Hebrews.’ 
In Greece boundaries were protected by Zeus 8pios- Plato 
says in his ‘Laws’ :—“Let no one shift the boun- 
dary line either of a fellow-citizen who is a neighbour, or, 
if he dwells at the extremity of the land, of any stranger 
who is conterminous with him. . . . Every one should be 
more willing to move the largest rock which is not a land- 
mark, than the least stone which is the sworn mark of friend- 
ship and hatred between neighbours ; for Zeus, the god of 
kindred, is the witness of the citizen, and Zeus, the god of 
strangers, of the stranger, and when aroused terrible are 
the wars which they stir up. He who obeys the law will 
never know the fatal consequences of disobedience, but he 
who despises the law shall be liable to a double penalty, the 
first coming from the Gods, and the second from the law.’’® 
The Romans worshipped Terminus or Jupiter Terminalis 
as the god of boundaries.* According to an old tradition, 
Numa directed that every one should mark the bounds of 
his landed property by stones consecrated to Jupiter, 
that yearly sacrifices should be offered to them at the festi- 
val of the Terminalia, and that, ‘if any person demolished 
or displaced these bound-stones, he should be looked upon 
as devoted to this god, to the end that anybody might kill 
him as a sacrilegious person with impunity and without 
being defiled with guilt.”° In the higher religions theft of 
any kind is frequently condemned as a sin. 

This religious sanction given to ownership is no doubt 
in some measure due to the same circumstances as, in cer- 
tain cases, make morality in general a matter of divine 

1 Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant, 
p. 166 sqq. 

2 Deuteronomy, xix. 143 xxvii. 17. 
Proverbs, xxii. 28 ; xxill. 10 sg. Hosea, 
Wa lOsmenC [on /O0s EX1V 61 2s 

3 Plato, Leges, viii. 842 sg. Demos- 
thenes, Oratzo de Halonneso, 39, p. 86. 
See also Hermann, Désputatio de ter- 
mints eorumague religione apud Grecos, 
passim. 

4 Ovid, Fastz, ii. 639 sgg. Festus, 

De verborum significatione, ‘Termino.’ 
Lactantius, Dzvzne Institutiones, i. 10 
(Migne, Patrologie cursus, vi. 227 599.). 
Pauly, Real-Encyclopidie der classtschen 
Alterthumswissenschaft, vi. pt. i. 1707 
sqq. Fowler, Roman Festivals of the 
Period of the Republic, p. 324599. 

5 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, A7/2- 
quitates Romane, ii. 74. Plutarch, 
Numa, xvi. 1. Festus, of. cet. ‘Ter- 
mino.’ 

cohcern—a subject which will be dealt with in a future 
chapter. But there are also special reasons which account 
for it. Partly it has its origin in magic practices, particu- 
larly in the curse. . aan 

Cursing is a frequent method of punishing criminals who. 
cannot be reached in any other way.’ In the Book of 
Judges we read of Micah’s mother who had pronounced a 
curse with reference to the money stolen from her, and 
afterwards, when her son had confessed his guilt, hastened 
to render it ineffective by a blessing.” In early Arabia the 
owner of stolen property had recourse to cursing in order 
to recover what he had lost. In Samoa “the party from 
whom anything had been stolen, if he knew not the thief, 
would seek satisfaction in sitting down and deliberately 
cursing him.” * The Kamchadales ‘“ think they can punish 
an undiscovered theft by burning the sinews of the stone- 
buck in a publick meeting with great ceremonies of con- 
juration, believing that as these sinews are contracted by 
the fire so the thief will have all his limbs contracted.” ° 
Among the Ossetes, if an object has been secretly stolen, 
its owner secures the assistance of a sorcerer. They proceed 
together to the house of any person whom they suspect, 
the sorcerer carrying under his arm a cat, which is regarded 
as a particularly enchanted animal. He exclaims, “If thou 
hast stolen the article and dost not restore it to its owner, 
may this cat torment the souls of thy ancestors!”» And 
such an imprecation is generally followed by a speedy resti- 
tution of the stolen property. Again, if their suspicions 
rest upon no particular individual, they proceed in the same 
manner from house to house, and the thief then, knowing 
that his turn must come, frequently confesses his guilt at 
once." A common mode of detecting the perpetrator of a 
theft is to compel the suspected individual to make oath, 

1 See, ¢.g., Mason, in Jour. Asiatic nesta, Bb Ruck. 

Soc. Bengal, XXXVI. pt. 11. 149 (Karens). ° Krasheninnikoff, Hestory of Kam- 
> Judges, Vile 2s Schatka, p. 179 sq. he 
3 Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Her- 6 von Haxthausen, 7varscazicasia, p 
dentumts, p. 192. 398 sg. oe 

4 Turner, (Vineteen Years in Poly- 

oe oan 

XXKIX 

that is to say, to pronounce a conditional curse upon 
himself. 

Cursing is resorted to not only for the purpose of 
punishing thieves or compelling them to restore what they 
have stolen, but also as a means of preventing theft. In 
the South Sea Islands it is a common practice to protect 
property by making it /z4o0, and the tabooing of an object 
is, as Dr. Codrington puts it, ‘a prohibition with acurse 
expressed or implied.”” The curse is then, in many cases, 
deposited in some article which is attached to the thing or 
place it is intended to protect. The mark of taboo, in 
Polynesia called rahui or raui, sometimes consists of a 
cocoa-nut leaf plaited in a particular way,® sometimes of a 
wooden image of a man ora carved post stuck in the 
ground,* sometimes of a bunch of human hair or a piece of 
an old mat,’ and so forth. In Samoa there were various 
forms of taboo which formed a powerful check on stealing, 
especially from plantations and fruit-trees, and each was 
known by a special name indicating the sort of curse which 
the owner wished would fall on the thief. Thus,if a man 
desired that a sea-pike should run into the body of the 
person who attempted to steal, say, his bread-fruits, he 
would plait some cocoa-nut leaflets in the form of a sea- 
pike, and suspend it from one or more of the trees which 
he wanted to protect. This was called the ‘“ sea-pike 
taboo” ; and any ordinary thief would be terrified to touch 
a tree from which this was suspended, believing that, if he 
did so, a fish of the said description would dart up and 
mortally wound him the next time he went tothe sea. The 
‘‘white shark taboo”’ was done by plaiting a cocoa-nut 
leaf in the form of a shark, and was tantamount to an 

1 von Struve, in Das Ausland, 1880, 
p. 796 (Samoyedes). Worcester, Phz/zp- 
pine Islands, p. 412 (Mangyans of 
Mindoro). Turner, Vineteen Years tn 
Polynesia, \. 292 sg. (Samoans). 
Bosman, of. cit. p. 125 (Negroes of 
the Gold Coast). Bowdich, Afsston 
to Ashantee, p. 267 ; &c. 

2 Codrington, Melaneszans, p. 215. 

3 Taylor White, in Jour. Polynesian 

OC. 1. 275. 

4 Hamilton, Maori Art, p. 102; 
Thomson, Story of New Zealand, i. 
102; Polack, op. cz¢. ii. 70 (Maoris). 
Ellis, Polynestan Researches, ili. 116 
(Tahitians). 

5 Thomson, of. cz¢. 1. 102 (Maoris). 
See also Colenso, of. cit. p. 34(Maoris) ; 
Ellis, Polynesian Researches, 11. 201 
(Tahitians). 

expressed imprecation that the thief might be devoured by 
the white shark when he went to fish. The “ cross-stick 
taboo,” again, consisted of a stick suspended horizontally 
from the tree, and meant that any thief touching the tree 
would have a disease running right across his body and 
remaining fixed there till he died.’ Exactly equivalent to 
the taboo of the Pacific Islanders is the pomali of the 
natives of Timor; “a few palm leaves stuck outside a 
garden as a sign of the pomali will preserve its produce 
from thieves as effectually as the threatening notice of man~ 
traps, spring-guns, or a savage dog, would do With tSsees 
Among the Santals, whenever a person “ is desirous of pro- 
tecting a patch of jungle from the axes of the villagers, or 
a patch of grass from being grazed over, or a newly sown 
field from being trespassed upon, he erects a bamboo in his 
patch of grass or field, to which is affixed a tuft of straw, 
or in the case of jungle some prominent and lofty tree has 
the same prohibitory mark attached, which mark is well 
understood and strictly observed by all parties interested.” ° 
So also in Madagascar “on rencontre sur les chemins, on 
voit dans les champs de longs batons munis a leur sommet 
d’un paquet d’herbes et qui sont plantés en terre soit pour 
interdire le passage du terrain soit pour indiquer que les 
recoltes sont réservées a l’usage d’individus déterminés.”’ 4 
Among the Washambala the owner of a field sometimes 
puts a stick wound round with a banana leaf on the road to 
it, believing that anybody who without permission enters 
the field “will be subject to the curse of this charm.” ® 
The Wadshagga protect a doorless hut against burglars by 
placing a banana leaf over the threshold, and any mali- 
ciously inclined person who dares to step over it is sup- 
posed to get ill or die. The Akka ‘‘stick an arrow in a 
bunch of bananas still on the stalk to mark it as their own 

* Tumer, Weneteen Years in Poly- Bengal, xx. 568. 

MeStA, P. 294 Sqq. 4 van Gennep, Zabou et totémisme a 
* Wallace, Malay Archipelago, p. Madagascar, ». 184 sqq. 

149 sq. > Lang, in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhilt- 
3 Sherwill, ‘Tour through the Raj- ‘ zzsse, p. 263. 

mahal Hills,’ in /owr. Astatic Soc. § Volkens, of. cit. p. 254. 

eT 

when ripe,” and then not even the owner of the tree would 
think of touching the fruit so claimed by others.1. Of the 
Barotse we are told that “ when they do not want a thing 
touched they spit on straws and stick them all about the 
object.” * When a Balonda has placed a beehive on a tree, 
he ties a “piece of medicine” round the trunk, and this 
will prove sufficient protection against thieves.’ Jacob of 
Edessa tells us of a Syrian priest who wrote a curse and 
hung it on a tree, that nobody might eat the fruit.* In the 
early days of Islam a masterful man reserved water for his 
own use by hanging pieces of fringe of his red blanket on 
a tree beside it, or by throwing them into the pool ;° and 
in modern Palestine nobody dares to touch the piles of 
stones which are placed on the boundaries of landed 
property.© The old inhabitants of Cumana on the Carib- 
bean Sea used to mark off their plantations by a single 
cotton thread, in the belief that anybody tampering with 
these boundary marks would speedily die.’ A similar idea 
seems still to prevail among the Indians of the Amazon. 
Among the Juris a traveller noticed that in places where the 
hedge surrounding a field was broken, it was replaced by a 
cotton string ; and when Brazilian Indians leave their huts 
they often wind a piece of the same material round the 
latch of the door.* Sometimes they also hang baskets, rags, 
or flaps of bark on their landmarks.” In these and in 
various other instances just referred to it is not expressly 
stated that the taboo mark embodies a curse, but their 
similarity to cases in which it does so is striking enough to 

1 Junker, 7vavels in Africa during 
the Years 1882-1886, p. 86. 

2 Decle, op. czt. p. 77. 

3 Livingstone, MMZzsstonary Travels, 
p. 285. 

4 Robertson Smith, Religion of the 
Semites, p. 164, n. I. 

SIGE Vy BRXC rs soe 

6 Pierotti, Customs and Traditions 
of Palestine, p. 95 sg. According to 
Roman sources (Dégesta, xlvii. 11. 9), 
there was in the province of Arabia an 
offence called cxomeAtouds, which con- 
sisted in laying stones on an enemy’s 

VOL. II 

ground as a threat that if the owner 
cultivated the land ‘‘ malo leto periturus 
esset insidiis eorum, qui scopulos 
posuissent” ; and so great was the fear 
of such stones that nobody would go 
near a field where they had been put. 

7 Gomara, Primera parte de la 
historia general de las Indias, ch. 79 
(Biblioteca de autores espafioles, xxii. 

206). 
8 yon Martius, Vor dem Rechts- 
sustande unter den Uretnwohnern 

Brasiliens, p. 37 5. 
SS Nepheke (he eve, 

‘a THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY 

preclude much doubt about their real meaning. It 1s true 
that an object which is sacred by itself may, on that account, 
protect everything in its neighbourhood sient Morocco any 
article deposited in the horm of a saint is safe, and among 
pagan Africans the same effect 1s produced by using fetishes 
as protectors of fields or houses.” But a thing of inherent ! 
holiness may also be chosen for taboo purposes for the 
reason that its sanctity is supposed to give particular 
efficacy to any curse with which it may be loaded. 

We have previously noticed another method of charging a 
curse with magic energy, namely, by giving it the form of an 
appeal to a supernatural being.’ So also spirits or gods are 
frequently invoked in curses referring to theft. On the 
Gold Coast, ‘‘ when the owner of land sees that some one 
has been making a clearing on his land, he cuts the young 
inner branches of the palm tree and hangs them about the 
place where the trespass has been committed. As he hangs 
each leaf he says something to the following effect : ‘The 
person who did this and did not make it known to me 
before he did it, if he comes here to do any other thing, 
may fetish Katawere (or Tanor or Fofie or other fetish) 
kill him and all his family.’”* In Samoa, in the case of 
a theft, the suspected persons had to swear before the : 
chiefs, each one invoking the village god to send swift 
destruction if he had committed the crime ; and if all had 
sworn and the culprit was still undiscovered, the chiefs 
solemnly made a similar invocation on behalf of the 

Le a atl ne ee ree 

1 Gf van Gennep, of. cit. p. 185 
(natives of Madagascar). It was an 
ancient Roman usage to inter the dead 
in the field belonging to the family, 
and in the works of the elder Cato 
there is a formula according to which 
the Italian labourer prayed the manes to 
take good care against thieves (Fustel 
de Coulanges, op. czt. p. 75). Cicero 
says (Pro domo, 41) that the house of 
each citizen was sacred because his 
household gods were there. 

2 Rowley, Africa Unveiled, Ps Waele 
Bastian, Afrikanische Reisen, p. 78 sq. 
Nassau, Fetichism in West Africa, 
p. 85. Cf Schneider, Dee Religion 

der afrikanischen Naturvolker, }). 230. 
If we knew the ceremonies with which 
magicians transform ordinary material 
objects into fetishes, we might perhaps 
find that they charge them with curses. 
Dr. Nassau says (of. cit. p. 85) :—‘‘ For 
every human passion or desire of every 
part of our nature, for our thousand 
necessities or wishes, a fetich can be 
made, its operation being directed to 
the attainment of one specified wish.” 
See also Schultze, Der Fetischismus, 
p. Icg. 

3 Supra, i. 564. 

4 Jour. African Soc. no. xviii, 
January, 1906, p. 203. 

thief.1. The Hawaiians seem likewise to have appealed to 
an avenging deity in certain cursing ceremonies, which 
they performed for the purpose of detecting or punishing 
thieves.” In ancient Greece it was a custom to dedicate 
a lost article to a deity, with a curse for those who kept 
it. Of the Melanesian taboo, again, Dr. Codrington 
observes that the power at the back of it ‘is that of the 
ghost or spirit in whose name, or in reliance upon whom, 
it is pronounced.” * In Ceylon, ‘to prevent fruit being 
stolen, the people hang up certain grotesque figures around 
the orchard and dedicate it to the devils, after which none 
of the native Ceylonese will dare even to touch the fruit 
on any account. Even the owner will not venture to use 
it till it be first liberated from the dedication.” °® On the 
landmarks of the ancient Babylonians, generally consisting 
of stone pillars in the form of a phallus, imprecations were 
inscribed with appeals to various deities. One of these 
boundary stones contains the following curse directed 
against the violator of its sacredness :—‘ Upon this man 
may the great gods Anu, Bél, Ea, and Nusku, look 
wrathfully, uproot his foundation, and destroy his off- 
spring ’’; and similar invocations are then made to many 
other gods.° 

Now we can understand why gods so frequently take 
notice of offences against property. They are invoked in 
curses uttered against thieves ; the invocation in a curse 
easily develops into a genuine prayer, and where this is the 
case the god is supposed to punish the offender of his own 
free will. Besides, he may be induced to do so by offerings. 
And when often appealed to in connection with theft, a 
supernatural being may finally come to be looked upon as 
a guardian of property. This, for instance, I take to be 
the explanation of the belief prevalent among the Berbers 

! Turner, Samoa, p. 19. dem, + Codrington, of. cet. p. 215. 
Nineteen Years in Polynestu, p. 292 5 Percival, Account of the [sland of 
Sq. Ceylon, p. 198. , 

2 Jarves, Hestory of the Hawazian 6 Trumbull, Zhe Threshold Covenant, 
Islands, :. 20. p. 166 sg. Hilprecht, quoted zézd. 

3 Rouse, Greek Votive Offerings, p. 167 sqq. 

P- 339: 

of Haha, in Southern Morocco, that some of the local 
saints punish thieves who approach their sanctuaries, even 
though the theft was committed elsewhere ; being con- 
stantly appealed to in oaths taken by persons suspected of 
theft, they have become the permanent enemies of thieves. 
We can, further, understand why in some cases certain 
offences against property have actually assumed the char- 
acter of a sacrilege, even apart from such as are committed 
in the proximity of a supernatural being. Curses are some- 
times personified and elevated to the rank of divine agents ; 
this, as we have seen, is the origin of the Erinyes of parents, 
beggars, and strangers, and of the Roman divi parentum 
and dii hospitales ; and this is also in all probability the 
origin of the god Terminus,’ Or the curse may be trans- 
formed into an attribute of the chief god, not only because 
he is frequently appealed to in connection with offences of a 
certain kind, but also because such a god has a tendency to 
attract supernatural forces which are in harmony with his 
general nature. This explains the origin of conceptions 
such as Zeus épzos and Jupiter Terminalis, as well as the 

extreme severity with which Yahweh treated the removal | 

of landmarks. In all these cases there are indications of a 
connection between the god and a curse. Apart from 
other evidence to be found in Semitic antiquities, there is 
the anathema of Deuteronomy, ‘Cursed be he that re- 
moveth his neighbour's landmark.” ‘That the boundary 
stones dedicated to Zeus dpvos were originally charged 
with imprecations appears from a passage in Plato’s 
‘Laws’ quoted above,* as also from inscriptions made on 
them.* The Etruscans cursed anyone who should touch 
or displace a boundary mark :—Such a person shall be 
condemned by the gods; his house shall disappear ; his 
race shall be extinguished ; his limbs shall be covered with 
ulcers and waste away ; his land shall no longer produce 

1 Cf. Festus, op. cet. ‘ Termino’ :— 
‘“Numa Pompilius statuit eum, qui 
terminum exarasset, et ipsum, et boves 
sacros esse.” 

* Deuteronomy, xxvii. 17. Cf, 
Genesis, XXxl. 44 sgq. 

# Plato, -Leves, vill. 8432) "see 
outkpoy AlOoy dpiCovra didraty Kab ExOpav 
évopkov Tapa beay.” 

* Xenophon, Axnabasis, v. 3. 13. 
Hermann, Disputatio de terminis apud 
Grecos, p. 11. 

fruits ; hail, rust, and the fires of the dog-star shall destroy 
his harvests.‘ Considering the important part played by 
blood as a conductor of imprecations, it is not improbable 
that the Roman ceremony of letting the blood of a sacrificial 
animal flow into the hole where the landmark was to be 
placed ° was intended to give efficacy to a curse. In some 
parts of England a custom of annually ‘beating the 
bounds” of a parish has survived up to the present time, 
and this ceremony was formerly accompanied by religious 
services, in which a clergyman invoked curses on him who 
should transgress the bounds of his neighbour, and blessings 
on him who should regard the landmarks.® 

The practice of cursing a thief may possibly even lie at 
the bottom of the belief of some savages that such a 
person will be punished after death. In a following chap- 
ter we shall notice instances where the efficacy of a curse 
is supposed to extend beyond the grave. But we shall 
also find other reasons for savage doctrines of retribution 
in the world to come. In the cases referred to above it is 
not expressly said that the post mortem punishment of the 
thief is inflicted by a god. 

I have here only dealt with rules relating to property 
which have been recognised by custom or law. But the 
established principles of ownership have not always been 
admitted to be just: in the civilised countries of the 
West they have called forth an opposition which is rapidly 
gaining in strength. The limited scope of the present 
work does not allow me to attempt a detailed account of 
this movement, with its variety of arguments and its 
multitudinous schemes of reform. ‘The main reasons for 
complaint are :—first, that our actual law of property does 
not ensure to every labourer the whole produce of his 
labour ; secondly, that it does not provide for every want 

1 Rei agraria auctores legesque varie, 8 Dibbs, ‘ Beating the Bounds,’ in 
edited by Geesius, p. 258 sg. Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, N.S. 

2 Siculus Flaccus,-‘ De conditionibus xx. (1853) 49 sgg. Trumbull, Ze 
agrorum,’ in ez agrarie auctores, Threshold Covenant, p. 174 sq. 

Bs, 

a satisfaction proportionate to the available means. How- 
ever much the opinions of the different schools of socialists 
may vary, every socialist organisation of property aims 
either at guaranteeing to the working-classes the entire 
product of their industry, or at reducing to just propor- 
tions individual needs and existing means of satisfaction by 
recognising the claim of every member of society to the 
commodities and services necessary to support existence, 
in preference to the satisfaction of the less pressing wants 
of others.! These aims are greatly hampered by the present 
system, in which land and capital are the property of private 
individuals freely struggling for increase of wealth, and 
especially by the legally recognised existence of unearned 
income 2—the “rent ” of the Saint-Simonians, the ‘‘ surplus 
value” (Mehrwert) of Thompson and Marx,—for which 
the favoured recipient returns no personal equivalent to 
society, and which he is able to pocket because the wage 
labourer receives in money-wages less than the full value 
of the produce of his work. We have here a conflict 
between different principles of acquisition. Both the rule 
that the owner of a thing also owns what results from it, 
and the law of inheritance, leading as they do to unearned 
income, are intruding upon the principle of labour as a 
source of property. They, moreover, interfere with the 
right to subsistence, which in some measure, though often 
insufficiently, is recognised in all human societies ; for, 
as Marx observed, the accumulation of wealth at one pole 
means the accumulation of misery at the opposite pole.‘ 
This conflict between different principles or rights, all of 
which have deep foundations in human nature and the 
conditions of social life, has been brought about by certain 

' See Menger, Right to the whole thn. xviii. 294) and the Greenlanders 
Produce of Labour, p. 5 sgq.; Goos, op. (Rink, Eskimo Tales, Dee2Qasge)yit cat 
cet. il, 61. man borrows an article from another 

2 The term ‘‘unearned income” and fails to’ return it, the owner is not 
(arbertsloses Einkommen) has been pro- entitled to claim it back, as they con- 
posed by Menger (of. c7t. p. 3). sider that when a person has enough 

3 See supra, ch. xxiii., vol. i. 526 property to enable him to lend some of 
sgq. Among the Eskimo about Behring it he has more than he needs. 

Strait (Nelson, in Azz. Rep, Bur. * Marx, Capital, p. 661, 

ea ps THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY aa 

facts inherent in progressive civilisation. In simple societies 
the unearned income is small, because no fortunes exist, 
and the wants of those who are incapable of earning their 
own livelihood are provided for by the system of mutual 
aid. Progressinculture,..on..theother..hand,. hasbeen 
accompanied by a more unequal distribution of wealth, 
and also by a decreaseof social solidarity as-a result of  
the increasé-and greater differentiation of the social unit. 
The unearned income has grown larger, the disproportion 
between the returns on capital and the reward for labour 
has in many cases become enormous, and hand in hand 
with the opulence of some goes the destitution of others. 
At the same time the injustice of prerogatives based on 
birth or fortune is keenly felt, the dignity of labour is 
recognised, and the working-classes are every day becom- 
ing more conscious both of ‘their power and their rights. 
All this has resulted in a strong and wide-spread conviction 
that the actual law of property greatly differs from the 
ideal law. But much struggle will no doubt be required 
to bring’ them in harmony with one another. The present 
rights of property are supported not only by personal in- 
terests, but also by a deep-rooted feeling, trained in the 
school of tradition, that it would be iniquitous of the 
State to interfere with individuals’ long-established claims 
to use at their pleasure the objects of wealth. The new 
scheme, on the other hand, derives strength from the fact 
that it aims at rectifying legal rights in accordance with 
existing needs, and that it lays stress on a method of 
acquisition which more than any other seems to appeal to 
the natural sense of justice in man. We are utterly unable 
to foresee in detail the issue of this struggle. But that 
the law of property will sooner or later undergo a radical 
change must be obvious to every one who realises that, 
though ideas of right and wrong may for some time out- 
live the conditions from which they sprang, they cannot 
do so for ever. 

f

THE REGARD FOR TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH 

Tue regard for truth implies in the first place that we 
ought to abstain from lying, that is, a wilful misrepre- 
sentation of facts, by word or deed, with the intention of 
producing a false belief. Closely connected with this duty 
is that of good faith or fidelity to promises, which requires. 
that we should make facts correspond with our emphatic 
assertions as to our conduct in the future. Within certain 
limits these duties seem to be universally recognised, 
though the censure passed on the transgressor varies 
extremely in degree. But there are also many cases in 
which untruthfulness and bad faith are looked upon with 
indifference, or even held laudable or obligatory. 

Various uncivilised races are conspicuous for their great 
regard for truth ; of some savages it is said that not even 
the most trying circumstances can induce them to tell a 
lie. Among others, again, falsehood is found to be a pre- 
vailing vice and the successful lie a matter of popular 
admiration. 

All authorities agree that the Veddahs of Ceylon are models 
of veracity. They “are proverbially truthful and honest,” 1 
They think it perfectly inconceivable that any person should 
say anything which is not true.? Mr. Nevill writes, “I never 
knew a true Vaedda to tell a lie, and the Sinhalese give them 
the same character.”® Messrs, Sarasin had a similar ex- 
1 Bailey, ‘* Wild Tribes of the Re Hartshorne, in Z7dzan Antiguary, 
Veddahs of Ceylon,’ in Trans. Ethn. viii. 320. 
Soc. N.S. ii. 201. 3 Nevill, in Taprobanian, i. 193. 

perience :—“ The genuine Wood-Wedda always speaks the 
truth ; we never heard a lie from any of them; all their 
statements are short and true.”! A Veddah who had com- 
mitted murder and was tried for it, instead of telling a lie in 
order to escape punishment, said simply nothing. 

Other instances of extreme truthfulness are provided by 
various uncivilised tribes in India. The Saoras of the province 
of Madras, “like most of the hill people,-. . . are not inclined 
to lying. If one Saora kill another he admits it at once and 
tells why he killed him.? The highlander of Central India is 
described as “the most truthful of beings, and rarely denies 
either a money obligation or a crime really chargeable against 
him.” * <A true Gond “ will commit a murder, but he will not 
tell a lie.’® The Kandhs, says Macpherson, “are, I believe, 
inferior in veracity to no people in the world. . . . It is in all 
cases imperative to tell the truth, except when deception is 
necessary to save the life of a guest.””® And to break a solemn 
pledge of friendship is, in their opinion, one of the greatest sins 
a man can commit.’ The Korwas inhabiting the highlands 
of Sirguja—though they show great cruelty in committing 
robberies, putting to death the whole of the party attacked, even 
when unresisting—“ have what one might call the savage virtue 
of truthfulness to an extraordinary degree, and, rightly accused, 
will at once confess and give you every required detail of the 
crime.” ‘The Santals are noted for veracity and fidelity to 
their word even in the most trying circumstances.? A Kurubar 
“always speaks the truth.” !? Among the Hos “a reflection on 
a man’s honesty or veracity may be sufficient to send him to 
self-destruction.” 14 Among the Angami Nagas simple truth is 
highly regarded ; it is rare for a statement to be made on oath, 
and rarer still for it to be false.12 In the Chittagong Hills the 
Tipperahs are the only people among whom Captain Lewin 

1 Sarasin, Forschungen auf Ceylon, 
ili. 541. Cf. zbcd. iii. 542 sg. ; Schmidt, 
Ceylon, p. 270. 

2 Sarasin, of. czt. iil. 543. 

® Fawcett, Saoras, p. 17. 

4 Forsyth, AHzghlands of Central 
nace pepe 10d eC} anczd map.) 3015 

Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections of 

an Indian Official, ii. 109; Hislop, 
Aboriginal Tribes of the Central 
Provinces, p. I. 
5 Dalton, L£thnology of Bengal, 
p. 284. Cf. Forsyth, of. cit. p. 155. 
§ Macpherson, ‘ Religious Opinions 
and Observances of the Khonds,’ in 

Jour. Roy. Astatic Soc. vii. 196. 

7 Macpherson, Memordals of Service 
in India, p. 94. 

8 Dalton, of. cz¢. p. 230. 

9 Elliot, ‘Characteristics of the 
Population of Central and Southern 
India,’ in Jour. Ethn, Soc. London, 
N.S. i. 106 sg. 

10 bid. i. 105. 

1 Dalton, of. ezt. p. 206. 
p. 204 sg.; Bradley - Birt, 
Nagpore, p. 103. 

1 Prain, ‘ Angami Nagas,’ in Revue 
colontale internationale, v. 490. 

Cf. zbid. 
Chota 

has met with meanness and lying;! and they, too, have 
previously been said to be, “as a rule, truthful and simple- 
minded.”2 The Karens of Burma have the following 
traditional precept :—“ Do not speak falsehood. What you do 
not know, do not speak. Liars shall have their tongues cut 
out.”? Among the Bannavs of Cambodia “severe penalties, 
such as slavery or exile, are imposed for lying.” * 

The Andaman Islanders call falsehood yubda, that is, sin or 
wrong-doing.® The natives of Car Nicobar are not only very 
honest,® but “the accusation of untruthfulness brings them up 
in arms immediately.”7 The Dyaks of Borneo are praised for 
their honesty and great regard for truth. Mr. Bock states that 
if they could not satisfactorily reply to his questions they 
hesitated to answer at all, and that if he did not always get the 
whole truth he always got at least nothing but the truth from 
them.® Veracity is a characteristic of the Alfura of Halma- 
hera!® and the Bataks of Sumatra, who only in cases of urgent 
necessity have recourse to a lie.1! The Javanese, says Crawfurd, 
“are honourably distinguished from all the civilised nations of Asia 
by a regard for truth.” 12 “In their intercourse with society,” 
Raffles observes, ‘ they display, in a high degree, the virtues of 
honesty, plain dealing, and candour. “Their ingenuousness is such 
that, as the first Dutch authorities have acknowledged, prisoners 
brought to the bar on criminal charges, if really guilty, nine 
times out of ten confess, without disguise or equivocation, the 
full extent and exact circumstances of their offences, and 
communicate, when required, more information on the matter 
at issue than all the rest of the evidence.” ® Among the natives 

' Lewin, Wild Races of South- the Western Coast of India,’ in Jour. 

»CHAP. 

Eastern India, p. 191. 

2 Browne, quoted by Dalton, of. cit. 
p. 110. 

> Smeaton, Loyal Karens of India, 
p- 254. 

* Comte, quoted by Mouhot, Zravels 
zm Indo-China, Cambodia, and Laos, 
li. 27. For the truthfulness of the 
uncivilised races of India see also 
Sleeman, of. czt. ii. 110 sgg. ; Dalton, 
op. cit. p. 256 (Oraons); Crooke, 
Tribes and Castes of the North-Western 
Provinces, ii. 478 (Habtira); Fraser, 
Tour through the Himala Mountains, 
pp. 264 (inhabitants of Kunawur), 335 
(Bhoteas); Iyer, in the Madras 
Government Museum’s Bulletin, iv. 
73 (Nayadis of Malabar); Walhouse, 
“Account of a Leaf-wearing Tribe on 

Anthr. Inst, iv. 379 (Koragars). 

> Man, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 
Tr2: 

§ Distant, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iii. 4. 

7 Kloss, Jz the Andamans and 
Nicobars, p. 227 sg. 

8 Ling Roth, Watives of Sarawak, 
i. 66-68, 82. Boyle, Adventures 
among the Dyaks of Borneo, p. 215. 
Selenka, Sonnige Welten, p. 47. 

® Bock, Head-Hunters of Borneo, 
p. 209. 

10 Kiikenthal, Horschungsrezse in den 
Molukken, p. 188. 

ae Junghuhn, Battalinder auf Suma- 
tra, Nl. 239. 

 Crawfurd, Aistory of the Indian 
Archipelago, i. 50. ; 

Raffles, Hestory of Java, i. 248: 

aK TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH wns 

of the Malay Archipelago there are some further instances of 
trustworthy and truthful peoples ;! whereas others are described 
as distrustful and regardless of truth. Thus the natives of 
Timor-laut lie without compunction when they think they can 
escape detection,? and of the Niase it is said that “truth is 
their bitter enemy.” 4 

Veracity and probity were conspicuous virtues among various 
uncivilised peoples belonging to the Russian Empire. Georgi, 
whose work dates from the eighteenth century, says of the 
Chuvashes that they “content themselves with a simple 
affirmation or denial, and always keep their word” ;° of the 
Barabinzes, that “lying, duplicity, and fraud, are unknown 
among them” ;° of the Tunguses, that they “always appear 
to be what they really are,” and that “lying seems to them 
the absurdest thing in the world, which prevents them being 
either suspicious or necessitated to accompany their affirmations 
by oaths or solemn protestations” ;7 of the Kurilians, that 
they always speak the truth “with the most scrupulous 
fidelity.” ® Castrén states that the Zyrians, like the Finnish 
tribes generally, are trustworthy and honest,® and that the 
Ostyaks have no other oaths but those of purgation. Among 
them “witnesses never take the oath, but their words are 
unconditionally believed in, and everybody, with the exception 
of lunatics, is allowed to give evidence. Children may witness 
against their parents, brothers against brothers, a husband 
against his wife and a wife against her husband.” 1° 

The Aleuts were highly praised by Father Veniaminof for 
their truthfulness :—-“‘ These people detest lying, and never 
spread false rumours. . . . They are very much offended if any 
one doubts their word.” ‘They “despise hypocrisy in every 
respect,” and “do not flatter nor make empty promises, even in 
order to escape reproof.”" ‘The regard in which truth is held 
by the Eskimo seems to vary among different tribes. 
Armstrong blames the Western Eskimo for being much 

1 Riedel, De sluik- en kroesharige 4 Modigliani, Viaggzo a WVias, p. 467. 

rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 90 
(Serangese). St. John, Zzfe in the 
Forests of the Far East, ii. 322 (Malays 
of Sarawak). 

2 Marsden, 7story of Sumatra, 
p. 209 (natives of the interior of 
Sumatrajoes Riedelj of. c2z7. py 314 
(natives of the Luang-Sermata group). 
Steller, De Sangi-Archipel, p. 23. 

3 Forbes, 4 Waturalist’s Wanderings 
in the Eastern Archipelago, p. 320. 

5 Georgi, Russia, 1. 110 

6 /bid. i. 229. 

7 Tbid. iii. 78. Cf. tid. ili. 109. 

8 [bid. iii. 192. Cf. Krasheninnikoff, 
History of Kamschatka, p. 236. 

9 Castrén, Mordiska resor och forsk- 
ningar, \. 257. 

10 Jbzd, i. 309 sq. 

1 Veniaminof, quoted by Dall, A/aska, 
pp- 396, 395. 

A ctmy 

addicted to falsehood, and for seldom telling the truth, if there 
be anything to gain by a lie+ The Point Barrow Eskimo 
“are in the main truthful, though a detected lie is hardly 
considered more than a good joke, and considerable trickery is 4 
practised in trading.”2 Of the Eskimo at Igloolik, an island : 

. 

near Melville Peninsula, we are. told that ‘their lies consist 
only in vilifying each other’s character, with false accusations of 
theft or ill behaviour. When asking questions of an individual, 
it is but rarely that he will either advance or persist in an 
untruth. . . . Lying among them is almost exclusively con- 
fined to the ladies.”? In his description of the Eskimo on the 
western side of Davis Strait and in the region of Frobisher Bay, 
Mr. Hall says that they despise and shun one who will 
shag-la-voo, that is, “tell a lie,” and that they are rarely 
troubled by any of this class The Greenlanders are generally 
truthful towards each other, at least the men.® But if he can 
help it, a Greenlander will not tell a truth which he thinks 
may be unpleasant to the hearer, as he is anxious to stand on as 
good a footing as possible with his fellow-men.® 
The Thompson River Indians of British Columbia maintain 
that it is bad to lie, that if you do so people will laugh at you 
and call you a “liar.”? Speaking of the Iroquois, Mr. Morgan 
says that the love of truth was a marked trait of the Indian 
character. ‘This inborn sentiment flourished in the period of 
their highest prosperity, in all the freshness of its primeval 
purity. On all occasions and at whatever peril, the Iroquois 
spoke the truth without fear and without hesitation. Dis- 
» simulation was not an Indian habit. . . . The Iroquois prided 
themselves upon their sacred regard for the public faith, and 
, punished the want of it with severity. when an occasion 
} presented itself’? § Loskiel likewise states that they considered 
? lying and cheating heinous and scandalous offences.?_ Among the 
_ Chippewas there were a few persons addicted to lying, but these 

1 Armstrong, Dzscovery of the North- 
West Passage, p. 196 sq. 
2 Murdoch, ‘ Ethnological Results 

6 Nansen, Zskimo Life, p. 101. 
Ldem, First Crossing of Greenland, 
ll. 334 5g. 

of the Point Barrow Expedition,’ in 
Ann, Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 4t. 

3 Lyon, Private Journal during the 
Voyage of Discovery under Captain 
Parry, P» 349. 

4 Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 567. 

> Dalager, Grénlandske Relationer, 
p- 69. Cranz, History of Greenland, 
1 171, 175. Nansen, Eskimo Life, 
p- 158. 

* Teit, ‘Thompson Indians of British 
Columbia,’ in AZemoirs of the American 
Museum of Natural History, Anthro- 
pology, i. 366. 

8 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 
PP: 335, 338. 

° Loskiel, History of the Mission of 
the United Brethren among the Indians 
in North America, i. 16, 

Bs Se 

were held in disrepute.!. The Shoshones, a tribe of the Snake 
Indians, were frank and communicative in their intercourse 
with strangers, and perfectly fair in their dealings.2 The 
Seminole Indians of Florida are commended for their truthful- 
ness.2 With special reference to the Navahos, Mr. Matthews 
observes, “As the result of over thirty years’ experience among 
Indians, I must say that I have not found them less truthful 
than the average of our own race.”4 Among the Dacotahs 
lying “is considered very bad” ; yet in this respect “ every one 
sees the mote in his brother’s eye, but does not discover the 
beam that is in his own,”® want of truthfulness and habitual 
dishonesty in little things being prevalent traits in their 
character. So, also, the Thlinkets admit that falsehood is 
criminal, although they have recourse to it without hesitation 
whenever it suits their purpose.’ Of the Chippewyans, again, 
it is said that they carry the habit of lying to such an extent, 
even among themselves, that they can scarcely be said to 
esteem truth a virtue.* The Crees are “not very strict in 
their adherence to truth, being great boasters.”® Heriot 1° and 
Adair! speak of the treacherous or deceitful disposition of the 
North American Indians; but the latter adds that, though 
“ privately dishonest,” they are “‘ very faithful indeed to their 
own tribe.” 

Of the regard in which truth is held by the Indians of South 
America the authorities I] have consulted have little to say. 
The Coroados are not deceitful.!2 The Tehuelches of Pata- 
gonia nearly always lie in minor affairs, and will invent stories 
for sheer amusement. ‘In anything of importance, however, 
such as guaranteeing the safety of a person, they were very 
truthful, as long as faith was kept with them. After a time,” 
Lieutenant Musters adds, “when they ascertained that I in- 
variably avoided deviating in any way from the truth, they left 
off lying to me even in minor matters, ‘This will serve to 
show that they are not of the treacherous nature assigned to 

1 Keating, Zxpedition to the Source 
of St. Peter's River, ii. 168. 

2 Lewis and Clarke, Travels to the 
Source of the Missouri River, p. 300. 

3 Maccauley, ‘Seminole Indians of 
Florida,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. v. 

iT 
"5 Matthews, ‘ Study of Ethics among 
the Lower Races,’ in Jour. of American 
Frolk-Lore, xi. 5. 

5 Schoolcraft, Jndian Tribes of the 
United States, ii. 196. 

8 Eastman, Dacotah, p. xvii. 

7 Douglas, quoted by Petroff, Report 
on Alaska, p. 177. 

8 Richardson, Arctic Searching Ex- 
pedition, ii. 18. Cf. zbzd. ii. 19. 

9 Richardson, in Franklin, Journey 
to the Shores of the Polar Sea, p. 63. 

W Heriot, Zravels through the Cana- 
das, p. 319. 

N Adair, History of the American 
Indians, p. 4. 

22 von Spix and von Martius, 77ravels 
in Brazil, ii. 242. 

them by some ignorant writers.’1 Among the Fuegians, 
according to Mr. Bridge, no one can trust another, lying tales 
of slander are very common, great exaggeration is used, and it 
is not even considered wrong to tell a lie.2 Snow, however, 
speaks of “the honesty they undoubtedly evince in many of 
their transactions”; and Darwin states that the Fuegian boy 
on board the Beagle “showed, by going into the most violent 
passion, that he quite understood the reproach of being called a 
liar, which in truth he was.” 4 

Of the Australian aborigines we are told that some tribes 
and families display on nearly all occasions honesty and 
truthfulness, whereas others “seem almost destitute of the 
better qualities.”> According to Mr. Mathew, they are not 
wantonly untruthful, although one can rely on them being 
faithful to a trust only on condition that they are exempt from 
strong temptation.© Mr. Curr admits that under some circum- 
stances they are treacherous, and that it costs them little pain 
to lie ; but from his own observations he has no doubt that the 
black feels, in the commencement of his career at least, that 
lying is wrong.’ Mr. Howitt has found the South Australian 
Kurnai “ to compare not unfavourably with our own people in 
their narration of occurrences, or as witnesses in courts of 
justice as to facts. Among them a person known to disregard 
truth is branded as a liar (jet-bo/an).”® Among the aborigines 
of New South Wales people who cause strife by lying are 
punished, and “liars are much disliked”; Dr. Fraser was 
assured by a person who had had much intercourse with them 
for thirty years that he never knew them to tell a lie.29 Among 
the tribes of Western Victoria described by Mr. Dawson liars 
are detested ; should any man, through lying, get others into 
trouble, he is punished with the boomerang, whilst women 
and young people, for the same fault, are beaten with 
a stick.!° In his description of his expeditions into Central 
Australia Eyre writes, “In their intercourse with each other I 

1 Musters, At Home with the Pata- 
gonians, p. 195 sg. 

2 Bridges, in A Votce for South 
America, xiil. 202 sg. Cf. Hyades and 
Deniker, Atsston scientifique du Cap 
Horn, vil. 242; King and Fitzroy, 
Voyages of the ‘* Adventure” and 
“¢ Beagle,” ii. 188. 

3 Snow, TZwo Years’ Cruise off 
Tierra del Fuego, i. 347. . 

4 Darwin, Journal of Researches, p. 

Bor 

° Brough Smyth, Adorigines of Vic- 
torta, i. 25. 

° Mathew, ‘Australian Aborigines,’ 
in Jour. and Proceed. Roy. Soc. N.S. 
Wales, xxiii. 387. 

7 Curr, Australian Race, i. 43, 100. 

8 Fison and Howitt, Kamdlarod and 
Kurnat, p. 256. 

® Fraser, Abcrigines of New South 
Wales, pp. 41, 90. : 

10 Dawson, Australian Aborigines, 

p- 76. 

have generally found the natives to speak the truth and act 
with honesty, and they will usually do the same with Europeans 
if on friendly terms with them.”! With regard to West 
Australian tribes Mr, Chauncy states that they are certainly 
not remarkable for their treachery, and that he has very seldom 
known any of them accused of it. He adds that they are 
“habitually honest among themselves, if not truthful,” and 
that, during his many years’ acquaintance with them, he does 
not remember ever hearing a native utter a falsehood with 
a definite idea of gaining anything by it. “If questioned on 
any subject, he would form his reply rather with the view of 
pleasing the enquirer than of its being true; but this was 
attributable to his politeness.” ? According to a late Advocate- 
General of West Australia, “ when a native is accused of any 
crime, he often acknowledges his share in the transaction with 
perfect candour.”® Very different from these accounts is 
Mr. Gason’s statement concerning the Dieyerie in South 
Australia. ‘A more treacherous race,” he says, “I do not 
believe exists. “They imbibe treachery in infancy, and practise 
it until death, and have no sense of wrong init... . They 
seem to take a delight in lying, especially if they think it will 
please you. Should you ask them any question, be prepared for 
a falsehood, as a matter of course. “They not only lie to the 
white man, but to each other, and do not appear to see any 
wrong in it.”* The natives of Botany Bay and Port Jackson 
in New South Wales are by older writers described as no 
strangers to falsehood.? And speaking of a tribe in North 

ueensland, Mr. Lumholtz observes that “an Australian 
native can betray anybody,” and that “there is not one among 
them who will not lie if it is to his advantage.” ° 

According to Mr. Hale, the Polynesians are not naturally 
treacherous, by no means from a horror of deception, but 
apparently from a mere inaptitude at dissembling ; and it is said 
that the word of a Micronesian may generally be relied upon.’ 
To the Tonga Islanders a false accusation appeared more 
horrible than deliberate murder does to us, and they also put this 

1 Eyre, Expeditions of Discovery tnto 
Central Australia, i. 385. 

2 Chauncy, quoted by Brough Smyth, 
Cpe lie 27/5, 201 C/o) Oldheld, 
‘Aborigines of Australia,’ in Zyazs. 
Ethn. Soc. N.S. iii. 255. 

3 Moore, quoted by Brough Smyth, 
op. cit. li. 278. 

4 Gason, ‘ Dieyerie Tribe of Austra- 
lian Aborigines,’ in Woods, WVatzve 

Tribes of South Australia, p. 257 sq. 

5 Collins, Anglish Colony in New 
South Wales, i. 6009. Barrington, 
History of New South Wales, p. 22. 

6 Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 
100. 

7 Hale, U.S. Exploring Expedition. 
Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology, 
pp: 16, 73- 

principle into practice! We are told by Polack that among the 
Maoris of New Zealand lying is universally practised by all 
classes, and that an accomplished liar is accounted a man of con- 
summate ability.2 But Dieffenbach found that, if treated with 
honesty, they were always ready to reciprocate such treatment Se 
and, according to another authority, they believed in an evil 
spirit whom they said was “a liar and the father of lies.” * The 
broad statement made by von Jhering, that among the South 
Sea Islanders lying is regarded as a harmless and innocent play of 
the imagination,® is certainly not correct. “The treacherous dis- 
position attributed to the Caroline Islanders ° and the natives of 
New Britain? does not imply so much as that. The New 
Caledonians are, comparatively speaking, “not naturally dis- 
honest.” $ The Solomon Islanders are praised as faithful and 
reliable workmen and servants,? though cheating in trade is 
nowadays very common among some of them. Of the people 
of Erromanga, in the New Hebrides, the Rev. H. A. Robertson 
states that “truth, in heathenism, was told only when it suited 
best, but,” he adds, “it is not that natives are always reckless 
about the truth so much as that they seem utterly incapable of 
stating anything definitely, or stating a thing just as it really 
occurred,” 1! In the opinion of some authorities, the Fijians are 
very untruthful and regard adroit lying as an accomplishment.” 
Their propensity to lie, says the missionary Williams, “is so 
strong that they seem to have no wish to deny its existence, or 
very little shame when convicted of a falsehood.” The 
universal prevalence of the habit of lying is so thoroughly taken 
for granted, “that it is common to hear, after the most ordinary 
statement, the rejoinder, ‘’That’s a lie,’ or something to the 
same effect, at which the accused person does not think of taking 
offence.” But the same writer adds :—“ Natives have often 
told me lies, manifestly without any ill-will, and when it would 
have been far more to their advantage to have spoken the 
truth. The Fijians hail as agreeable companions those who are 

1 Mariner, MVatzves of the Tonga 7 Powell, Wanderings in a Wild 

Tslands, ii. 163 5g. 

2 Polack, Aanners and Customs of 
the New Zealanders, ii. 102 sg. See 
also Colenso, Maorz Races of New 
Zealand, pp. 44, 46. 

3 Dieffenbach, Zravels in New Zea- 
land, il. 109. 

4 Yate, Account of New Zealand, p. 
145. 

5 von Jhering, Der Zweck tm Recht, 
ii. 606. 

6 Angas, Polynesia, p. 386. 

Country, p. 262. 

8 Anderson, Zravel in Fijé and New 
Caledonia, p. 233. 

8 Parkinson, Zz Ethnographie der 
nordwestlichen Salomo Inseln, p. 4. 

10 Sommerville, ‘Ethnogr. Notes in 
New Georgia,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 
XXV1. 393. 

» Robertson, Zrromanga, p. 384 sg. 

2 Wilkes, U.S. Exploring Expedi- 
tion, ili. 76. 

od 

a 

ade ieee 

pi ttgen Die ie 

skilful in making tales, but, under some circumstances, strongly 
condemn the practice of falsehood. . . . On matters most lied 
about by civilised people, the native is the readiest to speak the 
truth. Thus, when convicted of some offence, he rarely 
attempts to deny it, but will generally confess all to any one 
he esteems. . . . The following incident shows that lying per se 
is condemned and considered disreputable. A white man, 
notorious for falsehood, had displeased a powerful chief, and 
wrote asking me to intercede for him.~ I did so; when the 
chief dismissed the case briefly, saying, ‘Tell—that no one 
hates a foreigner ; but tell him that every one hates a liar!” 1 
Other writers even deny that the Fijians were habitual liars ; 2 
and Erskine found that those chiefs with whom he had to deal 
were so open to appeals to their good faith as to convince him 
“that they had a due appreciation of the virtue of truth.” # 
Nowhere in the savage world is truth held in less estimation 
than among many of the African races. The Negroes are 
described as cunning and liars by nature. They “tell a lie 
more readily than they tell the truth,” and falsehood “is not re- 
cognised amongst them as a fault.” > They lie not only for the 
sake of gaining some advantage by it, or in order to please or 
amuse, but their lies are often said to be absolutely without 
purpose.® Of the natives of the Gold Coast the old traveller 
Bosman says, “ The Negroes are all, without exception, crafty, 
villainous and fraudulent, and very seldom to be trusted, being 
sure to slip no opportunity of cheating an European, nor indeed 
one another.” * Among all the Bakalai tribes “lying is thought 
an enviable accomplishment.”® The Bakongo, in their 
answers, “will generally try and tell the questioner what they 
think will please him most, quite ignoring the truthfulness we 
consider it necessary to observe in our replies.”® Miss 
Kingsley’s experience of West African natives is likewise that 
they “will say ‘Yes’ to any mortal thing, if they think you 
want them to.” 1° ‘The Wakamba are described as great liars." 

1 Williams and Calvert, 772, p. 107 
Sg. 
2 Erskine, Crazse among the [slands 
of the Western Pactfic, p. 264. Ander- 
son, Zravel zn Fijt and New Cale- 
donta, p. 130. 

3 Erskine, of. cz¢. p. 264. 

4 Baker, Albert N’yanza, i. 289. 
Burton, AZisszon to Gelele, ii. 199. 

5 Reade, Savage Africa, p. 580. 

8 Hiibbe-Schleiden, E¢hzopzen, Stz- 
dien tiber West-Afrika, p. 186 sq. 

WO Vel 

7 Bosman, Mew Description of the 
Coast of Guinea, p. 100. 

8 Du Chaillu, Zxplorations and 
Adventures in Equatorial Africa, p. 
BOO. Cfs coz pu S3t. 

9 Ward, Five Vears with the Congo 
Cannibals, p. 47. 

1 Kingsley, Zravels in West Africa, 

1 525. 
» 1rapf, Travels in Eastern Africa, 

Pp. 355: 

G 

Among the Waganda “ truth is held in very low estimation, ar-d 
it is never considered wrong to tell lies ; indeed, a successful 
liar is considered a smart, clever fellow, and rather admired.” ? 
Untruthfulness is said to be “a national characteristic” of the 
tribes inhabiting the region of Lake Nyassa.?_ From his experi- 
ence of the Eastern Central Africans, the Rev. D. Macdonald 
writes :—“‘ Telling lies’ is much practised and is seldom con- 
sidered a fault. . . . The negro often thinks that he is flattered 
by being accused of falsehood. So, when natives wish to pay a 
high compliment to a European who has told them an interest- 
ing story, they look into his face and say, ‘O father, you are a 
great liar.’”3 To the Wanika, says Mr. New, lying is “ almost 
as the very breath of their nostrils, and all classes, young and 
old, male and female, indulge in it. A great deal of their lying 
is without cause or object; it is lying for lying’ssake. You ask 
a man his name, his tribe, where he lives, or any other simple 
question of like nature, and the answer he gives you will, as a 
rule, be the very opposite to the truth ; yet he has nothing to 
evade or gain by so doing. Lying seems to be more natural to 
him than speaking the truth. He lies when detection is 
evident, and laughs at it as though he thought it a good joke. 
He hears himself called a mudongo (liar) a score of times a day, 
but he notices it not, for there is no opprobrium in the term to 
him. To hide a fault he lies with the most barefaced audacity 
and blindest obstinacy. . . . When his object is gain, he will. 
invent falsehoods wholesale. . . . He boasts that u/ongo (lying) 
is his pesa (piece, ha’pence), and holds bare truth to be the most 
unprofitable commodity in the world. But while he lies cause- 
lessly, objectlessly, recklessly in self-defence or for self-interest, 
he is not a malicious liar. He does not lie with express intent 
to do others harm ; this he would consider immoral, and he has 
sufficient goodness of heart to avoid indulging therein... . I have 
often been struck with the manner in which he has controlled 
his tongue when the character and interest of others have been 
at stake.” * If a Bantu of South-Eastern Africa “ undertakes 
the charge of any form of property, he accounts for it with as 
great fidelity as if he were the Keeper of the Great Seal. But, 
on the other hand, there are many circumstances in which 
falsehood is not reckoned even a disgrace, and if a man could 

* Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, i.224. Customs,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxii. 
Cf. Felkin, ‘Notes on the Waganda 119. 
Tribe,’ in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edin- 3 Macdonald, Africana, i. 262 sq. 
burgh, xiii. 722; Ashe, Two Kings of a NEWaumel ce, Wanderings, and 
* Uganda, :p. 295. Labours in Eastern Africa, p. 96 

2 Macdonald, ‘ East Central African 59q. 

extricate himself from difficulties by lying and did not do so, he 
would be simply thought a fool.”1 Andersson speaks of the 
“lying habits” of the Herero.2 Of the Bachapins, a Bechuana 
tribe, Burchell observes that among their vices a universal disre- 
gard for truth and a want of honourable adherence to their 
promise. stand high above the rest, the consequence of this 
habitual practice of lying being “the absence of shame, even 
on being detected.”* Among the Kafirs “deception is a 
practised art from early childhood ; even the children will not 
answer a plain question.” * It is considered a smart thing to 
deceive so long as a person is not found out, but it is awkward 
to be detected; hence a native father will enjoy seeing his 
children deceive people cleverly.2 “Intrading with them, you 
may make up your mind that all they tell you is untrue, and act 
accordingly, . . . Your own natives, on the other hand, if they 
like you, will lie for your benefit as strongly as the opposite party 
against you ; and both sides think it all fair trade.”® And ina 
Kafir lawsuit ‘defendant, plaintiff, and witnesses are allowed to 
tell as many lies as they like, in order to make the best of their 
case.” * But we also hear that Kafirs do not tell lies to their 
chiefs, and that there are many among them who would never 
deceive a white man whom they are fond of or respect.§ 
Among the Bushmans veracity is said to be too often, yet not 
always, disregarded, “and the neglect of it considered a mere 
venial offence.” ® ‘The first version of what a Bushman or 
any native has to say can never be relied on ; whatever you ask 
him about, he invariably says first, ‘I don’t know,’ and then 
promises to tell you all he does know. Ask him for news, and 
he says, ‘ No; we have got no news,’ and shortly afterwards he 
will tell you news of perhaps great interest.” 1° In Madagascar 
there was no stigma attached to deceit or fraud ; they ‘“ were 
rather admired as proofs of superior cunning, as things to be 
imitated, so far at least as they would not bring the offender 
within the penalties of the native laws,” " Ellis says that “ the 
best sign of genius in children is esteemed a quickness to deceive, 

1 Macdonald, Lieht ix Africa, p. Amatongas, p. 199. Cf. tbid. p. 202. 

211. 7 Maclean, Compendium of Kafir 
2 Andersson, Lake Neamz, p. 217. Laws and Customs, p. 58. 
Cf. zbid. p. 499 (Bayeye). 8 Kidd, Zhe Essential Kafr, p. 
- 3 Burchell, Zravels in the Interior 286. 
of Southern Africa, ii. 553 5g. 9 Burchell, of. cé¢. il. 54. 
4 Holden, Zhe Past and Future of 0 Chapman, Zravels in the Interior 
the Kaffir Races, p. 179. of South Africa, i. 76 sq. 
5 Kidd, The LZssential Kafir, p. 11 Sibree, The Great African Island, 
285. p: 338. 

® Leslie, Among the Zulus and 

overreach and cheat. The people delight in fabulous tales, but 
in none so much or universally as in those that relate instances 
of successful deceit or fraud... . Their constant aim is, in 
business to swindle, in professed friendship to extort, and in mere 
conversation to exaggerate and fabricate.” 1 “These statements 
refer to the Hovas; but among the Betsileo, inhabiting the 
same island, lying and cheating are equally rife, and “neither 
appears to have been thought a sin, so long as it remained 
undiscovered,” 2 At the same time many of the Madagascar 
proverbs are designed to put down lying, and to show that truth 
is always best.? 

But in Africa, also, there are many peoples who have 
been described as regardful of truth and hostile to falsehood. 
Early travellers speak very highly of the sincerity of 
the Hottentots. Father Tachart says that they have more 
honesty than is almost anywhere found among Christians ; * 
and Kolben agrees with him, asserting that the word ot 
a Hottentot is sacred, and that there is hardly anything 
upon earth which he looks upon as a fouler crime than 
breach of engagement.® According to Barrow, the Hottentots 
are perfectly honest and faithful, and, “‘if accused of crimes 
of which they have been guilty, they generally divulge the 
truth.”® Of the Manansas Dr. Holub states that, so far as 
his experience goes, they are beyond the average for honesty 
and fidelity, and are consequently laughed at by the more 
powerful tribes as “the simpletons of the North.”7 The 
Bahima in the Uganda Protectorate are usually very honest and 
truthful, and most of the Nandi think it very wicked to tell a 
lie.S Among the For tribe of Central Africa “lying is held to 
be a great crime; even the youngest children are severely 
beaten for it, and any one over fifteen or sixteen who is an 
habitual liar suffers the loss of one lip as a penalty.” Speaking 
of the natives of Sierra Leone, Winterbottom remarks that, in 
proportion as we advance into the interior of the country, the 
people are found te be more devoid of art and more free from 
suspicion.’ “Those who have dealings with the Fan univers- 

1 Ellis, A@story of Madagascar, i. 
143 5g. 

SSO, Osh Gis on iia. Sheen, 
‘Betsileo,’ in Antananarivo Annual, 
lil. 79. 

3 Clemes, 
2bzd. iv. 29. 

4 Tachart, quoted by Kolben, Pre- 
sent State of the Cape of Good Hope, i. 
167, 

‘Malagasy Proverbs,’ 

> Tbid. i. 59. 

8 Barrow, Travels into the Interior 
of Southern Africa, i. 151 sg. 

” Holub, Seve Years in 
Africa, i. 209. 

8 Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, ii. 
630, 879. 

® Felkin, in Proceed. Roy. Soc. 
Edinburgh, xiii. 232. 

10 Winterbottom, 

South 

Account of the 

ally prefer them in point of honesty and manliness to the 
Mpongwe and Coast races,” and it is an insult to call one of them 
a liar or coward.1. Monrad, who wrote in the beginning of the 
nineteenth century, asserts that among the Negroes of Accra 
lying is by no means common and that they are as a rule honest 
towards their own people.? According to an early authority, 
the people of Great Benin were very straightforward and did 
not cheat each other.2 Mr. and Mrs. Hinde write that the 
Masai are as a race truthful, and that a grown-up person among 
them will not lie; “he may refuse to answer a question, but, 
once given, his word can be depended on.” Dr. Baumann, on 
the other hand, says that they often lie, but that they regard 
lying as a great fault.6 The Guanches of the Canary Islands 
are stated to have been “slaves to their word.”® Of the 
Berbers of Morocco Leo Africanus writes :—‘ Most honest 
people they are, and destitute of all fraud and guile. . . . They 
keep their couenant most faithfully ; insomuch that they had 
rather die than breake promise.” ” M. Dyveyrier found the same 
virtue among the Touareg, another Berber people :—“ La 
fidélité aux promesses, aux traités, est pouss¢e si loin par les 
Touareg, qu'il est difficile d’obtenir d’eux des engagements. . 

Il est de maxime chez les Touareg, en mati¢re de contrat, de 
ne sengager que pour la moitié de ce qu’on peut tenir, afin de 
ne pas sexposer au reproche d’infidélité. . . . Le mensonge, 
le vol domestique et labus de confiance sont inconnus des 
Touareg.”® As regards the truthfulness of the African Arabs 
opinions vary. Parkyns asks, “ Who is more trustworthy than 
the desert Arab?”® According to Rohlfs and Chavanne, on 
the other hand, the Arabs of the Sahara are much addicted to 
lying ;?° and of the Arabs of Egypt Mr. St. John observes :— 
“There is no general appreciation of a man’s word. ... ‘ Liar’ 
is a playful appellative scarcely reproachful ; and ‘I have told a 
lie’ a confession that may be made without a blush.”"™ Hero- 
dotus’ statement that “the Arabs observe pledges as religiously 
as any people,” is true of the Bedouins of Arabia in the 

Native Africans in the Neighbourhood 
of Sierra Leone, 1. 206 sg. 

1 Burton, Zwo Trips to 
Land, 1. 225 sq. 

2 Monrad, Guznea-Kysten og dens 
Indbygeere, p. 6. 

3 Quoted by Ling Roth, 
Benin, p. 45. 

4 Hinde, Zhe Last of the Masatz, p. 

4. 
4 Baumann, Durch Massatland, p. 

165. 

Gorilla 

Great 

® Bory de St. Vincent, Assazs sur 
les Isles Fortunées, p. 70. 

7 Leo Africanus, A7zstory and De- 
scription of Africa, 1. 183. 

8 Dyveyrier, Zxploration du Sahara, 
Pp. 384 sg.  * 

® Parkyns, Lzfe zm Abyssinia, il. 
182. 

 Chavanne, Dze Sahara, p. 392. 

1 St. John, Adventures im the 
Lybian Desert, p. 31. 

2 Herodotus, iii. 8. 

present day. ‘“ No vice or crime is more deservedly stigmatised 
as infamous among Bedouins, than treachery. An individual in 
the great Arabian Desert will be forgiven if he should kill a 
stranger on the road, but eternal disgrace would be attached to 
his name, if it were known that he had robbed his companion, 
or his protected guest, even of a handkerchief.”1 Wallin 
affirms that you may put perfect trust in the promise of a 
Bedouin, as soon as you have eaten salt and bread with him.’ 
But whilst faithfulness to a tacit or express promise is thus 
regarded by him as a sacred duty, lying and cheating are as 
prevalent in the desert as in the market-towns of Syria.° 
Speaking of the Bedouins of the Euphrates, Mr. Blunt 
observes :—‘ Truth, in ordinary matters, is not regarded as a 
virtue by the Bedouins, nor is lying held shameful. Every 
man, they say, has a right to conceal his own thought. In 
matters of importance, the simple affirmation is confirmed by 
an oath, and then the fact stated may be relied on. ‘There is 
only one exception to the general rule of lying among them. 
The Bedouin, if questioned on the breed of his mare, will not 
give a false answer. He may refuse to say, or he may answer 
that he does not know; but he will not name another breed 
than that to which she really belongs. . . . The rule, however, 
does not hold good on any other point of horse dealing. The 
age, the qualities, and the ownership of the horse may be all 
falsely stated.” * 

Various statements of travellers thus directly contradict 
the common opinion that want of truthfulness is mostly a 
characteristic of uncivilised races.2 And we have much 
reason to assume that a foreigner visiting a savage tribe is 
apt rather to underrate than to overestimate its veracity. 
Mr. Savage Landor gives us’ a curious insight into an 
explorer’s method of testing it. “If you were to say to 

an Ainu, ‘ You are old, are 

1 Burckhardt, Noles on the Bedouins 
and Wahabys, p. 190 sg. 

2 Wallin, eseanteckningar fran 
Ortenten, iil. 116. 
3 Burckhardt, of. cz¢. p. 104 sg. 

Cf. Wallin, of. cit. iv. 89 sg. 
Doughty, Avabza Deserta, i. 241. 

* Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the 
Euphrates, ii. 203 sg. Cf. Niebuhr, 
Travels through Arabia, ii. 302 :— 
** There is no instance of false testi- 

, 

you not?’ he would answer 

mony given in respect to the descent of 
ahorse. Every Arabian is persuaded 
that himself and his whole family 
would be ruined, if he should pre- 
varicate in giving his oath in an affair 
of such consequence.” 

5 Burton, City of the Saints, Pause: 
Vierkandt, Vaturvolker und Kultur- 
volker, p. 273. von Jhering, Der 
Zweck im Recht, ii. 606. 

‘Yes’; but if you asked the same man, ‘ You are not old, 
are you?’ he would equally answer ‘Yes.’”” And then 
comes the conclusion :—‘ Knowingly speaking the truth 
is not one of their characteristics; indeed, they do not 
know the difference between falsehood and truth.”! It is 
hardly surprising to hear from other authorities that the 
Ainu are remarkably honest, and_ regard veracity as 
one of the most imperative duties.” Speaking of the 
Uaupés and other Brazilian tribes, Mr. Wallace observes: 
—‘‘In my communications and inquiries among the 
Indians on various matters, I have always found the 
greatest caution necessary, to prevent one’s arriving at 
wrong conclusions. They are always apt to affirm that 
which they see you wish to believe, and, when they do 
not at all comprehend your question, will unhesitatingly 
answer, ‘Yes.’”* Savages who are inclined to give 
inaccurate answers to questions made by strangers, may 
nevertheless be truthful towards each other. As the 
regard for life and property, so the regard for truth 
varies according as the person concerned is a foreigner or 
a tribesman. ‘‘ Perfidy and faithlessness,” says Crawfurd, 
“are vices of the Indian islanders, and those vices of 
which they have been most frequently accused by strangers. 
This sentence against them must, however, be understood 
with some allowances. In their domestic and social inter- 
course, they are far from being a deceitful people, but in 
reality possess more integrity than it 1s reasonable to look 
for with so much misgovernment and barbarity. It is in 
their intercourse with strangers and with enemies that, like 
other barbarians, the treachery of their character is dis- 
played.” * The natives of the interior of Sumatra are “ dis- 
honest in their dealings with strangers, which they esteem no 
moral defect.”® Dalager states that the same Greenlanders 
who, among themselves, in the sale of an object which the 

1 Landor, Alone with the Hairy 3 Wallace, Travels on the Amazon, 
Ainu, p. 283. p- 494 sg. Fas . 
2 Holland, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iii. 4 Crawfurd, of. czt. 1. 71 sg. Cf. 

237. von Siebold, Azno auf der Insel Christian, Caroline Lslands, p. 71 sq. 
Vesso, p. 25. > Marsden, of. cit. p. 208, 

88. “THE REGARD FOR ae. 

buyer had not seen, would depreciate it rather than overpraise 
it—even though the seller was anxious to get rid of it—told 
frightful lies in their transactions with Danish traders.’ 
The Touareg, whilst scrupulously faithful to a promise 
given to one of their own people, do not regard as binding 
a promise given to a Christian ;” and their Arab neigh- 
bours say that their word, ‘like water fallen on the sand, 
is never to be found again.”* The Masai, according to 
Herr Merker, hold any kind of deceit to be allowable in 
their relations with persons of another race.* The Hovas of 
Madagascar even considered it a duty for anyone speaking 
with foreigners on political matters to state the exact 
opposite to the truth, and punished him who did other- 
wise.” 

In point of truthfulness savages are in many cases 
superior to nations more advanced in culture. ‘* A Chinese,” 
says Mr. Wells Williams, “requires but little motive to 
falsify, and he is constantly sharpening his wits to cozen his 
customer—wheedle him by promises and cheat him in 
goods or work.”® His ordinary speech is said to be so 
full of insincerity that it is very difficult to learn the truth | 
in almost any case.’ He feels no shame at being detected 
ina lie, nor does he fear any punishment from his gods for 
it ;° if you call him a liar, “ you arouse in him no sense of 
outrage, no sentiment of degradation.”*® Yet the moral 
teachings of the Chinese inculcate truthfulness as a stringent 
duty. One of their injunctionsis, “ Let children always be 
taught to speak the simple truth.” ' Many sayings may 
be quoted from Confucius in which sincerity is celebrated 
as highly and demanded as urgently as it ever was by any 

1 Dalager, of. czt. p. 69 sg. with children.” 

® von Bary, quoted by Chavarine, 6 Wells Williams, Zhe Middle 
Die Sahara, Pp. 186. Kingdom, i. 834. 

3 Dubois, 7 embuctoo, Dy Beit 7 Smith, Chinese Characteristics 

* Merker, Die Masai, p. 115. Digit bee 

5 Ellis, Azstory of Madagascar, i. 8 Cooke, China, p. 414. Edkins, 

144. Professor Stanley Hall ob- Religion in China, p. 122. Bowrin 

serves (‘ Children’s Lies,’ in American Siam, i. 106. Wells Williams op a 
Journal of Psychology, iil. 62) that i. 834. ace 
‘truth for our friends and lies for our ® Smith, Chinese Characteristics. p 
enemies is a practical, though not 271. gph 
distinctly conscious rule widely current 10 ‘Wells Williams, op. cit. i. 522 

a a 

Christian moralist. Faithfulness and sincerity, he said, 
should be held as first principles. Sincerity is the way of 
Heaven, the end and beginning of things, without which 
there would be nothing. It is as necessary to truly virtuous 
conduct as a boat is toa man wishing to cross a river, or as 
oars are toa boat. The superior man ought to feel shame 
when his conduct is not in accord with his words. But 
there are instances in which sincerity has to yield to family 
duties : a father should conceal the misconduct of his son, 
and a son that of his father.2 Moreover, the great 
moralists themselves did not always act up to their lofty 
principles, Confucius and Mencius sometimes did not 
hesitate to tell a lie for the sake of convenience.? The 
former could excuse himself from seeing an unwelcome 
visitor on the ground that he was sick, when there was 
nothing the matter with him ;* and he deliberately broke 
an oath which he had sworn, because it had been forced 
from him.’ In Japan, Burma, and Siam, truth is more 
respected than in China. “In love of truth,” says Pro- 
fessor Rein, “the Japanese, so far as my experience goes, 
are not has to us Europeans.”® The Burmese, 
though partial to much exaggeration, are generally 
truthful.” And “the mendacity so characteristic of Orientals 
is not a national defect among the Siamese. Lying, no 
doubt, is often resorted to as a protection against injustice 
and oppression, but the eratises are greatly in favour of 
truth when evidence is sought. ”’ 

Lying has been called the set vice of the Hindus.® 
“Tt is not too much to assert that the mass of Bengalis 
have no notion of truth and falsehood.’’' A gentleman 

Farther India, p. 62. Forbes, Bretesh 
Burma, p. 45. Fytche, Barma Past 
and Present, i. 67. 

8 Bowring, Szam, i. 105. 

Ieuan Vi, los 2%) Vil. 243 -1X._.24 5 
xl, 10. 1; xv. 5. 2. Chung Vung, 
xx, 18. Douglas, Confucianism and 
Taouism, pp. 103, 114, 146. Legge, 

Chinese Classics, i. 100. 
2 Lun Vu, xii. 18. 2. 
3 Legge, Chinese Classics, 1. 100, 
Smith, Chznese Characteristics, p. 267. 
e Lune Vil, vis 
5 Lun Vii, xvii. 20. 
§ Rein, Japan, p. 393- 

7 MacMahon, far Cathay and 

® Caldwell, Z7ixnevelly Shanars, p. 
38. Cf. Kearns, Zrzbes of South 
India, pp. 64 (Reddies and Hindus 
generally), 68 (Reddies and Naickers) ; 
Burton, Szzdh, pp. 197, 284; Jdem, 
Sind Revisited, i. 314. 

0 Trevelyan, quoted by Wilkins, 
Modern Hinduism, p. 401. 

go THE REGARD FOR CHAP. 

who has been brought into the closest intimacy with 
natives of all classes, declares “that when a question 
is asked, the full bearing of which on themselves or those 
connected with them they cannot see, you may rely upon it 
that the first answer you receive is false ; but that, when they 
see that the truth cannot injure themselves or any one they 
care for, they will speak the truth.” * The testimony of a 
Hindu is not generally regarded as evidence.” Forgery is 
frequently resorted to, cheating is rife. ‘In almost all 
business transactions of the smallest kind a written agree- 
ment must be made on both sides, and this must be 
stamped and registered, because it is believed that a man’s 
word is not binding.” * Nor is a lie held disreputable, 
especially if not found out.* But in India, as elsewhere, 
the question whether truth or falsehood is to be spoken 
depends on the relationship between the speaker and the 
party addressed. In their relations with each other, says 
Sir W. H.Sleeman, members of a village community spoke 
as much truth as those of any other community in the 
world, but in their relations with the government they 
told as many lies; “if a man had told a lie to cheat his 
neighbour, he would have become an object of hatred and 
contempt—if he had told a lie to save his neighbour’s 
fields from an increase of rent or tax, he would have 
become an object of esteem and respect.” * Of the Stidra 
inhabitants of Central India Sir John Malcolm likewise 
observes that ‘“ they may be said, in their intercourse with 
strangers and with officers of government, to evade the 
truth, and often to assert positive falsehoods”’; whereas, “in 
their intercourse with each other, falsehood is not common, 
and many (particularly some of the cultivators) are dis- 
tinguished by their adherence to truth.”® The ancient 
Hindus were praised for their veracity and good faith ; 

1 Wilkins, Modern Hinduism, p. ibid. ii. 118, 129 5sg.; Crooke 

399 5g. Tribes and Castes of the WNorth- 
* Percival, Land of the Veda, p. 288. Western Provinces and Oudh, ii. 478 
3 Wilkins, of. czt. p. 407 sq. (Habfira). 
4 Jbid. p. 400. Caldwell, of. cit. 8 Malcolm, Memoir of Central 

pee Mpigginy, th, Tp, (OR NES i 
2 Silesian (yh iA th, WOR CHR 0), ie ; 7 f. Hislop, of. cit. 

xe TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH gl 

in his History of India, written in the second century of 
the Christian era, eran states that no Indian was ever 
known to tell an untruth.! In the sacred books of 
India truthfulness is highly celebrated. “If veracity and 
a thousand horse-sacrifices are weighed against each other, 
it is found that truth ranks even higher than a thousand 
horse-sacrifices.””” ‘Verily the gods are the truth, and 
man is the untruth.” * ‘There is one law which the gods 
do keep, namely, the truth. It is through this that their 
conquest, their glory is unassailable: and so, forsooth, is his 
conquest, his glory unassailable whosoever, knowing this, 
speaks the truth.’’* Attendance on, or the worship of, 
the sacred fire means speaking the truth :—‘* Whosoever 
speaks the truth, acts as if he sprinkled that lighted fire 
with ghee ; for even so does he enkindle it : and ever the 
more increases his own vital energy, and day by day does 
he become better. And whosoever speaks the untruth, 
acts as if he sprinkled that lighted fire with water ; for even 
so does he enfeeble it : and ever the less becomes his own 
vital energy, and day by day does he become more wicked. 
Let him, therefore, speak nothing but the truth.” ° Fear- 
ful denunciations are particularly pronounced against those 
who deliver false testimony in a court of justice.° By 
giving false evidence concerning small cattle, a witness 
commits the sin of killing ten men ; by false evidence con- 
cerning cows, horses and men, he commits the sin of kill- 
ing a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand men respect- 
ively ; but by false evidence concerning land, he commits 
the sin of killing the whole human race.’ The sin of 
falsehood thus admits of different degrees according to the 
magnitude of the injury inflicted by it. Indeed, “in some 
cases a man who, though knowing the facts to be different, 
gives such false evidence froma pious motive, does not lose 
heaven ; such evidence they call the speech of the gods.” ° 

1 Arrian, Astoria Indica, xii. 5. GHEE, itl, Ps Py LY, 

2 Institutes of Vishnu, viii. 36. 6 Laws of Manu, viii. 82. 

2 i Pa ae et iy fig ho NB 7 Gautama, xiii. 14 sgq. 
fil, 2 ey. 8 Laws of Manu, viii. 103. 

«hid tii a. 2.8. Cf. thza nls te 5. 

Moreover, ‘‘ whenever the death of a Sidra, of a Vaisya, 
of a Kshatriya, or of a Brahmana would be caused by a 
declaration of the truth, a falsehood may be spoken ; for 
such falsehood is preferable tothe truth.” ' According to 
Buddhist conceptions of lying, “the magnitude of the 
crime increases in proportion to the value of the article, or 
the importance of the matter, about which the lie is told4 
And it is a lesser wrong to lie in self-defence than to 
lie with a view to procuring an advantage by injuring one’s 
neighbour. Thus, to deny the possession of any article, in 
order to retain it, is not a lie of a heinous description, 
whereas to bear false witness in order that the proper 
owner may be deprived of that which he possesses, is a lie 
to which a greater degree of culpability is attached.* The 
Buddhist precept of truthfulness is more restricted than 
that laid down by Brahmanism :—‘“ It is said by the 
Brahmans that it is not a crime to tell a lie on behalf of 
the guru, or on account of cattle, or to save the person’s 
own life, or to gain the victory in any contest ; but this is 
contrary to the precept.” * One of the conditions that 
make a Buddha is, never, under the influence of desire 
and other passions, to utter a conscious lie, for the sake 
of wealth or any other advantage. From the time that 
Gautama became a Bodhisattva, or claimant for the 
Buddhaship, through all his births until the attainment of 
the Buddhaship, he never told a lie ; and “it were easier 
for the sakwala [or system of worlds] to be blown away 
than for a supreme Buddha to utter an untruth.”® His 
followers are not equally scrupulous. The Buddhists of 
Ceylon, we are told, lie without compunction, and are not 
ashamed to be detected in a lie." And religious Mongols 
“do not hesitate to tell lies even when saying their 

5 Ue} 
prayers. 
1 Laws of Manu, viii. 104. 8 Hardy, of. cet. p. 486. 
2 Hardy, Manual of Budhism, p. ” Knox, quoted by Schmidt, Cey/on, 
486. p- 317. Heckel, Vestt to Ceylon, p. 
3 Tbid. p. 485. 230. 
4 Tbid. p. 486. 8 Gilmour, Among the Mongols, p. 

5 Jataka Tales, p. 23. 259. 

According to Zoroastrianism, truthfulness is a most 
sacred duty. Lying is a creation of the evil spirits, and 
the most efficacious weapon against it is the holy religion. 
revealed to man by Zarathustra.!’ In one of the Pahlavi 
texts it is said that when the Spirit of Wisdom was asked, 
‘Through how many ways and motives and good works 
do people arrive most at heaven?” he answered thus : 
“The first good work is liberality, the second truth.” ? 
Contracts are inviolable, both those which are pledged 
with hand or pawn, and those by a mere word.? It is a 
duty to keep faith even with an unbeliever :—‘ Break not 
the contract, O Spitama, neither the one that thou hadst 
entered into with one of the unfaithful, nor the one that 
thou hadst entered into with one of the faithful who 
is one of thy own faith.”* Greek historians and cunei- 
form inscriptions also bear witness to the great detestation 
in which falsehood was held by the ancient Persians. 
Herodotus writes :—‘ Their sons are carefully instructed 
from their fifth to their twentieth year in three things 
alone—to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth. 
. . . The most disgraceful thing in the world, they think, 
is to tell a lie; the next worse, to owe a debt: because, 
among other reasons, the debtor is obliged to tell lies.” ° 
In the inscriptions of Darius lying is taken as repre- 
sentative of all evil. He is favoured by Ormuzd “ be- 
cause he was not a heretic, nor a liar, nor a tyrant.” His 
great fear is lest it may be thought that any part of the 
record which he has set up has been falsely related ; and 
he even abstains from narrating certain events of his reign 
“lest to him who may hereafter peruse the tablet, the 
many deeds that have been done by him may seem to be 

falsely recorded.”’*® Professor Spiegel tries to prove that 
1 Bundahts, i. 243 xxviii. 14, 16. 2 Dind-t Mainbe-t Khirad, xxxvii. 

Dind-t Mainbg-t Khirad, xix. 4,6; 2 sgq. 

XXK. 53 XXxvl. 29. Darmesteter, in 3 Vendidéd, iv. 5 sqq. 

Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. \xii. at Viasisxa 2) 

Spiegel, Erdnzische Alterthumskunde, 5 Herodotus, i. 136, 138. Cf 

lll. 684 sg. Geiger, Czvzlization of the Stobzeus, Plorilegium, 44, vol. iy Baye 
Eastern Iranians, i. 164 sg. Meyer, Xenophon, Cyrz Lnstetutio, i. 6. 33- 
Geschichte des Alterthums, i. 534, 6 Rawlinson, in his translation of 
536. Herodotus, i. 262 sg. n. 3. 

falsehood, not truthfulness, was a national characteristic 
of the ancient Eranians, to which their noblest men 
offered fruitless resistance ;1 but the facts he quotes in 
support of his opinion refer to their dealings with foreign 
nations, and have consequently little bearing on the sub- 
ject. The modern Persians are notorious liars, who do 
‘not even claim to be believed, and smile when detected in 
a lie.2 The nomad alone is faithful to his word ; the ex- 
pression, “I am a nomad,” means, ‘You may trust me.”’* 
Falsehood is a prevailing vice in other Muhammedan 
countries also. ‘‘ Constant veracity,” says Mr. Lane, ‘is 
a virtue extremely rare in modern Egypt” ; and a deceit- 
ful disposition in commercial transactions is one of the 
most notorious faults of the Egyptian.* Mr. Lane partly 
ascribes this habit to the influence of Islam, which allows, 
and even commands, falsehood in certain cases. The 
common Moslem doctrine is, that a lie is permissible when 
told in order to save one’s own life, or to reconcile persons 
at variance with each other, or to please or persuade one’s 
wife, or to obtain any advantage in a war with the enemies 
of the faith.? But in other cases lying was highly repro- 
bated by the Prophet ; and that the people have not 
forgotten its sinfulness appears from the phrase, ‘ No, I 
beg forgiveness of God, it was so and so,” which they 
seldom omit when retracting an unintentional mis-state- 
ment.° I think it is erroneous to regard the want of 
truthfulness among Muhammedan nations as a result of 
their religion. The Eastern Christians and Buddhists are 
no less addicted to falsehood than the Muhammedans.” 
The Homeric poems make us acquainted with gods and 
men who have recourse to fraud and lying whenever it 
suits their purpose.* The great Zeus makes no difficulty 

ath inne, 

1 Spiegel, of. cet. iii. 686. 

2 Polak, ersten, i. 10. Wallin, 
Reseanteckningar fran Orienten, iv. 
192, 247. Wilson, Perszan Life and 
Customs, p. 229 sqq. 

3 Polak, of. cet. ii. 95. 

4 Lane, Manners and Customs of the 
Modern Egyptians, i. 382 sg. Cf. 
Burckhardt, Arabic Proverbs, p. 100. 

> Lane, Modern Egyptians, i. 383. 
Muir, Life of Afahomet, i. p. xxiii. 
San Dee lis 

§ Lane, Modern Egyptians, i. 383 sq. 

7 Vambery, Der Jslam im neun- 
sehnten Jahrhundert, p. 232. 

8 Cf. Kames, Sketches of the History 
of Man, iv. 150 sg.; Mahaffy, Socéal 
Life in Greece, p. 26 sqq. 

”" 

in sending a lying dream to Agamemnon. Pallas Athene 
is guilty of gross deceit and treachery to Hector; she 
expressly recommends dissimulation, and loves Odysseus 
on account of his deceitful character.' No man deals 
more in feigned stories than this master of cunning, who 
makes a boast of his falsehood. In the period which lies 
between the Homeric age and the Persian wars veracity 
made perhaps some progress among the Greeks,* but it 
never became one of their national virtues.* Yet in the 
Greek literature deceit is frequently condemned as a vice, 
and truthfulness praised as a virtue.? Achilles expresses 
his horror of lying.© ‘ Not to tell a lie,” was one of the 
maxims of Solon.’ Pindar strongly censures a character 
like that of Odysseus,® and ends up his eulogy on Psaumis 
by the assurance that he never would contaminate his 
speech with a lie.® According to Pythagoras, men be- 
come like gods when they speak the truth." According to 
Plato, the habit of lying makes the soul ugly"; ‘truth 
is the beginning of every good thing, both to gods and 
men.” ” Yet a distinction should be made between 
different kinds of untruth. Though the many are too 
fond of saying that at proper times and places falsehood 
may often be right,’ it must be admitted that a lie is in 
certain cases useful and not hateful, as in dealing with 
enemies, or when those whom we call our friends in a fit 
of madness or illusion are going to do some harm.'* More- 
over, the rulers of the State are allowed to lie for the 
public good, just as physicians make use of medicines ; 
and they will find a considerable dose of falsehood and 
deceit necessary for this purpose.” On the other hand, if 
the ruler catches anybody besides himself lying in the 

1 Odyssey, xiii. 331 sg. 8 Pindar, Vemea, viii. 26. 

2 Jbid. ix. 19 sg. ® Idem, Olympia, iv. 17. 

3 Schmidt, Dze thik der alten 10 Stobzeus, of. cz¢. xi. 25, vol. i. 312. 
Griechen, il. 413. 1 Plato, Gorgias, p. 524 5g. 

4 Cf. Thucydides, iii. $3. 2 [dem, Leges, Vv. 730. 

5 See Schmidt, of. cz. ii. 403 sgg. 13 Jbid. xi. 916. 

= 

Clad) 1X. 312 sq. 4 Plato, Respubleca, ii. 382. 
7 Diogenes Laertius, Vite philoso- 15 Jord. iti. 3893 v. 459. 
phorum, 1. 2 (60). 

State, he will punish him for introducing a practice “which 
is equally subversive and destructive of ships or State.” * 
Next to him who takes a false oath, he who tells a false- 
hood in the presence of his superiors—elders, parents, or 
rulers—is most hateful to the gods.’ 

Not without reason did the Romans of the republican 
age contrast their own fides with the.mendacity of the 
Greeks and the perfidy of the Phoenicians. ‘“ The goddess 
of faith (of human and social faith),” says Gibbon, ‘ was 
worshipped, not only in her temples, but in the lives of 
the Romans ; and if that nation was deficient in the more 
amiable qualities of benevolence and generosity, they 
astonished the Greeks by their sincere and simple perform- 
ance of the most burdensome engagements.” * ‘Their 
annals are adorned with signal examples of uprightness, 
which, though to a great extent fictitious, yet bear testi- 
mony to the estimation in which that quality was held.* 
The Greeks had no Regulus who “ chose to deliver him- 
self up to a cruel death rather than to falsify his word to 
the enemy.’’® The basest forms of falsehood were severely 
punished by law. According to the Twelve Tables, any- 
one who had slandered or libelled another by imputing to 
him a wrongful or immoral act, was to be scourged to 
death,° and capital punishment was also inflicted on false 
witnesses’ and corrupt judges. However, already before 
the end of the Republic dishonesty, perjuries, and forgeries 
became common in Rome.?® 

The ancient Scandinavians considered it disgraceful for 
a man to tell a lie, to break a promise, or to commit a 
treacherous act.” To kill or rob openly was a pardonable 
offence, if an offence at all; but he who did it secretly 
was a withinger, a ‘‘ hateful man,” unless indeed he after- 

1 Plato, Respublica, ili. 380. 7 Ibid. viii. 23. Aulus Gellius, 
2 Idem, Leges, xi. 917. Idem,  Noctes Attice, xx. i. aye 
Respublica, iii. 389. 8 Lex Duodecim Tabularum, ix. 3. 
* Gibbon, Hestory of the Declineand Aulus Gellius, of. cit. xx. i, 7. 
fall of the Roman Enipire, v. 311. Uinge,opaiceeape gs: 
4 Cf. Inge, Soctety in Rome under 10 Maurer, Bekehrung des Norwe- 
the Caesar's, p. 33 5g. geschen Stammes, ii. 154, 183 sg. Rosen- 
5 Cicero, De officizs, i. 13. berg, Nordboernes Aandsliv, i. 487. 

8 Lex Duodecim Tabularum, Vili. 1. 

a 

wards openly declared his deed.t. In the Irish Senchus 
Mor it is said that not only false witness, but lying in 
general, deprives the guilty person of ‘half his honour- 
price up to the third time” ;° and, according to the 
commentary to the Book of Aicill, the double of his own 
full honour-price is due from each person who commits 
the crime of secret murder.® 

In the Old Testament there are recorded, from the 
patriarchal age, some cases of lying, which, far from being 
condemned, in no way prevented the liar being a special 
object of divine favour. It must be admitted, however, 
that undue importance has been attached to some of these 
acts of falsehood,* which were committed among foreigners 
with a view to escaping an impending danger.’ For 
instance, when Isaac, dwelling in Gerar, said of his wife 
that she was his sister, for fear lest the men of the place 
should kill him,’ he did a thing which few conscientious 
men under similar circumstances would hesitate to do. As 
for Jacob’s long course of double-dealing with his father- 
in-law, who was equally greedy and unscrupulous, it 
should be remembered that they were natives of different 
lands.” Again, when Jacob, at the instigation. of his 
mother, grossly deceived his own blind father, the in- 
triguers, as has been pointed out,® manifestly felt that the 
blessing extorted from Isaac ought to descend upon Jacob 
rather than upon Esau, and inasmuch as the word of the 
father was held to carry with it divine validity and potency, 
the securing of it by fair means or foul was deemed an 
urgent necessity. Itis obvious that the ancient Hebrews 
did not condemn deceit as wrong in the abstract, and that 
they were very unscrupulous in the use of means. When- 

1 Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 4 E.g., by McCurdy, ‘ Moral Evolu- 
569. Nordstrém, Bidrag till den svenska tion of the Old Testament,’ in Amerz- 
samhills-forfattningens historia, ii. can Journal of Theology, i. 665 sg. ; 

320 sgg. Keyser, Efterladte Skr “after, von Jhering, Zweck im Recht, ii. 606 
li, pt. 1. 361. Rosenberg, Mordboernes sq. 5 Spencer, Principles of Ethics, 1. 
Aandsliv, i. 487. von Amira, ‘ Recht,’ 402. 

in Paul’s Grandriss der germanischen OO (GAIR ER salle WAI BBS PP 
Phalologie, i Hi JON sly yey 8 Jbid. xxvi. 7. 

2 Ancient Laws of Lreland, i. 57. 7 Tbed. ch. xxix. sqq. 

3 [bid. iil. 99. 8 McCurdy, Zoc. cet. p. 666. 

VOL. Il H 

ever David was threatened by any danger, he immediately 
employed a falsehood which served his turn ; though not 
incapable of generosity, he deceived enemies and friends 
indifferently, and there is probably no record of treachery 
and lying consistently pursued which surpasses in baseness 
his affair with his faithful servant Uriah the Hittite.’ It 
is true that his conduct towards Uriah was condemned ; 
“the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” ° 
But it is significant that Yahveh himself occasionally had 
recourse to deceit for the purpose of carrying out his plans. 
In order to ruin Ahab he commissioned a lying spirit to 
deceive his prophets ;* and once he threatened to use de- 
ception as a means of taking revenge upon idolaters.* But 
to bear false witness against a neighbour was strictly pro- 
hibited ;° the false witness should suffer the punishment 
which he was minded to bring upon the person whom he 
calumniated.® In Ecclesiasticus lying is severely censured : 
—‘ A lie is a foul blot in a man, yet it is continually in 
the mouth of the untaught. A thief is better than a 
man that is accustomed to lie: but they both shall have 
destruction to heritage. The disposition of a liar is dis- 
honourable, and his shame is ever with him.’’? 
lips are abomination to the Lord : but they that deal truly 
are his delight.”"* According to the Talmud, “ four shall 
not enter Paradise : the scoffer, the liar, the hypocrite, 
and the slanderer.”* Only for the sake of peace, and 
especially domestic peace, may a man tell a lie without 
sinning ; "” but he who changes his word commits as heavy 
a sin as he who worships idols.” The duty of truthful- 
ness was particularly emphasised by the Essenes.2 He 
who entered their sect had to pledge himself always to love 

* Cf. Kuenen, Religion of Israel, i. ® Deutsch, Literary Remains, p. 57. 
327 5 McCurdie, Joc. cit. p. 681. 10 Hershon, Zreasures of the Talmud. 
2 2 Samuel, x1. 27 ; Xil. I sgq. p. 69 sq. 

3 1 Kings, xxii. 20 sgg 1 Sanhedrin, f 
7g5, X : 2, fol. 92 A, quoted by 
* Ezekiel, xiv. 7 sgg. Cf. Spencer, Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures on the 
Principles of Ethics, i. 402. Religion of the Ancient Hebrews, p 
° Deuteronomy, Vv. 20. 558. fai 
; ee xix. 16 SQq. ‘a Philo Judzeus, Quod Liber sit 
: “4cclesiasticus, XX. 24 sqq. quisque virtute studet, p. 877 (Opera, 

Proverbs, xii. 22. li. 458) 

———— es ee 

Lying 

ee ee ee  — ————— —— 

truth and strive to reclaim all liars. “They are eminent 
for fidelity,” says Josephus. ‘‘ Whatsoever they say also is 
firmer than an oath ; but swearing is avoided by them, 
and they esteem it worse than perjury; for they say that 
he who cannot be believed without [swearing by] God is 
already condemned.” ” . 

«Speak every man truth with his neighbour,”? was 
from early times regarded as one of the most imperative 
of Christian maxims.* According to St. Augustine, a 
lie is not permissible even when told with a view to saving 
the life of a neighbour; “since by lying eternal life is 
lost, never for any man’s temporal life must a lie be 
told.”° Yet all lies are not equally sinful ; the degree of 
sinfulness depends on the mind of the liar and on the 
nature of the subject on which the lie is told.° This 
became the authorised doctrine of the Church.’ Thomas 
Aquinas says that, although lying is always sinful, it is 
not a mortal sin if the end intended be not contrary 
to charity, “as appears in a jocose lie, that is intended 
to create some slight amusement, and in an officious lie, 
in which is intended even the advantage of our neigh- 
bour.”* Yet from early times we meet within the Chris- 
tian Church a much less rigorous doctrine, which soon 
came to exercise a more powerful influence on the practice 
and feelings of men than did St. Augustine’s uncom- 
promising love of truth. The Greek Fathers maintained 
that an untruth is not a lie when there is a “just cause”’ 

7 Gratian, Decretum, ii. 22. 2. 12, 

1 Josephus, De bello Judazco, ii. 8. 7. 
Catechism of the Council of 

2 Tid. ii. 8. 6. 17. 

3 Ephesians, iv. 25. 

4 Gass, Geschichte der chrtstlichen 
Lthzk, i. 90. 

5 St. Augustine, De mendacto, 6 
(Migne, Patrologte cursus, xl. 494 

5g.). 

Sea Enchiridion, 18 (Migne, 
op. cit. x1. 240) ; Ldem, De mendacto, 21 
(Migne, xl. 516). For St. Augustine’s 
views on lying see also his treatise 
Contra mendacium, addressed to Con- 
sentius (Migne, xl. 517 sgg.), and Binde- 
mann, Der hetlige Augustinus, il. 465 
59. 

Trent, lii.-9. 23. 

8 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, 
ii.ll. 110, 3 sg. St. Augustine says 
(De mendacto, 2 [Migne, of. ct. xl. 
487 sq.]3 Questiones in Genestm, 145, 
ad Gen. xliv. 15 [Migne, xxxiv. 587]) 
that jokes which ‘‘ bear with them in 
the tone of voice, and in the very 
mood of the joker a most evident 
indication that he means no deceit,” 
are not accounted lies, though the 
thing he utters be not true. This 
statement is also incorporated in 
Gratian’s Decretum (ii. 22. 2. 18). 

Ele 

for it; and as a just cause they regarded not only self- 
defence, but also zeal for God’s honour.' This zeal, 
together with an indiscriminate devotion to the Church, 
led to those ‘pious frauds,” those innumerable falsifica- 
tions of documents, inventions of legends, and forgeries 
of every description, which made the Catholic Church 
a veritable seat of lying, and most seriously impaired the 
sense of truth in the minds of Christians.? By a fiction 
Papacy, as a divine institution, was traced back to the age 
of the Apostles, and in virtue of another fiction Constantine 
was alleged to have abdicated his imperial authority in 
Italy in favour of the successor of St. Peter.? The Bishop 
of Rome assumed the privilege of disengaging men from 
their oaths and promises. An oath which was contrary 
to the good of the Church was declared not to be binding.’ 
The theory was laid down that, as faith was not to be 
kept with a tyrant, pirate, or robber, who kills the body, 
it was still less to be kept with an heretic, who kills the 
soul.® Private protestations were thought sufficient to 
relieve men in conscience from being bound by a solemn 
treaty or from the duty of speaking the truth ; and an 
equivocation, or play upon words in which one sense is’ 
taken by the speaker and another sense intended by him 
for the hearer, was in some cases held permissible. Ac- 
cording to Alfonso de’ Liguori—who lived in the eigh- 
teenth century and was beatified in the nineteenth, and 
whose writings were declared by high authority not to 
contain a word that could be justly found fault with,’— 

ECAR Wh CA Wy Olin C2 Bele) Gere 

Newman, <Afologia pro wita sua, 

» P- 349 Sg- 

2 von Mosheim, /rstetutes of Eccle- 
stastical History, i. 275. Middleton, 
free Inquiry into the Miraculous 
Powers, which are supposed to have 
subsisted in the Christian Church, 
passim. Lecky, Rese and Influence of 

Thought, p. 249. 

4 Gregory IX. Decretales, ii. 24. 27. 

® Simancas, De catholicts institutio- 
nibus, xlvi. 52 5g. p. 365 sg. 

® Alagona, Compendium manualis 
D. Navarri, xii. 88, p. 94 sg.:—“ Fur, 
qui est furatus aliquid, si interrogetur a 
judice non competenti, vel non juridice, 
an sit furatus tale quid, potest secura 

Rationalism in Europe, i. 396 sqq. 
Gass, op. cit. 1. 91, 235. von Eicken, 
System der mittelalterlichen Weltan- 
schauung, pp. 654-656, 663. 

3 von Eicken, of. cit. p. 656. Poole, 
Tiustrations of the History of Medieval 

conscientia respondere simpliciter, non 
sum furatus, intelligendo intra se in tali 
die, vel anno.” See also Kames, op. 
cit. IV. 158 sg. 

7 Meyrick, Moral and Devotional 

Theology of the Church of Rome, i. 3. 

there are three sorts of equivocation which may be 
employed for a good reason, even with the addition of 
a solemn oath. We are allowed to use ambiguously words 
having two senses, as the word volo, which means both to 
‘wish’ and to “ fly” ; sentences bearing two main mean- 
ings, as “This book is Peter's,” which may mean 
either that the book belongs to Peter or that Peter is 
the author of it; words having two senses, one more 
common than the other or one literal and the other 
metaphorical—for instance, if a man is asked about 
something which it is in his interest to conceal, he may 
poamer, NOt isays othateise*< says the word ‘no,’”?* 
As for mental restrictions, again, such as are ‘purely 
mental,” and on that account cannot in any manner 
be discovered by other persons, are not permissible ; but 
we may, for a good reason, make use of a ‘“non-pure 
mental restriction,” which, in the nature of things, is 
discoverable, although it is not discovered by the person 
with whom we are dealing. Thus it would be wrong 
secretly to insert the word “no” in an affirmative oath 
without any external sign ; but it would not be wrong to 
insert it in a whispering voice or under the cover of a 
cough. The “good reason” for which equivocations 
and non-pure mental restrictions may be employed is 
defined as “any honest object, such as keeping our goods 
spiritual or temporal.” * In support of this casuistry it is 
uniformly said by Catholic apologists that each man has a 
right to act upon the defensive, that he has a right to 
keep guard over the knowledge which he possesses in the 
same way as he may defend his goods; and as for there 
being any deceit in the matter—why, soldiers use strata- 
gems in war, and opponents use feints in fencing." 
Adherence to truth and especially perfect fidelity to a 
promise were strongly insisted upon by the code of 
Chivalry. However exacting or absurd the vow might 
1 Alfonso de’ Liguori, Zheolog7a 4 Meyrick, of. cif. 1.25. 
moralis, iii. 151, vol. 1. 249. 5 Book of the Ordre of Chyualry, 

2 Ibid. iii. 152, vol. i. 249. foll. 18 b, 31 b, 34 b. Robertson, His- 
8 Jotd, iii. 151, vol. i. 249. tory of the Reign of Charles V. is 8 

be, a knight was compelled to perform it in all the strict- 
ness of the letter. A man frequently promised to grant 
whatever another should ask, and he would have lost the 
honour of his knighthood if he had declined from his word." 
We are told by Lancelot du Lac that when King Artus 
had given his word to a knight to make him a present of 
his wife, he would neither listen to the lamentations of the 
unfortunate woman, nor to any representations which could 
be made him; he replied that a king must not go from 
his word, and the queen was accordingly delivered to the 
knight.2, The knights taken in war were readily allowed 
liberty for the time they asked, on their word of honour 
that they would return of their own accord, whenever it 
should be required.’ So great, it is said, was the knight’s 
respect for an oath, a promise, or a vow, that when they lay 
under any of these restrictions, they appeared everywhere 
with little chains attached to their arms or habits to show 
all the world that they were slaves to their word; nor 
were these chains taken off till their promise had been 
performed, which sometimes extended to a term of four 

of fiye years.” “It cannot =be expected, of «course, that 

reality should have always come up to the ideal. In 
the thirteenth century the Count of Champagne declared 
that he confided more in the lowest of his subjects than in 
his knights.? Moreover, the knightly duty of sincerity 
seems to have gone little beyond the formal fulfilment 
of an engagement. “ The age of Chivairy was an age of 
chicane, and fraud, and trickery, which were not least 
conspicuous among the knightly classes.”° It is signifi- 
cant that the English law of the thirteenth century, though 
quite willing to admit in vague phrase that no one should 
be suffered to gain anything by fraud, was inclined to hold 
that a man has himself to thank if he is misled by deceit, the 
king’s court generally providing no remedy for him who to 

Sainte-Palaye, A/émotres sur Cancienne S1b1a.4..230 59: 
chevalerie, 1. 76 sq. 5 Ibid. ii < ; 
ea did. 1. 47. Cf. Kames, of. ¢ 
1 Mills, Azstory of Chivalry, p. 152. iv. 157. " ee 
2 Vancelot du Lac, voll i. fol: 2.4 6 Pike, History of Crime 
, vol. il. fol. 2 a. y of Crime in Enelan 
3 Sainte-Palaye, of. czt. i. 135. i, 283. ; hile: 

———" 

his disadvantage had trusted the word of a liar.!. Towards 
the end of the Middle Ages and later, crimes against the 
Mint and the offence of counterfeiting seals, usually accom- 
panied by that of forging letters or official documents, 
were extremely common in England ;° and false weights, 
false measures, and false pretences of all kinds were ordi- 
nary instruments of commerce.® . 

In modern times, according to Mr. Pike, the Public 
Records testify a decrease of deception in England. Com- 
mercial honesty has improved, and those mean arts to 
which, during the reigns of the Tudors, even men in the 
highest positions frequently had recourse, have now, at 
any rate, descended to a lower grade of society.° At 
present, in the civilised countries of the West, opinion 
as to what the duty of sincerity implies varies not only in 
different individuals, but among different classes or groups 
of people, as also among different nations. Duplicity is 
held more reprehensible in a gentleman than in a shopkeeper 
or a peasant. The notion which seems to be common in 
England, that an advocate is over-scrupulous who refuses 
to say what he knows to be false if he is instructed to say 
it,” appears strange at least to some foreigners ;’ and in 
certain countries it is regarded as blamable hypocrisy if a 
person ostensibly professes a religion in which he does not 
believe, say, by going to church. The Quakers deem all 
complimentary modes of speech, for instance in addressing 
people, to be objectionable as being inconsistent with truth.” 
Certain philosophers have expressed the opinion that 
veracity is an unconditional duty, which is not to be 
limited by any expediency, but must be respected in all 
circumstances. According to Kant, it would be a crime 
to tell a falsehood to a murderer who asked us whether 

1 Pollock and Maitland, History of Paley, Principles of Moral and 
English Law before the Time of Political Philosophy, ui. 15 (Complete 
Edward I, ii. 535 59. Works, ii. 117). The same view was 

2 Pike, of. cit. 1. 265, 269; ll. 392. expressed by Cicero (De offices, il. 14). 

SUCH T AQ Sele 230. “ See also Dymond, Zssays on the 

evloddale 204, Cf. 207d. Ul. A74. Principles of Morals, ii. 5, p- 5° 99. 

® [bid. il. 14 sq. 8 Gurney, Views and Practices of the 

8 Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, p. 316. Society of Freends, p. 401. 

our friend, of whom he was in pursuit, had taken refuge 
in our house.! Fichte maintains that the defence of 
so-called necessary lies is ‘‘the most wicked argument 
possible amongst men.” * Dymond says, “If I may tell 
a falsehood to a robber in order to save my property, I 
may commit parricide for the same purpose.” * But this 
rigorous view is not shared by common sense, nor by 
orthodox Protestant theology.* Jeremy Taylor asks, 
“Who will not tell a harmless lie to save the life of his 
friend, of his child, of himself, of a good and brave 
man?’’> Where deception is designed to benefit the 
person deceived, says Professor Sidgwick, ‘common sense 
seems to concede that it may sometimes be right: for 
example, most persons would not hesitate to speak falsely 
to an invalid, if this seemed the only way of concealing facts 
that might produce a dangerous shock : nor do I perceive 
that any one shrinks from telling fictions to children, on 
matters upon which it is thought well that they should not 
know the truth.” ° In the case of grown-up people, how- 
ever, this principle seems to require the modification made 
by Hutcheson, that there is no wrong in false speech when 
the party deceived himself does not consider it an injury © 
to be deceived.” Otherwise it might easily be supposed to 
give support to “ pious fraud,” which in its crudest form 
is nowadays generally disapproved of, but which in subtle 
disguise still has many advocates among religious partisans. 
It is argued that the most important truths of religion 
cannot be conveyed into the minds of ordinary men, 
except by being enclosed, as it were, in a shell of fiction, 
and that by relating such fictions as if they were facts we 
are really performing an act of substantial veracity.* But 
this argument seems chiefly to have been invented for the 

1 Kant, ‘Ueber ein  vermeintes 
Recht, aus Menschenliebe zu Liigen,’ 
in Sdmmtliche Werke, vil. 309. 

2 Fichte, Das System der Szttentehre, 
p. 371; English translation, p. 303 sg. 

° Dymond, of. cz/. 1. 6, p. 57. 

* Reinhard, System der Christ- 
lichen Moral, iil. 193 sgg. Martensen, 

Christian Ethics, ‘Individual Ethics,’ 
p. 216 sgg. Newman, Afgologia pro 
5 Taylor, Whole Works, xii. 162. 
8 Sidgwick, of. ct. p. 316. 
“ Hutcheson, System of 
Philosophy, ii. 32. ’ 
8 Sidgwick, of. czt. p. 316. 

Moral 

‘ cin G / 
f é J “ER 
a\ “&, 
xxx TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH Coe 
< ; Pp / 
purpose of supporting a dilapidated structure of colotica SS Cp 

teaching, and can hardly be accepted by any person un- 
prejudiced by religious bias. As a means of self-defence 
deviation from truth has been justified not only in the case 
of grosser injuries but in the case of illegitimate curiosity, 
as it seems unreasonable that a person should be obliged 
to supply another with information which he has no right 
to exact." The obligation of keeping a promise, again, is 
qualified in various ways. Thoughtful persons would 
commonly admit that such an obligation is relative to the 
promisee, and may be annulled by him.’ A promise to 
do an immoral act is held not to be binding, because the 
pre obligation not to do the act is paramount.’ If, 

efore the time comes to fulfil a promise, circumstances 
have altered so much that the effects of keeping it are 
quite different from those which were foreseen when it was 
made, all would agree that the promisee ought to release 
the promiser ; but if he declines to do so, some would say 
that the latter is in every case bound by his promise, 
whilst others would maintain that a considerable alteration 
of circumstances has removed the obligation.* How far 
promises obtained by force or fraud are binding is a much 
disputed question.? According to Hutcheson, for instance, 
no regard is due to a promise which has been extorted 
by unjust violence.° Adam Smith, on the other hand, 
considers that whenever such a promise is violated, though 
for the most necessary reason, it is always with some 
degree of dishonour to the person who made it, and that 
‘a brave man ought to die rather than make a promise 

1 Schopenhauer, Die Grundlage der 110. 3. 5) that a person who does not 

Moral, § 17 (Sdmmtliche Werke, vi. 
247 Sgq.). 

2 Whewell, Zlements of Morality, 
p. 156. Sidgwick, op. cz/. p. 305. 

3 Dymond, of. czt. il. 6, p. 55. 
Whewell, of. czt. p. 156 sg. Sidgwick, 
op. cet. p. 305. This is also the 
opinion of Thomas Aquinas (0. ci. 
il.il. 110. 3. 5). 

4 Sidgwick, of. ci. p. 306 sg. 
Thomas Aquinas says (of. ce¢. 1i.—1. 

do what he has promised is excused ‘if 
the conditions of persons and things 
are changed.” 

5 Dymond, of. czt. i. 6, p. 55 Sg. 
Whewell, of. cz#. pp. 155, 159 Sgg. 
Sidgwick, of. czt. p. 305 sg. Adam 
Smith, Zheory of Moral Sentiments, 
p. 486 sgq. 

6 Hutcheson, Systeyz 
Philosophy, i. 34, 

Moral 

THE REGARD FOR 

which he can neither keep without folly nor violate with- 
out ignominy.” * re 
In point of veracity and good faith the old distinction 
between duties which we owe to our fellow-countrymen 
and such as we owe to foreigners is still preserved in 
various cases. It is particularly conspicuous in the relations 
between different states, in peace or war. Stratagems and 
the employment of deceptive means necessary to procure 
intelligence respecting the enemy or the country are held 
allowable in warfare, independently of the question whether 
the war is defensive or aggressive.” Deceit has, in fact, 
often constituted a great share of the glory of the most cele- 
brated commandets ; and particularly in the eighteenth cen- 
tury it was.a common opinion that successes gained through 
a spy are more creditable to the skill of a general than 
successes in regular battles.? Lord Wolseley writes :—“ As 
a nation we are bred up to feel it a disgrace even to succeed 
by falsehood ; the word spy conveys something as repul- 
sive as slave; we will keep hammering along with the 
conviction that ‘honesty is the best policy,’ and that truth 
always wins in the long run. These pretty little sentences 
do well for a child’s copy-book, but the man who acts upon 
them in war had better sheathe his sword for ever.”’* At 
the same time, there are some exceptions to the general 
rule that deceit is permitted against an enemy. Under the 
customs of war it has been agreed that particular acts and 
signs shall have a specific meaning in order that belligerents 

1 Adam Smith, of. cz. p. 489. 
2 Conférence de Bruxélles, art. 14. 

Instructions for the Government of 

Armies of the United States in the 
field, art. 16, 101. Conférence .inter- 
nationale de la paix, La Haye, 1899, 
‘Reglement concernant les lois de la 
guerre sur terre,’ art. 24, pt. i. p. 245. 
Roman Catholicism admits the employ- 
ment of stratagems in wars which are 
just (Gratiany op. cz i.) 2eye2en ae 
Ayala, De jure et offictts belliczs et 
disceplina militar, 1, 8. 1 sg. 3 Ferraris, 
quoted by Adds, Catholic Dictionary, 

p- 945; Nys, Le droit de la guerre et 
les précurseurs de Grotius, p. 128 sq.), 
on the authority of St. Augustine, the 
great advocate of general truthfulness 
(Questiones in Jesum Nave, 10, ad Jos. 
viii. 2 [Migne, of. cet. xxxiv. 781] :— 
“Cum autem justum bellum susceperit, 
utrum aperta pugna utrum _ insidiis 
vincat, nihil ad justitiam interest”’). 

* Halleck, /uternational Law, i. 567. 
Maine, /nternational Law, p. 149 sqq. 

4 Wolseley, Soldiers Pocket-Book for 
Tield Service, p. 169. ; 

os 

may carry on certain necessary intercourse, and it is 
forbidden to employ such acts or signs in deceiving an 
enemy. Thus information must not be surreptitiously 
obtained under the shelter of a flag of truce ; buildings not 
used as hospitals must not be marked with an hospital flag ; 
and persons not covered by the provisions of the Geneva 
Convention must not be protected by its cross.! A curious 
arbitrary rule affects one class of stratagems by forbidding 
certain permitted means of deception from the moment at 
which they cease to deceive. It is perfectly legitimate to 
use the distinctive emblems of an enemy in order to escape 
from him or to draw his forces into action ; but it is held 
that soldiers clothed in the uniforms of their enemy must 
put on a conspicuous mark by which they can be recognised 
before attacking, and that a vessel using the enemy’s fla 

must hoist its own flag before firing with shot or shell.’ 
Disobedience to this rule is considered to entail grave 
dishonour ; for “in actual battle enemies are bound to 
combat loyally and are not free to ensure victory by 
putting on a mask of friendship.”* But, as Mr. Hall 
observes, it is not easy to see why it is more disloyal to 
wear a disguise when it is obviously useless, than when it 
serves its purpose.* Finally, it is universally agreed that 
promises given to the enemy ought to be kept ; ° this was 
admitted even by Machiavelli ° and Bynkershoek,' who did 
not in general burden belligerents with particularly heavy 
duties. But the restrictions which ‘ international law ”’ 

1 Conférence de Bruxelles, art. 13 sq. 8 Machiavelli, Dzscorsz, ill. 40 
Instructions for the Government of  (Ofpere, iil. 164). 
Armies of the United States in the 7 Bynkershoek, Qzestiones juris 
Field, art. 101, 114, 117. Manual of publict, i. 1, p. 4. The maxim of 
the Laws of War on Land, prepared Canon Law, ‘‘ Fides servanda hosti” 
by the Institute of International Law, (Gratian, Decretwm, il. 23. 1. 3), how- 
art. 8 (d). Hall, Zreatise on Inter- ever, was greatly impaired by the 
national Law, p. 537 sq. principle, ‘‘Juramentum contra utili- 
2 Hall, op. czt. p. 538 sg. Bluntschli, tatem ecclesiasticam praestitum non 
Droit international, § 565, p. 328 sq. tenet” (Gregory IX. WZecretales, i. 
3 Bluntschli, of. cit. § 565, p. 329. 24, 27. See Nys, Le droit de la guerre 
4 Hall, op. cet. p. 539. et les précurseurs de Grotius, p. 120 

5 Heffter, Das EHuropiische Volker-  sq.). 
recht der Gegenwart, §125, p. 262, 

lays on deceit against enemies do not seem to be taken 
very seriously. ‘Treaties between nations and promises 
given by one state to another, either in war or peace, are 
hardly meant to be kept longer than it is convenient 
tol|keep them. And when an excuse for the breach of 
faith is felt necessary, that excuse itself is generally 
a lie.

THE REGARD FOR TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH 

(concluded ) 

THE condemnation of untruthfulness and bad faith 
springs from a variety of sources. In the first place, 
he who tells a lie, or who breaks a promise, generally 
commits an injury against another person. His act con- 
sequently calls forth sympathetic resentment, and becomes 
an object of moral censure. 

Men have a natural disposition to believe what they are 
told. This disposition is particularly obvious in young 
children ; it is acquired wisdom and experience only that 
teach incredulity, and, as Adam Smith observes, they very 
seldom teach it enough. Even people who are themselves 
pre-eminent liars are often deceived by the falsehoods of 
others.” When detected a deception always implies a con- 
flict between two irreconcilable ideas ; and such a conflict 
gives rise to a feeling of pain,® which may call forth 
resentment against its volitional cause, the deceiver. 

But men are not only ready to believe what they are 
told, they also like to know the truth. Curiosity, or the 
love of truth, is coeval with the first operations of the 
intellect ; it seems to be an ultimate fact in the human 

1 Reid, “Znguzry znto the Human 2 Burton, Zwo Trips to Gorella 
Mind, vi. 24, p. 430 sgg. Adam Land, i. 106 (Mpongwe). 

Smith, Zheory of Moral Sentiments, 3 Lehmann, AHovedlovene for det 
p- 4945g. Dugald Stewart, Philosophy  menneshelige Folelseliv, p. 181. Ch 

of the Active and Moral Powers of Bain, Emotions and the Will, p. 218. 
Man, ii. 340 sg. 

ee ¥ oe —~—_/™— a “To 

frame.! In our endeavour to learn the truth we are 
frustrated by him who deceives us, and he becomes an 
object of our resentment. 

Nor are we injured by a deception merely because we 
like to know the truth, but, chiefly, because it is of much 
importance for us that we should know it. Our conduct 
is based upon our ideas; hence the erroneous notion as 
regards some fact in the past, present, or future, which 1s 
produced by a lie or false promise, may lead to unforeseen 
events detrimental to our interests. Moreover, on dis- 
covering that we have been deceived, we have the humiliat- 
ing feeling that another person has impertinently made our 
conduct subject to his will. ‘This is a wound on our pride, 
a blot on our honour. Francis I. of France laid down as 
a principle, “that the lie was never to be put up with 
without satisfaction, but by a base-born fellow.”? “The 
lie,” says Sainte-Palaye, “‘has always been considered the 
most fatal and irreparable affront that a man of honour 
could receive.” ? 

How largely the condemnation of falsehood and bad 
faith is due to the harm suffered by the victim appears 
from the fact that a lie or breach of faith is held more 
condemnable in proportion to the magnitude of the harm 
caused by it. But even in apparently trifling cases the 
reflective mind strongly insists upon the necessity of 
truthfulness and fidelity to a given word. Every lie and 
every unfuifilled promise have a tendency to lessen mutual 
confidence, to predispose the perpetrator to commit a 
similar offence in the future, and to serve as a bad example 
for others. ‘The importance of truth,” says Bentham, 
‘“‘is so great, that the least violation of its laws, even in 
frivolous matters, is always attended with a certain degree 
of danger. The slightest deviation from it is an attack 
upon the respect we owe to it. It is a first transgression 
which facilitates a second, and familiarises the odious idea 

1 Dugald Stewart, op. czt. il. 334, 1. 71. 
340. _® Sainte - Palaye, Mémoires sur 
2 Millingen, Avstory of Duelling,  Vanctenne chevalerie, i. 78. 

TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH 

XXXI a 
of falsehood.” ' Contrariwise, as Aristotle observes, he 
who is truthful in unimportant matters will be all the 
more so in important ones.” Similar considerations, how- 
ever, require a certain amount of reflection and farsighted- 
ness ; hence intellectual development tends to increase the 
emphasis laid on the duties of sincerity and good faith. 
At the earlier stages of civilisation it is frequently con- 
sidered good form to tell an untruth toa person in order 
to please him, and ill-mannered to ‘contradict him, how- 
ever much he be mistaken,’® for the reason that farther 
consequences are left out of account. The utilitarian basis 
of the duty of truthfulness also accounts for those extreme 
cases in which a deception is held permissible or even a 
duty, when promoting the true interests of the person 
subject to it. 

The detestation of falsehood is in a very large measure 
due to the motive which commonly is at the bottom of a 
lie. It is doubtful whether a lie ever is told simply from 
love of falsehood.* The intention to produce a wrong 
belief has a deeper motive than the mere desire to produce 
such a belief; and in most cases this motive is the 
deceiver’s hope of benefiting himself at the expense of the 
person deceived. A better motive makes the act less 
detestable, or may even serve as a justification. But the 
broad doctrine that the end sanctifies the means is gene- 
rally rejected ; and the principle which sometimes allows 

1 Bentham, Theory of Legislation, naked truth.” An English sportsman, 

p. 260. after firing at an antelope, inquired of 
2 Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, iv. his dark attendant, ‘‘ Is it wounded ?” 
Hie tk The answer was, ‘*‘ Yes! the ball went 
3 Besides statements referred to right into his heart.” These mortal 

above, see Dobrizhoffer, Account of 
the Abipones, ii. 137; Hennepin, Vew 
Discovery of a Vast Country tn America 
between New France and New Mexico, 
ii. 70; Dall, A/aska, p. 398 (Aleuts) ; 
Oldfield, in Zrans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. ii. 
255 (West Australian natives). ‘‘ The 
natives of Africa,” says Livingstone 
(Expedition to the Zambest, p. 309), 
‘shave an amiable desire to please, and 
often tell what they imagine will be 
gratifying, rather than the uninteresting 

wounds never proving fatal, he asked a 
friend, who understood the language, 
to explain to the man that he preferred 
the truth in every case. ‘‘He is my 
father,” replied the native, ‘“‘and I 
thought he would be displeased if I 
told him that he never hits at all.” 
The wish to please is likewise a fertile 
source of untruth in children, especi- 
ally girls (Sully, Stadzes of Chéldhood, 
p. 256). i 
4 Dugald Stewart, of. czt. il. 342. 

TT2 THE REGARD FOR CHAP. 

deceit from a benevolent motive has been restricted within 
very narrow limits by a higher conception of individual 
freedom and individual rights. Thus the emancipation 
of morality from theology has brought discredit on the 
old theory that religious deception is permissible when 
it serves the object of saving human souls from eternal 
perdition. The opinion that no motive whatsoever can 
justify an act of falsehood has been advocated not only 
by intuitional moralists, but on utilitarian grounds.* But 
it certainly seems absurd to the common sense of mankind 
that we should be allowed to save our own life or the life 
of a fellow-man by killing the person who wants to take 
it, but not by deceiving him. 

It is easy to see why falsehood is so frequently held 
permissible, praiseworthy, or even obligatory, when 
directed against a stranger. In early society an injury 
inflicted on a stranger calls forth no sympathetic resent- 
ment. On the contrary, being looked upon with suspicion 
or hated as an enemy, he is considered a proper object of 
deception. Among the Bushmans “no one dare give any 
information in the absence of the chief or father of the 
clan.” ? ‘A Bedouin,” says Burckhardt, “ who does not - 
know the person interrogating him, will seldom answer 
with truth to questions concerning his family or tribe. 
The children are taught never to answer similar questions, 
lest the interrogator may be a secret enemy and come for 
purposes of revenge.” Among the Beni Amer a stranger 
can never trust a man’s word on account of “their con- 
tempt for everything foreign.”* That even civilised 
nations allow stratagem in warfare is the natural conse- 
quence of war itself being allowed; and if good faith is 
to be preserved between enemies, Gin is because only 
thereby useless cruelty can be avoided and an end be put 
to hostilities. 

However, deceit is not condemned merely because it is 

! Macmillan, Promotion of General 3 Burckhardt, Motes on the Bedouins 
Happiness, p. 166 sg. and Wahdbys, p. 210. 
2 Chapman, Zvavels in the Interior * Munzinger, Ostafrékanische Studien, 

of South Africa, i. 76. (eh 2eyh 

& At 
= 

© 

SRK! TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH ris 
an injury to the party deceived and as such apt to 
arouse sympathetic resentment, but it is an object of dis- 
interested, moral resentment also because it is intrinsically 
antipathetic. Lying is a cheap and cowardly method of 
gaining an undue advantage, and is consequently despised 
where courage is respected.’ It is the weapon of the weak, 
the woman,’ and the slave.? Fraud, says Cicero, is the 
property of a fox, force that of~a lion; “both are 
utterly repugnant to society, but fraud is the more 
detestable.” * “To lie is servile,” says Plutarch, “and 
most hateful in all men, hardly to be pardoned even 
in poor slaves.’’®° On account of its cowardliness, lying 
was incompatible with Teutonic and knightly notions of 
manly honour ; and among ourselves the epithets “liar ”’ 
and “coward” are equally disgraceful to a man. “ All 
. . . in the rank and station of gentlemen,” Sir Walter 
Scott observes, “are forcibly called upon to remember 
that they must resent the imputation of a voluntary false- 
hood as the most gross injury.” ° Fichte asks, “« Whence 
comes that internal shame for one’s self which manifests 
itself even stronger in the case of a lie than in the case 
of any other violation of conscience?”” And his answer 
is, that the lie is accompanied by cowardice, and that nothing 
so much dishonours us in our own eyes as want of courage." 
According to Kant, ‘‘a lie is the abandonment, and, as 
it were, the annihilation, of the dignity of a man.” ® 

1 Cf. Schopenhauer, Die Grundlage 
der Moral, § 17 (Sdmmtliche Werke, 
vi. 250); Grote, Zyeatise on the Moral 
Ideals, p. 254. 

2 Women are commonly said to be par- 
ticularly addicted to falsehood (Schopen- 
hauer, Parerga und Paralipomena, ii. 
497 5g. Galton, Znguztries into Human 
faculty, p. 56 sy. Krauss, Sztte und 
Brauch der Stidslaven, pp. 508, 514. 
Maurer, Bekehrung des Norwegischen 
Stammes, ii. 159 [ancient Scandi- 
navians]. Dollinger, Zhe Gentile and 
the Jew, il. 234 [ancient Greeks]. 
Lane, Arabian Society in the Middle 
Ages, p. 219. Le Bon, La czvilisa- 
tion des Arabes, p. 433.  Loskiel, 
History of the Mission of the United 

ViOLe LI 

Brethren, i. 16 [Iroquois]. Hearne, 
Journey to the Northern Ocean, p. 307 
sg. [Northern Indians]. Lyon, P7- 
vate Journal, p. 349 [Eskimo of Igloo- 
lik]. Dalager, Grénlandske Relatzoner, 
p- 69; Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 
175). 

3 See 2/7a, p. 129 sy. 

4 Cicero, De offictzs, 1. 13. 

5 Plutarch, De educatione puerorum, 
14. 
% Scott, ‘Essay on Chivalry,’ in 
Miscellaneous Prose Works, vi. 58. 

7 Fichte, Das System der Sittenlehre, 
p. 370; English translation, p. 302 sg. 

8 Kant, Afetaphysische Anfangungs- 
ertinde der Tugendlehre, p. 84. 

THE REGARD FOR 

But a lie may also be judged of from a very different 
point of view. It may be not only a sign of cowardice, but 
a sign of cleverness. Hence a successful lie may excite 
admiration, a disinterested kindly feeling towards the liar, 
genuine moral approval ; whereas to be detected in a lie is 
considered shameful. And not only is the clever liar an 
object of admiration, but the person whom he deceives is 
an object of ridicule. To the mind of a West African 
native, Miss Kingsley observes, there is no intrinsic harm 
in lying, ‘ because a man is a fool who believes another 
man on an important matter unless he puts on the oath.’’? 
A Syrian proverb says, ‘Lying is the salt (goodness) of 
men, and shameful only to one who believes.” ” 

The duties of sincerity and good faith: are also to some 
extent, and in certain cases principally, founded on pruden- 
tial considerations. Although, as the Marchen tells us, it 
happens every day in the world that the fraudulent is 
successful,® there is a widespread notion that, after all, 
‘honesty is the best policy.” ‘Nothing that is false can 
be lasting,” says Cicero.* ‘‘ The liar is short-lived” (that 
is, soon detected), say the Arabs. According to a Wolof 
proverb, “ lies, however numerous, will be caught by truth 
when it rises up.”° The Basutos have a saying that 
“cunning devours its master.’’” It has been remarked 
that ‘if there were no such thing as honesty, it would be 
a good speculation to invent it, as a means of making one’s 
fortune. »° 

Moreover, lying is attended not only with social disad- 
vantages, but with supernatural danger. The West African 
Fjort have a tale about a fisherman who every day used to 
catch and smuggle into his house great quantities of fish, 

1 Kingsley, West African Studies, 

Schneiderlein,’ &c. 
p.- 414. Cf Sommerville, ‘Ethnogr. 

4 Cicero, De offictts, ii. 12. 

Notes in New Georgia,’ Jour. Anthr. 
Inst. XXVi. 394. 

2 Burton and Drake, Unexplored 
Syria, 1. 275. See also Burckhardt, 
Arabic Proverbs, p. 44 sq. 

3 Grimm, Kinder und Hausmirchen, 
‘Katze und Maus in Gesellschaft,’ 
“Die drei Spinnerinnen,’ ‘ Das tapfere 

° Burckhardt, Aradic Proverbs, p. 
119. 
8 Burton, Wit and Wisdom ‘from 
West Africa, p. 15. 

7 Casalis, Basztos, p. 307. 

8 Quoted by Bentham, 

Theory of 
Legislation, p. 64 

TRUTH AND°GOOD FAITH 

XXXI i) 
but denied to his brother and relatives that he had caught 
anything. All this time the fetish Sunga was watching, and 
was grieved to hear him lie thus. The fetish punished him 
by depriving him of the power of speech, that he might lie 
no more, and so for the future he could only make his 
wants known by signs.’ In another instance, the Fjort 
tell us, the earth-spirit turned into a pillar of clay a woman 
who said that she had no peas for sale, when she had her 
basket full of them.* The Nandi of the Uganda Protecto- 
rate believe that “‘ God punishes lying by striking the un- 
truthful person with lightning.”* The Dyaks of Borneo 
think that the lightning-god is made angry even by the most 
nonsensical untruth, such as the statement that a man has 
a cat for his mother or that vermin can dance.t In 
Aneiteum, of the New Hebrides, the belief prevailed that 
liars would be punished in the life to come ;° according 
to the Banks Islanders, they were excluded from the true 
Panoi or Paradise after death.° We have already noticed 
the emphasis which some of the higher religions lay on 
veracity and good faith, and other statements may be added 
testifying the interest which gods of a more civilised type 
take in the fulfilment of these duties, In ancient Egypt 
Amon Ra, “the chief of all the gods,’”’ was invoked as 
‘Lord of Truth”? ;* and Maa, sometimes represented as 
his daughter, was the goddess of truth and righteousness.* 
In a Babylonian hymn the moon god is appealed to as the 
guardian of truth.” The Vedic gods are described as 
“true” and “not deceitful,” as friends of honesty and 

righteousness ;’ and Agni was the lord of vows." ‘The 

1 Dennett, Folklore of the Fyort, lution des idées morales dans 1 Egypte 
p. 88 sg. Ancienne, pp. 182, 188, 251. 

2 Un ob Lys 8 Wiedemann, ‘Maa, déesse de la 

3 Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, ii.  vérité,’ in Annales du Musée Gutmet, 
879. x. 561 sgg. Amélineau, of. ct. p. 

4 Selenka, Sonnige Welten, p. 47. 18 

5 Turner, Samoa, p. 326. 

® Codrington, Melanesians, p. 274. 

7 Wiedemann, Aelzgzon of the 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 12. Cf. 
Brugsch, De Aegyptologie, pp. 49, 91, 
92, 97; Amélineau, Lssaz sur [évo- 

9 Miirdter-Delitzsch, Geschichte Ba- 
byloniens und Assyrtens, p. 37. A 
 Bergaigne, La religzon védique, il. 
199. Macdonell, Vedec ALythology, 
Pal S: 

1 Satapatha-Bréhmana, iii. 2 2. 24. 

i A 

Zoroastrian Mithra was a protector of truth, fidelity, and 
covenants ;! and Rashnu Razista, ‘the truest true,” was the 

enius of truth.2 According to the Iliad, Zeus is “no 
abettor of falsehoods ” ;° according to Plato, a lie is hateful 
not only to men but to gods.* Among the Romans Jupiter 
and Dius Fidius were gods of treaties,” and Fides was 
worshipped as the deity of faithfulness.° How shall we 
explain this connection between religious beliefs and the 
duties of veracity and fidelity to promises ? 

Apart from the circumstances which in some cases make 
gods vindicators of the moral law in general, as conceived 
of by their worshippers, there are quite special reasons for 
their disapproval of insincerity and bad faith. Here again 
we notice the influence of magic beliefs on the religious 
sanction of morality. 

There is something uncanny in the untrue word itself. 
As Professor Stanley Hall points out, children not in- 
frequently regard every deviation from the most pain- 
fully literal truth as alike heinous, with no perspective 
or degrees of difference between the most barefaced intended 
and unintended lies. In some children this fear of telling 
an untruth becomes so neurotic that to every statement, 
even to yes or no, a“ perhaps” or “I think” is added 
mentally, whispered, or aloud. One boy had a long 
period of fear that, like Ananias and Sapphira, he might 
some moment drop down dead for a chance and perhaps 
unconscious lie.“ On the other hand, an acted lie is felt to 
be much less harmful than a spoken one; to point the 
wrong way when asked where some one is gone is less 
objectionable than to speak wrongly, to nod is less sin- 
ful than to say yes. Indeed, acted lies are for the most 

1 nat Fe pe oo Doe 5 je) y 
Br G8 “Geiger! CHusleation of gh “Mies De oe eee ea 

Eastern Lranians, pp. lvii., 164. De natura deorum, ii. 233; iii. 18. 
Spiegel, EArdnische Alterthumskunde, Idem, De legibus, ii. 8, 11. Dionysius 
iil. 685. of Halicarnassus, <Aztiguitates  Ro- 
; (ete = 
* Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the mana, ii. 75. 
East, xxiii. 168. ’ Stanley Hall, ‘Children’s Lies,’ 

® Iliad, ww. 235. in American Journal of Psychology, iii. 
4 Plato, Respublica, ii. 382. 59 Sg. . 

5 Fowler, Roman Festivals of the 

XXXI TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH v17 

part easily gotten away with, whereas some mysterious 
baneful energy seems to be attributed to the spoken un- 
truth. That its evil influence is looked upon as quite 
mechanical appears from the palliatives used for it. Many 
American children are of opinion that a lie may be 
reversed by putting the left hand on the right shoulder, 
and that even an oath may be neutralised or taken in an 
opposite sense by raising the left instead of the right 
-hand.t| Among childrenin New York “it was sufficient to 
cross the fingers, elbows, or legs, though the act might not 
be noticed by the companion accosted, and under such 
circumstances no blame attached to a falsehood.” 2 To 
think “I do not mean it,’ or to attach to a statement 
a meaning quite different from the current one, is a form 
of reservation which is repeatedly found in children. Nor 
are feelings and ideas of this kind restricted to the young ; 
they are fairly common among grown-up people, and have 
even found expression in ethical doctrines. They lie at 
the root of the Jesuit theory of mental reservations. 
According to Thomas Aquinas, again, though it is wrong 
to tell a lie for the purpose of delivering another from any 
danger whatever, it is lawful “to hide the truth prudently 
under some dissimulation, as Augustine says.” * It is not 
uncommonly argued that in defence of asecret we may not 
“lie,” that is, produce directly beliefs contrary to facts ; 
but that we may “turn a question aside,” that is, produce 
indirectly, by natural inference from our answer, a 
negatively false belief; or that we may “throw the 
inquirer on a wrong scent,’ that is, produce similarly 
a positively false belief.° This extreme formalism may no 
doubt to some extent be traced to the influence of early 
training. From the day we learned to speak, the duty 
of telling the truth has been strenuously enjoined upon us, 
and the word “lie” has been associated with sin of the 

1 Stanley Hall, ‘Children’s Lies,’ ° Stanley Hall, Zoc. cz. p. 68. 
in American Journal of Psychology, ii. + Thomas Aquinas, Swmma_ theo- 
68 sq. logica, ii.-ii. 110. 3. 4. 

2 Bergen and Newell, ‘Current 5 See Sidgwick, A/ethods of Ethics, 

Superstitions,’ in Journal of Amert-  p. 317. 
can Folk-Lore, il. 111. 

118 Fi THE REGARD FOR CHAP. 

blackest hue; whereas other forms of falsehood, being 
less frequent, less obvious, and less easy to define, have 
also been less emphasised. But after full allowance is 
made for this influence, the fact still remains that a 
mystic efficacy is very commonly ascribed to the spoken 
word. Even among ourselves many persons would not 
dare to praise their health or fortune for fear lest some evil 
should result from their speech ; and among less civilised 
peoples much greater significance is given to a word than 
among us. Herodotus, after mentioning the extreme 
importance which the ancient Persians attached to the duty 
of speaking the truth, adds that they held it unlawful even 
“to talk of anything which it is unlawful to do.”* I 
think, then, we may assume that, if for some reason 
or other, falsehood is stigmatised, the mysterious tendency 
inherent in, the word easily develops into an avenging 
power which, as often happens in similar cases, is associated 
with the activity of a god. 

The punishing power of a word is particularly con- 
spicuous in the case of an oath. But the evil attending 
perjury does not come from the lie as such: it is in the 
first place a result of the curse which constitutes the oath. 
An oath is essentially a conditional self-imprecation, a 
curse by which a person calls down upon himself some 
evil in the event of what he says not being true. The 
efficacy of the oath is originally entirely magical, it is due 
to the magic power inherent in the cursing words, In 
order to charge them with supernatural energy various 
methods are adopted. Sometimes the person who takes 
the oath puts himself in contact with some object which 
represents the state referred to in the oath, so that the 
oath may absorb, as it were, its quality and communicate 
it to the perjurer. Thus the Kandhs swear upon the 
lizard’s skin, ‘ whose scaliness they pray may be their lot 
if forsworn,’’. or upon the earth of an ant-hill, “like 
which they desire that, if false, they may be reduced to 
powder.” * ‘The Tunguses regard it as the most dreadful 

1 Herodotus, 1. 139. 2 Macpherson, Alemorials of Service in India, p. 83. 

TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH 

of all their oaths when an accused person is compelled to 
drink some of the blood of a dog which, after its throat 
has been cut, is impaled near a fire and burnt, or has its flesh 
scattered about piece-meal, and to swear :—‘I speak the 
truth, and that is as true as it is that I drink this blood. 
If I lie, let me perish, burn, or be dried up like this 
dog.”"* In other cases the person who is to swear takes 
hold of a certain object and-calls it to inflict on him some 
injury if he perjure himself. The Kandhs frequently take 
oath upon the skin of a tiger, “from which animal destruc- 
tion to the perjured is invoked.” > The Angami Nagas, when 
they swear to keep the peace, or to perform any promise, 
“ place the barrel of a gun, or a spear, between their teeth, 
signifying by this ceremony that, if they do not act up to 
their agreement, they are prepared to fall by either of the 
two weapons.” * The Chuvashes, again, put a piece of 
bread and a little salt in the mouth and swear, “‘ May I 
be in want of these, if I say not true!” or “if I do not 
keep my word!”’* Another method of charging an oath 
with supernatural energy is to touch, or to establish some 
kind of contact with, a holy object on the occasion when 
the oath is taken. The Iowa have a mysterious iron or 
stone, wrapped in seven skins, by which they make men 
swear to speak the truth.? The people of Kesam, in the 
highlands of Palembang, swear by an old sacred knife,” 
the Bataks of South Téba on their village idols,’ the 
Ostyaks on the nose of a bear, which is regarded by them 
as an animal endowed with supernatural power.* Among 
the Tunguses a criminal may be compelled to climb one 

1 Georgi, Russia, iii. 86. 

2 Macpherson, of. czt. p. 83. Cf. 
Hose, ‘ Natives of Borneo,’ in /our. 
Anthr. Inst. xxiii. 165 (Kayans). 

3 Butler, 7ravels in Assam, p. 154. 
Mac Mahon, far Cathay, p. 253. 
Prain, ‘Angami Nagas,’ in Revue 
coloniale internationale, v. 490. Cf. 
Lewin, Weld Races of South-Eastern 
India, pp. 193 (Toungtha), 244 sg. 
(Pankhos and Bunjogees); St. John, 
‘ Hill Tribes of North Aracan,’ in /owr. 
Anthr. Inst. ii. 242. 

4 Georgi, of. czt. i. 110. 

5 Hamilton, quoted by Dorsey, 
‘Siouan Cults,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. 
Ethn. Xi. 427. 

6 Glimpses of the Eastern Archi- 
pelago, p. 104. 

7 yon Brenner, Beszch bec den Kan- 
nibalen Sumatras, p. 213. 

8 Castrén, Mordiska resor och forsk- 
ningar, i. 307, 309; lv. 123 sg. Cf. 
Ahlqvist, ‘Unter Wogtlen und 
Ostjaken,’ in Acta Soctetatis Sctent- 
zarum Fennice, xiv. 298. 

of their sacred mountains, repeating as he mounts, ‘* May 
I die if Iam guilty,” or, “ May I lose my children and my 
cattle,” or, ‘I renounce for ever all success in hunting 
and fishing if I am guilty.”’ In Tibetan law-courts, when 
the great oath is taken, “it is done by the person placing 
a holy scripture on his head, and sitting on the reeking 
hide of an ox and eating part of the ox’s heart.” * Hindus 
swear on a copy of the Sanskrit haribans, or with Ganges 
water in their hands, or touch the legs of a Brahmana in 
taking an oath.2 Muhammedans swear on the Koran, 
as Christians do on the Bible. In Morocco an oath 
derives efficacy from contact with, or the presence of, 
any lifeless object, animal, or person endowed with 
baraka, or holiness, such as a saint-house or a mosque, 
corn or wool, a flock of-sheep or a shorse;sorea 
shereef. In medieval Christendom sacred relics were 
generally adopted as the most effective means of adding 
security to oaths, and “so little respect was felt for the 
simple oath that, ere long, the adjuncts came to be looked 
upon as the essential feature, and the imprecation itself to 
be divested of binding force without them.” * 

Finally, as an ordinary curse, so an oath is made effica- 
cious by bringing in the name of a supernatural being, 
to whom an appeal is made. When the Comanches 
of Texas make a sacred pledge or promise, “they call 
upon the great spirit as their father, and the earth as their 
mother, to testify to the truth of their asseverations.” ® 
Of the Chukchi we are told that “as often as they would 
certify the truth of any thing by oath or solemn protesta~ 
tions they take the sun for their guarantee and security.” ° 
Among the Tunguses an accused person takes a knife in 
his hand, brandishes it towards the sun, and SA yc. om tan 

1 Georgi, of. czt. iil. 86. Geschichte, ii. 297; Ellinger, Das 

2 Waddell, Buddhism of Tibet, p. 
569, n. 7. 

3 Grierson, Lzhar Peasant Life, p. 
401. Sleeman, Rambles and Recol- 
lections of an Indian Official, ii. 116. 

4 Lea, Szferstition and Force, p. 
29. See also Kaufmann, Deutsche 

Verhiliniss der offentlichen Meinung zu 
Wahrhett und Liige im 10. 11. und 12. 

Jahrhundert, pp. 30, 111. 

> Neighbors, in Schoolcraft, 
Indian Tribes of the United States, 
ib Tee. 

§ Georgi, op. czz. iii. 183. 

am guilty, may the sun send diseases into my bowels 
as mortal as a stab with this knife would be!”! An 
Arab from the province of Dukkala in Morocco presses a 
dagger against his chest, saying, ‘“‘By this poison, may 
God thrust it into my heart if I did so or so!” Ifa 
Masai is accused of having done something wrong, he 
drinks some blood, which is given him by the spokesman, 
and says, “If I have done this deed may God kill me” ; 
and it is believed that if he has committed the crime he 
dies, whereas no harm befalls him if he is innocent.? 
Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, “ to 
make an oath binding on the person who takes it, it is 
usual to give him something to eat or to drink which 
in some way appertains to a deity, who is then invoked to 
visit a breach of faith with- punishment.” * Among the 
Shekani and Bakele people of Southern Guinea, when a 
covenant between different tribes is about to be formed, 
their great spirit, Mwetyi, ‘is always invoked as a witness, 
and is commissioned with the duty of visiting vengeance 
upon the party who shall violate the engagement.” * It 
seems to be a common practice in certain parts of Africa to 
swear by some fetish.” The Efatese, of the New Hebrides, 
invoked punishment from the gods in their oaths. In 
Florida, of the Solomon Group, a man will deny an accusa- 
tion by some “izdalo (that is, the disembodied spirit ot 
some man who already in his lifetime was supposed to be 
endowed with supernatural power), or by the ghostly 
frigate-bird, or by the ghostly shark.’ When an ancient 
Egyptian wished to give assurance of his honesty and 
good faith, he called Thoth to witness, the advocate in 
the heavenly court of justice, without whose justification 
no soul could stand in the day of judgment.* The 
Eranians swore by Mithra,’ the Greeks by Zeus," the 

1 Georgi, of. cét. ili. 85 sq. 7 Codrington, of. cet. p. 217. 

2 Hollis, W/asaz, p. 345. 8 Tiele, Azstory of the Egyptian 

3 Ellis, 7shz-speaking Peoples of the Religion, p. 229. Amélineau, of. c?t. 
Gold Coast, p. 196. p- 251. 

4 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 392. ) Wali, 5%, 

5 Schultze, Der Heteschismus, p. 111. W Tliad, iii. 276 sgg. Farnell, Cults 

6 Turner, Samoa, p. 334. of the Greek Staves, i. 70. 

Romans by Jupiter and Dius Fidius.t A god is. more 
able than ordinary mortals to master the processes of 
nature, and he may also better know whether the sworn 
word be true or false.2 It is undoubtedly on account of 
their superior knowledge that sun or moon or light gods 
are so frequently appealed to in oaths. The Egyptian 
god Ra is a solar,® and Thoth a lunar* deity. The Zoro- 
astrian Mithra, who “ has a thousand senses, and sees every 
man that tells a lie,” ° is closely connected with the sun ; ° 
and Rashnu Razista, according to M. Darmesteter, is an 
offshoot either of Mithra or Ahura Mazda himself.” Dius 
Fidius seems originally to have been a spirit of the heaven, 
and a wielder of the lightning, closely allied to the great 
Jupiter.® Zeus is all-seeing, the infallible spy of both gods 
and men.’ Now, even though the oath has the form of 
an appeal to a god, it may nevertheless be of a chiefly 
magic character, being an imprecation rather than a prayer. 
The oaths which the Moors swear by Allah are otherwise 
exactly similar in nature to those in which he is not men- 
tioned at all. But the more the belief in magic was shaken, 
the more the spoken word was divested of that mysterious 

power which had been attributed to it by minds too apt | 

to confound words with facts, the more prominent became 
the religious element in the oath. ‘The fulfilment of the 
self-imprecation was made dependent upon the free will of 
the deity appealed to, and was regarded as the punishment 
for an offence committed by the perjurer against the god 
himself.?° 

1-von Lasaulx, Der Hid bet den  schichte des Alterthums, i. 541 sg. 

Romern, p. 9. 

2 Cf James, Expedition from Pitts- 
burg to the Rocky Mountains, i. 267 
(Omahas); Tylor, Przmztive Culture, 
H. 231 (Ostyaks). 

3 Maspero, Dawn of Czvilization, 
p. 87 sg. Wiedemann, Peligion of the 
Ancient Egyptians, p. 14. 

4 Maspero, of. czt. p. 145. Renouf, 

Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of 

Ancient Egypt, p. 116. 

DVOSTS exe LOTe 

6 Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the 
East, xxiii. 122, n. 4. Meyer, Ge- 

Geiger, of. ct. i. p. lvi. 

” Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the 
Least, xxiii. 168. 

8 Fowler, Roman Festivals, p- 141. 

9 Cf. had, iii. 277; Ovid, Meta- 
morphoses, iv. 172;  Darmesteter, 
Essais ortentaux, p. 107; Usener, 
Gotternamen, p. 177 sqq. 
gi Grotius says (De jure belli et pacis, 
ll, 13. 12) that even he who swears by 
false gods is bound, ‘‘ because, though 
under false notions, he refers to the 
general idea of Godhead, and there- 
fore the true God will interpret it as a 

ae eC 

ee sel 

Owing to its invocation of supernatural sanction, per- 
jury is considered the most heinous of all acts of falsehood. 
But it has a tendency to make even the ordinary lie or 
breach of faith a matter of religious concern. If a god is 
frequently appealed to in oaths, a general hatred of lying 
and unfaithfulness may become one of his attributes, as is 
suggested by various facts quoted above. There is every 
reason to believe that a god is not, in the first place, 
appealed to because he is looked upon as a guardian of 
veracity and good faith, but that he has come to be looked 
upon as a guardian of these duties because he has been 
frequently appealed to in connection with them. 

It seems that sometimes the habit of oath-taking has, in 
another respect also, made it prudential for men to speak 
the simple truth in all circumstances. Sir W. H. Sleeman 

the wrath of God (Stemann, Dex 
danske Retshistorie indtil Christian 
V.’s Lov, p. 645). In other cases, 
again, no civil punishment is affixed to 

wrong to himself if perjury be com- 
mitted.” 

1 Among various peoples perjury is 
punished even by custom or law. 

Thus among the Gaika tribe of the 
Kafirs a person may be fined for taking 
a false oath in a law case (Brownlee, 
in Maclean, Compendium of Kafir 
Laws and Customs, p. 124). In Abys- 
sinia a man convicted of perjury 
‘would not only lose his reputation, 
and be for ever incapacitated from being 
witness even on the most trivial ques- 
tion, but he would likewise in all 
probability be bound and _ severely 
fined, and might indeed think himself 
fortunate if he got off with all his limbs 
in their proper places, or without his 
hide being scored” (Parkyns, Lzfe in 
Abyssinia, ii. 258 sg.). The laws of 
the Malays punish perjury (Crawfurd, 
History of the Indian Archipelago, ii. 
go). In India, according to the Laws 
of Manu (viii. 219 sg.), he who broke 
an agreement after swearing to it was 
to be banished, imprisoned, and fined. 
Medizval law-books punished _ per- 
jurers with the loss of the right hand, 
by which the oath was sworn (Wilda, 
Das Strafrecht der Germanen, p. 983 
sg. ; Pollock and Maitland, Aestory of 
English Law before the Time of Edward 
I, ii. 541). Ina Danish law of 1537 it 
is said that the perjurer shall lose the 
two offending fingers so as to appease 

a false oath—for instance, among the 
Rejangs (Marsden, “story of Sumatra, 
p- 240) and Bataks of Sumatra 
(Ghinipses of the Eastern Archipelago, 
p- 86), the Ossetes (Kovalewsky, 
Coutume contemporaine, p. 324), Per- 
sians (Polak, Perszen, ii. 83), and, as 
it seems, the ancient Hebrews +(Keil, 
Manual of Biblical Archeology, ii. 
348 ; Greenstone, ‘ Perjury,’ in /ew7sh 
Encyclopedia, ix. 640), Greeks (Rohde, 
Psyche,p. 245, note), and Teutonsin early 
times (Wilda, of. czt. p. 982; Brunner, 
Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, i. 681). 
Cicero says (De Jegibus, ti. 9) that 
“*the divine punishment of perjury is 
destruction, the human punishment 
infamy ” ; but though perjury fer se was 
not punished in Rome, the law ap- 
pears from very early times to have 
contained provisions for punishing false 
testimony (Hunter, Roman Law, p. 
1063; see also Mommsen, /ovzzsches 
Strafrecht, p. 681). However, the 
fact that perjury is not treated as a 
crime by no means implies that it is not 
regarded asasin. The punishment of 
it is left to the offended deity (Marsden, 
op. cit. p. 219; Glimpses of the Eastern 
Archipelago, p. 86; Crawfurd, of. cet. 

iii. Go | Javanese]). 

observes that among the woods and hills of India the 
cotton and other trees are supposed by the natives to be 
occupied by deities who are vested with a local super- 
intendence over the affairs of a district, or perhaps of a 
single village. “These,” he says, “are always in the 
view of the people, and every man knows that he is every 
moment liable to be taken to their court, and to be made 
to invoke their vengeance upon himself or those dear to 
him, if he has told a falsehood in what he has stated, or 
tells one in what he is about to state. Men so situated 
adhere habitually, and I may say religiously, to the 
truth ; and I have had before me hundreds of cases in 
which a man’s property, liberty, or life, has depended upon 
his telling a lie, and he has refused to tell it to save 
either.”* On the other hand, there are peoples among 
whom a person’s word can hardly be trusted unless 
confirmed by an oath.” And one of the arguments 
adduced by the Quakers against the taking of oaths is that, 
if on any particular occasion a man swear in addition to 
his yea or no, in order to make it more obligatory or 
convincing, its force becomes comparatively weak at 
other times when it receives no such confirmation.® 

Modes of conduct which are recommended by prudence 
tend on that account in various ways to be regarded as 
morally compulsory or praiseworthy. This subject will 
be discussed in connection with duties and virtues which 
are called “‘self-regarding,’’ but in the present place it is 
necessary to remind ourselves of the share which early 
education has in making prudence a matter of moral 
consideration. Few duties owe so much to the training of 
parents and teachers as does veracity. Children easily 
resort to falsehood, in self-defence or otherwise, and truth- 
fulness is therefore enjoined on them with particular 
emphasis.* 

. 

: Sleeman, op. cit. Mi. III sg. 3 Gumey, Views and Practices of the 
2 See, besides sepra, Kingsley, West Society of riends, p. 327. ‘ 
African Studies, p. 414; Chanler, 4 Cf. Priestley, in ‘ Essay III.” intro- 

Through Jungle and Desert, p. 186 sg. ductory to Hartley’s Theory of the 
(Wamsara). : Zuman Mind, p. xlix. sg. a 

TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH 

The moral ideas referring to truthfulness are, finally, 
much influenced by the force of habit. Where lying is 
frequent it is, other things being equal, more strenuously 
condemned, if condemned at all, than in communities 
which are strictly truthful. It is natural to speak the 
truth. Von Jhering’s suggestion that man was originally 
a liar, and that veracity is the result of human progress,' 
is not consistent with facts. Language was not invented 
to disguise the truth, but to express it. As Hutcheson 
remarked long ago, “truth is the natural production of the 
mind when it gets the capacity of communicating it, dis- 
simulation and disguise are plainly artificial effects of 
design and reflection.”* It may be doubted whether there 
are any other mendacious creatures in the world than men.? 
It is said that “lies are told, if not in speech yet in acts, 
by dogs”’ ;* but the instances reported of canine deceitful- 
ness ° are hardly conclusive. Asa cautious writer observes, 
the question is not whether there may be “ objective 
deceitfulness’’ in the dog’s conduct, but whether the 
motive is deceit ; and “ the deceitful intent is a piece, not of 
the observed fact, but of the observer’s inference.”’® Nor 
is the child, strictly speaking, a born liar. MM. Compayreé 
even goes so far as to say that, if the child has not been 
subjected to bad influences, or if a discipline of repression 
and constraint has not driven him to seek a refuge in 
dissimulation, he is usually frankness and sincerity itself.’ 
Montaigne remarked that the falsehood of a child grows 
with its growth.’ According to M. Perez, useful dissimu- 
lations are practised by children already at the age of two 
years, but generally it is only after they are three or four 
years old that fear of being scolded or punished will lead 

1 von Jhering, Zweck zm Recht, ii. 
606. 

2 Hutcheson, System of Moral 
Philosophy, ii. 28. Cf. Reid, op. czt. 
vi. 24, p. 428 sgg. ; Dugald Stewart, 
Ops etl. 11. . 333. 

3 Cf. Schopenhauer Zssays, p. 145. 

4 Spencer, Principles of Ethics, 
i. 405. 
> Romanes, Azimal Intelligence, 

PP: 443, 444, 451. 

6 Lloyd Morgan 
Intelligence, p. 400. 

7 Compayré, L’évolution  tintellec- 
tuelle et morale de Tenfant, p. 309. 
See also Sully, Studies of Childhood, 
p. 263 sg. 

8 Montaigne, Zssais, i. 9 (Quvres, 
p- 16). 

Animal Life and 

them into falsehood.! We are even told that certain 
savages are too stupid or too ignorant to tell lies. A 
Hindu gentleman of the plains, in the valley of the 
Nerbudda, when asked what made the uncultured people 
of the woods to the north and south so truthful, replied, 
“They have not yet learned the value of a lie.”* But as 
we know how readily truthful savages become liars when 
their social conditions change, we may conclude that their 
veracity was due rather to absence of temptation than to 
lack of intelligence. In a small community of savages 
living by themselves, there is no need for lying, nor much 
opportunity to practise it. There is little scope for those 
motives which most commonly induce people to practise 
falsehood—fear and love of gain, combined with a hope of 
success.» Harmony and sympathy generally prevail 
between the members of the group, and deception is 
hardly possible since secrets do not exist. 

The case is different when savages come in frequent con- 
tact with foreigners. To deceive a stranger is easy, and no 
scruple is made of doing so. On the contrary, as we 
have seen, he is regarded as a proper object of deception, 
and this opinion is only too often justified by his own 
behaviour. But when commonly practised in relation to 
strangers, falsehood easily becomes a habit which affects the 
general conduct of the man. Hamzé, the teacher of the 
Druses, said, “* When a man once gets into the way of 
speaking falsely, it is to be apprehended that, in spite of 
himself, and by the mere force of habit, he will get to 
speak falsely towards the brethren’’; hence it is advisable 
to speak the truth at all times and before all men.* 
There is indeed abundant evidence that intercourse with 
strangers, and especially with people of a different race, 
has had a destructive influence on savage veracity. 

This has been noticed among many of the uncivilised tribes 
of India. “ Formerly,” says Mr. Man, “a Sonthal, as a rule, 
1 Perez, Hurst Three Years of Child- Ceylon, iii. 543 (Veddahs). 
hood, pp. 87, 89. 4 Churchill, Mount Lebanon, iit. 225 
2 Sleeman, of. céd. ii. 110. Sg. 
3 Cf Sarasin, Sorschungen auf 

TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH 12n 
disdained to tell a falsehood, but the influences of civilisation, 
transfused through the contagious ethics of his Bengali neigh- 
bours, have somewhat impaired his truthfulness. In the last 
four or five years a great change for the worse has become 
evident, although even now, as a people, they are glorious 
exceptions to the prevailing idiosyncrasy of the lower class of 
natives in Bengal. With the latter, speaking the truth has 
been always an accident ; with the Sonthal it was a character- 
istic principle.” ! Indeed, the Santals in Singbhim, who live 
much to themselves, are still described by Colonel Dalton as 
“Ca very simple-minded people, almost incapable of deception.” 2 
The Tipperah, “where he is brought into contact with, or 
under the influence of the Bengallee, easily acquires their worst 
vices and superstitions, losing at the same time the leading 
characteristic of the primitive man—the love of truth.” ® 
Other tribes, like the Garos and Bhiimij, have likewise been 
partly contaminated by their intercourse with Bengalis, and 
acquired from them a propensity to lie, which, in former days, 
was altogether foreign to them.4 ‘The Kakhyens are at the 
present time lazy, thievish, and untrustworthy, “‘ whether their 
character has been deteriorated by knavish injustice on the part 
of Chinese traders, or high-handed extortion and wrong on the 
part of Burmese.”°® ‘The Ladakhis are, in general, “ frank, 
honest, and moral when not corrupted by communication with 
the dissolute Kashmiris.” © Of the Paharias, who according to 
an earlier authority would sooner die than lie,’ it is now 
reported that ‘‘ those who have most to do with them say they 
cannot rely on their word, and that they not only lie without 
scruple, but are scarcely annoyed at being detected.”® The 
Todas, whilst they call falsehood one of the worst vices and 
have a temple dedicated to Truth, seem nowadays only too 
often to forget both the temple and its object ®; and we are told 
that the dissimulation they practise in their dealings with 
Europeans has been brought about by the habit of paying them 
for every insignificant item of information.!® According to an 
1 Man, Sonthalia, p. 14. 

(i Hieh, VW BPR 

p. 20. 7 Shaw, quoted by Dalton, of. cet. 
2 Dalton, LZ¢thnology of Bengal, pp. 274. 

yeh (iis > PAGS 8 Cumming, Jz the Himalayas, p. 
3 Lewin, Wild Races of South- 404 sg. 

Eastern India, p. 216. 

4 Dalton, of. czt. pp. 68, 177. 

5 Anderson, Mandalay to Momien, 
Das ile 

6 Moorcroft and Trebeck, 7raveds 22 
the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan, 

9 Harkness, A Singular Aboriginal 
Race inhabiting the Netlgherry Fills, 
p. 18. 

0 Metz, Trtbes inhabiting the Nett- 
sherry Fills, p. 13. 

Indian civil servant quoted by Mr. Spencer, various other hill 
tribes, originally distinguished by their veracity, have afterwards 
been rendered less veracious by contact with the whites." 

Of the Andaman Islanders Mr. Man observes :—“ It has 
been remarked with regret by all interested in the race, that inter- 
course with the alien population has, generally speaking, 
prejudicially affected their morals; and that the candour, 
veracity, and self-reliance they manifest in their savage and 
untutored state are, when they become associated with 
foreigners, to a great extent lost, and habits of untruthfulness, 
dependence, and sloth engendered.”? Riedel makes a similar 
remark with reference to the natives of Ambon and Uliase.® 
Mr. Sommerville believes that the natives of New Georgia, 
in the Solomon Islands, learned their practice of cheating from 
European traders.4 

Among the Ostyaks increasing civilisation has proved 
injurious to their ancient honesty, and those who live in the 
neighbourhood of towns or large villages have become even 
more deceitful than the colonists.® A similar change has taken 
place with other tribes belonging to the Russian Empire, for 
instance the ‘Tunguses® and Kamchadales.’ 

We hear the same story from America.® Among the 
Omahas “ formerly only two or three were notorious liars ; 
but now, there are about twenty who do not lie.” ® The old 
men of the Ojibwas all agree in saying that before the white 

man came and resided among them there was less lying than 

there is now.!° ‘The Indians of Mexico, Lumholtz writes, “do 
not tell the truth unless it suits them.” But with reference 
to some of them, the Tarahumares, he adds that, where they 
have had little or nothing to do with the whites, they are trust- 
worthy, and profit is no inducement to them, as they believe 

1 Spencer, Prézcéples of Sociology, ii. 
234. See also Hodgson, Jfscellaneous 
Essays, 1. 152. (Bodo and Dhimals) ; 
Dalton, of. cz¢. p. 206 (Mundas). 

2-Man, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 

3 Riedel, De sluzk- en kroesharige 

rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua, p. 

Atte 
4 Sommerville, in /owr. 
Inst. XXVi. 394. 
> Castrén, of. cet. il. 121. 
6 Dall, Alaska, p. 518. 
7 Steller, Beschreibung von dem 

Lande Kamischatka, p. 285.  Sary- 
tchew, ‘Voyage of Discovery to the 

Anthr. 

North-East of Siberia,’ in Collection of 
Modern and Contemporary Voyages, 
v. 67. 

8 Domenech, Seven Years? Resi 
dence in the Great Deserts of North 
America, il. 69. Cf. Hearne, Journey 
to the Northern Ocean, pp. 307, 308, 
310 (Chippewyans); Morgan, League 
of the Iroguots, p. 335 sq. 

® Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 370. 

Schoolcraft, Zndian Tribes of the 
United States, ii. 139. 

1 Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, ii. 

477. 

soe 

that their gods would be angry with them for charging an 
undue price.! 

The deceitfulness of many African peoples is undoubtedly in 
some degree a result of their intercourse with foreigners. In 
Sierra Leone, says Winterbottom, the natives on the sea coast, 
who are chiefly engaged in commerce, “are in general shrewd 
and artful, sometimes malevolent and perfidious. ‘Their long 
connection with European slave traders has tutored them in the 
arts of deceit.”? The Yorubas, according to Burton, are 
eminently dishonest only “in and around the cities.”?_ Among 
the Kalunda those who live near the great caravan roads and 
have had much to do with foreign traders are suspicious and 
false.* And the Hottentots, of whose truthfulness earlier 
writers spoke very highly, are nowadays said to be addicted to 
lying.® 

It has also been noticed that mendacity is favoured among 
children by much intercourse with strangers, when “ first 
impressions” are consciously made, as also by frequent change 
of environment, or of school or residence, as such changes give 
rise to a feeling that “new leaves” can be easily turned.® 

When a social unit is composed of loosely connected 
sub-groups, the intercourse between members of different 
sub-groups resembles in many respects that between 
foreigners. Social incoherence is thus apt to lead to deceit- 
ful habits, as was the case in the Middle Ages. The same 
phenomenon is to be observed in the East ; perhaps also 
among the Desert Arabs and the Fuegians, who live in 
small parties which only occasionally meet and soon again 
separate. 

Another factor which has favoured deception is social 
differentiation. The different classes of society have often 
little sympathy for each other, their interests are not 
infrequently conflicting, deceit is a means of procuring 
advantages, and, for the inferior classes especially, a means 
of self-protection. As Euripides observes, slaves are in 

1 Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, 1. 4 Pogge, Jm Retche des AMuata 
244, 418. Jamwo, p. 236. ; : 

2 Winterbottom, Vatzve Africans tn 5 Fritsch, Dze Eingeborenen Siid- 
the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, i.  Afrika’s, p. 397 5g. 
200. 6 Stanley Hall, in American Journal 

3 Burton, Adcokuta, i. 303. of Psychology, ili. 70. 

VOL Tt K 

the habit of concealing the truth. In Eastern Africa, 
says Livingstone, falsehood is a vice prevailing among the 
free, but still more among the slaves ; ‘one can scarcely 
induce aslave to translate anything truly: he is so intent on 
thinking of what will please.” ? 

Hardly anything has been’ a greater inducement to 
falsehood than oppression. Whilst the old Makololo were 
truthful, this is not the case with their sons, ‘ who, having 
been brought up among the subjected tribes, have acquired 
some of the vices peculiar to a menial and degraded 
race.”? The Wanyoro, who are described as “splendid 
liars,” exercised deception chiefly to evade the intolerable 
exactions of their own chiefs, whereas they are fairly 
truthful in contact with Europeans who attempt to treat 
them justly.* The duplicity and cunning of the Malagasy 
are “the natural result of centuries of superstition, ignor- 
ance, and submission to the rule of tyrannical despots, with 
whom the spy system has always been a necessity.”° In 
Morocco the independent Jbala, or mountaineers of the 
North, are more to be trusted than the Arabs of the plains, 
who have long been suffering from the extortions of 
rapacious officials. The duplicity of Orientals is very 
largely due to their despotic form of government.’ In 
India, Mr. Percival observes, ‘‘despotism in one form or 
other that has so long prevailed, and the consequent 
oppression attendant thereon, must have rendered it 
dificult to make way without fraud. Deception and arts 
of cunning, under such circumstances, being the only 
means at the command of the inferior portions of the 
community for gaining their ends, and securing the 
plainest rights, they would resort to them as the only way of 
avoiding certain ruin.” The Chinese habit of lying has 

1 Euripides; Phanisse, 392. Cf 501. 

Burton, Arabzan Nights, 1. 176, n. I. > Little, Madagascar, p. 72. 
2 Livingstone, Expedition to the 6 Vambéry, Der Islam im neun- 
Zambest, Pp. 309. See also Polack,  sehnten Jahrhundert, Diapeaile 
Manners and Customs of the New 7 Percival, Land of the Veda, p. 288. 
pe ear oe 59. pee. , : Cf. Malcolm, Memozr of Central India, 
divingstone, Lxpedition to the ii. ; SC 2 
aa - oe cp aie: oe Mescellaneous 

* Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, ii. 

XXXI TRUITT AND- GOOD FAITH By 

been attributed partly to the truckling fear of officers.! In 
China and many other parts of the East, says Sir J. 
Bowring, “there is a fear of truth as truth, lest its dis- 
covery should lead to consequences of which the inquirer 
never dreams, but which are present to the mind of the 
person under interrogation.” ® 

The regard for truth displays itself not only in the con- 
demnation of falsehood, but in the idea that, under certain 
circumstances, it is a person’s duty to inform others of the 
truth, although there is no deception in withholding it. 
This duty is limited by utilitarian considerations, and it is 
less insisted on than the duty of refraining from false- 
hood; positive commandments, as we have seen, are 
generally less stringent than the corresponding negative 
commandments.* But to disclose the truth for the benefit 
of others, when it is attended with injurious consequences 
for the person who discloses it, can hardly fail to evoke 
moral approval, and may be deemed a merit of the highest 
order. 

The regard for truth goes a step further still. It may 
be obligatory or praiseworthy not only to spread the 
knowledge of truth, but to seek for it. The possession of 
knowledge, of some kind or other, is universally respected. 
A Wolof proverb says, ‘ Not to know is bad, not to wish 
to know is worse.” * In the moral and religious systems 
of the East knowledge is one of the chief pursuits of man. 
Confucius described virtue as consisting of knowledge, 
magnanimity, and valour.’ The ancients, he says, ‘ wishing 
fom rectify their hearts, .-. . first desired to be sincere 
in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, 
they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such 
extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.’’® 
Knowledge is to be pursued not for theoretical, but for 

1 Wells Williams, The Middle King- West Africa, p. 6. 

dom, i. 835. 5 Chung Yung, xx. 8. Douglas, 
2 Bowring, Szam, i. 105 sq. Confucianism and Taouism, p. 105. 
3 Supra, 1. 303 599.. ONT Grst0n A. 

4 Burton, Wit and Wisdom from 
me 

moral purposes ; the Master said, “It is not easy to find 
a man who has learned for three years without coming to 
be good.” ? The Hindus maintain that ignorance is the 
greatest of evils, and that the sole and ultimate object of 
life should be to give and receive instruction.” It 1s said 
in the Laws of Manu, ‘A’ man is not therefore con- 
sidered venerable because his head: is gray ; him who, 
though young, has learned the Veda, the gods consider to 
be venerable.” * According to the Mahabharata, it is by 
knowledge that a creature is liberated, by knowledge that 
he becomes the Eternal, Imperceptible, and Undecaying.* 
Buddhism regards sin as folly and delusion as the cause 
of crime ;° ‘the unwise man cannot discover the differ- 
ence between that which is evil and that which is good, as 
a child knows not the value of a coin that is placed before 
him.” °® And the highest of all gifts, the source of abid- 
ing salvation, is the knowledge of the identity between 
the individual and God, in whom and by whom the 
individual lives, and moves, and has his being.’ Accord- 
ing to one of the Pahlavi texts, wisdom is better than 
wealth of any kind ;* through the power of wisdom it is 
possible to do every duty and good work ;° the religion 
of the Mazda-worshippers is apprehended more fully by 
means of the most perfect wisdom, and “even the struggle 
and warfare of Iran with foreigners, and the smiting of 
Aharman and the demons it is possible to effect through 
the power of wisdom.”’"° A strong dash of intellectualism 
is a prominent feature in the Rabbinic religion. The 
highest virtue lies not only in the fulfilment but in the 
study of the law. ‘There is a special merit bound up in it 
that will assist man both in this world and in the world to 
come ; and it is said that even a bastard who is learned in 

a Lun Vain Vill L200 Cj aber, 5 Rhys Davids, Azbbert Lectures on 
Digest of the Doctrines of Confucius, the History of Buddhism, p. 208. 
p. 60; de Lanessan, Za morale des 8 Hardy, Manual of Budhism, De 

philosophes chinots, p. 27. 505. 
2 Percival, Land of the Veda, p. 7 Rhys Davids, of. ciz. p. 209. 

263. 8 Dind-t Matnés-t Khirad, x\vii. 6. 
3 Laws of Manu, ii. 156. DUI Ne yk 
4 Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, v. 10 (bid. \vii. 15 sg. 

327. 

TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH 

the law is more honoured than a high-priest who is not. 
Among Muhammedans, also, great respect is shown to 
men of learning.” Knowledge, the Prophet said, « lights 
the way to Heaven ””—* He dies not who gives life to 
learning ”—‘ With knowledge the servant of God rises to 
the heights of goodness and to a noble position ”’— The 
ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of the 
martyr.” ® 

In Christianity the knowledge of truth became a neces- 
sary requirement of salvation. But here, as in the East, 
the truth which alone was valued was religious truth. All 
knowledge that was not useful to salvation was, indeed, 
despised, and science was regarded not only as valueless, 
but as sinful. ‘* The wisdom of this world is foolishness 
with God.” ° If it happened that any one gave himself to 
letters, or lifted up his mind to the contemplation of the 
heavenly bodies, he passed instantly for a magician or a 
heretic.° So also every mental disposition which is essen- 
tial to scientific research was for centuries stigmatised as 
offensive to the Almighty; it was a sin to doubt the 
opinions which had been instilled in childhood before they 
had been examined, to notice any objection to those 
opinions, to resolve to follow the light of evidence wher- 
ever it might lead.’ Yet we are told, even by highly 
respectable writers, that the modern world owes its scien- 
tific spirit to the extreme importance which Christianity 

1 Montefiore, Azbbert Lectures on 
the Religion of the Anctent Hebrews, 
p. 495. Deutsch, Lezterary Remains, 
By Gis 
‘ 2 Lane, Manners and Customs of the 
Modern Egyptians, p. 301 sq. 

3 Ameer Ali, Zthzcs of /slém, pp. 

47, 49- 

4 Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire, ii. 185. von Eicken, 
Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Weltan- 
schauuneg, pp. 128-130, 589 sgq. 

5 1 Corinthians, ii. 19. Cf. Lac- 
tantius, Dzvine Institutiones, ii. 3 
(Migne, Patrologie cursus, vi. 354 
sqg.); St. Augustine, De Czvitate Dez, 
vill. 10 (Migne, xli. 234). 

6 Chapelain, De la lecture des vieux 
romans, Pp. 20. As late as the middle 
of the seventeenth century a powerful 
party was rising in England who said 
that all learning was unfavourable to 
religion, and that it was sufficient for 
everyone to be acquainted with his 
mother-tongue alone (Twells, Zzfe of 
Pocock, p. 176). The Duke de Saint 
Simon, who in 1721 and 1722 was the 
French ambassador in Madrid, states 
(Mémotres, xxxv. 209) that in Spain 
science was a crime, and ignorance and 
stupidity the chief virtues. 

7 Lecky, Ratzonalism in Europe, ii. 
87 sq. 

ays THE REGARD FOR CHAP. 

assigned to the possession of truth, of the truth. Accord- 
ing to M. Réville, “it was the orthodox intolerance of the 
Church in the Middle Ages which impressed on Christian 
society this disposition to seek truth at any price, of which 
the modern scientific spirit is only the application. The 
more importance the Church attached to the profession of 
the truth—to the extent even of considering involuntary 
error as in the highest degree a damnable crime—so much 
the more the sentiment of the immense value of this truth 
arose in the general persuasion, along with a resolve to 
conquer it wherever it was felt not to be possessed. How 
otherwise,” M. Réville asks, ‘can we explain that science 
was not developed and has not been pursued with con- 
stancy, except in the midst of Christian societies?’ * This 
statement is characteristic of the common tendency to attri- 
bute to the influence of the Christian religion almost any- 
thing good which may be found among Christian nations. 
But, surely, the patient and impartial search after hidden 
truth, for the sake of truth, which constitutes the essence 
of scientific research, is not congenial to, but the very oppo- 
site of, that ready acceptance of a revealed truth for the 
sake of eternal salvation, which was insisted upon by the 
Church. And what about that singular love of abstract 
knowledge which flourished in ancient Athens, where 
Aristotle declared it a sacred duty to prefer truth to 
everything else,’ and Socrates sacrificed his life on its altar? 
It seems that the modern scientific spirit is only a revival 
and development of a mental disposition which was for ages 
suppressed by the persecuting tendencies of the Church and 
the extreme contempt for learning displayed by the bar- 
barian invaders and their descendants. Even when they 
had settled in the countries which they had conquered, the 

* Ritchie, WMatural Rights, p. 172. sg.) that a devotion to truth as such 
Cf. Kuenen, Azbbert Lectures ow was in the ancient world known only 
National Religions and Universal to a few philosophers. Prof. Fowler 
Religions, p. 290. : is probably more correct in saying 

* Réville, Prolegomena of the History (Principles of Morals, ii. 45, 220 sg. 
of Religions, p. 220. Progressive Morality, p. 114) that it 

* Aristotle, Z¢thica Nicomachea, i. | was more common amongst the Greeks 
6. &. Prof. Ritchie argues (of. cet. p.172 than amongst ourselves, 

XXXI TRUTH AND GOOD FAITH 

Teutons would not permit their children to be instructed in 
any science, for fear lest they should become effeminate and 
averse from war ;' and long afterwards it was held that a 
nobleman ought not to know letters, and that to write and 
read was a shame to gentry.” 

The regard for knowledge springs in the first instance 
from the love of it. As Aristotle said, “all men are by 
nature desirous of knowledge.” *® But this feeling is not 
equally strong, nor equally deep, in all. The curiosity of 
savages, however great it often may be,‘ has chiefly refer- 
ence to objects or events which immediately concern their 
welfare or appear to them alarming, or to trifles which 
attract attention on account of their novelty. If their curi- 
osity were more penetrating, they would no longer remain 
savages ; an extended desire of knowledge leads to civilisa- 
tion. But curiosity or love of knowledge, whether in 
savage or civilised men, is not resolvable merely into 
views of utility; as Dr. Brown observed, we feel it without 
reflecting on the pleasure which we are to enjoy or the 
pain which we are to suffer.” When highly developed, it 
drives men to scientific investigations even though no 
practical benefits are expected from the results. This 
devotion to truth for its own sake, pure and disinterested 
as it is, has a singular tendency to excite regard and 
admiration in everyone who has come under its influence. 
From the utilitarian point of view it has been defended on 

4 Murdoch, ‘Ethnological Results 

1 Procopius, De bello Gothorum, i. 
of the Point Barrow Expedition,’ in 

2. Robertson, Westory of the Reign of 

Charles V. i. 234. Millingen, of. czt. 
ih OP op ef 

2 Alain Chartier, quoted by Sainte- 
Palaye, op. czt. ii. 104. See also De la 
Noué, Déscours politiques et mulitaires, 
p- 238; Lyttleton, Lzfe of Henry LI. 
ii. 246 sg.‘ The ignorance of the 
medizeval clergy has been somewhat 
exaggerated by Robertson (of. cz¢. pp. 
21, 22, 278 sg.). Even in the dark 
ages it was not a very uncommon thing 
for the clergy to be able to read and 
write (Maitland, 7he Dark Ages, p. 16 
Sgq.). 

3 Aristotle, Metaphyszca, i. 1. 
980. Cf. Cicero, De officizs, i. 4. 

ie, job 

Ann. Rep, Bur. Ethn. 1x. 42 (Eskimo). 
Krasheninnikoff, History of Kam- 
schatka, p. 177. Anderson, Mandalay 
to Momien, p. 151 (Kakhyens). Fore- 
man, PAzlippine Islands, p. 188 
(Tagalog natives of the North). Bock, 
Head Hunters of Borneo, p. 209 
(Dyaks). Forbes, A Maturalzst’s 
Wanderines in the astern Archt- 
pelago, p. 320 (natives of Timor-laut). 
Dieffenbach, Zravels zx New Zealand, 
ii. 108. 

5 Dugald Stewart, of. c2t. il. 330. 
Brown, Lectures on the Philosophy of 
the Human Mind, lec. 67, p. 451. 

the ground that, on the whole, every truth is in the long 
run useful and every error harmful, and that we can never 
exactly tell in advance what benefits may accrue even from 
a knowledge which is apparently fruitless. But it seems 
that our love of truth is somewhat apt to mislead our 
moral judgment. When duly reflecting on the matter, we 
cannot help making a moral distinction between him who 
pursues his studies merely from an instinctive craving for 
knowledge, and him who devotes his life to the search of 
truth from a conviction that he may thereby promote 
human welfare.

THE RESPECT FOR OTHER MEN’S HONOUR AND SELF- 
REGARDING PRIDE—POLITENESS 

THERE are many acts, forbearances, and omissions, the 
offensiveness of which mainly or exclusively springs from 
men’s desire to be respected by their fellow-men and their 
dislike of being looked down upon. Foremost among 
these are attacks upon people’s honour and good name. 
A man’s honour may be defined as the moral worth he 
possesses in the eyes of the society of which he is a 
member, and it behoves other persons to acknowledge 
this worth and, especially, not to detract from it by 
imputing to him, on insufficient grounds, such behaviour 
as is generally considered degrading. The censure to 
which he is subject or the contempt in which he is held 
may no doubt affect his welfare in various ways, but it is 
chiefly painful as a violation of his personal dignity. 
Hence the duty of respecting a man’s honour is on the 
whole contained in the more comprehensive obligation of 
showing deference, in words and deeds, for his feeling of 
self-regarding pride. 

Whiss feeling, or at- least the germ of it, is found 
already in some of the lower animals. Among “ high- 
life’ dogs, says Professor Romanes, “ wounded sensibili- 
ties and loss of esteem are capable of producing much 
keener suffering than is mere physical pain.” A re- 
proachful word or look from any of his friends made a 

Skye terrier miserable for a whole day; and another 
terrier, who when in good humour used to perform various 
tricks, was never so pleased as when his joke was duly 
appreciated, whereas “‘ nothing displeased him so much as 
being laughed at when he did not intend to be ridiculous.” * 
Monkeys also, according to Dr. Brehm, are “very 
sensitive to every kind of treatment they may receive, to 
love and dislike, to encouraging praise and chilling blame, 
to pleasant flattery and wounding ridicule, to caresses and 
chastisement.”’ ? 

Among the savage races of men, as among civilised 
peoples, self-regarding pride is universal, and in many of 
them it is a very conspicuous trait of chararacter.? The 
Veddah of Ceylon, says Mr. Nevill, “is proud in the 
extreme, and considers himself no man’s inferior. Hence 
he is keenly sensitive to ridicule, contempt, and even 
patronage. There is nothing he dreads more than being 
laughed at as a savage, because he dislikes clothes and 
cultivation.” * Australian aborigines are described as 
“‘ extravagantly proud,” ® as “‘vain and fond of approba- 
tion.”° In Fiji ‘anything like a slight deeply offends a 
native, and is not soon forgotten.”’ The Negroes of 
Sierra Leone “ possess a great share of pride, and are easily 
affected by an insult: they cannot hear even a harsh 
expression, or a raised tone of voice, without shewing that 

1 Romanes, Anzmal Intelligence, pp. 
439, 444. 

2 Brehm, From North Pole to Equa- 
tor, p. 299. Cf. zbzd. pp. 304-306, 
312, 314; Brehm, Zhzerleben, i. 75, 
1573 Schultze, Vergleichende Seelen- 
kunde, i. pt. i. 110; Perty, Das Seelen- 
leben der Thiere, p. 66. 

3 Dieffenbach, Zravels in New Zea- 
land, 11. 107 ; Colenso, Maort Races of 
New Zealand, p. 56. Crawfurd, Ws- 
tory of the Indian Archipelago, i. 54. 
Raffles, Azstory of Java, i. 249. St. 
John, Lzfe zz the Forests of the Far 
East, ii. 323 (Malays of Sarawak). 
Man, ‘ Aboriginal Inhabitants of the 
Andaman Islands,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
Inst. xii. 94. Stewart, ‘Notes on 
Northern Cachar,’ in Jour, Astatic Soc, 

Bengal, xxiv. 609 (Nagas). Bergmann, 
Nomadische Streifereten unter den 
Kalmtiken, i. 290, 295, 296, 312. 
Hogstrom, Beskrifning ofver de til 
Sveriges Krona lydande Lapmarker, p. 
152 (Lapps). Dall, Alaska, p. 392 sg. 
(Aleuts). Brett, Judian Tribes of 
Guiana, p. 103. 

4 Nevill, ‘Vaeddas of Ceylon,’ in 
Taprobanian, i. 192. Cf. Sarasin, 
Ergebnissenaturwissenschaftlicher For- 
schungen auf Ceylon, iii. 537. 

5 Hale, U.S. Exploring Expedition. 
Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology, 
p. 109. 

6 Mathew, in Curr, 7he Australian 
Race, iii. 155. 

7 Williams and Calvert, Fijt, p. 105. 
Cf. zbid. p. 103 sg, 

——a 

they feel it.” * The Araucanians, inhabiting parts of Chili, 
“Care naturally fond of honourable distinction, and there is 
nothing they can endure with less patience than contempt 
or inattention.” * The North American Indians, says 
Perrot, “‘ ont généralement touts beaucoup de vaine gloire 
dans leurs actions bonnes ou mauvaises. . . . L’ambition 
est en un mot une des plus fortes passions qui les anime.” ® 
The Indian of British Columbia, for instance, “ watches 
that he may receive his proper share of honour at 
festivals ; he cannot endure to be ridiculed for even the 
slightest mistake ; he carefully guards all his actions, and 
looks for due honour to be paid to him by friends, 
strangers, and subordinates. This peculiarity appears 
most clearly in great festivals.”* Thus, in numerous 
instances, ‘‘ persons who have been hoarding up property 
for ten, fifteen, or twenty years (at the same time almost 
starving themselves for want of clothing), have given it all 
away to make a show for a few hours, and to be thought 
of consequence.” * Speaking of the Eskimo about 
Behring Strait, Mr. Nelson observes, “As with all 
savages, the Eskimo are extremely sensitive to ridicule 
and are very quick to take offence at real or seeming 
slights.” ° Among the Atkha Aleuts it has happened that 
men have committed suicide from disappointment at the 
failure of an undertaking, fearing that they would become 
the laughing-stock of the village.’ Among many other 
savages shame or wounded pride is not uncommonly a cause 
of suicide." The Hos of Chota Nagpore have a saying 
that for a wife who has been reproved by her husband 

1 Winterbottom, Watzve Africans in 
the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, i. 
2II. 

2 Molina, Hestory of Chili, ii. 113. 

® Perrot, Memotre sur les moeurs, 
coustumes et relligion des sauvages de 
2 Amerique septentrionale, ». 76. Cf, 
Buchanan, Sketches of the History, 
Manners, and Customs of the North 
American Indians, p. 165; Matthews, 
Ethnosraphy and Philology of the 
fidatsa Indians, p. 41. 

4 Boas, in Fifth Report on the North- 

Western Tribes of Canada, p. 19. 

5 Duncan, quoted by Mayne, Four 
Years in British Columbia, p. 295. 

6 Nelson, ‘Eskimo about Bering 
Strait,’ in Aun. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xviii. 
300. 

7 Yakof, quoted by Petroff, Report 
on Alaska, p. 158. Cf. Dall, of. cet. 

. 391 (Aleuts). 
: See infra, on Suicide ; Lasch, ‘ Be- 
sitzen die Naturvélker ein persdnliches 
Ehrgefiihl,’ in Ze¢tschr. f. Soctalwes- 
senschaft, iii. 837 59g. 

“ 

“nothing remains but the water at the bottom of the 
well”;! and in New Zealand native women sometimes 
killed themselves because they had been rebuked for 
negligence in cooking or for want of care towards a 
child.? 

Like other injuries, an insult not only affects the 
feelings of the victim, but arouses sympathetic resentment 
in outsiders, and is consequently disapproved of as wrong. 
Among the Maoris, if anybody wantonly tried to hurt 
another’s feelings, it was immediately repressed, and 
‘such a person was spoken of as having had no parents, 
or, as having been born (laid) by a bird.”’* In the Malay 
Archipelago, “among some of the tribes, abusive language 
cannot with impunity be used even to a slave. Blows 
are still more intolerable, and considered such grievous 
affronts, that, by law, the person who receives them is 
considered justified in putting the offender to death.” * 
The natives of the Tonga Islands hold no bad moral 
habit to be more “ridiculous, depraved, and unjust, than 
publishing the faults of one’s acquaintances and friends 

.3 and as to downright calumny or false accusation, 
it appears to them more horrible than deliberate murder 
does to us: for it is better, they think, to assassinate a 
man’s person than to attack his reputation.” °® According 
to the customary laws of the Fantis in West Africa, 
‘where a person has been found guilty for using slanderous 
words, he is bound to retract his words publicly, in ad- 
dition to paying a small fine by way of compensation 
to the aggrieved party. Words imputing witchcraft, 
adultery, immoral conduct, crime, and all words which 
sound to the disreputation of a person of whom they are 
spoken are actionable.” ° 

Among the Aztecs of ancient Mexico he who wilfully 
calumniated another, thereby seriously injuring his 

1 Bradley-Birt, Chota Nagfore, p. * Crawfurd, of. cit. iii. 119 sq. 
104. Cf. Dalton, Descriptive Lth- 5 Mariner, JVadzves of the Tonga 
nology of Bengal, p. 206. Islands, ii 163 sg. 
ENColensomops ac npansi7s ® Sarbah, Fanté Customary Laws, 
3 bid. p. 53. Pp: 94. 

¥ 

: 
va 

XX XII 

reputation, was condemned to have his lips cut off, and 
sometimes his ears also ; whilst in Tezcuco the ehatierer 
suffered death.’ In the Chinese penal code a special 
book is provided for the prevention and punishment of 
opprobrious and insulting language, as “ having naturally 
a tendency to produce quarrels and affrays.”” Among 
Arabs all insulting expressions have their respective fines 
ascertained in the ady’s court.» It is said in the 
Talmud :—“ Let the honour of thy neighbour be to thee 
like thine own. Rather be thrown into a fiery furnace 
than bring any one to public shame.” # 

The Roman Law of the Twelve Tables contained 
provisions against libellers,? and throughout the whole 
history of Roman law an attack upon honour or reputa- 
tion was deemed a serious crime. As for wrongful 
prosecution, which may be regarded as an aggravated form 
of defamation, the law of the later Empire required that 
any one bringing a criminal charge should bind himself 
to suffer in case of failure the penalty that he had 
endeavoured to call down upon his adversary." Among 
Teutonic peoples defamatory words and libelling were 
already at an early date punished with a fine. The Salic 
Law decrees that a person who calls a freeborn man a 
iatox 2 cota “hare ora “ dirty:tellow,”"or.says.thatxhe 
has thrown away his shield, must pay him three solidi ; ° 
whilst, according to one text of the same law, it cost 188 
solidi (or nearly as much as was paid for the murder of a 
Frankish freeman) " to call a freeborn woman a witch or a 
harlot, in case the truth of the charge could not be proved.” 

1 Bancroft, Matzve Races of the Pacific 
States, il. 463. 

2 Ta Tsing Leu Lee, p. 354 n.* 

3 Burckhardt, odes on the Bedouins 
and Wahdbys, p. 70 sq. 

4 Deutsch, Literary Remains, p. 57. 

5 Lex Duodecim Tabularum, viii. 1. 

8 Digesta, xlvii. 10. 15. 25. Codex 
JSustinianus, ix. 36. Hunter, Lxfosz- 
Zion of Roman Law, p. 1069 sg. 
Mommsen, Rémdsches Strafrecht, p. 
794 57. 

7 Giinther, Dze Jdee der Weeder- 

vergeltung, 1. 141 sgg. Mommsen, of. 
cit. p. 496 sg. 

8 Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, 
p. 776 sgg. Nordstrom, Bedrag tll 
den svenska samhills-forfattningens 
historia, ii. 293 sgg. Stemann, Den 
danske Retshistorie tndtil Christian V.’s 
Lov, p. 686 sg. Brunner, Deutsche 
Rechtsgeschichte, il. 672 sgq. 

9 Lex Saltca, xxx. 4, 5, 2; Hessel’s 
edition, col. 181 sgq. 

0 Tbid. xv. col. 91 sgqq. 

ll Jbid. \xvii. 2, col. 403. 

The oldest English laws exacted dt and wie from persons 
who attacked others with abusive words.’ In the thirteenth 
century, in almost every action before an English local 
court, the plaintiff claimed compensation not only for 
the “damage,” but also for the “‘shame”’ which had been 
done him.? We further find that regular actions for 
defamation were common in’ the local courts ; whereas 
in later days the ecclesiastical procedure against defamatory 
speech seems to have been regarded as the usual, if not 
the only, engine which could be brought to bear upon 
cases of libel and slander.? In England, as in Rome, 
there was a strong feeling that men should not make 
charges which they could not prove: before the Conquest 
a person might lose his tongue, or have to redeem it with 
his full wer, if he brought a false and scandalous 
accusation ; and under Edward I. a statute decreed that if 
the appellee was acquitted his accuser should lie in prison 
for a year and pay damages by way of recompense for 
the imprisonment and infamy which he had brought upon 
the innocent.’ 

The condemnation of an insult is greatly influenced by 
the s¢atus of, or the relations between, the parties con- 
cerned. Among the Goajiro Indians of Colombia a 
poor man may be insulted with impunity, when the same 
treatment to a rich man would cause certain bloodshed.® 
In Nias an affront is punished with a fine, which varies 
according to the rank of the parties.° The Chinese penal 
code lays down that a person who is guilty of addressing 
abusive language to his or her father or mother, or father’s 
parents, or a wife who rails at her husband’s parents or 
grandparents, shall be strangled ;“ and the same punish- 
ment is prescribed for a slave who abuses his master.® 

1 Laws of Hlothhaere and Eadric, 11. 

2 Pollock and Maitland, Héstory of 
English Law till the Time of Edward 
Lol. 537. 

3 Jbid. ii. 538. Stephen, Hestory o7 
the Criminal Law of England, ii. 409. 

* Pollock and Maitland, of. cé¢. ii. 
539. 

6 Simons, ‘ Exploration of the Goa- 
jira Peninsula,’ in Proceed. Roy. Geo. 
Soc. N.S. vii. 786. 

8 yon Rosenberg, Der malayische 
Archipel, p. 167. 

’ Ta Tsing Leu Lee, sec. cccxxix, 

P: 357+. 
® [bid. sec. cccxxvii. p. 356. 

2subet 

* 

According to the Laws of Manu, a Kshatriya shall be fined 
one hundred panas for defaming a Brahmana, a Vaisya 
shall be fined one hundred and fifty or two hundred panas, 
and a Sudra shall suffer corporal punishment ; whereas a 
Brahmana shall pay only fifty panas for defaming a 
Kshatriya, twenty-five for defaming a Vaisya, and twelve 
for defaming a Sidra.’ In ancient Teutonic law the fines 
for insulting behaviour were graduated according to the 
rank of the person offended.” The starting-point of the 
Roman law was that an injuria—which was preeminently 
an affront to the dignity of the person—could not be 
done to a slave as such, only to the master through the 
medium of his slave ; ® and even in later times, in the case 
of trifling injuries, such as mere verbal insults, the master 
had no action, unless by leave of the Praetor, or unless 
the insult were meant for the master himself.t These and 
similar variations spring from the same causes as do corre- 
sponding variations in the case of other injuries dealt with 
above. But there are also special reasons why social 
superiority or inferiority influences moral opinions con- 
cerning offences against persons’ self-regarding pride. The 
respect due to a man is closely connected with his station, 
and in the case of defamation the injury suffered by the 
loss of honour or reputation is naturally proportionate to 
the esteem in which the offended party is held. At the 
same time the harmfulness of an insult also depends upon 
the reputation of the person who offers it. According 
to the Gotlands Lag, one of the ancient provincial laws of 
Sweden, a slave can not only be insulted with impunity, 
but has himself to pay no fine for insulting another person ° 
—obviously because he was too degraded a being to be 
able to detract from anybody’s honour or good name. 

1 Laws of Manz, viii. 267 sg. Cf 2 Keyser, Zfterladte Skrifter, i. pt. 
Gautama, xii. 8 sqgg. It is also said i. 295. 

that ‘‘a once-born man (a Stidra), who 3 Hunter, Axpositzon of Roman Law, 
insults a twice-born man with gross p. 164. Mommsen, 2dmisches Straf- 
invective, shall have his tongue cut out; recht, p. 786, n. 3. 

for he is of low origin” (zézd. vill. 270. 4 Digesta, xlvil. 10. 15. 35. Hunter, 
See also Justitutes of Vishnu, v. 233; op. cit. p. 165. : 

Gautama, xii. 13 Apastamba, ii. 10. 5 Gotlands- Lagen, i. 19. 37. 

Deets). 

The condemnation of such conduct as is offensive to 
other persons’ self-regarding pride includes condemnation 
of pride itself, when displayed in an excessive degree ; 
whereas the opposite disposition—modesty—which implies 
regard for other people’s “ self-feeling,” is praised as a 
virtue. The Fijians say of a boasting person, ‘ You are 
like the kaka (parrot) ; you only speak to shout your own 
name.” ' On the other hand, among the Tonga Islanders 
‘a modest opinion of oneself is esteemed a great virtue, 
and is also put in practice.”* Confucius taught that 
humility belongs to the characteristics of a superior man.* 
Such a man, he said, is modest in his speech, though he 
exceeds in his actions;* he has dignified ease without 
pride, whereas the mean man has pride without a dignified 
ease ;° he prefers the concealment of his virtue, when it 
daily becomes more illustrious, whereas the mean man 
seeks notoriety when he daily goes more and more to ruin.° 
So also humility has a distinguished place in the teachings 
of Lao-tsze :—‘I have three precious things which I 
hold fast and prize, namely, compassion, economy, and 
humility” ; ‘“‘ He who knows the glory, and at the same 
time keeps to shame, will be the whole world’s valley .. .., 
eternal virtue will fill him, and he will return home to 
Taou.”" In the Book of the Dead the soul of ee 
ancient Egyptian pleads, ‘I am not swollen with pride.” 
According to Zoroastrianism, the sin of pride has i, 
created by Ahriman.* Overbearingness was censured in 
ancient Scandinavia,” Greece,” and Rome. During our 
prosperity, says Cicero, “‘we ought with great care to 

1 Williams and Calvert, of. cit. desidées morales dans l Egypt Ancienne, 

2 Mariner, of. c7¢. 11. 164. 9 Vendidéd, i. 11 
3 Lun Yi, v. 15. Chung Yung, Maurer, Die Bekehrung des Nor- 
XXVl. 7. wegischen Stammes zum Christenthume, 
SLU Vu, SANE 20% This TEC} 
5 Jbid. xiii. 26. Cf. tbid. XO, Dy Me U Schmidt, Dze Ethik der alten 
8 Chung Vung, xxxiii. 1. Griechen, i. 253. Hermann, Lehrbuch 
7 Douglas, Confucianism and Taou- aie Griechischen Antiquitiiten, lepte a. 
ism, p.194 sq. Tao Teh King, xxviii. 1. sg. Bliimner, Ueber die Idee des 

8 Look of the Dead, ch. 125, p. 216. hicksals wn den Tragidien des 
Cf. Amélineau, Zssaz sur [é& ton Aischylos, p. 131. 

avoid pride and arrogance.’ ' The Hebrew prophets 
condemned not only pride but eminence, because an 
eminent man is apt to be proud.2 We read in the 
Talmud :—* He who humiliates himself will be lifted 
up ; he who raises himself up will be humiliated. Who- 
soever runs after greatness, greatness runs away from 
him ; he whoruns from greatness, greatness follows him.” ® 
Christianity enjoined humility as a cardinal duty in every 
man.*. In the Koran it is said, ‘* God loves not him who 
is proud and boastful.”® Pride has thus come to be 
stigmatised not only as a vice, but as a sin of great 
magnitude. One reason for this is that it is regarded as 
even more offensive to the “self-feeling”’ of a great god 
or the Supreme Being than it is to that of a man. But 
pride must also appear as irreligious arrogance to those 
who maintain that man is by nature altogether corrupt, 
and that everything good in him is a gift of God.° 

At the same time, whilst pride is held blamable, humility 
may also go too far to be approved of, and may even be an 
object of censure. In early ethics, as we have noticed 
above, revenge is enjoined as a duty and forgiveness of 
enemies is despised ; and this is the case not only among 
savages.’ The’device of Chivalry was, “It is better to die 
than to be avenged by shame” ; ® and side by side with the 
nominal acceptance of the Christian doctrine of absolute 
placability the idea still prevails, in many European 
countries, that an assault upon honour shall be followed 
by a challenge to mortal combat. Too great humility is 
regarded as a sign of weakness, cowardice, hypocrisy, or a 
defective sense of honour. We are not allowed to be 
indifferent to the estimation in which we are held by our 
neighbours. Such indifference springs either from a feeble 
moral constitution and absence of moral shame, or from 

1 Cicero, De officids, i. 20. 5 Koran, iv. 40. Cf. Ameer Ali, 
2 Cf. Kuenen, Religion of Israel,  Lthics of Isldm, p. 44. cn 

1. 62 sg. 6 Cf. Manzoni, Osservazionz sulla 
3 Deutsch, Lzterary Remains, p. 58. morale cattolica, p. 182 sgq. 
4 (St. Matthew, Vv. 11, 12, 303 vi. T Supra, i. 73 sq. 

8 Laurent, tudes sur Phistoire de 

25; 26, 30 sgq: 3 xvill. 4 ;\ &c: L 
ie ? Humanité, vii. 184. 

VOL. It L 

a depreciation of other people’s opinions in comparison 
with our own, and this is offensive to their amour-propre. 
Outward humility may thus suggest inward pride and 
appear arrogant. , 5 

A person’s “self-feeling’? may be violated in in- 
numerable ways, by words. and deeds. Almost any 
deviation from what is usual may arouse a suspicion of 
arrogance. ‘This largely accounts for the fact mentioned 
in a previous chapter that habits have a tendency to 
become true customs, that is, rules of duty. Trans- 
gressions of the established forms of social intercourse 
are particularly apt to be offensive to people’s self- 
regarding pride. Many of these forms originated in a 
desire to please, but by becoming habitual they at the 
same time became obligatory. Politeness is a duty rather 
than a virtue. 

There is probably no people on earth which aes not 
recognise some rules of politeness. Many savages are 
conspicuous for their civility." It has been observed that 
Christian missionaries working among uncivilised races 
often are in manners much inferior to those they are 
teaching, and thus lower the native standard of refinement.” 
The Samoans, we are told, “are a nation of gentlemen,” 
and contrast most favourably with the generality of 
Europeans who come amongst them.? On their first 
intercourse with Europeans, the Maoris ‘“ always manifest 
a degree of politeness which would do honour to a more 
civilised people”; but by continued intercourse they lose a 
great part of this characteristic." Among the Fijians 
“the rules of politeness are minute, and receive scrupulous 
attention. They affect the language, and are seen in 
forms of salutation, in attention to strangers, at meals, in 
dress, and, indeed, influence their manners in-doors and 

1 Waitz-Gerland, Azthropologie der 2 Brenchley, Jottings during the 

Naturvothker, vi. 143 sgg. (Polynesians).  Crudse of H.M.S. Curacoa among’ the 
Macdonald, Oceania, p. 195 (Efatese). South Sea Islands, p. 349. 

Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 157. 3 Hood, Crudse in H.M.S. ‘ Fawn? 
MacGregor, ‘ Lagos, Abeokuta and the 2 the Western Pacific, Pp. 59 sg. 
Alake, in Jour. African Soc. July * Dieffenbach, of. czt. ii. 108 sgg. 

1904, p. 466 (Yorubas). See also Colenso, of. czl. p. 53 szg. 

XXXII POLITENESS 

out. None but the very lowest are ill-behaved, and their 
confusion on committing themselves shows that they are 
not impudently so.”* The Malagasy “are a very polite 
people, and look with contempt upon those who neglect 
the ordinary usages and salutations” ;? ‘even the most 
ragged and tattered slave possesses a natural dignity and 
ease of manner, which contrasts favourably with the rude 
conduct and boorish manners of the lower class at home.”’? 
Of the Point Barrow Eskimo Mr. Murdoch observes that 
““many of them show a grace of manner and a natural 
delicacy and politeness which is quite surprising’ ; and 
he mentions the instance of a young Eskimo being so 
polite in conversing with an American officer that “he 
would take pains to mispronounce his words in the same 
way as the latter did, so as not to hurt his feelings by 
correcting him bluntly.”* The forms of Kafir politeness 
“Care very strictly adhered to, and are many.”’ Of the 
Negroes of Fida Bosman wrote, “They are so civil to 
each other and the inferior so respectful to the superior, 
that at first | was very much surprised at it.”° Monrad 
found the Negroes of Accra surpass many civilised people 
in politeness." So also in Morocco even country-folks are 
much more civil in their general behaviour than the large 
majority of Europeans. ‘The conversations of the 
Arabs,” says d’Arvieux, “are full of civilities ; one never 
hears anything there that they think rude and unbe- 
coming.” * Politeness isa characteristic of all the great 
nations of the East. The Chinese have brought the 
practice of it “‘to a pitch of perfection which is not only 
unknown in Western lands, but, previous to experience, is 
unthought of and almost unimaginable. The rules of 
ceremony, we are reminded in the Classics, are three 
Zulus 

5 Leslie, Among the and 

Amatongas, Pp. 203. 

1 Williams and Calvert, of. czt. p. 
£20) (Of, 2620. pp. 128, 131 sz. 3 An- 

derson, Wotes of Travelin Faz, p. 135. 
2 Sibree, Zhe Great African Island, 

p. 325. 

3 Little, Madagascar, p. 71. 

4 Murdoch, ‘Ethn. Results of the 
Point Barrow Expedition,’ in Azz. 
hep. Bur. Ethi. 1x. 42. 

® Bosman, Description of the Coast 
of Guinea, p. 317. 

7 Monrad, Skildring af Guinea- 
Kysten, p. 9. 

8 @Arvieux, Zravels in Arabia the 
Desart, p. 141. 

hundred, and the rules of behaviour three thousand.” ? 
In Europe courtesy was recommended as the most amiable 
of knightly qualities ; ; and from “the wild and over- 
strained courtesies of Oia la has been derived our 
present system of manners.’ 

The rules of politeness and good manners refer to all 
sorts of social intercourse and vary indefinitely in detail. 
They tell people how to sit or stand in each other's 
presence, or how to pass through a door ; a Zulu would 
be fined for going out of a hut back first.* They prescribe 
how to behave at a meal; the Indians of British Columbia 
consider it improper to talk on such an occasion,* and it 
appears that in England also, in the fifteenth century, 
‘‘ people did not hold conversation while eating, but that 
the talk and mirth began with the liquor.” Politeness 
demands that a person should never «interrupt another 
while speaking ;° or that he should avoid contradicting a 
statement;’ or, not infrequently, that he should rather tell 
a pleasant untruth than an unpleasant truth. At times it 
requires the use of certain phrases, words of thanks, 
flattery, or expressions of self-humiliation. In Chinese 
there is “a whole vocabulary of words which are indis- 
pensable to one who wishes to pose as a ‘ polite’ person, 
words in which whatever belongs to the speaker is treated 
with scorn and contempt, and whatever relates to the 
person addressed is honourable. The ‘polite’ Chinese 
will refer to his wife, if driven to the extremity of referring 

1 Smith, Chznese Characteristics, 
Pp. 35: 
2 Ordre of Chyualry, fol. 46. 

Robertson, “7story of the 

Charles V. i. 84. Milman, Hestory 

of Latin Christianity, iv. 211. Turner, 
History of England, iii. 473. Mills, 
History of Chivalry, i. 161 sg. Scott, 

‘Essay on Chivalry,’ 
Prose Works, vi. 58. 

in MW2scellaneous 

3 Tyler, forty Years among the 
Zulus, Pp. 190 sg. 
4 Woldt, Kaptein Jacobsens Reiser 

til Nordamerikas Nor dvesthyst, p. 99. 
® Wright, Domestic Manners and 
Sentiments in England during the 

Reign of 

Middle Ages, p. 396. 

3 Domenech, Seven Years’ Residence 
zn the Great Deserts of North 
America, ii. 72. Richardson, Arctic 
Searching Expedition, i. 385 (Kutchin). 
Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 157. 
Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abipones, 
li. 136 sg. d’Arvieux, of. czt. p. 139 
sg. ; Wallin, Reseanteckningar fran 
Orienten, iii. 259 (Bedouins). 

1 Nansen, first Crossing of Green- 
land, i. 334 sg. 3 Cranz, op. czt. i. 157 
(Greenlanders). Dobrizhoffer, op. cit. 
il. 137 (Abipones). d’Arvieux, of. cit. 
p- 141 (Bedouins). 

See Ts iit 

~“ 

XXXIT 

to her at all, as his ‘ dull thorn,’ or in some similar elegant 
figure of speech.” ! 

Politeness enjoins the performance of certain ceremonies 
upon persons who meet or part. The custom of salutation 
is of world-wide prevalence, though there are certain 
savages who are said to have no greetings except when 
they have learnt the practice from the whites.? As a 
ceremony prescribed by public opinion it is an obligatory 
tribute paid to another person’s “ self-feeling,’ whatever 
be the original nature of the act which has been adopted 
for the purpose. The form of salutation has sometimes 
been borrowed from questions springing from curiosity or 
suspicion. Among the Californian Miwok, when anybody 
meets a stranger he generally salutes him, ‘‘ Whence do 
you come? What are you at?’’® The Abipones “ would 
think it quite contrary to the laws of good-breeding, were 
they to meet any one and not ask him where he was 
going” ;* and a similar question is also a very common 
mode of greeting among the Berbers of Southern Morocco. 
Very frequently a salutation consists of some phrase which 
is expressive of goodwill. It may be an inquiry about 
the other person’s health or welfare, as the English “ How 
are you?” “How do you do?” Among the Burmese 
two relatives or friends who meet begin a conversation by 
the expressions, “Are you well? I am well,” if they 
have been some time separated ; whereas those who are 
daily accustomed to meet say, “‘ Where are you going ?”’® 
The Moors ask, ‘“‘ What is your news?” or, “ Is nothing 
wrong?” The ordinary salutation of the Zulus is, “I 
see you, are you well?” after which the snuffbox, the 
token of friendship, is passed round. Among several 
tribes of California, again, a person when greeting another 

1 Smith, Chzenese Characteristics, 244 (Dacotahs). Lewin, Wzld Races 

Pp. 274. ‘D. : . 

2 Krasheninnikoff, story of Kam- 
schatka, p. 177. Dall, op. cet. p. 397 
(Aleuts). Egede, Description of Green- 
land, p. 125; Rink, Danish Greenland, 
p. 223; Cranz, op. cit. 1. 157 (Green- 
landers). Prescott, in Schoolcraft, 
Indian Tribes of the United States, i. 

of South-Eastern India, pp. 230 (Kumi), 
256 (Kukis). 

3 Powers, TZribes of California, 
p- 347. - 
# Dobrizhoffer, op. cz¢. ii. 138. 
5 Forbes, Brztish Burma, p. 69. 
§ Tyler, of. czz. p. 190. 

, 

— 

simply utters a word which means “ friendship.” * The 

goodwill is often directly expressed in the form of a wish, 

like our “Good day!” Good night!” Among the 
Hebrews the salutation at meeting or entering another’s 
house seems at first to have consisted most commonly in 
an inquiry after mutual welfare,” but in later times 
‘© Health |”? or Peace to -thee |" became the=scurrent 
greeting.® According to the Laws of Manu, a Brahmana 
should be saluted, ‘May thou be long-lived, O gentle 
one!”* ‘The Greeks said yaipe (“Be joyful!”); the 
Romans, Sa/ve ! (“‘ Be in health !”’) especially on meeting, 
and Vale ! (“ Be well’’) on parting. The good wish may 
have the form of a prayer. The Moors say, ‘“‘ May God 
give thee peace!”’ “* May God give thee a good night !” 
and the English “ Good-bye” and the French Adieu are 
prayers curtailed by the progress of time. But there is 
no foundation for Professor Wundt’s assertion that “ the 
words employed in greeting are one and all prayer formule 
in a more or less rudimentary state.””° A salutation may, 
finally, be a verbal profession of subjection, as the Swedish 
“© Odmjukaste tjenare,’’ that is, (1am your) “ most humble 
servant.” : 

Salutations may consist not only in words spoken, but 
in conventional gestures, either accompanied by some 
verbal expression or performed silently.6 They may be 
tokens of submission or reverence, as cowering, crouching, 
and bowing. Or they may originally have been signs of 
disarming or defencelessness, as uncovering some particular 
portion of the body. Von Jhering suggests that the offer- 
ing of the hand belongs to the same group of salutations, 
its object being to indicate that the other person has 
nothing to fear ;‘ but in many cases at least handshaking 
seems to have the same origin as other ceremonies con- 

1 Powers, of. cet. p. 58. 6 See Tylor, ‘Salutations,’ in Z7- 
2 Genesis, xliii. 27. Exodus, xviii. 7.  cyclopedia Britannica, xxi. 235 sqq. 3 
3 Judges, xix. 20. 1 Chronicles, xii. Ling Roth, ‘Salutations,’ in Jour. 
18. Cf. Keil, Manual of Biblical Anthr. Inst. xix. 166 Sqq. 
Archeology, ii. 183. 7 von Jhering, Der Zweck im Recht 
4 Laws of Manu, ii. 125. ii. 649 599. ' 

5 Wundt, Z7zhzk, p. 179. 

POLITENESS 

XX XIT Est 
sisting in bodily contact. Salutatory gestures may express 
not only absence of evil intentions but positive friend- 
liness ; among respectable Moors it is a common mode of 
greeting that each party places his right hand on his heart 
to indicate, as Jackson puts it, “that part to be the 
residence of the friend.” * Various forms of salutation by 
contact, such as clasping, embracing, kissing, and sniffing, 
are obviously direct expressions of affection ;? and we can 
hardly doubt that the joining of hands serves a similar 
object when we find it combined with other tokens of 
goodwill. Among some of the Australian natives friends, 
on meeting after an absence, “ will kiss, shake hands, and 
sometimes cry over one another.” * In Morocco equals 
salute each other by joining their hands with a quick 
motion, separating them immediately, and kissing each 
his own hand. The Soolimas, again, place the palms 
of the right hands together, carry them then to the 
forehead, and from thence to the left side of the chest.* 
But bodily union is also employed as a method of 
transferring either blessings or conditional curses, and 
it seems probable that certain salutatory acts have 
vaguely or distinctly such transference in view. Among 
the Masai, who spit on each other both when they 
meet and when they part, spitting ‘“‘expresses the greatest 
goodwill and the best of wishes” ;° and in a previous 
chapter I have endeavoured to show that the object of 
various reception ceremonies is to transfer a conditional 
curse to the stranger who is received as a guest.” On the 
same principle as underlies these ceremonies, handshaking 
may be a means of joining in compact, analogous to a 
common meal” and the blood-covenant.® 

Being an homage rendered to other persons’ self-regard- 

Kooranko, and Soolima Countries, p. 

1 Jackson, Account of Timbuctoo, 

&c. p. 235. 368. 
2 See zzfra, on the Origin and De- 5 Thomson, Through Masai Land, 
velopment of the Altruistic Sentiment. p- 166. 
® TIackett, ‘ Ballardong or Baller- 8 Supra, 1. 590 sg. 
dokking Tribe,’ in Curr, Ze Australian 7 Supra, i. 587. 
Race, i. 343. 8 See zufra, on the Origin and De- 
4 Laing, Zravels in the Timannee, velopment of the Altruistic Sentiment. 

52. POLITENESS CH. aaa 

ing pride, the rule of politeness is naturally most exacting 
in relation to superiors. Many of its forms have, in fact, 
originated in humble or respectful behaviour towards 
rulers, masters, or elders, and, often in a modified shape, 
become common between equals after they have lost their 
original meaning.’ It has been noticed that the cruelty of 
despots always engenders politeness, whereas the freest 
nations are generally the rudest in manners.” Politeness 
is further in a special degree shown by men to women, not 
only among ourselves, but even among many savages ;* in 
this case courtesy is connected with courtship. Strangers 
or remote acquaintances, also, have particular claims to 
be treated with civility, whereas politeness is of little 
moment in the intercourse of friends ; it imitates kindness, 
and is resorted to where the genuine feeling is wanting.* 
And in the capacity of guest, the stranger is often for the 
time being flattered with exquisite marks of honour, for 
reasons which have been stated in another connection. 

1 SeeSpencer, Princeplesof Soctology, Chanler, Through Jungle and Desert, 
ii. ‘Ceremonial Institutions,’ passe. p- 485 (Wakamba). See also szpra, 

2 Johnston, Uganda, ii. 685. i. ch. xxvi. 

3 Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in 4 Ch Tucker, Light of Nature, ii. 
Ann. Rep. Bur. LEthn. iii. 270. 599 sgy. ; Joubert, Pensées, i. 243. 

=

REGARD FOR OTHER PERSONS’ HAPPINESS IN GENERAL— 
GRATITUDE—PATRIOTISM AND COSMOPOLITANISM 

In previous chapters we have dealt with moral ideas 
concerning various modes of conduct which have reference 
to other men’s welfare—to their life or bodily comfort, 
their liberty, property, knowledge of truth, or self-regard- 
ing pride. But the list of duties which we owe to our 
fellow-creatures is as yet by no means complete. Any act, 
forbearance, or omission, which in some way or other 
diminishes or increases their happiness may on that 
account become a subject of moral blame or praise, being 
apt to call forth sympathetic retributive emotions. 

To do good to others is a rule which has been inculcated 
by all the great teachers of morality. According to 
Confucius, benevolence is the root of righteousness and a 
leading characteristic of perfect virtue.’ In the Taouist 
‘Book of Secret Blessings’ men are enjoined to be com- 
passionate and loving, and to devote their wealth to the 
good of their fellow-men.” The moralists of ancient India 
teach that we should with our life, means, understanding, 
and speech, seek to advance the welfare of other creatures 
in this world; that we should do so without expecting 
reciprocity ; and that we should enjoy the prosperity of 
others even though ourselves unprosperous.* The writers 

1 Zun Vii, xvii. 6. Douglas, Con- ments rendered from Sanskrit Writers, 
fuctanism and Taouism, p. 108. p- 107 sg. Monier Williams, Zzdéan 
2 Douglas, of. cit. p. 272 5g. Wisdom, p. 448. 

3 Muir, Religious and Moral Sentz- 

of classical antiquity repeatedly give expression to the idea 
that man is not born for himself alone, but should assist his 
fellow-men to the best of his ability. In the Old Testa- 
ment we meet with the injunction, ‘“‘ Thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself” ;? and this was declared by Christ to 
be of equal importance with the commandment, “Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God.” ® ; 

To a reflecting mind it is obvious that the moral value 
of beneficence exclusively lies in the benevolent motive, and 
that there is nothing praiseworthy in promoting the happi- 
ness of others from selfish considerations. Confucius taught 
that self must be conquered before a man can be perfectly 
virtuous.* According to Lao-Tsze, self-abnegation is the 
cardinal rule for both the sovereign and the people.’ Self- 
denial is the chief demand of the Gospel, and is emphasised 
as a supreme duty by Islam.° Generally speaking, the 
merit attached to a good action is proportionate to the 
self-denial which it costs the agent. This follows from 
the nature of moral approval in its capacity of a retributive 
emotion, as is proved by the fact that the degree of 
gratitude felt towards a benefactor is in a similar way 
influenced by the deprivation to which he subjects himself. 
On the other hand, there is considerable variety of opinion, 
even among ourselves, as to the dictates of duty, in cases 
where our own interests conflict with those of our fellow- 
men. ‘To Professor Sidgwick it is a moral axiom that “ I 
ought not to prefer my own lesser good to the greater 
good of another.”" According to Hutcheson, we do not 
condemn those as evil who will not sacrifice their private 
interest to the advancement of the positive good of others, 
‘“‘unless the private interest be very small, and the publick 
good very great.” ® 

The idea that it is bad to cause harm to others and 

1 Schmidt, Dze thik der alten S Ameer Ali, Ethics of Islam 
eee i. 275 geo Page ; 
2 Leviticus, xix. 18. 7 Sidgwick, Je Y Tthics 
3 St. Matthew, xxii. 39. p: ae aes oe Ne 
4 Lun Vii, xii. 1. 1. 8 Hutcheson, Zssay cn the Nature 
> Douglas, Confucianism and and Conduct of the Passions, &c. 

Taoursit, p. 192. Damo: 

a 

—— 

XX XIII 

good or obligatory to promote their happiness, is in different 
ways influenced by the relationship between the parties ; 
and to many cases it does not apply at all. We have 
previously noticed that according to early ethics an enemy 
is a proper object of hatred, not of love ;' and according 
to more advanced ideas a person who treats us badly has 
at all events little claim upon our kindness. The very 
opposite is the case witha benefactor or friend. To requite 
a benefit, or to be grateful to him who bestows it, is 
probably everywhere, at least under certain circumstances, 
regarded as a duty. This is a subject which in the 
present connection calls for special consideration. 

The duty of gratefulness presupposes a disposition for 
gratitude.” According to travellers’ accounts, this feeling 
is lacking in many uncivilised races.* Lyon writes of the 
Eskimo of Igloolik :—‘ Gratitude is not only rare, but 
absolutely unknown amongst them, either by action, word, 
or look, beyond the first outcry of satisfaction. Nursing 
their sick, burying the dead, clothing and feeding the 
whole tribe, furnishing the men with weapons, and the 
women and children with ornaments, are insufficient to 
awaken a grateful feeling, and the very people who relieved 
their distresses when starving are laughed at in time of 
plenty for the quantity and quality of the food which 
was bestowed in charity.”* Various other tribes‘ in 

1 Supra, i. 73 Sq. 

2 For the definition of gratitude, see 
Supra, 1. 93. 

3 Steller, Beschrecbung von Kamt- 
schatha, p. 292. Bergmann, Momadische 
Streifereten under den Kalmtiken, il. 
310, 316. Foreman, /hzlippine 
Islands, p. 183. Modigliani, Vzaggio 
a Nias, p. 467. Selenka, Sonnzge 
Welten, p. 286 (Malays). Marsden, 
History of Sumatra, p. 207 (Malays of 
Sumatra). Forbes, A Naturalists 
Wanderings in the Eastern Archt- 
pelago, p. 320 (natives of Timor- 
laut). Mrs. Forbes, Zreselinde, p. 178 
(natives of Ritabel). Hagen, Under 
den Papuas, p. 266 (Papuans of 
Bogadjim). Romilly, Western Pacific 
and New Guinea, p. 239. La Pérouse, 

Voyage round the World, ii. 109 
(Samoans). Colenso, Maort Races of 
New Zealand, p. 48; Dieffenbach, 
Travels tin New Zealand, ii. 110. 
Ling Roth, Adorigznes of Tasmania, 
p-. 63. Gason, ‘ Manners and Customs 
of the Dieyerie Tribe,’ in Woods, 
Native Tribes of South Australia, 
p- 258. Baker, Albert N’yanza, i. 242 
(Latukas), 289 (Negroes). von 
Francois, Vama und Damara, p. 191 
(Herero). 

4 Lyon, Private Journal during the 
Voyage of Discovery under Captain 
Parry, p. 348 sg. See also Parry, 
Journal of a Second Voyage for the 
Discovery of a North-West Passage, 
p- 524 Sg. 

™~ tS Pett 

Pa 

Ar 

North America have been accused of ingratitude ;* and 
of some South American savages we are told that they 
evinced no thankfulness. for the presents which were given 
them.2 The Fijians are described as utterly indifferent 
to their benefactors. The Rev. Th. Williams writes :— 
“If one of them, when sick, obtained medicine from me, 
he thought me bound to give him food; the reception 
of food he considered as giving him a claim on me for 
covering ; and, that being secured, he deemed himself at 
liberty to beg anything he wanted, and abuse me if I 
refused his unreasonable request.” * Mr. Lumholtz had a 
similar experience with regard to the natives of Herbert 
River, Northern Queensland :—“ If you give one thing to 
a black man, he finds ten other things to ask for, and he is 
not ashamed to ask for all that you have, and more too. 
He is never satisfied. Gratitude does not exist in his 
breast.” * In several languages there is no word expressive 
of what we term gratitude or no phrase corresponding to 

our “thank you”’;° and on this fact much stress has been 

1 Cranz, History of Greenland, 
ih Gel Sarytschew, ‘Voyage of 
Discovery to the North-East of Siberia,’ 

(Toungtha). 
sg. (Bisayans). 
WVias, p. 467. 

Foreman, of. cz¢. p. 182 
Modigliani, Vzagezo a 
Ling Roth, Nazzves of’ 

in Collection of Modern Voyages, vi. Sarawak, i. 74 (Dyaks). Chalmers, 
78 (Aleuts). Harmon, Voyages and Pioneering im New Gutnea, pp. 
Travels in the Intertor of North 187; Romilly, Western Pacific 
America, p. 291 (Tacullies). Heriot, and New Guinea, p. 239 sg. 

Travels through the Canadas, p. 319. 
Lafitau, AWZeurs des sauvages amert- 
guaims, 1. 106. Burton, Czty of the 
Saints, p. 125 (Sioux and prairie tribes 

(However, Mr. Romilly’s statement 
that ‘‘in all the known New Guinea 
languages there is not even a word for 
‘thank you,’”’ is not quite correct, as 

generally). 
2 von Spix and von Martius, Z7avels 
tn Braztl, i. 228, 241 sg. (Coroados). 
Stokes, quoted by King and Fitzroy, 
Voyages of the ‘ Adventure’ and 
‘ Beagle,’ i. 77 (Fuegians). 

3 Williams and Calvert, 7272, p. 111. 
See also Anderson, (Votes of Travel in 

Fuji and New Caledonia, pp. 124, 
131. 

4 Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, 
p- 100. 

5 Southey, Mzstory of Braztl, iii. 
399 (Abipones, Guaranies). Hearne, 
Journey to the Northern Ocean, ~. 307 
(Northern Indians). Lewin, Weld 
Races of South-Eastern India, p. 192 

appears from Chalmers, of. cz¢. p. 187.) 
Wilson, Atsstonary Voyage to the 
Southern Pacific Ocean, p. 365; 
Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologie der Na- 
turvolker, Vi. 116(Tahitians). Colenso, 
op. cit. p. 48 (Maoris). New, Zz 
and Labours in Eastern Africa, p. 100 
(Wanika). von Francois, of. zt. 
p- 191 (Herero). In the Vedic 
language, also, there was no word for 
‘‘thanks” (Oldenberg, Die Religion 
des Veda, p. 305); and many Eastern 
languages of the present day lack an 
equivalent for ‘‘thank you” (Ward, 
View of the History, &c. of the 
Hindoos, ii. 81, n. a. 3 Pool, Studies in 
Muhammedanism, yp. 176; Polak, 

GRATITUDE 

laid, the deficiency of language being regarded as an 
indication of a corresponding deficiency in feelings. 

Here again we must distinguish between a traveller’s 
actual experience and the conclusions which he draws from 
it; and it seems that in many cases our authorities have 
been too ready to charge savages with a total lack ot 
grateful feelings, because they have been wanting in 
gratitude on certain occasions. It is too much to expect 
that a savage should show himself thankful to any stranger 
who gives him a present. _ Speaking of the Ahts of British 
Columbia, Mr. Sproat remarks that the Indian’s suspicion 
prevents a ready gratitude, as he is prone to see, in apparent 
kindness extended to him, some under-current of selfish 
motive. ‘He is accustomed, among his own people, to 
gifts made for purposes of guile, and also to presents 
made merely to show the greatness and richness of the 
giver; but, I imagine,’ our author adds, “ when the Aht 
ceases to suspect such motives—when he does not detect 
pride, craft, or carelessness—he is grateful, and probably 
grateful in proportion to the trouble taken to serve him.” ? 
As for the ingratitude of the Northern Queensland natives, 
Mr. Lumholtz himself admits that ‘they assume that the 
gift is bestowed out of fear” ;* and of the New Zealanders 
we are told that their total want of gratitude was particularly 
due to the fact that “no New Zealander ever did any 
kindness, or gave anything, to another, without mainly 
having an eye to himself in the transaction.” * Moreover, 
gratitude often requires not only the absence of a selfish 
motive in the benefactor, but some degree of self-sacrifice. 
‘A person,” says Mr. Sproat, “ may keep an Indian from 
starving all the winter through, yet, when summer comes, 
very likely he will not walk a yard for his preserver with- 

out payment. The savage 

Persien, i. 9). When one of the 
missionaries in India was engaged in 
the translation of the Scriptures into 
Bengali, he found no common word in 
that language suitable to express the 
idea of gratitude (Wilkins, AZodern 

does not, in this instance, 

Hinduism, p. 397). 
1 Sproat, Scenes and 
Savage Life, p. 165 sg. 

2 Lumholtz, Among 

Studies of 
Cannibals, 

p- 159. : ‘ 
3 Colenso, of. czt. p. 48. 

recognise any obligation ; but thinks that a person who 
had so much more than he could himself consume might 
well, and without any claim for after services, part with 
some of it for the advantage of another in want.”* Mr. 
Powers makes a similar observation with reference to the 
aborigines of California :—‘“ White men,” he says, ‘ who 
have had dealings with Indians, in conversation with me 
have often bitterly accused them of ingratitude. ‘Do 
everything in your power for an Indian,’ they say, ‘and 
he will accept it all as a matter of course ; but for the 
slightest service you require of him he will demand pay.’ 
These men do not enter into the Indian’s ideas. This 
‘ingratitude’ is really an unconscious compliment to our 
power. The savage feels, vaguely, the unapproachable 
elevation on which the American stands above him. He 
feels that we had much and he had little, and we took 
away from him even his little. In his view giving does 
not impoverish us, nor withholding enrich us. Gratitude 
is a sentiment not in place between master and slave; 
it isa sentiment for equals. The Indians are grateful to 
one another.” ? Nor are men very apt to feel grateful 
for benefits to which they consider themselves to have a. 
right. Thus, according to Mr. Howitt, the want of 
gratitude among the South Australian Kurnai for kind- 
nesses shown them by the whites is due to the principle 
of community, which is so strong a feature of the domestic 
and social life of these aborigines. ‘ For a supply of food, 
or for nursing when sick, the Kurnai would not feel grateful 
to his family group. There would be a common obligation 
upon all to share food, and to afford personal aid and 
succour. This principle would also come into play as 
regards the simple personal property they possess, and 
would extend to the before-unknown articles procured 
from the whites. The food, the clothes, the medical 
attendance which the Kurnai receive from the whites, they 
take in the accustomed manner ; and, in addition to this, 

1 Sproat, of. cz. p. 165 sg. > Powers, Tribes of  Caltfornia, 
jen ati 

we must remember that the donors are regarded as having 
unlimited resources. They cannot be supposed by the 
Kurnai. to be doing anything but giving out of their 
abundance.” * Mr. Guppy found the same principle at 
work among the Solomon Islanders :—‘ Often when during 
my excursions | have come upon some man who was pre- 
paring a meal for himself and his family, I have been 
surprised at the open-handed way in which he dispensed the 
food to my party of hungry natives. No gratitude was 
shown towards the giver, who apparently expected none.” ” 
It has also been observed that the want of gratitude with 
which Arabs have often been charged by Europeans has 
arisen ‘“ from the very common practice of hospitality and 
generosity, and from the prevailing opinion that these 
virtues are absolute duties which it would be disgraceful 
and sinful to neglect.” ® 

We should further remember that savages often take care 
not to display their emotions. Among the Melanesians, 
according to Dr. Codrington, “it is not the custom to say 
anything by way of thanks ; it is rather improper to show 
emotion when anything is given, or when friends meet 
again ; silence with the eyes cast down is the sign of the 
inward trembling or shyness which they feel, or think 
they ought to feel, under these circumstances. There is 
no lack of a word which may be fairly translated ‘ thank’; 
and certainly no one who has given cause for it will say 
that Melanesians have no gratitude; others probably are 
ready enough to say it.’* Of the North American 
Chippewas Major Strickland writes :—‘“If an Indian 
makes a present, it is always expected that one equally 
valuable should be given in return, No matter what you 
give them, or how valuable or rich the present, they sel- 
dom betray the least emotion or appearance of gratitude, 
it being considered beneath the dignity of a red man to 
betray his feelings. For all this seeming indifference, 

1 Fison and Howitt, Aamdlarot and the Modern Egyplians, p. 298. See 
Kurnat, p. 257. also Burton, P2/ertmage to Al-Madinah 

2 Guppy, So/omon Islands, p. 127. and Meccah, i. 51. 

* Lane, Manners and Customs of 4 Codrington, A/elaneszans, p. 354- 

they are in reality as grateful, and, I believe, even more so 
than our own peasantry.”’ ‘The Aleuts also, although 
they are chary of expressions of thanks, “do not forget 
kindness, and endeavour to express their thankfulness by 
deeds. If anyone assists an Aleut, and afterwards offends 
him, he does not forget the former favour, and in his mind 
it often cancels the offence.”’? From the want of a word 
for a feeling we must not conclude that the feeling itself 
is wanting. Mr. Sproat observes :—‘‘ The Ahts have, it 
is true, no word for gratitude, but a defect in language 
does not absolutely imply defect in heart ; and the Indian 
who, in return for a benefit received, says, with glistening 
eyes, that ‘his heart is good’ towards his benefactor, 
expresses his gratitude quite as well perhaps as the English- 
man who says ‘ Thank you.’”’ 

It is not surprising, then, that in various cases a people 
which to one traveller appears to be quite destitute of grati- 
tude is by another described as being by no means lacking 
in this feeling ; and sometimes contradictory statements are 
made even by the same writer. Thus Mr. Lumholtz, 
who gives such a gloomy picture of the character of the 
Northern Queensland natives, nevertheless tells us of a 
native who, though himself very hungry, threw the 
animals which the traveller had shot for him to an old 
man—his wife’s uncle—whom they met, in order to give 
some proof of the gratitude he owed the person from 
whom he had received his wife ;° and regarding the 
Fijians Mr. Williams himself states that thanks for presents 
“are always expressed aloud, and generally with a kind 
wish for the giver.”° As we have noticed before, retri- 
butive kindly emotions, of which gratitude is only the 
most developed form, are commonly found among gre- 
garious animals, social affection being not only a friendly 

1 Strickland, Twenty-seven Vears in 4 E.g., the Fuegians, Sioux, Ahts, 
Canada West, ii. 58. Aleuts, Kamchadales, Tasmanians, 
2 Veniaminoff, quoted by Dall,  Zulus (see sepra and zn/fra). 
Alaska, p. 395. > Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, 

3 Sproat, of. ct#. p. 165. See also pp. 221. 
Ling Roth, Watives of Sarawak, i. 74 § Williams and Calvert, of. °cz¢. 
(Dyaks). Deets z. 

a 

sentiment towards another individual, but towards an 
individual who is conceived of as a friend.! And it is all 
the more difficult to believe in the absolute want of grati- 
tude in some savage races, as the majority of them—to 
judge from my collection of facts—are expressly acquitted 
of such a defect, and several are described as remarkably 
grateful for benefits bestowed upon them. 

The Fuegians use the word chapakouta, which means glad, 
satisfied, affectionate, grateful, to express thanks.2 Jemmy 
Button, the young Fuegian who was brought to England on 
board the Beagle, gave proofs of sincere gratitude ;? and Admiral 
Fitzroy also mentions a Patagonian boy who appeared thankful 
for kindness shown to him.4 Of the Mapuchés of Chili Mr. E. 
R. Smith observes :—“ Whatever present is made, or favour 
conferred, is considered as something to be returned; and the 
Indian never fails, though months and years may intervene, to 
repay what he conscientiously thinks an exact equivalent for the 
thing received.”° The Botocudos do not readily forget kind 
treatment ;° and the Tupis “ were a grateful race, and remem- 
bered that they had received gifts, after the giver had forgotten 
it.’7 The Guiana Indians “are grateful for any kindness.” § 
The Navahos of New Mexico have a word for thanks, and 
employ it on all occasions which we would consider appro- 
priate.? The Sioux ‘ evinced the warmest gratitude to any who 
had ever displayed kind feelings towards them.”1° In _ his 
‘Voyages from Montreal to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans,’ 
Mackenzie mentions the gratitude shown him by a young Indian 
whom he had cured of a bad wound. When well enough to 
engage in a hunting party, the young man brought to his 
physician the tongue of an elk, and when they parted both he 
and his relatives expressed the heartiest acknowledgment for the 
care bestowed on him." If an Aleut receives a gift he accepts 
it, saying 4&h ! which means “ thanks.” 12 Some of the Point 
Barrow Eskimo visited by Mr. Murdoch “ seemed to feel truly 

1 Supra, 1. 94. Guiana, p. 213. 

2 Hyades and Deniker, Mission ® Matthews, ‘ Study of Ethics among 
setentifique du Cap Horn, vil. 314. the Lower Races,’ in Journal of 

3 King and Fitzroy, of. cz¢. li. 327. American Folk-Lore, xii. 9. 

LANTERNS Se 10 Eastman, Dacotah, p. ix. 

5 Smith, Araucanzans, p. 258. NU Mackenzie, Voyages from Montreal 

8 Wied - Neuwied, Retse nach to the FHrozen and Pacific Oceans, 
Brasilien, ii. 16. Daisy 

7 Southey, of. czt. i. 247. 12 Veniaminof, quoted by Dall, of. cz? 

8 Im Thurn, Among the Indians of  p. 395. 
VOL. II M 

grateful for the benefits and gifts received, and endeavoured by» 

their general behaviour, as well as in more substantial ways, to 

CEA 

make some adequate return ” ; whereas others appeared to think 

only of what they might receive.? 
Of the Tunguses it is said, “If you make them a present, 
they hardly thank you; but though so unpolite, they are ex-: 

ceedingly grateful.”2 The Jakuts never forget a benefit re-\ 

ceived ; “for they not only make restitution, but recommend 
to their offspring the ties of friendship and gratitude to their 
benefactors.” ® 
grateful for attention or assistance. “ A little kindly sympathy 

makes him an attached friend, and for his friend . . . . he will 

readily give his life.’5 Mr. Bennett once had an interview 

with two village Veddahs, and on that occasion gave them 
presents. “[‘wo months after a couple of elephant’s tusks found 
their way into his front verandah at night, but the Veddahs 
who had brought them never gave him an opportunity to reward 
them. “What a lesson in gratitude and delicacy,” he ex- 
claims, “ even a Veddah may teach !”® 

The Alfura of Halmahera,’ the Bataks of Sumatra,® and 
the Dyaks of Borneo® are praised for their grateful disposi- 
tion of mind. Of the Hill Dyaks Mr. Low observes that grati- 
tude “eminently adorns the character of these simple people, 
and the smallest beneft conferred upon them calls forth its 
vigorous and continued exercise.” 1° ‘The Motu people of New 
Guinea are “ capable of appreciating kindness,” 4! and have words 
for expressing thanks.!’? Chamisso speaks highly of the gratitude 
evinced by the natives of Ulea, Caroline Islands :—‘ Any 
thing, a useful instrument, for example, which they have re- 
ceived as a gift from a friend, retains and bears among them as 
a lasting memorial the name of the friend who bestowed it.” 
When Professor Moseley at Dentrecasteaux Island, of the 
Admiralty Group, gave a hatchet as pay to his guide, according 

1 Murdoch, ‘ Ethnol. Results of the 
Point Barrow Expedition,’ in Azz. 
Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 42. See also 
Seemann, Voyage of ‘ Herald,’ ii. 67 
(Western Eskimo). 

2 Georgi, ARzzssia, ill. III. 

° Sauer, Hapeditzon to the Northern 
Parts of Russia, performed by Billings, 
p. 124. 

4 Tennent, Ceylon, ii. 445. Sarasin, 
Forschungen auf Ceylon, ii. 546. 

® Nevill, ‘ Vaeddas of Ceylon,’ in 
Taprobanian, i. 192. 

® Pridham, Account of Ceylon, 

i. 460 sg. 

* Kiikenthal, orschungsreise in den 
Molukken und Borneo, i. 188. 

8 Junghuhn, Dée Battalinder auf 
Sumatra, i. 239. 
® Ling Roth, Matcves of Sarawak, 
1.74, 70. 

1 Low, Sarawak, p. 246. 

Stone, A Few Months in New 
Guinea, p. 95. 

2 Chalmers, 
Guinea, p. 187. 

8 von Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery 
into the South Sea, iii. 204. 

Pioneering in New 

S \ 

The Veddah of Ceylon is described as very. ~~ 

om 

X XXIII 

to promise, the guide seemed grateful, and presented him with 
his own shell adze in return.t! Though the Tahitians never 
return thanks nor seem to have a word in their language ex- 

: pressive of gratitude, they are not devoid of the feeling itself.2 

Backhouse tells us of a Tasmanian native who, having been 
nursed through an illness, showed many demonstrations of 
gratitude ; and he adds that this virtue was often exhibited 
among these people—a statement which is corroborated by the 
accounts of other travellers.* Of the Australian aborigines Mr. 
Ridley writes :—‘I believe they are as a people remarkably 
susceptible of impressions from kind treatment. ‘They recog- 
nised me as one who sought their good, and were evidently 
pleased and thankful to see that 1 thought them worth looking 
after.” 4 “Che Adelaide and Encounter Bay blacks are said to 
display attachment to persons who are kind to them.° Speaking 
of the Central Australian tribes, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen 
observe that, though they are not in the habit of showing 
anything like excessive gratitude on receiving gifts from the 
white man, they are in reality by no means incapable of that 
feeling ;° and other writers report instances of gratitude dis- 
played by natives of West Australia? and Queensland.® 
Concerning the people of Madagascar the missionary Ellis 
writes :—“ Whether the noble and generous feeling of gratitude 
has much place amongst the Malagasy has been questioned. 
Though often characterised by extreme apathy, they are cer- 
tainly susceptible of tenderness of feeling, and their customs 
furnish various modes of testifying their sense of any acts of 
kindness shewn them, and their language contains many forms 
of speech expressive of thankfulness. “The following are among 
those in most general use: ‘May you live to grow old—may 
you live long—may you live sacred—may you see, or obtain, 
justice from the sovereign.’ ”” Moreover, with all their expressions 
of thankfulness, considerable action is used : sometimes the two 
hands are extended open as if to make a present; or the party 
stoops down to the ground, and clasps the legs, or touches the 
knee and the feet of the person he is thanking.® Ingratitude, 

Bay Aboriginal Tribes,’ in Woods, 

i Moseley, ‘Inhabitants of the 
Native Tribes of South Australia, 

Admiralty Islands,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
Inst. vi. 416. 

2 Waitz-Gerland, of. czt. vi. 116. 

3 Ling Roth, Aborigines of Tas- 
mania, pp. 47, 62, 64. 

4 Ridley, Aborigines of Australia, 
p- 24. See also zbzd. p. 20 sgg. 

5 Wyatt, ‘Manners and Super- 
stitions of the Adelaide and Encounter 

Da lO? 

6 Spencer and Gillen, Watzve Tribes 
of Central Australia, p. 48 sgq. 

7 Salvado, Alémotres historiques sur 
? Australie, p. 146. 

8 Fraser, Aborigines of New South 
Wales, p. 44. 

9 Ellis, A7zstory of 

M 2 

Madagascar, 

GRATITUDE 

again, is expressed by many strong metaphors, such as “son 
of a thunderbolt,” or “‘ offspring of a wild boar.”! The Bush- 
mans, according to Burchell, are not incapable of gratitude.’ 
The statement made by certain travellers or colonists that the 
Zulus are devoid of this feeling, is contradicted by Mr. Tyler, 
who asserts that “many instances might be related in which 
a thankful spirit has been manifested, and gifts bestowed for 
favours received.”® ‘The Basutos have words to express grati- 
tude.¢ Among the Bakongo, says Mr. Ward, “ evidences of 
gratitude are rare indeed, although occasionally one meets with 
this sentiment in odd guises. Once, by a happy chance, I saved a 
baby’s life. The child was brought to me by its mother in con- 
vulsions, and I was fortunate enough to find in my medicine chest 
a drug that effected an almost immediate cure. Yet the service I 
rendered to this woman, instead of meeting with any apprecia- 
tion, only procured for me the whispered reputation of being a 
witch.” But twenty months afterwards, at midnight when all 
the people were sleeping, the same woman came to Mr. Ward 
and gave him some fowl’s eggs in payment. ‘I come,” she said, 
“in the darkness that my people may not know, for they would 
jeer at me if they knew of this gift.” A traveller tells us that 
the inhabitants of Great Benin “if given any trifles expressed 
their thanks.” ® Writing on the natives of Accra, Monrad 
states that gratitude isamong the virtues of the Negroes, and in- 
duces them even to give their lives in return for benefits conferred 
onthem.’ The Feloops, bordering on the Gambia, “ display the 
utmost gratitude and affection towards their benefactors.”& As 
regards the Eastern Central Africans, Mr. Macdonald affirms 
without any hesitation that they have gratitude, “‘ even though 
we define gratitude as being much more than an ‘acute sense 
of favours to come.’””® “The Masai and Wadshagea have “a 
curious habit of spitting on things or people as a compliment or 
sign of gratitude” !’—originally, I presume, with a view to 
transferring to them a blessing. “The Barea are said to be 
thankful for benefits." According to Palgrave, “ gratitude is no 

i. 258. See also Rochon, Voyage to 
Madagascar, p. 56. 
1 Ellis, of. czt. i. 139 sg. 

2 Burchell, Zravels in the Interior of 

Southern Africa, ii. 68, 86, 447. 

® Tyler, Forty Years among 
Zulus, p. 194. 

4 Casalis, Basztos, p. 306. 

5 Ward, Frve Years with the Congo 
Cannibals, p. 47 sqgq. 

the 

® Punch, quoted by Ling Roth, 
Great Benin, p. 45. 

™ Monrad, Skzldring af Guinea- 
Kysten, p. 8. 

8 Mungo Park, TZvavels in the 
Intertor of Africa, p. 14. 

® Macdonald, Africana, i. to. 

10 Johnston, Kilima-njaro  Ex- 

pedition, p. 438. 
1 Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, 

P- 533- 

XXXIII GRATITUDE 

less an Arab than a European virtue, whatever the ignorance or 
the prejudices of some foreigners may have affirmed to the con- 
trary” ;1 and Burckhardt says that an Aral never forgets the 
generosity shown to him even by an enemy.? 

In other statements gratitude is directly represented as 
an object of praise, or its absence as an object of dis- 
approval. Among the Atkha Aleuts, according to Father 
Yakof, gratitude to benefactors was considered a virtue. ® 

Among the Omahas, if a man receives a favour and does 
not manifest his thankfulness, the people exclaim :—‘“ He 
does not appreciate the gift ! He has no manners.”’* The 

Kamchadales ‘are not only grateful for favours, but they 
think it absolutely necessary to make some return for a 
present.” ° The Chinese say that “‘ kindness is more bind- 
ing than a loan.” °® According to the ‘ Divine Panorama,’ 
a well-known Taouist work, those who forget kindness and 
are guilty of ingratitude shall be tormented after death and 
‘shall not escape one jot of their punishments.””" In one 
of the Pahlavi texts gratitude is represented as a means of 
arriving at heaven, whilst ingratitude is stigmatised as a 
heinous sin ;° and according to Ammian ungrateful persons 
were even punished by law in ancient Persia.*° The same, 
we are told, was the case in Macedonia. The duty of 
gratitude was strongly inculcated by Greek and Roman 
moralists. ’ Aristotle observes that we ought, as a general 
rule, rather to return a kindness to our benefactor than to 
confer a gratuitous favour upon a brother in arms, just as 
we ought rather to repay a loan to acreditor than to spend 
the same sum upon a present to a friend.” According to 
7 Giles, Strange Stories 

Chinese Studio, i. 374 sg. 
That-Shang, 4 

Jrom a 

Palgrave, quoted in Spencer's 
See also 

Descriptive Sociology, ‘ Asiatic Races,’ 

Pp. 3I. 

2 Burckhardt, Motes on the Bedouins 
and Wahdbys, p. 155. 

3 Yakof, quoted by Petroff, Report 
on the Population, &c. of Alaska, 
p. 158. 

4 Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 270. 

5 Dobell, Zravels in Kamtschatka, 
lee 7i5 
6 Davis, Chzna, ii. 123. 

8 Dind-i Maindg-t Khirad, xxxvi. 
25° °xXXXVils) 01>) XIU. QO: 

® Ammianus Marcellinus, 
6. 81. 

10 Seneca, De beneficzzs, iii. 6. 2. 

11 See Schmidt, Die Lthik der alten 
Griechen, li. 305 sgq. 

12 Aristotle, fhzca 
Ibs Pay Be 

Xxiil. 

Nicomachea, 

SGP OL the requital of benefits is enjoined by a divine 
law.? ‘* There is no duty more indispensable than that of 
returning a kindness,” says Cicero ; “all men detest one 
forgetful of a benefit.” * Seneca calls ingratitude a most 
odious vice, which it is difficult to punish by law, but 
which we refer for judgment.to the gods.» The ancient 
Scandinavians considered it dishonourable for a man to 
kill even an enemy in blood-revenge if he had received a 
benefit from him.? 

We may assume that among beings capable of feeling 
moral emotions the general disposition to be kind to a 
benefactor will inevitably lead to the notion that ungrate- 
ful behaviour is wrong. Such behaviour is offensive to 
the benefactor ; as Spinoza observes, “he who has 
conferred a benefit on anyone from motives of love or 
honour will feel pain, if he sees that the benefit is 
received without gratitude.’® This by itself tends to 
evoke in the bystander sympathetic resentment towards 
the offender ; but his resentment is much increased by the 
retributive kindliness which he is apt to feel, sym- 
pathetically, towards the benefactor. He wants to see 
the latter’s kindness rewarded ; and he is shocked by the 
absence of a similar desire in the very person who may 
be naturally expected to feel it more strongly than any- 
body else. 

The moral ideas concerning conduct which affects other 
persons’ welfare vary according as the parties are members 
of the same or different families, or of the same or ee 
communities. For reasons which have been stated i 
previous chapters parents have in this respect ee 
duties towards their children, and children towards their 
parents; and a tribesman or a fellow-countryman has 
claims which are not shared by a foreigner. But there 
are duties not only to particular individuals, but also to 

1 Xenophon, Memorabilia, iv. : 24.  Norwegischen Stammies, ii. 174. 

2NCiceros) ees opfic7s ale hG aa 7s 5 Spinoza, ¢hica, iii. 42. A 
ii. 18 (63). Japanese proverb says that ‘‘ thankless 
3 Seneca, De beneficits, iii. 6. 1 sg. labour brings fatigue” (Reed, /apan, 

+ Maurer, Die Bekehrung des ii. 100). 

whole social aggregates. Foremost among these is the 
duty of patriotism. 

The duty of patriotism is rooted in the patriotic senti- 
ment, in a person’s love of the social body-of which he is 
himself a member, and which is attached to the territory 
he calls his country. It involves a desire to promote its 
welfare, a wish that it may prosper for the time being and 
for all future. This desire is the outcome of a variety of 
sentiments: of men’s affection for the people among 
whom they live, of attachment to the places where they 
have grown up or spent part of their lives, of devotion to 
their race and language, and to the traditions, customs, 
laws, and institutions of the society in which they were 
born and to which they belong. 

Genuine patriotism presupposes a power of abstraction 
which the lower savages can hardly be supposed to 
possess. But it seems to be far from unknown among 
uncultured peoples of a higher type. North American 
Indians are praised for their truly patriotic spirit, for their 
strong attachment to their tribe and their country.’ 
Carver says of the Naudowessies :—‘* The honour of 
their tribe, and the welfare of their nation, is the first and 
most predominant emotion of their hearts; and from 
hence proceed in a great measure all their virtues and 
their vices. Actuated by this, they brave every danger, 
endure the most exquisite torments, and expire triumphing 
in their fortitude, not asa personal qualification, but as a 
national characteristic.” * Patriotism and public spirit 
were often strongly manifested by the Tahitians.? The 
Maori “loves his country and the rights of his ancestors, 
and he will fight for his children’s land.”* Of the 
Guanches of Teneriffe we are told that patriotism was 

1 Adair, Héstory of the American pp. 412. 
Indians, p. 378 sq. Heriot, Travels 3 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, 
through the Canadas, p. 317. Loskiel, i. 128. 
LTistory of the Mission of the United 4 Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in 

Brethren among the Indians, i. 17 Australia and New Zealand, i. 338. 
(Iroquois). See also Travers, ‘ Life and Times of 
2 Carver, Travels through the Te Rauparaha,’ in 7razs. and Proceed. 

Intertor Parts of North America, New Zealand Institute, v. 22, 

their chief virtue. The same quality distinguishes the 
Yorubas of West Africa; “no race of men,” says Mr. 
MacGregor, “could be more devoted to their country.” ” 
Burckhardt writes :—‘‘ As to the attachment which a 
Bedouin entertains for his own tribe, the deep-felt 
interest he takes in its power and fame, and the sacrifices 
of every kind he is ready to make for its prosperity— 
these are feelings rarely operating with equal force in any 
other nation ; and it is with an exulting pride of conscious 
patriotism, not inferior to any which ennobled the history 
of Grecian or Helvetian republics, that an Aeneze, should 
he be suddenly attacked, seizes his lance, and waving it 
over his head exclaims, ‘I am an Aeneze.’”’ ? 

Many of the elements out of which patriotism proper 
has grown are clearly distinguishable among savages, even 
the very lowest. We have previously noticed the savage’s 
attachment to members of his own community or tribe. 
Combined with this is his love of his native place, and of 
the mode of life to which he is habituated. There is a 
touching illustration of this feeling in the behaviour of 
the wild boy who had been found in the woods near 
Aveyron—where he had spent most part of his young life: 
in perfect isolation from all human beings—when he, 
after being removed to Paris, was once taken back to the 
country, to the vale of Montmorence. Joy was painted 
in his eyes, in all the motions and postures of his body, at 
the view of the hills and the woods of the charming 
valley ; he appeared more than ever restless and savage, 
and ‘in spite of the most assiduous attention that was 
paid to his wishes, and the most affectionate regard that 
was expressed for him, he seemed to be occupied only 
with an anxious desire of taking his flight.” * How much 
greater must not the love of home be in him who has 
there his relatives and friends! Mr. Howitt tells us of 

1 Bory de St. Vincent, Assazs sar > Burckhardt, Votes on the Bedouins 
les Isles Fortunées, p. 70. and Wahdbys, p. 205. 
2 MacGregor, ‘ Lagos, Abeokuta, 4 Itard, Account of the Discovery 

and the Alake,’ in Jour. African Soc. and Education of a Savage Man, 
1904, p. 466. p: 70 sqq. 

——-—_—— 

———— 

PATRIOTISM 

> 

an Australian native who, on leaving his camp with him 
for a trip of about a week, burst into tears, saying to 
himself once and again, ‘“‘ My country, my people, I shall 
not see them.’”’* The Veddahs of Ceylon “would 
exchange their wild forest life for none other, and it was 
with the utmost difficulty that they could be induced to 
quit even fora short time their favourite solitude.” ? The 
Stiéns of Cambodia are so strongly attached to their 
forests and mountains that to leave them seems almost 
like death.2 Solomon Islanders not seldom die from 
home-sickness on their way to the Fiji or Queensland 
plantations.* The Hovas of Madagascar, when setting 
out on a journey, often take with them a small portion of 
their native earth, on which they gaze during their 
absence, invoking their god that they may be permitted to 
return to restore it to the place from which it was taken.’ 
Mr. Crawfurd observes that in the Malay Archipelago the 
attachment to the native spot is strongest with the agri- 
cultural tribes ;° but, though a settled life is naturally 
most favourable to its development, this feeling is not 
inconsistent with nomadism. The Nishinam, who are the 
most nomadic of all the Californian tribes, have very 
great attachment for the valley or flat which they count 
their home.’ 

1 Brough Smyth, 

Victoria, ii. 305. 
2 Hartshorne, ‘ Weddas,’ in /zdian 

Aino auf der Insel Yesso, p. 113 

Aborigines of 
Mallat, Les Phdlippines, ii. 95 

Antiquary, vill. 317. 

® Mouhot, Zyravels tn the Central 
Parts of Indo-China, \. 243. 

+ Guppy, of. ez¢. p. 167. 

> Ellis, History of Madagascar, \.141. 

® Crawfurd, Hzstory of the Indian 
Archipelago, 1. 84. 

7 Powers, of. cit. p. 318 sg. For 
other instances of love of home among 
uncivilised races see von Spix and von 
Martius, of. c2t. ii. 242, note (Coroados); 
von Kotzebue, of. cz¢. iii. 45 (Indians of 
California) ; Gibbs, Zrzbes of Wes/ern 
Washington and North- Western 
Oregon, p. 187; Elliott, Report of the 
Seal Islands of Alaska, p. 240; 
Hooper, Zen Months among the Tents 
of the Tuskt, p. 209; von Siebold, 

(Negritos) ; von Brenner, Besuch bet 
den Kannibalen Sumatras, p. 194 
(Bataks); Earl, Papuwans, p. 126 
(natives of Rotti, near Timor); Ling 
Roth, Adorigines of Tasmania, p. 46 ; 
Dieffenbach, 7ravels in New Zealand, 
ii. 174; Cumming, Jz the Himalayas, 
p- 404 (Paharis) ; Lane, AZanners and 
Customs of the Modern Egyptians, 
p- 302 (Bedawees); Tristram, Great 
Sahara, p. 193 sg. (Beni M’zab) ; 
Burton, Zanzzbar, ii. 96 (Wanika) ; 
Emin Pasha in Central Africa, p. 315 
(Monbuttu) ; Andersson, Lake ganz, 

p- 198 (Ovambo); Rowley, Africa 
Unveiled, p. 63 sg. (Kroos of the 
Grain Coast below Liberia); Price, 

‘Quissama Tribe,’ in /ouwr. Anthr, 

, 

Moreover, as we have noticed above, savages have | the 
greatest regard for their native customs and institutions. * ‘ 
Many of them have displayed that love of national inde-\_ 
pendence which gives to patriotism its highest fervour.” 
And among some uncivilised peoples, at least, the force of 
racial and linguistic unity shows itself even outside the 
social or political unit. Burckhardt observes that the 
Bedouins are not only solicitous for the honour of their 
own respective tribes, but consider the interests of all other 
tribes as more or less attached to their own, and frequently 
evince a general esprit de corps, lamenting “the losses of 
any of their tribes occasioned by attacks from settlers or 
foreign troops, even though at war with those tribes.” * A 
Tongan “loves the island on which he was born, in par- 
ticular, and all the Tonga islands generally, as being one 
country, and speaking one language.’’* Travellers have 
noticed how gratifying it is, when visiting an uncultured 
people, to know a little of their language ; there is at once 
a sympathetic link between the native and the stranger.° 
Even the almost inaccessible Berber of the Great Atlas, in 
spite of his excessive hatred of the European, will at once 
give you a kindly glance as soon as you, to his astonish- 
ment, utter to him a few words in his own tongue. 

Like other species of the altruistic sentiment, patriotism 
is apt to overestimate the qualities of the object for which 
it is felt ; and it does so all the more readily as love of 
one’s country is almost inseparably intermingled with love 
of one’s self. ‘The ordinary, typical patriot has a strong 
will to believe that his nation is the best. If, as many 

1 See supra, i. 118 sq. Sarasin, of. cit. ili. 530 (Veddahs) ; 
2 Cf. Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Casati, Ten Years in Equatoria, i. 188, 
Abipones, ii. 95, 105; Lomonaco, 304 (Negroes of Central Africa) ; 

‘Sulle razze indigene del Brasile,’ in Fritsch, Dze  Eingeborenen  Siid- 
Archivio per Vantropologia e la Afrikes, p. 422 sg. (Bushmans). 

etnologia, xix. 57 (Tupis); Brett, 3 Burckhardt, Bedouins and 
Indian Tribes of Gutana, yp. 348 : Wahdbys, p. 205. 

Schoolcraft, Jzdian Tribes of the * Mariner, .WVatives of the Tonea 
United States, iii. 189 (Iroquois);  Lslands, ii. 156. : - 
Nansen, Eshzmo Life, p. 323 (Green- 5 See Stokes,  Déscovertes in 

landers); Macpherson, Memorials of Australia, ii. 25. 
Service in India, p. 81 (Kandhs) ; 

™~ 

es 

CREL PATRIOTISM bey a 

people nowadays seem to maintain, such a will to believe 
is an essential characteristic of true patriotism, savages are 
as good patriots as anybody. In their intercourse with white 
men they have often with astonishment noticed the arro- 
gant air of superiority adopted by the latter ; in their own 
opinion they are themselves vastly superior to the whites. 
According to Eskimo beliefs, the first man, though made 
by the Great Being, was a failure, and was consequently 
cast aside and called kod-/u-na, which means “white man”’; 
but a second attempt of the Great Being resulted in the 
formation of a perfect man, and he was called in-nu, the 
name which the Eskimo give to themselves.' Australian 
natives, on being asked to work, have often replied, 
“White fellow works, not black fellow; black fellow 
gentleman.”’* When anything foolish is done, the Chip- 
pewas use an expression which means “as stupid as a white 
man.” *® If a South Sea Islander sees a very awkward per- 
son, he says, ‘‘ How stupid you are; perhaps you are an 
Englishman.” * Mr. Williams tells us of a Fijian who, 
having been to the United States, was ordered by his chiefs 
to say whether the country of the white man was better 
than Fiji, and in what respects. He had not, however, 
gone far in telling the truth, when one cried out, “ He is 
a prating fellow”; another, “ He is impudent” ; and 
some said, ‘“* Kill him.” ° The Koriaks are more argumen- 
tative ; in order to prove that the accounts they hear of 
the advantages of other countries are so many lies, they 
say to the stranger, “‘ If you could enjoy these advantages 
at home, what made you take so much trouble to come to 
us?’’® But the Koriaks, in their turn are looked down 
upon by their neighbours, the Chukchi, who call the sur- 
rounding peoples old women, only fit to guard their flocks, 
and to be their attendants.’ The Ainu despise the Japanese 

1 Hall, Arctic Researches, p. Boller, Among the Indians, p. 54 sq. 

566 sg. 4 Williams, AZ¢sstonary Enterprises 
2 Hale, U.S. Exploring Expedition. in the South Sea Islands, p. 514. 

Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology, 5 Williams and Calvert, #77, p. 105. 

p- 109. 8 Krasheninnikoff, Hzstory of Kazm- 

3 Keating, Axpedition to the Source  schatha, p. 224. 
of St. Peter’s River, ii. 168, See also 7 Sauer, op. cat. p. 255, 

just as much as the Japanese despise them, and are con- 
vinced of “the superiority of their own blood and descent 
over that of all other peoples in the world.” * Even the 
miserable Veddah of Ceylon has a very high opinion of 
himself, and regards his civilised neighbours with con- 
tempt.? As is often the case with civilised men, savages 
attribute to their own people all kinds of virtue in perfec- 
tion. The South American Mbayas, according to Azara, 
“se croient la nation la plus noble du monde, la plus 
généreuse, la plus exacte a tenir sa parole avec loyaute, et 
la plus vaillante.”* The Eskimo of Norton Sound speak 
of themselves as yu’-pik, meaning fine or complete people, 
whereas an Indian is termed in-ki’-ltk, from a word which 
means “a louse egg.’’* When a Greenlander saw a 
foreigner of gentle and modest manners, his usual remark 
was, ‘ He is almost as well-bred as we,” or, ‘““ He begins 
to be a man,” that is, a Greenlander.? The savage regards 
his people as ¢he people, as the root of all others, and as 
occupying the middle of the earth. The Hottentots love 
to call themselves ‘the men of men,.’’® The Indians of 
the Ungava district, Hudson Bay, give themselves the 
name zenenot, that is, true or ideal red men." 
language of the Illinois Indians the word i//inois means 
“men ”—‘‘as if they looked upon all other Indians as 
beasts.”"° The Aborigines of Hayti believed that their 
island was the first of all things, that the sun and moon 
issued from one of its caverns, and men from another.® 
Each Australian tribe, says Mr. Curr, regards its country 
as the centre of the aah, which in most cases is believed 
not to extend more than a couple of hundred miles or so 
in any direction.” 

1 Batchelor, ‘ Notes on the Ainu,’ in > Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 126. 

In the’ 

Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan, x. 211 sq. 
Howard, Lzfe wth Trans-Siberian 
Savages, p. 182. 

2 Nevill, in Zafrobanian, 1. 192. 
Sarasin, of. cét. lil. 530, 534, 553. 

3 Azara, Voyages dans 1 Amérique 
méridionale, ii. 107. 

4 Nelson, ‘Eskimo about Bering 
Strait,’ in dz, Rep. Bur. thn, xviii. 
306 5g. 

§ Kidd, The Essentéal Kafir, p. 92. 

7 Turner, ‘ Ethnology of the Ungava 
District,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 
267. 

8 Marquette, Recet des voyages, p. 47 
Sq. 
® Brett, Zdian Tribes of Gudana, p. 
376. 

1 Curr, The Australian Race, i. 50. 
For other instances of national conceit 

—_— 

We meet with similar feelings and ideas among the 
nations of archaic culture. The Chinese are taught to 
think themselves superior to all other peoples. In their 
writings, ancient and modern, the word “foreigner” is 
regularly joined with some disrespectful epithet, implying or 
expressing the ignorance, brutality, obstinacy, or meanness 
of alien nations, and their obligations to or dependence 
upon China.’ To Confugius himself China was ‘the 
middle kingdom,” ‘the multitude of great states,” “all 
under heaven,”’ beyond which were only rude and barbar- 
ous tribes.” According to Japanese ideas, Nippon was the 
first country created, and the centre of the world. The 
ancient Egyptians considered themselves as the peculiar 
people, specially loved by the gods. They alone were 
termed “men” (romet); other nations were negroes, 
Asiatics, or Libyans, but not men ; and according to the 
myth these nations were descended from the enemies of 
the gods.* The national pride of the Assyrians, so often 
referred to by the Hebrew prophets,’ is conspicuous every- 
where in their cuneiform inscriptions: they are the wise, 
the brave, the powerful, who, like the deluge, carry away 
all resistance ; their kings are the “* matchless, irresistible ”’; 
and their gods are much exalted above the gods of all 

other nations.° 
exceeding good land,” 
“the glory of all lands” ;7 

or pride among savages see Darwin, 
Journal of Researches, p. 207 (Fuegians); 
von den Steinen, Unter den Natur- 
volkern Lentral-Brasiliens, p. 332 
(Bakairi) ; von Humboldt, /ersonal 
Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial 
Regions of the New Continent, v. 423, 
and press, op. cit. p. 128 (Guana 
Indians); James, Hxfedztion to the 
Rocky ee i. 320 (Omahas) ; 
Murdoch, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Lthn. ix. 
42 (Point Barrow Eskimo) ; Krashenin- 
nikoff, of. ct. p. 180 (Kamchadales) ; 

Brough Smyth, of. cz¢. ii. 284 (Austra- 
lian natives) ; Macpherson, of. c?¢. p. 

67 (Kandhs); Munzinger, Ueber ave 
Sitten und das Recht der Bogos, p. 

94; Andersson, Lake Ngamz, p. 198 

To the Hebrews their own land was ‘‘an 
“flowing with milk and honey,” 
and its inhabitants were a holy 

(Ovambo). 

1 Philip, Zzfe and Opinions of the 
kev. W. Milne, p. 257. Cf. Staunton, 
in Narrative of the Chinese Embassy to 
the Khan of the Tourgouth Tartars, p. 
Vili. 

* Legge, Chinese Classtcs,i. 107. See 
also Giles, of. c7¢. li. 116, n. 2. 

3 Griffis, Religions of Japan, jah ZOvye 

4 Erman, Life im Ancient Egyft, p. 
32. 

5 Isaiah, x. 7 sgg. 3 xxxvii. 24 sgq. 
Ezekiel, xxxi. 10 sg. Zephaniah, ii. 15. 

6 Miirdter - Delitzsch, Geschichte 
Babyloniens und Assyriens, p. 104. 

” Numbers, xiii, 27 ; xiv.7. Ezekiel, 
7S (Oy HGS 

people ck the Lord had chosen “to be a special people 
unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of 
the earth.” + Concerning the ancient Persians, Herodotus 
writes :— They look upon themselves as very greatly 
superior in all respects to the rest of mankind, regarding 
others as approaching to excellence in proportion as they 
dwell nearer to them; whence it comes to pass that those 
who are the factheses off must be the most degraded of 
mankind.” ? To this day the monarch of Persia retains 
the title of «‘the Centre of the Universe”; and it is not 
easy to persuade a native of Isfahan that any European 
capital can be superior to his native city. The Greeks 
called Delphi—or rather the round stone in the Delphic 
temple—* the navel” or “‘ middle point of the earth”’ ;* 
and they considered the natural relation between them- 
selves and barbarians to be that between master and 
slave.° 

In the archaic State the national feeling is in some cases 
greatly strengthened by the religious feeling ; whilst in other 
instances religion inspires devotion to the family, clan, or 
caste rather than to the nation, or constitutes a tie not on 
between compatriots but between members of different 
political communities. The ancestor-worship of the 
Chinese has hardly been conducive to genuine patriotism. 
Whatever devotion to the common weal may have pre- 
vailed among the Vedic Aryans, it has certainly passed 
away beneath the influence of Brahmanism, or been 
narrowed down to the caste, the village, or the famil 
The Zoroastrian Ahura-Mazda was not anational god, but 
“‘the god of the Aryans,” that is, of all the peoples who 
inhabited ancient Iran ; and these were constantly at war 

1 Deuteronomy, vii. 6. (iii, II5 sg.), and Rawlinson’s com- 
= 4 eet) 3 
~ Herodotus, i. 134. mentary, in his translation of Herodo- 
3 Rawliison, in his translation of tus, i. 260 sg. n. 6. 
Herodotus, 1. 260, n. 5. 5 Euripides, Jphigenta zt Aulide, 
* Pindar, Pythia, vi. 3 sg. Idem, 1400 sg. Aristotle, Politica, i. 2, 6, 
Nemea, Vii. 33 Sg. Aeschylus, Hu- pp. 1252 b, 1255 a. 
mentdes, 40, 166. Sophocles, Gadzpus o Wheeler, Liistory of India, ii. 586 

Tyrannus, 480, 898. Livy, xxxviii. 48. sg. See also Leist, Alt-arisches Jus 
C/. Herodotus’ theory of ‘extremities’  Gerdzumr, p. 520. 

PATRIOTISM 

XXXII Lh 
with one another.! Muhammedans, whilst animated with 
a common hatred towards the Christians, show little public 
spirit in relation to their respective countries,? composed 
as they are of a variety of loosely connected, often very 
heterogeneous elements, ruled over by a monarch whose 
power is in many districts more nominal than real. In 
ancient Greece and Rome patriotism no doubt contained a 
religious element—each state and town had its tutelary 
gods and heroes, who were considered its proper masters ;° 
but in the first place it was free citizens’ love of their native 
institutions, a civic virtue which grew up on the soil of 
liberty. When the two Spartans who were sent to Xerxes 
to be put to death were advised by one of his governors to 
surrender themselves to the king, their answer was, ‘“ Had 
you known what freedom is, you would have bidden us 
fight for it, not with the spear only, but with the battle- 
axe.’’* And of the Athenians who lived at the time of 
the Persian wars, Demosthenes said that they were ready to 
die for their country rather than to see it enslaved, and 
that they considered the outrages and insults which befell 
him who lived in a subjugated city to be more terrible 
than death.? In classical antiquity ‘the influence of 
patriotism thrilled through every fibre of moral and 
intellectual life.”’° In some Greek cities emigration was 
prohibited by law, at Argos even on penalty of death.’ 
Plato, in the Republic, sacrificed the family to the interests 
of the State. Cicero placed our duty to our country next 
after our duty to the immortal gods and before our duty 
to our parents.* ‘Of all connections,” he says, ‘none is 
more weighty, none is more dear, than that between every 
individual and his country. Our parents are dear to us; 

1 Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, 
i. 540. Spiegel, Ardnische Alterthums- 

4 Herodotus, vii. 134 sg. 
> Demosthenes, De Corona, 205, p. 

kunde, i. 687 sgq. 206. 
2 Polak, Perszen, i. 12. Urquhart, 8 Lecky, History of Luropean Morals, 
Spirit of the East, ii. 427, 439 (Turks). 1. 200. 

Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahdbys, 
p- 204 sg. (Turks and Arab settlers). 

3 Leist, A/t-arisches Jus Gentium, p. 
529. Schmidt, Dze “thik der alten 
Griechen, li, 221. 

” Plutarch, Lycurgus, xxvii. 5. Ovid, 
Metamorphoses, xv. 29. 

8 Cicero, De offictts, i. 45 (160). Cf 
zbzd, ill. 23 (90). 

our children, our kinsmen, our friends, are dear to us; 
but our country comprehends alone all the endearments 
of us all. What good man would hesitate to die for her 
if he could do her service ?””? 

The duty of patriotism springs, in the first instance, 
from the patriotic feeling ; when the love of country is 
common in a nation public resentment is felt towards him 
who does not act as that sentiment requires him to act. 
Moreover, lack of patriotism in a person may also be 
resented by his fellow-countrymen as an injury done to 
themselves ; and, as we have seen before, anger, and 
especially anger felt by a whole community, has a tendency 
to lead to moral disapproval. For analogous reasons deeds 
of patriotism are apt to evoke moral praise. However, 
in benefiting his own people the patriot may cause harm 
to other people ; and where the altruistic sentiment is 
broad enough to extend beyond the limits of the State and 
strong enough to make its voice heard even in competition 
with the love of country and the love of self, his conduct 
may consequently be an object of reproach. At the lower 
stages of civilisation the interests of foreigners are not 
regarded at all, except when sheltered by the rule of hospi- 
tality ; but gradually, owing to circumstances which will 
be discussed in the following chapter, altruism tends to 
expand, and men are at last considered to have duties to 
mankind at large. The Chinese moralists inculcated 
benevolence to all men, without making any reference to 
national distinctions. 7 Mih-tsze, who lived in the interval 
between Confucius and Mencius, even taught that we 
ought to love all men equally ; but this doctrine called 
forth protests as abnegating the peculiar devotion due to 
relatives.* In That-Shang it is said that a good man will 
feel kindly towards every creature, and should not hurt 
even the insect tribes, grass, and trees.* Buddhism 

1 [bid. i. 17 (57). Cf. Cicero, De * Edkins, el¢gion in China, p. 119. 
legibus, il. 2 (5). Legge, Chinese Classics, ii. 476, n. 45. 

2 Lun Vii, xii. 22. Mencius, vii. 1. de Groot, Religious System of China 
45. Douglas, Confuctandsm and Taou- (vol. ii. book) i. 684. ; 
ism, Pp. 108, 205. + Thai-Shang, 3. 

COSMOPOLITANISM 

enjoins the duty of universal love :—“ As a mother, even 
at the risk of her own life, protects her son, her only son, 
so let a man cultivate goodwill without measure toward 
all beings, . . . . unhindered loveand friendliness toward 
the whole world, above, below, around.” According to 
the Hindu work Panchatantra it is the thought of little- 
minded persons to consider whether a man is one of our- 
selves or an alien, the whole earth being of kin to him 
who is generously disposed.» In Greece and Rome 
philosophers arose who opposed national narrowness and 
prejudice. Democritus of Abdera said that every country 
is accessible to a wise man, and that a good soul’s father- 
land is the whole earth.* The same view was expressed 
by Theodorus, one of the later Cyrenaics, who denounced 
devotion to country as ridiculous. The Cynics, in 
particular, attached slight value to the citizenship of any 
special state, declaring themselves to be citizens of the 
world.’ But, as Zeller observes, in the mouth of the 
Cynic this doctrine was meant to express not so much the 
essential oneness of all mankind, as the philosopher’s 
independence of country and home.® It was the Stoic 
philosophy that first gave to the idea of a world-citizenship 
a definite positive meaning, and raised it to historical 
importance. The citizen of Alexander’s huge empire 
had in a way become a citizen of the world; and 
national dislikes were so much more readily overcome 
as the various nationalities comprised in it were united 
not only under a common government but also in a 
common culture.’ Indeed, the founder of Stoicism was 
himself only half a Greek. But there is also an obvious 
connection between the cosmopolitan idea and the Stoic 

1 Quoted by Rhys Davids, Azbdert 
Lectures on the History of Buddhism, 

mrt. 
2 2 Muir, Religious and Moral Sentt- 
ments rendered from Sanskrit Writers, 
p. 109. 

3 Stobzeus, /Vordlegium, xl. 7, vol. ii. 
80. Cf. Natorp, Die Ethika des De- 
mokretos, p. 117, n. 41. 

VOL. Il 

4 Diogenes Laertius, Vite phtlo- 
sophorum, ii. 98 sg. 

5 Jbid. vi. 12, 63, 72, 98. Epictetus, 
Dissertationes, iii. 24. 66. Stobzeus, 
Xv 29, VOL. 11 252. 

6 Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic 
Schools, p. 326 sg. Idem, Stotcs, 
Epicureans, and Sceptics, p. 327. 

7 Cf. Plutarch, De Alexandrt Magni 
fortuna aut virtute, i. 6, p. 329. 

N 

system in general.'- According to the Stoics, human 
society has for its basis the identity of reason in indivi- 
duals ; hence we have no ground for limiting this society 
to a single nation. We are all, says Seneca, members of 
one great body, the universe; ‘we are all akin by 
Nature, who has formed us of the same elements, and 
placed us here together for the same end.”* “It our 
reason is common,” says Marcus Aurelius, “there 1s a 
common law, as reason commands us what to do and what 
not to do; and if there is a common law we are fellow- 
citizens ; if this is so, we are members of some political 
community—the world is in a manner a state.” ® To 
this great state, which includes all rational beings, the 
individual states are related as the houses of a city are to 
the city collectively ;* and the wise man will esteem it 
far above any particular community in which the accident 
of birth has placed him.’ 

But the Roman ideal of patriotism, with its utter dis- 
regard for foreign nations,° was not opposed by philosophy 
alone: it met with an even more formidable antagonist in 
the new religion. The Christian and the Stoic rejected it 
on different grounds: whilst the Stoic felt himself as a 
citizen of the world, the Christian felt himself as a citizen 
of heaven, to whom this planet was only a place of exile. 
Christianity was not hostile to the State.’ At the very 
time when Nero committed his worst atrocities, St. Paul 
declared that there is no power but of God, and that who- 
soever resists the power resists the ordinance of God and 
shall be condemned ;*° and Tertullian says that all 
Christians send up their prayers for the life of the emperors, 
for their ministers, for magistrates, for the good of the 

a ee 

1 See Zeller, Stozcs, Sc. p. 327 sq. 

2 Seneca, Apistule, xcv. 52. 

3 Marcus Aurelius, Commentartt, iv. 
4. Cf. 2bzd. vi. 44, and ix. 9; Cicero, 
De legibus, i. 7 (23); Epictetus, Dzs- 
sertationes, 1. 13. 3. 

4 Marcus Aurelius, iil. II. 

> Seneca, /2¢ of2o, iv. 1. der, 
Epistule, \xvill. 2. Epictetus, Dzs- 

sertationes, il. 22. 83 sqq. 

® Cf. Lactantius, Divine Tnstitu- 
tiones, Vi. (‘ De vero cultu’), 6 (Migne, 
Patrologie cursus, vi. 655). 

7 St. Matthew, xxii. 21. 
ii. 13 5g, 

8 Romans, xiii. 1 sg. See also Tztus, 
lil. I. 

1 Peter, 

a 

=> 

XX XIII COSMOPOLITANISM 

State and the peace of the Empire.’ But the emperor 
should be obeyed only so long as his commands do not 
conflict with the law of God—a Christian ought rather to 
suffer like Daniel in the lions’ den than sin against his 
religion ;° and nothing is more entirely foreign to him 
than a Wiice of State.’ Indeed, in the whole Roman Empire 
there were no men who so entirely lacked patriotism as the 
early Christians. They had no affection for Judea, they soon 
forgot Galilee, they cared nothing for the glory of Greece 
and Rome.* When the judges asked them which was their 
country they said in answer, ‘I am a Christian.”°® And 
long after Christianity had become the religion of the 
Empire, St. Augustine declared that it matters not, in 
respect of this short and transitory life, under whose dom: 
inion a mortal man lives, if os he be not compelled to 
acts of impiety or injustice.° Later on, when the Church 
grew into a political power independent of the State, she 
became a positive enemy of national interests. i the 
seventeenth century a Jesuit general called patriotism a 
plague and the most certain death of Christian love.’’’ 
With the fall of the Roman Empire patriotism died out 
in Europe, and remained extinct for centuries. It was a 
feeling hardly compatible either with the migratory life of 
the Teutonic tribes or with the feudal system, which grew up 
wherever they fixed their residence. The knights, it is 
true, were not destitute of the natural affection for home. 
When Aliaumes is mortally wounded by Geri li Sors he 
exclaims, “ Holy Virgin, I shall never more see Saint- 
Quentin nor Neécle” ;* and the troubadour Bernard de 
Ventadour touchingly sings, ¢ Quan la doussa aura venta— 
Deves nostre pais,—M’es veiaire que senta—Odor de 

1 Tertullian, Apologeticus, 39 (Migne, 
op. cit. 1. 468). See also Ludwig, 
Tertuliian’s Ethtk, p. 153 sqq.; Nielsen, 
Tertullians Ethtk, p. 98 sq. 

2 Tertullian, De <idololatria, 15 
(Migne, of. cet. i. 684). 

3 Tertullian, Afologeticus, 38 (Migne, 
op. cit. i. 465) :—‘“‘ Nec ulla magis res 
aliena, quam publica.” 

4 See Renan, Hibbert Lectures on the 

Influence of Rome on Christianity, p. 28. 

5 Le Blant, /uscriplions chrétiennes, 
ile, Weyer, 

6 St. Augustine, De C2zvitate Dez, v. 
17. 

7 von Eicken, Geschichte und System 
der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, 
p. 809. 

8 Lz Romans de Raoul de Cambraz, 
210, p. 185. 

Ne 

Paradis.” But to a man of the Middle*Agesxhis 
country’? meant little more than the neighbourhood in 
which he lived.2 Kingdoms existed, but no nations. The 
first duty of a vassal was to be loyal to his lord ;* but no 
national spirit bound together the various barons of one 
country. A man might be the vassal of the king of 
France and of the king of England at the same time ; and 
often, from caprice, passion, or sordid interest, the barons 
sold their services to the enemies of the kingdom. The 
character of his knighthood was also perpetually pressing 
the knight to a course of conduct distinct from all national 
objects.« The cause of a distressed lady was in many 
instances preferable to that of the country to which he 
belonged—as when the Captal de Bouche, though an Eng- 
lish subject, did not hesitate to unite his troups with those 
of the Compte de Foix to relieve the ladies in a French 
town, where they were besieged and threatened with vio- 
lence by the insurgent peasantry.” When a knight’s 
duties towards his country are mentioned in the rules of 
Chivalry they are spoken of as duties towards his lord:— 
‘“*The wicked knight,” it is said, “that aids not his earthly 
lord and natural country against another prince, isa knight 
without office.” ° Far from being, as M. Gautier asserts,’ 
the object of an express command in the code of Chivalry, 
true patriotism had there no place at all. It was not 
known as an ideal, still less did it exist as a reality, among 
either knights or commoners. As a duke of Orleans 
could bind himself by a fraternity of arms and alliance to 
a duke of Lancaster,* so English merchants were in the 
habit of supplying nations at war against England with 
provisions bought at English fairs, and weapons wrought 
by English hands,’ If, as M. Gaston Paris maintains, a 

} Quoted by Gautier, Za Chevalerie, 140 sq. 

p. 64. > Scott, Essay on Chivalry, p. 31. 
2 See Cibrario, Della economia polt- 8 Ordre of Chyualry, fol. 14 b. 
teca del medio eve, i. 263; de Crozals, 7 Gautier, of. czt. p. 33. 
ffistotre de la cevilization, ii. 287. 8 Sainte-Palaye, Mémozres sur Pan- 

3 Ordre of Chyualry, foll. 13 b,  ctenne Chevalerde, ii. 72. 

32 b. ; 9 Pike, Azstory of Crime in England, 
4 See Mills, Aéstory of Chivalry, i. i. 264 sq. 

oie 

deep feeling of national union had inspired the Chanson de 
Roland,’ it is a strange, yet undeniable, fact that no 
distinct trace of this feeling displayed itself in the medieval 
history of France before the English wars. 

Besides feudalism and the want of political cohesion, 
there were other factors that contributed to hinder the 
development of national personality and patriotic devotion. 
This sentiment presupposes not only that the various 
parts of which a country is composed shall have a vivid 
feeling of their unity, but also that they, united, shall feel 

_ themselves as a nation clearly distinct from other nations. 

In the. Middle Ages national differences were largely 
obscured by the preponderance of the Universal Church, 
by the creation of the Holy Roman Empire, by the 
prevalence of a common language as the sole vehicle of 
mental culture, and by the undeveloped state of the 
vernacular tongues. To make use of the native dialect 
was a sign of ignorance, and to place worldly interests 
above the claims of the Church was impious. When 
Macchiavelli declared that he preferred his country to the 
safety of his soul, people considered him guilty of 
blasphemy ; and when the Venetians defied the Papal 
thunders by averring that they were Venetians in the first 
place, and only Christians in the second, the world heard 
them with amazement.” 

In England the national feeling developed earlier than 
on the Continent, no doubt owing to her insular position 
and freer institutions ; as Montesquieu observes, patriotism 
thrives best in democracies.’ At the time of the English 
Reformation the sense of corporate national life had 
evidently gained considerable strength, and the love of 
England has never been expressed in more exquisite form 
than it was by Shakespeare. At the same time the sense 
of patriotism was often grossly perverted by religious 

1 Paris, La poésie du moyen age, jp. 2 *National Personality,’ in Zaiz- 
107. M. Gautier says (of. czt. p. 61) burgh Review, cxciv. 133. 
that Roland is ‘“‘la France faite 3 Montesquieu, De esprit des Lois, 

homme.” iv. 5 (Guures, p. 206 sg.). 

bigotry and party spirit.’ Even champions of liberty, 
like Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney, accepted French 
gold in the hope of embarrassing the King ; and Sidney 
went so far as to try to instigate De Witt to invade 
England. Loyalism, in particular, proved a much 
stronger incentive than love of country. A loyalist like 
Strafford would have employed half-savage Irish troops 
against his own countrymen, and the Scotch Jacobites 
invited a French invasion. 

In France the development of the national feeling was 
closely connected with the strengthening of the royal 
power and its gradual victory over feudalism. ‘T-he word 
patrie was for the first time used by Charles VII.’s 
chronicler, Jean Chartier, and he also condemned as 
renégats those Frenchmen who, at the end of the hundred 
years’ war, fought on the side of the English.” But 
patriotism was for a long time inseparably confounded 
with loyalty to the sovereign. According to Bossuet 
“tout |’Etat est en la personne du prince” ;* and Abbe 
Coyer observes that Colbert believed royaume and patrie 
to signify one and the same thing.* In the eighteenth 

century the spirit of rebellion succeeded that of devotion ' 

to the king ; but the key-note of the great movement 
which led to the Revolution was the liberty and equality 
of the individual, not the glory or welfare of the nation. 
Men were looked upon as members of the human race, 
rather than as citizens of any particular country. To be 
a citizen of every nation, and not to belong to one’s 
native country alone, was the dream of French writers in 
the eighteenth century.? “The true sage is a cosmo- 
politan,” says a writer of comedy.® Diderot asks which is 
the greater merit, to enlighten the human race, which 
remains for ever, or to save one’s fatherland, which is 

1 See Hdinburgh Review, exciv. 133, + Block, Déctzonnaire général de la 
136 sg. ; Pearson, National Life and politique, ii. 518. 
Character, p. 190. ° Texte, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and 

2 Guibal, Histoire du sentiment the Cosmopolitan Spiret in Literature, 
national en France pendant la guerre yp. 79. 
de Cent ans, p 526 Sq: 6 Palissot de Montenoy, Les phdio- 

» Legrand, L’zdée de patrie, p. 20. sophes, lil. 4, p. 75. 

eee) Te hy ee ee 

tne ttl 

perishable." According to Voltaire patriotism is composed 
of self-love and prejudice,’ and only too often makes us 
the enemies of our fellow-men :—“ II est clair qu’un pays 
ne peut gagner sans qu’un autre perde, et qu'il ne peut 
vaincre sans faire des malheureux. Telle est donc la 
condition humaine, que souhaiter la grandeur de son pays, 
cest souhaiter du mal a ses voisins.”* In Germany 
Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller felt themselves as citizens of 
the world, not of the German Empire, still less as Saxons 
or Suabians; and Klopstock, with his enthusiasm for 
German nationality and language, almost appeared 
eccentric.* Lessing writes point-blank :—* The praise of 
being an ardent patriot is to my mind the very last thing 
that I should covet; . . . I have no idea at all of love of 
the Fatherland, and it seems to me at best but an heroical 
weakness, which I can very readily dispense with.” ° 

The first French revolution marks the beginning of a 
new era in the history of patriotism. It inspired the 
masses with passion for the unity of the fatherland, the 
Republic ‘one and indivisible.” At the same time it 
declared all nations to be brothers, and when it made war 
on foreign nations the object was only to deliver them 
from their oppressors.° But gradually the interest in the 
affairs of other countries grew more and more selfish, the 
attempt to emancipate was absorbed in the desire to 
subjugate ; and this awoke throughout Europe a feeling 
which was destined to become the most powerful force in 
the history of the nineteenth century, the feeling of 
nationality. When Napoleon introduced French adminis- 
tration in the countries whose sovereigns he had deposed 
or degraded, the people resisted the change. ‘The resist- 
ance was popular, as the rulers were absent or helpless, 
and it was national, being directed against foreign institu- 

1 Diderot, ZLssaz ser les regnes de Patrie vill. 

art. (Quvres completes, 

Claude et de Néron, ii. 75 (Quvres, vi. 
244). ‘ A we 

2 Voltaire, Pensdées sur Padministra- 
tion publique, 14 (Guvres completes, v. 
351) 

3 Idem, Dictionnaire phelosophique, 

IIS). 

4 See Strauss, Der alte und der neue 
Glaube, p. 259 sq. 

5 Lessing, quoted by Ziegler, Soczal 
Ethics, p. 121. 

8 Block, of. ect. il. 376. 

tions. It was stirred by the feeling of national rather 
than political unity, it was a protest against the dominion 
of race over race. The national element in this move- 
ment had in a manner been anticipated by the French 
revolution itself. The French people was regarded by it 
as an ethnological, not as an historic, unit ; descent was 
put in the place of tradition ; the idea of the sovereignty 
of the people uncontrolled by the past gave birth to the 
idea of nationality independent of the political influence of 
history. But, as has been truly remarked, men were 
made conscious of the national element of the revolution 
by its conquests, not in its rise." 

Ever since, the racial feeling has been the most 
vigorous force in European patriotism, and has gradually 
become a true danger to humanity. Beginning as a 
protest against the dominion of one race over another, 
this feeling led to a condemnation of every state which 
included different races, and finally developed into the 
complete doctrine that state and nationality should so far 
as possible be coextensive.” According to this theory the 
dominant nationality cannot admit the inferior nationalities 
dwelling within the boundaries of the state to an equality | 
with itself, because, if it did, the state would cease to be 
national, and this would be contrary to the principle of its 
existence ; or the weaker nationalities are compelled to 
change their language, institutions, and individuality, so 
as to be absorbed in the dominant race. And not only 
does the leading nationality assert its superiority in relation 
to all others within the body politic, but it also wants to 
assert itself at the expense of foreign nations and races. 
To the nationalist all this is true patriotism; love of 
country often stands for a feeling which has been well 
described as love of more country.* But at the same time 
opposite ideals are at work. The fervour of nineteenth 
century nationalism has not been able to quench the 

aa See ‘ Nationality, in Home and 3 Robertson, Patriotism and Empire, 
Foreign Review, \. 6 sqq. p. 138. 
2 bt 9.13) 57 

cosmopolitan spirit. In spite of loud appeals made to 
racial instincts and the sense of national solidarity, the 
idea is daily gaining ground that the aims of a nation 
must not conflict with the interests of humanity at. large ; 
that our love of country should be controlled by other 
countries’ right to prosper and to develop their own 
individuality ; and that the oppression of weaker nationali- 
ties inside the state and aggressiveness towards foreign 
nations, being mainly the outcome of vainglory and greed, 
are inconsistent with the aspirations of a good patriot, as 
well as of a good man. 

Our long discussion of moral ideas regarding such modes 
of conduct as directly concern other men’s welfare has at 
last come to an end. We have seen that they may be 
ultimately traced to a variety of sources: to the influence 
of habit or education, to egoistic considerations of some kind 
or other which have given rise to moral feelings, to notions 
of social expediency, to disinterested likings or dislikes, 
and, above all, to sympathetic resentment or sympathetic 
approval springing from an altruistic disposition of mind. 
But how to account for this disposition? Our explanation 
of that group of moral ideas which we have been hitherto 
investigating is not complete until we have found an 
answer to this important question. I shall therefore in 
the next chapter examine the origin and development 
of the altruistic sentiment,

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ALTRUISTIC 
SENTIMENT 

THERE is one form of the altruistic sentiment which 
man shares with all mammals and many other animals, 
namely, maternal affection. As regards its origin various 
theories have been set forth. 

According to Aristotle, parents love their children as 
being portions of themselves. A similar explanation of 
maternal affection has been given by some modern writers.” 
Thus Professor Espinas regards this sentiment as modified 
self-love and love of property. The female, he says, at 
the moment when she gives birth to little ones resembling 
herself, has no difficulty in recognising them as the flesh 
of her flesh ; the feeling she experiences towards them is 
made up of sympathy and pity, but we cannot exclude from 
it an idea of property which is the most solid support of 
sympathy. She feels and understands up to a certain point 
that these young ones which are herself at the same time 
belong to her ; the love of herself, extended to those who 
have gone sytte from her, cl hanges egoism into Ey 
and the proprietary instinct into an affectionate impulse.’ 
This hypothesis, however, seems to me to be very inade- 
quate. It does not explain why, for instance, a bird takes 
more care of her eggs than of other matter segregated from 

1 Aristotle, Athica Necomachea, viii. lelere, Pp: 433 
12, 2 5g. > Espin ae > ne S soctétés animales (2nd 

2 Wartley, Observations on Man, i.  ed.), p. 444 sg., quoted by Ribot, Pry- 
496 sg. Fichte, Das System der Sitten- chology of the Emotions, p. 280, 

i ee 

her body, which may equally well be regarded as a 
part of herself. Nor does it account for a foster-mother’s 
affection for her adopted offspring. Of this many in- 
stances have been noticed in the lower animals; and 
among some savage peoples adopted children are said to be 
treated by their foster-parents with the same affection as if 
they were their own flesh and blood.” 

A very different explanation of maternal love has been 
given by Professor Bain. He derives parental affection 
from the ‘intense pleasure in the embrace of the young.”’ 
He observes that ‘such a pleasure once created would 
associate itself with the prevailing features and aspects of 
the young, and give to all of these their very great interest. 
For the sake of the pleasure, the parent discovers the 
necessity of nourishing the subject of it, and comes to 
regard the ministering function as a part or condition of 
the delight.”’* But if the satisfaction in animal contact 
were at the bottom of the maternal feeling, conjugal affec- 
tion ought by far to surpass it in intensity ; and yet, among 
the lower races at least, the case is exactly the reverse, con- 
jugal affection being vastly inferior in degree to a mother’s 
love of her child. It may indeed be fairly doubted 
whether there is any ‘intense pleasure” at all in embrac- 
ing a new-born baby—unless it be one’s own. It seems 
much more likely that parents like to touch their children 
because they love them, than that they love them because 
they like to touch them. Attraction, showing itself either 
by elementary movements of approach, or by contact, or 
by the embrace, is the outward expression of tender- 
ness.‘ Professor Bain himself observes that as anger 
reaches a satisfying term by knocking some one down, love 
is completed and satisfied with an embrace.’ But this by 
no means implies that the embrace is the cause of love ; it 

1 Cf. Spencer, Principles of Psy- Eskimo). Thomson, Savage sland, 
chology, ii. 624. p- 135: 
2 Murdoch, ‘ Ethnol. Results of the 3 Bain, Amotions and the Well, 
Point Barrow Expedition,’ in Aun.  p. 140. 
kep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 419 (Point Barrow + Ribot, of. czt. p. 234. 
eR Barmyap cel apse 20: 

only means that love has a tendency to express itself out- 
wardly in an act of embrace. 

In the opinion of. Mr. Spencer, again, parental love is 
essentially love of the weak or helpless. This instinct, 
he remarks, is not adequately defined as that which 
attaches a creature toits young.. Though most frequently 
and most strongly displayed in this relation, the so-called 
parental feeling is really excitable apart from parenthood ; 
and the common trait of the objects which arouse it 1s 
always relative weakness or helplessness.'_ This hypothesis 
undoubtedly contains part of the truth. That the maternal 
instinct is in some degree love of the helpless is obvious 
from the fact that, among those of the lower animals 
which are not gregarious, mother and young separate as 
soon as the latter are able to shift for themselves ; nay, in 
many cases they are actually driven away by her. More- 
over, in species which are so constituted that the young 
from the very outset can help themselves there is no 
maternal love. These facts indicate where we have to 
look for the source of this sentiment. When the young 
are born in a state of utter helplessness somebody must 
take care of them, or the species cannot survive, or, rather, 
such a species could never have come into existence. The 
maternal instinct may thus be assumed to owe its origin to 
the survival of the fittest, to the natural selection of use- 
ful spontaneous variations. 

This 1s also recognised by Mr. Spencer ;* but his theory 
fails to explain the indisputable fact that there is a 
difference between maternal love and the mere love of the 
helpless. Even in a gregarious species mothers make a 
distinction between their own offspring and other young. 
During my stay among the mountaineers of Morocco I 
was often struck by the extreme eagerness with which in 
the evening, when the flock of ewes and the flock of 
lambs were reunited, each mother sought for her own 
lamb, and each lamb for its own mother. A similar 

1 Spencer, Principles of Psychology, i. 497. 
ii, 623 sg. See also Hartley, of. czt. 2 Spencer, of. cét. ii. 623. 

Pe eT a Ne YT 

discrimination has been noticed even in cases of conscious 
adoption. Brehm tells us of a female baboon which had 
so capacious a heart that she not only adopted young 
monkeys of other species, but stole young dogs and cats 
which she continually carried about ; yet her kindness did 
not go so far as to share food with her adopted offspring, 
although she divided everything quite fairly with her own 
young ones.' To account for the maternal sentiment we 
must therefore assume the existence of some other 
stimulus besides the signs of helplessness, which produces, 
or at least strengthens, the instinctive motor response in 
the mother. This stimulus, so far as I can see, is rooted 
in the external relationship in which the offspring from 
the beginning stand to the mother. She is in close 
proximity to her helpless young from their tenderest 
age ; and she loves them because they are to her a cause 
of pleasure. 

In various animal species the young are cared for not 
only by the mother, but by the father as well. This is 
the general rule among birds: whilst the hatching of the 
eggs and the chief part of the rearing-duties belong to 
the mother, the father acts as a protector, and provides 
food for the family. Among most of the mammals, on 
the other hand, the connections between the sexes are 
restricted to the time of the rut, hence the father may not 
even see his young. But there are also some mammalian 
species in which male and female remain together even 
after the birth of the offspring and the father defends his 
family against enemies.” Among the Quadrumana this 
seems to be the rule.? All the best authorities agree that 
the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee live in families. When 
the female is pregnant the male builds a rude nest in a 
tree, where she is delivered; and he spends the night 
crouching at the foot of the tree, protecting the female 
and their young one, which are in the nest above, from 
the nocturnal attacks of leopards, Passing from the 

1 Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 70. Marriage, p. 11 sg. 
2 Westermarck, History of Human SS ieda pa l2sgg. 

highest monkeys to the savage and barbarous races of 
men, we meet with the same phenomenon. In the human 
race the family consisting of father, mother, and offspring 
is probably a universal institution, whether founded on 
a monogamous, polygynous, or polyandrous marriage. 
And, as among the lower animals having the same habit, 
whilst the immediate care of the children chiefly belongs 
to the mother, the father is the guardian of the family.’ 
The stimuli to which the paternal instinct responds are 
apparently derived from the same circumstances as those 
which call into activity the maternal instinct, that is, the 
helplessness and the nearness of the offspring. Wherever 
this instinct exists, the father is near his young from the 
beginning, living together with the mother. And here 
again the sentimental response is in all probability the 
result of a process of natural selection, which has pre- 
served a mental disposition necessary for the existence of 
the species. Among birds paternal care is indispensable. 
Equal and continual warmth is the first requirement for 
the development of the embryo and the preservation of 
the young ones ; and for this the mother almost always 

wants the assistance of the father, who provides her with ~ 

necessaries, and sometimes relieves her of the brooding. 
Among mammals, again, whilst the young at their 
tenderest age can never do without the mother, the 
father’s aid is generally not required. ‘That the Primates 
form an exception to this rule is probably due to the 
small number of young, the female bringing forth but 
one at a time, and besides, among the highest apes and 
in man, to the long period of infancy.’ If this is true 
we may assume that the paternal instinct occurred in 
primitive man, as it occurs, more or less strongly 
developed, among the anthropoid apes and among existing 
savages, 

By origin closely allied to the paternal feeling is the 
attachment between individuals of different sex, which 

d Westermarck, A¢s/ory of Human 2 See zb7d. p. 20 syg.; Fiske, Out- 
Marriage, p. 14 sqq. fines of Cosmic Philosophy, ii. 342 sq. 

wa a ST 

induces male and female to remain with one another 
beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of 
the offspring. It is obvious that, where the generative 
power is restricted to a certain season—a peculiarity which 
primitive man seems to have shared with other mammals! 
—it cannot be the sexual instinct that causes the pro- 
longed union of the sexes, nor can I conceive any other 
egoistic motive that could account for this habit. Con- 
sidering that the union lasts till after the birth of the off- 
spring and that it is accompanied with parental care, I 
conclude that it is for the benefit of the young that male 
and female continue to live together. The tie which joins 
them seems therefore, like parental affection, to be an 
instinct developed through natural selection. The ten- 
dency to feel some attachment to a being which has been 
the cause of pleasure—in this case sexual pleasure—is un- 
doubtedly at the bottom of this instinct. Such a feeling 
may originally have induced the sexes to remain united 
and the male to protect the female even after the sexual 
desire was gratified ; and if procuring great advantage to 
the species in the struggle for existence, conjugal attach- 
ment would naturally have developed into a specific 
characteristic. 

We have reason to believe that the germ of this senti- 
ment occurred already in our earliest human ancestors, that 
marriage, in the natural history sense of the term, is a 
habit transmitted to man from some ape-like progeni- 
tor.” In the course of evolution conjugal affection has 
increased both in intensity and complexity ; but advance- 
ment in civilisation has not at every step been favourable 
to its development. When restricted to men only, a 
higher culture on the contrary tends to alienate husband 
and wife, as is the case in Eastern countries and as was the 
case in ancient Greece. Another fact leading to conjugal 
apathy is the custom which compels the women before 
marriage to live strictly apart from the men. In China 
it often happens that the parties have not even seen each 

1 Westermarck, of. czt. ch. ii. ANTbta op ect. CMS, Ws, Il. 

other till the wedding day ;' and in Greece Plato urged 
in vain that young men and women should be more fre- 
quently permitted to meet one another, so that there 
should be less enmity and indifference in the married life.’ 
Conjugal love is both a cause and an effect of monogamy ; 
but, as we shall see subsequently, the course of civilisation 
does not involve a steady progress towards stricter mono- 
gamy. The notions about women also influence the 
emotions felt towards them ; and we have noticed that the 
great religions of the world have generally held them in 
little regard.’ In its fully developed form the passion 
which unites the sexes is perhaps the most compound of 
all human feelings. Mr. Spencer thus sums up the 
masterly analysis he has given of it :—‘ Round the 
physical feeling forming the nucleus of the whole, are 
gathered the feelings produced by personal beauty, that 
constituting simple attachment, those of reverence, of love, 
of approbation, of self-esteem, of property, of love of free- 
dom, of sympathy. These, all greatly exalted, and seve- 
rally tending to reflect their excitements on one another, 
unite to form the mental state we call love.’’* 

The duration of conjugal and parental feelings varies » 

extremely. Most birds, with the exception of those 
belonging to the Gallinaceous family, when pairing do so 
once for all till either one or the other dies ;° whereas 
among the mammals man and possibly some apes © are the 
only species whose conjugal unions last any considerable 
time after the birth of the offspring. Among many of 
the lower races of men lifelong marriages seem to be the 
rule, and among a few separation is said to be entirely un- 
known ; but there is abundant evidence that marriage has, 
upon the whole, become more durable with advancing 
civilisation.’ One cause of this is that conjugal affection 
has become more lasting. And the greater duration of 
this sentiment may be explained partly from the refine- 

1 Katscher, Bzlder aus dem chine- i. 488. 
sischen Leben, pp. 71, 84. 5 Westermarck, of. cet. p. II. 
2 Plato, Leges, vi. 771 sg. OS HMEE Ve, US ly BRAS 

3 Supra, i. 662 sqq. Lbid. ch. xxiii. 

4 Spencer, Prénc7ples of Psychology, 

J “a dis - 

z ——— : * yn 

ment of the uniting passion, involving appreciation of 
mental qualities which last long after youth and beauty 
have passed away, and partly also from the greater 
durability of parental feelings, which form a tie not only 
between parents and children, but between husband and 
wife. 

The parental feelings originally only last as long as the 
young are unable to shift for themselves—the paternal 
feeling possibly less. As Mr. Fiske observes, ‘“ where the 
infancy is very short, the parental feeling, though intense 
while it lasts, presently disappears, and the offspring cease 
to be distinguished from strangers of the same species. 
And in general the duration of the feelings which insure 
the protection of the offspring is determined by the dura- 
tion of the infancy.’’* Among certain savages parental 
love is still said to be restricted to the age of helplessness. 
We are told that the affection of a Fuegian mother for her 
child gradually decreases in proportion as the child grows 
older, and ceases entirely when it reaches the age of seven 
or eight ; thenceforth the parents in no way meddle with 
the affairs of their son, who may leave them if he likes.” 
When the parental feelings became more complex, through 
the association of other feelings, as those of property and 
pride, they naturally tended to extend themselves beyond 
the limits of infancy and childhood. But the chief cause 
of this extension seems to lie in the same circumstances as 
made man a gregarious animal. Where the grown-up 
children continued to stay with their parents, parental 
affection naturally tended to be prolonged, not only by the 
infusion into it of new elements, but by the direct in- 
fluence of close living together. It was, moreover, extended 
to more distant descendants. The same stimuli as call 
forth kindly emotions towards a person’s own children 
evoke similar emotions towards his grand- and great- 

grandchildren. 

1 Fiske, of. cat. li. 343- Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, 

2 Bove, Patagonia, Terra del Fuoco, yp. 219; Scaramucci and Giglioli, ‘ No- 
p- 133. See also Wied-Neuwied, Reése  tizie sui Danakil,’ in Archivio per 
nach Brasilien, ii. 40 (Botocudos); Im Pantropologia e la etnologia, xiv. 35. 

VOL. II oO 

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF 

It is an old truth that children’s love of their parents 1s 
generally much weaker than the parents’ love of their 
children. The latter is absolutely necessary for the sub- 
sistence of the species, the former is not ;* though, when 
a richer food-supply favoured the formation of larger com- 
munities, filial attachment must have been of advantage to 
the race.” No individual is born with filial love. How- 
ever, Aristotle goes too far when saying that, whilst 
parents love their children from their birth upward, 
‘‘ children do not begin to love their parents until they are 
of a considerable age, and have got full possession of their 
wits and faculties.”* Under normal circumstances the 
infant from an early age displays some attachment to its 
parents. Professor Sully tells us of a girl, about seventeen 
months old, who received her father after a few days’ 
absence with special marks of affection, “rushing up to 
him, smoothing and stroking his face and giving him all 
the toys in the room.” * Filial love is retributive ; the 
agreeable feeling produced by benefits received makes the 
individual look with pleasure and kindliness upon the 
giver. And here again the affection is strengthened by 
close living together, as appears from the cooling effect of 
long separation of children from their parents. But the 
filial feeling is not affection pure and simple, it is affection 
mingled with regard for the physical and mental superiority 
of the parent.’ As the parental feeling is partly love of 
the weak and young, so the filial feeling is partly regard 
for the strong and (comparatively) old. 

Besides parental, conjugal, and filial attachment we find 
among all existing races of men altruism of the fraternal 

1 This observation was made already 
by Hutcheson (/rguiry into the 
Original of our Ideas of Beauty and 
Virtue, p. 219) and Adam Smith  p. 

gether upon the former, and not upon 

the latter.” 

? Darwin maintains (Descent of Man, 
105) that the filial affections have 

(Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 199). 
The latter wrote, a hundred years before 
the publication of ‘The Origin of 
Species,’ that parental tenderness is a 
much stronger affection than filial piety, 
because ‘‘the continuance and _pro- 
pagation of the species depend alto- 

been to a large extent gained through 
natural selection. 

3 Aristotle, Bthica Nicomachea, viii. 
i, DQ 

5 Sully, Stadies of Childhood, p. 243. 

> See szpra, i. 618 sg. 

type, binding together children of the same parents, 
relatives more remotely allied, and, generally, members of 
the same social unit. But I am ndiaed to suppose that 
man was not originally a gregarious animal, in the proper 
sense of the word, that he originally lived in families 
rather than in tribes, and that the tribe arose as the result 
of increasing food-supply, allowing the formation of larger 
communities, combined with the advantages which under 
such circumstances accrued from a gregarious life. The 
man-like apes are not gregarious ; and considering that 
some of them are reported to be encountered in greater 
numbers in the season when most fruits come to maturity,’ 
we may infer that the solitary life generally led by them 
is due chiefly to the difficulty they experience in getting 
food at other times of the year. That our earliest human 
or half-human ancestors lived on the same kind of food, 
and required about the same quantities of it as the man- 
like apes, seems to me a fairly legitimate supposition ; 
and from this I conclude that they were probably not more 
gregarious than these apes. Subsequently man became 
carnivorous ; but even when getting his living by fishing 
or hunting, he may still have continued as a rule this 
solitary kind of life, or gregariousness may have become 
his habit only in part. ‘An animal of a predatory kind,” 
Mr. Spencer observes, ‘‘ which has prey that can be caught 
and killed without help, profits by living alone: especially 
if its prey is much scattered, and is secured by stealthy 
approach or by lying in mush: Gregariousness would 
here be a positive disadvantage. Hence the tendency of 
large carnivores, and also of small carnivores that have 
feeble and widely-distributed prey, to lead solitary lives.” 
It is certainly a noteworthy fact that even now there are 
rude savages who live rather in separate families than in 
tribes; and that their solitary life is due to want of 

1 Savage, ‘Observations on the Ex- rillas,’ in Dze Gartenlaube, 1877, p. 
ternal Characters and Habits of the 4109. 
Troglodytes Niger, in Boston Journal 2 Spencer, Principles of Psychology’, 
of Natural History, LV Oey VON aril. 556. 
Koppenfels, ‘ Meine Jagden auf Go- 

sufficient food is obvious from several facts which I have 
stated in full in another place.' These facts, as it seems to 
me, give much support to the supposition that the kind 
of food man subsisted upon, together with the large 
quantities of it which he wanted, formed in olden times 
a hindrance to a true gregarious manner of living, except 
perhaps in some unusually rich places. 

But man finally overcame this obstacle. ‘‘ He has,” 
to quote Darwin, “invented and is able to use various 
weapons, tools, traps, &c., with which he defends himself, 
kills or catches prey, and otherwise obtains food. He 
has made rafts or canoes for fishing or crossing over 
to neighbouring fertile islands. He has discovered the 
art of making fire, by which hard and stringy roots 
can be rendered digestible, and poisonous roots or 
herbs innocuous.” * In short, man gradually found 
out new ways of earning his living and more and 
more emancipated himself from direct dependence on 
surrounding nature. The chief obstacle to a gregarious 
life was by this means surmounted, and the advantages of 
such a life were considerable. Living together in larger 
groups, men could resist the dangers of life and defend 
themselves much better than when solitary—all the more 
so as the physical strength of man, and especially savage 
man, is comparatively slight. The extension of the 
small family group may have taken place in two different 
ways: either by adhesion, or by natural growth and 
cohesion. In other words, new elements—whether other 
family groups or single individuals—may have united 
with it from without, or the children, instead of 
separating from their parents, may have remained with 
them and increased the group by forming new families 
themselves. There can be little doubt that the latter 
was the normal mode of extension. When gregariousness 
became an advantage to man, he would feel inclined to 
remain with those with whom he was living even after 
the family had fulfilled its object—the preservation of 

1 Westermarck, of. czt. p. 43 sqq. * Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 48 sq. 

i 

ee 

the helpless offspring. And he would be induced*to do 

so not only from egoistic considerations, but by an 
instinct which, owing to its usefulness, would gradually 
develop, practically within the limits of kinship—the 
gregarious instinct. ; 

By the gregarious instinct I understand an animal’s 
proneness to live together with other members of its own 
species, apart from parental, conjugal, and-filial attachment. 
It involves, or leads to, pleasure in the consciousness of 
their presence. The members of a herd are at ease in 
each other’s company, suffer when they are separated, and 
rejoice when they are reunited. By actual living together 
the instinct is individualised,’ and it is strengthened by 
habit. The pleasure with which one individual looks 
upon another is further increased by the solidarity of 
interests. Not only have they enjoyments in common, 
but they have the same enemies to resist, the same dangers 
to encounter, the same difficulties to overcome. Hence 

acts which are beneficial to the agent are at the same time 

beneficial to his companions, and the distinction between 
ego and alter loses much of its importance. 

But the members of the group do not merely take plea- 
sure in each other’s company. Associated animals very 
frequently display a feeling of affection for each other— 
defend each other, help each other in distress and danger, 
perform various other services for each other.” Consider- 
ing that the very object of the gregarious instinct is the 
preservation of the species, I think we are obliged to regard 
the mutual affection of associated animals as a develop- 
ment of this instinct. With the pleasure they take in 
each other’s company is intimately connected kindliness 
towards its cause, the companion himself, In this explana- 
tion of social affection I believe no further step can be 
made. Professor Bain asks why a more lively feeling 
should grow up towards a fellow-being than towards an 

' In mankind we very early recognise orale de Penfant, p. 288). 
the child’s tendency to sympathise with 2 Darwin, of. ct. p. 100 gg. 

persons who are familiar to it (Com- Kropotkin, AZutua/ Add, ch. i. sg. 
payré, Lévolution intellectuelle et 

inanimate source of pleasure ; and to account for this he 
suggests, curiously enough, “the primary and independent 
pleasure of the animal embrace’’'—although embrace 
even as an outward expression of affection plays a very 
insignificant part in the social relations of gregarious 
animals. It might as well be asked why there should bea 
more lively feeling towards a sentient creature which in- 
flicts pain than towards an inanimate cause of pain. Both 
cases call for a similar explanation. The animal distin- 
guishes between a living being and a lifeless thing, and 
affection proper, like anger proper, is according to its very 
nature felt towards the former only. The object of anger 
is normally an enemy, the object of social affection is 
normally a friend. Social affection is not only greatly 
increased by reciprocity of feeling, but could never have 
come into existence without such reciprocity, The being 
to which an animal attaches itself is conceived of as kindly 
disposed towards it ; hence among wild animals social 
affection is found only in connection with the gregarious 
instinct, which is reciprocal in nature. 

Among men the members of the same social unit are 

tied to each other with various bonds of a distinctly human . 

character—the same customs, laws, institutions, magic or 
religious ceremonies and beliefs, or notions of a common 
descent. As men generally are fond of that to which they 
are used or which is their own, they are also naturally apt 
to have likings for other individuals whose habits or ideas 
are similar to theirs. The intensity and extensiveness of 
social affection thus in the first place depend upon the co- 
herence and size of the social aggregate, and its develop- 
ment must consequently be studied in connection with the 
evolution of such aggregates. 

This evolution is largely influenced by economic con- 
ditions. Savages who know neither cattle-rearing nor 
agriculture, but subsist on what nature gives them—game, 
fish, fruit, roots, and so forth—mostly live in single 
families consisting of parents and children, or in larger 

1 Bain, of. cét. p. 132. 

we 

family groups including in addition a few other individuals 
closely allied. But even among these savages the isola- 
tion of the families is not complete. Persons of the same 
stock inhabiting neighbouring districts hold friendly rela- 
tions with one another, and unite for the purpose of com- 
mon defence. When the younger branches of a family 
are obliged to disperse in search of food, at least some of 
them remain in the neighbourhood of the parent family, 
preserve their language, and never quite lose the idea of be- 
longing to one and the same social group. And in some cases 
we find that people in the hunting or fishing stage actually 
live in larger communities, and have a well-developed 
social organisation. This is the case with many or most 
of the Australian aborigines. Though in Australia, also, 
isolated families are often met with,” the rule seems to be 
that the blacks live in hordes. Thus the Arunta of 
Central Australia are distributed in a large number of 
small local groups, each of which occupies a given area of 
country and has its own headman.*? Every family, con- 
sisting of a man and one or more wives and children, has 
a separate lean-to of shrubs ;* but clusters of these shelters 
are always found in spots where food is more or less easily 
obtainable,’ and the members of each group are bound to- 
gether by a strong “local feeling.” ° The local influence 
makes itself felt even outside the horde. ‘“ Without be- 
longing to the same group,” say Messrs. Spencer and 
Gillen, ‘‘men who inhabit localities close to one another 
are more closely associated than men living at a distance 
from one another, and, as a matter of fact, this local bond 
is strongly marked. . . . Groups which are contiguous 
locally are constantly meeting to perform ceremonies.” ‘ 
At the time when the series of initiation ceremonies called 
the Engwura are performed, men and women gather to- 
gether from all parts of the tribe, councils of the elder 

1 Westermarck, op. czt. p. 43 5q¢- SOLO. Der Doe 
Hildebrand, Recht und Sitte, p. 1 sqq. D Hipeh 5 Bele 

2 Westermarck, of. czt. p. 45. BS Mize jo, Wylale 

3 Spencer and Gillen, ative Tribes 7 Ibid. p. 14. 

of Central Australia, p. 8 s9q. 

men are held day by day, the old traditions of the tribe 
are repeated and discussed, and “it is by means of meet- 
ings such as this, that a knowledge of the unwritten history 
of the tribe and of its leading members is passed on from 
generation to generation.”! Nay, even members of 
different tribes often have friendly intercourse with each 
other ; in Central Australia, when two tribes come into 
wihnig: with one another on the border-land of their re- 
spective territories, the same amicable feelings as prevail 
within the tribe are maintained between the members of 
the two.” Now it seems extremely probable that Austra- 
lian blacks are so much more sociable than most other 
hunting people because the food-supply of their country is 
naturally more plentiful, or, partly thanks to their boome- 
rangs, more easily Reina ble: A Central Australian native 
is, as a general rule, well nourished ; “kangaroo, rock- 
wallabies, emus, and AS forms of game are not scarce, 
and often fall a prey to his spear and boomerang, while 
smaller animals, such as rats and lizards, are constantly 
caught without any difficulty by the women.” * Circum- 
stances of an economic character also account for the 

gregariousness of the various peoples on the north-west . 

coast of North America who are neither pastoral nor 
agricultural—the Thlinkets, Haidas, Nootkas, and others. 
On the shore of the sea or some river they have permanent 
houses, each of which is inhabited by a number of families ; * 
the houses are grouped in villages, some of which are very 
populous ;’ and though the tribal bond is not conspicuous 
for its strength, there are councils which discuss and decide 
all important questions concerning the tribe. ‘The terri- 
tory inhabited by these sas with its bays, sounds, 
and rivers, supplies them with food in abundance ; “its 
enormous wealth of fish allows its inhabitants to ‘enjoy 
a pampered existence.” ” 

1 Spencer and Gillen, WVatzve Tribes ® Krause (Die Tlinkit-Indianer, p. 
of Central Australia, p. 272. 100) speaks of a Thlinket village which 
2 Menik, (ds Be consisted of sixty-five houses ‘and five 

> Ibid. pp. 7, 44. or six hundred inhabitants. 

2 Se in Lujfth Report on the North- 8 Boas, loc. cit. p. 36 sq. 

Western Tribes of Canada, p. 22. 7 Ratzel, History of Mankind, ii. 92, 

s 
° 
J 

To pastoral people sociality, up to a certain degree, is of 
great importance. They have not only to defend their 
own persons against their enemies, but they have also to 
protect valuable property, their cattle. Moreover, they 
are often anxious to increase their wealth by robbing their 
neighbours of cattle, and this is best done in company. 
But at the same time a pastoral community is never large, 
and, though cohesive so long as it exists, it is liable to break 
up into sections. ‘The reason for this is that a certain spot 
can pasture only a limited stock of cattle. The thirteenth 
chapter of Genesis well illustrates the social difficulties ex- 
perienced by pastoral peoples. Abraham went up out of 
Egypt together with his wife and all that he had, and Lot 
went with him. Abraham was very rich in cattle, and 
Lot also had flocks, and herds, and tents. But “the land 
was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together : 
for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell 
together’; they were obliged to separate.’ 

The case is different with people subsisting on agricul- 
ture. A certain piece of land can support a much larger 
number of persons when it is cultivated than when it con- 
sists merely of pasture ground. Its resources largely 
depend on the labour bestowed on it, and the more people 
the more labour. The soil also constitutes a tie which 
cannot be loosened. It is a kind of property which, 
unlike cattle, is immovable ; hence even where individual 
ownership in land prevails, the heirs to an estate have to 
remain together. Asa matter of fact, the social union of 
agricultural communities is very close, and the households 
are often enormous.” 

But living together is not the only factor which, among 
savages, establishes a social unit. Sucha unit may be based 
not only on local proximity, but on marriage or a common 
descent ; it may consist not only of persons who live 
together in the same district, but of persons who are of 
the same family, or who are, or consider themselves to be, 

t Genesis, xiii. 1 sgg. See Hilde- ormen der Familie, pp. 99, 100, 124 sg, 
brand, of. czt. p. 29 sg. ; Grosse, Die 2 See Grosse, of. c2¢. p. 136 sgg. 

of the same kin. These different modes of organisation 
often, in a large measure, coincide. The family is a 
social unit made up of persons who are either married or 
related by blood, and at the same time, in normal cases, 
live together. The tribe is a social unit, though often a 
very incoherent one,’ consisting. of persons who inhabit the 
same district and also, at least in many cases, regard them- 
selves as descendants of some common ancestor. ‘The 
clan, which is essentiallysa body of kindred having a 
common name, may likewise on the whole coincide with 
the population of a certain territory, with the members of 
one or more hordes or villages. This is the case where the 
husband takes his wife to his own community and descent 
is reckoned through the father, or where he goes to live in 
his wife’s community and descent is reckoned through the 
mother. But frequently the system of maternal descent is 
combined with the custom of the husband taking his wife 
to his own home, and this, in connection with the rule of 
clan-exogamy, occasions a great discrepancy between the 
horde and the clan. ‘The local group is then by no means 
a group of clansmen; the children live in their father’s 
community, but belong to their mother’s clan, whilst the 
next generation of children within the community must 
belong to another clan.? 

Kinship certainly gives rise to special rights and duties, 
but when unsupported by local proximity it loses much of 
its social force. Among the Australian natives, for instance, 
the clan rules seem generally to be concerned with little or 
nothing else than marriage, sexual intercourse, and, perhaps, 
blood-revenge.’ ‘The object of caste” (clan), says Mr. 
Curr, ‘‘is not to create or define a bond of union, but to 
secure the absence of any blood relationship between per- 

1 See Cunow, Die Verwandtschafis-  thropology,’ p. 43) that the laws arising 

Organisationen der Australneger, p. out of the ‘‘class” (clan) divisions 
P20 syed “‘have extraordinary force and are, in 
Soi piee Sern : oar : 

* Cf. Giddings, Principles of Socto- general, implicitly obeyed whether in 
logy, p. 259. respect of actual marriage, illicit con- 

3 Cunow, of. czt. pp. 97, 136. Dr. nections, or social relations”; but I 

Stirling says (Report of the Horn find no further reference to these 
Lxpedition to Central Austraha, ‘An- ‘social relations,” 

ee ee we 

sons proposed to marry. So far from being a bond of 
friendship, no Black ever hesitates to kill one of another 
tribe because he happens to bear the same caste- (clan-) 
name as himself.” 1 It appears that the system of descent 
itself is largely influenced by local connections.’ Professor 
Tylor has found by means of his statistical method that 
the number of coincidences between peoples among whom 
the husband lives with the wife’s family and peoples who 
reckon kinship through the mother only, is proportion- 
ally large, and that the full maternal system never appears 
among peoples whose exclusive custom is for the husband 
to take his wife to his own home;* and I have myself 
drawn attention to the fact that where the two customs, 
the woman receiving her husband in her own hut and the 
man taking his wife to his, occur side by side among the 
same people, descent in the former case is traced through 
the mother, in the latter through the father.* Nay, even 
where kinship constitutes a tie between persons belonging 
to different local groups, its social force is ultimately 
derived not merely from the idea of a common origin, but 
from near relatives’ habit of living together. Men became 
gregarious by remaining in the circle where they were 
born ; if, instead of keeping together with their kindred, 
they had preferred to isolate themselves or to unite with 
strangers, there would certainly be no blood-bond at all. 
The mutual attachment and the social rights and duties 
which resulted from this gregarious condition were asso- 
ciated with the relation in which members of the group 
stood to one another—the relation of kinship as expressed 
by a common name,—and these associations might last even 
after the local tie was broken. By means of the name 
former connections were kept up. Even we ourselves are 
generally more disposed to count kin with distant relatives 
who have our own surname than with relatives who have a 
different name; and still greater is the influence which 
language in this respect exercises on the mind of a savage, 

1 Curr, The Australian Race, i. 69. the Development of Institutions,’ in 
2 Westermarck, of, czt. p. 107 5qgq. Jour. Anthr. Inst. xviii. 258. 
3 Tylor, ‘Method of Investigating 4 Westermarck, of. cz¢. p. 110. 

to whom a person’s name is part of his personality. The 
derivative origin of the social force in kinship accounts for 
its formal character, when personal intercourse is wanting 3 
it may enjoin duties, but hardly inspires much affection. If 
in modern society much less importance is attached to kin- 
ship than at earlier stages of civilisation, this is largeiy due 
to the fact that relatives, except the nearest, have little 
communication with each other. And if, as Aristotle 
observes, friendship between kinsfolk varies according to 
the degree of relationship,' it does so in the first instance 
on account of the varying intimacy of their mutual inter- 
course. 

A very different explanation of the social influence of kin- 
ship has been given by Mr. Hartland. He connects it with 
primitive superstition. A clan, he says, “is regarded as an 
unity, literally and not metaphorically one body, the individual 
members of which are as truly portions as the fingers or the legs 
are portions of the external, visible body of each of them.” Now, 
a severed limb or lock of hair is believed by the savage to remain 
in some invisible but real union with the body whereof it once, 
in outward appearance also, formed a part, and any injury done 
to it is supposed to affect the organism to which it belonged. 
“The individual member of a clan was in exactly the same 
position as a lock of hair cut-from the head, or an amputated 
limb. He had no separate significance, no value apart from his 
kin. . . . Injury inflicted on him was inflicted on, and was felt 
by, the whole kin, just as an injury inflicted on the severed lock 
or limb was felt by the bulk. ”2 Mr. Hartland insists upon a 
literal interpretation of his words ;* and this implies that the 
members of a clan are in their behaviour influenced by the idea 
that what happens to one of them reacts upon all, 

In support of his theory Mr. Hartland makes reference to 
the belief of some savages, that charms may be made from dead 
bodies against the surviving relatives of the deceased, and to 
certain rites of healing in “which, besides the patient himself, 

“other members of his tribe, presumably kinsmen,” take part. , 

But the former belief is a superstition connectel with the 
wonder of death, from which no conclusion must be drawn as 
1 Aristotle, Z¢hica Necomachea, viii. 3 Tbid. ii. 236, 398, 444, 

12. 7. * Ibid. ii. 437 Sq. 
2 Hartland, Legend of Perseus, ii. 277. 5 Ibid, il. 432 sqq, 

ee NN nee 

= ae 

pita stile 

to relations between the living ; and in the ceremonies of heal- 
ing the medicine-man plays a much more prominent part than 
the other bystanders—whose relationship to the patient, besides, 
is so little marked that Mr. Hartland only presumes them to be 
kindred. He further observes that in the wide-spread custom of 
the Couvade we meet with the idea that the child, being a part 
of the father, is liable to be affected by various acts committed 
by him.t And from Dr. Frazer’s ‘Golden Bough’ might 
be quoted many instances of a belief in some mysterious bond of 
sympathy knitting together absent friends and relations— 
especially at critical times of life—which has, in particular, led 
to rules regulating the conduct of persons left at home while a 
party of their friends is out fishing or hunting or on the war- 
path.? But all these rules are taboo restrictions of a definite and 
altogether special kind, generally, it seems, referring to members 
of the same family, and frequently to wives in their husbands’ 
absence. In order to make his hypothesis acceptable, Mr. 
Hartland ought to have produced a fair number of facts proving 
that the members of the same clan really are believed to be con- 
nected with each other in such a manner, that whatever affects 
one of them at the same time in a mysterious way affects the 
rest. But we look in vain for a single well-established instance 
of such a belief. 

It seems that the importance which savages attach to a 
common blood has been much exaggerated. Clanship is based 
on a method of counting descent by means of names, either 
through the father or through the mother, but not through 
both at once. This, however, by no means implies that the 
other line is not recognised as a line of blood-relationship. “The 
paternal system of descent is not necessarily associated with the 
idea that the mother has no share in parentage, nor is the 
maternal system necessarily associated with unconsciousness of 
the child’s relation to its father ;? even the Couvade, which 
assumes the recognition of a most intimate relationship between 
the child and its father, has been found to prevail among some 
peoples who regard the child asa member of the mother’s clan.4 
Nay, there are instances in which the clan-bond is obviously 

1 Hartland, Legend of Perseus, ii. 
406, 

2 Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 27 sqq. 
See also Haddon, A/agic and Fetéshism, 
De ules. 

3 Mr. Swan informs me that the 
Waguha of West Tanganyika, among 
whom children are generally named 
after their father, recognise the part 

taken by both parents in generation ; 
and Archdeacon Hodgson writes the 
same concerning certain other tribes of 
Eastern Central Africa, who trace 
descent through the mother. 

4 Ling Roth, ‘Signification of Cou- 
vade,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst, xxii. 227, 
238. 

not regarded as a blood-bond at all, in the strict sense of the 
word. Of some tribes in New South Wales Mr. Cameron 
tells us that, although a daughter belongs not to her father’s 
clan but to that of her mother’s brother, they believe that she 
emanates from her father solely, being only nurtured by her 
mother ;! and the Arunta of Central Australia, who have the 
paternal system of descent, maintain that a child really descends 
neither from its father nor from its mother, but is the reincarna- 
tion of a mythical totem-ancestor.2_ Their theory is “that the 
child is not the direct result of intercourse, that it may come 
without this, which merely, as it were, prepares the mother for 
the reception and birth also of an already-formed spirit child 
who inhabits one of the local totem centres” ;# and its totem- 
name, which is derived from the spot where it is supposed to 
have been conceived,! is different from its clan-name. It is use- 
ful to scrutinise Mr, Hartland’s theory in the light of this class 
of facts. ‘They evidently prove that clanship and what we are 
used to call the system of counting “ descent,” is not necessarily 
based on the notion of actual blood-relationship, but on kinship 
as a fact combined with a name; whereas Mr. Hartland’s 
hypothesis presupposes, not that the members of a clan really 
are, but that they consider themselves to be all of one blood. 
Yet another practice has been adduced as evidence of the 
supreme importance which the primitive clan is supposed to 
attach to unity in blood—the so-called blood-covenant. ‘The 
members of a clan, Mr. Hartland observes, may not be all 
descended from a common ancestry.. Though descent is the 
normal, the typical cause of kinship and a common blood, kin- 
ship may also be acquired. ‘To acquire kinship, the blood of 
the candidate for admission into the kin must be mingled with 
that of the kin. In this way he enters into the brotherhood, is 
reckoned as of the same stock, obtains the full privileges of 
a kinsman.” ® As Professor Robertson Smith puts it, “ he who 
has drunk a clansman’s blood is no longer a stranger but a 
brother, and included in the mystic circle of those who have 
a share in the life-blood that is common toall the clan.”° Mr. 
Hartland gives us a short account of the rite :—“ It is sufficient 
that an incision be made in the neophyte’s arm and the flowing 
blood sucked from it by one of the clansmen, upon whom the 

1 Cameron, ‘ Notes on some Tribes 3 bid. p. 265. 
of New South Wales,’ in Jour. Anthr. 4 Tbid. p. 124 sgq. 
Inst. xiv. 352. 5 Hartland, of. cz7. ii. 237. 
2 Spencer and Gillen, Matzve Tribes 6 Robertson Smith, Relzgion of the 

of Central Australia, ch. iv. especially Semztes, p. 315. 
pp- 121, 124. 

mae ay ee ee 

eee US a ye ee Te eee 

operation is repeated in turn by the neophyte. Originally, 
perhaps, the clansmen all assembled and partook of the rite ; but 
if so, the necessity has ceased to be recognised almost every- 
where. “The form, indeed, has undergone numberless varia- 
tions. . . . But, whatever may be the exact form adopted, the 
essence of the rite is the same, and its range is world-wide.” 
Then there follows a list of peoples from various quarters of the 
world among whom it is said to prevail. 

From this the reader undoubtedly gets the impression that the 
mingling of blood is a frequently practised ceremony of adop- 
tion, by which a person is admitted into a strange clan. But 
the facts stated by the chief authorities on the subject, to whom 
Mr. Hartland refers, prove nothing of the kind. In most cases 
with which we are acquainted the mingling of blood is a form 
of covenant between individuals, although an engagement with 
a chief or king naturally embraces his subjects also ; and some- 
times the covenanters are tribes or kingdoms. But of the 
‘‘ world-wide” adoption rite there is hardly a single instance 
which corresponds to Mr. Hartland’s description. He admits 
himself that “in the same measure as the clan relaxed its hold 
upon the individual members, blood-brotherhood assumed 
a personal aspect, until, having no longer any social force, 
it came to be regarded as merely the most solemn and binding 
form of covenant between man and man.”? His account of 
the blood-covenant is, in fact, only an inference based on 
the assumption that the existing rite is a survival from times 
when the clan was literally one body and the individual nothing 
but an amputated limb, But to regard the present blood- 
covenant as a survival of a previous rite of adoption into the clan 
is not justified by facts. So far as I know, there is no record 
of a blood-covenant among savages of the lowest type, unless the 
aborigines of Australia be included among them; and in 
Australia it is certainly not a ceremony of adoption. Among 
the Arunta it is intended to prevent treachery: “if, for 
example, an Alice Springs party wanted to go on an avenging 
expedition to the Burt country, and they had with them in camp 
a man of that locality, he would be forced to drink blood 
with them, and, having partaken of it, would be bound not to 
aid his friends by giving them warning of their danger.” ® This 
instance is instructive. The Australian native is obliged to help 
those with whom he has drunk blood, against his own relatives, 
nay, against members of his own totem group. So also “the tie 

1 Hartland, of. czt. li. 237 sgg. 8 Spencer and Gillen, Mateve 7ribes 
2 bid. ii. 240. of Central Australia, p. 461. 

vt 

gischen Stammes, il. 171. 

Glauben der Zigeuner,’ in Am Ur- 

of blood-covenanting is reckoned in the East even.a closer tie 
than that of natural descent,”+ and the same was the case 
among the ancient Scandinavians.? I do not see how Mr. Hart- 
land’s “theory can account for this. 

Mingling of blood is sometimes supposed to be a direct cause 
of mutual “sympathy and agreement, in accordance with the 
principle of transmission of properties by contact ;*® even in 
Europe there are traces of the belief that a few drops of 
blood transferred from one person to another inspire the 
recipient with friendly feelings towards him with whose blood 
he is inoculated.4 But the genuine blood-covenant imposes 
duties on both parties, and also contains the potential punish- 
ment for their transgression. It involves a promise, and the 
transference of blood is vaguely or distinctly supposed to convey 
to the person who drinks it, or who is inoculated with it, a con- 
ditional curse which will injure or destroy him should he break his 
promise. ‘That this is the main idea underlying the blood-covenant 
appears from the fact that it is regularly accompanied by curses 
or self-imprecations.° In Madagascar, for instance, when two 
or more persons have agreed on forming the bond of fraternity, 
a fowl is procured, its head is nearly cut off, and it is left in this 
state to continue bleeding during the ceremony. ‘The parties 
then pronounce a long imprecation and mutual vow over the 
blood, oe inter alia, “© this miserable fowl weltering in 
its Blood’! ! thy liver do we eat, thy liver do we eat ; and should 

either of us retract from the terms of this oath, let him instantly 

become a fool, let him instantly become blind, let this covenant 
prove a curse to him.” A small portion of blood is then drawn 
from each individual and drunk by the covenanting parties with 
execrations of vengeance on each other in case of either violat- 
ing the sacred oath.6 According to another description the 

parties, after they have drunk each other’s blood, drink a - 

mixture from the same bowl, praying that it may turn into 

1 Trumbull, Blood Covenant, p. 10. 

New, Life, Wanderings, and Labours 
2 Maurer, Lekehrung des Norwe- 

in Eastern Africa, p. 364 (Taveta). 
Decle, Three Years in Savage Africa, 
p: 494 (Wakamba). Trumbull, of. cé¢. 
‘Menschenblut im pp. 9, 20, 31, 42, 45-47, 53, 61 sg. 
For the practice of sealing an agree- 
ment by transference of blood accom- 

3 Cf. Crawley, AZystic Rose, p. 236sq. 
4 yon Wlislocki, 

Quel, iii. 64. Dorfler, ‘Das Blut im 

- ae ar 
- 4 
or, 
Se a 

magyarischen Volkglauben,’ zdzd. iii. 
269 sq. 

° Forbes, 4 Naturalis?s Wander- 
ings in the astern Archipelago, p. 452 
(natives of Timor). Burns, « Kayans 
of the North-West of Borneo,’ in Jour. 
of the Indian Archipelago, iii. 146 sq. 

panied by an oath, see also Partridge, 
Cross River Natives, p. 191 (pagans of 
Obubura Till district in Southern 
Nigeria). 

® Ellis, A7story of Madagascar, i. 
187 sqq. 

by ii 

/ 

POETS ae ee TONS eR ey ee yo ee 

= 
: 

poison for him who fails to keep the oath.! As we have seen 
before, blood is commonly regarded as a particularly efficient 

' conductor of curses, and what could in this respect be more 

excellent than the blood of the very person who utters the 

curse? But the blood of a victim sacrificed on the occasion 
may serve the same purpose, or some other suitable vehicle may 
be chosen to transfer the imprecation. "The Masai in the old 
days “spat at a man with whom they swore eternal friend- 
ship” ;? and the meaning of this seems clear when we hear 
that they spit copiously when cursing, and that “if a man while 
cursing spits in his enemy’s eyes blindness is supposed to 
follow.”? ‘The ancient Arabs, besides swearing alliance and 
protection by dipping their hands in a pan of blood and tasting 
the contents, had a covenant known as the hi/f al-fodiil, which was 
made by taking Zemzem water and washing the corners of the 

Ka‘ba with it, whereafter it was drunk by the parties concerned.* 

The blood-covenant is essentially based on the same idea 

as underlies the Moorish custom of sealing a compact of friend- 

ship by a common meal at the tomb of some saint, the meaning 
of which is obvious from the phrase that “ the food will repay ” 
him who breaks the compact.® 

Besides marriage, local proximity, and a common 
descent, a common worship may tie people together into 

1 Dumont d’Urville, Voyage pitto- 
resque autour du monde, i. 81. 

* Hinde, Last of the Masaz, p. 47. 
See also Johnston, Uganda, ii. 833. 

° Hinde, of. czt. p. 48. 

4 Robertson Smith, AZarriage and 
Kinship tn Early Arabia, p. 56 sgq. 
Cf. Herodotus, ii. 8. 

5 See supra, i. 587. According to 
another theory the inoculated blood is 
regarded as a pledge or deposit, which 
compels the person from whom it was 
drawn to be faithful to the person to 
whom it was transferred. Suppose that 
two individuals, A and B, become 
“‘}lood-brothers ” by mutual inocula- 
tion. Each, then, Mr. Crawley argues 
(Mystic Rose, p. 236 sg.), has a part of 
the other in his keeping, each has 
‘“oiven himself away” to the other in 
a very real sense ; and the possibility 
of mutual treachery or wrong is pre- 
vented both by the fact that injury done 
to B by A is considered equivalent to 
injury done by A to himself, and also 

VOL. II 

by the belief that if B is wronged he 
may work vengeance by injuring the 
part of A which he possesses. To this 
explanation, however, serious objections 
may be raised. The belief in sym- 
pathetic magic does not imply that 
injury done to B by A is¢o zpso supposed 
to affect A himself through that part of 
him which has been deposited in B ; it 
does not imply that two things which 
have once been conjoined remain, when 
quite dissevered from each other, in 
such a relation that ‘‘ whatever is done 
to the one must similarly affect the 
other” (Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 49), 
unless there is an intention to this effect 
in the agent. The severed part then 
serves as a medium by which magic 
influence is transferred to the whole. 
Again, it is difficult to see how B could 
injure A through the part of him which 
he possesses when that part has been 
absorbed into his own system, as must 
be the case with those few drops of A’s 
blood with which he was inoculated. 

P 

social union. But among savages a religious community 
generally coincides with a community of some other kind. 
There are tutelary gods of families, clans, and tribes ;' 
and a purely local group may also form a religious 
community by itself. Major Ellis observes that with 
some two or three exceptions all the gods worshipped by 
the Tshi-speaking tribes on the Gold Coast are exclusively 
local and have a limited area of worship. If they are 
nature-gods they are bound up with the natural objects 
they animate, if they are ghost-gods they are localised by 
the place of sepulture, and if they are tutelary deities 
whose origin has been forgotten their position is necessarily 
fixed by that of the town, village, or family they protect ; 
in any case they are worshipped only by those who live in 
the neighbourhood, the only exceptions being the sky-god, 
the earthquake-god, and the goddess of the silkcotton 
trees, who are worshipped everywhere.” 

When the religious community is thus at the same time 
a family, clan, village, or tribe, itis of course impossible 
exactly to distinguish the social influence of the common 
religion from that exercised by marriage, local proximity, or 
acommon descent. It seems, however, that the importance 
of the religious bond, or at least of the totem bond, has 
been somewhat exaggerated-by a certain school of anthro- 
pologists. We are told that in early society ‘each 
member of the kin testifies and renews his union with the 
rest’ by taking part in a sacrificial meal in which the 
totem god is eaten by his worshippers.* But no satis- 
factory evidence has ever been given in support of this 
theory. Dr. Frazer knows only one certain case of a 
totem sacrament, namely, that prevalent among the 
Arunta and some other tribes in Central Australia,* who 
at the time of Intichiuma are in the habit of killing and 
eating totem animals; and this practice has nothing what- 

1 See zzfra, on Gods as Guardians manda, &c. p. 45 (Maoris); Christian, 
of Morality. Caroline Ton p: 75 (natives of 
2 Ellis, Voruba-speaking Peoples of Ponape); Grierson, Bzhar Peasant 
the Slave Coast, p. 284 sg. For various Lzfe, p. 403 sgq. 
instances of village gods see Turner, 3 Hartland, of. cét. ii. 236. 
Samoa, p. 18; Crozet, Voyage to Tas- 4 Frazer Golden Bough, i. p. xix. 

xxxiv THE ALTRUISTIC SENTIMENT oma 

ever to do with the mutual relations between kindred. 
Its object is only to multiply in a magic manner the 
animals of certain species for the- purpose of increasing 
the food-supply for other totemic groups.1_ In his book 
on Totemism Dr. Frazer writes :—‘“ The totem bond is 
stronger than the bond of blood or family in the modern 
sense. This is expressly stated of the clans of western 
Australia and of north-western America, and is probably 
true of all societies where totemism exists in full force. 
Hence in totem tribes every local group, being necessarily 
composed (owing to exogamy) of members of at least two 
totem clans, is liable to be dissolved at any moment into 
its totem elements by the outbreak of a blood feud, in 
which husband and wife must always (if the feud is 
between their clans) be arrayed on opposite sides, and in 
which the children will be arrayed against either their 
father or their mother, according as descent is traced 
through the mother, or through the father.” ? In the two 
or three cases which Dr. Frazer quotes in support of his 
statement * the totemic group is identical with the clan ; 
hence it is impossible to decide whether the strength of 
the tie which unites its members is due to the totem 
relationship or to the common descent. But even the 
combined clan and totem systems seem at most only in 
exceptional cases to lead to such consequences as are indi- 
cated by Dr. Frazer’s authorities. With reference to the 
Australian aborigines Mr. Curr observes :—‘‘Of the 
children of one father being at war with him, or with 
each other, on the ground of maternal relationship, or any 
other ground, my inquiries and experience supply no 
instances. [0 Captain Grey’s statements, indeed, there 
are several objections.”’ * 

1 Spencer and Gillen, Mative Tribes 
of Central Australia, ch. vi. Lidem, 
Northern Tribes of Central Australia, 
Chae 7. 

2 Frazer, Totemism, p. 57. 

3 Grey, Journals of Expeditions in 
North-West and Western Australia, ii. 
230. Petroff, Report on Alaska, p. 

165. Hardisty, ‘ Loucheux Indians,’ 
in Smztthsonian Report, 1866, p. 315. 

4 Curr, Zhe Australian Race, i. 67. 
In Hardisty’s statement, referring to 
the Loucheux Indians, there is a con- 
spicuous lack of definiteness. He 
says :—‘‘ In war it was not tribe against 
tribe, but division against division, and 

ip pe 

Among the Arunta and some other Central Australian 
tribes we have fortunately an opportunity of studying the 
social influence of totemism apart from that of clanship, 
the division into totems being quite independent of the 
clan system. The whole district of a tribe may be mapped 
out into a large number of areas of various sizes, each of 
which centres in one or more spots where, in the dim past, 
certain mythical ancestors are said to have originated or 
camped during their wanderings, and where their spirits 
are still supposed to remain, associated with sacred stones, 
which the ancestors used to carry about with them. 
From these spirits have sprung, and still continue to 
spring, actual men and women, the members of the various 
totems being their reincarnations. At the spots where 
they remained, the ancestral spirits enter the bodies of 
women, and in consequence a child must belong to the 
totem of the spot at which the mother believes that it was 
conceived. A result of this is that no one totem is con- 
fined to the members of a particular-clan or sub-clan,* and 
that though most members of a given horde or local group 
belong to the same totemic group, there is no absolute 
coincidence between these two kinds of organisation.’ 
How, then, does the fact that two persons belong to the 
same totem influence their social relationships ? ‘‘ In these 
tribes,’’ say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, “ there is no such 
thing as the members of one totem being bound together 
in such a way that they must combine to fight on behalf 
of amember of the totem to which they belong. . . . The 
men to assist a particular man in a quarrel are those of his 
locality, and not of necessity those of the same totem as 
himself, indeed the latter consideration does not enter into 
account and in this as in other, matters we see the strong 

as the children were never of the same passage concerning the Thlinkets, re- 

So 

caste (clan) as the father, the children 
would, of course, be against the father 
and the father against the children. . . . 
This, however, was not likely to occur 
very often, as the worst of parents 
would have naturally preferred peace to 
war with his own children.” Petroff’s 

ferred to by Dr. Frazer, simply runs :— 
“* The ties of the totem or clanship are 
considered far stronger than those of 
blood relationship.” 

1 Spencer and Gillen, Wative Tribes 
of Central Australia, ch. iv. 

2 [bid. pp. 9, 32, 34. 

development of what we have called the ‘local influence.’ 

. The men who assist him are his brothers, blood and 
tribal, the sons of his mother’s brothers, blood and tribal. 
That is, if he be a Panunga man he will have the 
assistance of the Panunga and Ungalla men of his 
locality, while if it comes to a general tek ee he will have 
the help of the whole of his local group. . It is only 
indeed during the performance of certain ceremonies that 
the existence of a mutual relationship, consequent upon 
the possession of a common totemic name, stands out at 
all prominently. In fact, it is perfectly easy to spend a 
considerable time amongst the Arunta tribe without even 
being aware that each individual has a totemic name.” ! 

When from the savage and barbarous races of men we 
pass to peoples of a higher culture, as they first appear to 
us in the light of history, we meet among them social 
units similar in kind to those prevalent at lower stages of 
civilisation : the family, clan, village, tribe. We also find 
among them, side by side with the family consisting of 
parents and children, a larger family organisation, which, 
though not unknown among the lower races, assumes 
particular prominence in the archaic State. 

In China the family generally remains undivided till 
the children of the younger sons are beginning to grow 
up. Then the younger branches of the family separate, 
and form their own households. But the new house- 
holders continue to take part in the ancestral worship of 
the old home ; and mourning is worn in theory for four 
generations of ascendants and descendants in the direct 
line, and for contemporaries descended in the same fifth 
generation from the “honoured head” of the family.’ 
At the same time we find in China at least traces of a clan 
organisation, Large bodies of persons bear the same 
surname, and a penalty is inflicted on anyone who 
marries a person with the same surname as his own, 
whilst a man is strictly forbidden to nominate as his heir 

1 Spencer and Gillen, Wative Tribes 7 Simcox, Primitive Civilizations, 
of Central Australia, pp. 34, 544. li, 303, 493, 69, 

an individual of a different surname. Moreover, there 
are whole villages composed of relatives all bearing the 
same ancestral name. “In many cases,” says Mr. 
Doolittle, “for a long period of time no division of 
inherited property is made in rural districts, the descend- 
ants of a common ancestor living or working together, 
enjoying and sharing the profits of their labours under the 
general direction and supervision of the head of the clan 
and the heads of the family branches. . . . There may 
be only one head of the clan. Under him there are 
several heads of families.” ” 

The “four generations” of the Chinese, comprising 
those who are regarded as near relatives, have their 
counterpart in the family organisation of most so-called 
Aryan peoples. The Roman Propinqui—that is, parents 
and children, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, 
nephews and nieces, first cousins (comsobrini) and second 
cousins (sobrini)—exactly corresponded to the Anchisteis 
of the Greeks, the Sapindas of the Hindus,’ and the 
“«Syngeneis”” of the Persians.* The persons belonging 
to these four generations stood in a particularly close 
relationship to each other. They had mutual rights 
and duties of various kinds. In early times, if one of 
them was killed, the survivors had to avenge his 
death. They were expected to assist each other when- 
ever it was needed, especially before the court. They 
celebrated in common feasts of rejoicing and feasts for the 
dead. They had a common cult and common mourning. 
In short, they formed an enlarged family unit of which the 
individual families were merely sub-branches, even though 

1 Medhurst, ‘ Marriage, Affinity, and 
Inheritance in China,’ in Zrans. Roy. 
Asiatic Soc. China Branch, iv. 21, 22, 
29. 
* Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, 
li. 225 sgq. 

3 Baudhédyana, i. 5. 11. 9 :—‘* The 
great-grandfather, the grandfather, the 
father, oneself, the uterine brothers, 
the son by a wife of equal caste, the 
grandson, and the great-grandson— 
these they call Sapindas, but not the 

great-grandson’s son.” Laws of Manu, 
ix. 186:—‘‘ To three ancestors water 
must be offered, to three the funeral 
cake is given, the fourth descendant is 
the giver of these oblations, the fifth 
has no connection with them.” Cf 
Jolly, ‘Recht und Sitte,? in Biihler, 
Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie, 
ii. 85. 

4 Brissonius, De regio Persarum 
principatu, i. 207, p. 279. Leist, Alt: 
avisches Jus Civile, i, 47 sqq, 

THE ALTRUISTIC SENTIMENT 

XXXIV PaaS 
they did not necessarily live in the same house.! In India 
we still meet with a perishable survival of this organisa- 
tion. “In the Joint Family of the Hindus,” says Sir 
Henry Maine, “ the agnatic group of the 
Romans absolutely survives—-or rather, but for the 
English law and English courts, it would survive. 
Here there is a real, thoroughly ascertained common 
ancestor, a genuine consanguinity, a common fund of 
property, a common dwelling.” * The Gwentian, Dimetian, 
and Venedotian codes likewise represent the homestead 
and land of the free Welshman asa family holding. ‘So 
long as the head of the family lived,” says Mr. Seebohm, 
‘fall his descendants lived with him, apparently in the 
same homestead, unless new ones had already been built 
for them on the family land. In any case, they still 
formed part of the joint household of which he was the 
head. When a free tribesman, the head of a household, 
died, his holding was not broken up. It was held by his 
heirs for three generations as one joint holding.”*? So 
also among the subdivisions of ancient Irish society there 
was one which comprised the “ near relatives,” the 
Propingui of the Romans.* Many of the South 
Slavonians to this day live in house communities each 
consisting of a body of from ten to sixty members or even 
more, who are blood-relations to the second or third 
degree on the male side, and who associate in a common 
dwelling or group of dwellings, having their land in 
common, following a common occupation, and being 
governed by a common chief.” Among the Russians, 

1 Klenze, ‘Die Cognaten und Af- 4 Maine, Harly History of LInstitu- 
finen nach Romischem Rechte in Ver-  ¢zons, p. 90 sg. Leist, Alt-arisches Jus 
gleichung mit andern verwandten Cvzvzle i. Anhang i. 

Rechten,’ in Zeztschr. f. geschichtliche 5 Krauss, Sztte und Brauch der 
Rechtswiss. vi. 5 sgg. Leist, Alt- Stidslaven, pp. 75, 79 S97: Maine, 
artsches Jus Civile, i. 231 sqq. Rivier, Dissertations on Early Law and 

Préis du drott de famille romain, P. 

oe POMC 

2 “Maine, Dessertations on Early Law 
and Custom, p. 240. 

am Seebohm, English Village Com- 
munity, p. 193. Ldem, Tribal System 
in Wales, p. 89 599. 

& 

Custom, p. 241 sgqg. UtieSenovié, Dze 
Hauskommunionen der Stidslaven, p. 
20 sgg. Miler, ‘Die Hauskommunion 
der Siidslaven,’ in Jahrbuch d. internat. 
Vereinigung f. vergl. Rechtswiss. ii, 

199 sq9. 

too, there are households of this kind, containing the 
representatives of three generations ; and previous to the 
emancipation of the serfs in 1861 such households were 
much more common than they are now.’ The ancient 
Teutons are the only “Aryan” race among whom the joint 
family organisation cannot be proved to have prevailed.” 

Among all these peoples a number of kindred families 
or joint families were united into a larger social group 
forming a village community or a cluster of households. 
The Vedic people called such a body of kindred janmana 
or simply g7vama, which means “village” ;° and the same 
organisation still survives in India, though in a modified 
form. The type of Indian village communities which 
has been described by Sir Henry Maine is at once an 
assemblage of co-proprietors and an organised _patri- 
archal society, providing for the management of the 
common fund and generally also for internal govern- 
ment, police, the administration of justice, and the 
apportionment of taxes and public duties. Unlike the 
joint family, the related families of the village com- 
munity no longer hold their land as an indistinguishable 
common fund: they have portioned it out, at most they: 
redistribute it periodically, and are thus on the high road 
to modern landed proprietorship. -And whilst the joint 
family is a narrow circle of persons actually related to 
each other, the village community has very generally been 
adulterated by the admission of strangers, especially pur- 
chasers of shares, who have from time to time been 
engrafted on the original stock of blood-relatives. Yet 
in all such cases there is the assumption of an original 
common parentage ; hence the Hindu village community 
of the type indicated, whenever it is not actually an 
association of kinsmen, is always a body of co-proprietors 
formed on the model of such an association.‘ 

1 Mackenzie Wallace, /zssia, i. 134. i. Anhang i. 

von Hellwald, Dze menschliche Familie, 3 Zimmer, <Altindisches Leben, p- 
p. 506 sg. Kovalewsky, Modern Cus- 159 sg. 

toms and Ancient Laws of Russia, * Maine, Anctent Law, p. 260 sqq. 
p- 53 Sg- Ldem, Dissertations on Early Law and 

2 See Leist, A/t-aresches Jus Czvile, Custom, p. 240. Elphinstone, Héstory 

a —— a 

Corresponding to the Vedic grama there were the 
Iranian vig, the Greek genos, and the Roman gens; 
and as among the Vedic people several gramas formed 
a vig and several vigs a gana, so the Iranian veg, 
the Greek genos, and the Roman gens were, respec- 
tively, subdivisions of a zantu, phratria, and curia; 
and these again were subdivisions of a still more com- 
prehensive unit, a dagyu, phyle, and tribis.2 ‘The Roman 
territory was in earliest times divided into a number of 
clan-districts, each inhabited by a particular gens, which 
was thus a group associated at once by locality and by a 
common descent. Whilst each household had its own 
portion of land, the clan-household or village had a clan- 
land belonging to it, and this clan-land was managed up 
to a comparatively late period after the analogy of house- 
hold-land, that is, on the system of joint-possession, each 
clan tilling its own land and thereafter distributing the 
produce among the several households belonging to it. 
Even the traditions of Roman law furnish the information 
that wealth consisted at first in cattle and the usufruct of 
the soil, and that it was not till later that land came to 
be distributed among the burgesses as their own special 
property.’ Still in historical times, if a person left no 
sons or agnates living at his death, the inheritance 
escheated to the gensiles, or entire body of Roman citizens 
bearing the same name with the deceased, whereas no part 
of it was given to any relative united, however closely, 
with the dead man through female descent.* But as the 
Hindu village community, so also the Roman gens, 
though originally a group of blood-relatives inhabiting a 
common district, was already in early times recruited from 
men of alien extraction who were assumed to be descended 
from a common ancestor. And it is difficult to believe 
of India, p. 68 sgg. Mr. Baden-Powell 2 Leist,  Greco-italische  Rechts- 
(ndian Village Community, p. 3 sqq.) — geschichte, p. 104 sq. 

has shown that Sir Henry Maine’s 3 Mommsen, History of Rome, i. 45, 

general description of Indian village 46, 238. é 
communities holds true only of a cer- 4 Maine, Anczent Law, ‘Pp. 220 sg. 
tain class of villages in India. Fustel de Coulanges, La Cité antique, 

1 Zimmer, of. cit. p. 159 sg. p. 126, 

that either in Rome or Greece even the fiction of a 
common origin could be preserved for long when the 
organisation of the people into gentes, phratries, and 
tribes was adopted by the State as a system of political 
division and their numbers were fixed.’ When the genos 
and gens first appear to us in history they were mere 
dwindling survivals, except in one respect : they remained, 
as they had been from the outset,” religious communities 
long after they had lost all other practical importance. 
This was especially the case at Athens, where certain 
reputed gentes for centuries continued to play a prominent 
part in the religious cult ;* and the Romans seem to have 
preserved their gentilicia sacra still in Cicero’s time.* 

In ancient Wales districts were occupied by tribes under 
their petty kings or chiefs, and the tribe (ceved/) was a 
bundle of kindreds “bound together and interlocked by 
common interests and frequent intermarriages, as well as by 
the necessity of mutual protection against foreign foes.” ° A 
group of households, again, corresponding to the Roman 
gens formed a ¢rev, which was a cluster of scattered house- 
holds, “‘ not necessarily a village in the modern sense.” ° 
The same seems to have been the case with the Teutonic 
vici, spoken of by Tacitus ;* but that among the Teutons, 
also, the people of the same neighbourhood were blood- 
relatives may be directly inferred from a statement made 
by Cesar.® They were not much addicted to agriculture,® 
and “the dreary world” they inhabited, with its desert 
aspect, its harsh climate, its lack of cultivation, was not 

1 Leist, Greco-italische  Rechtsge- 
schichte, p. 150 sgg. It is expressly 
said that at Athens the members of the 
same yévos were not necessarily re- 
garded as blood-relations (see Bunsen, 
De jure hereditario Athenienstum, p. 
104, n. 28). 

2 Schoemann, Gyvzechzsche <Alter- 
thiimer, ii. 548 sgg. Marquardt, 
Rimische Staatsverwaltung, iii, 126, 
130.  fFustel de Coulanges, of. czt. 
p. 124 59qq. 

3 Leist, Greco-ztalische  Rechts- 
veschichte, p. 159 sg. 

* Cicero, Pro domo, 13 (34). 

> Seebohm, Zzglish Village Com- 
munity, p. 190. Ldem, Tribal System 
in Wales, p. 61. 

8 Idem, English Village Community, 
P- 343- 

7 Tacitus, Germania, 16. Cf. Hil- 
debrand, of. cit. p. 105 sgq. 

8 Cesar, De bello Gallico, vi. 22 :-— 
**Magistratus ac princeps in annos 
singulos  gentibus cognationibusque 
hominum, qui una coierint, quantum, 
et quo loco visum est, agri attribuunt.” 

9 bia. vi, 22, 

: 
: 
; 
; 
: 
, 
; 

favourable to the formation of permanent large social 
bodies of great cohesiveness. However, we meet among 
them social units which Cesar calls regiones or pagi,' of 
which the vici may be assumed to have been subdivisions. 
Among the highly agricultural Slavonians, on the other 
hand, we find even in the present time a social organisa- 
tion very similar to that of the Hindus. The South 
Slavonians, as we have seen, live in house communities 
corresponding to the joint families in India. Now, when 
the members of a house community, or zadruga—as it is 
often called—become too numerous, a separation takes 
place, and the emigrants form new households by them- 
selves. A zadruga is thus gradually expanded into a 
bratstvo, or brotherhood—a group of related house com- 
munities which not only feel themselves as branches of 
the same stock, but still have certain practical interests in 
common and a common chief. Several dbratstva, finally, 
form a pleme, or tribe.” Among the Russians, again, the 
family, or joint family, has developed intoa mir, or village 
community, composed of an assemblage of separate houses 
each ruled by its own head but with a common village 
chief elected by the heads of the various households. The 
Russian mir is an institution very similar to the Hindu 
village community described above. The land belongs 
to the community, and in earlier days it was probably 
cultivated in common. At present it is divided between 
the component families, the lots shifting among them 
periodically, or perhaps vesting in them as their property, 
but always subject to a power in the collective body of 
villagers to veto its sale. Originally the mir was also a 
group of kindred; but, as in the Hindu village com- 
munity, the tie of blood has been greatly weakened by all 
sorts of fictions and the admission of so many strangers 
that the tradition of a common origin is dim or lost.’ 

In the social organisation of all these peoples there is 

1 Cesar, De bello Gallico, vi. 23. 3 de Laveleye, De la propriété, p. 

2 Krauss, of. cet. pp. 2, 32 sgg. 12sgg. Maine, Déssertations on Early 

von Hellwald, of. cet. p. 502 sg. Grosse, Law and Custom, p. 201 sg. 
op. cit. p. 204 Sg. 

thus originally a general congruity between the principle 
of local proximity and the principle of descent. On the 
one hand, all freemen, all true members of the society, 
who belong to the same local group, are at the same time 
kinsmen ; on the other hand, all persons who are united by 
the tie of a common descent belong to the same or 
neighbouring local groups. ‘The cause of this congruity 
is the universal prevalence of the paternal system of 
descent. Whether the case was different in prehistoric 
times is an open question. That the ancient Chinese 
reckoned kinship through the mother, not through the 
father, has been conjectured on philological grounds,’ as to 
the plausibility of which I can express no opinion. Several 
writers have also endeavoured to prove that the uterine 
line of descent prevailed among the primitive Aryans, but 
the evidence is far from being conclusive. I agree with 
Professor Leist that all so-called survivals of a system of 
maternal descent in the prehistoric antiquity of the 
«¢ Aryan” races are doubtful, if not false. As regards 
the Teutons, much importance has been attributed to the 
specially close connection which, according to Tacitus, 
existed between a sister’s children and their mother’s 
brothers ;* but, as Professor Schrader remarks, in spite of 
the prominent position of the maternal uncle among 
Teutonic peoples, the paéruus distinctly came before the 
avunculus, the agnates before the cognates, in testamentary 
succession.* The existence of a custom which in some 
respect recognises uterine relationship does not prove the 
earlier prevalence of the full maternal system of descent, 
to the exclusion of the paternal. 

Progress in civilisation is up to acertain point connected 
with social expansion. Among savages the largest per- 
manent social unit is generally the tribe, and even the 
tribal bond is often very loose, if not entirely wanting. 
It is true that associations of tribes occur even among so 

1 Puini, quoted by Grosse, of. czt. i. 490. 

p- 193. 3 Tacitus, Germania, 20. 

2 Leist, <Alt-arisches Jus Gentium, 4 Schrader, Prehzstoric Antiquities 
p. 58. Ldem, Alt-arisches Jus Civile, of the Aryan Peoples, p, 395. 

PCR Oat eed YN ee Se ee See 

low a race as the Australian aborigines, but unaccompanied 
by any kind of political organisation... At a somewhat 
higher stage we meet with the famous league of the 
Iroquois—a federation on republican principles of five 
distinct tribes, which could point to three centuries of 
uninterrupted domestic unity and peace >—and the king- 
doms of various African potentates. Civilisation only 
thrives in states. From small beginnings round the lake 
of Mexico the Aztecs gradually succeeded, through con- 
quest, in forming an empire which covered probably 
almost sixteen thousand square leagues. However, 
between the various tribes lay broad belts of uninhabited 
territory, which enabled them to keep up a shy and 
exclusive attitude towards each other; and at the time of 
the Spanish conquest the empire of Mexico was, in fact, 
little more than “a chain of intimidated Indian tribes, 
who, kept apart from each other under the influence of 
mutual timidity, were held down by dread of attacks 
from an unassailable robber-stronghold in their midst.” * 
In South America, in a long course of ages, six nations 
inhabited the region which extends from the water-parting 
between the basins of the Huallaga and Ucayali to that 
between the basins of the Ucayali and Lake Titicaca. 
When increasing population brought them in contact with 
each other, a struggle for supremacy ended in the mastery 
of the fittest—the Incas; and the empire of the latter 
was subsequently extended by the subjugation of a variety 
of other nations or tribes.* The extent of territory 
claimed for ancient China by the earliest records is 
more than double the size of modern France, and, 
though it was often divided into different states, the 
great dynasties ruled over the whole of it.° The two 
crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt were united at a 

1Cur, Zhe Australian Race, i. Mexico,p. 4. Ratzel, Aestory of Man- 
62 sq. kind, ii. 199, 202. 

2 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 4 Markham, ‘ Geographical Positions 
job lit ; of the Tribes which formed the Empire 

3 Scheppig, ‘ Ancient Mexicans,’ &c. of the Yncas,’ in /ozr, Roy. Geo. Soc. 

; p. 6,in Spencer’s Descriptive Sociology. xii. 287 sqq. 

Prescott, History of the Conquest of EXSiMCOx, O7..c22, Wy lO, 03s 

2-: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF cuap. 

very early date ; and no less imposing was the great king- 
dom of Babylon and Assur. We may assume that all 
these empires were formed by an association, either 
voluntary or forcible, of different tribes, as was the case 
with those states each whose origin Hak early growth we 
are somewhat better acquainted... As late as the time of 
the Judges the tribes of Israel either stood each entirely 
alone or formed smaller groups, and there was no such 
thing as an Israelitish nation in a political sense until the 
unity of the people came into being under Samuel and the 
first kings." The Vedic people consisted of a great 
number of independent tribes, between which only 
temporary alliances were made for the sake of defence or 
attack. But gradually the alliances grew more permanent ; 
war-kings united several tribes, surrounded themselves 
with a military nobility, and founded great kingdoms.’ 
In Greece and Italy the states grew out of forts which had 
been built on elevated places to serve as common strong- 
holds or places of refuge in case of war. Several tribes 
united so as to be better able to resist dangerous enemies, 
and one of the fortified towns in time gained supremacy 
over all others in the neighbourhood, as Athens did in 
Attica and Alba Longa in Latium. Similar districts, ruled 
by a town, were called poleis or civitaies.? In historical 
times attempts were made to carry this Be further by 
joining several of the small states under the rule of one. 
In this Sparta and Athens failed, whereas the efforts of 
Rome met with unequalled success. 

The development of the State tended to weaken or 
destroy the smaller units of which it was composed. The 
central power, hostile to separatism, naturally endeavoured 
to appropriate the authority invested in the latter, and in 
a well-governed state these on their part had little reason 
to resist. The main object of the clan, phratry, and tribe 
was to protect their respective members; hence they became 
superfluous in the presence of a powerful national govern- 

1 Kuenen, Religion of Lsrael, i. 133. 3 Leist, Greco-italische  Rechts- 
2 Zimmer, Altzndisches Leben, pp. geschtchte, p. 109 sqq. 
158, 192 sg. 

Per, 1Gy 7 i) eer ee 

ment which unselfishly and impartially looked after the 
interests of its various subjects. Adam Smith contrasts 
the strong clan-feeling which still in the eighteenth cen- 
tury prevailed among the Scotch Highlanders with the 
little regard felt for remote relatives by the English, and 
observes that in countries where the authority of the law 
is not sufficiently strong to give security to every member 
of the State the different branches of the same family 
choose to live in the neighbourhood of one another, their 
association being frequently necessary for their common 
defence ; whereas in a country like England, where the 
authority of the law was well established, “the descend- 
ants of the same family, having no such motive for keep- 
ing together, naturally separate and disperse, as interest or 
inclination may direct.” ’ It seems also probable that the 
persistency of the village community or the gentile system 
among the Hindus and Slavs has been largely due to the 
weakness of the State or to the badness of the govern- 
ment. 

As the larger units, so the family also was influenced by 
the rise of the State, but originally in quite the opposite 
direction. Whilst the former dwindled away, the family 
grew in importance. Nowhere do we find the family-tie 
stronger, nowhere does the father or eldest male ascendant 
possess greater power than in the archaic State. In a pre- 
vious chapter I have already tried to explain this singular 
fact. I pointed out that in early society there seems to be 
a certain antagonism between the family and the clan, that 
the family was strengthened because the clan was weakened, 
that the father became a patriarch only as the inheritor of 
the authority which formerly belonged to the clan. But 
we have also noticed that at a higher stage the family again 
lost in importance.” 

It seems that the tribes which united into one nation or 
state were normally, in the first instance, branches of the 
same stock, living in the same neighbourhood and speaking 

1 Smith, 7heory of Moral Sentiments, SINS 2067, tO 2 7SH 
Pp. 326 sg. 

the same language, though with dialectic differences. Like 
the smaller units, such a state was no doubt frequently 
adulterated by the amalgamation of aliens, but here again 
fictions were substituted for realities, and the foreign ex- 
traction was forgotten, The case was different, however, 
when the commonwealth was formed or aggrandised by 
the subjugation of a strange race. Instead of being adopted 
into the circle of the conquerors, the subdued people were 
treated as their inferiors in blood, civic rights were denied 
to them, and in many cases they were kept in servitude ; 
thus even here the principle of a common origin as the 
base of citizenship was preserved, the conquerors being the 
only citizens in the full sense of the term. But however 
strong and durable similar barriers may be, they are not 
imperishable. The different races inhabiting the same 
country under the same government tend to draw nearer 
each other, the inferior race 1s incorporated with the 
nation, and local proximity instead of descent at last 
becomes the basis of community in political functions. 
This change, however, was neither so radical nor so 
startling as it has been represented to be ;* fictions on a 
large scale still formed a bridge between ancient and | 
modern ideas. Sir Henry Maine says that we cannot now 
hope to understand the good faith of the fiction by which 
in early times the incoming population were assumed to be 
descended from the same stock as the people on whom 
they were engrafted.* But is this good faith more 
astonishing than the readiness with which a common 
language, in spite of the most obvious facts to the con- 
trary, is even now constantly taken as the sign of a 
common origin? ‘Though identity of language, even in 
the case of whole peoples, proves nothing more than con- 
tact or neighbourhood, a person’s mother-tongue popu- 
larly decides his race, and language and nationality are 
regarded almost as synonymous. Genealogical fictions, 
then, are not merely a thing of the past, nor have they 
ceased to influence political ideas. The modern theory of 

1 Maine, Azczent Law, p. 129. 2 Meeh, 1s. WAT 

xxxiv. THE ALTRUISTIC SENTIMENT ons 

nationalism vindicates the right of the strongest nation- 
ality to absorb the other nationalities living within the 
same state by a method of compulsory engraftment, and 
this can be effected only by their accepting its language. 
But this theory is not so much concerned with language 
as such, as with language as an emblem of nationality. 
At the bottom of it is the narrow feeling of racial in- 
tolerance, quite ready however to be appeased by a fiction. 
The doctrine of nationalism is the spectre of the same 
political principle—the principle of a common descent, 
either real or fictitious—on which states were founded 
and governed when civilisation was in its cradle. 

Like the smaller units, the archaic State was not 
only a political but at the same time a religious com- 
munity. Over and above all separate cults there was 
one religion common to all its citizens. In ancient 
Mexico and Peru it was the religion of the dominant 
people, the worship of the god of war or of the sun ; 
and the sovereigns themselves were regarded as incarna- 
tions or children of this god.’ In other cases the state 
religion arose by a fusion of different cults. The gods 
of the communities which united into a state not only 
continued to receive the worship of their old believers, but 
were elevated to the rank of national deities, and formed 
together a heavenly commonwealth to which the earthly 
commonwealth jointly paid its homage. In this way, 
it seems, the Roman,’ Egyptian,? Assyrian, and 
Babylonian * pantheons were recruited ; whilst the Greeks 
went a step further and, already in prehistoric times, 
constructed a Pan-Hellenic Olympus.’ Sometimes also, 
as Professor Robertson Smith points out, different gods 
were themselves fused into one, as when the mass of the 
Israelites in their local worship of Yahveh identified him 
with the Baalim of the Canaanite high places, and carried 

1 Ratzel, of. czt. ll. 199 sg. Mark- 4 Miirdter-Delitzsch, Geschichte Baby- 
ham, Héstory of Peru, p. 23. loniens und Assyriens, p. 24. Robert- 
2 Cf von Jhering, Gerst des rémischen son Smith, Leligion of the Semutes, 

Rechts, i. 269. p. 39. 
“S Wiedemann, Religion of the An- ° Cf. Rohde, Psyche, p. 36. 

cient Egyptians, p. 148. 
WOOL tt Q 

over into his worship the ritual of the Canaanite shrines, 
not deeming that in so doing they were less truly Yahveh- 
worshippers than before.* 

Nobody will deny that the common religion added 
strength to the State, but it seems that its national 
importance has often been overrated. On the one hand, 
the political fusion between different communities took 
place before the religious fusion and was obviously the 
cause of it; on the other hand, the mere tie of a common 
religion has never proved sufficient to bind together 
neighbouring tribes or peoples so as to form one nation. 
The Greek states had both the same religion and the 
same language, but nevertheless remained distinct states. 
Professor Seeley’s assertion that “‘in the East to this day 
nationality and religion are almost convertible terms,” ? is 
very far from the truth. Wallin, who had exceptional 
opportunities to study the feelings of different 
Muhammedan nationalities, observes that ‘every 
Oriental people has a certain national aversion to every 
other, and even the inhabitants of one province to those 
of another. The Turk does not readily tolerate the 

Arab, nor the Persian, and these feel similarly towards | 

the Turk; the Arab does not get on well with the 
Persian, nor the Persian with the.Arab ; the Syrian does 
not like the Egyptian, whom he calls inhuman, and the 
latter does not willingly associate with the Syrian, whom 
he calls simple-minded and stupid; and the son of the 
desert condemns both.” * It sometimes seems as if the 
national spirit of a people rather influenced its religion 
than was influenced by it. Patriotism has even suc- 
ceeded in nationalising the greatest enemy of nation- 
alities, Christianity, and has well nigh revived the old 
notion of a national god, whose chief business is to 
look after his own people and, especially, to fight its 
battles. 

It is obvious that the various aspects of social develop- 

1 Robertson Smith, of. czt. p. 38. 3 Wallin, Anteckningar fran 
2 Seeley, Matural Religion, p. 229. Orienten, iv. 181 sq. : 

Ae ac Reelin ee 

xxxIv THE ALTRUISTIC SENTIMENT a4 

ment which we have now considered have exercised much 
influence upon the altruistic sentiment. The combination 
of local proximity and political unity, the notion of a 
common descent, and the fellowship of a common religion, 
tend to engender friendly feelings between the members of 
each respective group. Hence, when the political unit 
grew larger, when the idea of kinship developed into that 
of racial affinity, and when the same religion became 
common to all the citizens of the State, or, as happened in 
several cases, extended beyond the limits of any particular 
country or nation, the altruistic sentiment underwent a 
corresponding expansion—unless, of course, it was checked 
by some rival influence. The increasing coherence of the 
political aggregate, again, added to the strength of this 
sentiment; and so did the antagonism towards foreign 
communities and the natural antipathy or hatred to their 
members. As people like that to which they are used or 
which is their own, they dislike that which is strange or 
unfamiliar. Among ourselves we notice this particularly 
in children' and uneducated persons, whose anger may be 
aroused by the sight of a black skin or an oriental dress 
or the sounds of a strange language. Antipathies of this 
kind have directly influenced the moral valuation of 
conduct towards foreigners ; but at the same time they 
have also strengthened the feelings of mutual goodwill 
between tribesmen or compatriots, For likings and dis- 
likes are increased by the contrast ; to hate a thing makes 
us better love its opposite. So also the competition and 
enmity which prevail between different communities tend 
within each community to intensify its members’ devotion 
to the common goal and their friendly feelings towards 
one another. 

But the altruistic sentiment has not necessarily reference 
only to individuals belonging to the same social unit. 
Gregarious animals may be kindly disposed to any member 

1 Compayré, of. czt. p. 100:—‘‘ Tout vu un de mes fils, 2 quatre ans et demi, 
ce qui est inattendu, imprévu, est in- entrer dans de véritables rages, toutes 
supportable a Penfant, et provoque soit les fois que je lui parlais dans le patois. 
la peur, soit plus tard la colére. J’ai de mon pays.” 

(ey 

~ 

of their species which is not an object of their anger or 
their fear. Savages have shown themselves capable of tender 
feelings towards suffering and harmless strangers." The 
sensibility of little children sometimes goes beyond the 
circle of the family ; Madame Manacéine tells us of a 
girl two years old who, in the Zoological Gardens at St. 
Petersburg, began to cry bitterly when she saw an elephant 
walking over the keeper’s body, although the other specta- 
tors were quietly watching the trick.? In mankind 
altruism has been narrowed by social isolation, by 
differences in race, language, habits, and customs, by 
enmity and suspicion. But increased intercourse has 
gradually led to conditions favourable to its expansion. 
As Buckle remarks, ignorance is the most powerful of all 
the causes of national hatred ; ‘when you increase the 
contact, you remove the 1 ignorance, and thus you diminish 
the feered ° People of different nationalities feel that in 
spite of all dissimilarities between them there is much that 
they have in common ; and frequent intercourse makes 
the differences less marked, or obliterates many of them 
altogether. There can be no doubt that this process will 
go on in the future. And equally certain it is that similar 
causes will produce similar effects—that altruism will con- 
tinue to expand, and that the notion of a human brother- 
hood will receive more support from the actual feelings of 
mankind than it does at present. 

1 See supra, 1. 570-572, 581. See also Compayré, of. cz¢. p. 323. 
2 Manacéine, Le surmenage mental 3 Buckle, History of Civilization in 
dans la civilisation moderne, p. 248. Lngland, i. 222.

SUICIDE 

In previous chapters we have discussed the moral 
valuation of acts, forbearances, and omissions, which 
directly concern the interests of other men; we shall now 
proceed to consider moral ideas regarding such modes of 
conduct as chiefly concern a man’s own welfare. Among 
these we notice, in the first place, acts affecting his 
existence. 

Suicide, or intentional self-destruction, has often been 
represented as a fruit of a higher civilisation ; Dr. Stein- 
metz, on the other hand, in his essay on ‘Suicide among 
Primitive Peoples,’ thinks it probable that “there is a 
greater propensity to suicide among savage than among 
civilised peoples.” ' The former view is obviously 
erroneous; the latter probably holds good of certain 
savages as compared with certain peoples of culture, but 
cannot claim general validity. 

Among several uncivilised races suicide is said to be 
unknown.” ‘To these belong some of the lower savages— 
the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego,’ the Andaman Islanders,* 

1 Steinmetz, ‘Suicide among Primi- 
tive Peoples,’ in American Anthro- 
pologist, vii. 60. 

2 Paulitschke, Athnographie Nordost- 
Afrikas, p. 205 (Danakil and Galla). 
Munzinger, Ostafrikanzsche Studzen, 
p. 532 (Barea and Kunama). New, 
Life, Wanderings, and Labours in 
Eastern Africa, p. 99 (Wanika). 

Felkin, ‘Notes on the For Tribe of 
Central Africa,’ in Proceed. Roy. 
Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 231. Lumholtz 
(Onknown Mexico, i. 243) thinks it is 
doubtful whether a pagan Tarahumare 
ever killed himself. 

3 Bridge, in South American JLis- 
stonary Magazine, xiii. 211. 

4 Man, Jour. Anthr. Inst, xii. 111. 

SUICIDE 

and various Australian tribes;' whilst as regards most 
other tribes at about the same stage of culture information 
seems to be wanting. Of the natives in Western and 
Central Australia Sir G. Grey writes, “Whenever I have 
interrogated them on this point, they have invariably 
laughed at me, and treated my question as a joke.”” 
When a Caroline Islander was told of suicides committed 
by Europeans, he thought that he had not grasped what 
was said to him, as he never in his life had heard of any- 
thing so ridiculous? The Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush, 
though they have no intense fear of death, cannot under- 
stand suicide; ‘the idea of a man killing himself strikes 

them as inexplicable.”’ * 

Among many savages and barbarians suicide is stated to 

be very) fate, on to occur 

1 Grey, Auxpeditions of Discovery in 
North-West and Western Australia, 
i. 248. Curr, Recollections of Squat- 
ting tn Victoria, p. 277 (Bangerang). 
Among the tribes of Western Victoria 
described by Mr. Dawson (Azstralzan 
Aborigines, p. 62) suicide is not un- 
known, though it is uncommon ; ‘‘if a 
native wishes to die, and cannot get 
any one to kill him, he will sometimes 
put himself in the way of a venomous 
snake, that he may be bitten by it.” 

2 Grey, of. cit. ii. 248. 

3 von Kotzebue, Voyage of Dis- 
covery into the South Sea, ii. 195. 

4 Scott Robertson, Aéfirs of the 
findu-Kush, p. 381. 

® Nansen, Lskimo Life, p. 267 
(Greenlanders). Murdoch, ‘ Ethnol. 
Results of the Point Barrow Expe- 
dition,’ in Anz. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 
41 (Point Barrow Eskimo). von Sie- 
bold, Die Aino auf der Insel Vesso, 
p: 35. von Stenin, ‘Die Kirgisen des 
Kreises Saissansk im Gebiete von 
Ssemipalatinsk,’ in Globus, lxix. 230. 
Beltrame, // Fume Bianco, p. 51 
(Arabs). Felkin, ‘Waganda Tribe of 
Central Africa,’ in Proceed. Roy. 
Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 723. Schwarz, 
quoted by Steimmetz, echtsverhilt- 
nisseé, p. 24 (Bakwiri), Jb¢d. p. 52 
(Banaka and Bapuku). Wandrer, zéed. 
p- 325 (Hottentots). Fritsch, Dze 

only occasionally ;° 

whereas 

Eingeborenen Stid-Afrika’s, p. 221 
(Bantu race). Sorge, in Steinmetz, 
Rechtsverhilinisse, p. 421 (Nissan 
Islanders-in the Bismarck Archipelage). 
Kubary, ‘Die Verbrechen und das 
Strafverfahren auf den Pelau-Inseln,’ 
in Original-Mittheitlungen aus der 
ethnol. Abtheil. d. kinigl. Museen zu 
Berlin, i. 78 (Pelew Islanders). 
Among the Malays suicide is reported 
to be extremely rare (Brooke, Zev 
Years in. Sarawak,i. 56; Ellis, ‘The 
Amok of the Malays,’ in Journal of 
Mental Science, xxxix. 331); but Dr. 
Gilmore Ellis has been told by many 
Malays that they consider Amok a 
kind of suicide. Ifa man wishes to 
die, he ‘‘amoks” in the hope of being 
killed, rather than kills himself, suicide 
being a most heinous sin according to 
the ethics of Muhammedanism '(zé2d. 
p- 331). In Siam suicide ‘is rare 
(Bowring, Szam, i. 106). Of the 
Western Islanders of Torres Straits 
Dr. Haddon says (in Reports of the 
Cambridge Anthrop: Expedition to 
Torres Stratts, v. 278) that he does not 
remember to have heard of a case of 
suicide in real life, though there are 
some instances of it in their folk- 
tales. 

6 Comte, quoted by Mouhot, Zyavels 
zw the Central Parts of Indo-China, ii. 
27 sg. (Bannavs in Cambodia). Kloss, 

FOP) PEE eT Phe Ty Bre rhe er ents 

XXXKV 

SUICIDE O3T 

among others it is represented as either common or 
extremely prevalent.!. Of the Kamchadales we are told 
that the least apprehension of danger drives them to 
despair, and that they fly to suicide as a relief, not only 
from present, but even from imaginary evil ; “ not only 
those who are confined for some offence, but such as are 
discontented with their lot, prefer a voluntary death to an 
uneasy life, and the pains of disease.” * Among the Hos, 
an Indian hill tribe, suicide is reported to be so frightfully 
prevalent as to afford no parallel in any known country : 
—‘If a girl appears mortified by anything that has been 
said, it is not safe to let her go away till she is soothed. 
A reflection on a man’s honesty or veracity may be sufficient 
to send him to self-destruction. In a recent case, a young 
woman attempted to poison herself because her uncle 
would not partake of the food she had cooked for him.” * 
Among the Karens of Burma suicide is likewise very 
common where Christianity has not been introduced. If 
a man has some incurable or painful disease, he says in a 
matter-of-fact way that he will hang himself, and he does 
as he says; if a girl’s parents compel her to marry the 
man she does not love, she hangs herself ; wives sometimes 
hang themselves through jealousy, sometimes because they 
quarrel with their husbands, and sometimes out of mere 

In the Andamans and Nicobars, p. 316 
(Nicobarese). Among the Bakongo 
cases of suicide occur, ‘‘ although 
much less frequently than in civilised 
countries” (Ward, Azve Vears with 
the Congo Cannibals, p. 45). 

1 Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, 
Report on Alaska, p. 158 (Atkha 
Aleuts). Steller, Beschretbung von 
Kamischatka, p. 293 sg. ; Krasheninni- 
koff, Hestory of Kamschatka, pp. 176, 
(Kamchadales), 184 (Chukchi), 205 

(Aleuts). Brooke, of. czt. i. 55 (Sea 
Dyaks). Williams and Calvert, 7777, 
p. 106. Turner, Samoa, p. 305; 

Tregear, ‘Niue,’ in Jozw. Polynesian 
Soc. ii. 143; Thomson, Savage [sland, 
p. 109; Hood, Crease in the Western 
Pacific, p. 22 (Savage Islanders). 

Dieffenbach, Zravels tn New Zealand, 
ii. 111 sg. 3 Collins, Anglish Colony 
in New South Wales, i. 524 (Maoris). 
Reade, Savage Africa, p. 553 Sg. 3 
Idem, quoted by Darwin, Descent of 
Man, p. 117, n. 33 (West African 
Negroes). Monrad, Skzldring af 
Guinea-Kysten, p. 23. Decle, Three 
Vears in Savage Africa, p. 74 
(Barotse). In Tana, of the New 
Hebrides (Gray, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 
xxviii. 132) and Nias (Rosenberg, Der 
malayische Archipel, p. 146) suicides 
are said to be not infrequent. 

2 Georgi, of. cit, iil. 133 sg. Cf. 
Krasheninnikoff, of. <¢?¢. p. 176. 

3 Tickell, ‘Memoir on the Hode- 
sum,’ in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Lengal, 
ix. 807. Dalton, Descriptive Ethno- 
logy of Bengal, p. 206. 

chagrin, because they are subject to depreciating com- 
parisons; and it is a favourite threat with a wife or 
daughter, when not allowed to have her own way, that she 

will hang herself.’ 

Among some uncivilised peoples 

suicide 8 frequently practised by women, though rarely 

by men.” 

The causes which, among savages, lead to suicide are 

manifold :—disappointed love or jealousy ; ° 
> grief over the death of a child,’ a husband,’ or a 

age 5 

1 Mason, ‘ Dwellings, &c., of the 
Karens,’ in Jour. Aszatic Soc. Bengal, 
XXXVii. pt. ll. 141. 

2 Keating, Zxpedition to the Source 
of St. Peter’s River, i. 394 (Daco- 
tahs) ; ii. 171 sg. (Chippewas). Brad- 
bury, Zvavels in the Interior of 
America, p. 87 (Dacotahs). Brooke 
Low, quoted by Ling Roth, Watzves of 
Sarawak, i. 117 (Sea Dyaks). Mun- 
zinger, Die Sztten und das Recht der 
Bese, 5 OB 
3 Lasch, ‘ Der Selbstmord aus ero- 
tischen Motiven bei den primitiven 
Volkern,’ in Zettschrift fiir Social- 
wissenchaft, ii. 579 sgg. Westermarck, 
History of Human Marriage, p. 503- 
es op. ctt. il. 172 (Chippewas). 
Eastman, Dacotah, pp. 89 sgg., 168 
sg; Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 
321 sg. (Dacotahs). Turner, ‘ Ethno- 
logy of the Ungava District, Hudson 
Bay Territory,’ in Azz. Rep. Bur. 
Ethn. xi. 187 (Koksoagmyut). Mason, 
in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxvii. pt. 
ii. 141 (Karens). Brooke Low, quoted 
by Ling Roth, Matdves of Sarawak, ih 
115 (Sea Dyaks). Kubary, ‘ Religion 
der Pelauer,’ in Bastian, AZlerlet aus 
Volks- und Menschenkunde, i. 3 (Pelew 

Islanders). Senfft, in ~Steinmetz, 
Rechtsverhdltnisse, p. 452 (Marshall 
Islanders). Codrington, AZelaneszans, 

p. 243 sg. (natives of the Banks’ 
Islands and Northern New Hebrides). 
Waitz, Anthropoloste der Naturvolker, 
vi. 115; Malone, Zhree Years’ Cruzse 
in the Australasian Colonies, p » 72 Sq. 
(Maoris). Reade, Savage aes wca, Pp. 
554 (West African Negroes). Mun- 
zinger, Dze Szwtten und das Recht der 
Bogos, p- 93 59- 

+ Dodge, op. czt. p. 321 sg. (North 
American Indians). Holm, ‘ Ethno- 

illness * or old 

logisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne,’ in 
Meddelelser om Gréinland, x. 181 (Ang- 
magsaliks of Eastern Greenland). 
Georgi, of. czt. ili. 134 (Kamchadales). 
Mason, in Jour. Astatic Soc. Bengal, 
XXXVii. pt. ii. 141 (Karens). Gray, in 
Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxviii. 132 (natives 
of Tana, New Hebrides). Sartori, 
‘Die Sitte der Alten- und Kranken- 
totung,’ in Globus, \xvil. 109 sg. 

5 Perrin du Lac, Voyage dans les 
deux Louwistanes, p. 346. Nansen, 
First Crossing of Greenland, ii. 331 ; 
Idem, Eskimo Life, pp. 170, 267 
(Greenlanders). Steller, Beschrezbung 
von Kamtschatka, p. 294. Wilkes, 
U.S. Exploring Expedition, Ui. 96 ; 
Hale, U.S. Exploring Expedition. 
Vol. VI. Ethnog. craphy and Philology, 
. 65 (Fijians). Diodorus Siculus, 
Bibliotheca historica, iii. 33.5 (Trog- 
lodytes).. Pomponius Mela, De sztu 
orbts, iil. 7 (Seres). Hartknoch, A/¢- 
und Neues Preussen, i. 181 (ancient 
Prussians). Mareschalcus, Azzales 
flerulorum ac WVandalorum, i. 8 
(Monumenta inedita rerum Germant- 
carum, i. 191); Procopius, De bello 
Gothico, ii. 14. (Heruli). Maurer, Dze 
Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes 
zum Christenthume, ii. 79, n. 48 
(ancient Scandinavians). 

8 Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, of. 
cét, p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Keating, 
op. ctt. ii. 172 (Chippewas). Colenso, 
Maort Races, pp. 46, 57; Dieffenbach, 
op. cit. ii. 112 (Maoris). 

7 Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, of. 
cut, p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Haddon, 
in Rep. Cambridge Anthr. Exped. to 
Torres Straits, v. r7 (Western Islanders, 
according to a Kauralaig folk-tale). 
Colenso, of. cz¢t. pp. 46, 57; Dieffen- 
bach, op. cit. ii. 112 (Maoris). 

j 
. 
= 
: 
. 
| 

db 

“ity 

wife ;' fear of punishment ;? slavery * or brutal treat- 

ment by a husband;* remorse,? shame or wounded 
pride, anger or revenge.? In various cases an offended 
person kills himself for the express purpose of taking 
revenge upon the offender.” Thus among the Tshi- 
speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, ‘shoulda person com- 
mit suicide, and before so doing attribute the act to the 
conduct of another person, that other person is required by 
native law to undergo a like fate. The practice is termed 
‘killing oneself upon the head of another,’ and the person 
whose conduct is supposed to have driven the suicide to com- 
mit the rash act is visited with a death of an exactly similar 
nature ’—unless, indeed, the family of the suicide be 

pacified with a money compensation.® 

the Savage Islanders, who 

1 Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, of. 
cit. p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Fawcett, 
Saoras, p. 17. Dieffenbach, op. czz. 
li. 112 (Maoris). 

2 Steller, Beschrethung von Kam- 
ischatka, p. 293. Dieffenbach,*of. cz. 
il. 112 (Maoris). 

3 Modigliani, Veaggio a Nias, p. 473. 
Decle, of. czt. p. 74 (Barotse). Mon- 
rad, op. cit. p. 25 (Negroes of Accra). 
Donne, &iathanatos, p. 56 (American 
Indians). 

4 Wied-Neuwied, TZravels in the 
Interior of North America, p. 349 
(Mandans). 

5 Turner, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. 
xi. 187 (Koksoagmyut). Mr. Dawson 
(Australian Aborigines, p. 62 sq.) tells 
us of a native of Western Victoria 
who decided to commit suicide because, 
being intoxicated, he had killed his 
wife, and was so sorry forit. He be- 
sought the tribe to kill him, and seeing 
his determination to starve himself to 
death, his friends at last sent for the 
tribal executioner, who pushed a spear 
through him. 

6 Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, of. 
cit. p. 158 (Atkha Aleuts). Keating, 
op. cit. ii. 171 (Chippewas). Dalton, 
op. ctt. p. 206 ; Jickell, in Jour. Astatic 
Soc. Bengal, ix. 807 (Hos). Colquhoun, 
Amongst the Shans, p. 76 sq. (Let- 
htas). Mac Mahon, Far Cathay, p. 241 
(Tarus, one of the Chino-Burmese 

With reference to 
especially in heathen times 

border tribes). Brooke, of. czt. 1. 55 
(Sea Dyaks). Chalmers, Proneer Life 
and Work in New Guinea, p. 227 (a 
woman at Port Moresby; Mr. Abel 
[Savage Life in New Guinea, p. 102] 
speaks of a New Guinea woman who 
was so annoyed because her old village 
friends had not visited her during her 
illness that she attempted to commit 
suicide). Codrington, of. cét. p. 243 
sg. (natives of the Banks’ Islands and 
Northern New Hebrides). Williams 
and Calvert, of. czt. p. 106 (Fijians). 
Tregear, in Jour. Polynesian Soc. ii. 
14 (Savage Islanders). Dietfenbach, 
Opec. IPX sg3 Collins, ap ct. i. 
524; Angas, Savage Life in Australia 
and New Zealand, ii. 45; Colenso, of. 
cit. p. 56 sg. (Maoris). Ward, /2ve 
Years with the Congo Cannibals, p. 45 
(Bakongo). Lasch, ‘ Besitzen die 
Naturvolker ein personliches Ehrge- 
fiihl ?? in Zedtschr. f. Soctalwissenschaft, 
iil. $37 sag. 

7 See Lasch, ‘ Rache als Selbstmord- 
motiv,’ in Globus, \xxiv. 37 sqgq. 3 
Steinmetz, ‘Gli antichi scongiuri giu- 
ridici contro i creditori,’ in zvzsta 
tlaliana dt soctologza, ii. 49 sqq. 

8 Ellis, 7sh2-speakinge Peoples of the 
Gold Coast, p. 302. The same custom 
is mentioned by Monrad (of. cz¢. p. 23 
5g.), Bowdich (Msston to Ashantee, 
pp. 250, 257, 259 nu. i), and Reade 
(Savage Africa, p. 554), 

were much addicted to suicide, we are told that, “like 
angry children, they are tempted to avenge themselves by 
picturing the trouble that they will bring upon the friends 
who have offended them.”’ Among the Thlinkets an 
offended person who is unable to take revenge in any 
other way commits suicide in order to expose the person 
who gave the offence to the vengeance of his surviving 
relatives and friends.? Among the Chuvashes it was 
formerly the custom for enraged persons to hang them- 
selves at the doors of their enemies.? A similar method 
of taking revenge is still not infrequently resorted to by the 
Votyaks, who believe that the ghost of the deceased will 
then persecute the offender.* Sometimes a suicide has the 
character of a human sacrifice.’ In the times of epidemics 
or great calamities the Chukchi sacrifice their own lives in 
order to appease evil spirits and the souls of departed 
relatives.© Among some savages it is common for a 
woman, especially if married to a man of importance, to 
commit suicide on the death of her husband,’ or to demand 
to be buried with him;* and many Brazilian Indians 
killed themselves on the graves of their chiefs.® 

In various other cases, besides the voluntary sacrifices of » 

widows or slaves, the suicides of savages are connected 
with their notions of a future life." The belief in the new 

Marriage, p. 125 (Fijians). Codring- 
ton, of. czt. p. 289 (natives of Aurora 

1 Thomson, Savage [sland, p. 109. 
2 Krause, Die Tlinkit-I[ndianer, 

pe 22. 

3 Lebedew, ‘Die simbirskischen 
Tschuwaschen,’ in Erman’s <A7chiv 
fiir wissenchaftliche Kunde von 
Russland, ix. 586 n. ** 

4 Buch, ‘Die Wotjiken;? in Acta 
Soc. Sceent. Mennice, xii. O11 sq. 

5 See Lasch, ‘ Religidser Selbstmord 
und seine Beziehung zum Menschen- 
opfer,’ in Globus, Ixxv. 69 sqq. 

6 Skrzyncki, ‘ Der Selbstmord bei 
den Tschuktschen,’ in Am U7-Quell, 
Vv. 207 sq. 

7 Ashe, Two Kings of Uganda, p. 
342 (Wahuma). Johnston, Uganda 
Protectorate, ii. 610 (Bairo). Junghuhn, 
Die Battaliinder auf Sumatra, ii. 340 
(natives of Bali and Lombok). 

8 Westermarck, /Zestory of Human 

Island, New: Hebrides). 

® Dorman, —Ovigzn of Primitive 
Superstitions, p. 211. Cf. ibid. p. 209. 
Of the Niger Delta tribes M. le Comte 
de Cardi writes (in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 
xxix. 55) :—‘‘ On the deportation of a 
king ora chief by the British or other 
European government for some offence 
I have seen the wives of the deported 
man throw themselves into the river 
and fight like mad women with the 
people who went to their rescue; I have 
also seen some of the male retainers 
both free and slaves of a deported king 
or chief attempt their own lives at the 
moment when the vessel carrying away 
their chief disappeared from their 
sight.” 

10 Cf. Steinmetz, in American 

human birth of the departed soul has led West African 
negroes to take their own lives when in distant slavery, 
that they may awaken in their native land. Among the 
Chukchi there are persons who kill themselves for the 
purpose of effecting an earlier reunion with their deceased 
relatives.” Among the Samoyedes it happens that a youn 
girl who is sold to an old man strangles herself in the hope 
of getting a more suitable bridegroom in the other world.® 
We are told that the Kamchadales inflict death on them- 
selves with the utmost coolness because they maintain that 
“the future life is a continuation of the present, but much 
better and more perfect, where they expect to have all 
their desires more completely satisfied than here.’* The 
suicides of old people, again, are in some cases due to the 
belief that a man enters into the other world in the same 
condition in which he left this one, and that it conse- 
quently is best for him to die before he grows too old and 
feeble.° 

The notions of savages concerning life after death also 
influence their moral valuation of suicide. Where men 
are supposed to require wives not only during their life- 
time, but after their death, it may be a praiseworthy thing, 
or even a duty, for a widow to accompany her husband to 
the land of souls. According to Fijian beliefs, the woman 
who at the funeral of her husband met death with the 
greatest devotedness would become the favourite wife in 
the abode of spirits, whereas a widow who did not permit 
herself to be killed was considered an adulteress.° Among 
the Central African Bairo those women who refrained from 
destroying themselves over their husbands’ graves were 
regarded as outcasts." On the Gold Coast a man of low 

Anthropologist, vii. 60; Vierkandt, 1880, p. 777. 
Naturvilker und Kulturvolker, p. 284 ; 4 Georgi, a. 265. (C7, Steller; 

Lasch, in Zettschroft fiir Soctalwissen- Beschreibung vor Kamtschatka, 
schaft, ii. 585. p- 294. 
1 Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 5. > Hale, of. czt. p. 65 (Fijians). C/, 
2 Skrzyncki, in Am UOr-Quell, supra, i. 390. 
Ta ZO Ts 6 Westermarck, of. cz/. p. 125 Sq. 
3 von Struve, ‘Die Samojeden im 7 Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, 

Norden von Sibirien, in Azsland, ii, 610, 

rank who has married one of the king’s sisters is expected 
to make away with himself when his wife dies, or upon the 
death of an only male child; and ‘should he outrage 
native custom and neglect to an so, a hint is conveyed to 
him that he will be put to death, which usually produces 
the desired effect.”’ The customary suicides of the 
Chukchi are solemnly performed in the presence and with 
the assistance of relatives and neighbours.? The Samoyedes 
maintain that suicide by strangulation “is pleasing to God, 
who looks upon it as a voluntary sacrifice, which deserves 
reward.” * ‘The opinion of the Kamchadales that it is 
“allowable and praiseworthy’ for a man to take his own 
life,* was probably connected with their optimistic notions 
about their fate after death. And that the habitual 
suicides of old persons have the sanction of public opinion 
is particularly obvious where they may choose between 
killing themselves and being killed.’ 

Whilst in some cases suicide opens the door to a happy 
land beyond the grave, it in other cases entails conse- 
quences of a very different kind. The Omahas believe 
that a self-murderer ceases to exist.° According to the 

Thompson Indians in British Columbia, “the souls of — 

people who commit suicide do not go to the land of souls. 
The shamans declare they never saw such people there ; 
and some say that they have looked for the souls of such 
people, but could not find their tracks. Some shamans 
say they cannot locate the place where the souls of suicides 
go, but think they must be lost, because they seem to 
disappear altogether. Others say that these souls die, and 
cease to exist. Still others claim that the souls never leave 
the earth, but wander around aimlessly.”” So also the 
Jakuts believe that the ghost of a self-murderer never 

1 Ellis, 7shz-speaking Peoples of the First Crossing of Greenland, ii. 331. 

Gold Coast, p. 287. Steller, of. cz#. p. 294 (Kamchadales). 
2 Skrzynecki, in Am UOr-Quell, 6 La Flesche, ‘Death and Funeral 
yv. 208. Customs among the Omahas,’ in 
3 von Struve, in Azsland, 1880, Jour. of American Folk-Lore, ii. 11. 
Wile Ueieit yee Thompson Indians _ of 
4 Steller, of. cit. p. 269. Cf. British Columbia,’ in AZemoirs of the 
Krasheninnikoff, of. cz¢. p. 204. American Museum of Natural History, 

> Supra, i. 389 sg. (Fijians). Nansen, Anthropology, i. 358 sg. 

SUICIDE 

comes to rest.1 Sometimes the fate of suicides after death 
is represented as a punishment which they suffer for their 
deed. Thus the Dacotahs, among whom women not 
infrequently put an end to their existence by hanging 
themselves, are of opinion that suicide is displeasing to the 
“Father of Life,” and will be punished in the land of 
spirits by the ghost being doomed for ever to drag the 
tree on which the person hanged herself; hence the 
women always suspend themselves to as small a tree as 
can possibly sustain their weight. The Paharias of the 
Rajmahal Hills, in India, say that “suicide is a crime in 
God’s eyes,” and that “the soul of one who so offends 
shall not be admitted into heaven, but must hover eternally 
as a ghost between heaven and earth.” * The Kayans of 
Borneo maintain that self-murderers are sent to a place 
called Zan Tekkan, where they will be very poor and 
wretched, subsisting on leaves, roots, or anything they can 
pick up in the forests, and being easily distinguished by 
their miserable appearance.* According to Dyak beliefs, 
they go to a special place, where those who have drowned 
themselves must thenceforth live up to their waists in 
water, and those who have poisoned themselves must live 
in houses built of poisonous woods and surrounded by 
noxious plants, the exhalations of which are painful to the 
spirits.” In other instances we are simply told that the 
souls of suicides, together with those of persons who have 
been killed in war,° or who have died a violent death,’ 
are not permitted to live with the rest of the souls, to 
whom their presence would cause uneasiness. Among the 
Hidatsa Indians some people say that the ghosts of men 

Journal, i. 199. 

1 Sumner, in Jour, Anthr. Inst. 
5 Wilken, Het animisme bi de 

XXxi. IOI. 

2 Bradbury, Zravels tn the Interior 
of America, p. 89. Cf. Keating, of. 
cit. 1. 394. 

3 Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of 
Bengal, p. 268. Cf. Sherwill, ‘Tour 
through the Rajmaha! Hills,’ in Jour. 
Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xx. 556. 

4 Hose, ‘Journey up the Baram 
River to Mount Dulit and the High- 
lands of Borneo,’ in Geographical 

volken van den Indischen Archipel, 
i. 44. 

6 Brebeuf, ‘Relation de ce qvi s’est 
passé dans le pays des Hvrons,’ in 
Relations des Jésuttes, 1636, p. 
104 sg. Hewitt, ‘The Iroquoian 
Concept of the Soul,’ in four. of 
American Folk-Lore, viii. 109. 

7 Steinmetz, in American Anthro- 

pologist, vii. 58 (Niase). 

who have made away with themselves occupy a separate 
part of the village of the dead, but that their con- 
dition in no other wise differs from that of the other 
ghosts.’ 

It is, however, hard to believe that the fate of the self- 
murderer, whether it be annihilation, a vagrant existence 
on earth, or separation in the other world, was originally 
meant as a punishment ; for a similar lot is assigned to 
the souls of persons who have been drowned,’ or who 
have died by accident or violence.* It seems that the 
suicide’s future state is in the first place supposed to 
depend upon the treatment of his corpse. Frequently he 
is denied burial, or at least the ordinary funeral rites,* and 
this may give rise to the notion that his soul never comes 
to rest or, possibly, even ceases to exist. Or he is buried 
by himself, apart from the other dead,’ in which case his 
soul must naturally remain equally isolated. Among the 
Alabama Indians, for instance, ‘“* when a man kills himself, 
either in despair or in a sickness, he 1s deprived of burial, 
and thrown into the river.” ° In Dahomey “ the body of 
any person committing suicide is not allowed to be buried, 
but thrown out into the fields to be devoured by wild 
beasts.” * Among the Fantis of the Gold Coast “il y a 
des places réservees aux suicidés et a ceux qui sont morts 
de la petite verole. Ils sont enterrés a l’écart loin de toute 

1 Matthews, Ethnography and violence, or starvation, go to a land of 
Philology of the Hidatsa Indians, plenty in the sky, where there is light, 

p- 49. 
2 Teit, Joc. cit. p. 359 (Thompson 
Indians). 

% Soppitt,  <Awki-Lushat — Tribes, 
p- 12. Anderson, Jandalay io 
Momien, p. 146 (Kakhyens). Miiller, 
Geschichte der Amertkantschen Urrele- 
gionen, p. 287 (Brazilian Indians). 
Supra, ii. 237. ThesCentral Eskimo 
believe that all who die by accident or 
by violence, and women who die in 
childbirth, are taken to the upper, 
happier world (Boas, ‘Central Eskimo,’ 
in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 590). 
According to the belief of the Behring 
Strait Eskimo, the shades of shamans, 
or persons who die by accident, 

food, and water in abundance ; whereas 
the shades of people who die from 
natural causes go to the underground 
land of the dead (Nelson, ‘Eskimo 
about Bering Strait,’ in Anz. Rep. 
Bur. Eth. xviii. 423). 

4 See Lasch, ‘ Die Behandlung der 
Leiche des Selbstmorders,’ in G/obus, 
Ixxvi. 63 sgg. 

> bid. p. 65. 

8 Bossu, Travels through Loudstana, 
1. 258. 

" M‘Leod, Voyage to Africa, p. 48 
sg. I am indebted to Mr. N. W. 
Thomas for drawing my attention to 
this and a few other statements in the 
present chapter, 

: 
E 
= 
; 
} 
. 

habitation et de tout chemin public.”! In the Pelew 
Islands a self-murderer is buried not with his own deceased 
relatives, but in the place where he ended his life, as are 
also the corpses of those who fall in war.2 Among the 
Bannavs of Cambodia ‘anyone who perishes by his own 
hand is buried in a corner of the forest far from the graves 
of his brethren.”* Among the Sea Dyaks “those who 
commit suicide are buried in different places from others, 
as it is supposed that they will not be allowed to mix in 
the seven-storied heaven with such of their fellow-country- 
men as come by their death in a natural manner or from 
the influence of the spirits.”* The motive for thus treat- 
ing self-murderers’ bodies is superstitious fear. Their 
ghosts, as the ghosts of persons who have died by any 
other violent means or by accident, are supposed to be 
particularly malevolent,’ owing to their unnatural mode of 
death® or to the desperate or angry state of mind in which 
they left this life. If they are not buried at all, or if they 
are buried in the spot where they died or in a separate 
place, that is either because nobody dares to interfere with 
them, or in order to prevent them from mixing with the 
other dead. So also murdered persons are sometimes left 
unburied,’ and people who are supposed to have been killed 
by evil spirits are buried apart 5° whilst those struck with 
lightning are either denied interment,’ or buried where 
they fell and in the position in which they died.” We 
sometimes hear of a connection between the way in which 
a suicide’s body is treated and the moral opinion as regards 
his deed. Among the Alabama Indians his corpse is said 

1 Gallaud, ‘A la Céte d’Or,’ in 
Les mitsstons catholigques, xxv. 347. 

2 Kubary, in Orzginal-Mittherl. aus 
der ethnol. Abtherl. d, kinigl. Museen 
au Berlin, i. 78. 

% Comte, quoted by Mouhot, of. cz. 
fiom sees also). Das Volk’ ider 
Bannar,’ in Mtthezl. d. Geogr. Ges. 
eu Jena, il. 9. 

4 St. fohn, Zzfe zn the Forests of the 
Far East, i. 69. 

5 Lasch, in Globus, lxxvi. 65. Cf. 
Liebrecht, Ze Volkskunde, p. 414 sq. 

6 Lippert, Der Seelencult, p. 11. 
Kubary, in Ordginal-Mitthecl. aus der 
ethnol. Abtheil. d. kinigl Museen zu 
Berlin, i. 78. 

” Rosenberg, Der malayrsche 
Archipel, p. 461 (Papuans of Dorey). 

8 Hodson, ‘Native Tribes of 
Manipur, in /our. <Anthr. Inst. 
XXX1. 305 5g. 

® Burton, AZzsseon to Gelele, ii. 142 
sg. (Dahomans). 

10 La Flesche, in /ozr. 
Folk-Lore, il. 11 (Omahas). 

American 

to be thrown into the river “‘ because he is looked upon as 
a coward” ;' and of the Ossetes M. Kovalewsky states 
that they bury suicides far away from other dead persons 
because they regard their act as sinful.” But we may be 
sure that moral condemnation is not the original cause of 
these practices. 

It is comparatively seldom that savages are reported to 
attach any stigma to suicide. To the instances mentioned 
above a few others may be added. The Waganda, we 
are told, greatly condemn the act. Among the Bogos 
‘‘a man never despairs, never gives himself up, and con- 
siders suicide as the greatest indignity.” * The Karens of 
Burma deem it an act of cowardice ; but at the same time 
they have no command against it, they “seem to see 
little or no guilt in it,” and ‘ we are nowhere told that it 
is displeasing to the God of heaven and earth.”° The 
Dacotahs said of a girl who had destroyed herself because 
her parents had turned her beloved from the wigwam, and 
would force her to marry a man she hated, that her spirit 
did not watch over her earthly remains, being offended 
when she brought trouble upon her aged mother and 
father. In Dahomey “it is criminal to attempt to 
commit suicide, because every man is the property of the 
king. ‘The bodies of suicides are exposed to public 
execration, and the head is always struck off and sent to 
Agbomi ; at the expense of the family if the suicide were 
a free man, at that of his master if he were a slave.’ * 
On the other hand, it is expressly stated of various 
savages that they do not punish attempts to commit 
suicide.® The negroes of Accra see nothing wrong in the 
act. ‘ Why,” they would ask, “should a person not be 

1 Bossu, of. czt. 1. 258. 7 Ellis,  Zebe-speaking Peoples, 

® Kovalewsky, Coutume contem- pp. 224. : 
por aine et lot ancienneé, p. 327. 8 Leuschner, in Steinmetz, 
3 Felkin, in 27 ‘oceed, Roy. Soc. Rechtsverhdlinisse, p. 24 (Bakwiri). 
Edinburgh, xiii. 723. Nicole, zb¢d@. p. 135 (Diakité- 
4 Munzinger, Dze Sitter wnd das  Sarracolese). Lang, 22d. p. 262 
Recht der Bogos, p. 93. (Washambala), Rautanen, zé2d. p. 
5 Mason, in /owr. Aséatic Soe. 343 (Ondonga). Sorge, zbed. p. 421 
Bengal, Xxxvii. pt. il. 141. (Nissan Islanders). Senfft, 7d7d. p. 

6 Eastman, of. czt. p. 169. 452 (Marshall Islanders). 

— 

allowed to die, when he no longer desires to live?” But 
they inflict cruel punishments upon slaves who try to put 
an end to themselves, in order to deter other slaves from 
doing the same.!’ Among the Pelew Islanders suicide ‘is 
neither praised nor blamed.’”’? The Eskimo around 
Northumberland Inlet and Davis Strait believe that any- 
one who has been killed by accident, or who has taken 
his own life, certainly goes to the happy place after 
death. The Chippewas hold suicide ‘to be a foolish, not 
a reprehensible action,’ and do not believe it to entail 
any punishment in the other world.* In his sketches of 
the manners and customs of the North American Indians, 
Buchanan writes :—‘‘Suicide is not considered by the 
Indians either as an act of heroism or of cowardice, nor is 
it with them a subject of praise or blame. They view 
this desperate act as the consequence of mental derangement, 
and the person who destroys himself is to them an object 
or pity.” 4 

From the opinions on suicide held by uncivilised races 
we shall pass to those prevalent among peoples of a higher 
culture. In China suicide is extremely common among 
all classes and among persons of all ages.’ For those who 
have been impelled to this course by a sense of honour 
the gates of heaven open wide, and tablets bearing their 
names are erected in the temples in honour of virtuous 
men or women. As _ honourable self-murderers are 
regarded servants or officers of state who choose not to 
survive a defeat in battle or an insult offered to the 
sovereign of their country ; young men who, when an 
insult has been paid to their parents which they are unable 
to avenge, prefer not to survive it ; and women who kill 

1 Monrad, of. cit. pp. 23, 25. p-. 184. 
2 Kubary, in Original-Mittherl. aus 6 Gray, China, i. 329. Huc, Zhe 
der ethnol. Abthetl. ad. kintgl. Museen Chinese Empire, p. 181. Matignon, 

zu Berlin, i. 78. ‘Le suicide en Chine,’ in Archives 
3 Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 572. ad anthrofologie criminelle, xii. 367 sgq. 
Cf. supra, ii. 238, n. 3. Cathonay, ‘Aux environs de Fou- 
* Keating, of. cet. 1. 172. tchéon,’ in Les mzsstons catholiques, 

5 Buchanan, Sketches of the History,  xxxi. 341 sg. Ball, Things Chinese, 
&c. of the North American Indians,  p. 564 sqq. 

WO I R 

themselves on the death of their husbands or francés.' 
In spite of imperial prohibitions, sutteeism of widowed 
wives and brides has continued to flourish in China down 
to this day, and meets with the same public applause as 
ever 3? whilst those widowed wives and brides who have 
lost their lives in preserving their chastity, are entitled 
both to an honorary gate and to a place in a temple of the 
State as an object of worship.? Another common form 
of suicide which is admired as heroic in China is that 
committed for the purpose of taking revenge upon an 
enemy who is otherwise out of reach—according to 
Chinese ideas a most effective mode of revenge, not only 
because the law throws the responsibility of the deed on 
him who occasioned it, but also because the disembodied 
soul is supposed to be better able than the living man to 
persecute the enemy.* The Chinese have a firm belief in 
the wandering spirits of persons who have died by 
violence ; thus self-murderers are supposed to haunt the 
places where they committed the fatal deed and en- 
deavour to persuade others to follow their example, at 
times even attempting to play executioner by strangling 

those who reject their advances.? ‘ Violent deaths,” says. 

Mr. Giles, “are regarded with horror by the Chinese ” ; ° 
and suicides committed from- meaner motives are repro- 
bated.’ It issaidin the Yu Li, or “‘ Divine Panorama ”—a 
Taouist work which is very popular all over the Chinese 
Empire—that whilst persons who kill themselves out of 
loyalty, filial piety, chastity, or friendship, will go to 
heaven, those who do so “in a trivial burst of rage, or 
fearing the consequences of a crime which would not 
amount to death, or in the hope of falsely injuring a 

1 Gray, op. cit. 1. 337 sqq. xli. 371 sgg. de Groot, of. céz. (vol. 
"de Groot, Religious System of iv. hook) ii. 450 sg. Cathonay, in 
China (vol. 11. book) i. 748. Ball, Les mésstons catholiques, xxxi. 341 sg. 
op. cit. p. 565. Cathonay, in Les Ball, of. cét. p. 566 sg. 
missions catholiques, XXXi. 341. > Davis, Chzna, ii, 94. Dennys, 
3 de Groot, of. cét. (vol. ii. book)  Folk-Lore of China, p. 74 sq. 
i. 792. § Giles, Strange Stories from a 

4 Huc, of. cet. p. 181. Matignon,  Chznese Studio, ii. 363, n. 9. 
in Archives @anthropologie créiminelle, ” Gray, op. cét. i. 337. 

fellow-creature,” will be severely punished in the infernal 
regions. No pardon will be granted them ; they are 
not, like other sinners, allowed to claim their good works 
as a set-off against evil, whereby they might partly escape 
the agonies of hell ae receive some reward for their 
virtuous deeds. Sometimes suicide is classified by the 
Chinese as an offence against religion, on the ground that 
a person owes his being to Heaven, and is therefore 
responsible to Heaven for due care of the gift.* 

‘The Japanese calendar of saints,” says Mr. Griffis, 
‘is not filled with reformers, alms-givers, and founders of 
hospitals or orphanages, but is overcrowded with canonised 
suicides and committers of harakiri. Even to-day, no man 
more. . . surely draws homage to his tomb, securing even 
apotheosis, than the suicide, though he may have com- 
mitted a crime.’’* There were two kinds of harakiri, or 
“ belly-cutting,” one obligatory and the other voluntary. 
The former was a boon granted by government, who 
graciously permitted criminals of the Samurai, or military, 
class thus to destroy themselves instead of being handed 
over to the common executioner ; but this custom is now 

uite extinct. Voluntary harakiri, again, was practised 
out of loyalty to a dead superior, or in order to protest, 
when other protests might be unavailing, against the 
erroneous conduct of a living superior, or to avoid 
beheading by the enemy in a lost battle, or to restore 
injured honour if revenge was impossible. Under any 
circumstances /arakiri cleansed from every stain, and 
ensured an honourable interment and a respected memory.” 
It is said in a Japanese manuscript, ‘To slay his enemy 
against whom he has cause of hatred, and then to kill 
himself, is the part of a noble Samurai, and it 1s sheer 
nonsense to look upon the place where he has dis- 

1 Giles, of. czt. ii. 365. p. 219 sgg. Rein, Japan, p. 328. 
4 7b7d. i. 363. Kiihne, in G/odus, \xxiv. 166 sg. A 
3 Alabaster, Votes and Commentaries very full account of the ceremony of 

on Chinese Criminal Law, p. 304. harakiri is given in Mitford’s Zales 
4 Griffis, Relietons of Japan, p. 112. of Old Japan, ii. 193 sqg., from a rare 
5 Chamberlain, Things Japanese, Japanese manuscript. 

Ra, 

SUICIDE 

embowelled himself as polluted.”? In old days the 
ceremony used to be performed in a temple.’ 

Among the Hindus we meet with the practice of self- 
immolation of widows—until recently very prevalent in 
many parts of India *—and various forms of self-destruc- 
tion for religious purposes, . Suicide has always been 
considered by the Hindus to be one of the most accept- 
able rites that can be offered to their deities. According to 
the Ayen Akbery, there were five kinds of suicide held to 
be meritorious in the Hindu, namely :— starving ; covering 
himself with cow-dung and setting it on fire and consuming 
himself therein ; burying himself in snow ; immersing him- 
self in the water at the extremity of Bengal, where the 
Ganges discharges itself into the sea through a thousand 
channels, enumerating his sins, and praying till the alligators 
come and devour him ; cutting his throat at Allahabad, at 
the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna.* To these might 
be added drowning at Hurdwar, Allahabad, and Saugor ; 
perishing in the cold of the Himalayas; the practice of 
dying under the wheels of Juggurnath’s car ;° and the 
custom of men throwing themselves down from certain 
rocks to fulfil the vows of their mothers, or to receive. 
forgiveness for sins, or to be re-born rajas in their next 
state of transmigration.® It is also common for persons 
who are afflicted with leprosy or any other incurable 
disease to bury or drown themselves with due ceremonies, 

by which they are considered acceptable sacrifices to the 

deity,’ or to roll themselves into fires with the notion that 
thus purified they will receive a happy transmigration into 
a healthy body.® -Suicide was further resorted to by 

1 Mitford, of. czt, ii. 201. 

2 bid. ii. 196. 

* Malcolm, Memoir of Central 
India, ii. 206 sgg. Chevers, Manual 
of Medical Jurisprudence for India, 
Dp 005. Ch. Supra, A. A738 sg. oir 
John Malcolm observes (of. cét. ii. 206, 
n, {) that the practice of sz¢tee was 
not always confined to widows, but 
that sometimes mothers burned them- 
selves on the death of their only sons. 

4 Chevers, of. cz¢t. p. 664. Cf. Laws 

of Manit, vi. 31. 

> Ibid. p. 664. Ward, View of the 
Flistory, Sc. of the Hindoos, it. 115 
5Qq- Rajendralala. Mitra,  Zndo- 
Aryans, ili. 70. 

6 Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections 
of an Indian Official, i. 132 ‘sg. 
Malcolm, Alemozr of Central India, 
li. 209 sgg. Forsyth, Highlands of 
Central India, p. 172 sq. 

7 Sleeman, of. cé¢. ii. 344 sg. 

8 Ward, of. cat. ii. 119. 

- 

ee 

Brahmans for the purpose of avenging an injury, as it was 
believed that the ghost of the deceased would persecute the 
offender, and, presumably, also because of the great efficacy 
which was attributed to the curse of a dying Brahman.! 
When one of the Rajput rajas once levied a war-subsidy on 
the Brahmans, some of the wealthiest, having expostulated 
in vain, poniarded themselves in his presence, pouring 
maledictions on his head with their last-breath ; and thus 
cursed, the raja laboured under a ban of excommunication 
even amongst his personal friends.* We are told of a 
Brahman girl who, having been seduced by a certain raja, 
burned herself to death, and in dying imprecated the most 
fearful curses on the raja’s kindred, after which they were 
visited with such a succession of disasters that they 
abandoned their family settlement at Baliya, where the 
woman’s tomb is worshipped to this day. Once when a 
raja ordered the house of a Brahman to be demolished 
and resumed the lands which had been conferred upon 
him, the latter fasted till he died at the palace gate, and 
became thus a Brahm, or malignant Brahman ghost, who 
avenged the injury he had suffered by destroying the raja 
and his house.* At Azimghur, in 1835, a Brahman 
‘“‘ threw himself down a well, that his ghost might haunt his 
neighbour.” ° The same idea undoubtedly underlies the 
custom of “sitting dharna,”’ which was practised by 
creditors who sat down before the doors of their debtors 
threatening to starve themselves to death if their claims 
were not paid ;° and the sin attached to causing the death 
of a Brahman would further increase the efficacy of the 
creditor’s threats.’ At the same time religious suicide 
is said to be a crime in a Brahman.® And in the sacred 

1 Chevers, of. cit. p. 659 sgg.  scongiuri giuridici contro i creditori,’ 
Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk- in Kivista italiana dé soctologia, ii. 
Lore of Northern India, i. 191 sqg. 58. For the practice of dharna see 
van Mokern, Ostendien, i. 319 sqq. zbid. p. 37 sgqg.3 Balfour, Cyclopedia 

2 Tod, quoted by Chevers, of. cit. of ndéa, i. 934 sg. 3 van Mokern, of. 
p. 659 sg. CU Ma 322 05Gs 

3 Crooke, of. czt. i. 193. 7 Cf. Jones, quoted by Balfour, 

4 bid. i. 191 Sg. op. ctt. 1. 935. i 

5 Chevers, of. czt. p. 663. 8 Ward, of. ctt. il. 115. Forsyth, 

6 Cf. Steinmetz, ‘Gli antichi of. cét. p. 173. 

books we read that for him who destroys himself by means 
of wood, water, clods of earth, stones, weapons, poison, or 
a rope, no funeral rites shall be performed by his relatives ; * 
that he who resolves to die by his own hand shall fast for 
three days; and that he who attempts suicide, but remains 
alive, shall perform severe penance.” The Buddhists allow 
a man under certain circumstances to take his own life, 
but maintain that generally dire miseries are in store for 
the self-murderer, and look upon him as one who must 
have sinned deeply in a former state of existence.® It 
should be added that in India, as elsewhere, the souls of 
those who have killed themselves or met death by any 
other violent means are regarded as particularly malevolent 
and troublesome.* 

The Old Testament mentions a few cases of suicide.’ 
In none of them is any censure passed on the perpetrator 
of the deed, nor is there any text which expressly forbids 
a man to die by his own hand; and of Ahithophel it is 
said that he was buried in the sepulchre of his father.° It 
seems, however, that according to Jewish custom persons 

who had killed themselves should be left unburied till 

sunset,’ perhaps for fear lest the spirit of the deceased - 

otherwise might find its way back to the old home.® 
Josephus, who mentions this custom, denounces suicide as 
an act of cowardice, as a crime most remote from the 
common nature of all animals, as impiety against the 
Creator ; and he maintains that the souls of those who 
have thus acted madly against themselves will go to the 
darkest place in Hades.” The Talmud considers suicide 
justifiable, if not meritorious, in the case of the chief of a 
vanquished army who is sure of disgrace and death at the 
hands of the exulting conqueror,” or when a person has 

1 Vasishtha, xxii. 14 sq. 

2 [bid. xxiii. 18 sqq. 

® Hardy, AlZanual of Budhism, p. 479. 
Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk- 

KVIN 230 econ. evil Ome ons 
cabees, XIV. 4 5qq. 
8 2 Samuel, xvii. 23. 

7 Josephus, De bello Judaico, iii. 8.'5. 

ry 

lore of Northern India, 1. 269. Fawcett 
‘Nayars of Malabar,’ in the Madras 
Government Museum’s Szdletin, iii. 
hee 

51 Samuel, Xxxl. 45g. 2 Samuel, 

8 Cf. Frazer, ‘Burial Customs as 
illustrative of the Primitive Theory of 
the Soul,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xv. 72. 

9 Josephus, of. czz. iii. 8. 5, 

10 Ch. 1 Samuel, xxxi. 4, 

aoe einen oll 

reason to fear being forced to renounce his religion.! In 
all other circumstances the Rabbis consider it criminal for 
a person to shorten his own life, even when he is under- 
going tortures which must soon end his earthly career ; ” 
and they forbid all marks of mourning for a self- 
murderer, such as wearing sombre apparel and eulogising 
him.’ Islam prohibits suicide, as an act which interferes 
with the decrees of God.* Muhammedans say that it is a 
greater sin for a person to kill himself than to kill a 
fellow-man ;° and, as a matter of fact, suicide is very rare 
in the Moslem world.® 

Ancient Greece had its honourable suicides. The 
Milesian and Corinthian women, who by a voluntary 
death escaped from falling into the hands of the enemy, 
were praised in epigrams.’ The story that Themistocles 
preferred death to bearing arms against his native country 
was circulated with a view to doing honour to _ his 
memory.* The tragedians frequently give expression to 
the idea that suicide is in certain circumstances becoming 
to anoble mind.’ Hecuba blames Helena for not puttin 
an end to her life by a rope or a sword." Phaedra" and 
Leda kill themselves out of shame, Haemon from 
violent remorse.” Ajax decides to die after having in 
vain attempted to kill the Atreidae, maintaining that 
“one of generous strain should nobly live, or forthwith 
nobly die.” '* Instances are, moreover, mentioned of 
women killing themselves on the death of their 
husbands ;” and in Cheos it was the custom to prevent 

1 Guitlin, 57 B, quoted by Mendel- 7 Schmidt, Die Zthik aer alten 
sohn, Criminal Jurisprudence of the  Griechen, ii. 443. 
Ancient Hebrews, p. 77, 0. 163. Cf 8 Diodorus Siculus, Bzbliotheca his- 
2 Maccabees, xiv. 37 5qq. torica, xi. 58. 2 sq. 

2 Ab Zara; 18 A, quoted by Men- ® See Schmidt, of. cz¢. ii. 442 sqq. 
delsohn, of. czt. p. 78, n. 163. 10 Euripides, 77voades, 1012 sqq. 

3 Mendelsohn, of. cet. p. 77. Ul Idem, Hippolytus, 715 sqq. 

4 Koran, iv. 33- 2 Tdem, Helena, 134 sqq. 

5 T have often heard this myself. C/ 18 Sophocles, Azztzgone, 1234 sqq. 
Westcott, Szzczde, p. 12. 14 Tdem, Ajax, 470 sqg. Cf. tbid. 654 

6 Lisle, Dz sazcade, pp. 305, 345 57. SY. ms 
Legoyt, Le sazcede ancien et moderne, 15 Euripides, Szpplices, 1000 sqq. 

p- 7. Morselli, 27 sweccdzo, p. 33. West- Pausanias, Iv, 2. 7. 
cott, op. cz. p. 12, 

the decrepitude of old age by a voluntary death.’ At 
Athens the right hand of a person who had taken his own 
life was struck off and buried apart from the rest of the 
body,” evidently in order to make him harmless after death.” 
Plato says in his ‘Laws,’ probably in agreement with 
Attic custom, that those who inflict death upon them- 
selves “from sloth or want of manliness,” shall be buried 
alone in such places as are uncultivated and nameless, and 
that no column or inscription shall mark the spot where 
they are interred.4 At Thebes self-murderers were 
deprived of the accustomed funeral ceremonies,’ and in 
Cyprus they were left unburied.®© The objections which 
philosophers raised against the commission of suicide were 
no doubt to some extent shared by popular sentiments. 
Pythagoras is represented as saying that we should not 
abandon our station in life without the orders of our 
commander, that is, God.’ According to the Platonic 
Socrates, the gods are our guardians and we are a posses- 
sion of theirs, hence “‘ there may be reason in saying that 
a man should wait, and not take his own life until God 
summons him.” * Aristotle, again, maintains that he who 

from rage kills himself commits a wrong against the . 

State, and that therefore the State punishes him and civil 
infamy is attached to him.® The religious argument 
could not be foreign to a people who regarded it as 
impious interference in the order of nature to make a 
bridge over the Hellespont and to separate a landscape 
from the continent ;’° and the idea that suicide is a matter 
of public concern evidently prevailed in Massilia, where 
no man was allowed to make away with himself unless the 

magistrates had given him permission to do so," But the 

! Strabo, Geographica, x. 5. 6, p. 4 Plato, Leges, ix. 873. 
486. Aelian, Varia htstoria, ii. 37. > Schmidt, of. cz¢. ii. 104. 
- Cf. Boeckh, Gesammelte kleine Schriften, 6 Dio Chrysostom, Orationes, Ixiv. 3. 
vil. 345 5gq.; Welcker, A7ezze Schrzften, 7 Cicero, Cato Major, 20 (73). 
ji. 502 sq. 8 Plato, Phedo, p. 62. 

2 Aeschines, lz Ctestphontent, 244. Aristotle, E£¢thzca Nicomachea, v. 

3 Some Australian natives cut off the 11. 3. 
thumb of the right hand of a dead foe in 10 See Schmidt, of. cét. ii. 83, gar; 
order to make his spirit unable to throw Rohde, Psyche, p. 202, n. I. 
the spear efficiently (Oldfield, in Zyans. Valerius Maximus, Factorwm adic- 

Zithn, Soc, N, S. iil, 287). forumgue memorabilia, ii. 6. 7, 

opinions of the philosophers were anything but 
unanimous.’ Plato himself, in his ‘ Laws,’ has no word 
of censure for him who deprives himself by violence of his 
appointed share of life under the compulsion of some 
painful and inevitable misfortune, or out of irremediable 
and intolerable shame.” Hegesias, surnamed the “ death- 
persuader,” who belonged to the Cyrenaic school, tried to 
prove the utter worthlessness and unprofitableness of life.’ 
According to Epicurus we ought to consider “ whether it 
be better that death should come to us, or we go to 
him.’’* The Stoics, especially, advocated suicide as a 
relief from all kinds of misery. Seneca remarks that it 
is a man’s own fault if he suffers, as, by putting an end to 
himself, he can put an end to his misery :—*‘ As I would 
choose a ship to sail in, or a house to live in, so would I 
choose the most tolerable death when about to die. 

Human affairs are in such a happy situation, that no one 
need be wretched but by choice. -Do you like to be 
wretched? Live. Do you like it not? It is in your 
power to return from whence you came.”° The Stoics 
did not deny that it is wrong to commit suicide in cases 
where the act would be an injury to society ;*7 Seneca 
himself points out that Socrates lived thirty days in prison 
in expectation of death, so as to-submit to the laws of his 
country, and to give his friends the enjoyment of his con- 
versation to the last.* Epictetus opposes indiscriminate 
suicide on religious grounds :—“ Friends, wait for God ; 
when he shall give the signal and release you from this 
service, then go to him; but for the present endure to 
dwell in the place where he has put you.”*® Such a signal, 
however, is given often enough : it may consist in incur- 
able disease, intolerable pain, or misery of any kind. 
‘‘Remember this: the door is open; be not more timid 

1 See Geiger, Der Se lbstmord im > See Geiger, of. czt. p. 15 sgq. 

klasstschen Altertum, p. 5 sqq. 6 Seneca, Fistula, 70. See also 
2 Plato, Leges, ix. 873. Idem, De tra, i. 15; Ldem, Consolatio 
3 Cicero, Zzsculane questiones,i.34 ad Marciam, 20. 

(83 sg.). Valerius Maximus, vill. 9. = 7 Lecky, Héstory of Huropean Morals, 

Externa 3. in 2UAg sD. 
4 Epicurus, quoted by Seneca, Zfzs- 8 Seneca, Apzstule, 70. 

tule, 26. 9. Epictetus, Dzssertatzones, i. 9. 16, 

SUICIDE 

than little children, but as they say, when the thing does 
not please them, ‘I will play no longer,’ so do you, 
when things seem to you of such a kind, say I will no 
longer play, and be gone: but if you stay, do not 
complain.” + Pliny says that the power of dying when 
you please is the best thing that God has given to man 
amidst all the sufferings of life.’ 

It seems that the Roman people, before the influence of 
Christianity made itself felt, regarded suicide with con- 
siderable moral indifference. According to Servius, it was 
provided by the Pontifical laws that whoever hanged him- 
self should be cast out unburied ;? but from what has 
been said before it is probable that this practice only owed 
its origin to fear of the dead man’s ghost.  Vergil 
enumerates self-murderers not among the guilty, but 
among the unfortunate, confounding them with infants 
who have died prematurely and pe ine who have been 
condemned to die on a false charge.* Throughout the 
whole history of pagan Rome there was no statute declar- 
ing it to be a crime for an ordinary citizen to take his 
own life. The self-murderer’s rights were in no way 
affected by his deed, his memory was no less honoured than . 
if he had died a natural death, his will was recognised by 
law, and the regular order of succession was not interfered 
with.” In Roman law there are only two noteworthy 
exceptions to the rule that suicide is a matter with which 
the State has nothing to do: it was prohibited in the case 
of soldiers,° and the enactment was made that the suicide 
of an accused person should entail the same consequences 
as his condemnation ; but in the latter instance the deed 
was admitted as a confession of guilt.’ On the other 

1 [bid. i. 24. 203 1. 25. 20 sg.; il. in Brbliotheque de ? Ecole des Chartes, 
16. 37 Sqg.5 ll. 13. 143 il. 24. 95 ili. 544. Geiger, of. cet. p. 64. Sqq. 
SOQ: Bynkershoek, Odservationes Juris Ro- 

2 Pliny, Hzstorza naturalis, i. 5 (7). 

3 Servius, Commentaric in Virgilit 
Ainetdos, Xil. 603. 

4 Vergil, ezs, vi. 426 sgg. 

5 Bourquelot, ‘Recherches sur les 
opinions et la législation en matiére de 
mort volontaire pendant le moyen age,’ 

Mant, IV. 4, P. 350. 

8 Digesta, salibs, HG Oe Ys 

7 Tbid, xviii. 21, 3 pr. Cf. Bourque- 
lot, of. czt. 111. 543 sg.; Gibbon, Decline 
and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vv. 326 ; 
Lecky, History of European Morals, i, 
219. 

SUICIDE 

hand, it seems to have been the general opinion in Rome 
that suicide under certain circumstances is an heroic and 
praiseworthy act. Even Cicero, who professed the 
doctrine of Pythagoras,” approved of the death of Cato.* 
In no question of morality was there a greater difference 
between classical and Christian doctrines than in regard to 
suicide. The earlier Fathers of the Church still allowed, 
or even approved of, suicide in certain cases, namely, 
when committed in order to procure martyrdom,‘ or to 
avoid apostacy, or to retain the crown of virginity. To 
bring death upon ourselves voluntarily, says Lactantius, is 
a wicked and impious deed ; “but when urged to the 
alternative, either of forsaking God and relinquishing 
faith, or of expecting all torture and death, then it is that 
undaunted in spirit we defy that death with all its 
previous threats and terrors which others fear.” ® 
Eusebius and other ecclesiastical writers mention several 
- instances of Christian women putting an end to their lives 
when their chastity was in danger, and their acts are 
spoken of with tenderness, if not approbation; indeed, 
some of them were admitted into the calendar of saints.« 
This admission was due to the extreme honour in which 
virginity was held by the Fathers; St. Jerome, who 
denied that it was lawful in times of ‘persecution to die by 
one’s own hands, made an exception for cases in which a 
person’s chastity was at stake.’ But even this exception 
was abolished by St. Augustine. He allows that the 
virgins who laid violent hands upon themselves are 
worthy of compassion, but declares that there was no 
necessity for their doing so, since chastity is a virtue of 

1 Stiudlin, Geschichte der Vorstel- 
lungen und Lehren vom Selbstmorde, p. 

logia cursus, vi. 697). iad 
® Eusebius, Azstorza  ecclesiastica, 

62 sq. 

2 Cicero, Cato Major, 20 (72 sq.). 

3 Tdem, De officits, 1. 31 (112). 

4 See Barbeyrac, Zvazté de la morale 
des Pires de ? Lglise, pp. 18, 122 sg. ; 
Buonafede, /storia critica e filosofica del 
suictdio, p. 135 sgg.; Lecky, of. cit. i. 
er ee a3. 

5 Lactantius, Devine Lnstitutiones, 
vi. (‘De vero cultu’) 17 (Migne, Pacro- 

Vill, 12 (Migne, of. cz¢t. Ser. Graeca, 
xx. 769-sqq.), 14 (2b¢d. col. 785 sqq.). 
St. Ambrose, De wirginitbus, xill. 7 
(Migne, of. cet. xvi. 229 sgq.). St. 
Chrysostom, Homelia encomiasticain S. 
Martyrem Pelagiam (Migne, of. cit. 
Ser. Graeca, 1. 579 sgq.). 

7 St. Jerome, Commentartt in fonane, 
i. £2 (Migne, op. czt. xxv. 1129), 

ote SUICIDE 

the mind which is not lost by the body being in captivity 

to the will and superior force of another. He argues 
that there is no passage in the canonical Scriptures which 
permits us to destroy ourselves either with a view to 
obtaining immortality or to avoiding calamity. On the 
contrary, suicide is prohibited in the commandment, 
“Thou shalt not kill,” namely, “neither thyself nor 
another’; for he who kills himself kills no other but a 
man.! This doctrine, which assimilates suicide with 
murder, was adopted by the Church.” Nay, self-murder 
was declared to be the worst form of murder, ‘‘ the most 
grievous thing of all” ;° already St. Chrysostom had 
declared that “if it is base to destroy others, much more 
is it to destroy one’s self.” * The self-murderer was 
deprived of rights which were granted to all other 
criminals. In the sixth century a Council at Orleans 
enjoined that “‘the oblations of those who were killed in 
the commission of any crime may be received, except of 
such as laid violent hands on themselves ’”’;° and a sub- 
sequent Council denied self-murderers the usual rites of 
Christian burial.° It was even said that Judas committed 

a greater sin in killing himself than in betraying his. 

master Christ to a certain death.’ 

According to the Christian doctrine, as formulated by 
Thomas Aquinas, suicide is utterly unlawful for thes 
reasons. First, everything naturally loves itself and 
serves itself in being ; suicide is against a natural nae 
nation and contrary to the charity which a man ought to 
bear towards himself, and consequently a mortal sin. 

1 St. Augustine, De Czvitate Dez, 1. ® Conctlium Bracarense II. a.p. 

— 

16 599. 

2 Gratian, Decretum, ii. 23. 5. 9 

3 Thomas Aquinas, Suma Pein 
etca, il.—il. 64. 5. 

a-Si: Chrysostom, In Epistolam ad 
Galatas commentarius, 1. 4 (Migne, of. 
cat. Ser. Graeca, 1xi. 618 Sq-). 

5 Concilium Aurelianense II, A.D. 
533, can. 15 (Labbe-Mansi, Sacroram 
Conciliorum collectto, vill. 837). See 
also Conctlium Autisiodorense, A,D. 578, 
can. 17 (Labbe-Mansi, ix, 913), 

563, cap. 16 (Labbe-Mansi, of. cé¢. ix. 
779). 

7 Damhouder, Praxds rerum crim- 
imalium, lvill. 2 Sg., P: 255: See 
ETENNEN, WAS Gs le ee eh oe AS | NG 
the trial of the Marquise de Brineilhers 
in 1676, the presiding judge said to the 
prisoner that ‘‘the greatest of all her 
crimes, horrible as they were, was, not 
the poisoning of her father and brothers, 
but her attempt to poison herself” 
(Ives, Classtfication of Crimes, p. 36), 

Secondly, by killing himself a person does an injury to 
the community of which he isa part. Thirdly, “life is 
a gift divinely bestowed on man, and subject to His power 
who ‘ killeth and maketh alive’; and therefore he who 
takes his own life sins against God, as he who kills another 
man’s slave sins against the master to whom the slave 
belongs, and as he sins who usurps the office of judge on 
a point not referred to him ; for to God alone belongs 
judgment of life and death.’ The second of these 
arguments is borrowed from Aristotle, and is entirely 
foreign to the spirit of early Christianity. The notion of 
patriotism being a moral duty was habitually discouraged 
by it, and, as Mr. Lecky observes, “it was impossible to 
urge the civic argument against suicide without at the 
same time condemning the hermit life, which in the third 
century became the ideal of the Church.” * But the other 
arguments are deeply rooted in some of the fundamental 
doctrines of Christianity—in the sacredness of human life, 
in the duty of absolute submission to God’s will, and in 
the extreme importance attached to the moment of death. 
The earthly life is a preparation for eternity ; sufferings 
which are sent by God are not to be evaded, but to be 
endured.* The man who deliberately takes away the life 
which was given him by the Creator displays the utmost 
disregard for the will and authority of his Master ; and, 
worst of all, he does so in the very last minute of his life, 
when his doom is sealed for ever. His deed, as Thomas 
Aquinas says, is ‘‘ the most dangerous thing of all, because 
no time is left to expiate it by repentance.”* He who 
kills a fellow-creature does not in the same degree 
renounce the protection of God; he kills only the body, 
whereas the self-murderer kills both the body and the 
soul, By denying the latter the right of Christian 

1 Thomas Aquinas, of. cé¢. ii.—i 4+ Thomas Aquinas, of. c7¢. li.-ii. 64. 
64. 5. 5. 3. Cf. St. Augustine, De Czvztate 
2 Lecky, History of European Morals, Dez, i. 25. ns 
li. 44 5 Damhouder, of. cz¢. 1xxxvill. I 5g., 

Cf. St. Augustine, De Civitate Det, pp. 258. 
1.523; 

burial the Church recognises that he has placed himself 
outside her pale. 

The condemnation of the Church influenced the secular 
legislation. The provisions of the Councils were intro- 
duced into the law-books. In France Louis IX. enforced 
the penalty of confiscating the -self-murderer’s property,’ 
and laws to the same effect were passed in other European 
countries.2. Louis XIV. assimilated the crime of suicide 
to that of “ze majesté.® According to the law of 
Scotland, ‘self-murder is as highly criminal as the killing 
our neighbour.” * In England suicide is still regarded by 
the law as murder committed by a man on himself ;° and, 
unless declared insane, the self-murderer forfeited his 
property as late as the year 1870, when forfeitures for 
felony were abolished.© In Russia, to this day, the testa- 
mentary dispositions of a suicide are deemed void by the 
law." 

The horror of suicide also found a vent in outrages 
committed on the dead body. Of a woman who drowned 
herself in Edinburgh in 1598, we are told that her body 
was “harled through the town backwards, and thereafter 
hanged Yon” the egaltows. Sin Nrance eras mlatemacmnne 
middle of the eighteenth century, self-murderers were 
dragged upon a hurdle through the streets with the face 
turned to the ground ; they were then hanged up with the 
head downwards, and finally thrown into the common 
sewer.° However, in most cases the treatment to which 
suicides’ bodies were subject was not originally meant as 
a punishment, but was intended to prevent their spirits 

Pe a ee 

1 Les Etablissements de Saint Louis, 
1, 92, vol. il. 150. 

* Bourquelot, of. cz¢. iv. 263. Mor- 
selli, of. czt. p. 196 sq. 

3 Louis XIV., ‘Ordonnance crimi- 
nelle,’ A.D. 1670, xxii. I, in Isambert, 
Decrusy, and Taillandier, Recuezleénéral 
des anctennes lots frangatses, xviii. 414. 

4 Erskine-Rankine, Principles of the 
Law of Scotland, p. 559. 

® Stephen, Aestory of the Criminal 
Law of England, ii. 104. For earlier 
times see Bracton, De Legzbus et Con- 

suetudinibus Anglia, fol. 150, vol. ii. 
504 sq. 

8 Stephen, of. cz¢. ili. 105. 

” Foinitzki, in von Liszt, Za ezsla- 
tion pénale comparée, p. 548. 

S Ross, ‘ Superstitions as to burying 
Suicides in the Highlands,’ in Ce/¢ze 
Magazine, Xil. 354. 

® Serpillon, Code Criminel, ii. 223. 
Cf. Louis XIV., ‘Ordonnance crimi- 
nelle,’ A.D. 1670, xxii. 1, in Isambert, 
Decrusy, and Taillandier, of. ¢z/. xviii. 
414. 

en ey A ee 

~~ oa we 

from causing mischief. All over Europe wandering 
tendencies have been ascribed to their ghosts.'_ In some 
countries the corpse of a suicide is supposed to make 
barren the earth with which it comes in contact,” or to 
produce hailstorms or tempests*? or drought.* At 
Lochbroom, in the North-West of Scotland, the people 
believe that if the remains of a self-murderer be taken to 
any burying-ground which is within sight of the sea or 
of cultivated land, this would prove disastrous both to 
fishing and agriculture, or, in the words of the people, 
would cause ‘‘ famine (or dearth) on sea and land” ; hence 
the custom has been to inter suicides in out-of-the-way 
places among the lonely solitudes of the mountains.? The 
practice of burying them apart from other dead has been 
very wide-spread in Europe, and in many cases there are 
obvious indications that it arose from fear.° In the 
North-East of Scotland a suicide was buried outside a 
churchyard, close beneath the wall, and the grave was 
marked by a single large stone, or by a small cairn, to which 
the passing traveller was boone to cast a stone ; and after- 
wards, when the suicide’s body was allowed to rest in the 
churchyard, it was laid below the wall in such a position 
that no one could walk over the grave, as the people 
believed that if a woman enceinte stepped over such a 

1 Ross, in Celtic Magazine, xii 352 
(Highlanders of Scotland). Atkinson, 
forty Years in a Moorland Parish, p. 
217. Hyltén-Cavallius, Wdarend och 
Wirdarne, i. 472 sg. (Swedes). Allardt, 
‘“Nylandska folkseder och bruk,’ in 
Nyland, iv. 114 (Swedish Finlanders). 
Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube 
der Gegenwart, § 756, p. 474 sg. Schif- 
fer, ‘Totenfetische bei den Polen,’ in 
Am Ur-Quell, iii. 50 (Polanders), 52 
(Lithuanians). Volkov, ‘ Der Selbst- 
morder in Lithauen,’ zdzd. v. 87. von 
Wlislocki, ‘Tod und Totenfetische im 
Volkglauben der Siebenbiirger Sachsen,’ 
zbed. iv. 53. Lippert, Chrestenthum, 
Volksglaube und Volksbrauch, p. 391. 
Dyer, Zhe Ghost World, pp. 53, 151. 
Gaidoz, ‘Le suicide,’ in AZé/uszne, iv. 
12. 

2 Schiffer, in Amz Ur-Quell, iii. 52 
(Lithuanians). 

° Tbid. pp. 50 (Polanders), 53 (Lithu- 
anians), von Wlislocki, Volksglavbe und 
religioser Brauch der Magyaren, p. Ot. 
Strausz, Dze Bulgaren, p.455. Prexl, 
‘Geburts- und Todtengebrauche der 
Rumanen in Siebenbiirgen,’ in Globus, 
lvii. 30. 

4 Strausz, of cet. p. 455 (Bul- 
garians). 

5 Ross, in Cedltéc 
350 Sg. 

a Gaidoz, i in Mélusine, iv. 12. Frank, 
System einer vollstindiven mediceie- 
schen Polizey, iv. 499. Moore, op. cit. 
i, 310 (Danes). Schiffer, in Am Ur- 
Quell, iii. 50 (Polanders), 53 (Lithu- 
anians). Volkov, zdzd. v. 87 (Lithu- 
anians). Strausz, of. c?t. p. 455 (Bul- 
garians). 

Magazine, xi. 

grave, her child would quit this earth by its own act.’ In 
England persons against whom a coroner’s jury had found 
a verdict of fe/o de se were buried at cross-roads, with a 
stake driven through the body soas to prevent their ghosts 

from walking.” 

1 Gregor, Folk-Lore of the North- 
East of Scotland, p. 213 sg. 

2 Stephen, Aestory of the Criminal 
Law of England, ii, 105. Atkinson, 
op. ctt. p. 217. This custom was formally 
abolished in 1823, by 4 Geo. IV. c. 52 
(Stephen, of. cz¢. ili. 105). Why were 
suicides buried at cross-roads? Possibly 
because the cross was supposed to dis- 
perse the evil energy ascribed to their 
bodies. Both in Europe and India the 
cross-road has, since ancient times, been 
a favourite place to divest oneself of 
diseases or other evil influences (Wuttke, 
Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegen- 
wart, §§ 483, 484, 492, 508, 514, 522, 
545» PP: 325, 326, 331, 341, 345, 349, 
361. Aymns of the Atharva- Veda, pp. 
272, 473, 519. Oldenberg, Dze Religion 
des Veda, pp. 267, 268n. 1). Inthe sacred 
books of India it is said that ‘‘a student 
who has broken the vow of chastity 
shall offer an ass to Nirriti on a cross- 
road” (Gaztama, xxiii, 17), and that a 
person who has previously undergone 
certain other purification ceremonies 
““is freed from all crimes, even mortal 
sins, after looking on a cross-road at a 
pot filled with water, and reciting the 
text, ‘Simhe me manyuh’” (aza- 
héyana, iv. 7. 7). In the hills of 
Northern India and as far as Madras, 
an approved charm for getting rid of a 
disease of demoniacal origin is to plant 
a stake where four roads meet, and to 
bury grains underneath, which crows 
disinter and eat (Worth Indian Notes 
and Quertes, i. § 652, p. 100; Madden, 
‘The Turaee and Outer Mountains of 
Kumaoon,’ in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, 
Xvii, pt. 1. 583 3; Crooke, Popular Relt- 
gton and Folk-Lore of Northern India, 
i, 290). Inthe Province of Bihar, ‘‘ in 
cases of sickness various articles are ex- 
posed in a saucer at a cross-road” 
(Grierson, Behar Peasant Life, p. 407). 
According to a Bulgarian tale, Lot was 
enjoined by the priest to plant on a cross- 
road three charred twigs in order to 
free himself from his sin (Strausz, of. 

For the same purpose the bodies of 

cit. p, I15). The Gypsies of Servia 
believe that a thief may divert from 
himself all suspicions by painting with 
blood a cross and a dot above it on the 
spot where he committed the theft (von 
Wlislocki, ‘ Menschenblut im Glauben 
der Zigeuner,’ in Am Ur-Quell, tii. 64 
sg.). In Morocco the cross is used as a 
charm against the evil eye, and the chief 
reason for this is, I believe, that it is 
regarded as a conductor of the baneful 
energy emanating from the eye, dispers- 
ing it in all the quarters of the wind and 
thus preventing it from injuring the 
person or object looked at (Wester- 
marck, ‘ Magic Origin of Moorish De- 
signs,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxiv. 
214). In Japan, if a criminal belonging 
to one of the lower classes commits 
suicide, his body is crucified (Globus, 
xvili. 197). When, under Tarquinius 
Priscus (or Tarquinius Superbus), many 
Romans preferred voluntary death to 
compulsory labour .in the cloaca, or 

artificial canals by which the sewage. 

was carried into the Tiber, the king 
ordered that their bodies should be 
crucified and abandoned to birds and 
beasts of prey (Pliny, Hzstorzanaturalis, 
Xxxvi. 243 Servius, Commentariz in 
Viregilie Anetdos, xi. 603). The reason 
for thus crucifying the bodies of self- 
murderers is not stated ; but it is interest- 
ing to notice, in this connection, the 
idea expressed by some _ Christian 
writers that the cross of the Saviour 
symbolised the distribution of his benign 
influence in all directions (d’Ancona, 
Origint del teatro wtaliano, i. 646; 
Tauler, quoted by Peltzer, Dezdsche 
Mystik und deutsche Kunst, p. 191. I 
am indebted to my friend Dr. Yrj6 
Hirn for drawing my attention to this 
idea). With reference to persons who 
had killed a father, mother, brother, or 
child, Plato says in his ‘ Laws’ (ix. 
873) :—‘‘If he be convicted, the ser- 
vants of the judges and the magistrates 
shall slay him at an appointed place 
without the city where three ways meet, 

see 

XXXV SUICIDE 

suicides were in many cases burned.’ And when removed 
from the house where the act had been committed, they 
were commonly carried out, not by the door, but by a 
window,’ or through a perforation specially made for the 
occasion in the door,® or through a hole under the thres- 
hold,* in order that the ghost should not find its way back 
into the house, or perhaps with a view of keeping the 
entrance of the house free from dangerous infection.” 
However, side by side with the extreme severity with 
which suicide is viewed by the Christian Church we find, 
even in the Middle Ages, instances of more humane feel- 
ings towards its perpetrator. In medizval tales and 
ballads true lovers die together and are buried in the 
same grave ; two roses spring through the turf and twine 

lovingly together.® 
Bourquelot, ‘on voit 

and there expose his body naked, and 
each of the magistrates on behalf of the 
whole city shall take a stone and cast it 
upon the head of the dead man, and so 
deliver the city from pollution ; after 
that, they shall bear him to the borders 
of the land, and cast him forth unburied, 
according to law.” The duels by which 
the ancient Swedes were legally com- 
pelled to repair their wounded honour 
were to be fought on a place where 
three roads met (Leffler, Om den forn- 
svenska hednalagen, p. 40 sg. 3 supra, i. 
502). In various countries it has been 
the custom to bury the dead at cross- 
roads (Grimm, ‘ Ueber das Verbrennen 
der Leichen,’ in A7veznere Schriften, ii. 
288 (Bohemians); Lippert, Dze Relz- 
gionen der europiischen Culturvolker, 
p- 310 (Slavonians) ; Winternitz, Das 
altindische Hochzettsrituell, p. 68; 
Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, pp. 
267, 268, 562 n. 3)—a custom which 
may have given rise to the idea that 
cross-roads are haunted (Winternitz, 
op. cit. p. 68; Oldenberg, op. czé. p. 
267 sg.; cf. Wuttke, op. czt. § 108, p. 
89 sg.). : . 

1 Bourquelot, Zoc. cét. iv. 263. Hyltén- 
Cavallius, of. cit. 1. 459 ; Nordstrom, 
Bidrag till den svenska samhills- 
Jorfatiningens historia, ii. 331 (Swedes). 
von Wlislocki, ‘Tod und Totenfetische 

VOL. II 

In the later Middle Ages, says M. 

qu’a mesure qu’on 

avance, 

im Volkglauben der Siebenbiirger 
Sachsen,’ in Am Or-Quell, iv. 53. 

2 Wuttke, of. cet. § 756, p. 4743 
Frank, of. czt. iv. 498 sg. ; Lippert, 
Der Seelencult, p. 11 (people in various 
parts of Germany). Schiffer, in Av 
Or-Quell, iii. 50 (Polanders), 

3 Bourquelot, Joc. czt. iv. 264 (at 
Abbeville). 

4 Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthii- 
mer, p. 726 sgg. Hyltén-Cavallius, of. 
cit. 1. 472 sy. (Swedes). 

5 See zzfra, on Regard for the Dead. 
Contact with a self-murderer’s body is 
considered polluting (Prexl, ‘ Geburts- 
und Todtengebrauche der Rumanen in 
Siebenbiirgen,’? in Globus, lvii. 30; 
Hyltén-Cavallius, Warend och Wir- 
darne, i. 459, 460, and ii. 412). We 
are told that in the eighteenth century 
people did nut dare to cut down a 
person who had hanged himself, though 
he was found still alive (Frank, of. cz¢. 
iv. 499). Among the Bannavs of 
Cambodia everybody who takes part in 
the burial of a self-murderer is obliged 
to undergo a certain ceremony of puri- 
fication, whereas no such ceremony is 
prescribed in the case of other burials 
(Mittherl. d. Geogr. Ges. zu Jena, iii. 

8 See Bourquelot, /oc. czt. iv. 248 ; 
Gummere, Germanic Origins, p. 322. 

S 

l’'antagonisme devient plus prononcé entre l’esprit religieux 
et les idées mondaines relativement a la mort volontaire. 
Le clergé continue a suivre la route qui a été tracée par 
Saint Augustin et a déclarer le suicide criminel et impie ; 
mais la tristesse et le désespoir n’entendent pas sa voix, ne 
se souviennent pas de ses prescriptions.” ' ‘The revival of 
classical learning, accompanied as it was by admiration 
for antiquity and a desire to imitate its great men, not 
only increased the number of suicides, but influenced 
popular sentiments on the subject.2 Even the Catholic 
casuists, and later on philosophers of the school of Grotius 
and others, began to distinguish certain cases of legitimate 
suicide, such as that committed to avoid dishonour or 
probable sin, or that of a condemned person saving him- 
self from torture by anticipating an inevitable death, or 
that of a man offering himself to death for the sake of his 
friend.’ Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia, permits a person 
who is suffering from an incurable and painful disease to 
take his own life, provided that he does so with the 
agreement of the priests and magistrates; nay, he even 
maintains that these should exhort such a man to put an 
end to a life which is only a burden to himself and 
others.4 Donne, the well-known Dean of St. Paul’s, 
wrote in his younger days a book in defence of suicide, 
‘a Declaration,” as he called it, “‘ of that paradoxe, or thesis, 
that Self-homicide is not so naturally sin, that it may 
never be otherwise.” He there pointed out the fact— 
which ought never to be overlooked by those who derive 
their arguments from “nature” —that some things may 
be natural to the species, and yet not natural to every 
individual member of it.° In one of his essays Montaigne 
pictures classical cases of suicide with colours of unmis- 
takable sympathy. ‘La plus volontaire mort,” he 
Observes, “c'est la plus belle. La vie déspend de la 

1 Bourquelot, Zoc. cit. iv. 253. 4 More, Ufopia, p. 122. 
2 [bed. iv. 464. Morselli, of. cét. p. > Donne, Bzathanatos, p.45. Donne's 
35. book was first committed to the press in 
3 Buonafede, of. ct. p. 148 sgg. 1644, by his son. 
Lecky, op. czt. ii. 55. 

"er 

XXXV SUICIDE 

volonté d’aultruy; la mort, de la nostre.”’! The 
rationalism of the eighteenth century led to numerous 
attacks both upon the views of the Church and upon the 
laws of the State concerning suicide. Montesquieu advo- 
cated its legitimacy :—‘“ La société est fondée sur un avan- 
tage mutuel; mais lorsqu’elle me devient onéreuse, qui 
m’empéche d’y renoncer? La vie m’a été donnée comme 
une faveur; je puis donc la rendre lorsqu’ elle ne l’est 
plus: la cause cesse, l’effet doit donc cesser aussi.” ? 
Voltaire strongly opposed the cruel laws which subjected 
a suicide’s body to outrage and deprived his children of 
their heritage.® If his act is a wrong against society, what 
is to be said of the voluntary homicides committed in war, 
which are permitted by the laws of all countries? Are they 
not much more harmful to the human race than self- 
murder, which nature prevents from ever being practised 
by any large number of men?* Beccaria pointed out that 
the State is more wronged by the emigrant than by the 
suicide, since the former takes his property with him, 
whereas the latter leaves his behind.” According to 
Holbach, he who kills himself is guilty of no outrage 
on nature or its author ; on the contrary, he follows an 
indication given by nature when he parts from his suffer- 
ings through the only door which has been left open. 
Nor has his country or his family any right to complain 
of a member whom it has no means of rendering happy, 
and from whom it consequently has nothing more to 
hope.® Others eulogised suicide when committed for a 
noble end,’ or recommended it on certain occasions. 
“Suppose,” says Hume, “that it is no longer in my 
power to promote the interest of society ; suppose that I 

1 Montaigne, Zssazs, ii. 3 (Quvres, 
p. 187). 

2 Montesquieu, Lettres Persanes, 76 
(Quvres, p. 53). 

3 Voltaire, Commentatre sur le livre 
Des délits et des peines, 19 (Ceuvres 
completes, v. 416). dem, Prix de la 
Justice et de Phumanité, 5 (bed. v. 424). 

4 Tdem, Note to Olympze acte v. scene 
7 (Quvres completes, i. $26, n. 0). 

Idem, Dictionnaire Philosophique, art. 
Suicide (zbzd. viii. 236). 

5 Beccaria, Dez delitti e delle pene, § 
35 (Ofere, i. 101). 

6 Holbach, Systéme de la nature, 1. 
69. 
7 In the early part of the nineteenth 
century this was done by Fries, (ewe 
oder anthropologische Krittk der Ver 
nunft, lil. 197. 

G2 

Sie2 

am a burthen to it ; suppose that my life hinders some 
person from being much more useful to society. In such | 

cases my resignation of life must not only be innocent 
but laudable.” ! Hume also attacks the doctrine that 
suicide is a transgression of our duty to God. “If it 
would be no crime in me to divert the Nile from its 
course, were I able to do so, how could it be a crime to 
turn a few ounces of blood from their natural channel ? 
Were the disposal of human life so much reserved as the 
peculiar province of the Almighty that it were an encroach- 
ment on his right for men to dispose of their own lives, 
would it not be equally wrong of them to lengthen out 
their lives beyond the period which by the general laws of 
nature he had assigned to it? My death, however 
voluntary, does not happen without the consent of 
Providence ; when I fall upon my own sword, I receive 
my death equally from the hands of the Deity as if it 
had proceeded from a lion, a precipice, or a fever.” ” 

Thus the main arguments against suicide which had 
been set forth by pagan philosophers and Christian theo- 
logians were scrutinised and found unsatisfactory or at 
least insufficient to justify that severe and wholesale censure 
which was passed on it by the Church and the State. But 
a doctrine which has for ages been inculcated by the leading 
authorities on morals is not easily overthrown ; and when 
the old arguments are found fault with new ones are in- 
vented. Kant maintained that a person who disposes of 
his own life degrades the humanity subsisting in his person 
and entrusted to him to the end that he might uphold it.’ 
Fichte argued that tt is our duty to preserve our life and 
to will to live, not for the sake of life, but because our 
life is the exclusive condition of the realisation of the moral 
law through us.* According to Hegel it is a contradiction 
to speak of a person’s right over his life, since this would 

1 Hume, ‘Suicide,’ in Phzlosophical  griinde der Tugendlehre, p. 73. 

Works, iv. 413. + Fichte, Das System der Sittenlehre, 
2 [bid. p. 407 sqq. Pp. 339 sgg. See also zézd. pp. 360, 
3 Kant, Metaphysische Anfangungs- 391. 

——” 

imply aright of a person over himself, and no one can stand 
above and execute himself.’ Paley, again, feared that if 
religion and morality allowed us to kill ourselves in any 
case, mankind would have to live in continual alarm for 
the fate of their friends and dearest relations >—just as if 
there were a very strong temptation for men to shorten their 
lives. But common sense is neither a metaphysician nora 
sophist. When not restrained by the yoke of a narrow theo- 
logy, it is inclined in most cases to regard the self-murderer 
as a proper object of compassion rather than of condemna- 
tion, and in some instances to admire him as a hero. The 
legislation on the subject therefore changed as soon as 
the religious influence was weakened. The Jaws against 
suicide were abolished in France by the Revolution,’ and 
afterwards in various other continental countries ; * whilst 
in England it became the custom of jurymen to presume 
absence of a sound mind in the self-murderer—perjury, as 
Bentham said, being the penance which prevented an out- 
rage on humanity.° These measures undoubtedly indicate 
not only a greater regard for the innocent relatives of the 
self-murderer, but also a change in the moral ideas concern- 
ing the act itself. 

As appears from this survey of facts, the moral valuation 
of suicide varies to an extreme degree. It depends partly 
on the circumstances in which the act is committed, 
partly on the point of view from which it is regarded and 
the notions held about the future life. ‘When a person 
sacrifices his life for the benefit of a fellow-man or for the . 
sake of his country or to gratify the supposed desire of a 
god, his deed may be an object of the highest praise. It 
may, further, call forth approval or admiration as indicat- 
ing a keen sense of honour or as a test of courage ; in 
Japan, says Professor Chamberlain, “the courage to take 

1 Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie 3 Legoyt, op. cét. p. 109. 
des Rechts, § 70, Zusatz, p. 72. 4 Bourquelot, Joc. czt. Iv. 475. 

2 Paley, Principles of Moral and 5 Bentham, Principles of Penal Law, 
Political Philosophy, iv. 3 (Complete ii. 4. 4 (Works, i. 479 59.), 
Works, li, 230), 

life—be it one’s own or that of others—ranks extra- 
ordinarily high in public esteem.” * In other cases suicide 
is regarded with indifference as an act which concerns the 
agent alone. But for various reasons it is also apt to give 
rise tomoral disapproval. The injury which the person 
committing it inflicts upon himself may excite sympathetic 
resentment towards him; he may be looked upon as 
injurer and injured at the same time. Plato asks in his 
‘Laws’ :—‘ What ought he to suffer who murders his 
nearest and so-called dearest friend? I mean, he who 
kills himself.” ? And the same point of view is conspicuous 
in St. Augustine’s argument, that the more innocent 
the self-murderer was before he committed his deed the 
greater is his guilt in taking his life “—an argument of 
particular force in connection with a theology which 
condemns suicides to everlasting torments and which 
regards it as a man’s first duty to save his soul. The con- 
demnation of killing others may by an association of ideas 
lead to a condemnation of killing one’s self,* as is suggested 
by the Christian doctrine that suicide is prohibited in the 
commandment, ‘‘ Thou shalt not kill.’ The horror 
which the act inspires, the fear of the malignant ghost, and. 
the defiling effect attributed to the shedding of blood, also 
tend to make suicide an object of moral reprobation or to 
increase the disapproval of it ;° and the same is the case 
with the exceptional treatment to which the self-murderer’s 
body is subject and his supposed annihilation or miserable 
existence after death, which easily come to be looked upon 
in the light of a punishment.® Suicide is, moreover, blamed 
as an act of moral cowardice,’ and, especially, as an injury 
inflicted upon other persons, to whom the agent owed 

1 Chamberlain, Things Japanese, p. 8 See szépra, li. 237 sgg. 3 Josephus, 
221. “ De bello Judatco, iii. 8. 5 ; Plato, Leges, 
2 Plato, Leges, ix. 873. ix. 873; Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, 

2 thin vauuleguisioiNes JOD (Onsen IBVD. 1 Sys tiki, A op 
: " Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie 
4 See Simmel, “zzlectung in die des Rechts, § 70, Zusatz, p. 72; Fowler, 
Moralwissenschaft, i. 187. Progressive Morality, p. 151 3 &. 

> Cf, supra, i. 377. : 

SUICIDE 

duties from which he withdrew by shortening his life. 
Even among savages we meet with the notion that a person 
is not entitled to treat himself just as he pleases. Amon 

the Goajiro Indians of Colombia, if anybody accidentally 
cuts himself, say with his own knife, or breaks a limb, or 
otherwise does himself an injury, his family on the mother’s 
side immediately demands blood-money, since, being of 
their blood, he is not allowed to spill it without paying 
for it ; the father’s relatives demand tear-money, and friends 
present claim compensation to repay their sorrow at seeing 
a friend in pain.” That a similar view is sometimes taken 
by savages with regard to suicide appears from a few 
statements quoted above.’ The opinion that suicide is an 
offence against society at large is particularly likely to 
prevail in communities where the interests of the individual 
are considered entirely subordinate to the interests of the 
State. The religious argument, again, that suicide is a sin 
against the Creator, an illegitimate interference with his 
work and decrees, comes to prominence in proportion as 
the moral consciousness is influenced by theological con- 
siderations. In Europe this influence is certainly becoming 
less and less. And considering that the religious view of 
suicide has been the chief cause of the extreme severity 
with which it has been treated in Christian countries, I am 
unable to subscribe to the opinion expressed by Professor 
Durkheim, that the more lenient judgment passed 
on it by the public conscience of the present time 
is merely accidental and transient. The argument 
adduced in support of this opinion leaves out of 
account the real causes to which the valuation of suicide 
is due : it is said that the moral evolution is not likely to 
be retrogressive in this particular point after it has followed 

1 English lawyers have represented 
suicide as an offence both against God 
and against the sovereign, who ‘“‘ has 
an interest in the preservation of all 
his subjects” (Plowden, Commentaries, 
i, 261; Blackstone, Commentaries on 

the Laws of England, iv. 190. Cf. 
Ives, of. czt. p. 40 sg.). 

4-Simons,) © Exploration’ “of the 
Goajira Peninsula,’ in Proceed. Roy. 
Geo. Soc. N. Ser. vii. 790. 

3 Supra, ii. 240 sg. 

a certain course for centuries.! It is true that moral pro- 
gress has a tendency to increase our sense of duty towards 
our fellow-men. But at the same time it also makes us 
more considerate as regards the motives of conduct ; and— 
not to speak of suicides committed for the benefit of 
others—the despair of the self-murderer will largely serve 
as a palliation of the wrong which he may possibly inflict 
upon his neighbour. 

* Durkheim, Le sudcide, p. 377

SELF-REGARDING DUTIES AND VIRTUES—INDUSTRY— 
REST 

AccorDING to current ideas men owe to themselves a 
variety of duties similar in kind to those which they owe 
to their fellow-creatures. They are not only forbidden to 
take their own lives, but are also in some measure con- 
sidered to be under an obligation to support their existence, 
to take care of their bodies, to preserve a certain amount 
of personal freedom, not to waste their property, to 
exhibit self-respect, and in general, to promote their own 
happiness. And closely related to these self-regarding 
duties there are self-regarding virtues, such as diligence, 
thrift, temperance. In all these cases, however, the moral 
judgment is greatly influenced by the question whether 
the act, forbearance, or omission, which increases the 
person’s own welfare, conflicts or not with the interests of 
other people. If it does conflict, opinions vary as to the 
degree of selfishness which is recognised as allowable. 
But judgments containing moral praise or the inculcation 
of duty are most commonly passed upon conduct which 
involves some degree of self-sacrifice, not on such as 
involves self-indulgence. 

Moreover, the duties which we owe to ourselves are 
generally much less emphasised than those which we owe 
to others. ‘‘ Nature,” says Butler, “has not given us so 
sensible a disapprobation of imprudence and folly, either 
in ourselves or others, as of falsehood, injustice, and 

cruelty.” Nor does a prudential virtue receive the same 
praise as one springing from a desire to promote the 
happiness of a fellow man. Many moralists even maintain 
that, properly speaking, there are no self-regarding duties 
and virtues at all; that useful action which is useful to 
ourselves alone is not matter for moral notice; that in 
every case duties towards one’s self may be reduced into 
duties towards others; that intemperance and extravagant 
luxury, for instance, are blamable only because they tend 
to the public detriment, and that prudence is a virtue only 
in so far as it is employed in promoting public interest.” 
But this opinion is hardly in agreement with the ordinary 
moral consciousness. 

It is undoubtedly true that no mode of conduct is 
exclusively self-regarding. No man is an entirely isolated 
being, hence anything which immediately affects a person’s 
own welfare affects at the same time, in some degree, the 
welfare of other individuals. It is also true that the 
moral ideas concerning such conduct as is called self- 
regarding are more or less influenced by considerations as 
to its bearing upon others. But this is certainly not the - 
only factor which determines the judgment passed on it. 
In the education of children-various modes of self-regard- 
ing conduct are strenuously insisted upon by parents and 
teachers. What they censure or punish is regarded as 
wrong, what they praise or reward is regarded as good ; 
for, as we have noticed above, men have a tendency to 
sympathise with the retributive emotions of persons for 
whom they feel regard.* Moreover, as in the case of suicide, 
so also in other instances of self-inflicted harm, the injury 
committed may excite sympathetic resentment towards the 
agent, although the victim of it is his own self. Dis- 
interested likings or dislikes often give rise to moral 

1 Butler, ‘ Dissertation on the Nature 
of Virtue,’ in Analogy of Religion, &c. 
p- 339- 

2 Hutcheson, Juguiry into the 
Original of owr Ideas of Beauty and 
Virtue, pp. 133, 201. Grote, Zreatise 

on the Moral Ideals, p. '7'7 sqg. Clifford, 
Lectures and Essays, pp. 298, 335. 
von Jhering, Der Zweck im Recht, 
ii, 225. 

3 Supra, i. 114 sq. 

4 Supra, il. 262, 

approval or disapproval of conduct which is essentially 
self-regarding.’ It has also been argued that no man has 
a right to trifle with his own well-being even where other 
persons’ interests are not visibly affected by it, for the 
reason that he is not entitled wantonly to waste “ what is 
not at his unconditional disposal.’”’? And in various other 
ways—as will be seen directly—religious, as well as magic, 
ideas have influenced moral opinions relating to self- 
regarding conduct. But at the same time it is not difficult 
to see why self-regarding duties and virtues only occupy a 
subordinate place in our moral consciousness. The influ- 
ence they exercise upon other persons’ welfare is generally 
too remote to attract much attention. In education there is 
no need to emphasise any other self-regarding duties and 
virtues but those which, for the sake of the individual’s 
general welfare, require some sacrifice of his immediate 
comfort or happiness. The compassion which we are apt 
to feel for the victim of an injury is naturally lessened by 
the fact that it is self-inflicted. And, on the other hand, 
indignation against the offender is disarmed by pity, 
imprudence commonly carrying its own punishment along 
with it.® 

Being so little noticed by custom and public opinion, 
and still less by law, most self-regarding duties hardly 
admit of a detailed treatment. In a general way it may be 
said that progress in intellectual culture has, in some 
respects, been favourable to their evolution ; Darwin even 
maintains that, with a few exceptions, self-regarding 
virtues are not esteemed by savages.* The less developed 
the intellect, the less apt it is to recognise the remoter 
consequences of men’s behaviour ; hence more reflection 
than that exercised by the savage may be needed to see 
that modes of conduct which immediately concern a 
person’s own welfare at the same time affect the well-being 

1 Cf. supra, 1. 116 sg Active and Moral Powers of Man, ii. 
2 Martineau, 7yfesof.  Rthical Theory, 346 sq. 
ie L 20; 4 Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 118 

P Cpebutler mop mcel. pn 330) S7.3) SY. 
Dugald Stewart, Philosophy oof the 

of his neighbours or the whole community of which he is 
amember. So also, owing to his want of foresight, the 
savage would often fail to notice how important it may be 
to subject one’s self to some temporary deprivation or 
discomfort in order to attain greater happiness in the 
future. We have noticed above that many savages hardly 
ever correct their children,! and this means that one of the 
chief sources from which the notions of self-regarding 
duties spring is almost absent among them. But on the 
other hand it must also be remembered that disinterested 
antipathies, another cause of such notions, exercise more 
influence upon the unreflecting than upon the reflecting 
moral consciousness, and that many magic and religious 
ideas which at the lower stages of civilisation give rise to 
duties of a self-regarding character are no longer held by 
people more advanced in culture. 

These general statements referring to the nature and 
origin of self-regarding duties and virtues I shall now 
illustrate by a short survey of moral ideas concerning 
some representative modes of self-regarding conduct :— 
industry and rest 3 temperance, fasting, and abstinence 
from certain kinds of food and drink; cleanliness and_ 
uncleanliness ; and ascetic practices generally. 

Man is naturally inclined to idleness, not because he is 
averse from muscular activity as such, but because he dislikes 
the monotony of regular labour and the mental exertion it 
implies.” In general he is induced to work only by some 
special motive which makes him think the trouble worth 
his while. Among savages, who have little care for the 
morrow,* who have few comforts of life to provide for, and 
whose property is often of such a kind as to prevent any 
great accumulation of it, almost the sole inducement to 
industry is either necessity or compulsion. Men are lazy 
or industrious according as the necessaries of life are easy 

1 Supra, i. 513 5g. iv. vol. v. 331 sqq. 
2 Cf. Ferrero, ‘ Les formes primitives 3 Buecher, Die LEntstehung der 
du travail,’ in Revue sctentifique, ser. Volkswirischaft, p. 21 $9g, 

or difficult to procure, and they prefer being idle if they 
can compel other persons to work for them as their 
servants or slaves. 

Australian natives “can exert themselves vigorously 
when hunting or fishing or fighting or dancing, or at any 
time when there is a prospect of an immediate reward ; 
but prolonged labour with the object of securing ultimate 
gain is distasteful to them.”1 With reference to the 
Polynesians Mr. Hale observes that in those islands which 
are situated nearest the equator, where the heat with little 
or no aid from human labour calls into existence fruits 
‘serving to support human life, the inhabitants are an 
indolent and listless race; whilst ‘‘a severer clime and 
ruder soil are favourable to industry, foresight, and a hardy 
temperament. These opposite effects are manifested in 
the Samoans, Nukahivans, and Tahitians, on the one side, 
and the Sandwich Islanders and New Zealanders on the 
other.”? Mr. Yate likewise contrasts the industry of the 
Maoris with the proverbial idleness of the Tonga Islanders: 
the former “are obliged to work, if they would eat,” 
whereas ‘in the luxurious climate of the Friendly Islands, 
there is scarcely any need of labour, to obtain the 
necessaries, and even many of the luxuries, of life.” ® 
The Malays are described as fond of a life of slothful 
ease, because ‘‘ persevering toil is unnecessary, or would 
bring them no additional enjoyments.”* The natives of 
Sumatra, says Marsden, “are careless and improvident of 
the future, because their wants are few ; for though poor 

1 Brough Smyth, Aborigines of (natives of Tutuila); Melville, 7yZee, 
Victoria, i. 29 sg. See also zbzd. ii. p. 287 (some Marquesas Islanders) ; 
248; Collins, Zxglish Colony in New Anderson, WVotes of Travel in Fiji and 
South Wales, i. 601; Fison and Mew Caledonia, p. 236 (New Cale- 

Howitt, Kamzlarot and Kurnai, p.  donians); Penny, Zez Years i 
259 sq. Melanesia, p. 74 (Solomon Islanders). 
2 Hale, U.S. Exploring Expedition. 3 Yate, Account of New Zealand, 

Vol. VI. Ethnography and Philology, yp. 105 sq. 

p- 17. See also Williams, MWzsszonary 4 McNair, Perak and the Malays, 
Enterprises tn the South Sea Islands, p. 201. Bock, Head-Hunters of 
p- 534 (Samoans); Ellis, Posynestan Borneo, p. 275. Ratfiles, Hzstory of 
Researches, i. 130 sq. (Tahitians); /ava, i. 251. St. John, Lefe tn the 
Brenchley, Crzzse of H.M.S. Curagoa Forests of the Far East, ii. 323. 

among the South Sea Islands, p. 58 

INDUSTRY 

they are not necessitous, nature supplying, with extra- 
ordinary facility, whatever she has made requisite for their 
existence.” ? The Toda of the Neilgherry Hills will not 
“work one iota more than circumstances compel him to 
do’’;? and indolence seems to be a characteristic of most 
peoples of India,® though there. are exceptions to the rule.* 
Burckhardt observes that it is not the southern sun, as 
Montesquieu imagined, but the luxuriance of the southern 
soil and the abundance of provisions that relax the 
exertions of the inhabitants and cause apathy :—‘“ By the 
fertility of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India, which yield 
their produce almost spontaneously, the people are lulled 
into indolence; while in neighbouring countries, of a tem- 
perature equally warm, as among the mountains of Yemen 
and Syria, where hard labour is necessary to ensure a good 
harvest, we find a race as superior in industry to the 
former, as the inhabitants of Northern Europe are to 
those of Spain or Italy.”*® Indolence is a common,° 
though not universal,’ trait of the African character. Of 
the Negroes on the Gold Coast Bosman says that “ nothing 

1 Marsden,* History of Sumatra, p. 
209. See also Glimpses of the Eastern 

Tuckey, Lxpedition to Explore the 
River Zaire, p. 369. Johnston, Zhe . 
Casati, 

Archipelago, pp. 76, 87 (Bataks). 

2 Marshall, 4 Phrenologist amongst 
the Todas, p. 88. See also zbzd. p. 
86; Shortt, ‘Hill Tribes of the Neil- 
gherries,’ in Zrans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. 
vil. 241; Mantegazza, ‘Studii sull’ 
etnologia dell’ India,’ in Archivio per 
2 antropologia e la etnologia, xiii. 400. 

3 Cooper, Alishmee Hills, p. 100 
(Assamese). Tickell, ‘ Memoir on the 
Hodésum,’ in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, 
ix. 808 (Hos). Dalton, Athnology of 
Bengal, pp. 57 (Jyntias and Kasias), 

101 (Lepchas). Burton, Szzdh, p. 
284. Moorcroft and Trebeck, Zvravels 

in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindu- 
stan, i. 321 (Ladakhis). Caldwell, 
Tinnevelly Shanars, p. 58. 

4 Man, Sonthalia, p. 19. Hodgson, 
Miscellaneous Essays, i. 152 (Bodo and 
Dhimals). Macpherson, AZemordals of 
Service in India, p. 81 (Kandhs). 

> Burckhardt, Arabic Proverbs, p. 
219. 

§ Beltrame, 166. 

Il Sénnaar, i. 

River Congo, p. 402 (Bakongo). 
Ten Years tn EHquatoria, i. 85 (Abaka 

Negroes). Wilsonand Felkin, Uganda, 
li. 310 (Gowane people). Burton, 
Zanzibar, 11. 96 (Wanika). Bonfanti, 

‘L’incivilimento dei negri nell’ Africa 
intertropicale,’ in Archivio per Lantro- 
pologia e la etnologia, xv. 133 (Bantu). 
Andersson, Lake Ngami, p. 231 
(Herero). Magyar, Aezsex i Siid- 
Afrika, p. 290 (Kimbunda). Kropf, 
Das Volk der Xosa-Kaffern, p. 89. 
Tyler, Forty Years among the Zulus, 
p. 194. Ellis, History of Madagascar, 
1, 140. Shaw, ‘Betsileo Country and 
eo: in Antananarivo Annual, iil. 

I. 

7 Baker, Jsmazlia, p. 56 (Shilluks). 
Baumann, Usambara, p. 244 (Wapare). 
Bosman, Description of the Coast of 
Guinea, p. 318 (Negroes of Fida). 
Andersson, (Votes on Travel in South 
Africa, p. 235 (Ovambo). See also 
infra p. 272. 

XXXVI INDUSTRY 

but the utmost necessity can force them to labour.” ! 
The Waganda are represented as excessively indolent, in 
consequence of the ease with which they can obtain all 
the necessaries of life.2 Of the Namaquas we are told 
that “they may be seen basking in the sun for days 
together, in listless inactivity, frequently almost. perishing 
from thirst or hunger, when with very little exertion they 
may have it in their power to satisfy the cravings of 
nature. If urged to work, they have been heard to say : 
‘Why should we resemble the worms of the ground?’ ”’® 
Most of the American Indians are said to have a slothful 
disposition, because they can procure a livelihood with but 
little labour.* But the case is different with the Green- 
landers and other Eskimo, who have to struggle hard for 
their existence.° 

We have seen that savages consider it a duty for a 
married man to support his family,° and this in most cases 
implies that he is under an obligation to do a certain 
amount of work. We have also seen that the various 
occupations of life are divided between the sexes according 
to rules fixed by custom,’ and this means that absolute 
idleness is not generally tolerated in either men or women, 
though the drudgeries of life are often imposed upon the 
latter. Of some uncivilised peoples we are directly told 
that they enjoin work as a duty or regard industry as a 
virtue. The Greenlanders esteem addiction to labour as 
the chief of virtues and believe that the industrious man 

1 Bosman, of. czt. p. 101. of Guiana, p. 343; Kirke, Zwenty- 

2 Wilson and Felkin, of. cz¢. i. 225. 

3 Andersson, Lake Megami, p. 335. 
See also Kolben, Present State of the 
Cape of Good-Hope, i. 46, 324; Barrow, 
Travels into the Interior of Svuthern 
Africa, i. 152; Fritsch, Dze Eznge- 
borenen Stid-Afrikas, p. 324 (Hot- 
tentots). 

* Bridges, ‘Manners and Customs of 
the Firelanders,’ in 4 Vozce for South 
America, xiii, 203 (Fuegians). Dobriz- 
hoffer, Account of the Abipones, ii. 
151; but he praises the Abiponian 
women for their unwearied industry 
(zbed. 11. 151 sg.). Brett, Jndzan Tribes 

Jive Years in British Guiana, p. 150. 
Domenech, Seven Years’? Residence in 
the Great Deserts of North America, ii. 
190. Burton, C7ty of the Saints, p. 126 
(Sioux). Harmon, Voyages and Travels 
in the Interior of North America, p. 
285 (Tacullies). Meares, Voyages to 
the North-West Coast of America, p. 
265 (Nootkas). 

5 Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 126. 
Armstrong, Warrative of the Discovery 
of the North-West Passage, p. 196 
(Western Eskimo). 

6 Supra, i. 526 sgq. 

7 Supra, i. 034 sqq. 

oa INDUSTRY » CHAP. 

will have a very happy existence after death." The Atkha 
Aleuts prohibited laziness. Mr. Batchelor relates an 
Ainu fable which eres diligence and discourages 
idleness in young people.* The Karens of Burma have a 
traditional precept which runs, “ Be not idle, but labour 
diligently, that you may not become slaves.”* The 
Maoris say, ‘‘ Let industry be rewarded, lest idleness gets 
the advantage.” ° The Malagasy likewise inculcate industry 
in many of their proverbs.° The Basutos have a saying 
that <“‘perseverance always triumphs.’’ Among the 
Bachapins, a Bechuana tribe conspicuous for its activity, 
‘a man’s merit is estimated principally by his industry, 
and the words ménind usindachd (an industrious man) are 
an expression of high approbation and praise; while he 
who is seldom seen to hunt, to prepare skins for clothing, 
or to sew koboes, is accounted a worthless and disgraceful 
member of society.”* Among the Beni M’zab in the 
Sahara—an industrious people inhabiting a sterile country 
—hboys are already at the age of six years compelled by 
law to begin to work, either in driving a camel or ass, or 
in drawing water for the gardens.” We may expect to 
find industry especially insisted upon by  uncivilised. 
peoples who are habitually addicted to it, partly because 
it is a necessity among them, partly owing to the influence 
of habit. 

But instead of being regarded as a duty, industrial 
activity is not infrequently looked down upon as dis- 
reputable for a free man. This is especially the case 
among warlike nations, nomadic tribes, and peoples who 
have many slaves. In Uganda, for instance, the pre- 
valence of slavery ‘“ causes all manual labour to be looked 
upon as derogatory to the dignity of a freeman.” ' The 

1 Cranz, op. czt. i. 186. ° Clemes, ‘Malagasy Proverbs,’ in 
2 Yakof, quoted by Petroff, Report a zvo Annual, iv. 29. 

on Alaska, p. 158. ‘ Casalis, Basutos, p. 310. 
3 Batchelor, Azz of Japan, p. 111. 8 Burchell, Tr avels in the Interior of 

4 Smeaton, Loyal Karens of Burma, Southern Afri ca, ll. 557. 
p-. 255. ® Tristram, The Great Sahara, p. 
5 Taylor, Ze Jka a Maui, p. 293. 207 sq. 
See also Johnston, JZaorza, p. 43. 10 Wilson and Felkin, of. czt. i. 186. 

en ie 

Masai’ and Matabele* consider that the only occupation 
which becomes a man is warfare. The Arabs of the 
desert hold labour humiliating to anybody but a slave.® 
Speaking of the Turkomans, Vambéry observes that “in 
his domestic circle, the nomad presents us a picture of the 
most absolute indolence. In his eyes it is the greatest 
shame for a man to apply his hand to any domestic 
occupation.” * The Chippewas “have ever looked upon 
agricultural and mechanical labours as degrading,” and 
“have regarded the use of the bow and arrow, the war- 
club and spear, as the noblest employments of man.” ° 
Among the Iroquois “the warrior despised the toil of 
husbandry, and held all labour beneath him.” ® ‘Though an 
industrious race, the Maoris considered it more honourable, 
as well as more desirable, to acquire property by war and 
plunder than by labour.’ Among the Line Islanders it is 
undignified for a landholder to do work of any kind, except 
to make weapons, hence he employs persons of the lower 
class to work for him. In Nukahiva the people of 
distinction “suffer the nails on the fingers to grow very 
long, that it may be evident they are not accustomed to 
hard labour.” ® This contempt for industrial activity is 
easy to explain. A man who earns his livelihood by 
labour is considered to be lacking in those qualities which 
are alone admired—courage and strength ;—or work is 
associated with the idea of servile subjection. It is also 
universally held degrading for a man to engage in any 
occupation which belongs to the women.” Thus among 
hunting and pastoral peoples it would be quite out of 
place for him to supply the household with vegetable 
food." On the other hand, when agriculture became an 

1 Merker, Dze Masai, p. 117. 

2 Holub, ‘Die Ma-Atabele,’ 
Zewtschr. f. Ethnol. xxv. 198. 

8 Burton, Pelgrimage to Al-Madinah 
& Meccah, ii, 10. 

4 Vambéry, Zvavels in Central Asia 

in 

2320: 

® Schoolcraft, Archives of Aboriginal 
Knowledge, v. 150. 

® Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 

VOL. II 

p- 329. : . 
7 Travers, ‘Life and Times of Te 

Rauparaha,’ in Zrans, New Zealand 
Inst. V. 29. 

8 Tutuila, ‘ Line Islanders,’ in /ow7. 
Polvnesian Soc. i. 266. 

® yon Langsdorf, Voyages and 
Travels, \. 174. 
10 (Supra, i. 636 sq. 
11 Supra, i. 634. 
T 

indispensable means to maintenance of life it at the same 
time became respectable. But trade was scorned, probably, 
as Mr. Spencer suggests, because it was carried on chiefly 
by unsettled persons, who were detached, untrustworthy 
members of a community in which most men had fixed 
positions.' The Kandhs “ consider it beneath their dignity 
to barter or traffic, and . . . . regard as base and plebeian 
all who are not either warriors or tillers of the soil.” ? 
The Javans “have a contempt for trade, and those of 
higher rank esteem it disgraceful to be engaged in it 5 but 
the common people are ever ready to engage in the labours 
of agriculture, and the chiefs to honour and encourage 
agricultural industry.” ® 

Progress in civilisation implies an increase of industry. 
Both the necessities and the comforts of life grow more 
numerous ; hence more labour is required to provide for 
them, and at the same time there is more inducement to 
accumulate wealth. The advantages, both private and 
public, accruing from diligence are-more clearly recognised, 
and the government, in particular, is anxious that the 
people should work so as to be able to pay their taxes. 
All this leads to condemnation of idleness and approbation 
of industry ; and the influence of habit must operate in 
the same direction among a nation whose industrial pro- 
pensities have been the cause of its civilisation. But in 
the archaic State war is still regarded. as a nobler 
occupation than labour ; and whilst agriculture is held in 
honour, trade and handicraft are frequently despised. 

In the kingdom of the Peruvian Incas there was a law 
that no one should be idle. ‘Children of five years old 
were employed at very light work, suitable to their age. 
Even the blind and lame, if they had no other infirmity, 
were provided with certain kinds of work. The rest of 
the people, while they were healthy, were occupied each at 
his own labour, and it was a most infamous and degrading 

1 Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 2 Campbell, Weld Tribes of Khondi- 
429. Stan, p. 50. 
3 Raffles, of. cé¢. i. 246 sg. 

INDUSTRY 

thing among these people to be chastised in public for 
idleness,”? If any of them was slothful, or slept in the 
day, he was whipped or had to carry the stone.? The 
reason for these measures was that the whole duty of 
defraying the expenses of the government belonged to the 
people, and that, without money and with little property, 
they paid their taxes in labour ; hence to be idle was, in a 
manner, t® rob the exchequer.® 

One of the characteristics of Zoroastrianism is its appre- 
ciation of labour. The faithful man must be vigilant, 
alert, and active ; sleep itself is merely a concession to the 
demons, and should therefore be kept within the limits of 
necessity.? The lazy man is the most unworthy of men, 
because he eats his food through impropriety and injustice.® 
And of all kinds of labour the most necessary is 
husbandry.’ Man has been placed upon earth to preserve 
Ahura Mazda’s good creation, and this can only be done 
by careful tilling of the soil, eradication of thorns and 
weeds, and reclamation of the tracks over which Angra 
Mainyu has spread the curse of barrenness. Zoroaster 
asked, ‘‘ What is the food that fills the Religion of 
Mazda?” and Ahura Mazda answered, “It is sowing 
corn again and again, O Spitama Zarathustra! He who 
sows corn sows righteousness.” * According to Xenophon, 
the king of the Persians considered the art of agriculture 
and that of war to be the most honourable and necessary 
occupations, and paid the greatest attention to both.’ 
He appointed officers to overlook the tillers of the ground, 
as well as to collect tribute from them; for “ those who 

1 Blas Valera, quoted by Garcilasso 
de la Vega, First Part of the Royal 
Commentaries of the Yncas, ii. 34. 
See also zbzd. ii. 14; Acosta, Watural 
and Moral History of the Indies, ii. 
413. 

ener General History of the 
West Indies, iv. 339. 

3 Prescott, History of the Conquest of 
PU 57. 

4 See Darmesteter, in Sacred Books 
of the East, iv. p. Ixvii.; Geiger, 

Civilization of the Eastern Iranians, 
i. 703; Rawlinson, felzgzons of the 
Ancient World, p. 108; Dind-t Mai- 
nog-t Khirad, \\. 29, Xxxvi. 15, XXxvii. 
14, &c. 

5 Vendidad, xviii. 16. 

6 Dind-t Mainég-t Khirad, xxi, 
27. 
7 See Vendidad, iii. 23 sqq. 
8 Tbid. iii. 30 sg. 
® Xenophon, Cconomicus, iv. 4, 8 
SQq. 

wp 

cultivate the ground inefficiently will neither maintain 
the garrisons, nor be able to pay their tribute.” * 

In his description of ancient Egypt Herodotus tells us 
that one of its kings made a law to the effect that every 
Egyptian should annually declare to the governor of his 
district by what means he maintained himself, and that, if 
he failed to do this, or did not show that he lived by 
honest means, he should be punished with death.* Whether 
this statement be correct or not,’ it seems certain that the 
Egyptians were anxious to encourage industry. According 
to the Precepts of Ptah-Hotep, nobody should lose his 
daily opportunity of increasing that which his house 
possesses ; for he is a blameworthy person who makes a 
bad use of his moments.? 

A law against idleness resembling that which is re- 
ported to have existed in Egypt wasestablished at Athens, 
according to some writers by Draco or Pisistratus,° accord- 
ing to others by Solon, who is said to have borrowed it 
from the Egyptians.’ Plutarch states that, as the city 
was filled with persons who assembled from all parts on 
account of the great security which prevailed in Attica and 
the country withal was poor and barren, Solon turned the 
attention of the citizens to manufactures, For this pur- 
pose he ordered that trades-should be accounted honour- 
able, that the council of the Areopagus should examine 
into every man’s means of subsisting and chastise the idle, 
and that no son should be obliged to maintain his father 
if he had not taught him a trade. Thucydides puts the 
following words in the mouth of Pericles :—‘“ To avow 
poverty with us-ts no disgrace; the true disgrace is in 
doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not 
neglect the State because he takes care of his own house- 

1 Xenophon, Cconomicus, iv. 9,  Ancienne, p. 329. 

Ti. 
2 Herodotus, ii. 177. Cf Diodorus 
Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, 1. 77. 5. 
3 Cf. Wiedemann, erodots zweites 
Buch, p. 605. 
4 See Amélineau, Zssaz sur Pévolu- 
tion des idées morales dans I Egypte 

> Precepts of Ptah-Hotep, 11, p. 21. 

§ Pollux, Onomasticum, viii.’ 42. 
Diogenes Laertius, Vite philosophorum, 
1.55. Plutarch, Solon, xxxi. 6. 

’ Herodotus, ii, 177. Diodorus 
Siculus, 1. 77.5. 

8 Plutarch, So/om, xxii. I, 3 sg. 

ee ee 

hold ; and even those of us who are engaged in business 
have a very fair idea of politics”? In Kenophon’s 
‘Memorabilia’ Socrates recommends industry as a means 
of supporting life, of maintaining the health and strength 
of the body, of promoting temperance and honesty.’ 
According to Plato idleness is the mother of wantonness, 
whereas by labour the aliment of passion is diverted into 
other parts of the body.’ Agriculture was highly praised. 
It is the best of all the occupations and arts by which men 
procure the means of living.* Where it flourishes all 
other pursuits are in full vigour, but when the ground is 
allowed to lie barren other occupations are almost stopped.° 
It is an exercise for the body, and strengthens it for dis- 
charging the duties that become a man of honourable 
birth. It requires people to accustom themselves to 
endure the colds of winter and the heats of summer.’ It 
renders them fit for running, throwing, leaping.* It gives 
them the greatest gratification for their labour, it is the 
most attractive of all employments.’ It receives strangers 
with the richest hospitality.° It offers the most pleasing 
first-fruits to the gods, and the richest banquets on festival 
days.' It teaches men justice, for it is those who treat 
the earth best that she recompenses with the most 
numerous benefits.” It instructs people to assist one 
another, for it cannot be conducted without the aid of 
other men.”* It does not give such constant occupation to 
a person’s mind as to prevent him from attending to the 
interests of his friends or his native land.* The possession 
of an estate stimulates men to defend their country in 
arms. In short, agriculture renders citizens most useful, 
most virtuous, and best affected towards the common- 
wealth.?° 

1 Thucydides, Hzstorda belld Pelopon- 8 Tbid. v. 8. 
mesiact, il. 40. I Sg. YEE, Si 5 A: 
2 Xenophon, Memorabilia, ii. 7. 7 SD Sth Rin 
Sq. US Heh, Sip, WO): 

3 Plato, Leges, viii. 835, 841. SME SP 
4 Xenophon, Zeonomicus, vi. 8. 13 [bzd. v. 14. 
SP 7btda Vo U7: 14 Jzd._vi. 9. 
Oph, Nis GE Valo Ce Ls Sip Yo 

7 [bid. v. 4. 16 [bid, vi. 10, 

The argumentative manner in which these views were 
expressed by the philosophers indicates, however, that 
industrial occupations were deficient in public appreciation." 
Herodotus says that not only among most barbarians but 
also throughout Greece those who are given wholly to war 
are honoured above others.? This was especially the case 
at Sparta, where a freeman was forbidden to engage in any 
industrial occupation.* Contrasting Lycurgus’ legislation 
with that of Solon, Plutarch observes that in a state 
where the earth was sufficient to support twice the number 
of inhabitants and where there were a multitude of 
Helots to be worn out by servitude, it was right to set 
the citizens free from laborious and mechanic arts and to 
employ them in arms as the only art fit for them to learn 
and exercise.* At Thebes there was a law that no man 
could hold office who had not retired from business for 
ten years, because it was looked upon as a mean employ- 
ment.’ Even at Athens, in spite of its democratic institu- 
tions and its laws against idleness, trade and handicrafts 
were despised, both by the general public and by the philo- 
sophers. Xenophon’s Socrates said that the industrial 
arts are objectionable and justly held in little repute in 
communities, because they weaken the bodies of those 
who work at them by compelling them to sit and to live 
indoors and in some cases to pass whole days by the fire ; 
for when the body becomes effeminate the mind loses its 
strength.° Moreover, mechanical occupations leave those 
who practise them no leisure to attend to the interests of 
their friends or the commonwealth, hence men of that 
class seem unsuited alike to be of advantage to their con- 
nections and to be defenders of their country.” Plato 
maintains that manual arts are a reproach because they 
“imply a natural weakness of the higher principle” ;* by 

1 Cf. Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten 4 Plutarch, Soloz, xxii, 2. 

Griechen, ii. 435 599. ® Aristotle, Polttica, ili. 5. 7, p. 
2 Herodotus, ii. 167. 127 O08 Vi aA een ay 
3 Jd. ii. 167. Xenophon, Lacede- 6 Xenophon, CX-conomicus, iv. 2. 
montorum respublica, Vi. 2. Plutarch, Um ocd mines 
Lycurgus, xxiv. 2. Idem, Agesilaus, 8 Plato, Respublica, ix. 590. 

xxvi. 6. Aelian, Varia historia, vi. 6. 

— ee gt 

their meanness they maim and disfigure the souls as well 
as the bodies of those who are employed in them.! When 
Hesiod said that ‘* work is no disgrace,” * he could certainly 
not have meant that there was no disgrace for example 
in the manufacture of shoes or in selling pickles.? And 
in his ‘Laws’ Plato lays down the regulation that no 
citizen or servant of a citizen should be occupied in 
handicraft arts ; ‘“‘for he who is to-secure and preserve 
the public order of the State has an art which requires 
much study and many kinds of knowledge, and does not 
admit of being made a secondary occupation.’’ * Aristotle, 
again, observes that in a community which has an aristo- 
cratic form of government the mechanic and the labourer 
will not be citizens, because honours are there given 
according to virtue and merit, and “no man can practise 
virtue who is living the life of a mechanic or labourer.” ® 
Corinth was the place in Greece where the mechanic’s 
occupation was least despised °—no doubt because its situa- 
tion naturally led to extensive trade and thence to that 
splendour of living by which the useful and ornamental 
arts are most encouraged.’ 

The Roman views on the subject were very similar to 
those of the Greeks. With regard to what arts and means 
of acquiring wealth are to be regarded as worthy and what 
disreputable, says Cicero, we have been taught as follows. 
In the first place, those sources of emolument which incur 
public hatred, such as those of tax-gatherers and usurers, 
are condemned. We are likewise to account as mean the 
gains of hired workmen, whose source of profit is not their 
art but their labour; for their very wages are the con- 
sideration of their servitude. We are further to despise 
all who retail from merchants goods for prompt sale ; for 
they never can succeed unless they lie most abominably, 

1 Tbid. vi. 495. HAMELS Vuk Se 25 jh GPs) lA Apis eh 
2 Hesiod, Ofera et dies, 311. Absq piss 7b 

® Plato, Charmzdes, p. 163. ® Herodotus, ii. 167. 

4 Idem, Leges, viil. 846. 7 See Rawlinson’s note in his trans- 
5 Aristotle, Polztica, ili. 5. 5, p- ation of Herodotus, 11. 252, n. 7. 

1278 a. See also zbzd. vi. 4. 12, p. 

and nothing is more disgraceful than insincerity. All 
mechanical labourers are by their profession mean; for a 
workshop can contain nothing befitting a gentleman. Least 
of all are those trades to be approved that serve the pur- 
poses of sensuality, such as the occupations of butchers, 
cooks, and fishermen. But those professions that involve 
a higher degree of intelligence or.a greater amount of 
utility, such as medicine, architecture, and the teaching of 
the liberal arts, are honourable in those to whose rank in 
life they are suited. As to merchandising, if on a small 
scale it is mean, but if it is extensive and rich, if it brings 
numerous commodities from all parts of the world, and 
gives bread to a multitude of people without fraud, it is 
not so despicable. However, if a merchant, satisfied with 
his profits, steps from the harbour into an estate, such a 
man seems most justly deserving of praise. For of all 
gainful professions nothing is better, nothing is more 
pleasing and more delightful, nothing is more befitting a 
well-bred man than agriculture." 

The contempt in which manual labour was held by the 
ancient pagans could hardly be shared by early Christianity. 
Christ had been born in a carpenter’s family, his apostles 
belonged to the working class, and so did originally most 
of his followers. Origen accepts with pride the reproach 
of Celsus, when he accuses Christians of worshipping the 
son of a poor workwoman, who had earned her bread by 
spinning,’ and contrasts with the wisdom of Plato that of 
Paul, the tent-maker, of Peter, the fisherman, of John, who 
had abandoned his father’s nets.? St. Paul presses on the 
Thessalonians the duty of personal industry ; ‘if any one 
would not work, neither should he eat.’’* But at the 
same time the spirit of Christianity was not consistent 
with much anxiety about earthly matters. The aim of a true 
disciple of Christ was not to prosper in the world but to 

1 Cicero, De offictzs, i. 42. See also 3 Jéid. vi. 7 (Migne, Ser. Gr. xi. 

Idem, Cato Major, ch. 15 sgq. 1298 sq.). 
2 Origen, Contra Celsum, i. 28 sg. 4 1 Thessalonians, iv, 11; 2 Thessa- 
(Migne, Patrologte cursus, Ser, Graeca,  lonzans, iii. 10, 

Sie 7 14 Sa-)) 

q 

seek the kingdom of God, not to lay up for himself 
treasures upon earth but to lay up for himself treasures in 
heaven.’ Poverty became an ideal, in conformity with 
both the example and teachings of Christ. It was associ- 
ated with godliness, whilst wealth was associated with god- 
lessness.? “The love of money,” says St. Paul, “is the 
root of all evil’’ ;*° and the same idea was over and again 
expressed by Christian moralists.* In the original sinless 
state of mankind property was unknown, and so was labour. 
It was to punish man for his disobedience that God caused 
him to eat daily bread in the sweat of his face.® Since then 
work is a necessity ; but the contemplative life is better 
than the active life.© Bonaventura points out that Jesus 
preferred the meditating Mary to the busy Martha,’ and 
that he himself seems to have done no work till his 
thirtieth year.* Work is of no value by itself ; its highest 
object is to further contemplation, to macerate the body, 
to curb concupiscence,? For this purpose, indeed, it was 
strongly insisted upon by several founders of religious 
orders. According to St. Benedict, “ idleness is an enemy 
to the soul ; and hence at certain seasons the brethren 
ought to occupy themselves in the labour of their hands, 
and at others in holy reading.”'° St. Bernard writes :— 
“The handmaid of Christ ought always to pray, to read, to 
work, lest haply the spirit of uncleanness should lead astray 
the slothful mind. The delight of the flesh is overcome 
by labour. . . . The body tired by work 1s less delighted 
with vice.” 1! But the active life must not be pursued to 
such an extent as to hinder what it is intended to promote ; 

LSA UES aa, 87S Gib SY? 7 Bonaventura, Meditationes vite 

Matthew, vi. 19 sq. 

"Si JEDI “Rigi, RY yy otsye 
Matthew, xix. 24. 

3 1 Timothy, vi. 10. 

4 yon Eicken, Geschichte der mittel- 
alterlichen Weltanschauung, p. 498 
sqgg. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theo- 
Jogica, ii.-i1. 186. 3. 

5 Genesis, ili. 19. 

6 Thomas Aquinas, of. ct. il.-ii. 
TO2uatS7e VON PICKEN Op, C2. Pe 
488 sgq. 

Christz, ch. 45 (Opera, xii. 452). 

8 Jbtd. ch. 15 (Opera, xii. 405). 

® Guigo, Lfzstola ad Fratres de 
Monte-Dei, i. 8 (in St. Bernard, Ofera 
omnia, il. 214) :—‘*Non _ spiritualia 
exercitia sunt propter corporalia, sed 
corporalia propter spiritualia.” von 
Eicken, of. czt. p. 491 sgq. 

10 St. Benedict, Regula Monachorum, 
8. 
ot St. Bernard, De modo bene vivendi, 
ch. 51 (Opera omnia, ii. 883 sg.). 

for it is impossible for any man to be at once occupied 
with exterior actions and at the same time apply himself 
to divine contemplation.!. And whilst he who has nothing 
else to live upon is bound to work, it is a sin to try to 
acquire riches beyond the limit which necessity has 
fixed.” : 

This doctrine was more or less realised in the monastic life, 
but was hardly held applicable to laymen. The medizval 
baron and knight resembled the Teutonic warrior described 
by Tacitus, who regarded it as “a dull and stupid thing to 
painfully accumulate by the sweat of the brow what might 
be won by a little blood.” ® In England, after the Con- 
quest, the aristocracy in general lived a life of idleness but 
indulged eagerly in hunting, and its members continually 
sallied forth in parties to plunder.* For a long time the 
lower classes, constituting the mass of society, existed only 
for the benefit of the upper class. It was considered 
honourable to live in sloth supported by the exertions of 
others, it was held degrading to depend on the gains of 
industry. The degradation really attached to the gains of 
labour rather than labour itself ; for labour ceased to be 
degrading if not prosecuted for gain. ‘Louis XVI. may 
make locks, the ladies of his court may make butter and 
cheese, provided it is only for amusement. Lord Rosse 
may build a telescope as an amateur in the interest of 
science, and still be noble. But if the locks, the butter, or 
the telescope are sold, the makers are degraded to the level 
of the tradesman.” ° However, as Mr. Spencer observes, 
trade, while at first relatively unessential (since essential 
things were mostly made at home) and consequently lacking 
the sanction of necessity and of ancestral custom, ceased to 
be despised when it grew in importance.* Among our- 
selves the respect in which a certain occupation is held is 

1 Speculum Monachorum, in St. 

Bernard, Ofera ommia, ii. 818. von 
Eicken, of. c2¢. p. 49459. C/. Thomas 

4 Wright, Domestic Manners and 
Sentiments in England during the 
Middle Ages, p. 102. 

Aquinas, op. ¢2t. ii.-li, 182. 3. 

* Thomas Aquinas, of. cet. ii.—il. 
[OV uelion tl. 

° Tacitus, Germania, 14. 

5 Harris, ‘ The Christian Doctrine of 
Labor,’ in Mew Englander, xxiv. 245. 

6 Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i, 
429. 

| > i 

} 
; 
; 

largely determined by the degree of mental power implied 
in it ; hence manual labour, and especially unskilled labour, 

is still in some degree looked down upon. But we do not 
_ regard as dishonourable any kind of work which is not 
_ opposed to the ordinary rules of morality. We distinguish 

more clearly than the ancients did between social and moral 
inferiority. Our moral judgments are less influenced by 
class antipathies. We recognise that a high standard of 
duty is compatible even with the humblest station in life. 
And when we duly reflect upon the matter, we admit that the 
moral value of industry depends, not on the occupation in 
which it is displayed, but on the purpose of the labourer. 

But though industry is applauded or insisted on, rest is 
also in certain circumstances regarded asa duty. By doing 
too much work a person may injure himself and indirectly 
other persons as well. In early society there is little induce- 
ment to overwork, but the case is very different in modern 
civilisation. This accounts for the persistence and general 
popularity of an institution which originally sprang from 
quite different sources, namely, the Sunday rest. 

Among various peoples it is the custom to abstain from 
work, or from some special kind of work, on certain occa- 
sions or days which are regarded as defiling or inauspicious. 
Work is often suspended after a death, partly perhaps 
because inactivity is a natural accompaniment of sorrow,’ 
or because a mourner is supposed to be in a delicate state 
requiring rest,’ but chiefly, I presume, from fear lest the 
work done should be contaminated by the pollution of death. 
Among the Arabs of Morocco no work must be performed 
in the village till the dead is buried. _ In Greenland every- 
one who had lived in the same house with the deceased was 
obliged to be idle for a certain period, according to the 
directions of the priests or wizards. Among the Eskimo 
of Behring Strait none of the relatives of the dead must do 
any work during the time in which the shade is believed 

1 Cf infra, p. 308. 3 Egede, Description of Greenland, 
AGS AIH, 1H BOY p-. 149 sg. 

~ 

to remain with the body, that is, for four or five days. 
Among the Seminole Indians of Florida the relatives 
remained at home and refrained from work during the day 
of the burial and for three days thereafter, when the dead 
was supposed to stay in his grave.” The Kar Nicobarese 
abstain from work as a sign of mourning.* In Samoa all 
labour was suspended in the settlement on the death of a 
chief. So also the Basutos do no work on the day when 
an influential person dies. They, moreover, refrain from 
going to their fields, or hasten to leave them, at the 
approach of clouds which give promise of rain, ‘in order 
quietly to await the desired benediction, fearing to disturb 
Nature in her operations. This idea is carried to such an 
extent, that most of the natives believe that, if they 
obstinately persist in their labour at such a moment, the 
clouds are irritated and retire, or send hail instead of rain. 
Days of sacrifice, or great purification, are also holidays. 
Hence it is that the law relative to the repose of the seventh 
day, so far from finding any objection in the minds of the 
natives, appears to them very natural, and perhaps even 
more fundamental, than it seems to certain Christians.” ® 
Changes in the moon are frequently considered 
unfavourable for work. Among the Bechuanas, “ when 
the new moon appears, all must cease from work, and 
keep what is called in England a holiday.’’® The people 
of Thermia, in the Cyclades, maintain that all work, so 
far as possible, should be suspended on the days immediately 
preceding the full moon.’ In the Vishnu Purana it is said 
that one who attends to secular affairs on the days of the 
full or new moon. goes to the Rudhirandha hell, whose 
wells are blood. In Northern India it 1s considered bad 
to undertake any business of importance at the new moon 

1 Nelson, ‘Eskimo about Bering * Turner, Weneteen Years in Poly- 
Strait,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. nesta, p. 229. Ldem, Samoa, p. 146. 
Xvill. 319. > Casalis, Basutos, p. 260 sq. 

2 Maccauley, ‘Seminole Indians of 8 Campbell, Second Journey in the 
Florida,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. Interior of South Africa, ii. 205. 

Vv. 52. Bent. Cyclades, p. 438. 

3 Kloss, Jz the Andamans and 8 Vishhu Pur ata, Pp. 209. 

Nicobars, p. 305. 

Ibr at an eclipse.’ According to the ‘Laws of Manu,’ a 
Brahmana is not allowed to study ‘on the new-moon 
day, nor on the fourteenth and the eighth days of each 
half-month, nor on the full-moon day.” It is said 
that ‘the new-moon day destroys the teacher, the 
fourteenth day the pupil, the eighth and the full-moon 
days destroy all remembrance of the Veda ; let him there- 
fore avoid reading on those days.”? The Buddhists have 
their Sabbath, or Uposatha, which occurs four times in 
the month, namely, on the day of full moon, on the day 
when there is no moon, and on the two days which are 
eighth from the full and new moon. On these days selling 
and buying, work and business, hunting and fishing, are 
forbidden, and all schools and law-courts are closed.? In 
Ashantee and neighbouring districts, where the people 
reckon time by moons, there is a weekly ‘‘fetish-day”’ 
or sabbath, which seems to be of native origin. “In all 
the countries along the coast, the regular fetish-day is 
Tuesday, the day which is observed by the king of 
Ashantee. Other days in the week are held sacred in the 
bush. On this weekly sabbath, or fetish-day, the people 
generally dress themselves in white garments, and mark 
their faces, and sometimes their arms, with white clay. 
They also rest from labour. The fishermen would expect, 
that were they to go out on that day, the fetish would be 
angry, and spoil their fishing.” * The natives of Coomassie, 
on the Gold Coast, have a law according to which no 
agricultural work may be done on a Thursday.’ In 
Hawaii, where each month contained thirty nights and 
the inset days and nights derived their names from the 
varying aspects of the moon according to her age, there 
were during every month four periods lasting from two to 
four nights in which the nights were consecrated or made 
taboo. So also there were tabooed seasons on certain other 

1 Crooke, ofular Religion of * Beecham, Ashantee, p. 185 sg. 
Northern India, i. 23. Cf. Bosman, of. cit. p. 131 (Gold 

2 Laws of Manu, iv. 113 sg. Coast natives). 

8 Childers, Dzcteonary of the Pali 5 Ellis, 7shz-speaking Peoples of the 
Language, p. 535. Kern, Der Buddhis- Gold Coast, p. 304. 
mus, ii. 258. 

occasions, as when a high chief was ill, or preparations 
were made for war, or on the approach of important 
religious ceremonies. These taboos were either “common”’ 
or “strict.” In the case of the former men were only 
required to abstain from their common pursuits and to 
attend prayers morning and evening, whereas when the 
season of strict taboo was in force a general gloom and 
silence pervaded the whole district or island. ‘ Not a fire 
or light was to be seen, or canoe launched ; none bathed ; 
the mouths of dogs were tied up, and fowls put under 
calabashes, or their heads enveloped in cloth; for no 
noise of man or animal must be heard. No persons, 
excepting those who officiated at the temple, were allowed 
to leave the shelter of their roofs. Were but one of these 
rules broken, the taboo would fail and the gods be dis- 
pleased.” * 

The peoples of Semitic stock also have their tabooed 
days. In Morocco I was told that work done on a feast 
—that is, holy—day will not succeed. It is considered 
unlucky to begin a journey on a Friday, and, in some 
parts of the country, to commence work or to move a 
tent or to take away the ashes from the fireplace on that 
day. No Moor would dare to have his head shaved on a 
Wednesday. The ploughing season should begin on no 
other day but a Sunday or Thursday, and in the Andjra 
mountains, in Northern Morocco, the people said that 
clothes will not remain clean if they are washed on a 
Saturday. Among the modern Egyptians Saturday is 
held to be the most unfortunate of days, and particularly 
unfavourable for shaving, cutting the nails, and starting on 
a journey.” At Kheybar in Arabia, again, Sunday is 
considered an unlucky day for beginning any kind of 
work.? There can be little doubt that the Jewish Sabbath 
originated in the belief that it was inauspicious or 
dangerous to work on the seventh day, and that the 
reason for this belief was the mystic connection which in 

1 Jarves, History of the Hawatian games, &c.” (Tregear, Maord-Poly- 
Islands, pp. 40, 28. The word zapua%e  nestan Dictionary, p. 472). 

means ‘Sto abstain from all work, 2 Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 272. 
3 Doughty, Avabéa Deserta, ii. 197 sq. 

the opinion of the ancient Hebrews, as of so many other 
peoples, existed between human activity and the changes 
in the moon’ It has been sufficiently demonstrated 
that the Sabbath originally depended upon the new 
moon, and this carries with it the assumption that the 
Hebrews must at one time have observed a Sabbath at 
intervals of seven days corresponding with the moon’s 
phases.” In the Old Testament the new moon and 
Sabbath are repeatedly mentioned side by side ;* thus 
the oppressors of the poor are represented as saying, 
“When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell 
corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat ?”’* 
Among modern Jews, at the feast of the New Moon, 
which is held every month on the first or on the first 
and second days of the month, the women are obliged 
to suspend all servile work, though the men are not 
required to interrupt their secular employments.” That 
the superstitious fear of doing work on the seventh 
day developed into a religious prohibition, is only 
another instance of a tendency which we have noticed 
often before—the tendency of magic forces to be trans- 
formed into divine volitions.® Like the ancient Hebrews, 
the Assyrians and Babylonians looked upon the seventh 
day as an “evil day” ; and though they do not seem 
generally to have abstained from work on that day, 
there were various royal taboos connected with it. The 

1 See Jastrow, ‘Original Character 
of the Hebrew Sabbath,’ in American 

usual forms of activity.” Wellhausen, 
again, suggests (of. cz¢. p. 114) that 

Journal of Theology, i. 321 sqq. 

2 Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the 
LTistory of Israel, p. 112 sqqg. Jastrow, 
loc, cit. pp. 314, 327. 

DB) WGHIOS. iN ey, 
Hfosea, il. 11. 

4 Amos, Vili. 5. 

5 Allen, Modern Judaism, p. 390 sq. 

° Prof. Jastrow seems to have failed 
to see this when he says (/oc. czt. p. 
323) that, ‘‘if the Sabbath was origin- 
ally an ‘unfavourable’ day on which 
one must avoid showing one’s self 
before Yahwe, it would naturally be 
regarded as dangerous to provoke his 
anger by endeavouring to secure on 
that day personal benefits through the 

Isaiah, i. 13. 

the rest on the Sabbath was originally 
the consequence of that day being the 
festal and sacrificial day of the week, 
and only gradually became its essential 
attribute on account of the regularity 
with which it every eighth day inter- 
rupted the round of everyday work. 
He argues that the Sabbath as a day 
of rest cannot be very primitive, be- 
cause such a day ‘‘ presupposes agri- 
culture and a tolerably hard-pressed 
working day-life.” But this argument 
appears very futile when we consider 
how commonly changes in the moon 
are believed to exercise an unfavourable 
influence upon work of any kind. 

King was not to show himself in his chariot, not to hold 
court, not to bring sacrifices, not to change his clothes, not 
to eat a good dinner, and not even to curse his enemies.’ 
The Jewish Sabbath was abolished by Christ. ‘ The 
Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath ”’ ; ” 
“My father worketh [on it] hitherto, and I work.” ® 
Jewish converts no doubt continued to observe the Sabbath, 
but this met with disapproval. In one of the Epistles of 
Ignatius we find the exhortation not to “ sabbatise,’’ which 
was expanded by the subsequent paraphraser of these 
compositions into a warning against keeping the Sabbath, 
after the manner of the Jews, ‘as if delighting in idle- 
ness.” * And in the fourth century a Council of the 
Church enacted “ that the Christians ought not to judaise, 
and rest on the Sabbath, but ought to work on that day.” ° 
On the other hand, it was from early times a recognised 
custom among the Christians to celebrate the first day 
of the week in memory of Christ’s resurrection, by holding 
a form of religious service; but there was no sabbatic 
regard for it, and it was chiefly looked upon as a day 
of rejoicing.® ‘Tertullian is the first writer who speaks of 
abstinence from secular care and labour on Sunday as a 
duty incumbent upon Christians, lest they should “ give 
place to the devil.”’ But it is extremely doubtful whether 
the earliest Sunday law really had a Christian origin. In 321 
the Emperor Constantine issued an edict to the effect that 
all judges and all city people and tradesmen should rest on 
‘the venerable Day of the Sun,” whereas those living in 
the country should have full liberty to attend to the culture 
of their fields, ‘* since it frequently happens that no other 

1 Schrader, Die Ketlinschriften und 5 Concilium Laodicenum, can. 29 

das Alte Testament, p. 592 sg. Wirsch- 
feld, ‘ Remarks on the Etymology of 
Sabbath,’ in Jour. Roy. Asiatic Soc, 
1896, p. 358. Jastrow, Joc. cét. pp. 
320, 328. 

BN SY Are, Ml. 270 

2S HOM ie UG: 

4 Tenatius, Lpzstola ad Magnesios, 9 
(Migne, of. czt. Ser. Graeca, v. 768). 
Neale, Heasts and Fasts, p. 89. 

(Labbe-Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum 
collectio, ii. 580). 

$ Justin Martyr, Apologia I. pro 
Christtanis, 67 (Migne, of. cet. Ser. 
Graeca, vi. 429). Schaff, Westory of 
the Christian Church, * Anti-Nicene 
Christianity,” p. 202 sgg. Hessey, 
Sunday, p. 29 sqq. 

” Tertullian, De oratione, 23 (Migne, 
op, cit. i, T1191). 

m= * ee : 

ey 

REST 

day is so fit for the sowing of grain or the planting 
of vines.”’! In this rescript nothing is said of any relation 

to Christianity, nor do we know that it in any way was 

due to Christian influence.? It seems that Constantine, in 
his capacity of Pontifex Maximus, only added the day of 
the sun—whose worship was the Eimttericue of the new 
paganism—to those inauspicious days, religiosi dies, which 
the Romans of old regarded as unsuitable for worldly 
business and especially for judicial proceedings. ° But 
though the obligatory Sunday rest in no case was a 
continuance of the Jewish Sabbath, it gradually was con- 
founded with it, owing to the recognition of the decalogue, 
with its injunction of a weekly day of rest, as the code of 
divine morality. From the sixth century upwards 
vexatious restrictions were made by civil rulers, councils, 
and ecclesiastical writers;* until in Puritanism the 
Christian Sunday became a perfect image of the pharisaic 
Sabbath, or even excelled it in the rigour with which 
abstinence from every kind of worldly activity was 
insisted upon. The theory that the keeping holy of one 
day out of seven is the essence of the Fourth Command- 
ment reconciled people to the fact that the Jewish Sabbath 
was the seventh day and Sunday the first. In England, in 
the seventeenth century, persons were punished for carry- 
ing coal on Sunday, for hanging out clothes to dry, for 
travelling on horseback, for rural strolls and walking 
about.? And Scotch clergymen taught their congregations 
that on that day it was sinful to save a vessel in distress, 
and that it was proof of religion to leave ship and crew to 
perish.° 

auspicious” days, when no court or 
assembly was to be held, and work was 
to be abstained from (Plato, Zeges, vi. 

800; Karsten, Studies tn Primetive 
Greek Religion, p. 90). 

1 Codex Justinianus, iil. 12. 2 (3). 

2 Cf Lewis, Critical History of 
Sunday Legislation, p. 18 sgg.3 
Milman, “7story of Christianity, i. 

291 sq. 

3 Gellius, Moctes Attice, iv. 9. 5; 
vi. 9. 10. Varro, De lingwa Latina, 
vi. 30. Neale, of. ct. pp. 5, 6, 86, 87, 
206. Fowler, Roman Festivals of the 
Period of the Republic, p. 8 sg. The 
Greeks, also, had ‘‘unblest. and in- 

ViOLee Li 

4 Hessey, of. czt. p. 87 sgg. 

5 Roberts, Soctal History of the 
People of the Southern Counties of 
England, p. 244 sqq. 

6 Buckle, History of Civilization tn 
England, i. 276. 

U

RESTRICTIONS IN DIET 

TRAVELLERS have often noticed with astonishment the 
immense quantities of food which uncivilised people are 
able to consume. Sir George Grey has described the 
orgies which follow the stranding of a whale in Australia, 
when the natives remain by the carcase for many days, 
fairly eating their way into it," The Rocky Mountain 
Indians, though they often subsist for a great length of 
time on a very little food, will at their feasts ‘ gorge 
down an incredible quantity.”? A Mongol “will eat 
more than ten pounds of meat at one sitting, but some 
have been known to devour an average-sized sheep in the 
course of twenty-four hours.’’® The Waganda in Central 
Africa “sometimes gorge themselves to such an extent 
that they are unable to move, and appear just as if intoxi- 
cated.” * It has been justly observed that what would 
among ourselves be condemned as disgusting gluttony is, 
under the conditions to which certain races of men are 
exposed, quite normal and in fact necessary. As Mr. 
Spencer observes, ‘“ where the habitat is such as at one 
time to supply very little food and at another time food 
in great abundance, survival depends on the ability to 
consume immense quantities when the opportunities 

occur.”° When this is the case gluttony can hardly be 

1 Grey, Journals of Expeditions in 3 Prejevalsky, AZongolia, i. 55. 
North-West and Western Australia, 4 Wilson and Felkin, Ueanda, i. 
ll. 277 sqgq. 185 

2 Harmon, Journal of Voyages in the ® Spencer, Principles of Ethics, i. 
Interior of North America, p. 329. 436. 

stigmatised as a vice ; and I find no direct evidence that it 
is so even among savages who are described as generally 
moderate in their diet. The lack of foresight, which is a 
characteristic of uncivilised peoples, must prevent them 
from attaching much moral value to temperance. On the 
other hand, gluttony is sometimes said to be regarded with 
admiration. Mr. Torday informs me that the Bambala in 
South-Western Congo, when praising a man for his 
strength, are in the habit of saying, ‘‘ He eats a whole 
goat with its skin.” 

At higher stages of culture intemperance is often subject 
to censure—because it is detrimental to health or prosperity, 
or because it calls forth an instinctive feeling of disgust, or 
because indulgence in sensual pleasures is considered de- 
grading, or, generally, because it is inconsistent with an 
ascetic ideal of life. It is said in the Proverbs that “the 
glutton shall come to poverty.” * According to the Laws 
of Manu, “excessive eating is prejudicial to health, to 
fame, and to bliss in heaven; it prevents the acquisition of 
spiritual merit, and is odious among men ; one ought, for 
these reasons, to avoid it carefully.” * Aristotle maintains 
that the pleasure with which intemperance is concerned is 
justly held in disgrace, ‘since it belongs to us in that we 
are animals, not in that we are men.” *® Cicero observes 
that, as mere corporeal pleasure is unworthy the excellency 
of man’s nature, the nourishment of our bodies ‘‘ should be 
with a view not to our pleasure, but to our health and our 
strength.” * The same opinion is at least nominally shared 
by many among ourselves; whereas others, though denying 
that the gratification of appetite is to be sought for its own 
sake, admit as legitimate ends for it not only the main- 
tenance of health and strength but also “ cheerfulness and 
the cultivation of the social affections.” ° But most of us are 
undoubtedly less exacting, if not in theory at least in prac- 
tice, and really find nothing blamable in pleasures of the 

1 Proverbs, xxiii, 21. 4 Cicero, De officzzs, i. 30. 
2 Laws of Manu, ii. 57. 5 Whewell, Elements of Morality, 
3 Aristotle, H¢thica Nicomachea, iii. p. 124 Sq. 

Io, 10. 

U 2 

table which neither impair health, nor involve a perceptible 
loss of some greater ESO nor interfere with duties 
towards neighbours.* 

Sometimes temperance has been inculcated on grounds 
which in other cases lead to the duty of fasting, that is, 
abstinence from all food and drink, or at least (in a looser 
sense of the word) from certain kinds of food, for a de- 
termined period. ‘The custom of fasting is wide-spread, 
and deserves special attention in a study of moral ideas. 

Fasting is practised or enjoined for a variety of 
purposes. It is frequently adopted as a means of ee 
supernatural converse, or acquiring supernatural powers.” 
He who fasts sees in dreams or visions things that no 
ordinary eye can see. The Hudson Bay Eskimo “ dis- 
covered that a period of fasting and abstinence from 
contact with other people endowed a person with super- 
natural powers and enabled him to learn the secrets of 
Tung ak [the great spirit]. This is accomplished by re- 
pairing to some lonely spot, where, for a greater or Jess 
period, the hermit abstains from food or water until the 
imagination is so worked upon that he believes himself 
imbued with the power to heal the sick and control all 
the destinies of life. Tung ak is supposed to stand near 
and reveal those things while the person is undergoing the 
test.”® The Naudowessies totally abstain from every 
kind of either victuals or drink before a hunting expedi- 
tion, because they think that “it enables them freely to 
dream, in which dreams they are informed where the 
shall find the greatest plenty of game.” * The Tsimshian 
of British Columbia, if a special object is to be attained, 

' See Sidgwick, ALethods of Ethics, the Cherokee,’ zbzd. xix. 480. Herrera, 

Pp. 328 sg. General History of the West Indies, i. 
2 Tylor, Primitive Culture, iW. 410 165 (ancient natives of Hispaniola). 

Sqq: ‘Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Niebuhr, Zravels through’ Arabia, ii. 

i. 261. Lubbock, Origin of Ciz lisa: 282. 

tion, p. 266 sqq. Landtman, Origen 3 Turner, ‘ Ethnology of the Ungava 

of Priesthood, pp. 118-123, 158 sgy. District,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn, xi. 
Miiller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen 195. 

Urreligionen, pp. 285, 651. Dorsey, 2 Carver, Zyavels through the 
‘Siouan Cults,’ in Azn. Rep. Bur. Interior Parts of North America, 
Lthn, xi. 390. Mooney, ‘Myths of  p. 285. 

XXXVIT 

believe they can compel the deity to grant it by a rigid 
fasting. The Amazulu have a saying that “the con- 
tinually stuffed body cannot see secret things,” and, in 
accordance with this belief, put no faith in a fat diviner.? 
A Tungus shaman, who is summoned to treat a sick 
person, will for several days abstain from food and 
maintain silence till he becomes inspired.* Among the 
Santals the person or persons who have to offer sacrifices 
at their feasts prepare themselves for this duty by fasting 
and prayer and by placing themselves for some time in 
a position of apparent mental absorption. The savage, 
as Professor Tylor remarks, has many a time, for days 
and weeks together, to try involuntarily the effects of 
fasting, accompanied with other privations and with pro- 
longed solitary contemplation in the desert or the forest. 
Under these circumstances he soon comes to see and talk 
with phantoms, which are to him visible personal spirits, 
and, having thus learnt the secret of spiritual intercourse, 
he thenceforth reproduces the cause in order to renew the 
effects.” The Hindus believe that a fasting person will 
ascend to the heaven of that god in whose name he 
observes the fast.” The Hebrews associated fasting with 
divine revelations.’ St. Chrysostom says that fasting 
“makes the soul brighter, and gives it wings to mount up 
and soar on high.” * 

Ideas of this kind partly underlie the common practice 
of abstaining from food before or in connection with the 
performance of a magical or religious ceremony ;° but there 

1 Boas, in Fifth Report on the North- 
Western Tribes of Canada, p. 50. 

2 Callaway, Religious System of the 
Amazulu, p. 387, n. 41. 

3 Krivoshapkin, quoted by Landt- 
man, op. c7t. p. 159. 

4 Dalton, Zthnology of Bengal, 
p. 213. See also Rowney, Wild 
Tribes of India, p. 77. 

5 Tylor, Primetive Culture, il. 410. 

6 Ward, View of the History, &c. 
of the Hindoos, is WI fc 

7 Exodus, xxxiv. 28. Deuteronomy, 
ix. 9. Danzel, ix. 3. 

8 St. Chrysostom, Zz Caf. L. Genes. 
Flomil. X. (Migne, Patrologie cursus, 
Ser. Graeca, liii. 83). Cf Tertullian, 
De jejunits, 6 sgg. (Migne, ii. 960, 
961, 963); Haug, Alerthiimmer der 
Christen, pp. 476, 482. 

® Bossu, Zvavels through Louisiana, 

38 (Natchez). Clavigero, Azstory of 
Mexico, i. 285 sg.3 Bancroft, Mateve 
Races of the Pacific States, iii. 440 sq. 
(ancient Mexicans). Landa, Relaczon 
de las cosas de Yucatan, p. 156. 

Junghuhn, Dze Satlalinder auf 

Sumatra, i. 311 sg. (natives of 

is yet another ground for this practice. The effect 
attributed to fasting is not merely psychical, but it also 
prevents pollution. Food may cause defilement, and, like 
other polluting matter, be detrimental to sanctity. Among 
the Maoris “no food is permitted to touch the head or 
hair of a chief, which is sacred ; and if food is mentioned 
in connection with anything sacred (or ‘tapu’) it is 
considered as an insult, and revenged as such.”* So also 
a full stomach may be polluting.” This is obviously the 
reason why in Morocco and elsewhere® certain magical 
practices, in order to be efficacious, have to be performed 
before breakfast. The Masai use strong purges before 
they venture to eat holy meat.* The Caribs purified their 
bodies by purging, bloodletting, and fasting ;° and the 
natives of the Antilles, at certain religious festivals, 
cleansed themselves by vomiting before they approached 
the sanctuary.° The true object of fasting often appears 
from the fact that it is practised hand in hand with other 
ceremonies of a purificatory character. A Lappish noaide, 
or wizard, prepares himself for the offering of a sacrifice 
by abstinence from food and ablutions.’ Herodotus tells 
us that the ancient Egyptians fasted before making a 
sacrifice to Isis, and beat~ their. bodies while the victims 
were burnt.” When a Hindu resolves to visit a sacred 
place, he has his head shaved two days preceding the 
commencement of his | journey, and fasts the next day ; on 
the last day of his journey he fasts again, and on his 

Tjumba). Beauchamp, in the Madras  p. 6 sgg. Chwolsohn, Dze Ssabier und 

Government Museum’s /72//e¢in, iv. BL Ssabesmus, li. 23, 74. 

56 (Hindus of Southern India). Ward, * Angas, P olynesia, p- 149. 

op. cit. ii. 76 sg. (Hindus). Wassiljew, 2 See Robertson Smith, Religion of 
quoted by Haberland, ‘Gebrauche und —¢he Semttes, p. 434 sq. 

Aberglauben beim Essen,’ in Zez¢- 3 W uttke, Der deutsche Volksaber- 
schrift fiir Volkerpsychologie, xviil. 30 glaube der Gegenwart, § 219, p. 161. 
(Buddhists). Porphyry, De adstinentia 4 Thomson, 7rough Masai Land, 
ab esu animalium, ii. 44; Wachsmuth,  p. 430. 

FHlellentsche Alterthumskunde, ii. 560, 5 Waitz, Anthropologie der Natur- 
576; Hermann-Stark, Lehrbuch der  vilker, iv. 330. 

gotlesdienstlichen  Alterthtimer der 8 Jbid. iii. 384. 

Griechen, p. 381 ; Anrich, Das antike 7 von Diiben, Lappland, p. 256. 
Mysterienwesen, p. 25; Diels, ‘Ein Friis, Lappzshk Mythologi, p- 145 sg. 
orphischer Demeterhymnus,’ in Fesf- 8 Herodours: ll. 40, 

schrift Theodor Gomperz dargebracht, 

— 

arrival at the sacred Spot he has his whole body shaved, 
after which he bathes."| In Christianity we likewise meet 
with fasting as a rite of purification. At least as early as 
the time of Tertullian it was usual for communicants to 
prepare themselves by fasting for receiving the Eucharist ; ” 
and to this day Roman Catholicism regards it as unlawful 
to consecrate or partake of it after food or drink.’ The 

‘Lent fast itself was partly ape as a purifying 

preparation for the holy tablet And in the early Church 
catechumens were accustomed to fast before baptism.’ 

In the case of a sacrifice it is considered necessary not 
only that he who offers it, but that the victim also, 
should be free from pollution. In ancient Egypt a 
sacrificial animal had to be perfectly clean. According to 
Hindu notions the gods enjoy pure sacrifices only.’ In the 
Kalika-Purana, a work supposed to have been written under 
the direction of Siva, it is said that if a man is offered he 
must be free from corporal defect and unstained with great 
crimes, and that if an animal is offered it must have ex- 
ceeded its third year and be without blemish or disease ; and 
in no case must the victim be a woman or a she animal, 
because, as it seems, females are regarded as naturally 
unclean.* According to the religious law of the Hebrews, 
no leaven or honey should be used in connection with 
vegetable offerings, on the ground that these articles have 
the effect of producing fermentation and tend to acidify 
and spoil anything with which they are mixed ;° and the 
animal which was intended for sacrifice should be absolutely 
free from blemish’ and at least eight days old,” that is, 
untainted with the impurity of birth. Quite in harmony 
with these prescriptions is the notion that human or 

1 Ward, of. ‘cet. ii. 130 sg. Cf. — Graeca, vi. 420). St. Augustine, De 
Institutes of Vishnu, x\vi. 17, 24 Sg. fide et operibus, vi. 8 (Migne, xl. 202). 

2 Tertullian, De oratzone, 19 (Migne, ® Herodotus, li. 38. 
op. cit. 1. 1182). if Baudhayana, te On Ze Toes 

3 Catechism of the Council of Trent, 8 Dubois, Description of the Char- 
ii. 4. 6. acter, &c. of the People of India, p. 491. 

4 St. Jerome, Zz /Jonam, 3 (Migne, ® Keil, Manual of Biblical Arche- 
op. cit. XXV. 1140). ology, 1. 262. . 

5 Justin Martyr, Apologia I. pro 10 Leviticus, xxil. 19 sgq. 

Christiants, 61 (Migne, of. czt. Ser, MEGS, > oabhy PY 

animal victims have to abstain from food for some time 
before they are offered up. Among the Kandhs the man 
who was destined to be sacrificed was kept fasting from 
the preceding evening, but on the day of the sacrifice he 
was refreshed with a little milk and palm-sago; and 
before he was led forth from the village in solemn 
procession he was carefully washed and dressed in a new 
garment.' In Morocco it is not only considered meritori- 
ous for the people to fast on the day previous to the 
celebration of the yearly sacrificial feast, ‘aid -kbir, but 
in several parts of the country the sheep which is going to 
be sacrificed has to fast on that day or at least on the 
following morning, till some food is given it immediately 
before it is slaughtered. The Jewish custom which 
compels the firstborn to fast on the eve of Passover * may 
also perhaps be a survival from a time when all the first- 
born belonged to the Lord.* 

In some cases the custom of fasting before the per- 
formance of a sacrifice may be due to the idea that it is 
dangerous or improper for the worshipper to partake of 
food before the god has had his share.* In India a regular 
performance of two half-monthly sacrifices is enjoined on 
the Brahmanical householder for a period of thirty years 
from the time when he has set up a fire of his own— 
according to some authorities even for the rest of his life. 
The ceremony usually occupies two consecutive days, the 
first of which is chiefly taken up with preparatory rites 
and the vow of abstinence (vraéa) by the sacrificer and his 
wife, whilst the second day is reserved for the main 
performance of the sacrifice. The vrasa includes the 
abstention from certain kinds of food, especially meat, 
which will be offered to the gods on the following day, 
as also from other carnal pleasures. The Satapatha- 
Brahmana gives the following explanation of it :—‘¢ The 
gods see through the mind of man ; they know that, when 

1 Macpherson, Memorials of Service Judazsm, p. 394. 
an India, p. 118. 3 Supra, i. 459. 

2 Greenstone, ‘ Fasting,’ in /ewdsh 4 Cf. Oldenberg, Die Religion de 
Encyclopedia, v. 348. Allen, Modern Veda, p. 414. 

oil 

he enters on this vow, he means to sacrifice to them the 
next morning. Therefore all the gods betake themselves 
to his house, and abide by him or the fires (upa-vas) in 
his house ; whence this day is called upa-vasatha. Now, 
as cat wee even be unbecoming for him to take food 
before men who are staying with him as his guests have 
eaten ; how much more would it be so, if he were to 
take food before the gods who are staying with him have 
eaten: let him therefore take no food at all.’”’? It is hardly 
probable, however, that this is the original meaning of the 
abstinence in question. It occurs about the time of new 
moon and full moon ; according to some native authorities 
the abstinence and sacrifice take place on the last two days 
of each half of the lunar month, whilst the generality of 
ritualistic writers consider the first day of the half-month 
—that is, the first and sixteenth days of the month—to 
be the proper time for the sacrifice.” We shall presently see 
how frequently fasting is observed on these occasions, pre- 
sumably for fear of eating food which is supposed to have 
been polluted by the moon; hence it seems to me by no 
means improbable that the vra¢a has a similar origin, instead 
of being merely a rite preparatory to the sacrifice which 
follows it. But at the same time the idea that spirits or 
gods should have the first share of a meal is certainly very 
ancient, and may lead to actual fasting in case the offering 
for some reason or other is to be delayed. A Polynesian 
legend tells us that a man by name Maui once caught an 
immense fish. Then he left his brothers, saying to 
them :—‘“ After I am gone, be courageous and patient ; 
do not eat food until I return, and do not let our fish be 
cut up, but rather leave it until I have carried an offering 
to the gods from this great haul of fish, and until I hese 
found a priest, that fitting prayers and sacrifices may be 
offered to the god, and the necessary rites be completed 
in order. We shall thus all be purified. I will then 

1 Satapatha-Brahmana,i.1. 1.7 5g. Nn. I. ' : 
Eggeling, in Sacred Books of the East, 2 Eggeling, in Sacred Looks of the 
xii, I sg. Oldenberg, of. czt. p. 413, Last, xii. I. 

return, and we can cut up this fish in safety, and it shall 
be fairly portioned out to this one, and to that one, and 
to that other.” But as soon as Maui had gone, his 
brothers began at once to eat food, and to cut up the fish. 
Had Maui previously reached the sacred place, the heart 
of the deity would have been appeased with the offering of 
a portion of the fish which had been caught by his 
disciples, and all the male and female deities would have 
partaken of their portions of the sacrifice. But now the 

ods turned with wrath upon them, on account of the fish 
which they had thus cut up without having made a fitting 
sacrifice.’ 

Among many peoples custom prescribes fasting after a 
death. Lucian says that at the funeral feast the parents 
of the deceased are prevailed upon by their relatives to 
take food, being almost prostrated by a three days’ fast.” 
We are told that among the Hindus children fast three 
days after the death of a parent, and a wife the same 
period after the death of her husband ;* but according to 
a more recent statement, to be quoted presently, they 
do not altogether abstain from food. In one of the 
sacred books of India it is said that mourners shall fast 
during three days, and that, if they are unable to do so, 
they shall subsist on food bought in the market or given 
unasked.t Among the Nayadis of Malabar ‘ from the 
time of death until the funeral is over, all the relations 
must fast.”"° Among the Irulas of the Neilgherries “ the 
relatives of the deceased fast during the first day, that is, 
if... . the death occur after the morning meal, they 
refrain from the evening one, and eat nothing till the next 
morning. If it occur during the night, or before the 
morning meal, they refrain from all food till the evening. 
Similar fasting is observed on every return of the same 
day of the week, till the obsequies take place.” ° Among 

l Grey, Polynesian Mythology, p. 20 of Veshnw, xix. 14. 

Sq: 5 Thurston, in the Madras Govern- 
2 Lucian, De /uctu, 24. ment Museum’s Budletin, iv. 76. 
3 Ward, View of the History, &c. of 6 Harkness, Description of a Singular 
the Hindoos, il. 70 sq. Race inhabiting the Netlgherry Hills, 

4 Vasishtha, iv. 14 sg. Cf. Justitutes  p. 97. 

3 oe 

the Bogos of Eastern Africa a son must fast three days 
after the death of his father.1 On the Gold Coast it is 
the custom for the near relatives of the deceased to per- 
form a long and painful fast, and sometimes they can only 
with difficulty be induced to have recourse to food again,” 
So also in Dahomey they must fast during the “ corpse 
time,” or mourning.» Among the Brazilian Paressi the 
relatives of a dead person remain for six days at his grave, 
carefully refraining from taking food.* | Among _ the 
aborigines of the Antilles children used to fast after the 
death of a parent, a husband after the death of his wife, 
and a wife after the death of her husband.® In some 
Indian tribes of North America it is the custom for the 
relatives of the deceased to fast till the funeral is over.°® 
Among the Snanaimugq, a tribe of the Coast Salish, after 
the death of a husband or wife the surviving partner 
must not eat anything for three or four days.’ In one of 
the interior divisions of the Salish of British Columbia, 
the Stlatlumh, the next four days after a funeral feast are 
spent by the members of the household of the deceased 
person in fasting, lamenting and ceremonial ablutions.° 
Among the Upper Thompson Indians in British Columbia, 
again, those who handled the dead body and who dug the 
grave had to fast until the corpse was burted.” 

In several instances fasting after a death is observed only 
in the daytime. 

David and his people fasted for Saul and Jonathan until even 
on the day when the news of their death arrived.!° Among the 
Arabs of Morocco it is the custom that if a death takes place 
in the morning everyone in the village refrains from food until 

1 Munzinger, Die Sitten und das America, ii. 187. 

Recht der Bogos, p. 29. 

2 Cruickshank, LZzghteen Years on 
the Gold Coast, ii. 218. 

3 Burton, AZ/sszon to Gelele, ii. 163. 

4 von den Steinen, Unter den Natur- 
volkern Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 435. Cf. 
zbid. p. 339 (Bakairi). 

5 Du Tertre, Wstotre generale des 
Antilles, ii. 371. 

6 Charlevoix, 

Voyage to WNorth- 

7 Boas, in Fifth Report on the North- 
Western Tribes of Canada, p. 45. 

8 Tout, ‘ Ethnology of the Stlatlumh 
of British Columbia,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
Inst. xxxv. 138. 

9 Teit, ‘ Thompson Indians of British 
Columbia,’ in Memozrs of the American 
Museum of Natural History, Anthro- 
pology, i. 331. 

W 2 Samuel, i. 12, Cf. tbid. ill. 35. 

the deceased is buried in the afternoon or evening ; but if a person 
dies so late that he cannot be buried till the next morning the 

people eat at night. In the Pelew Islands, as long as the dead 
is unburied, fasting is observed in the daytime but not in the 
evening. In Fiji after a burial the fama-bogi, or fasting till 3 
evening, is practised for ten or twenty days.? In Samoa it : 
was common for those who attended the deceased to eat nothing 
during the day, but to have a meal at night. In the Tuhoe 
tribe of the Maoris, “when a chief of distinction died his 
widow and children would remain for some time within the 
whare potae [that is, mourning house], eating food during the 
night time only, never during the day.” The Sacs and Foxes 
in Nebraska formerly required that children should fast for three 
months after the death of a parent, except that they every day 
about sunset were allowed to partake of a meal made entirely 
of hominy. Among the Kansas a man who loses his wife 
must fast from sunrise to sunset for a year and a half, and 
a woman who loses her husband must observe a similar fast for 
ayear.© In some tribes of British Columbia and among the 
Thlinkets, until the dead body is buried the relatives of the 
deceased may eat a little at night but have to fast during the 
day.’ Among the Upper Thompson Indiansa different custom 
prevailed : ‘nobody was allowed to eat, drink, or smoke in the 
open air after sunset (others say after dusk) before the burial, 
else the ghost would harm them.” ° 

Very frequently mourners have to abstain from certain 
victuals only, especially flesh or fish, or some other staple 
or favourite food. 

In Greenland everybody who had lived in the same house 
with the dead, or who had touched his corpse, was for some 
time forbidden to partake of certain kinds of food.® Among the 
Upper Thompson Indians “parents bereft of a child did not 
eat fresh meat for several months.” 0 Among the Stlatlumh of 

1 Waitz, op. czt. Vv. 153. Rep. Bur. Ethn. i. 95. 
2 Williams and Calvert, £72772, ° Dorsey, ‘Mourning and War 
p. 169. Customs of the Kansas,’ in American 
3 Turner, /Vzzeteen Years 22 Poly- Naturalist, xix. 679 sq. 
nesia, p. 228. Ldem, Samoa, p. 145. 7 Boas, loc. c@t. p. 41. 
4 Best, ‘Tuhoe Land,’ in 7Zyvans. SNe (Os CLs WS BOR: 
and Proceed. of the New Zealand ® Egede, Description of Greenland, 
Institute, Xxx. 38. p- 149 sg. Cranz, History of Green- 

5 Yarrow, ‘Mortuary Customs of  /and, i. 218. 

the North American Indians,’ in 47272. MOSER, Mex Ges JOD, BRO 

British Columbia a widow might eat no fresh food for a whole 
year, whilst the other members of the deceased person’s family 
abstained from such food for a period of from four days to as 
many months. A widower was likewise forbidden to eat fresh 
meats for a certain period, the length of which varied with the 
age of the person—the younger the man, the longer his absten- 
tion. In some of the Goajiro clans of Colombia a person is 
prohibited from eating flesh during the mourning time, which 
lasts nine days.2, Among the Abipones, when a chief died, the 
whole tribe abstained for a month from eating fish, their prin- 
cipal dainty. While in mourning, the Northern Queensland 
aborigines carefully avoid certain victuals, believing that the 
forbidden food, if eaten, would burn up their bowels.4 In 
Easter Island the nearest relatives of the dead are for a year or 
even longer obliged to abstain from eating potatoes, their chief 
article of food, or some other victuals of which they are particu- 
larly fond.® Certain Papuans and various tribes in the Malay 
Archipelago prohibit persons in mourning from eating rice or 
sago.° In the Andaman Islands mourners refuse to partake of 
their favourite viands,’ After the death of a relative the 
Tipperahs abstain from flesh for a week.8 ‘The same is the 
case with the Arakh, a tribe in Oudh, during the fifteen days 
in the month of Kuar which are sacred to the worship of the 
dead.® Among the Nayadis of Malabar the relatives of the 
deceased are not allowed to eat meat for ten days after his 
death. According to Toda custom the near relatives must 
not eat rice, milk, honey, or gram, until the funeral is over. 
Among the Hindus described by Mr. Chunder Bose a widow is 
restricted to one scanty meal a day, and this is of the coarsest 
description and always devoid of fish, the most esteemed article 
of food ina Hindu lady’s bill of fare. ‘The son, again, from 

1 Tout, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 
138 sg. 

2 Candelier, Rio-Hacha, p. 220. 

3 Charlevoix, Héstory of Paraguay, 
1. 405. 

4 Lumholtz, Among 
p- 203. 

5 Geiseler, Die Oster-Insel, pp. 28, 

Cannibals, 

6 Wilken, ‘Ueber das Haaropfer, 
und einige andere Trauergebrauche bei 
den V6lkern Indonesien’s,’ in Revze 
colontale internationale, iv. 348 sq. 

7 Man, ‘Aboriginal Inhabitants of 
the Andaman Islands,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
Tnst. Xi. 142, 353. 

8 Browne, quoted by Dalton, of. c2v. 
p- 110. 

® Crooke, Zrzbes and Castes of the 
North-Western Provinces and Oudh, 
i. 84. 

10 Thurston, in the Madras Govern- 
ment Museum’s Azc//etzn, iv. 76. 

ll Jdem, ibid. i. 174. Dr. Rivers 
says (Zodas, p. 370) that, among the 
Todas, a widower is not allowed to eat 
rice nor drink milk, and that on every 
return of the day of the week on which 
his wife died he takes no food in the 
morning but only has his evening meal. 
The same holds good for a widow. 

the hour of his father’s death to the conclusion of the funeral 
ceremony, is allowed to take only a meal consisting of ataé rice, 
a sort of inferior pulse, milk, ghee, sugar, and a few fruits, and 
at night a little milk, sugar, and fruits—a régime which lasts 
ten days in the case of a Brahmin and thirty-one days in the 
case of a Siidra.!_ In some of the sacred books of India it is said 
that, during the period of impurity, all the mourners shall 
abstain from eating meat.2 In China “meat, must, and spirits 
were forbidden even in the last month of the deepest mourning, 
when other sorts of food had long been allowed already.” ® 

The custom of fasting after a death has been ascribed to 
different causes by different writers. Mr. Spencer believes 
that it has resulted from the habit of making excessive 
provision for the dead.* But although among some 
peoples the funeral offerings no doubt are so extensive as 
to reduce the survivors to poverty and starvation,’ I have 
met with no statement to the effect that they are anxious 
to give to the deceased all the eatables which they possess, 
or that the mourning fast is a matter of actual necessity. 
It is always restricted to some fixed period, often toa few 
days only, and it prevails among many peoples who have 
never been known to be profuse in their sacrifices to the . 
dead. With reference to the Chinese, Dr. de Groot 
maintains that the mourners originally fasted with a view 
to being able to sacrifice so much the more at the tomb ; 
and he bases this conclusion on the fact that the articles of 
food which were forbidden till the end of the deepest 
mourning were the very same as those which in ancient 
China played the principal part at every burial sacrifice.® 
But this prohibition may also perhaps be due to a belief 
that the offering of certain victuals to the dead pollutes 
all food belonging to the same species. 

Professor Wilken, again, suggests that the mourners 
abstain from food till they have given the dead his due, in 

! Bose, Zhe Hindoos as they are, pp. 4 Spencer, Prenciples of Sociology, 
244, 254 5g. i, 261 sgg. 

2 Gautama, xiv. 39. Lnstitutes of B/O1G i. 202s 
Vishniet, xix. 15. 6 de Groot, of. czt. (vol. ii. book) 

3 de Groot, Religious System of i. 652. 
China, (vol. i1. book) i. 651. 

eae aoe an at 

order to show that they do not wish to keep him waiting 
longer than is necessary and thus make him kindly disposed 
towards them.’ This explanation presupposes that the 
fast is immediately followed by offerings or a feast for the 
dead. In some instances this is expressly said to be the 
case ;* the ancient Chinese, for instance, observed a special 
fast as an introductory rite to the sacrifices which they 
offered to the manes at regular periods after the demise 
and even after the close of the mourning.* But generally 
there is no indication of the mourning fast being an essential 
preliminary to a sacrifice to the dead, and in an instance 
mentioned above the funeral feast regularly precedes it.* 
It seems that Dr. Frazer comes much nearer the truth 
when he observes that people originally fasted after a 
death “just in those circumstances in which they 
considered that they might possibly in eating devour a 
ghost.””° Yet I think it would be more correct to say 
that they were afraid of swallowing, not the ghost, but 
food polluted with the contagion of death. The dead 
body is regarded as a seat of infection, which defiles 
anything in its immediate neighbourhood, and _ this 
infection is of course considered particularly dangerous if 
it is allowed to enter into the bowels. In certain cases 
the length of the mourning fast is obviously determined 
by the belief in the polluting presence of the ghost. The 
six days’ fast of the Paressi coincides with the period 
after which the dead is supposed to have arrived in 
heaven no longer to return ; and they say that anybody 
who should fail to observe this fast would ‘‘ eat the mouth 
of the dead” and die himself.° Frequently the fasting 
lasts till the corpse is buried; and burial is a common 
safeguard against the return of the ghost.’ The custom 

1 Wilken, in Revze coloniale inter- 5 Frazer, ‘Certain Burial Customs as 
nationale, iv. 347, 348, 350 5g. n. 32. illustrative of the Primitive Theory of 
2 Selenka, Soznige Welten, p. 90 the Soul,’ in Jor. Anthr. Inst. xv. 94. 
(Dyaks). Black, ‘Fasting,’ in Zxcyclo- See also Oldenberg, Die Religéon des 

pedia Britannica, 1x. 44. Veda, pp. 270, 590. 
3 de Groot, of. cet. (vol. ii. book) 6 von den Steinen, of. cz¢. p. 434 59. 
i. 656. 7 Infra, on Regard for the Dead. 

4 Supra, Ul. 299. 

of restricting the fast to the daytime probably springs 
from the idea that a ghost cannot see in the dark, and is 
consequently unable to come and pollute the food at 
night. That the object of the fast is to prevent pollution 
is also suggested by its resemblance to some other practices, 
which are evidently intended to serve this purpose. The 
Maoris were not allowed to eat on or near any spot where 
a dead body had been buried, or to take a meal in a canoe 
while passing opposite to such a place.* In Samoa, while 
a dead body is in the house, no food is eaten under the 
same roof ; hence the family have their meals outside, or in 
another house.” The Todas, who fast on the day when a 
death has taken place, have on the following day their 
meals served in another hut.? In one of the sacred books 
of India it is said that a Brahmana “shall not eat in the 
house of a relation within six degrees where a person 
has died, before the ten days of impurity have elapsed” ; in 
a house ‘“‘ where a lying-in woman has not yet come out of 
the lying-in chamber”; nor in a house where a corpse 
lies ;* and in connection with this last injunction we are 
told that, when a person who is not a relation has died, it 
is customary to place at the distance of “‘ one hundred 
bows” a lamp and water-vessel, and to eat beyond that 
distance.” In one of the Zoroastrian books Ormuzd is 
represented as saying, ‘(In a house when a person shall 
die, until three nights are completed .~ . nothing 
whatever of meat is to be eaten by his relations’’;° and 
the obvious reason for this rule was the belief that the 
soul of the dead was hovering about the body for the first 
three nights after death.’ Closely related to this custom 
is that of the modern Parsis, which forbids for three days 
all cooking under a roof where a death has occurred, but 
allows the inmates to obtain food from their neighbours 

1 Polack, A7anners and Customs of " Apastamba, 1 5 LO LONggs 
the New Zealanders, \. 239. > Haradatta, quoted by Bihler, in 
3 Turner, Vneteen Years in Poly- Sacred Books of the East, ii. 59) n. 20. 
nesta, p. 228. dem, Samoa, p. 145. 6 Shdyast La-Shayast, xvii. 2. 
® Thurston, in the Madras Govern- ” West, in Sacred Books of the East, 

ment Museum’s Ludletzn, i. 174. Vi Q025) 003s 

s 
= 

and friends... Among the Agariya, a Dravidian tribe in 
the hilly parts of Mirzapur, no fire is lit and no cooking 
is done in the house of a dead person on the day when he 
is cremated, the food being cooked in the house of the 
brother-in-law of the deceased. In Mykonos, one of the 
Cyclades, it is considered wrong to cook in the house of 
mourning; hence friends and relatives come laden with 
food, and lay the “ bitter table.” * Among the Albanians 
there is no cooking in the house for three days after a 
death, and the family are fed by friends.t So also the 
Maronites of Syria “dress no victuals for some time in 
the house of the deceased, but their relations and friends 
supply them.”’® When a Jew dies all the water in the 
same and adjoining houses is instantly thrown away ;° 
nobody may eat in the same room with the corpse, unless 
there is only one room in the house, in which case the 
inhabitants may take food in it if they interpose a screen, 
so that in eating they do not see the corpse ; they must 
abstain from flesh and wine so long as the dead body is in 
the house; and on the evening of mourning the 
members of the family may not eat their own food, but 
are supplied with food by their friends.» Among the 
Arabs of Morocco, if a person has died in the morning, no 
fire is made in the whole village until he is buried, and in 
some parts of the country the inmates of a house or 
tent where a death has occurred, abstain from making fire 
for two or three days. In Algeria “des que quelqu’un est 
mort, on ne doit pas allumer de feu dans la maison 
pendant trois jours, et il est défendu de toucher ade la 

viande rotie, grillée ou bouillie, a moins qu'elle ne vienne 

de quelqu’un de dehors. 

In China, for seven days 

after a death “no food is cooked in the house, and friends 

1 West, zbzd. v. 382, n. 2. 

2 Crooke, Zrzbes and Castes of the 
North-Western Provinces, i. 7. 

3 Bent, Cyclades, p. 221. 

4 von Hahn, Albanestsche Studien, 
job aesme 

° Dandini, ‘Voyage to Mount 

VOL, II 

Libanus,’ in Pinkerton, Co//ection of 
Voyages, X. 290. 

6 Allen, Afodern Judaism, p. 435- 

7 Bodenschatz, Kirchliche Verfass- 
ung der heutigen Juden, iv. 177. 

8 Buxtorf, Synagoga Judaica, p. 707. 

® Certeux and Carnoy, L’ Algérie 
traditionnelle, }). 220. 

x 

and neighbours are trusted to supply the common 
necessaries of life.” ' There is no sufficient reason to 
assume that this practice of abstaining from cooking food 
after a death is a survival of a previous mourning fast, 
but the two customs seem partly to have a- similar 
origin. The cooking may contaminate the food if done 
in a polluted house, or by a polluted individual. The 
relatives of the dead, or persons who have handled the 
corpse, are regarded as defiled ; hence they have to abstain 
from cooking food, as they have to abstain from any 
kind of work,” and from sexual intercourse.* Hence, 
also, they are often prohibited from touching food ; 
and this may in some cases have led to fasting, whilst 
in other instances they have to be fed by their neighbours.* 

However, an unclean individual may be supposed to 
pollute a piece of food not only by touching it with his 
hand, but in some cases by eating it ; and, in accordance 
with the principle of pars pro toto, the pollution may then 
spread to all victuals belonging to ‘the same species. Ideas 
of this kind are sometimes conspicuous in connection with 
the restrictions in diet after a death. Thus the Siciatl of 
British Columbia believe that a dead body, or anything 
connected with the dead, is inimical to the salmon, and 
therefore the relatives of a deceased person must abstain 
from eating salmon in the early stages of the run, as also 
from entering a creek where salmon are found.” Among 
the Stlatlumh, a neighbouring people, not even elderly 
widowers, for whom the period of abstention is compara- 

1 Gray, China, 1. 287 sg. (Samoans). Ellis, Polynesian Re- 
= Supra, ii. 283) Sq. searches, 1. 403 (Tahitians). Frazer, 
S Met, loch cin piee3ol Upper Golden =eGouchy V4 323 ea Niaons): 
Thompson Indians). Tout, in /owr. Williams and Calvert, 7777, p. 160. 
Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 139 (Stlatlumh of | Among the Upper Thompson Indians 
British Columbia), Oldenberg, Dze the persons who handled the dead body 
Religion des Veda, pp. 578, 590; would not touch the food with their 
Caland, Die Altindischen Todten- und hands, but must put it into their mouths 
Bestattungsgebrauche, p. 81. de Groot, with sharp-pointed sticks (Teit, Zoc. cz, 
Opn cit. \(vOln = Ti. Ibook) in GOON pase). 
(Chinese). Wilken, in Revue znter- ° Tout, ‘ Ethnology of the Siciatl of 
nationale coloniale, iv. 352, n. 41. British Columbia,’ in /ozs. Anthr. Inst. 
* Turner, Samoa, p. 1453; zdem, RSOAN Boh 
Nineteen Vears tn Polynesia, p. 228 

RESTRICTIONS IN DIET 

tively short, are allowed to eat fresh salmon till the first 
of the run is over and the fish have arrived in such 
pee that there is no danger of their being driven 
away.” It is not unlikely that if the motives for the re- 
strictions in diet after a death were sufficiently known in 
each case, a similar fear lest the unclean mourner should 
pollute the whole species by polluting some individual 
member of it would be found to be a common cause of 
those rules which prohibit the eating of staple or favourite 
food.” But it would seem that such rules also may spring 
from the idea that this kind of food is particularly sought 
for by the dead and therefore defiled. 

Moreover, unclean individuals are not only a danger to 
others, but are themselves in danger. As Dr. Frazer has 
shown, they are supposed to be in a delicate condition, 
which imposes upon them various precautions ;* and one 
of these may be restrictions in their diet. Among the 
Thlinkets and some peoples in British Columbia the 
relatives of the deceased not only fast till the body 1 
buried, but have their faces blackened, cover their heads 
with ragged mats, and must speak but little, confining 
themselves to answering questions, as it is Pemered that 
they would else become chatterboxes.* According to early 
ideas, mourners are in a state very similar to that of girls 
at puberty, who also, among various peoples, are obliged to 
fast or abstain from certain kinds of food on account of 
their uncleanness.? Among the Stlatlumh, for instance, 

1 Tout, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxiv. 33 (Siciatl). 
139. Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage 
2In the Arunta tribe, Central JZzfe, p. 93 sg. (Ahts). Bourke, 

‘“Medicine-Men of the Apache,’ in 

Australia, no menstruous woman is 
Ann, Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 501. Du 

allowed to gather the Irriakura bulbs, 

which form a staple article of diet for 
both men and women, the idea being 
that any infringement of the restriction 
would result in the failure of the supply 
of the bulb (Spencer and Gillen, 
Northern Tribes of Central Australia, 
p. 615). 

3 Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 343, &c. 

4 Boas, /oc. ctt. p. 41. 

5 Boas, Joc. cit. p. 40 sgg. (various 
tribes in British Columbia). Tout, in 

Tertre, H7stozre generale des Antilles, 
ii. 371. Schomburgk, ‘ Natives of 
Guiana,’ in Jour. thn. Soc. London, 
i. 269 sg. von Martius, Beztrdge sur 
Ethnographie Amertka’s, 1. 644 
(Macusis). Seligmann, in Leforts of 
the Cambridge Expedition to Torres 
Straits, v. 200 sgg. (Western Islanders). 
Nilo © Aboriginal Inhabitants of the 
Andaman Islands,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 
Kil. 94. See Frazer , Op. cit. Wl. 205 syq. 

x 2 

CHAP; 

when a girl reaches puberty, she fasts for the first 
four days and abstains from fresh meats of any kind 
throughout the whole period of her seclusion. ‘‘ There 
was a two-fold object in this abstention. First, the 
girl, it was thought, would be harmed by the fresh meat 
in her peculiar condition ; and second, the game animals 
would take offence if she partook of their meat in these 
circumstances,” and would not permit her father to kill 
them,’ 

It should finally be noticed that, though the custom of 
fasting after a death in the main has a superstitious origin, 
there may at the same time be a physiological motive for 
it. Even the rudest savage feels afflicted at the death of 
a friend, and grief is accompanied by a loss of appetite. 
This natural disinclination to partake of food may, com- 
bined with superstitious fear, have given rise to prohibitory 
rules, nay, may even in the first instance have suggested 
the idea that there is danger in taking food. The mourn- 
ing observances so commonly coincide with the natural 
expressions of sorrow, that we are almost bound to assume 
the existence of some connection between them, even 
though in their developed forms the superstitious motive 
be the most prominent. 

An important survival of the mourning fast is the Lent 
fast. It originally lasted for forty hours only, that is, the 
time when Christ lay in the grave.? Irenaeus speaks of 
the fast of forty hours before Easter,* and Tertullian, 
when a Montanist disputing against the Catholics, says 
that the only legitimate days for Christian fasting were 
those in which the Bridegroom was taken away.’ Sub- 
sequently, however, the forty hours were extended to forty 

1 Tout, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 4 Trenaeus, quoted by Eusebius, 
130. Fitstoria ecclesiastica, v. 24 (Migne, 
2 Cf. Mallery, ‘Manners and Meals,’  /atrologte cursus, Ser. Graeca, xx. 
in American Anthropologist, 1. 202; 501). Cf. Funk, ‘Die Entwicklung 
Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples, des  Osterfastens,’ in  Theologische 
p- 213; Schurtz, Ovgeschichte der Quartalschrift, \xxv. 181 SQ. 3 

Kultur, p. 587. 
3 Cf. St. Matthew, ix. 15; St. Mark, 
i. 20 5: S¢. Luke, v. 35. 

Duchesne, Christian Worship, p. 241. 
> Tertullian, De jejunz?s, 2 (Migne, 
op. cit. 11, 956). 

. 
- 
— 
—— 
S 

XXXVII RESTRICTIONS IN DIET 

days, in imitation of the forty days’ fasts of Moses, Elijah, 
and Christ.? 

Not only on a death, but on certain other occasions, 
food is supposed to pollute or injure him who partakes of 
it, and is therefore to be avoided. In Pfalz the people 
maintain that no food should be taken at an eclipse of 
the sun ;* and all over Germany there is a popular belief 
that anybody who eats during a thunderstorm will be 
struck by the lightning.* When the Todas know that 
there is going to be an eclipse of the sun or the moon, 
they abstain from food.* Among the Hindus, while an 
eclipse is going on, “drinking water, eating food, and all 
household business, as well as the worship of the gods, are 
all prohibited” ; high-caste Hindus do not even eat food 
which has remained in the house during an eclipse, but 
give it away, and all earthen vessels in use in their houses 
at the time must be broken.” Among the rules laid 
down for Snatakas, that is, Brahmanas who have com- 
pleted their studentship, there is one which forbids them 
to eat, travel, and sleep during the twilight ;° and in 
one of the Zoroastrian Pahlavi texts it is said that 
“in the dark it is not allowable to eat food, for the 
demons and fiends seize upon one-third of the wisdom 
and glory of him who eats food in the dark.”* Many 
Hindus who revere the sun do not break their fast in 
the morning till they catch a clear view of it, and do 
not eat at all-on days when it is obscured by clouds *— 
a custom to which there is a parallel among some North 
American sun-worshippers, the Snanaimuq Indians _be- 
longing to the Coast Salish, who must not partake of 
any food until the sun is well up in the sky,” Brahmins 

4 Rivers, of. czt, p. 592 sy. 

1 St. Jerome, Commentarzt in JBnan, 
5 Crooke, Popular Religion of 

3 (Migne, of. czt, xxv. 1140). St. 

Augustine, Zpzstola LV (alias CXTX), 
‘ Ad inquisitiones Januarii,’ 15 (Migne, 
xxxiii. 217 sg.). Funk, Joc. czt. p. 209. 

2 Schénwerth, Aus der Oberpfalz, 

ili. 55. 
3 Haberland, in Zeetschr. f. Volker- 
Psychologie, xvill. 258. 

Northern India, i. 21 sq. 

& Laws of Mant, iv. 55. 

7 Shayast Lé-Shdyast, ix. 8. 

8 Wilson, Works, i. 266. Hunter, 
Annals of Rural Bengal, i. 285. 
Crooke, Zhings Indzan, p. 214. 

» Boas, loc, ctt. p. 51. 

fast at the equinoxes, solstices, conjunctions of planets, 
and on the days of the new and full moon.’ The Buddhist 
Sabbath, or Uposatha, which, as we have noticed above, 
occurs on the day of full moon, on the day when there 1s 
no moon, and on the two days which are eighth from the 
full and new moon, is not only a day of rest, but has also 
from ancient times been a fast-day. He who keeps the 
Sabbath rigorously abstains from all food between sunrise 
and sunset, and, as no cooking must be done during the 
Uposatha, he prepares his evening meal in the early 
morning before the rise of the sun.” 

Among the Jews there are many who abstain from food 
on the day of an eclipse of the moon, which they regard 
as an evil omen.® We have also reason to believe that 
the Jews were once in the habit of observing the new 
moons and Sabbaths not only as days of rest, but as fast- 
days ; and the Hebrew Sabbath, as we have seen, in all 
probability owes its origin to superstitious fear of the 
changes in the moon.* Or how shall we explain the 
curious rule which forbids fasting on a new moon and on 
the seventh day,’ if not as a protest against a fast once in 
vogue among the Jews on these occasions, but afterwards 
regarded as an illegitimate rite?® This theory j is not new, 
for Hooker in his ‘ Ecclesiastical Polity’ observes that “ it 
may be a question, whether in some sort they did not 
always fast on the Sabbath.” He refers to a statement of 
Josephus, according to which the sixth hour “ was wont on 
the Sabbath always to call them home unto meat,” and to 

certain pagan writers who upbraided them with fasting 
on that day.’ In Nehemiah there is an indication that it 
was a custom to fast on the first a of the seventh month,® 

1 Dubois, Description of the People * See Jastrow, ‘ Original Character 
of India, p. 160. See also supra, ii. of the Hebrew Sabbath,’ in American 
297. Journal of Theology, ii. 325. 

2 Childers, Dectzonary of the Pali 7 Hooker, igeui Polity, v. 
Language, Pp. $35: Kern, Oe Bud 7.2 vOlenin 328 

dhismus, ii. 258. % Nehemiah, viii. 2, 10 :—‘** Then he 
3 Buxtorf, op. cit. Pp. 477. said unto them, Go your way, eat the 
4 Supra, i. 286 sq. fat, and drink the sweet, and send 

5 Judith, vill. 6, Schiulchan Aruch, portions unto them for whom nothing 

1. OI, 117. zs prepared.” 

which is “‘ holy unto the Lord” ;1 and on the tenth day 
of the same month there was the great fast of atonement, 
combined with abstinence from every kind of work.? I 
venture to think that all these fasts may be ultimately 
traced to a belief that the changes in the moon not only 
are unfavourable for work, but also make it dangerous to 
partake of food. The fact of the seventh day being a 
day of rest established the number seven as a sabbatical 
number. In the seventh month there are several days, 
besides Saturdays, which are to be observed as days of rest,” 
and in the seventh year there shall be. “‘a sabbath of rest 
unto the land.” * In these sabbatarian regulations the day 
of atonement plays a particularly prominent part. The 
severest punishment is prescribed for him who does not 
rest and fast on that day “ from even unto even” ;° and it 
is on the same day that, after the lapse of seven times 
seven years, the trumpet of the jubilee shall be caused to 
sound throughout the land.° Most of the rules 
concerning the day of atonement are undoubtedly post- 
exilic. But the fact that no other regular days of fasting 
but those mentioned by Zechariah are referred to by the 
prophets or in earlier books, hardly justifies the conclusion 
drawn by many scholars that no such fast existed. It is 
extremely probable that the fast of the tenth day of the 
seventh month as a fast of atonement is of a comparatively 
modern date ; but it is perhaps not too bold to suggest 
that the idea of atonement is a later interpretation of a 
previously existing fast, which was originally observed for 
fear of the dangerous quality attributed to the number 
seven. Why this fast was enjoined on the tenth day of 
the seventh month remains obscure ; but it seems that the 
order of the month was considered more important than 
that of the day. Nehemiah speaks of a fast which 

1 Nehemiah, viii. 9 sgg. See also sqy. Numbers, xxix. 7. 

Leviticus, xxitl. 24 sg. ; Numbers, xxix. 3 Leviticus, xxiii. 24, 25, 35, 36, 39. 
1. Among the Babylonians, too, the umbers, xxix. I, 12, 35. 

seventh month had a sacred character ER ECUMICHS SX A DSee alsO 
(Jastrow, Relzgion of Babylonia and LE xodits, xxiii. 10 sg. 

Assyria, pp. 681, 683, 686). 5 Levtticus, xxi. 29 sg. 

BV COLICUS ee XV 2O.) 30 se klll., 9-27 OO MGptEh SoM, OF 

was kept on the twenty-fourth day of the seventh 
month. 

In other Semitic religions we meet with various fasts 
which are in some way or other connected with 
astronomical changes. According to En-Nedim, the 
Harranians, or ‘‘ Sabians,” observed a thirty days’ fast 
in honour of the moon, commencing on the eighth day 
after the new moon of Adsar (March) ; a nine days’ fast 
in honour of “the Lord of Good Luck” (probably 
Jupiter),? commencing on the ninth day before the new 
moon of the first Kanan (December) ; and a seven days’ 
fast in honour of the sun, commencing on the eighth or 
ninth day after the new moon of Shobath (February).’ 
The thirty days’ fast seems to have implied abstinence 
from every kind of food and drink between sunrise 
and sunset,’ whereas the seven days’ fast is expressly said 
to have consisted in abstinence from fat and wine.’ In 
Manichezism—which is essentially based upon the ancient 
nature religion of Babylonia, though modified by 
Christian and Persian elements and elevated into a gnosis ° 
—we meet with a great number of fasts. There is a con- 

tinuous fast for two days when the sun is in Sagittarius 

(which it enters about the 22nd November) and the moon 
has its full light ; another fast when the sun has entered 
Capricornus (which it does about the 21st December) and 
the moon first becomes visible ; and a thirty days’ fast 
between sunrise and sunset commencing-on the day “ when 
the new moon begins to shine, the sun is in Aquarius 
(where it is from about the 20th January), and eight days 
of the month have passed,” which seems to imply that the 
fast cannot begin until eight days after the sun has 
entered Aquarius and that consequently, if the new moon 

4 Nehemiah, ix. 1. ete > En-Nedim, of. ct. v. 11 (Chwol- 
* Chwolsohn, Dee Ssadbzer, iil. 226, sohn, of. cit, ii. 36). 
Mee2AT ® Kessler, ‘Mani, Manichiier,’ in 

3 En-Nedim, /zhrzs¢t (book ix. ch. Herzog-Hauck, Realencyclopiidie if 
i.) i, 43 v. 8, 11 sg. (Chwolsohn, of. protestantische Theologie, xii. 198 54. 
Cita Os 7, 32, 35 sg.). See also Harnack, fTistory of ‘Dogma, lll. 230. 
Chyclechn: 1. 533 Sgg. 3 ti. 75 572 Idem, * Manichzeism,’ in  ighone is 

4 Chwolsohn, of. czt. ii. 71 sg. Ch Br itannica, xv. 485. 

Abulfeda, 6 (zbzd. 11. 500). 

eee ei yee 

4 Bye a 

XXXVII RESTRICTIONS IN DIET $12 

appears during that period, the commencement of the fast 
has to be postponed till the following new moon. The 
Manichzans also fasted for two days at every new moon ; 
and our chief authority on the subject, En-Nedim, states 
that they had seven fast-days ineach month. They fasted 
on Sundays, and some of them, the e/ecti or “ perfect 
ones,’ on Mondays also.1 We are told by Leo the 
Great that they observed these weekly fasts in honour of 
the sun and the moon ;* but according to the Armenian 
Bishop Ebedjesu their abstinence on Sunday was occasioned 
by their belief that the destruction of the world was 
going to take place on that day.* There can be little 
doubt that the Harranian and Manichean fasts were 
originally due, not to reverence, but to fear of evil 
influences ; reverence can never be the primitive motive 
for a customary rite of fasting. The thirty days’ fast 
which the Harranians observed in the month of Adsar 
finds perhaps its explanation in the fact that, according to 
Babylonian beliefs, the month Adar was presided over by 
the seven evil spirits, who knew neither compassion nor 
mercy, who heard no prayer or supplication, and to 
whose baneful influence the popular faith attributed the 
eclipse of the moon.* But it may also be worth noticing 
that the Hfarranian fast took place about the vernal 
equinox—a time at which, as we have seen, the Brahmins 
of India are wont to fast, though only for a day or two. 
It is highly probable that the thirty days’ fast of 
the Harranians and Manicheans is the prototype of 
the Muhammedan fast of Ramadan. During the whole 
ninth month of the Muhammedan year the complete 
abstinence from food, drink, and. cohabitation from 
sunrise till sunset is enjoined upon every Moslem, with 
the exception of young children and idiots, as also sick 
persons and travellers, who are allowed to postpone the 

1 En-Nedim, /zhrist, in Fliigel, XZZ.) 5 (Migne, of. cr? liv. 279). 
Mani, pp. 95, 97. Filiigel, p. 311 3 Fliigel, of. cet. p. 312 5g. 
5qq. Kessler, /oc. cz#. p. 212 sq. + Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and 
2 Leo the Great, Sermo XLII. (al. Assyria, pp. 263, 276, 463. 

fast to another time.’ This fast is said to be a fourth 
part of Faith, the other cardinal duties of religious 
practice being prayer, almsgiving, and pilgrimage. But, 
as a matter of fact, modern Muhammedans regard the 
fast of Ramadan as of more importance than any other 
religious observance ;” many of them neglect their 
prayers, but anybody who should openly disregard the 
rule of fasting would be subject to a very severe punish- 
ment.? Even the privilege granted to travellers and sick 
persons is not readily taken advantage of. During their 
marches in the middle of summer nothing but the appre- 
hension of death can induce the Aeneze to interrupt the 
fast ;4 and when Burton, in the disguise of a Muham- 
medan doctor, was in Cairo making preparations for. his 
pilgrimage to Mecca, he found among all those who 
suffered severely from such total abstinence only one 
patient who would eat even to save his life. There is 
no evidence that the fast of Ramadan was an ancient, 
pre-Muhammedan custom. On the other hand, its 
similarity with the Harranian and Manichean fasts is 
so striking that we are almost compelled to regard them 
all as fundamentally the same institution; and if this 
assumption is correct, Muhammed must have borrowed 
his fast from the Harranians or Manicheans or both. 

| Koran, ui. 180, 181, 183. 

* Cf. Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 
106. 

Koreish used to perform in the days of 
their heathenism. Others add_ that 
‘ Abd al-Muttalib commenced-the prac- 

3 von Kremer, Czlturgeschichte des 
Orients, 1. 460. 

4 Burckhardt, 
hitbys, p. 57. 

> Burton, Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah 
and Meccah, i. 74. 

8 We can hardly regard as such the 
passage in the Koran (ii. 179) where it 
is said, ‘‘O ye who believe! There is 
prescribed for you the fast as it was 
prescribed for those before you; haply 
ye may fear.” The traditionists say 
that Muhammed was in the habit of 
spending the month of Ramadan every 
year in the cave at Hira, meditating 
and feeding all the poor who resorted 
to him, and that he did so in accord- 
ance with a religious practice which the 

Bedouins and Wa- 

tice, saying “that it was the worship 
of God which that patriarch used to 
begin with the new moon of Ramadan, 
and continue during the whole of the 
month” (Muir, Lzfe of Mahomet, ii. 
56, n*. Sell, Fazth of lslém, p. 316). 
But, as Muir remarks (of. cz¢. ii. 56, 
n.*), it is the tendency of the tradition- 
ists to foreshadow the customs and pre- 
cepts of Islam as if some of them had 
existed prior to Muhammed, and con- 
stituted part of ‘* the religion of Abra- 
ham.’” See Jacob, ‘Der muslimische 
Fastenmonat Ramadan,’ in VJ, 
Jahresbericht der Geographtschen 
Geselisch. su Greifswald, pt. i. 1893- 
96, p. 2 sqq. 

¥ 

Sey 

oes 

XXXVII RESTRICTIONS IN DIET Ark 
Indeed, Dr. Jacob has shown that in the year 623, when 
this fast seems to have been instituted, Ramadan exactly 
coincided with the Harranian fast-month.! In its Muham- 
medan form the fast extending over a whole month is 
looked upon as a means of expiation. It is said that by 
the observance of it a person will be pardoned all his past 
venial sins, and that only those who keep it will be allowed 
to enter through the gate of heaven called Rayyan.” But 
this is only another instance of the common fact that 
customs often for an incalculable period survive the 
motives from which they sprang. 

In various religions we meet with fasting as a form 
of penance, as a means of appeasing an angry or indignant 
God, as an expiation for sin.* The voluntary suffering 
involved in it is regarded as an expression of sorrow 
and repentance pleasing to God, as a substitute for the 
punishment which He otherwise would inflict upon the 
sinner; and at the same time it may be thought to 
excite His compassion, an idea noticeable in many Jewish 
fasts... Among the Jews individuals fasted in cases of 
private distress or danger: Ahab, for instance, when 
Elijah predicted his downfall,’ Ezra and his companions 
before their journey to Palestine,” the pious Israelite when 
his friends were sick.’ Moreover, fasts were instituted 
for the whole community when it believed itself to be 
under divine displeasure, when danger threatened, when 
a great calamity befell the land, when pestilence raged 
or drought set in, or there was a reverse in war.” Four 

1 Jacob, loc. cet. p. 5. in this hut he passed nine or ten months 

2 Sell, of. czt. p. 317: 

3 Wasserschieben, Dze Lussord- 
nungen der abendlindischer Kirche, 
passim (Christianity). oraz, 1. 192 ; 
iv. 94; v. QI, 96; lviii. 5. Jolly, 
‘Recht und Sitte,’ in Bithler, Grendriss 
der tindo-arischen Philologie, p. 117; 
Dubois, Description of the Character, 
&c. of the People of India, p. 160 
(Brahmanism). 
Mexico,i. 285. On the occasion of any 
public calamity the Mexican high- 
priest retired to a wood, where he con- 
structed a hut for himself, and shut up 

Clavigero, History of 

in constant prayer and frequent effusions 
of blood, eating only raw maize and 
water (Torquemada, Monarchia In- 
diana, ix. 25, vol. ii. 212 5g.). 

4 Cf. Benzinger, ‘ Fasting,’ in Zvcy- 
clopedia Biblica, it. 1508 ; Schwally, 
Das Leben nach dem Tode nach den 
Vorstellungen des alten Israel, p. 26. 

LA ITER S86 P75 

8 Ezra, viii, 21. 

7 Psalins, XXxXV. 13. 

8 Judges, xx. 26. 1 Samutel, vii. 6. 
2 Chronicles, xx. 3. Nehenttah, ix. I. 
Jevemiah, xxxvi, 9. Joel, i. 14 3 i. 12. 

regular fast-days were established in commemoration of 
various sad events that had befallen Israel during the 
captivity ;! and in the course of time many other fasts 
were added, in memory of certain national troubles, though 
they were not regarded as obligatory.” The law itself 
enjoined fasting for the great day of atonement only. 

It may be asked why this particular kind of self-morti- 
fication became such a frequent and popular form of 
penance as it did both in Judaism and in several other 
religions. One reason is, no doubt, that fasting is a 
natural expression of contrition, owing to the depressing 
effect which sorrow has upon the appetite. Another 
reason is that the idea of penitence, as we have just 
observed, may be a later interpretation put upon a fast 
which originally sprang from fear of contamination. Nay, 
even when fasting is resorted to as a cure in the case 
of distress or danger, as also when it is practised in com- 
memoration of a calamity, there may be a vague belief that 
the food is polluted and should therefore be avoided. 
But in several cases fasting is distinctly a survival of - 
an expiatory sacrifice. The sacrifice of food offered to the 
deity was changed into the “sacrifice” involved in the 
abstinence from food on the part of the worshipper. We 
find that among the Jews the decay of sacrifice was 
accompanied by a greater frequency of fasts. It was only 
in the period immediately before the exile that fasting 
began to acquire special importance; and the popular 
estimation of it went on increasing during and after 
the exile, partly at least from a feeling of the need 
of religious exercises to take the place of the suspended 
temple services.* Like sacrifice, fasting was a regular 
appendage to prayer, as a means of giving special efficacy 
to the supplication ;* fasting and praying became in fact a 
constant combination of words. And equally close is the 

1 Zechariah, viii. 19. 4 Low, Gesammelte Schriften, i. 108. 

2 Greenstone, in JewashEncyclopedia, Nowack, of. cit. ii. 271. Benzinger, 
wees ze » in Encyclopedia Biblica, ii. 1507. 

3 Benzinger, in Lncyclopedia Biblica, 5 Judith, iv. 9, 11. Tobit, xii. 8. 
ii. 1508. Nowack, Lehrbuch der heb- Licclestasticus, Xxxiv. 26.  St¢. Luke, 
ratschen Archdologie, ii. 271. ity Bir 

ss 

< 

eae 

RESTRICTIONS IN DIET bet al 
connection between fasting and almsgiving—a circumstance 
which deserves special notice where almsgiving is regarded 
as a form of sacrifice or has taken the place of it! In the 
penitential regulations of Brahmanism we repeatedly meet 
with the combination “ sacrifice, fasting, giving gifts” ;? or 
also fasting and giving gifts, without mention being made 
of sacrifice? Among the Jews each fast-day was virtually 
an occasion for almsgiving,*‘ in accordance with the rabbinic 
saying that “the reward of the fast-day is in the amount 
of charity distributed” ;° but fasting was sometimes 
declared to be even more meritorious than charity, because 
the former affects the body and the latter the purse only.° 
And from Judaism this combination of fasting and alms- 
giving passed over into Christianity and Muhammedanism. 
According to Islam, it is a religious duty to give alms 
after a fast;* if a person through the infirmity of old age 
is not able to keep the fast, he must feed a poor person ; * 
and the violation of an inconsiderate oath may be expiated 
either by once feeding or clothing ten poor men, or 
liberating a Muhammedan slave or captive, or fasting 
three days.” In the Christian Church fasting was not only 
looked upon as a necessary accompaniment of prayer, but 
whatever a person saved by means of it was to be given to 
the poor.” St. Augustine says that man’s righteousness in 
this life consists in fasting, alms, and prayer, that alms and 
fasting are the two wings which enable his prayer to fly 
upward to God." But fasting without almsgiving ‘is not 

1 Supra, i. 565 sqq. 

2 Gautama, xix. 11. Vasishtha, xxii. 
8. Baudhéyana, iil. 10. 9. 

3 Vasishtha, xx. 47. 

+ Kohler, ‘ Alms,’ in Jewsh Ency- 
clopedia, i. 435. Low, op. czt. i. 108. 
Cf. Tobit, xii. 8; Katz, Der wahre 
Talmudjude, p. 43. 

5 Ibid. fol. 6b, quoted by Green- 
stone, in Jew7sh Encyclopedia, v. 349. 

6 Berakhoth, fol. 32b, quoted by 
Hershon, TZyeasures of the Talmud, 
p. 124. 

TJ Sell yop. G2. P25 i 

8 Jbid. p. 281. This opinion is 
based on a sentence in the Koran (ii, 

180) which has caused a great deal of 
dispute. Itis said there that ‘‘those who 
are fit to fast may redeem it by feeding 
a poor man.” But the expression 
“¢those who are fit to fast” has been 
understood to mean those who can do 
so only with great difficulty. 

9 Koran, vy. 91. Lane, Modern 
Egyptians, p. 313 5g. Seealso Koran, 
OZ Maik O4) sv. OO)s) livin 5. 

10 Harnack, History of Dogiia, i. 
205, n. 5. Low, of. cet. i. 108. 

MU St. Augustine, Zvarratio im 
Psalmum XLII. 8 (Migne, Patrologie 
cursus, XXXvVi. 482). 

RESTRICTIONS IN DIET 

Cin CH. XXXVEr 
so much as counted for fasting” ;’ that which is gained 
by the fast at dinner ought not to be turned into a feast at 
supper, but should be expended on the bellies of the 
poor.2 And if a person was too weak to fast without 
injuring his health he was admonished to give the more 
plentiful alms.* Tertullian expressly calls  fastings 
‘¢ sacrifices which are acceptable to God.” * They assumed 
the character of reverence offerings, they were said to 
be works of reverence towards God.’ But fasting, as 
well as temperance, has also from early times been 
advocated by Christian writers on the ground that it is 
“the beginning of chastity,’ ° whereas “through love of 

eating love of impurity finds passage.” 

} St. Chrysostom, J Mattheum 
Hlomil. LXX VII. (al. LXXVIII.) 6 
(Migne, of. cz¢, Ser. Graeca, lvill. 710). 
St. Augustine, Sermones supposztitid, 
exlii. 2, 6 (Migne, xxxix. 2023 sg.). 

2 St. Augustine, Sermones sup- 
posttitiz, cxli. 4 (Migne, of. cit, xxxix. 
2021). See also Canons enacted under 
King Edgar, ‘Of Powerful Men,’ 3 
(Ancient Laws of England, p. 415); 
Leclesiastical Institutes, 38 (tbid. p. 
486). 

3 St. Chrysostom, /7 Cap. 7. Genes. 
lita, AG Po (UNG OR Ta Kee 

i 
‘ 

Graeca, liii. $3). St. Augustine, Se7- 
mones supposititiz, cxlii. I (Migne, 
XXX1X. 2022 sq.). 

4 Tertullian, De vesurrectione carnts, 
8 (Migne, of. czt. ii. 806). 

° Hooker, cclestastical Polity, v. 
7/2, VOlxdl. 334. 

6 St. Chrysostom, J pist. LL. ad 
Thessal. Cap. I. Homil. 1. 2 (Migne, 
op. cut. Ser. Gr. 1xii. 470). 

’ Tertullian, De sejuzzzs, 1 (Migne, 
op. ctl, ii. 953). See also Manzoni, 
Osservazton? sulla morale cattolica, p. 

175. 

ery AgT Y (te nee

RESTRICTIONS IN DIET (concluded) 

Besrpes the occasional abstinence from certain victuals, 
which was noticed in the last chapter, there are restrictions 
in diet of a more durable character. 

Thus among the Australian aborigines the younger 
members of a tribe are, as it seems universally, subject to 
a variety of such restrictions, from which they are only 
gradually released as they grow older.'’ In the Wotjobaluk 
tribe in South-Eastern Australia, for instance, boys are 
forbidden to eat of the kangaroo and the padi-melon, 
being told that if they transgress these rules they will fall 
sick, break out all over with eruptions, and perhaps die. 
If a man under forty eats.the tail part of the emu or 
bustard, he will turn grey, and if he eats the freshwater 
turtle he will be killed by lightning. If young men or 
women of the Wakelbura tribe eat emu, black-headed 
snake, or porcupine, they will become sick and probably 
die, uttering the sounds peculiar to the creature in question, 
the spirit of which is believed to have entered into their 
bodies.” In the Warramunga tribe in Central Australia a 
man is usually well in the middle age before he is allowed 

1 Curr, The Australian Race, i. 81. 
Fraser, Aborigines of New South Wales, 
p. 53: Howitt, Matdve Tribes of South- 
Last Australia, p. 769 sg. Brough 
Smyth, <Adorieines of Victoria, i. 
p- xxxv. Taplin, ‘Narrinyeri,’ in 
Woods, Wative Tribes of South Aus- 
tralia, p. 137. Jung, ‘ Die Miindungs- 
gegend des Murray und ihre Bewohner,’ 

in Mittheil. d. Veretns f. Erdhkunde su 
Halle, 1877, p. 32. Spencer and 
Gillen, Mateve Tribes of Central Aus- 
tralia, p. 470 sgg. Lidem, Northern 
Tribes of Central Australia, p. 611 sq. 
Eyre, Lxpeditions of Discovery into 
Central Australia, il. 293. 

2 Howitt, of. cz?. p. 769. 

to eat wild turkey, rabbit-bandicoot, and emu.' According 
to certain writers, the object of these restrictions is to 
reserve the best things for the use of the elders, and, more 
especially, of the older men ;* but, on the other hand, it 
has been remarked that, in looking over the list of animals 
prohibited, one fails to see any good reasons for the 
selection, unless they may be assumed to have chiefly 
sprung from superstitious beliefs.* Among the Land 
Dyaks the young men and warriors are debarred from 
venison for fear it should render them as timid as the 
hind.*| The Moors believe that if a young person before 
the age of puberty eats wolf’s flesh he will have troubles 
afterwards. 

There are, further, numerous instances of certain kinds 
of food being permanently forbidden to certain individuals, 
In Unyamwezi, south of Victoria Nyanza, women are not 
permitted to eat fowl, a food which is reserved for the men.’ 
Among the Mandingoes of 'Teesee no woman is allowed to 
eat an egg, and this prohibition is so rigidly adhered to 
that “‘ nothing will more affront a woman of Teesee than to 
offer her an egg’”’; the men, on the other hand, eat eggs 
without scruple, even in the presence of their wives.° 
Among the Bayaka, a Bantu people in the Congo Free 
State, both fowls and eggs are forbidden to women ; “ if 
a woman eats an egg she is supposed to become mad, tear 
off her clothes and run away into the bush.”’ The Bahima 
of Enkole, in the Uganda Protectorate, allow men to eat 
beef and the meat of certain antelopes and of buffalo, whereas 
women are generally allowed to eat beef only.* The 
people of Darfur, in Central Africa, prohibit their women 
from eating an animal’s liver, because they think that a 

1 Spencer and Gillen, Northern 5 Reichard, ‘Die Wanjamuesi,’ in 

Tribes of Central Australia, p. 612. 

2 Tidem, Native Tribes of Central 
Australia, p. 470 sg. Ltidem, Northern 
Tribes of Central Australia, p. 613. 
Jung, in Aftthedl. d. Vereins f. Erd- 
hkunde zu Halle, 1877, p. 32. 

3 Brough Smyth, of. cit. i. 234. 

4 St. John, Life zx the Forests of the 
Far East, i. 186. 

Zeitschr. d. Gesellsch. f. Erdkunde zu 
Berlin, xxiv. 321. 

6 Park, Travels in the Interior of 
Africa, i, 114. 

7 Torday and Joyce, ‘ Ethnography 
of the Ba-Yaka,’ in Jou. Anthr. Inst. 
XXXVI. 41, 42, 51. 

8 Roscoe, ‘ Bahima,’ in Joz. Anthr. 
/nst, XXxXvii. 101, 

; 
“4 

bok 

sy 

Pree ee ee ee ve 

XXXVIII RESTRICTIONS IN DIET aan 

person may increase his soul by partaking of it, and 
women are believed to have no souls.1. The Miris of 
Northern India prize tiger’s flesh as food for men, but 
consider it unsuitable for women, as “it would make them 
too strong-minded.”” In the Australian tribes some 
articles of food are entirely interdicted to females.? The 
natives inhabiting the neighbourhood of Cape York forbid 
women to eat various kinds of fish, including some of the 
best, “(on the pretence of causing disease in women, 
although not injurious to the men.”* In the Sandwich 
Islands, again, women were not allowed to eat hog’s flesh, 
turtle, and certain kinds of fruit, as cocoa and banana.° 
Many of these prohibitions have been represented as signs 
of the low condition of the female sex; but a more 
intimate knowledge of the facts connected with them 
would perhaps show that they have some other foundation 
than the mere selfishness of the men. For sometimes the 
latter also are subject to very similar restrictions. Among 
the Bahuana, in the Congo Free State, ‘“ women are 
forbidden to eat owls or other birds of prey, but are 
permitted to eat frogs, from which men are obliged to 
abstain under penalty of becoming ill.”° With reference 
to the natives of New Britain, Mr. Powell states that, 
whilst in one place the women are prohibited from eating 
pigs or tortoises, the men are, in another place, prohibited 
from eating anything but human flesh, fowls, or fish.’ In 
the Caroline Islands the men are forbidden to eat a common 
blackbird, Lamprothornis—which is a favourite food of 
the women—because it is believed that anyone who did 
so, and afterwards climbed a cocoa-tree, would fall down 
and perish.* In some Dyak tribes on the Western branch 

1 Felkin, ‘Notes on the For Tribe,’  zz¢o the South Sea, iii. 249, note. Cook, 

in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Hdinburgh, xiii. quoted by Buckle, Afiscellaneous and 
218. Posthumous Works, iii. 355. 
2 Dalton, Z¢thnology of Bengal, p. ® Torday and Joyce, ‘ Ethnography 

33 of the Ba-Huana,’ in Jour. Anthr. 

3 Curr, The Australian Race, i. 81. Lnst. xxxvi. 279. 

Brough Smyth, of. czt. i. xxxv. 7 Powell, Wanderings tn a Wild 
4 Macgillivray, Voyage of Rattle- Country, p. 173. 

snake, ii, 10. 8 von Kittlitz, Rezse nach dem rus- 
5 von Kotzebue, Voyage of Discovery — stschen Amertha, &c. ii. 103 sg. 

VOL. II Y 

of the river of Sarawak, goats, fowls, and the fine kind 
of fern (pakw), which forms an excellent vegetable, are 
forbidden food to the men, though the women and boys 
are allowed to partake of them.* 

Among various peoples certain foods are forbidden to 
priests or magicians. he priests of the ancient Egyptians 
were not allowed to eat fish,? nor to meddle with the 
esculent or potable substances which were produced out of 
Egypt 3° and, according to Plutarch, they so greatly 
disliked the nature of excrementitious things that they 
not only rejected most kinds of pulse, but also the flesh 
of sheep and swine, because it produced much superfluity 
of nutriment.*. The lamas of Mongolia will touch no 
meat of goats, horses, or camels.” Among the Semang 
of the Malay Peninsula the medicine-men will not eat goat 
or buffalo flesh and but rarely that of fowl.° The dairymen 
of the Todas may drink milk from certain buffaloes only, 
and are altogether forbidden to eat chillies.’ These and 
similar restraints laid upon priests or wizards are probably 
connected with the idea that holiness is a delicate quality 
which calls for special precautions.* Schomburgk states 
that the conjurers of the British Guiana Indtans partake 
but seldom of the native hog, because they consider the 
eating of it injurious to the efficacy of their skill? And 
the Ulad Bu ‘Aziz in Morocco believe that if a scribe or 
a saint eats wolf’s flesh the charms he writes will have no 
effect, and the saliva of the saint will lose its curative 
power. 

There are still other cases in which certain persons are 
permanently required to abstain from certain kinds of 
food. ‘Thus in the Andaman Islands every man and 
woman “is prohibited all through life from eating some 

1 Low, Sarawak, p. 266. 

2 Herodotus, ii. 37. Plutarch, De 
Tside et Osivide, 7. Porphyry, De 
abstinentia ab esu animalium, iv. 7. 

3 Porphyry, of. ct. iv. 7. 

4 Plutarch, De /szde et Ostride, 5. 

5 Prejevalsky, Aongolia, i. 56. 

6 Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races 

of the Malay Peninsula, ii. 226. 

7 Rivers, Zodas, p. 102 sg. For 
some other instances see Landtman, 
Origin of Priesthood, p. 161 sg. 

8 Cf. Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 391. 

® Schomburgk, ‘ Expedition to the 
Upper Corentyne,’ in Jour. Roy. 
Geograph. Soc. London, xv. 30. 

XXXVIII RESTRICTIONS IN DIET aa 

one (or more) fish or animal : in most cases the forbidden 
dainty is one which in childhood was observed (or 
imagined) by the mother to occasion some functional 
derangement ; when of an age to understand it the 
circumstance is explained, and cause and effect being 
clearly demonstrated, the individual in question thence- 
forth considers that particular meat his yd-rad, and avoids 
it carefully. In cases where no evil consequences have 
resulted from partaking of any kind of food, the fortunate 
person is privileged to select his own yds-tib, and is, of 
course, shrewd enough to decide upon some fish, such as 
shark or skate, which is little relished, and to abstain from 
which consequently entails no exercise of self-denial.” It 
is believed that the god Ptluga would punish severely any 
person who might be guilty of eating his yd+sad, either 
by causing his skin to peel off, or by turning his hair 
white, and flaying him alive.’ In Samoa each man had 
generally his god in the shape of some species of animal ; 
and if he ate one of these divine animals it was supposed 
that the god avenged the insult by taking up his abode in 
the eater’s body and there generating an animal of the 
same kind until it caused his death.2 The members of 
a totem clan are commonly forbidden to eat the particular 
animal or plant whose name they bear.’ Thus among 
the Omaha Indians men whose totem is the elk believe 
that if they ate the flesh of the male elk they would break 
out in boils and white spots in different parts of their 
bodies ; and men whose totem is the red corn think that 
if they ate red corn they would have running sores all 
round their mouths.* Yet, however general, prohibitions 
of this kind cannot be said to be a universal characteristic 
of totemism.* The South Australian Narrinyeri, for 
instance, do not abstain from eating their totem animals 

* Man, ‘Aboriginal Inhabitants of  Adorigines of New South Wales, p. 53. 

the Andaman Islands,’ in Jour. Anthr. 4 Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in 

Inst. xii, 354. Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn, iii. 225, 231. 
2 Turner, Samoa, p. 17 Sq. Idem, ‘Siouan Folk-Lore,’ in ee oe 
3 Frazer, TZotemism, p. 7 sgg. Antiquarian, vii. 107. 

Spencer and Gillen, Watzéve Tribes of 5 Frazer, Zotemztsm, p. 19. 

Central Australia, p. 467. Fraser, 
Sane 2, 

er 

el 
if these are epi for food ;' though it may be that this 
andtidred cases represent "totemism in a state of decay. 
- There are, finally, restrictions in eating which refer to 
the whole people or tribe. In early society certain things 
which might serve as food are often not only universally 
abstained from, but actually prohibited by custom or law. 
The majority of these prohibitions have reference to 
animals or animal products, which are naturally more 
apt to cause disgust than is vegetable food—probably 
because our ancestors in early days, by instinct, subsisted 
chiefly on a vegetable diet, and only subsequently acquired 
a more general taste for animal nourishment.” Certain 
animals excite a feeling of disgust by their very appear- 
ance, and are therefore abstained from. This I take to 
be a reason for the aversion to eating reptiles. It is 
said that snakes are avoided as food because their flesh 
is supposed to be as poisonous as their bite;° but this 
explanation is hardly relevant to harmless reptiles, which 
are likewise in some cases forbidden food.t The abstin- 
ence from fish seems generally to have a similar origin, 
though some peoples say that they refuse to eat certain 
species because the soul of a relative might be in the fish.’ 
The Navahoes of New Mexico ‘ must never touch fish, 
and nothing will induce them to taste one.”° The 
Mongols consider them unclean animals.’ The South 
Siberian Kachinzes are said to refrain from them because 
they believe that “the evil principle lives in the water 
and eats fish.’°® The Kafirs on the North-Western 
frontier of India ‘detest fish, though their rivers abound 
in them.”® The same aversion is common in the South 

1 Taplin, in Woods, of. czt. p. 63. 8 Stephen, ‘Navajo,’ in American 

2 Cf. Schurtz, Die Spetseverbote, p. 
17. 

3 Skeat and Blagden, Pagan Races 
of the Malay Peninsula, i. 130 (Be- 
rembun). Schurtz, of. czt. p. 22. 

4 Leviticus, xi. 29 sg. Sayce, Hzb- 
bert Lectures on the Religion of the 
Ancient Babylonians, p. 83. 

5 Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 430, 432. 

Anthropologist, vi. 357. 

7 Prejevalsky, op. czt. i. 56. 

8 von Striimpell, ‘Der Volksstamm 
der Katschinzen,’ in J@tthez/. ad. 
Vereins f. Erdkunde zu Leipzig, 1875, 
pee: 

® Fosberry, ‘Some of the Mountain 
Tribes of the N.W. Frontier of India,’ 
in Jour. Ethn. Soc. London, N. S. i 
192. 

vii 

oe 

sr 

RESTRICTIONS IN DIET 

XXXVIII as 
African tribes’ and among most Hamitic peoples of East 
Africa ;* when asked for an explanation of it, they say 
that fish are akin to snakes. Fish, or at least certain 
species of fish, were forbidden to the ancient Syrians ;* and 
the Hebrews were prohibited from eating all fish that 
have not fins and scales. It is curious to note that 
various peoples who detest fish also abstain from fowl.° 
The Navahoes are strictly forbidden to eat the wild 
turkey with which their forests abound ;° and the Mongols’ 
dislike of fowl isso great that one of Prejevalsky’s guides 
nearly turned sick on seeing him eat boiled duck.” Some 
peoples have a great aversion to eggs,® which are said to 
be excrements, and therefore unfit for food. There may 
be a similar reason for the abstinence from milk among 
peoples who have domesticated animals able to supply them 

with it.” 

1 Fritsch, Dred Jahre in Siid-Afrika, 
p- 338. Shooter, Kafirs of Natal and 
the Zulu Country, p. 215 (Zulus). 
Kropf, Das Volk der Xosa-Kaffern, p. 
102. Campbell, Second Journey in the 
Interior of South Africa, ii. 203 (Be- 
chuanas). The Hottentots, however, 
eat fish (Fritsch, p. 339). 

2 Hildebrandt, ‘Wakamba und ihre 
Nachbarn,’ in Zeztschr. f. Ethnol. x. 
378. Paulitschke, Z¢hnographie Nord- 
ost-Afrikas, 1. 155 (Somals, Gallas). 
schurtz, of. czt. p. 23. 

3 Porphyry, of. cé¢. iv. 15. Plutarch, 
De superstitione, 10. 

+ Leviticus, xi. 10 sqq. 

5 Hildebrandt, in Zeztschr. f. Ethnol. 
x. 378 (Gallas, Wadshagga, Waikuyu, 
&c.). Paulitschke, of. czt. 1. 153 sgg. 
(Gallas, Somals). Burton, 7wo Trips 
to Gorilla Land, i. 95 (Somals). 
Meldon, ‘ Bahima of Ankole,’ in /owr. 
African Soc. vi. 146; Ashe, Two Kings 
of Uganda, p. 303(Bahima). Kropf, Das 
Volk der Xosa-Kaffern, p. 102. Among 
the Zulus domestic fowls are eaten by 
none except young persons and old 
(Shooter, of. cz¢. p. 215). For other 
peoples who abstain from fowl, see 
Bastian, Dze deutsche Expedition an 
der Loango-Ktiste, 1. 185; Casati, 
Ten Vears in Equatorta, i. 165 (Mon- 
buttu); Salt, Voyage to Abyssinza, 

The Dravidian aborigines of the hills of Central 

p- 179 (Danakil) ; Skeat and Blagden, 
Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, 
i. 135 (Sabimba), 136 (Orang Muka 
Kuning) ; Globus, 1. 330 (inhabitants of 
Hainan); Ehrenreich, quoted by 
Schurtz, of. cét. p. 20 (Karaya of 
Goyaz); von den Steinen, Durch 
Central-Lrastlien, p. 262 (Yuruna) ; 
Cesar, De bello Gallico, v. 12 (ancient 
Britons). 

6 Stephen, in Amerzcan Anthropo- 
logist, Vi. 357. 

7 Prejevalsky, of. czz. 1. 56. 

8 The Kafirs formerly abstained from 
eggs (Kropf, of. ct. p. 102). Among 
the Zulus eggs are eaten by young and 
old persons only (Shooter, of. cz¢. p. 
215). The Bahima refuse this kind of 
food (Ashe, of. cz¢. p. 303), and so do 
generally the Waganda, especially the 
women (Felkin, ‘Notes on the Wa- 
ganda Tribe,’ in Proceed. Roy. Soc. 
Edinburgh, xii 716; Ashe, p. 303). 
See also Andree, Zthnographische 
Parallelen, p. 126 sg.; Schurtz, of. cet. 

. 23 5g. 

9 Reichard, ‘Die Wanjamuesi,’ in 
Zeitschr. a. Gesellsch. f: Erdkunde zu 
Berlin, xxiv. 321. Hildebrandt, ‘ Wa- 
kamba und ihre Nachbarn,’ in Zez¢schr. 
jf. Ethnol. x. 378. 

10 See Westermarck, 
Human Marriage, p. 484. 

flistory of 

RESTRICTIONS IN DIET 

India, who never use milk, are expressly said to regard it 
as an excrement.1 The ancient Caribs had a horror of 
eggs and never drank milk.? The Ashantees are “ for- 
bidden eggs by the fetish, and cannot be persuaded 
to taste milk.”? The Kimbunda in South-Western 
Africa detest milk, and consider it inconceivable how 
a grown-up person can enjoy it; they believe that 
the Kilulu, or spirit, would punish him who partook of 
it.* The Dyaks of Borneo, the Javanese, and the Malays 
abstain from milk.? To the Chinese milk and butter are 
insupportably odious.° 

The meat of certain animals may also be regarded with 
disgust on account of their filthy habits or the nasty food 
on which they live. In the Warramunga tribe, in Central 
Australia, there is a general restriction applying to eagle- 
hawks, and the reason assigned for it is that this bird feeds 
on the bodies of dead natives.’ It seems that the 
abstinence from swine’s flesh, at least in part, belongs to 
the same group of facts. Various tribes in South Africa 
hold it in abomination.* In some districts of Madagascar, 
according to Drury, the eating of pork was accounted a 
very contemptible thing.’ It 1s, or was, abstained from by 
the Jakuts of Siberia, the Votyaks of the Government of 
Vologda,” and the Lapps.. The disgust for pork has 
likewise been met with in many American tribes. The 
Koniagas will eat almost any digestible substance except 
pork.” The Navahoes of New Mexico abominate it ‘as 
if they were the devoutest of Hebrews” ;** it is not for- 
bidden by their religion, but “ they say they will not eat 
the flesh of the hog simply because the animal is filthy in 

: 
q 
P 

1 Crooke, Things Indian, p. 92. 
2 Du Tertre, Azstozre generale des 
Antilles, i. 389. 
3 Bowdich, Wsszon to Ashantee, p. 
19. 
d 

ies) 

Magyar, Rezsen i Stid-Afrika, i. 
203, 321. 

> Low, of. cit. p. 267. 

6 Huc, Zravels in Tartary, i. 281. 
Westermarck, of. c7t. p. 484. 

7 Spencer and Gillen, Northern 
Tribes of Central Australia, p. 612. 

8 Fritsch, Dre¢ Jahre in Siid-Afrika, 
p. 339. Kropf, of. czt. p. 102 (Kafirs). 

% Drury, AZadagascar, p. 143. 

1 Latham, Descriptive Ethnology, i. 
363. 

ll Leem, Beskrivelse over Finmarkens 
Lapper, p. 501. 

Bancroft, ative of the 
Pacific States, i. 75. 

13 Stephen, in American Anthropolo- 
gist, Vi. 357. 

Races 

a 

ESXVINT RESTRICTIONS IN DIET 
its habits, because it is the scavenger of the town.”! In 
his description of the Indians of the South-Eastern States 
Adair writes :—‘‘ They reckon all those animals to be 
unclean, that are either carnivorous, or live on nasty food, 
as hogs, wolves, panthers, foxes, cats, mice, rats. 
When swine were first brought among on they deemed 
it such a horrid abomination in any of their people to eat 
that filthy and impure food, that they excluded the criminal 
from all religious communion in their circular town-house. 
. . They still affix vicious and contemptible ideas to the 
eating of swine’s flesh; insomuch that SAdkapa, ‘swine 
eater,’ is the most opprobrious epithet that they can use 
to brand us with; they commonly subjoin Akanggapa, 
‘eater of dunghill fowls.’ Both together signify ‘filthy, 
helpless animals.’”’? So also those Indians in British 
Guiana who have kept aloof from intercourse with the 
colonists reject pork with the greatest loathing. Schom- 
burgk tells us that an old Indian permitted his children 
to accompany him on a journey only on the condition that 
they were never to eat any viands prepared by his cook for 
fear lest pork should have been used in their preparation. 
But this objection does not extend to the native hog, 
which, though generally abstained from by wizards, is 
eaten by the laity indiscriminately, with the exception of 
women who are pregnant or who have just given birth to 
a child.* This suggests that the aversion to the domestic 
pig partly springs from the fact that it is a foreign 
animal. Indeed, the Guiana Indians refuse to eat the 
flesh of all animals that are not indigenous to their 
country, but were introduced from abroad, such as oxen, 
sheep, and fowls, apparently on the principle “that any 
strange and abnormal object is especially likely to be 
possessed of a harmful spirit.” * The Katfirs, also, abstain 

1 Matthews, ‘Study of Ethics among 
the Lower Races,’ in Jour. American 
Folk-Lore, xii. 5. 

2 Adair, Austory of the 
Indians, p. 132 sqq. 

3 Schomburgk, in /owr. Roy. Geo- 

graph. Soc. London, xv. 29 Sq. 

American 

4 Im Thum, Znzatans of Guzana, p. 
368. Dr. Schurtz suggests (of. czt. p. 
19 sqq.) that some other peoples, as the 
Indians of Brazil, abstain from fowls 
because they are not indigenous to their 
country. 

from the domestic swine, though they eat the wild hog.’ 
Some writers maintain that pork has been prohibited on 
the ground that it is prejudicial to health in hot countries ;” 
but, as we have seen, this prohibition is found among 
various northern peoples as well, and it seems besides that 
the unwholesomeness of pork in good condition has been 
rather assumed than proved. Dr. Frazer, again, believes 
that the ancient Egyptians, Semites, and some of the Greeks 
abstained from this food not because the pig was looked 
upon simply as a filthy and disgusting creature, but 
because it was considered to be endowed with high super- 
natural powers.* In Greece the pig was used in purifi- 
catory ceremonies.* Lucian says that the worshippers of 
the Syrian goddess abstained from eating pigs, some 
because they held them in abomination, others because 
they thought them holy.® The heathen Harranians 
sacrificed the swine and ate swine’s flesh once a year.° 
According to Greek writers, the Egyptians abhorred the 
pig as a foul and loathsome animal, and to drink its milk 
was believed to cause leprosy and itchy eruptions ;’ but 
once a year they sacrificed pigs to the moon and to Osiris 
and ate of the flesh of the victims, though at any other 
time they would not so much as taste pork.*® 

Of the abhorrence of cannibalism I shall speak in a 
separate chapter, but in this connection it is worth 
noticing that the eating of certain animals is regarded 
with horror or disgust either because they are supposed 
to be metamorphosed ancestors or on account of their 
resemblance to men. Various peoples refrain from 

1 Miller, Allgemeine Ethnographie, 277, 593- 
p. 189. © Lucian, De dea Syria, 54. 

2 Ramsay, Aestorical Geography of ® Robertson Smith, Religzon of the 
Asta Menor, p. 32. Wiener, “Die “Semzztes, p. 290. (Cf Ysaiak, xv. 4; 

alttestamentarischen Speiseverbote,’ in and Ixvi. 3, 17, where this sacrifice is 
Zettschr, f. Ethnol. viii 103. See also alluded to as a heathen abomination. 

Buckle, AZzscellaneous and Posthumous 7 Herodotus, ii. 47. Plutarch, De 
Works, iil. 354 sq. Iside et Osiride, 8. Aelian, De natura 
3 Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 304 sgg.  animalium, x. 16. 
Idem, Pausanias’s Description of Greece, 8 Herodotus, ii. 47. Plutarch, De 
lv. 137 sq. Lside et Ostride, 8. 
4 Ramsay, of. czt. p. 31 sg. Frazer, ® Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 430 sqq. 

Pausanias’s Description of Greece, iii. St. John, of. cet. i, 186 (Land Dyaks). 

se 

XXXVIII RESTRICTIONS IN DIET 

monkey’s flesh ;' and European travellers mention their 
own instinctive repugnance to it and their aversion to 
shooting monkeys.” The Indians of Lower California 
will eat any animal, except men and monkeys, “the 
latter because they so much resemble the former.” * 
According to an ancient writer quoted by Porphyry, the 
Egyptian priests rejected those animals which “ verged 
to a similitude to the human form.’* The Kafirs 
say that elephants are forbidden food because their in- 
telligence resembles that of men.? 

Moreover, intimacy with an animal easily takes away 
the appetite for its flesh. Among ourselves, as Mandeville 
observes, ‘‘some people are not to be persuaded to taste 
of any creatures they have daily seen and been acquainted 
with, whilst they were alive ; others extend their scruple 
no further than to their own poultry, and refuse to eat 
what they fed and took care of themselves ; yet all of 
them will feed heartily and without remorse on beef, 
mutton, and fowls, when they are bought in the 
market.” ° Among other races we meet with feelings 
no less refined. Mencius, the Chinese moralist, said :— 
“So is the superior man affected towards animals, that, 
having seen them alive, he cannot bear to see them die ; 
having heard their dying cries, he cannot bear to eat 
their flesh. Therefore he keeps away from his slaughter- 
house and cook-room.”’ ‘The abstinence from domestic 
fowls and their eggs, as also from the tame pig, may 
occasionally have sprung from sympathy. Dr. von den 
Steinen states that the Brazilian Yuruna cannot be 
induced to eat any animal which they have bred them- 
selves, and that they apparently considered it very 
immoral when he and his party ate hen-eggs.*” In the 

1 Shooter, of. cet. p. 215 (Zulus). 
Schurtz, of. cet. p. 28 (Abyssinians). 
Skeat and Blagden, of. cet. i. 134 
(Orang Sletar). In the Zystztutes of 
Vishnu (li. 3) the eating of apes is 
particularly stigmatised. 

2 Schurtz, of. cet. p. 28. Infra, on 
Regard for the Lower Animals. 

3 Bancroft, op. czt. 1. 560. 

# Porphyry, of. ct. iv. 7. 

5 Miiller, Zthnographie, p. 189. 

6 Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, p. 
188. 

7 Mencius, i. 1. 7. 8. 

8 yon den Steinen, Durch Central- 
Brasilien, p. 262. See also Juan and 
Ulloa, Voyage to South America, i. 426 
(Indians of Quito). 

RESTRICTIONS IN DIET 

sacred books of India it is represented as a particularly 
bad action to eat certain domestic animals, including 
village pigs and tame cocks ; a twice-born man who does 
so knowingly will become an outcast.1 Among the 
Bechuanas in South Africa dogs and tame cats are not 
eaten, though wild cats are.” The Arabs of .Dukkala in 
Morocco eat their neighbours’ cats but not their own. 
Among the Dinka only such cows as die naturally or by 
an accident are used for food; but a dead cow is never 
eaten by the bereaved owner himself, who is too much 
afflicted at the loss to be able to touch a morsel of the 
carcase of his departed beast.* Herodotus says that the 
Libyans would not taste the flesh of the cow, though 
they ate oxen ;* and the same rule prevailed among the 
Egyptians and Phoenicians, who would sooner have 
partaken of human flesh than of the meat of a cow.’ 
The eating of cow’s flesh is prohibited by the law of 
Brahmanism.® According to Dr. Rajendralala Mitra, 
the idea of beef as an article of food “is so shocking to 
the Hindus, that thousands over thousands of the more 
orthodox among them never repeat the counterpart of 
the word in their vernaculars, and many and dire have . 
been the sanguinary conflicts which the shedding of the 
blood of cows has caused.”’ In China “the slaughter 
of buffaloes for food is unlawful, according to the 
assertions of the people, and the abstaining from the 
eating of -beef is regarded as very meritorious.”* It is 
said in the ‘ Divine Panorama’ that he who partakes of 
beef or dog’s flesh will be punished by the deity.? In 
Japan neither cattle-nor sheep were in former days killed 
for food ;" and in the rural districts many people still 
think it wrong to eat beef." In Rome the slaughter of 

Laws 

1 Institutes of Vishnu, li. 3. 
of Manu, v. 19. 

2 Campbell, Second Journey in the 
Interior of South Africa, ii. 203. 

° Schweinfurth, “eart of Africa, i. 

163 sg. 
4 Herodotus, iv. 186. 
» (bed. ii. 41. Porphyry, of. cet. ii. 

Il, 

8 Institutes of Vishnu, li. 3. 

7 Rajendralala Mitra, Zrdo-Aryans, 
1. 354. 
8 Doolittle, Social Life of the 
Chinese, ii, 187. 

® Giles, Strange Stories from a 
Chinese Studio, ii. 376. 

1 Reed, Japan, i. 61. 

U Griffis, Zkado’s Empire, p. 472. 

a labouring ox was in olden days punished with ex- 
communication ;* and at Athens and in Peloponnesus it 
was prohibited even on penalty of death.? Indeed, the 
ancient idea has survived up to modern times in Greece, 
where it has been held as a maxim that the animal which 
tills the ground ought not to be used for food.’ These 
prohibitions are no doubt to some extent expressions of 
kindly feelings towards the animals to which they refer.‘ 
A Dinka is said to be fonder of his cattle than of his wife 
and children ;° and according to classical writers, the 
ploughing ox is not allowed to be slaughtered because he 
is himself an agriculturist, the servant of Ceres, and a 
companion to the labourer in his work.® But at the same 
time the restrictions in question are very largely due to 

rudential motives. Peoples who live chiefly on the 
products of their cattle show a strong disinclination to 
reduce their herds, especially by killing cows or calves ; ‘ 
and agricultural races are naturally anxious to preserve 
the animal which is used for work on the field. With 
reference to the Egyptian and Pheenician custom of 
eating bulls but abstaining from cows, Porphyry observes 
that “for the sake of utility 1 in one ar the same species 
of animals distinction is made between that which is 
pious and that which is impious,’ cows being spared on 
account of their progeny.® Until quite “recently in 
Egypt no one was allowed to kill a calf, and permission 
from the government was required er the slaughter 
of a bull.° Moreover, domestic animals are frequently 
regarded as sacred in consequence of their utility, and 
for that reason also abstained from. The Dinka pay a 

(Kafirs).. Merker, Dze MJasaz, p. 169. 

1 Pliny, Aestoréa naturalts, viii. 70. { 
Paulitschke, ¢thnographie Nordost- 

a Wenaicsy JIRA Taide shi I 2yep 

Aelian, Varia historia, v. 14. 
3 Mariti, Zravels through Cyprus, 1. 

4 See zufra, on Regard for the Lower 
Animals. 

5 Schweinfurth, of. cz¢. i. 164. 

6 Aelian, Varia historia, v. 14. 
Varro, De re rustica, li. 5. 3. 

7 Fritsch, Dze Eingeborenen Stid- 
Afrika’s, p. 86; Kropf, of. czt. p. 102 

Afrikas,i.153. Ratzel, Hestory of Man- 
hind, ii. 411 (pastoral races of Africa). 
Erman, “ese um adie Erde, i. 515 
(Kirghiz). Andree, LZithnographische 
Parallelen, p. 122 sg. Robertson 
Smith, Re/zgion of the Séemittes, p. 297. 
Schurtz, of. cé?. p. 30 sg. 

8 Porphyry, of. c¢. il. II. 

9 Wilkinson, in Rawlinson’s transla- 
tion of Herodotus, 2, WP Rif 35 Ye 

RESTRICTIONS IN DIET 

kind of reverence to their cattle... In Egypt, according 
to Herodotus, the cow was sacred to Isis.” In India she 
has been the object of a special worship.” 

Certain foods, then, are generally abjured, not merely 
because they excite disgust or, as the case may be, because 
they have a disagreeable taste, but also from neuieren 
considerations. To the instances just mentioned may be 
added the custom prevalent among the Tonga Islanders 
of setting a temporary prohibition or taboo on certain 
eatables in order to prevent them from growing scarce.* 
But the most important prudential motive underlying 
the general restrictions in diet is no doubt fear lest the 
food should have an injurious effect upon him who 
partakes of it. The harm caused by it may only be 
imaginary ; indeed, forbidden food is commonly regarded 
as unwholesome, whatever be the original ground on 
which it was prohibited.” The Negroes of the Loango 
Coast say that they abstain from goat-flesh because other- 
wise their skin would scale off, and. from fowl so as not 
to lose their hair.” Some tribes of the Malay Peninsula 
refuse to eat the flesh of elephants under the pretext that 
it would occasion sickness." The tribes inhabiting the 
hills of Assam think that “the penalty for eating the 
flesh of a cat is loss of speech, while those who infringe 
a special rule forbidding the flesh of a dog are believed to 
die of boils.” * The worshippers of the Syrian goddess 
maintained that the eating of sprats or anchovies would 
fill the body with ulcers and wither up the liver.’ In 
Russia veal is considered by many to be very unwhole- 
some food, and is entirely rejected by pious people.” 
It is not probable that these ideas are in the first 
instance derived from experience ; but there can be no 
doubt that fear of evil consequences is in many cases a 

1 Schweinfurth, of. cz¢. 1. 163. 
2 Herodotus, ii. 41. 
Barth, Religions of India, p. 264. 
4 Mariner, JVatéves of the Tonga 
Islands, ii. 233. 
2 Ch Schurtz, of. cet. p. 23. 
6 Bastian, Die deutsche Hxpedition 

an der Loango-Kiiste, i. 185. 

7 Skeat and Blagden, of. ce¢. i. 132. 

8 Hodson, ‘The ‘‘Genna” amongst 
the Tribes of Assam,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
Inst. xxxvi. 98. 

® Plutarch, De superstetione, 10. 

10 Erman, Reese wm die Erde, i. 515. 

primary motive for the abstinence from a certain kind of 
food. Mr. Im Thurn supposes that the Guiana Indian 
avoids eating the flesh of various animals because he 
thinks they are particularly malignant.!| Animals that 
present some unusual or uncanny peculiarity are rejected 
because they are objects of superstitious fear. The 
Egyptian priests, we are told, did not eat oxen which 
were twins or which were speckled, nor animals that had 
only one eye.” The North American Indians of the 
South-Eastern States abstained from all birds of night, 
believing that if they ate them they would fall ill. 
Another cause of rejecting the flesh of certain animals is 
the idea that anybody who partook of it would at the 
same time acquire some undesirable quality inherent in 
the animal.* The Zaparo Indians of Ecuador “ will, 
unless from necessity, in most cases not eat any heavy 
meats such as tapir and peccary, but confine themselves 
to birds, monkeys, deer, fish, &c., principally because 
they argue that the heavier meats make them also un- 
wieldy, like the animals who supply the flesh, impeding 
their agility and unfitting them for the chase.”° For 
a similar reason the ancient Caribs are said to have 
refrained from turtles;° and some North American 
Indians state that in former days their greatest chieftains 
“seldom ate of any animal of gross quality, or heavy 
motion of body, fancying it conveyed a dullness through 
the whole system, and disabled them from exerting them- 
selves with proper vigour in their martial, civil, and 
religious duties.”’ The Namaquas of South Africa, 
again, pretend not to eat the flesh of the hare, because 
they think it would make them as faint-hearted as 
that animal.* Among the Kafirs only children may 
eat hares, whereas the men partake of the flesh of the 

1 Im Thurn, of. czt. p. 368. Ecuador, p. 168. 

2 Porphyry, of. cit. iv. 7. 8 Waitz, Anthropologie der Natur- 
3 Adair, of. ct. p. 130 sg. wolker, ili. 384. 
4See Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 7 Adair, op. czt. p. 133- 

353 S99: 8 Hahn, Supreme Being of the Khot- 

5 Simson, Zyvavels in the Wilds of Khot, p. 100, 

leopard in order to get its strength.' Among some other 
peoples the hare is forbidden food,” possibly owing to a 
similar superstition. The blood aE an animal is avoided 
because it is believed to contain its life or soul. We 
meet with this custom in several North American tribes,’ 
as well as in the Old Testament ;* and from the Jews it 
passed into early Christianity.’ 

The general abstinence from certain kinds of food has 
thus sprung from a great variety of causes. Of these I 
have been able to point out only some of the more general 
and obvious. As Dr. Frazer justly remarks, to explain 
the ultimate reason why any particular food is prohibited 
to a whole tribe or to certain of its members would 
commonly require a far more intimate en Ow Nee of the 
history and beliefs of the tribe than we possess.° Even 
explanations given by the natives themselves may be mis- 
leading, since the original motive for a custom may have 
been forgotten, while the custom itself is still preserved. 
But I think that, broadly speaking, the general avoidance 
of a certain food may be traced to one or several of 
the following sources :—its disagreeable taste ; disgust 
caused, in the case of animal food, either by the external 
appearance of the animal, or by its unclean habits, or by 
sympathy, or by associations of some kind or another, or 
even by the mere fact that it is commonly abstained from ; 
the disinclination to kill an animal for food, or, generally, 
to reduce the supply of a certain kind of victuals ; the 
idea, whether correct or false, that the food would injure 

1 Kropf, of. czt. p. 102, in Zettschr. f. Ethnol. viii. 104); but 
2 Leviticus, xi. 6, 8. Czxsar, De whether the prohibition in question 
bello Gallico, v. 12 (ancient Britons). originated in such a belief is open to 
The Chinese have a deep-rooted pre- doubt. 
judice against eating the flesh of the 3 Adair, of. czt. p. 134. Frazer, 
hare, which they have always regarded — Golden Bough, i. 353. 
as an animal endowed with mysterious * Leviticus, iW. 17 $— vil. 25) Sggs5 

properties (Dennis, Ao/k-Lore of China, xvii. 10 sgg.; xix. 26. Deuteronomy, 
p. 64). With reference to the Biblical xii. 16, 23 sgg.3 xv. 23. 

prohibition of eating camel’s flesh, old ® Haberland, ‘Gebrauche und Aber- 
exegetes observed that the camel is a  glauben beim Essen,’ in Zeztschr. 7. 
very revengeful animal, and that its Vovkerpsychologie, xvii. 363 sg. 7 
vindictiveness would be transferred to 6 Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 391 sq. 
him who partook of its meat (Wiener, 

him who partook of it. From what has been said in 
previous chapters it is obvious that any of these factors, 
if influencing the manners of a whole community and 
especially when supported by the force of habit, may lead 
not only to actual abstinence but to prohibitory rules the 
transgression of which is apt to call forth moral dis- 
approval. This is particularly the case at the earlier 
stages of culture, where a people’s tastes and habits are 
most uniform, where the sway of custom is most power- 
ful, where instinctive aversion most readily develops into 
moral indignation, and where man in almost every branch 
of action thinks he has to be on his guard against super- 
natural dangers. And in this, as in other cases of moral 
concern, the prohibition may easily be sanctioned by 
religion, especially when the abstinence is due to fear of 
some mysterious force or quality in the thing avoided. 
The religious aspect assumed particular prominence in 
Hebrewism and Brahmanism. It is said in the ‘ Insti- 
tutes of Vishnu’ that the eating of pure food is more 
essential than all external means of purification; “he 
who eats pure food only is truly pure, not he who is 
only purified with earth and water.” The Koran forbids 
the eating of “ what is dead, and blood, and flesh of 
swine, and whatsoever has been consecrated to other than 
God.” ? Medieval Christianity prohibited the eating of 
various animals, especially horses, which were not used 
as food in the South of Europe, but which the pagan 
Teutons sacrificed and ate at their religious feasts. The 
idea that it is ‘‘unchristian’’ to eat horseflesh has 
survived even to the present day, and has, together with 
the aversion to feeding on a pet animal, been responsible 
for the loss of enormous quantities of nourishing food. 
Among ourselves the only eatable thing the partaking of 
which is generally condemned as immoral is human flesh. 
But there are a considerable number of people who think 

1 Jnstitutes of Vishnu, xxii. 89. Ethnographie, i. 53. Schurtz, of. ce. 
2 Koran, li. 168. , p. 325g. Maurer, Die Bekehrung des 
3 Langkavel, ‘Pferde und Natur- Worwegischen Stammes zum Christen- 

volker,’ in Znternationales Archiv fiir thume, ii. 198. 

RESTRICTIONS IN DIET 

2:36 CHAP. 
that we ought to abstain from all animal meat, not only 
for sanitary reasons, but because man 1s held to have no 
right to subject any living being to suffering and death 
for the purpose of gratifying his appetite. 

On similar grounds vegetarianism has been advocated 
as a moral duty among Eastern races, as also in classical 
antiquity. The regard for life in general, which is charac- 
teristic of Taouism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Brahmanism,' 
led to the condemnation of the use of animals as food. 
It is a very common feeling among the Chinese of all 
classes that the eating of flesh is sensual and sinful, or at 
least quite incompatible with the highest degree of sin- 
cerity and purity.” In Japan many persons abstain from 
meat, owing to Buddhistic influence.? In India animal 
food was not avoided in early times ; the epic characters 
shoot deer and eat cows.* Even in the sacred law-books 
the eating of meat is permitted in certain circumstances : 
—‘‘On offering the honey-mixture to a guest, at a 
sacrifice and at the rites in honour of the manes, but 
on these occasions only, may an animal be slain.”*® Nay, 
some particular animals are expressly declared eatable.° The 
total abstinence from meat is in fact represented as some- 
thing meritorious rather than as a strict duty ;‘ it is said 
that “by avoiding the use-of flesh one gains a greater 
reward than by subsisting on pure fruit and roots, and 
by eating food fit for ascetics in the forest.”* But on 
the other hand we also read that “there is no greater 
sinner than that man who, though not worshipping the 
gods or the manes, seeks to increase the bulk of his own 
flesh by the flesh of other beings.” *® As a matter of fact, 
meat 1s nowadays commonly, though by no means uni- 
versally, abstained from by high caste Hindus, whereas 

1 See zz/ra, on Regard for the Lower 
Animals. 

2 Doolittle, of. czt. ii. 183. 

3 Chamberlain, Zhzngs Japanese, 
p. 175 sq. 

4 Hopkins, Rel¢gzons of India, p. 200. 

5 Laws of Manu, v. 41. See also 
Vasishtha, Ww. 5. 

8 Jnstitutes of Vishnu, li. 6. Laws 
of Manu, v. 18. 

7 See Jolly, ‘Recht und Sitte,’ in 
Bithler, Grzndriss der indo-arischen 
Philologie, ii. 157. 

8 Laws of Manu, v. 54. 
zbzd. V. 53, 50. 

9 Tbid. V. 52. 

See also 

XXXVIIT RESTRICTIONS IN DIET Roe 

most low caste natives are only vegetarian when flesh 
food is not within their reach ;1 and we are told that the 
views which many Hindus entertain of people who indulge 
in such food are not very unlike the opinions which 
Europeans have about cannibals.” The immediate origin 
of these restrictions seems obvious enough. They were 
not introduced—as has been supposed—either as mere 
sumptuary measures,”® or because meat was found to be 
an aliment too rich and heavy in a warm climate,’ but 
they were the natural outcome of a system which enjoins 
regard for life in general and kindness towards all living 
beings. In the ‘Laws of Manu’ it is expressly said that 
the use of meat should be shunned for the reason that 
“meat can never be obtained without injury to living 
creatures, and injury to sentient beings is detrimental to 
the attainment of heavenly bliss.”° That the prohibition 
of eating animals resulted from the prohibition of killing 
them is also suggested by other facts. If Hindu Pariahs 
eat the flesh of animals which have died naturally, it ‘is 
not visited upon them as a crime, but they are considered 
to be wretches as filthy and disgusting as their food is 
revolting.” ° Buddhism allows the eating of fish and meat 
if it is pure in three respects, to wit—if one has not seen, 
nor heard, nor suspected that it has been procured for 
the purpose ;’ and among the Buddhists of Burma even 
the most strictly religious have no scruples in eating the 
flesh of an animal killed by another person, ‘“‘as then, 
they consider, the sin of its destruction does not rest upon 
them, but on the person who actually caused it.” * 
Vegetarianism is, further, said to have been practised 
by the first and most learned class of the Persian Magi, 
who, according to Eubulus, neither slew nor ate anything 

1 Kipling, Beast and Man in India, 5 Laws of Manu, v. 48. See also 
p- 6. Crooke, Things Indian, p. 228. —tbzd. V. 45, 49. 

2 Percival, Land of the Veda, p. 272. SSDuboisy ap.c2e. py 120. 

3 Hopkins, of. czt, p. 200. 7 Kern, Manual of Indian Bua- 

4 Dubois, Description of the Char- dhism, p. 71, Nn. 5. 
acter, &c. of the People of India, p. 8 Fytche, Burma Past and Present, 
120. ii. 78. 

VOL IT Z 

animated ;! and many of the Egyptian priests are reported 
to have abstained entirely from animal food.’ In ancient 
legends we are told that the earliest men, who were pure 
and free from sin, killed no animal but lived exclusively 
on the fruits of the earth. In Greece the Pythagoreans 
opposed the killing and eating of animals, “as having a 
right to live in common with mankind,”* or in conse- 
quence of their theory that the souls of men after death 
transmigrate into animals.’ According to Porphyry, a 
fleshless diet not only contributes to the health of the 
body and to the preservation of the power and purity of 
the mind, but is required by justice. Animals, he said, 
are allied to men, and he must be considered an impious 

person who does not abstain from acting unjustly towards 
his kindred.°® 

There still remains a group of restrictions in diet which 
call for our consideration, namely, such as refer to the 
use of intoxicating drinks, either only prohibiting im- 
moderation or also demanding total abstinence. 

Among a large number of peoples drunkenness is so 

common that it can hardly be looked upon as a vice by, 

the community; on the contrary, it is sometimes an 
object of pride, or is regarded almost as a religious duty. 
An old traveller on the West African Gold Coast says 
that the natives teach their children drunkenness at the 
age of three or four years; “asvif it werela wintue, = 
The Negroes of Accra, according to Monrad, take a 
pride in getting drunk, and praise the happiness of a 
person who is so intoxicated that he can hardly walk.* 
In ancient Yucatan- he who dropped down senseless from 
drink in a banquet was allowed to remain where he fell, 

i wre ae 

1 Porphyry, of. cz¢. iv. 16. 

Plait bpm 

3 Genesis, 1. 20. Bundahis, xv. 6 
sgqg.; of. Windischmann, Zoroastrische 
Studien, p. 212. Hesiod, Ofera et dies, 
109 sgg. Plato, Polkticus, p. 272. 
Porphyry, of. czt. iv. 2. 

4 Diogenes Laertius, Vete philoso- 

phorum, vill. 1. 12 (13). Plutarch, De 
carnium esu oratio I. i. 

5 Seneca, Lpzstule, cviii. 10. 

8 Porphyry, of. czé. i. 23 ili. 26 sg. 

7 Bosman, Description of the Coast 
of Guinea, p. 107. 

8 Monrad, Skzldrine af Guinea- 
Kysten, p. 242. 

and was regarded by his companions with feelings of 
envy. Among the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico, who 
are otherwise a sober people, drunkenness forms a part of 

their religious festivals.” So also in the hill tribes of the 

Central Provinces of India a large quantity of liquor is an 
essential element in their religious rites, and their acts of 
worship invariably end in intoxication. Of the Ainu in 
Japan we are told that “to drink for the god” is their chief 
act of worship ; the more saké they drink the more devout 
they are, whereas the gods will be angry with a person 
who abstains from the intoxicating drink.* The ancient 
Scandinavians regularly concluded their religious cere- 
monies with filling and emptying stoops in Hones of 
their gods ; and even after their conversion to Christianity 
they were allowed to continue this practice at the end of 
their services, with the difference that they were now 
required in their toast-drinking to substitute for the 
names of their false deities those of the true God and his 
saints.” Of the Germans Tacitus states that “to pass an 
entire day and night in drinking disgraces no one”’ ; ° and 
this habit of intoxication the Anglo-Saxons brought with 
them to England, where it was nourished by a damp 
climate and a marshy soil. In the seventh and eighth 
centuries some efforts were made to check drunkenness 
on the initiative of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, 
and Egbert, archbishop of York, and these exertions were 
supported by the kings from a political desire to prevent 
riots and bloodshed.” The Penitentials tell us the tale of 
universal intemperance more effectively than any descrip- 
tion of it could do. A bishop who was so drunk as to 
vomit while administering the holy sacrament was con- 
demned to eighty or ninety days’ penance, a presbyter to 

1 Bancroft, of. cz¢. ii. 725. 5 Maurer, of. czt. ii. 200. Bartho- 

2 MiG te, Elsi linus, Antiquétates Danice, i. 8, p. 128 

3 Hislop, Aboriginal Tribes of the sgqg. Mallet, Morthern Antiquities, 
Central Provinces, p. 1. Campbell,  p. 196. 

Wild Tribes of Khondistan, p. 164 sq. 8 Tacitus, Germania, 22. 
(Kandhs). 7 Laws of Hlothhere and Eadric, 

4 Bird, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, 12 sg. Thrupp, Zhe Anglo-Saxon 
li. 68, 96. Cf. Batchelor, Azawu of Home, p. 297. 
Japan, p. 31. 

seventy, a deacon or monk to sixty, a clerk to forty ;* 

and if a person was so intoxicated that, pending the rite, 
he dropped the sacred elements into the fire or into a 
river, he was required to chant a hundred psalms.? A 
bishop or priest who persevered in the habit of drunken- 
ness was to be degraded from his office ; * whilst single 
cases of intoxication, if accompanied by vomiting, in- 
curred penance for a certain number of days—forty for a 
presbyter or deacon,‘ thirty for a monk,’ fifteen for a 
layman.° However, these rules admitted cs exceptions : 

if anybody in joy and glory of our Saviour’s natal day, or 
of Easter, or in honour of any saint, vomited through 
being dtonpille and in so doing had sie no more than he 
was ordered by his elders, it mattered nothing ; and if a 
bishop had commanded him to be drunk he was likewise 
innocent, unless indeed the bishop was in the same state 
himself." If these attempts to encourage soberness pro- 
duced any change for the better, it could only have been 
temporary ; for some time afterwards intemperance was 
carried to its greatest excess through the practice and 
example of the Danes.’ Under the influence of. the 

Normans, who were a more temperate race, drunkenness: 

for a time decreased in England ; but after a few reigns 
the Saxons seem rather to have corrupted their conquerors 
than to have been benefited by their example.’ As late as 
the eighteenth century drunkenness was universal among 
all classes in England. It was then as uncommon for a 
party to separate while any member of it remained sober 

a lactate iti ae he hill lit alia tulle 

1 Penitentiale Pseudo - Theodori, 
xxvl. 4 (Wasserschleben, Die Bussord- 
nungen der abendlindischen Kirche, 
p: 504). Penitentiale Egberti, xi. 7 
(Wasserschleben, p- 242). 

Penttentiale Pseudo - Theodor, 
xxvi. 5 (Wasserschleben, of. c2#. p. 594). 
Penttentiale Egberti, xi. 9 (Wasser- 
schleben, p. 242). 

2 Penitentiale Theodort, alate 
(Wasserschleben, of. cit. p. 184). 
Penttentiale LEgberti, xi. 1 (Wasser- 
schleben, p. 242). 

« Penitentiale LELGGHA Dy We 

(Wasserschleben, of. czt. p. 184). 
Paenitentiale Egbertz, xi. 3 (Wasser- 
schleben, p. 242), 

5 Penttentiale Theodort, i. 1. 2 
(Wasserschleben, of. czt. p. 184). 
Penitentiale Egbertt, xi. 2 (Wasser- 
schleben, p. 242). 

8 Penitentiale Theodorit, i. 1. 5 
(‘Wasserschleben, op. cit. p. 184). 

" Penttentiale Theodort, i. 1%. 4 
(Wasserschleben, of. cz¢. p. 184). 
8 Thrupp, of. cz¢. p. 299 sq9. 
9 bid. p. 301 sq. 

vo 

as it is now for any one in sucha party to degrade himself 
through intoxication. No loss of character was incurred 
by habitual excess. Men in the position of gentlemen 
congratulated each other upon the number of bottles 
emptied ; and it would have been considered a very 
frivolous objection to a citizen who aspired to the 
dignity of Alderman or Mayor that he was an habitual 
drunkard." 

Though of late years drunkenness has been decreasing 
among those European nations who have been most addicted 
to it, and is nowadays generally recognised as a vice, our 
civilisation is still, as it has always been, the great source 
from which the poison of intoxication is pouring over the 
earth in all directions, infecting or killing races who 
previously knew nothing of alcohol or looked upon it with 
abhorrence. astern religions have emphatically insisted 
upon sobriety or even total abstinence from intoxicating 
liquors. In the sacred law-books of Brahmanism thirteen 
different kinds of alcoholic drinks are mentioned, all of 
which are forbidden to Brahmanas and three to Kshatriyas 
and Vaisyas ;” yet, though there be no sin in drinking 
spirituous liquor, ‘abstention brings greater reward.” * 
A twice-born man who drinks the liquor called Sura 
commits a mortal sin, which will be punished both in this 
life and in the life to come ;* the most proper penalty for 
such a person is to drink that liquor boiling-hot, and only 
when his body has been completely scalded by it is he 
freed from his guilt.2 Among the modern Hindus 
drunkenness is said to be detested by all but the very lowest 
castes in the agricultural districts and some high caste 
people residing in the great towns, who have learned it 
from Europeans ; it is supposed to be destructive of caste 
purity ; hence a notorious drunkard is, or at least used 

1 Porter, Progress of the Nation, p. Gautama, ii. 20. Laws of Manu, xi. 
239. Pike, story of Crime im 9459. 
England, ii. 587. Massey, Hestory of 3 Laws of Manu, v. 56. 
England during the Reign of George © WGHEh iy DAG ORY PSS VG) TA oa 
TLD An OOs 56. 

2 Institutes of Vishnu, xxii 82, 84. 9S /b7a.) X1y OL. 

to be, expelled from his caste.’ Buddhism interdicts 
altogether the use of alcohol ;* “of the five crimes, the 
taking of life, theft, adultery, lying, and drinking, the last 
is the worst.” ® Taouism condemns the love of wine.* In 
Zoroastrianism the holy Sraosha is represented as fighting 
against the demon of drunkenness,’ and it is said that the 
sacred beings are not pleased with him who drinks wine 
more than moderately ;° but it seems that the ancient 
Persians nevertheless were much addicted to intoxication.’ 
According to classical writers, some of the Egyptian 
priests abstained entirely from wine, whilst others drank 
very little of it ;* and before the reign of Psammetichus 
the kings neither drank wine, nor made libation of it as a 
thing acceptable to the gods.” The use of wine and 
other inebriating drinks is forbidden by Islam,’? and was 
punished by Muhammed with flogging." It may also be 
said of his followers that they for the most part have 
obeyed this command, at least in country districts,’? and 
that the exceptions to the rule are directly or indirectly 
attributable to the influence of Christians. 

The condemnation of drunkenness is, of course, in the 
first place due to its injurious consequences. The Basutos 
of South Africa say that “there is blood in the dregs ’— 
that is, intoxication ends in bloody quarrels.’* The Omaha 
Indians made drunkenness a crime punishable with flog- 
ging and loss of property, because it often led to murders.“ 
Sahagun tells us of a Mexican king who severely 
admonished his people to abstain from intoxication, as 
being the cause of troubles and disorders in villages and 

1 Caldwell, Zzxnevelly Shanars, p. 
38. Dubois, of. czt. p. 116. Samuel- 
son, History of Drink, p. 46. 

2 Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 290. 
Monier-Williams, Baddhzsm, p. 126. 

3 Hardy, Manual of Budhism, 
p: 491. 

* Douglas, Confuctantsm and Taou- 

ism, p. 266. 
5 Vendidid, xix. 41. 
8 Dind-t Mainég-t Khirad, xvi. 62. 
7 Herodotus, i. 133. 
8 Porphyry, of. cet. iv. 6. Plutarch, 

De Tlside et Ostride, 6. 

9 Plutarch, De /sede et Ostride, 6. 

10 Koran, ii. 216. 

ll Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 122. 

2 Burton, Prlerimage to Al-Madinah 
and Meccah, ii. 118. Blunt, Bedouin 
Tribes of the Euphrates, ii. 213. 
Polak, Perséen, li. 268. Lane, Wodern 
Legyptians, p. 298 sg. Pool, Studies 
in Mohammedanism, p. 283. 

13 Casalis, Baszutos, p. 307. 

14 Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 370. 

le ee 

pees ITI ay 

kingdoms, of misery, sorrow, and poverty.' Of him who 
drinks immoderately it is said in one of the Pahlavi 
texts that infamy comes to his body and wickedness to 
his soul.? According to Ecclesiasticus, ‘ drunkenness 
increaseth the rage of a fool till he offend : it diminisheth 
strength and maketh wounds.” * We read in the Talmud, 
“Drink not, and you will not sin.”* Muhammed said 
that in wine there is both sin and profit, but that the sin 
is greater than the profit.” Buddhism stigmatises drinking 
as the worst of crimes because it leads to all other sins ; 
from the continued use of intoxicating drink six evil con- 
sequences are said to follow—namely, the loss of wealth; 
the arising of disputes that lead to blows and battles ; 
the production of various diseases, as soreness of the eyes 
and others ; the bringing of disgrace, from the rebuke of 
parents and superiors; the exposure to shame, from going 
hither and thither unclothed; the loss of the judgment 
required for the carrying on of the affairs of the world.° 
That drunkenness, in spite of the evils resulting from it, 
nevertheless so frequently escapes censure, is due partly to 
the pleasures connected with it, partly to lack of fore- 
sight,’ and in a large measure to the influence of 
intemperate habits. Why such habits should have grown 
up in one country and not in another we are often unable 
to tell. The climate has no doubt something to do with 
it, although it is impossible to agree with the statement 
made by Montesquieu that the prevalence of intoxication 
in different parts of the earth is proportionate to the cold- 
ness and humidity of the air.6 A gloomy temperament 
and a cheerless life are apt to induce people to resort to 
the artificial pleasures produced by-drink. The dreariness 
of the Puritan Sunday has much to answer for ; the evi- 
dence given by a spirit merchant before the Commission 
on the Forbes Mackenzie Act was ‘that there is a great 

1 Sahagun, Azstorza general de las 5 Koran, ii. 216. 
cosas de Nueva Espatia, ii. 94 sqq. 6 Hardy, of. czt. p. 491 sg. 
2 Dind-t Maindg-t Khirad, xvi. 63. 7 Cf. supra, i. 281, 309 sg. 
3 Ecclesiasticus, XXX1. 30. 8 Montesquieu, De Vesprit des (ors, 

4 Deutsch, Literary Remains, p. 58. _ xiv. 10 (Quvres, p. 303 sq.). 

34.4 RESTRICTIONS IN DIET CHAP. 

demand for drink on Sunday,” and that “this demand 
must be supplied.” ' Ennui was probably a cause of the 
prevailing inebriety in Europe in former days, when there 
was difficulty in passing the time not occupied in fighting 
or hunting ;? and the monotony of life in the lower ranks 
of an industrial community still tends to produce a similar 
effect. Other causes of drunkenness are miserable homes 
and wretched cooking. Mr. Lecky is of opinion that if 
the wives of the poor in Great Britain and Ireland could 
cook as they can cook in France and in Holland, a much 

smaller proportion of the husbands would seek a refuge © 

in the public-house.* 

The evil consequences of intoxication have led not only 
to the condemnation of an immoderate use of alcoholic 
drink, but also to the demand for total abstinence, in 
consideration of the difficulty many people have in avoid- 
ing excess. But this hardly accounts in full for the 
religious prohibition of drink which we meet with in the 
East. Wine or spirituous. liquor inspires mysterious fear. 
The abnormal mental state which it produces suggests 
the idea that there is something supernatural in it, that 
it contains a spirit, or is perhaps itself a spirit.4 More- 
over, the juice of the grape is conceived as the blood of 
the vine °—in Ecclesiasticus the wine which was poured 
out at the foot of the altar is even called “‘the blood of 
the grape’’ ;° and in the blood is the soul. The law of 
Brahmanism not only prohibits the drinking of wine, but 
also commands that “one should carefully avoid red 
exudations from trees and juices flowing from incisions.’’” 
That spirituous liquor is believed to contain baneful 
mysterious energy is obvious from the statement that if the 
Brahman (the Veda) which dwells in the body of a Brahmana 
is even once deluged with it, his Brahmanhood forsakes 
him, and he becomes a Sidra ; * holy persons are, of course, 

1 Hessey, Sunday, p. 378. the Belief in Supernatural Beings ; 
2 Cf. Spencer, Principles of Ethics, Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 359. 

1. 445. > Frazer, op. ctt. i. 358 sq. 
3 Lecky, Democracy and Liberty, § Feclestasticus, \. 15. 

li, 138. 7 Laws of Manu, v. 6. 

4 See supra, i. 278, 281; zzfra, on 8 bid. xi. 98. 

a ciliate See iaih wee hie | | 

most easily affected by the mysterious drink, owing to the 
delicate nature of holiness. Muhammedans likewise regard 
wine as “unclean” and polluting;' some of them dread 
it so much that if a single drop were to fall upon a clean 
garment it would be rendered unfit to wear until washed.? 
The fact of its being forbidden by the Prophet might 
perhaps by itself be a sufficient reason for the notion that 
it is unclean. But already in pre-Muhammedan times 
wine seems to have been scrupulously avoided by some 
of the Arabs,® though among others it was much in use 
and was highly praised by their poets.* 

As for the Muhammedan prohibition of wine the sug- 
gestion has been made by Palgrave that it mainly arose 
from the Prophet’s antipathy to Christianity and his desire 
to broaden the line of demarcation between his followers 
and those of Christ. Wine was raised by the founder of 
Christianity to a dignity of the highest religious import. 
It became well-nigh typical of Christianity and in a 
manner its badge. To declare it “ unclean,” an “ abomin- 
ation,’ and “the work of the devil,” was to set up for 
the Faithful a counter-badge.? ‘This view derives much 
probability from the fact that there are several unequivocal 
indications of the same bent of policy in Muhammed’s 
system, showing a distinct tendency to oppose Islam to 
other religions. But at the same time both a desire to 
prevent intoxication and the notion that wine is polluting 
may very well have been co-operating motives for the 
prohibition. 

1 Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 299. historica, xix. 94. 3. Zockler, Askese 
2 Winterbottom, Wative Africans in und Monchtum, i. 93. 

the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, i. 4 Goldziher, Muhammedanische 
72s Studien, i. 20 sqq. 
3 Diodorus Siculus,  Azbliotheca 5 Palgrave, Journey through Central 

and Eastern Arabia, i. 428 sqq.

CLEANLINESS AND UNCLEANLINESS——ASCETICISM IN 
GENERAL 

Ir seems that man, like many other animals, is naturally 
endowed with a certain tendency to cleanliness or aversion 
to filth. Of Caspar Hauser—the boy who had been kept 
in a dungeon separated from all communication with the 
world from early childhood to about the age of seventeen— 
Feuerbach tells us that “ uncleanliness, or whatever he con- 
sidered as such, whether in his own person or in others, was 

an abomination to him.”* And the savage boy of Aveyron, 

though filthy at first, soon became so scrupulously clean 
in his habits that ‘he constantly threw away, in a pet, the 
contents of his plate, if any particle of dirt or dust had 
fallen upon it; and, after he had broken his walnuts 
under his feet, he took pains to clean them in the nicest 
and most delicate manner.” ” 

Many savages are praised for their cleanliness.2 The 
Veddahs of Ceylon wash their bodies every few days, as 

  4 
opportunity occurs. 

1Feuerbach, Caspar 
62. 

2 Itard, Account of the Discovery 
and Education of a Savage Man, 

MSO: 

3 Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans, p. 
298sg. Man, Sonthalia and the Sonthals, 
p. 84. Foreman, Phzlippine Islands, 
p. 189 (domesticated natives). Boyle, 
Dyaks of Borneo, p. 242. Erskine, 

fTauser, )p. 

Among the South Sea Islanders 

Cruise among the Islands of the 
Western Pacific, pp. 110 (Samoans ; cf. 
Turner, Vineteen Years tn Polynesia, 
p- 205), 262, 264 (Fijians). Percy 
Smith, ‘Futuna,’ in Joe. Polynesian 
Soc. i. 35. Markham, Crazse of the 
“* Rosario,” p. 136 (Polynesians). 

4 Nevill, ‘Vaeddas of Ceylon,’ in 
Taprobanian, i. 187. ° 

Ck li et ill al kh hl ll hae ie 

rere 

ree 

CLEANLINESS 

bathing is a very common practice ; the Tahitians bathe in 
fresh water once or twice a day,! and the natives of Ni-afu, 
in the Tonga Islands, are said to spend half their life in 
the water.” So, also, many Indian tribes both in North, 
Central, and South America are very fond of bathing.’ 

The Omahas generally bathe every day in warm weather, 
early in the morning and at night, and some of them also 
at noon.* Among the Guiana Indians it is a custom for 
men and women to troop down together to the nearest 
water early in the morning and many times during the 
day.” The Tehuelches of Patagonia not only make 
morning ablutions and, when encamped near a river, 
enjoy bathing for hours, but are also scrupulously careful 
as to the cleanliness of their houses and utensils, and will, 
if they can obtain soap, wash up everything they may be 
possessed of.° The Moquis and Pueblos of New Mexico 
are remarkable both for their personal cleanliness and the 
neatness of their dwellings.’ Cleanliness is a common 
characteristic of many natives of Africa.® The Negroes 
of the Gold Coast wash their whole persons once, if not 
oftener, during the day.° The Megeé, a people subject 
to the Monbuttu, wash two or three times a day, and 
when engaged in work constantly adjourn to a neigh- 
bouring stream to cleanse themselves." The Marutse- 
Mabundas, rather than lose their bath, are always ready 

1 Ellis, Polynestan Researches (ed. 
1829), ii. 113 5g. 

2 Romilly, Western Pacific, p. 145. 

3 Bancroft, Mative Races of the 
Pacific States, 1, 83, 696, 722, 760. 
Domenech, Seven Years’ Residence in 
the Great Deserts of North America, ii. 
337. von Humboldt, Personal Narrative 
of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions 
of the New Continent, ill. 237 (Chay- 
mas). von Martius, SBedtriige zur 
Ethnographie Amerika@s, i. 600 
(Uaupés), 643 (Macusis). Molina, 
History of Chil, ii. 118; Smith, 
Araucanians, p. 184. Dobrizhoffer, 
Account of the Abipones, ii. 53. 

4 Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 269. 

5 Im Thurn, Among the [Indians of 
Guiana, p. 191. 

6 Musters, At Home with the Pata- 

gonians, p. 173. 

7 Bancroft, of. cz¢. i. 540. See also 
zbzd. i. 267 (some Inland Columbians). 

8 Waitz, Anthropologie der Natur- 
volker, i. 86 (Negroes of Accra, Krus), 
464 (Western Fulahs). ‘Torday and 
Joyce, ‘Ethnography of the Ba- 
Huana,’ in Jour. Anthr. lnst. xxxvi. 
292. Rowley, Africa Unveiled, p. 
153. Ashe, Zwo Kings of Uganda, p. 
305; Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, i. 
184. Casati, Zen Years in EHquatoria, 
i. 122 (Monbuttu). Holub, Sever 
Years in South Africa, i. 208 
(Manansas). 

® Cruickshank, Zzghtcen Years on the 
Gold Coast, ii. 283 sg. 

1 Burrows, Land of the Pigiiies, p. 
119. 

to run the risk of being snapped up by crocodiles, and 
they are in the habit of keeping their materials in well- 
washed wooden or earthenware bowls or in suitable baskets 
or calabashes.1 The cleanliness of the Dinka in every- 
thing that concerns the preparation of food is said to be 
absolutely exemplary.” Among the Bari tribes the dwell- 
ings “are the perfection of cleanliness.” * So also the 
Bachapins, a Bechuana tribe, are remarkable for the clean- 
liness of their dwellings, showing the greatest carefulness 
to remove all rubbish and everything unsightly ; but at 
the same time they are lacking in personal cleanliness.* 
We commonly find that savages who are clean in 
certain respects are dirty in others. The Wanyoro bathe 
frequently and always wash their hands before and after 
eating, but their dwellings are very filthy and swarm with 
vermin.” ‘The Nagas of India® and the natives of the 
interior of Sumatra,’ though cleanly in their persons, are 
very dirty in their apparel. The Mayas of Central 
America make frequent use of cold water, but neither in 
their persons nor in their dwellings do they present an 
appearance of cleanliness.® So also the Californian Indians, 
whilst exceedingly fond of bathing, are unclean about their 
lodges and clothing.” The Aleuts, though they wash 
daily, allow dirt to be piled up close to their dwellings, 
prepare their food very carelessly, and never wash their 
household utensils.°°. The New Zealander, again, whilst 
not over-clean in his person, is very particular respecting 
his food and also keeps his dwelling in as much order as 
possible.“ On the other hand there are very many 
uncivilised peoples who are described as generally filthy 
in their habits—for instance, the Fuegians,’ many 

1 Holub, of. ct. ii. 309, 8 Bancroft, of. czt. i. 654. 

2 Casati, of. c2t. i. 44. 9 Powers, Tribes of California, p. 

3 Baker, Albert N’yanza, i. 89. 403. Bancroft, of. cét. i. 377, 407. 

4 Burchell, Zravels in the Interior of 0 Veniaminof, quoted by Dall, 
Southern Africa, ii. 521, 553. Alaska, p. 398. See also Bancroft, 

5 Wilson and Felkin, of. ct. ii. 46. 
Baker, Albert N’yanza, ii. 58. 

6 Stewart, ‘Northern Cachar,’ in 
Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxiv. 616. 

7 Marsden, Aestory of Sumatra, p. 
209. 

op. cit. 1. 267 (Flatheads). 
 Dieffenbach, TZravels in New 
Zealand, ii. 58. 
} Snow, Zwo Years’ Cruise off Tierra 
del Fuego, i. 345. 

er awe i ee CS Le ee i 

Indian tribes in the Pacific States,! several Eskimo tribes,” 
various Siberian peoples,* the Ainu of Japan,‘ most hill 
tribes in India,’® many Australian tribes,° the Bushmans,’ 
and, generally, the dwarf races of Africas But although 
these peoples never or hardly ever wash their bodies, or do 
not change their dress until it is worn to pieces, or eat out 
of the same vessels as their dogs without cleaning them, 
or feed on disgusting substances, or regard vermin as a 
delicacy—we may assume that their toleration of filth is 
not absolutely boundless. 

The prevalence of cleanly or dirty habits among a 
certain people may depend on a variety of circumstances : 
the occupations of life, sufficiency or want of water, 
climatic conditions, industry or laziness, wealth or poverty, 
religious or superstitious beliefs. Castrén observes that 
filthiness is a characteristic of fishing peoples ; among the 
Ostyaks only those who live by fishing are conspicuous for 
their uncleanliness, whereas the nomads and owners of 

1 Bancroft, of. cét. i. 
231, 492, 626. 

2 Ibid. i. 51. Seemann, Voyage of 
“ Herald,” ii. 61 sg. (Western Eskimo). 
Kane, Arctic Explorations, ii. 116 
(Eskimo of Etah). Cranz, Azstory of 
Greenland, 1. 155. 

3 Sarytschew, ‘ Voyage of Discovery 
to the North-East of Siberia,’ in 
Collection of Modern and Contemporary 
Voyages, v. 67 (Kamchadales). Krash- 
eninnikoff, /7story of Kamschatka, 
pp. 176 (Kamchadales), 226 (Koriaks). 
Sauer, Hxfpedition to the Northern 
Parts ‘of Russia performed by Billings, 
p. 125 (Jakuts). Georgi, zssza, ii. 
398 (Jakuts) ; ili. 59 (Kotoftzes), 112 
(Tunguses) ; iv. 37 (Kalmucks), 134 
(Burats). Liadoy, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 
th C@IEP Bergmann, omadische 
Stretfereien unter den Kalmiiken, ii. 
102, 123 5g.; Pallas, quoted in Spencer’s 
Descriptive Sociology, ‘ Asiatic Races,’ 
p- 29 (Kalmucks). 

4 Batchelor, Azz of Japan, p. 
24 sgg. Mac Ritchie, Aznos, p. 
12 sq. 

® Spencer, Descrzptive Sociology, 
sAsiaties Races, pa 920-45) Grange; 
‘Expedition into the Naga Hlills,’ in 

83, 102, 184, 

Jour. Asiatic Soc. 

Bengal, ix. 962. 
Stewart, zd¢d. xxiv. 637 (Kukis). 
Mason, ‘ Physical Character of the 
Karens,’ 2bzd. xxxv. pt. il. 25. Butler, 
Travels in Assam, p. 98. Anderson, 
Mandalay to Monten, p. 131 (Kak- 
hyens). Moorcroft and  Trebeck, 
Travels in the Himalayan Provinces, 
i. 321 (Ladakhis). 

6 Breton, Axcursions tn New South 
Wales, p. 197. Barrington, H2story of 
New South Wales,p. 19 (natives of Botany 
Bay). Angas, Savage Life in Australia, 
i. 80 (South Australian aborigines). 
Chauncy, in Brough Smyth, Adorzgznes 
of Victoria, ii. 284 (West Australian 
aborigines). 

7 Moffat, A@ésstonary Labours im 
Southern Africa, p. 15. Barrow, 
Travels “into the Interior of Southern 
Africa, i. 288. 

8 Stuhlmann, At Emin Pascha 
ins Herz von Afrika, p. 451. For 
other instances of uncleanliness in 
savages see Crawfurd, Azstory of the 
Indian Archipelago, i. 39; St. John, 
Life in the Forests of the kar East, 
i. 147 (some of the Land Dyaks) ; An- 
dersson, Lake Negamiz, pp. 50 (Herero), 
470 (Bechuanas), 

reindeer are not.! It has been observed that the inland 
negro is clean when he dwells in the neighbourhood of 
rivers.” In West Australia those tribes only which live 
by large rivers or near the sea are said to have an idea of 
cleanliness.’ Concerning the filthy habits of the Kukis 
and other hill peoples in India, Major Butler remarks that 
they may probably be accounted for by the scarcity 
of water in the neighbourhood of the villages, as also by 
the coldness of the climate.* Dr. Kane believes that 
the indifference of many Eskimo to dirt or filth is largely 
due to the extreme cold, which by rapid freezing resists 
putrefaction and thus prevents the household, with its 
numerous dogs, from being intolerable.° The Eskimo’s 
habit of washing themselves with freshly passed urine 
arises partly from scarcity of water and the difficulty of 
heating it, but partly also from the fact that the ammonia 
of the urine is an excellent substitute for soap in 
removing the grease with which the skin necessarily 
becomes soiled.° A cold climate, moreover, leads to 
uncleanliness because it makes garments necessary ;‘ and 
among some savages the practice of greasing their bodies 
to protect the skin from the effects of a parching air 
produces a similar result.° Lord Kames maintains that 
the greatest promoter of cleanliness is industry, whereas 
its greatest antagonist is indolence. In Holland, he 
observes, the people were cleaner than all their neighbours 
because they were more industrious, at a time when in 
England industry was as great a stranger as cleanliness.” 
Kolben says that the general laziness of the Hottentots 
accounts for the fact that “they are in the matter of diet 

1 Castrén, Lordiskha resdr ach 
Jorskningar, 1. 319 sg. 

> Kane, Arctic Explorations, ii. 116. 
® Murdoch, ‘ Ethnol. Results of the 

2 Bastian, Der Mensch in dex Point Barrow Expedition,’ in Az, 

Geschichte, ui. 75. Mr. Torday, who 
speaks from extensive experience, tells 
me the same. 

* Chauncy, quoted by Brough Smyth, 
op. ctt, il. 284. 
‘4 Butler, Zravels in Assam, p. 98 
g. Cf. Stewart, in Jour. Astatic Soc. 
Bengal, xxiv. 616. 

Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 421. Dall, of. 
cut, Pp. 20. 

7 Cf. von Humboldt, of. ct. iii. 237. 

8 Burchell, of. cé¢. ii. 553 (Bachapins 
of Litakun). 

® Kames, Sketches of the History of 
Man, \. 323, 327 sqq. 

ots ee? 

the filthiest people in the world.”' Of the Siberian 
Burats Georgi writes that “from their laziness they are 
as dirty as swine” ;? and the Kamchadales are described 
as a “dirty, lazy race.”* Poverty, also, is for obvious 
reasons a cause of uncleanliness ;* “a starving vulture 
neglects to polish his feathers, ae a famished dog has a 
ragged coat.” ° Very commonly cleanliness is a class 
distinction.° Thus among the Point- Barrow Eskimo the 
poorer people are often careless about their clothes and 
persons, whereas most of the wealthier individuals appear 
to take pride in beirig well clad, and, except when actually 
engaged in some dirty work, always have their faces and 
hands scrupulously clean and their hair neatly combed." 
Dr. Schweinfurth maintains that domestic cleanliness and 
care in the preparation of food are everywhere signs of a 
higher grade of external culture and answer to a certain 
degree of intellectual superiority.* But already Lord 
Kames pointed out the fact indicated above, that 
‘cleanness is remarkable in several nations which have 
made little progress in the arts of life.”’® 

The factors which determine the cleanliness of a people 
also naturally influence the moral valuation of it. 
Aversion to dirt not only leads to cleanly habits, but 
makes a filthy person an object of disgust and disapproba- 
tion; indeed, this aversion is generally stronger with 
reference to other individuals than with reference to one’s 
own person. But where for some reason or other 
dirtiness becomes habitual, it at the same time ceases to 
be disgusting; and it is often astonishing how soon 
people get used to filthy surroundings. Thus, when 

1 Kolben, Present State of the Cape in Jour. Aszatic Soc. Bengal, ix. 808 
of Good Hope, i. 47. (Hos). Rowlatt, ‘Expedition into 
? Georgi, of. cit. iv. 134. the Mishmee Hills,’ zdzd. xiv. 489. 
3 Jord. ili. 152. SeealsoSarytschew, Williams and Calvert, 772727, p. 117. 
in Collection of Modern and Contem- Waitz, of. cit. ii. 86 (Ashantees). 

porary Voyages, v. 67. Amot, Garenganze, p. 76 (Barotse). 
4 See Marshall, A Phrenologist Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 299. 
amongst the Todas, p. 50; Veniaminof, 7 Murdoch, in Azz. Rep. Bur. 

quoted by Dall, af. czt. p. 398 (Aleuts). thn. ix. 421. 
5 St. John, Vellage Life in Egypt, 8 Schweinfurth, Heart of Africa, 
187. i. 156. 
6 Tickell, ‘ Memoir on the Hodésum,’ ® Kames, of. c2t. 1. 321. 

cleanliness is insisted upon it is so in the first instance 
because dirt is directly disagreeable to other persons, and 
when uncleanness is tolerated it is so because it gives 
no offence to the senses of the public. But at the higher 
stages of civilisation, at least, cleanliness is besides in- 
culcated on hygienic grounds. 

In many cases cleanliness, either temporary or 
habitual, is also practised and enjoined from religious or 
superstitious motives. A Lappish oazde, or wizard, had 
to wash all his body before he offered a sacrifice." The 
Siberian shamans have compulsory water purifications 
once a year, sometimes every month, as also on special 
occasions when they feel themselves defiled by contact 
with unclean things.” The Shinto priests in Japan bathed 
and put on clean garments before making the sacred 
offerings or chanting the liturgies.* Herodotus speaks of 
the cleanliness observed by the Egyptian priests when 
engaged in the service of the gods.* As a preliminary 
to an act of worship the ancient Greeks washed their 
hands or bathed and put on clean clothes.? One of the 
legal maxims of the Romans required that men should 
approach the deity in a state of purity.° According to— 
Zoroastrianism it is the great business of life to avoid 
impurity, and, when it is involuntarily contracted, to 
remove it in the correct manner as quickly as possible ; : 
and by impurity is then understood not an inward state 
of the soul, but mainly a physical state of the body, 
everything going out of the human body being considered 
polluting.’ For a Brahmin bathing is the chief part of 
the minute ceremonial of daily worship, whilst further 
washings and aspersions enter into more solemn religious 
acts ;° and not only Brahmins but most Hindus regard 

1 Friis, Lappisk Mythologie, p. 145 xxiv. 302 sgg. Odyssey, ii. 261; iv. 

sg. von Diiben, Lappland, p. 256. 750; xvii. 58. Keller, Homeric Society, 
® Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxiv. 88. p. 141. .Stengel, Dze griechischen 
® Griffis, Relzetons of Japan, p. 85. Kultusaltertiimer, p. 106. 
eelerodouus, sil. G7.) Cys Wiede- ® Cicero, De legzbus, ii. 10. 
mann, Herodots zweites Buch, p. 154. “ Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the 
® [had, i. 449; ili. 270; vi. 266; ~ Zast, iv. p. Ixxti. sgq. 

ibe Hit, GAL SAUL, PA) MGs well, “li 8 Ward, View of the History, &c. of 

it as a religious duty to bathe daily if this is at all 
convenient.' Lamaism enjoins personal ablution as a 
sacerdotal rite preparatory to worship, though the 
ceremony seldom extends to more than dipping the tips 
of the fingers in water.” Jewish Rabbis are compelled to 
wash their hands before they begin to pray.* Tertullian 
mentions that a similar ablution was practised by the 
Christians before prayer.*. According to Islam, the 
clothes and person of the worshipper should be clean, and 
so also the ground, mat, carpet, or whatever else it be, 
upon which he prays ; and every act of worship must be 
preceded by an ablution, though, where water cannot be 
got, sand may be used as a substitute.° But a polluting 
influence is not ascribed to everything which we regard 
as dirt. For instance, Muhammedans consider the 
excrements of men and dogs defiling, but not the dung 
of cows and sheep ; cow-dung is even used as a means 
of purification. 

These practices and rules spring from the idea that 
the contact of a polluting substance with anything holy 
is followed by injurious consequences—an idea which will 
be more fully discussed in connection with sexual absti- 
nences. Such contact is supposed to deprive a deity 
or holy being of its holiness, or otherwise be detrimental 
to it, and therefore to excite its anger against him who 
causes the defilement. So also a sacred act is believed 
to lose its sacredness by being performed by an unclean 
individual. Moreover, as a polluting substance is itself 
held to contain mysterious energy of a baneful kind, it is 
looked upon as a direct danger even to persons who are 
not engaged in religious worship. We have previously 
noticed the rites of purification which a manslayer has to 
undergo in order to get rid of the blood-pollution.? We 
have also seen that ablutions and other purificatory cere- 

the Hindoos, ii. 61 sg. Colebrooke, 3 Chwolsohn, Dze Ssadcer, ii. 71. 
Miscellaneous Essays, ii. 142 sgq. 4 Tertullian, De Oratzone, 13 (Migne, 
Dubois, People of India, p. 113 sq. Patrologia cursus, i. 1167 sq.). 
1 Wilkins, Alodern Hinduism, p. 201. 5 Sell, Hazth of Isléim, p. 252 sgq. 
2 Waddell, Buddhism of Tibet, p. Lane, Modern Egyptians, i. 84 sqq. 
423. 6 Supra, i. 375 sqq- 

VOLaa UE A A 

monies are performed for the purpose of removing sins 
and misfortunes.’ And bathing or sprinkling with water 
is a common method of clearing mourners or persons 
who have come in contact with a corpse from the con- 
tagion of death.’ 

But whilst religious or superstitious beliefs have thus 
led to ablutions and cleanliness, they have in other 
instances had the very opposite effect. Among Arabs 
young children are often left dirty and ill-dressed pur- 
posely, to preserve them from the evil eye.» The Obbo 
natives in Central Africa declare that if they do not wash 
their hands with cow’s urine before milking, the cow will 
lose her milk ; and with the same fluid they wash the 
milk-bowl, and even mix some of it with the milk.* 
The Jakuts ‘never wash any of their eating or drinking 
utensils ; but, as soon as a dish is emptied, they clean 
it with the fore and middle finger; for they think it a 
great sin to wash away any part of their food, and appre- 
hend that the consequence will be a scarcity.” ° A similar 
custom prevails among the Kirghiz® and Kalmucks. The 
latter “are forbidden by the laws of their faith” to wash 
their vessels in river-water, and therefore “‘do no more 
than wipe them with a piece of an old sheep-skin shube, 
which they use also for cleaning their hands upon when 
dirty.”* They, moreover, abstain from washing their 

1 Supra, i. 54 Sqq. 

2 Teit, ‘Thompson Indians of 
British Columbia,’ in Aemozrs of the 
American Museum of Natural History, 
‘ Anthropology,’ 1. 331. Cruickshank, 
op. cit, i. 218 (Negroes of the Gold 
Coast). Ellis, Awe-speaking Peoples of 
the Slave Coast, p. 160. Turner, 
Samoa, p. 1453; zdem, Nineteen. Years 
in. Polynesia, p. 228 (Samoans). Ellis, 
Polynesian Researches, i. 403 (Society 
Islanders). Kloss, /z the Andamans 
and Nicobars, p. 305 (Kar Nicobarese). 
Joinville, ‘ Religion and Manners of the 
People of Ceylon,’ in Aszatick Re- 
searches, vii. 437 (Sinhalese). Iyer, 
‘Nayadis of Malabar,’ in the Madras 
Government Museum’s Azdletin, iv. 71; 
Thurston, zb7d. iv. 76 sg. (Nayadis). 

Crooke, 7rzbes and Castes of the North- 
Western Provinces and Oudh, i. 83 
(Arakh, a tribe in Oudh). Ward, 
View of the History, &c. of the 
fTindoos, ii. 147, il. 275; Dubois, 
Manners and Customs of the People of 
India, p. 108 sg.; Bose, Aindoos as 
they are, p. 257. Caland, Die Altin- 
dischen Todten- und Sestattunesge- 
brauche, p. 79 sq. 

3 Blunt, Bedouzn 
Euphrates, ii. 214. 
Egypt, p. 391. 

+ Baker, Albert Wyanza, i. 381. 

Pe Daler, Op mcw pute Ge 

6 Valikhanof, &c., Aesssdans in Cen- 
tral Asia, p. 80. 

” Georgi, of. cet. iv. 37. 
op. crt. il. 123. 

Tribes of the 
Klunzinger, Upper 

Bergmann, 

aes le 

clothes ; and so did the Huns and Mongols.’ The 

ancient Turks never washed themselves, because they 
believed that their gods punished ablutions with thunder 
and lightning ; and the same belief still prevails among 
kindred peoples in Central Asia.” Among the Bahima of 
Enkole, in the Uganda Protectorate, a man may smear 
his body with butter or clay as often as he wishes, but 
“‘to wash with water is bad for him, and is a sure way of 
bringing sickness into his family and amongst his cattle.’’® 
The dread of water may be due partly to ill effects 
experienced after using it, partly to superstition. The 
Moors dare not wash their bodies with cold water in the 
afternoon and evening after the ‘dsar, because all such water 
is then supposed to be haunted by jzdn, or evil spirits. 
In various religions the odour of sanctity is associated 
with filth. Muhammedan dervishes are recognised by 
their appearance of untidiness and uncleanness. Among 
the rules laid down for Buddhist monks there is one 
which prescribes that their dress shall be made of 
rags taken from a dust or refuse heap.* In the early 
days of Christian monasticism “the cleanliness of the 
body was regarded as a pollution of the soul.” The 
saints who were most admired were those who had 
become one hideous mass of clotted filth. St. Atha- 
nasius relates with enthusiasm how St. Antony, the 
patriarch of monachism, had never, to extreme old age, 
been guilty of washing his feet. A famous virgin, 
though bodily sickness was a consequence of her habits, 
resolutely refused, on religious principles, to wash any 
part of her body except her fingers. And St. Simeon 
Stylites, who was generally pronounced to be the highest 
model of a Christian saint, bound a rope round himself 
so that it became imbedded in his flesh and caused putre- 
faction ; and it is said that “a horrible stench, intolerable 

1 Neumann, Deze Volker des stidlichen 3 Roscoe, ‘ Bahima,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
Russlands, p. 27. For the excessive /mst. xxxvil. III. 
dirtiness of the present Mongols, see + Kern, Manual of Indian Buddhism, 
Prejevalsky, Mongolia, 1. 51 sg. De WS 

2 Castrén, of. cet. iv. 61. 

to the bystanders, exhaled from his body, and worms 
dropped from him whenever he moved, and they filled 
his bed.”? In medizval Christianity abstinence from 
every species of cleanliness was also enjoined as a penance, 
the penitent being required to go with foul mouth, filthy 
hands and neck, undressed hair and beard, unpared_ nails, 
and clothes as dirty as his person. In these cases un- 
cleanliness is a form of asceticism, a subject which we 
have already touched upon in dealing with industry and 
fasting, but the principles of which still call for our 
consideration. 

In various religions we meet with the idea that a 
person appeases or gives pleasure to the deity by sub- 
jecting himself to suffering or deprivation. This belief 
finds expression in all sorts of ascetic practices. We read 
of Christian ascetics who lived in deserted dens of wild 
beasts, or in dried-up wells, or in tombs ; who disdained 
all clothes, and crawled abroad like animals covered only 
by their matted hair ; who ate nothing but corn which 
had become rotten by remaining for a month in water 5 
who spent forty days and nights in the middle of thorn- 
bushes, and for forty years never lay down.’ Hindu 
ascetics remain in immovable attitudes with their faces or 
their arms raised to heaven, until the sinews shrink and the 
posture assumed stiffens into rigidity ; or they expose 
themselves to the inclemency of the weather in a state of 
absolute nudity, or tear their bodies with knives, or feed 
on carrion and excrement.’ Among the Muhammedans 
of India there are fakirs who have been seen dragging 
heavy chains or cannon balls, or crawling upon their 
hands and knees for years; others have been found 
lying upon iron spikes for a bed; and others, again, have 
been swinging for months before a slow fire with a 

'Lecky, Hestory of European sg.  UHopkins, Religions of India, 
Morals, \i. 109 sqq. p- 352. Monier-Williams, Ardhman- 

2 bid. ii. 108 sq. asm and Hinditism, p. 395. 

3 Barth, Relzgzons of India, p. 214 

XX XIX ASCETICISM IN GENERAL om 
tropical sun blazing overhead.'. Among modern Jews 
some of the more sanctimonious members of the 

synagogue have been known to undergo the penance of 
voluntary flagellation before the commencement of the 
fast of atonement, two persons successively inflicting 
upon each other thirty-nine stripes or thirteen lashes with 
a triple scourge.” According to the Zoroastrian Yasts, 
thirty strokes with the Sraoshé-karana is an expiation 
which purges people from their sins, and makes them fit 
for offering a sacrifice. Herodotus tells us that the 
ancient Egyptians beat themselves while the things offered 
by them as sacrifices were being burned, and that the 
Carian dwellers in Egypt on such occasions cut their 
faces with knives.* Among the ancient Mexicans blood- 
drawing was a favourite and most common mode of 
expiating sin and showing devotion. ‘It makes one 
shudder,” says Clavigero, “to read the austerities which 
they exercised upon themselves, either in atonement of 
their transgressions or in preparation for their festivals. 
They mangled their flesh as if it had been insensible, and 
let their blood run in such profusion, that it appeared to 
be a superfluous fluid of the body.”® Self-mortification 
also formed part of the religious cult in many uncivilised 
tribes in North America.® “ The Indian,” Colonel Dodge 
observes, ‘“ believes, with many Christians, that  self- 
torture is an act most acceptable to God, and the extent 
of pleasure that he can give his god is exactly measured 
by the amount of suffering that he can bear without 
flinching.” * 

The idea underlying religious asceticism has no doubt 

1 Pool, Studies tn Mohammedanism, 
p- 305. For similar practices among 
the modern Egyptians, see Lane, 
Modern Egyptians, p. 244. 

2 Allen, Modern Judaism, p. 407. 

2 Vasts, x. 122, Darmesteter, in 
Sacred Books of the East, xxiil. 151, 
ne 3. 
4 Herodotus, il. 40, 61. 

> Clavigero, History of Mexico, i. 
284. See also Bancroft, of. czt. iii. 

441 sg.; Réville, Arbbert Lectures on 
the Native Religions of Mexico and 
Peru, p. 100. 

S Domenech, Seven Years Residence 
in the Great Deserts of North America, 
ii. 380. Catlin, orth American 
Indians, ii. 243. James, Lxpedition 
to the Rocky Mountains, i. 276 sqg. 
(Omahas). McGee, ‘Siouan Indians,’ 
in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xv. 184. 

7 Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 149. 

been derived from several different sources. It should 
first be noticed that certain ascetic practices have originally 
been performed for another purpose, and only afterwards 
come to be regarded as means of propitiating or pleasing 
the deity through the suffering involved in them. This, 
as we have seen, is the case with certain fasts, and also 
with sexual asceticism.' When an act is supposed to be 
connected with supernatural danger, the evil (real or 
imaginary) resulting from it is readily interpreted as a 
sign of divine anger and the act itself is regarded as 
being forbidden by a god. If then the abstinence from it 
implies suffering, as is in some degree the case with 
fasting and sexual continence, the conclusion is drawn 
that the god delights in such suffering. The same 
inference is, moreover, made from the fact that such 
abstinences are enjoined in connection with religious 
worship, though the primary motive for this injunction 
was fear of pollution. Beating or scourging, again, was 
in certain cases originally a mode of purification, intended 
to wipe off and drive away a dangerous contagion either 
personified as demoniacal or otherwise of a magical 
character. And although the pain inflicted on the person 
beaten was at first not the object of the act but only 
incidental to it, it became subsequently the chief purpose 
of the ceremony, which was now regarded as a mortifica- 
tion well pleasing to the god.? This change of ideas 
seems likewise to be due both to the tendency of the 
supernatural contagion to develop into a divine punish- 
ment in case it is not removed by the painful rite, and 
also to the circumstance that purification is held to be 
a necessary accompaniment of acts of religious worship. 
The Egyptian sacrifice described by Herodotus was com- 
bined with purificatory fasting as well as beating. Among 
the Jews, before the commencement of the fast of atone- 
ment, whilst a few very religious persons undergo the 
penance of flagellation, ‘““some purify themselves by 

1 See zufra, p. 420 sg. ® Herodotus, ii. 40, 
2. Frazer, Coen Bough, ii. 217 sg. 

~ 
~ 

ablutions.”* And that the original object of the scourg- 
ing mentioned in the Yasts was to purify the worshipper 
is suggested by the fact that he on the same occasion had 
to wash his body three days and three nights.? But it 
should also be remembered that religious exaltation, 
when it has reached its highest stage, may express itself 
in self-laceration;* and the deity is naturally supposed to 
be pleased with the outward expression of such an emotion 
in his devotees. . 
An ascetic practice may also be the survival of an 
earlier sacrifice. We have seen that this is frequently 
the case with fasting and almsgiving, and the same may 
hold true of other forms of asceticism.‘ The essence of 
the act then no longer lies in the benefit which the god 
derives from it, but in the self-denial or self-mortification 
which it costs the worshipper. In the sacred books of 
India “austerity” is mentioned as a means of expiation 
side by side with sacrifice, fasting, and giving gifts.” 
When an ascetic practice develops out of a previous 
custom of a different origin, it may be combined with an 
idea which by itself has been a frequent source of self- 
inflicted pain, to wit, the belief that such pain is an expia- 
tion for sin, that it may serve as a substitute for a punish- 
ment which would otherwise be inflicted by the offended 
god ; and almost inseparably connected with this belief 
there may be that desire to suffer which is so often, 
vaguely or distinctly, involved in genuine repentance.° 
The idea of expiation very largely underlies the peni- 
tential discipline of the Christian Church and the 
asceticism of its saints. From the days of Tertullian 
and Cyprian the Latins were familiar with the notion that 
the Christian has to propitiate God, that cries of pain, 
sufferings, and deprivations are means of appeasing his 
anger, that God takes strict account of the quantity of 

1 Allen, of. cz¢. p. 407. 5 Gautama, xix. II. Vasishtha, 
AE Vasts x22. xx. 47; xxil. 8. Baudhdyana, iil. 
3 See Hirn, Origins of Art, p. 64. 10. 9. 

4 Cf. Tertullian, De vresurrectione § See supra, 1. 105 sq. 

carnts, 8 (Migne, of. czt. li. 806). 

the atonement, and that, where there is no guilt to have 
blotted out, those very means are regarded as merits.’ 
According to the doctrine of the Church, penance should 
in all grave cases be preceded by sorrow for the sin and 
also by confession, either public or private ; repentance, 
as we have noticed above, is the only ground on which 
pardon can be given by a scrupulous judge.” But the 
notion was only too often adopted that the penitential 
practice itself was a compensation for sin, that a man was 
at liberty to do whatever he pleased provided he was 
prepared to do penance afterwards, and that a person 
who, conscious of his frailty, had laid in a large stock of 
vicarious penance in anticipation of future necessity, had 
a right “to-work it out,’’ and spend it in sins. The 
idea that sins may be expiated by certain acts of self- 
mortification is familiar both to Muhammedans* and 
Jews.’ According to Zoroastrian beliefs, it is possible to 
wipe out by peculiarly severe atonements not only the 
special sin on account of which the atonement is per- 
formed, but also other offences committed in former 
times or unconsciously.° In the sacred books of the 

Hindus we meet with a strong conviction that pain: 

suffered in this life will redeem the sufferer from punish- 
ment in a future existence. It is said that “men who 
have committed crimes and have been punished by the 
king go to heaven, being pure like those who performed 
meritorious deeds”’ ;’ and the same idea is at the bottom 
of their penitential system.* But in Brahmanism, as in 
Catholicism, the effect of ascetic practices is supposed to 
go beyond mere expiation. They are regarded as means 
of accumulating religious merit or attaining superhuman 
powers. Brahmanical poems tell of marvellous. self- 

1 Tertullian, De jejunzzs, 7 (Migne, 4 ‘Supra, ii. 315, 317. Pool, op. cit. 
op. ctt. 11. 962). dem, De resurrec- pp. 264. 
tione carnis, 8 (Migne, 11. 806 sg.). 5 Supra, ii. 315 sgg. Allen, of. cit. 
Harnack, Hestory of Dogiia, li. 110,  p. 130. 
I 2isediteeg dlls 6 Geiger, Czwilézation of the Eastern 
2 Supra, i. 85. _ Lranians, i. 163. ; 
%’ See Thrupp, Zhe Anglo-Saxon * Laws of Manu, viii. 318. 

Home, p. 259. SOO 20st 2208 

ers JL hhh r * 
Pe yg ee eye ee TT 

[en ae ee 

i ay 

mortifications by which sages of the past obtained 
influence over the gods themselves ; nay, even the power 
wielded by certain archdemons over men and gods is 
supposed to have been acquired by the practice of 
religious austerities.. How largely ascetic practices are 
due to the idea of expiation is indicated by the fact that 
they hardly occur among nations who have no vivid 
sense of sin, like the Chinese before the introduction of 
Taouism and Buddhism,’ and the ancient Greeks, Romans, 
and Scandinavians. In Greece, however, people some- 
times voluntarily sacrificed a part of their happiness in 
order to avoid the envy of the gods, who would not allow 
to man more than a moderate share of good fortune.? 

Self-mortification is also sometimes resorted to not so 
much to appease the anger of a god as rather to excite 
his compassion. In some of the Jewish fasts, as we have 
seen before, these two objects are closely interwoven.’ 
The Jewish custom of fasting in the case of a drought 
is in a way parallel to the Moorish practice of tying 
holy men and throwing them into a pond in order that 
their pitiful condition may induce God to send rain. Mr. 
Williams tells us of a Fijian priest who, “ after suppli- 
cating his god for rain in the usual way without success, 
slept for several successive nights exposed on the top of 
a rock, without mat or pillow, hoping thus to move the 
obdurate deity to send a shower.”’” 

Not only is suffering voluntarily sought as a means of 
wiping off sins committed, but it is also endured with a 
view to preventing the commission of sin. ‘This is the 
second or, in importance, the first great idea upon which 
Christian asceticism rests. The gratification of every 
worldly desire is sinful, the flesh should be the abject 
slave of the spirit intent upon unearthly things. Man 
was created for a life in spiritual communion with God, 

1 Monier-Williams, Bra&himanism and 3 Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1008 sgg. 
Hindiiism, pp. 231, 427. Oldenberg, Schmidt, Die Athtk der alten Griechen, 
Buddha, ~p. 302. 14 tee 

2 Reville, La religion Chinoise, p. S Supra, il. 315s 

221, 5 Williams and Calvert, 7272, p. 196. 

but he yielded to the seduction of evil demons, who 
availed themselves of the sensuous side of his nature to 
draw him away from the contemplation of the divine and 
lead him to the earthly. Moral goodness, therefore, 
consists in renouncing all sensuous pleasures, in separating 
from the world, in living solely after the spirit, in 
imitating the perfection and purity of God. The contrast 
between good and evil is the contrast between God and 
the world, and the conception of the world includes not 
only the objects of bodily appetites but all human institu- 
tions, as well as science and art.! And still more than 
any Byeoretical doctrine, the personal example of Christ 
led to the olorification of spiritual joy and bodily 
suffering. 

The antithesis of spirit and body was not peculiar to 
Christianity. It was an old Platonic conception, which 
was regarded by the Fathers of the Church as the contrast 
between that which was precious and that which was to be 
mortified. The doctrine that bodily enjoyments are low 
and degrading was taught by many pagan philosophers ; 
even a man like Cicero says that all corporeal pleasure 1 1S 
opposed to virtue and ought to be rejected.” And in the 
Neo-Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean schools of Alexandria 
an ascetic ideal of life was,the natural outcome of their 
theory that God alone is pure and good, and matter impure 
and evil. Renunciation of the world was taught and 
practised by the Jewish sects of the Essenes and Thera- 
peute. In India, Professor Kern observes, ‘‘ climate, 
institutions, the contemplative bent of the native mind, 
all tended to facilitate the growth of a persuasion that the 
highest aims of human life and real felicity cannot be 
obtained but by the seclusion from the busy world, by 
undisturbed pious exercises, and by a certain amount of 
mortification.””* We read in the Hitopadesa, ‘Subjec- 
tion to the senses has been called the road to ruin, and 

1 Harnack, of. ct. ii. 214 sgqg. 3; ill. * Cicero, De officizs, i. 30; ili. 33. 
258 sgg. von Eicken, Geschechte der ® Kern, WZanual of Indian Buddhism, 
mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, p. pp. 73. 

313 599. 

their subjugation the path to fortune.”! The Jain regards 
pleasure in itself as sinful :—‘* What is discontent, and 
what is pleasure? One should live subject to neither. 
Giving up all gaiety, circumspect, restrained, one should 
lead a religious life.”* According to Buddhism, there 
are two causes of the misery with which life is inseparably 
bound up—lust and ignorance; and so there are two 
cures—the suppression of lust and desire and the removal 
of ignorance.* It is said in the Dhammapada, “ There is 
no satisfying lusts, even by a shower of gold pieces ; he 
who knows that lusts have a short taste and cause pain, he 
is wise.” * Penances, as they were practised among the 
ascetics of India, were discarded by Buddha as vexatious, 
unworthy, unprofitable. ‘Not nakedness, not platted 
hair, not dirt, not fasting, or lying on the earth, not 
rubbing with dust, not sitting motionless, can purify a 
mortal who has not overcome desires.”°> Where all con- 
tact with the earthly ceases, there, and there only, are 
deliverance and freedom. 

The idea that man ought to liberate himself from the 
bondage of earthly desires is the conclusion of a con- 
templative mind reflecting upon the short duration and 
emptiness of all bodily pleasures and the allurements by 
which they lead men into misery and sin. And _ separa- 
tion from the material world is the ideal of the religious 
enthusiast whose highest aspiration is union with God 
conceived as an immaterial being, as pure spirit. 

1 Hitopadesa, quoted by Monier- Monier-Williams, Buddhism, p. 99. 
Williams, Zrdian Wisdom, p. 538. + Dhammapada, 186 sq. 

2 Hopkins, of. czt. p. 291. 5 Ibid. 141. See also Oldenberg, 
3 Oldenberg, of. cet. p. 212 sg. op. ctt. p. 301 sg.

MARRIAGE 

Mawn’s sexual nature gives rise to various modes of 
conduct on which moral judgments are passed. We shall 
first consider such relations between the sexes as are com- 
prised under the heading Marriage. 

In a previous work I have endeavoured to show that in 
all probability there has been no stage in the social history 
of mankind where marriage has not existed, human marriage 
apparently being an inheritance from some ape-like pro- 
genitor.’ I then defined marriage as a more or less durable 
connection between male and female, lasting beyond the 
mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring. 
This is marriage in the natural history sense of the term. 
As a social institution, on the other hand, it has a some- 
what different meaning: it is a union regulated by 
custom or law.” Society lays down rules relating to the 
selection of partners, to the mode of contracting marriage, 
to its form, and to its duration. ‘These rules are essentially 
expressions of moral feelings. 

There is, first, a circle of persons within which marriage 
is prohibited. It seems that the horror of incest is well- 

nigh universal in the human race, and that the few cases in. 

1 Westermarck, Lestory of Human 
Marriage, ch, ii. sq. 

2 The best definition of marriage as a 
social institution which I have met with 
is the following one given by Dr. 
Friedrichs (‘ Einzeluntersuchungen zur 
vergleichenden Rechtswissenschaft,’ in 
Leitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. x. 255) :— 

*“ Fine von der Rechtsordnung aner- 
kannte und privilegirte Vereinigung 
geschlechtsdifferenter Personen, entwe- 
der zur Fiihrung eines gemeinsamen 
Hausstandes und zum Geschlechtsver- 
kehr, oder zum ausschliesslichen Ge- 
schlechtsverkehr.” 

MARRIAGE 

enrext. 365 
which this feeling is said to be absent can only be regarded 
as abnormalities. But the degrees of kinship within which 
marriage is forbidden are by no means the same every- 
where. It is most, and almost universally, abominated 
between parents and children. It is also held in general 
abhorrence between brothers and sisters who are children 
of the same mother as well as of the same father. Most 
of the exceptions to this rule refer_to royal persons, for 
whom it is considered improper to contract marriage with 
individuals of less exalted birth ; but among a few peoples 
incestuous unions are practised on a larger scale on account 
of extreme isolation or as a result of vitiated instincts.? 
It seems, however, that habitual marriages between brothers 
and sisters have been imputed to certain peoples without 
sufficient reason.” This is obviously true of the Veddahs 
of Ceylon, who have long been supposed to regard the 
marriage Ol a man with his younger sister as he proper 
marriage.® ‘Such incest,” says Mr. Nevill, ‘never was 
allowed, and never could be, while the Vaedda customs 

1 Westermarck, of. cz¢. ch. xiv. sq. 

2 This is apparently the case with 
various peoples mentioned by Dr. 
Frazer (Pausanias’s Description of 
Greece, ii. 84 sg.) as being addicted to 
incestuous unions. Mr. Turner’s short 
statement (Samoa, p. 341) that among 
the New Caledonians no laws of con- 
sanguinity were observed in_ their 
marriages, and that even the nearest 
relatives united, radically differs from 
M. de Rochas’ description of the same 
people. ‘* Les Néo-Calédoniens,” he 
says (Mouvelle Calédonze, p. 232), ‘‘ne 
se marient pas entre proches parents du 
coté paternel ; mais du coté maternel, 
ils se marient a tous les degrés de 
cousinage.’’? Brothers and sisters, after 
they have reached years of maturity, 
are no longer permitted to entertain any 

~ social intercourse with each other; they 

are prohibited from keeping each other 
company even in the presence of a 
third person ; and if they casually meet 
they must instantly go out of the way 
or, if that is impossible, the sister must 
throw herself on the ground with her 
face downwards. ‘‘Cet éloignement,” 
M. de Rochas adds (2é2¢. p. 239), ‘‘ qui 

nest certes l’effet ni du mépris ni de 
linimitié, me parait: né d’une exagéra- 
tion déraisonnable dun _ sentiment 
naturel, Vhorreur de Vinceste.” Dr. 
Frazer says that, according to Mr. 
Thomson, the marriage of brothers with 
sisters has been practised among the 
Masai; but a later and, as it seems, 
better informed authority tells us that 
**the Masai do not marry their near 
relations” and that ‘‘ incest is unknown 
among them” (Hinde, Zhe Last of the 
Masai, p. 76). Again, the statement 
that among the Obongos, a dwarf race 
in West Africa, sisters marry with 
brothers, is only based on information 
derived from another people, the Ash- 
angos, who have a strong antipathy 
to them (Du Chaillu, /ourney to 
Ashango-Land, p. 320). Liebich’s 
assertion (Dze Zzgewner, p. 49) that the 
Gypsies allow a brother to marry his 
sister is certainly not true of the 
Gypsies of Finland, who greatly abhor 
incest (Thesleff, ‘Zigenarlif i Finland,’ 
in Mya Pressen, 1897, no. 331 B). 

3 Bailey, ‘ Wild Tribes of the Ved- 
dahs of Ceylon,’ in Zrans. Ethn. Soc. 
N.S. ii. 294 sg. 

lingered. Incest is regarded as worse than murder. So 
positive is this feeling, that the Tamils have based a legend 
upon the instant murder of his sister by a Vaedda to whom 
she had made undue advances. The mistake arose from 
gross ignorance of Vaedda usages. The title of a cousin 
with whom marriage ought to be contracted, that 1s, 
mother’s brother’s daughter, or father’s sister’s daughter, iS 
naga or nangi. ‘This, in Sinhalese, is applied to a younger 
sister. Hence if you ask a Vaedda, ‘Do you marry 
your sisters ?’ the Sinhalese interpreter is apt to say, ‘ Do 
you marry your naga?’ ‘The reply is (I have often tested 
it), ‘ Yes—we always did formerly, but now it is not always 
observed.’ You say then, ‘ What? marry your own-sister- 
naga?’ and the reply i is an angry and insulted denial, the 
very question appearing a gross insult.’’ The same writer 
adds:—-‘‘In no case did a person marry one of the same 
family, even though the relationship was lost in remote 
antiquity. Such a marriage is incest. The penalty for 
incest was death.” ? 

As a rule, the prohibited degrees are more numerous 
among peoples unaffected by modern civilisation than they 
are in more advanced communities, the prohibitions in a 
great many cases referring even to all the members of the 
tribe or clan ; and the violation of these rules is regarded 
as a most heinous crime.” 

The Algonquins speak of cases where men have been put to 
death by their nearest kinsfolk for marrying women of their own 
clan.? Among the Asiniboin, a Siouan tribe, a chief can commit 
murder with impunity if the murdered person be without 
friends, but if he married within his gens he would be dismissed, 
on account of the general disgust which such a union would 
arouse. he Hottentots used to punish alliances between first 
or second cousins with death.2 A Bantu of the coast region 
considers similar unions to be “something horrible, something 
unutterably disgraceful.”® The Busoga of the Uganda 

1 Nevill, ‘Vaeddas of Ceylon,’ in <Avnn. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xv. 224. 

Taprobantan, i. 178. > Kolben, Present State of the Cape 
2 Westermarck, of. cet. p. 297 sgq. of Good Hope, 1. 155 sg. 
3-Frazer, Totlemzsin, p. 59. 6 Theal, History of the Boers in 

4 Dorsey, ‘Siouan Sociology,’ in South Africa, p. 16. 

Protectorate held in great abhorrence anything like incest even 
amongst domestic animals.1. Among the Kandhs of India 

“intermarriage between persons of the same tribe, however large 
or scattered, is considered incestuous and punishable with death.” 2 
In the Malay Archipelago submersion is a common punishment 
for incest,? but among certain tribes the guilty parties are killed 
and eaten‘ or buried alive. In Efate, of the New Hebrides, it 
would be a crime punishable with death for a man or woman to 
marry a person belonging to his or her mother’s clan ; ® and the 
Mortlock Islanders are said to inflict the same punishment upon 
anybody who has sexual intercourse with a relative belonging to 
his own “tribe.” * Nowhere has marriage been bound by more 
severe laws than among the Australian aborigines. ‘Their tribes 
are grouped in exogamous subdivisions, the number of which 
varies ; and at least before the occupation of the country by the 
whites the regular punishment for marriage or sexual inter- 

course with a person belonging to a forbidden division was 
death.® 

Not less intense is the horror of incest among nations 
that have passed beyond savagery and barbarism. Among 
the Chinese incest with a grand-uncle, a father’s first 
cousin, a brother, or a nephew, is punishable by death, and 
a man who marries his mother’s sister is strangled ; nay, 
punishment is inflicted even on him who marries a person 
with the same surname as his own, sixty blows being the 
penalty.’ So also incest was held in the utmost horror by 
the so-called Aryan peoples in ancient times." In the 
‘Institutes of Vishnu’ it is said that sexual intercourse with 

1 Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, ii. lock Inseln,’ 
719. Gesellsch. im 
2 Macpherson, quoted by Percival, pp. 251. 
Land of the Veda, p. 345. Cf. Hunter, 8 Westermarck, of. cit. p. 299 sg. 
Annals of Rural Bengal, iii. 81. See, besides the authorities quoted 
3 Wilken, Huwelzzken tusschen bloed- there, Roth, Z¢hnol. Studies among 
verwanten, p. 26 sg. Riedel, Deshuk- the North-West-Central Queensland 
en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes Aborigines, p. 182; Spencer and Gil- 
en Papua, p. 460. len, Mative Tribes of Central Australia, 
4 Wilken, Over de verwantschap en 

in Mittheil. d. Geogr. 
Hamburg, 1878-9, 

het huwelijks- en erfrecht by de volken 
van het malersche ras, p. 18. 

5 Ghmpses of the Eastern Archt- 
pelago, p. 105. 

6 Macdonald, Oceanza, p. 181 sg. 

7 Kubary, ‘ Die Bewohner der Mort- 

pals. zon 
® Medhurst, ‘ Marriage, Affinity, and 
Inheritance in China,’ in Z7vans. Roy. 
Asiatic Soc. China Branch, iv. 21 sqq. 
WoLeist, <Alt-arisches Jus Gentium, 
P: 394 5¢. 

one’s mother or daughter or daughter-in-law is a crime of 
the highest degree, for which there is no other atonement 
than to proceed into the flames." 

Various theories have been set forth to account for the 
prohibition of marriage between near kin. I criticised 
some of them in my book on the ‘ History of Human 
Marriage,’ and ventured at the same time on an explana- 
tion of my own.’ I pointed out that there is an innate 
aversion to sexual intercourse between persons living very 
closely together from early youth, and that, as such 
persons are in most cases related by blood, this feeling 
would naturally display itself in custom and law as a horror 
of intercourse between near kin. Indeed, an abundance of 
ethnographical facts seem to indicate that it is not in the 
first place by the degree of consanguinity, but by the 
close living together, that prohibitory laws against inter- 
marriage are determined. “Thus many peoples have a rule 
of “exogamy ”’ which does not depend on kinship at all, 
but on purely local considerations, all the members of 
a horde or village, though not related by blood, being 
forbidden to intermarry.* The prohibited degrees are 
very differently defined in the customs or laws of different 
nations, and it appears that the extent to which relatives 
are prohibited from intermarrying is nearly connected 
with their close living together. Very often the pro- 
hibitions against incest are more or less one-sided, 
applying more extensively either to the relatives on the 
father’s side or to those on the mother’s, according as 
descent is reckoned through men or women. Now, since 

1 Institutes of Vishniw, xxxiv. 1 sq. zugleich auch fiir die Lokalgruppe Gel- 
2 Westermarck, of. c2¢. p. 310 sqq. tung hat.” This, however, is only 
3 Herr Cunow (Die Verwandtschafis- | Herr Cunow’s own inference. And it 
Organisationen der Australneger, p. may be asked why it is more ‘* pecu- 
187) finds this argument ‘‘rather pecu- _ liar” to suppose that the prohibition of 
liar,” and offers himself a different marriage between near kin has sprung 
explanation of the rule in question. from aversion to sexual intercourse 
He writes:—‘‘In der Wirklichkeit between persons living closely together, 
erklart sich das Verbot einfach daraus, than to assume chat. the rule which 

dass sehr oft die Lokalgruppe mit dem forbids _ marriage between unrelated 
Geschlechtsverband beziehungsweise  persons living in the same community 
dem Totemverband kongruirt, und has sprung from the prohibition of 
demnach das was fiir die Gens gilt, marriage between kindred. 

the line of descent is largely connected with local relation- 
ships, we may reasonably infer that the same local relation- 
ships exercise a considerable influence on the table of pro- 
hibited degrees. However, in a large number of cases pro- 
hibitions of intermarriage are only indirectly influenced by 
the close living together.‘ Aversion to the intermarriage 
of persons who live in intimate connection with one 
another has called forth prohibitions of the intermarriage 
of relations; and, as kinship is traced by means of a 
system of names, the name comes to be considered iden- 
tical with relationship. This system is necessarily one- 
sided. Though it will keep up the record of descent 
either on the male or female side, it cannot do both at 
once ;* and the line which has not been kept up by such 
means of record, even where it is recognised as a line of 
relationship, is naturally more or less neglected and soon 
forgotten. Hence the prohibited degrees frequently ex- 
tend very far on the one side—to the whole clan—but 
not on the other. It should also be remembered that, 
according to primitive ideas, the name itself constitutes a 
mystic link between those who have it in common. “In 
Greenland, as everywhere else,’ says Dr. Nansen, “the 
name is of great importance ; it is believed that there is a 
spiritual affinity between two people of the same name.” ® 
Generally speaking, the feeling that two persons are 
intimately connected in some way or other may, through 
an association of ideas, give rise to the notion that marriage 
or sexual intercourse between them is incestuous. Hence 
the prohibitions of marriage between relations by alliance 
and by adoption. Hence, too, the prohibitions of the 
Roman and Greek Churches on the ground of what is 
called “spiritual relationship.” 

1 T do not understand how any reader little more carefully what I have said, 
of my book can, like Herr Cunow (0g. he might have saved himself the trouble 
cit. p. 186 sgg.), attribute to me the he has taken to prove my great ignor- 
statement that the group within which ance of early social organisations. 

intermarriage is prohibited is identical 2 Cf. Tylor, Zarly History of Man- 
with the group of people who live zzd, p. 285 sg. ; 
closely together. If he had read a 3 Nansen, Hshzmo Life, p. 230. 

VOL. Il B B 

The question arises :—How has this instinctive aversion 
to marriage and sexual intercourse in general between 
persons living closely together from early youth origin- 
ated? I have suggested that it may be the result of 
natural selection. Darwin’s careful studies of the effects 
of cross- and self-fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom, 
the consensus of opinion among eminent breeders, and 
experiments made with rats, rabbits, and other animals, 
have proved that self-fertilisation of plants and close inter- 
breeding of animals are more or less injurious to the 
species ; and it seems highly probable that the evil chiefly 
results from the fact that the uniting sexual elements were 
not sufficiently differentiated. Now it is impossible to 
believe that a physiological law which holds good of the 
rest of the animal kingdom, as also of plants, would not 
apply to man as well. But it is difficult to adduce direct 
evidence for the evil effects of consanguineous marriages. 
We cannot expect very conspicuous results from other 
alliances than those between the nearest relatives—between 
brothers and sisters, parents and children,—and the 
injurious results even of such unions would not necessarily 
appear at once. The closest kind of intermarriage which 
we have opportunities of studying is that between first 
cousins. Unfortunately, the observations hitherto made 
on the subject are far from decisive. Yet it is noteworthy 
that of all the writers who have discussed it the majority, 
and certainly not the least able of them, have expressed 
their belief in marriages between first cousins being more 
or less unfavourable to the offspring; and no evidence 
which can stand the test of scientific investigation has 
hitherto been adduced against this view. Moreover, we 
have reason to believe that consanguineous marriages are 
much more injurious in savage regions, where the struggle 
for existence is often very severe, than they have proved 
to be in civilised societies, especially as it is among the well- 
to-do classes that such marriages occur most frequently. 

Taking all these facts into consideration, I am inclined 
to think that consanguineous marriages are in some way or 

other detrimental to the species. And here I find a quite 
sufficient explanation of the horror of incest ; not because 
man at an early stage recognised the 1 injurious influence of 
close intermarriage, but because the law of natural selec- 
tion must inevitably have operated. Among the ancestors 
of man, as among other animals, there was no doubt a time 
when blood-relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse. 
But variations, here as elsewhere, would naturally present 
themselves—we know how extremely liable to variations 
the sexual instinct is; and those of our ancestors who 
avoided in-and-in breeding would survive, while the others 
would gradually decay and ultimately perish. Thus a 
sentiment would be developed which would be powerful 
enough, as a rule, to prevent injurious unions. Of course 
it would display itself, not as an innate aversion to sexual 
connections with near relatives as such, but as an aversion 
on the part of individuals to union with others with whom 
they lived; but these, as a matter of fact, would be blood- 
relations, so that the result would be the survival of 
the fittest. Whether man inherited this sentiment from 
the predecessors from whom he sprang, or whether it was 
developed after the evolution of distinctly human qualities, 
we cannot know. It must have arisen at a stage when 
family ties became comparatively strong, and children 
remained with their parents until the age of puberty or 
even longer. And exogamy, resulting from a natural 
extension of this sentiment to a larger group, would arise 
when single families united into hordes. 

This attempt to explain the prohibition of marriage 
between kindred and exogamy has not lacked sympathetic 
support,’ but more commonly, I think, it has been rejected. 
Yet after a careful consideration of the various objections 
raised against it I find no reason to alter my opinion. 
Some of my opponents have evidently failed to grasp the 

1 A. R. Wallace, in his ‘Introduc- with regard to my theory that, at any 
tory, Note’ to my Azstory of Human rate, I am ‘“‘ well on the track.” See 
Marriage, p. vi. Giddings, Principles also Crooke, 7rzbes and Castes of the 
of Soctology, p. 267. Howard, History North-Western Provinces and Oudh, 
of Matrimonzal Institulions, i. 125sqg. 1. pp. clxxix, clxxx, ccil. 

Prof. Tylor (in Academy, xl. 289) says 

i) 

B B 

we MARRIAGE CHAP. 
argument on which the theory 1 is based. Thus Professor 
Robertson Smith argued that it begins by presupposing the 
very custom which it professes to explain, the custom of 
exogamy ; that ‘‘it postulates the existence of groups which 
through many generations (for the survival of the fittest 
implies this) avoided wiving ‘within the group.”' But 
what my theory postulates is not the existence of exogamous 
groups, but the spontaneous appearance of individual sen- 
timents of aversion. And if, as Mr. Andrew Lang main- 
tains, my whole argument is a “ vicious circle,’ * then the 
theory of natural selection itself is a vicious circle, since 
there never could be a selection of qualities that did not 
exist before. 

It has been argued that if close living together calls 
forth aversion to sexual intercourse, such aversion ought 
to display itself between husband and wife as well as be- 
tween near relatives.* But these cases are certainly not 
identical. The feeling of which I have spoken is aversion 
associated with the idea of sexual intercourse between per- 
sons who have lived in a long-continued intimate relation- 
ship from a period of life when the action of sexual desire 
is naturally out of the question.* On the other hand, when 
a man marries a woman his feeling towards her is one very 
different kind, and his love impulse may remain, nay in 
crease, during the conjugal union ; though even in this 
case long living together has undoubtedly a tendency to 
lead to sexual indifference and sometimes to positive aver- 
sion. ‘The opinion that the home is kept free from in- 
cestuous intercourse only by law, custom, and education,’ 

1 Robertson Smith, in ature, xliv. 

271. 

2 Lang, Soczal Origins, p. 33. 

3 Durkheim, ‘La _ prohibition de 
Vinceste et ses origines,’? in L’année 
soctologique, 1. 64. Professor Durkheim 
refers in this connection to an article by 
Dr. Simmel, ‘ Die Verwandtenehe,’ in 
Vossische Zeitung, June 3rd and toth, 
1894. But I cannot find that Dr. 
Simmel is really opposed to my view. 
He only says, ‘‘ Das intime Beisammen- 
leben wirkt keineswegs nur abstumpf- 

end, sondern in vielen Fallen gerade 
anreizend, sonst wiirde die alte Erfahr- 
ung nicht gelten, dass die Liebe, wo 
sie beim Eingehen der Ehe fehlte, oft 
im Laufe derselben entsteht.” 

4 Cf. Bentham, Theory of Legisia- 
Zion, p. 220:—‘‘ Individuals accus- 
tomed to see each other and to know 
each other, from an age which is 
neither capable of conceiving the desire 
nor of inspiring it, will see each other 
with the same eyes to the end of life.” 

° For advocates of such a view see 

shows lack of discrimination. Law may forbid a son to 
marry his mother, a brother to marry his sister, but it could 
not prevent him from desiring such a union. Have the 
most draconic codes ever been able to suppress, say, homo- 
sexual love? As Plato observed, an unwritten law defends 
as sufficiently as possible parents from incestuous inter- 
course with their children, brothers from intercourse with 
their sisters ; ‘nor does the thought of such a thing ever 
enter at all into the minds of most of them.’’! Consider- 
ing the extreme variability to which the sexual impulse is 
subject, it is not astonishing that cases of what we consider 
incestuous intercourse sometimes do occur. It seems to 
me more remarkable that the abhorrence of incest should 
be so general, and the exceptions to the rule so few. 

Dr. Havelock Ellis, again, objects that my theory 
assumes the existence of a kind of instinct which can with 
difficulty be accepted. ‘An innate tendency,” he says, 
‘“‘at once so specific and so merely negative, involving at 
the same time deliberate intellectual processes, can only 
with a certain force be introduced into the accepted class of 
instincts. It is as awkward and artificial an instinct as 
would be, let us say, an instinct to avoid eating the apples 
that grew in one’s own orchard. The explanation of the 
abhorrence of incest is really, however, exceedingly simple. 

The normal failure of the pairing instinct to manifest 
itself in the case of brothers and sisters, or of boys and 
girls brought up together from infancy, is a merely nega- 
tive phenomenon due to the inevitable absence under those 
circumstances of the conditions which evoke the pairing 
impulse. Between those who have been brought up 
together fom childhood all the sensory stimuli of vision, 
hearing, and touch have been dulled by use, trained to the 
calm level of affection, and deprived of ahr potency to 

Westermarck, of. cit. p. 310 sgg. toMr.Colenso(Maord Races, p. 47 59.), 

More recently it has been expressed by 
Krauss, in Amz U7-Quell, iv. 151, and 
Finck, Przmztzve Love, p. 49. 

1 Plato, Zeges, viii. 838. Among 
the Maoris of New Zealand, according 

adult brothers and sisters slept together, 
as they had always done from their 
birth, ‘‘not only without sin, but with- 
out thought of it.” 

arouse the erethistic excitement which. produces sexual 
tumescence.”! | think that Dr. Ellis has considerably 
exaggerated the difference between my theory and his own. 
The “instinct ” of which I have spoken is simply aversion 
to sexual intercourse with certain persons, and this is a no 
more complicated mental phenomenon than, for instance, 
an animal’s aversion to eating certain kinds of substances. 
Indeed, Dr. Ellis himself, in his excellent ‘Studies in the 
Psychology of Sex,’ gives us many instances not only of 
sexual indifference, but of sexual aversion, quite instinctive 
in character.” Thus the largest proportion of male inverts 
described by him experience what is called horror femine, 
that is to say, “‘ woman as an object of sexual desire is dis- 
gusting” (not merely indifferent) to them.? And Dr. 
Ellis also repeatedly speaks of the “ abhorrence ”’ of incest. 
The objection has been raised that, if my explanation 
of the prohibition of incest were correct, connections 
between unrelated persons who have been brought up 
together should be as repulsive as connections between 
near kin ; whereas, as a matter of fact, the two cases are 
regarded in a very different light, the latter, only, being 
held incestuous.*. Much, of course, depends on the 
closeness of the union, and Dr. Steinmetz’s argument that 
‘“‘the very sensual Frenchmen often seem to marry the 
lady friends of their earliest youth,”® is certainly not to 
the point. I believe that sexual love between a man and 
his foster-daughter is almost as great an abnormality 
as. sexual love between a father and his daughter; and 
among some peoples marriages between persons who have 
been brought up together in the same family or who 

' Havelock Ellis, Studies inthe  stinct ‘has nothing in its content ex- 

Psychology of Sex, ‘ Sexual Selection in 
Man,’ p. 205 sg. 

2 T have been blamed for making an 
illegitimate use of the word “‘ instinct” 
(Crawley, Zhe MZystic Rose, p. 446). 
But if, as Dr. Ellis says, ‘‘ an instinct 
is fundamentally a more or less com- 
plicated series of reflexes set in action 
by a definite stimulus,” or, as Mr. 
Crawley puts it (of. czt. p. 446), in- 

cept response of function to environ- 
ment,” then the aversion I speak of 
may certainly be called an instinct. 

3 TIavelock Ellis, of. cz¢. p. 164. 

+ Steinmetz, ‘Die neueren Forsch- 
ungen zur Geschichte der menschlichen 
Familie,’ in Zeztschr. f. Soctalwiss, ii. 
818 sg. 

5 Lbid. ii. 818. 

belong to the same local group, without being related to 

each other by blood, are held blamable or are actually 
prohibited.’ Even Decreen. lads and girls who have been 
educated in the same school there is a remarkable absence 
of erotic feelings, as appears from an interesting com- 
munication by a person who has for many years been the 
head-mistress of such a school in Finland. One youth 
assured her that neither he nor any of his friends would 
ever think of marrying a girl who had been their school- 
fellow ;° and I heard of alad who madea great distinction 
between girls of his own school and other, “real,” girls, as 
he called them. Yet however objectionable and nel 
unions between  foster-parents and foster-children or 
between foster-brothers and foster-sisters may appear to 
us, I do not deny that unions between the nearest 
blood-relatives inspire a horror of their own ; and it seems 
natural that they should do so considering that from earliest 
times the aversion to sexual intercourse between persons 
living closely together has been expressed in prohibitions 
against unions between kindred. Such unions have been 
stigmatised by custom, law, and religion, whilst much less 
notice has been taken of intercourse between unrelated 
persons who may occasionally have grown up in the same 
household. The belief in the supernatural, especially, has 
played. a very important part in the ideas referring to 
incest, as in other points of sexual morality, owing to the 
mystery which surrounds everything connected with the 
function of reproduction.? The Aleuts in early times 
believed that incest, which they considered the gravest 
crime, was always followed by the birth of monsters with 
walrus tusks, beards, and other disfigurations.* The Kafirs 

1 Westermarck, op. czt. p. 321 sqq. 3 For the connection between reli- 

Among the Western Islanders of Torres 
Straits marriage was forbidden, ‘‘ with 
a remarkable delicacy of feeling, to the 
sister of a man’s particular friend” 
(Haddon, ‘Ethnology of the Western 
Tribe of Torres Straits,’ in /owr. 
Anthr. Inst. xix. 315). 

2 Lucina Hagman, ‘Fran sam- 
skolan,’ in Humanitas, il. 188 sg. 

gious feelings and the sexual impulse, 
see Vallon and Marie, ‘ Des psychoses 
religieuses,’ in Archives de Neurologie, 
ser. li. vol. ili, 184 sg. 3 Gadelius, Om 
tvangstankar, p. 120 sg.3; Starbuck, 
Psychology of Religion, p. 401 sqq. 

4 Veniaminof, quoted by [Petroff, 
Report on Alaska, p. 155. 

likewise maintain that the offspring of an incestuous union 
will be a monster, as ‘“‘a punishment inflicted by the 
ancestral spirit.” ’ The Bataks of Sumatra regard a long 
drought as a decisive proof that two cousins have had 
criminal intercourse with each other.? The Galelarese 
think that incest calls forth alarming natural phenomena, 
such as earthquakes, the eruption of a volcano, or torrents 
of rain.* So also the higher religions have branded incest 
as a heinous sin. As for Christianity’s views on the 
subject, it is sufficient to notice that the prohibited degrees 
were extended by the Church,* and that the jurisdiction 
over incest, as over all sexual offences, was exercised by 
the ecclesiastical courts.? 

It has, finally, been argued that my theory utterly 
fails to explain the fact that prohibitions of inter- 
marriage frequently refer to all the members of a clan, 
even those who live in different localities.° In addition to 
what I have previously observed on this point, I desire to 
emphasise that every hypothesis pretending to give a 
full explanation of prohibitions of incest must assume 
the operation of the very same mental law—that of 
association—which in my 
exogamy. Thus Professor Durkheim, while maintaining 
that my theory as regards the horror of incest could not 
apply to exogamy because the members of the same totem 
do not live together, is himself quite ready to resort to 
analogy to explain prohibitions extending outside the 
totem clan. He tries to show that clan-exogamy is the 
source of all other prohibitions against incest, and that 
clan-exogamy itself springs from totemism.” According 

opinion accounts for clan-— 

1 Shooter, Ka/firs of Natal, p. 45. 

2 von Brenner, Beszch bet den Kan- 
nibalen Sumatras, p. 212. 

3 van Baarda, ‘ Fabelen, verhalen en 
overleveringen der Galelareezen,’ in 
Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volken- 
kunde van Nederlandsch-Indié, xlv. 
(ser. vi. vol. i.) p. 514. See also 
Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 212 sg. 

4 Westermarck, of. cz¢. p. 308. Katz, 
Grundriss des kanontschen Strafrechts, 

p- 116 sg. 

5 Stephen, Hlistory of the Criminal 
Law of England, ii. 411. 

§ Cunow, of. cé#. p. 185. Durkheim, 
in L’année soctologeque, i. 39, n. 2. 
Steinmetz, in Zeztschr. f. Soctalwiss, ii. 

? Prof. Durkheim says (L’année 
Soctologigue, 1. 50):—‘* Le sang est 
tabou dune maniere générale et il 
taboue tout ce qui entre en rapports 

rs 

ae 

XL MARRIAGE yer 
to him the rule of clan-exogamy has been extended to near 
relatives belonging to different clans, because they are in 
no less intimate contact with each other than are the 
members of the same clan. According to my own theory, 
again, the prohibition of marriage between near relatives 
living closely together has been extended to all the 
members of the clan on account of the notion of intimacy 
connected with the idea of a common descent and with a 
common name. If I consider Professor Durkheim’s 
hypothesis extremely unsatisfactory,’ it is certainly not 
because he has called in the law of association to explain 
the rules against incest. How could anybody deny the 
operation of this law for instance in the Roman Catholic 
prohibition of marriage between co-sponsors, or in the rule 
prevalent in Eastern Europe according to which the 
groomsman at the wedding is forbidden to intermarry with 
the family of the bride,’ or in laws prohibiting marriage 
between relatives by alliance? And why might not the 

nombre des individus entre lesquels le 
mariage est prohibé diminue. C'est 
ainsi que, par une évolution graduelle, 
elle en est arrivée a létat actuel ot 
les mariages entre ascendants et de- 
scendants, entre fréres et sceurs, sont 
a peu pres les seuls qui soient radicale- 
ment interdits.” 

1 Professor Durkheim tries to ex- 
plain a phenomenon of universal preva- 
lence through an institution which has 
been proved to exist among certain 
peoples only. How does Professor 
Durkheim know that totem clans once 
prevailed among all peoples who now 
prohibit the intermarriage of near 
relatives? If the rules which prevent 
parents from marrying their children 

avec lui. ... La femme est, d'une 
maniére chronique, le théatre de mani- 
festations sanglantes. . . . La femme 
est donc, elle aussi, et d’une manicre 
également chronique, tabou pour les 
autres membres du clan.” However, 
the taboo is not restricted to the mem- 
bers of the clan, but refers also to near 
relatives belonging to different clans, 
and this has to be explained. M. 
Durkheim writes (z6zd. p. 19) :— 
**Quand on a pris Vhabitude de 
regarder comme incestueux et abomi- 
nables les rapports conjugaux de sujets 
qui sont nominalement du méme clan, 
les rapports similaires d’individus qui, 
tout en ressortissant verbalement a des 
clans différents, sont pourtant en con- 

tact aussi ou plus intime que les pré- and brothers from marrying _ their 
cédents, ne peuvent manquer de __ sisters aresurvivals of ancient totemism, 
prendre le méme caractére.” “And how shall we explain the normal 
further (zdzd. p. 58):—‘‘Quand le aversion to such unions? Ancient 

totémisme disparait, et avec lui la totemism can certainly not account for 
parenté spéciale au clan, ’exogamie this. But then the coincidence between 
devient solidaire des nouveaux types de these two facts—the legal prohibition 
famille qui se constituent et qui re- of incest and the psychical aversion to it 

posent sur d’autres bases, et comme 
ces familles sont plus restreintes que 
métait le clan, elle se circonscrit, elle 
aussi, dans un cercle moins étendu; le 

—is merely accidental ; and this seems 
to me a preposterous supposition. 

2 Maine, Dessertatcons on Early Law 
and Custom, p. 257 Sq. 

same law be applied to other relationships also, such as 
those constituted by a common descent or a common 
name? 

There is not only an inner circle within which no 
marriage is allowed, but also -an outer circle outside of 
which marriage is either prohibited or at least disapproved 
of. Like the inner circle, the outer one varies greatly in 
extent.' Probably every people considers it a disgrace, if 
not a crime, for its men, and even more so for its women, 
to marry ane a race very different from its own, 
especially if it be an inferior race. The Romans were 
prohibited from marrying barbarians—the emperor 
Valentinian inflicted the penalty of death for such unions ; ” 
and a modern European girl who married an Australian 
native would no doubt be regarded as an outcast by her 
own society. Among many peoples marriage very seldom 
or never takes place outside the limits of the tribe or 
community. In India there are several .instances of this. 
The Tipperahs and Abors view with abhorrence the idea 
of their girls marrying out of their clan ;* and Colonel 
Dalton was gravely assured that, “ when one of the 
daughters of Padam so demeans herself, the sun and moon 
refuse to shine, and there is such a-strife in the elements 
that all labour is necessarily suspended, till by sacrifice and 
oblation the stain is washed away.” * In ancient Peru it 
was not lawful for the natives of one province or village to 
intermarry with those of another.’ Marriage with foreign 
women was unlawful at Sparta and Athens.° At Rome 
any marriage of a citizen with a woman who was not 
herself a Roman citizen, or did not belong to a community 
possessing the privilege of connubium with Rome, was 

invalid, and no legitimate children could be born of such a 
union.’ 

1 Westermarck, of. cet. p. 363 sqq. of the Royal Commentaries of the 

2 Rossbach, Rémische Lhe, p. 465. Yncas, i. 308. 

3 Lewin, Wild kaces of South- 8 Miiller, History of the Doric Race, 
Eastern India, ). 201. ii, 302. Hearn, Zhe Aryan House- 

4 Dalton, Z¢hnology of Bengal, p. 28. hold, p. 156 sq. 
° Garcilasso de la Vega, Fzrst Part 7 Gaius, Lnstetetiones, i. 56. 

Prohibitions of intermarriage also very often relate to 
persons belonging to different classes or castes of the same 
community... To mention a few instances. The wild 
tribes of Brazil consider alliances between slaves and free- 
men highly disgraceful.? In Tahiti, if a woman of 
condition chose an inferior person as her husband, the 
children he had by her were killed? In the Malay 
Archipelago marriages between persons of different rank 
are, as arule, disapproved of, and in some places prohibited.’ 
In India intermarriage between different castes, though 
formerly permissible, is now altogether prohibited.” In 
Rome plebeians and patricians could not intermarry till 
the year 445 B.c., nor were marriages allowed between 
patricians and clients ; and Cicero himself disapproved of 
intermarriages of ingenui and freedmen.° Among the 
Teutonic peoples in ancient times any freeman who 
married a slave became a slave himself.’ As late as the 
thirteenth century a German woman who had intercourse 
with a serf lost her liberty ;* and both in Germany and 
Scandinavia, when the nobility emerged as a distinct order 
from the class of freemen, marriages between persons of 
noble birth and persons who, although free, were not noble 
came to be considered misalliances.2 Even in modern 
Europe there survive traces of the former class endogamy. 
According to German Civil Law, the marriage of a man 
belonging to the high nobility with a woman of inferior 
birth is still regarded asa disparagium, and the woman is 
not entitled to the rank of her husband, nor is the full 
right of inheritance possessed by her or her children.” 
Although in no way prevented by law, marriages out of 

1 Westermarck, of. cét. p. 368 sgq. 6 Mommsen, fzstory of Romie, i. 371. 

2 von Martius, Bectrige zur Ethno- 

eraphie Amerika’s, i. 71. von Spix 
and von Martius, 7vavels in Brazil, 
il. 74. 
3 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 256. 
Cook, Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, ii. 
171 Sg. 

4 Westermarck, of. cz¢. p. 371. 

5 Monier-Williams, Mznzduzsm, p. 

155: 

Rossbach, of. c2¢z. pp. 249, 456 sg. 

7 Winroth, Aktenskapshindren, pp. 
227, 

8 Jiid. p. 230 sg. Weinhold, 
Deutsche Frauen in dem Mittelalter, 
1. 349, 353 59. 3 

» Weinhold, of. czt. 1. 349 sg. 

10 Behrend, in von Holtzendorff, 
Encyclopidie der Rechtswissenschafe, 
i. 478. 

the class are generally avoided by custom. As Sir Henry 
Maine observes, “the outer or endogamous limit, within 
which a man or woman must marry, has been mostly taken 
under the shelter of fashion or prejudice. It is but 
faintly traced in England, though not wholly obscured. It 
is (or perhaps was) rather more distinctly marked in the 
United States, through prejudices against the blending of 
white and coloured blood. But in Germany certain 
hereditary dignities are still forfeited by a marriage beyond 
the forbidden limits ; and in France, in spite of all formal 
institutions, marriages between a person belonging to the 
noblesse and a person belonging to the dourgeoisie (distin- 
guished roughly from one another by the particle ‘de’ ) 
are wonderfully rare, though they are not unknown.” ? 
Religion, also, has formed a great bar to intermarriage. 
Among Muhammedansa marriage between a Christian man 
and a Muhammedan woman is not permitted under any 
circumstances, whereas it is held lawful for a Muhammedan 
to marry a Christian or a Jewish, but not a heathen, 
woman, if induced to do so by excessive love of her, or if 
he cannot obtain a wife of his own religion.” The Jewish 
law Hs not recognise marriage with a person of another 
belief ;? and during the Middle Ages marriage between 
Jews and Christians was prohibited by the Christians also.‘ 
St. Paul indicates that a Christian was not allowed to marry 
a heathen.® ‘Tertullian calls such an alliance fornication ; ° 
and in the fourth century the Council of Elvira forbade 
Christian parents to give their daughters in marriage 
to heathens.” Even the adherents of different Christian 
confessions have been prohibited from intermarrying. In 

' Maine, Zarly Law and Custom, Race-Types of the Jews,’ in /ozr. 

p. 224 sg. 

2 Lane, Manners and Customs of the 
Modern Egyptians, i. 123. d’Escayrac 
de Lauture, Dee afrikanische Waiste, 
p. 68. 

3 Frankel, Grwndlinzen des mosaisch- 
talmudischen Lherechts, p. xx. Ritter, 
Philo und die Halacha, p. 71. 

+ Andree, Zur 
Juden, p. 48. Neubauer, ‘ Notes on the 

Volkskunde der 

Anthr. Inst. xv. 19. 

5 1 Corinthians, vii. 39. 

® Tertullian, Ad wxorem, ii. 3 
(Migne, Patrologie curstus, 1. 1292 sy.). 

” Concilium Eliberitanum, cap. 15 
sg. (Labbe-Mansi, Sacrorum Concile- 
orum collectio, ii. 8). See also Miiller, 
Das sexuelle Leben der christlichen 
Kulturvolhker, p. 54. 

the Roman Catholic Church the prohibition of marriage 
with heathens and Jews was. soon followed by the pro- 
hibition of ‘mixed marriages,” and Protestants likewise 
forbade such unions.’ Mixed marriage§ are not now 
contrary to the civil law either among Roman Catholic or 
Protestant nations, but in countries belonging to the 
Orthodox Greek Church ecclesiastical restrictions have 
been adopted, and are still recognised, by the State.” 

The endogamous rules are in the first place due to the 
proud antipathy people feel to races, nations, classes, or 
religions different from their own. He who breaks such a 
rule is regarded as an offender against the circle to which 
he belongs. He hurts its feelings, he disgraces it at the 
same time as he disgraces himself. Irregular connections 
outside the endogamous circle are often looked upon with 
less intolerance than marriage, which places the parties on 
a more equal footing. - A traveller relates that at Djidda, 
where sexual morality is held in little respect, a Bedouin 
woman may yield herself for money to a Turk or European, 
but would think herself for ever dishonoured if she were 
joined to him in lawful wedlock.’ In Rome contubernium, 
but not marriage, could take place between freemen and 
slaves.* And among ourselves public opinion regards it 
as a much more lenient offence if a royal person keeps a 
woman of inferior rank as his concubine than if he 
marries her. 

Modern civilisation tends more or less to pull down the 
barriers which separate races, nations, the various classes of 
society, and the adherents of different religions. he endo- 
gamous rules have thus become less stringent and less 
restricted. Whilst civilisation has narrowed the inner limit 
within which a man or woman must not marry, it has 
widened the outer limit within which a man or woman may 
marry, and generally marries. The latter of these pro- 
cesses has been one of vast importance in man’s history. 

1 Winroth, of. czt. p. 213 sgg. Cf. d’Escayrac de Lauture, of. cet. 
2 [bid. p. 220 sq. p» 155. 
3 de Gobineau, Moral and Jntel- 4 Westermarck, of. cz¢. p. 372. 

lectual Diversity of Races, p. 174, n. I. 

Originating in race- or class- -pride, or in religious intoler- 
ance, the endogamous rules have in their turn helped to 
keep up and to strengthen these feelings. Frequent 
intermarriages, ‘on the other hand, must have the very 
opposite effect. 

Like the rules referring to the choice of partners, so the 
modes of contracting marriage and the ideas as to what in 
this respect is right and proper have undergone successive 
changes. The practice of capturing wives prevails in cer- 
tain parts of the world, and traces of it are met with in the 
marriage ceremonies of several peoples, indicating that it 
occurred more frequently in past ages.’ This practice, as 
it seems to me, has chiefly sprung from the aversion to close 
intermarriage, together with the difficulty a savage man 
may have in procuring a wife in a friendly manner, with- 
out giving compensation for the loss he inflicts on her 
family. We may imagine that it chiefly occurred ata stage 
of social growth where family ties had become stronger, and 
man lived in small groups of nearly related persons, but 
where the idea of barter had scarcely presented itself to his 
mind. Yet I do not think that capture was at any period 
the exclusive form of contracting marriage ; its prevalence 
seems to have been much exaggerated by McLennan and 
his school.” It 1s impossible to believe that there ever was 
a time when friendly negotiations between families who 
could intermarry were altogether unknown. The custom 
prevalent among many savage tribes of a husband taking 
up his abode in his wife’s family seems to have arisen very 
early in man’s history. 

Among most uncivilised peoples now existing a man has, 
in some way or other, to give compensation for his bride.® 
The simplest way of purchasing a wife is to give a kins- 
woman in exchange for her—a practice prevalent among 

1 Westermarck, of, cit. ch, xvii. punishable act of violence, But, as Dr. 
? Dr.Grosse (Die Formen der Familie, avelock Ellis justly observes (Stzdies 
p- 105) goes so far as to believe that 7 the Psychology of Sex, ‘ Analysis of 
marriage by capture has never beena the Sexual Impulse,’ p. 62, n. 2), this 
form of marriage recognised by custom _ position is too extreme. 
or law, but only an occasional and 3 Westermarck, of. ci¢. p. 390 sgq. 

own 

Australian tribes. Much more common is the custom of 
obtaining a wife by services rendered to her father, the man 
taking up his abode with the family of the girl for a certain 
time, during which he works asa servant. But the ordinary 
compensation for a girl is property paid to her father, or in 
some cases to her uncle, or to some othef relatives as well 
as to the father. Marriage by exchange or purchase is not 
only general among existing lower races ; it occurs, or 
formerly occurred, among semi-civilised nations of a higher 
culture as well—in Central America and Peru, in China 
and Japan, in the various branches of the Semitic race, in 
the past history of all so-called Aryan peoples. We have 
no evidence that it is a stage through which every race has 
passed ; we notice its absence among some of the rudest 
races with whom we are acquainted. Yet with more reason 
than marriage by capture, purchase of wives may be said to 
form a general stage in the social history of mankind. 
Although the two practices may occur simultaneously, the 
former seems more often to have succeeded the latter, as 
barter in general has followed upon robbery. It has been 
suggested that the transition from marriage by capture to 
marriage by purchase was brought about in the following 
way : abduction, in spite of parents, was the primary form ; 
then there came the offering of compensation to escape 
vengeance ; and this grew eventually into the making of 
presents or paying a sum beforehand. The price was a 
compensation for the loss sustained in the giving up of the 
girl, and a remuneration for the expenses incurred in her 
maintenance till the time of her marriage. The girl was 
regarded more or less in the light of property, to take her 
away from her owner without his consent was theft. To 
claim a compensation for her was his right, or even his 
duty. The Indians in Columbia consider it in the highest 
degree disgraceful to the girl’s family if she is given away 
without a price ;” and in certain tribes of California “ the 

1 Koenigswarter, Etwaes historiques 2 Bancroft, MWative Races of the 
sur le développement de la société Pacific States, i. 277. Cf. von Weber, 

humaine, p. 53. Spencer, Principles Vier Jahre in Afrika, i. 215 Sy. 
of Sociology, \. 625. (Kafirs). 

children of a woman for whom no money was paid are 
accounted no better than bastards, and the whole family are 
condemned.” ! 

With progressing civilisation, however, the practice of 
purchasing wives has been gradually abandoned, and come 
to be looked upon asinfamous. ‘The wealthier classes took 
the first step, and poorer and ruder. persons subsequently 
followed their examples. Thus in India, in ancient times, 
the Asura form, or marriage by purchase, was lawful for 
all the four castes. Afterwards it fell into disrepute, and 
was prohibited among the Brahmanas and Kshatriyas, 
whereas it was still approved of in the case of a Vaisya and 
a Sidra. But in the ‘Laws of Manu’ it is forbidden 
altogether.” It is said there, “‘ No father who knows the 
law must take even the smallest gratuity for his daugh- 

r; fora man who, through avarice, takes a gratuity, 
is a seller of his offspring.” ® The Greeks of the histo- 
rical age had ceased to buy their wives. In Rome con- 
farreatio, which suggested no idea of purchase, was in the 
very earliest known time the form of marriage in force 
among the patricians; and among clients and plebeians, 
also, the purchase of wives came to an end in remote 
antiquity, surviving as a mere symbol in their coémptio.* 
Among the Germans marriage by purchase was abolished 
only after their conversion to Christianity.° In the 
Talmudic law the purchase of wives appears as merely 
symbolical, the bride-price being fixed at a nominal 
amount." In China, although marriage presents correspond 
exactly to purchase-money in a contract of sale, the people 
will not hear of their being called a “ price Se rewnich 
shows that here, too, some feeling of shame is attached to 
the idea, of selling a daughter. 

We may discern two different ways in which this 

' Powers, Tribes of California, 5 Grimm, Deztsche  Rechtsalter- 
pp- 22, 56. thitimer, p. 424. 

2 Laws of Manz, iii. 23 sqq. 6 Gans, Erbrecht, i. 138. 

J aittare ills Sign LO Nh abs, Oy, Ole 7 Jamieson, ‘ Marriage Laws,’ in 

4 Rossbach, of. cz. pp. 92, 146, China Review, x. 78 n.* 
248, 250, &c. 

ys 

Perey; ite leer 

gradual disappearance of marriage by purchase has taken 
place. On the one hand, the purchase became a symbol, 
appearing as a sham sale in the marriage ceremonies or 
as an exchange of presents; on the other hand, the 
purchase sum was transformed into the morning gift and 
the dotal portion, a part—afterwards the whole—being 
given to the bride either directly by the bridegroom or by 
her father. These transformations of marriage by purchase 
have taken place not only in the history of the civilised 
nations, but among several peoples who are still in a savage 
or semi-civilised state; and of a few of them it is 
expressly stated that they consider marriage by purchase a 
disgraceful practice.’ 

From marriage by purchase we have thus come to the 
practice of dower, which is apparently the very reverse of 
it. But whilst the marriage portion partly derives its 
origin from the purchase of wives, it does not do so in 
every case. It serves different ends, often indissolubly 
mixed up together. It may have the meaning of a return 
gift. It may imply that the wife as well as the husband 
is expected to contribute to the expenses of the joint 
household. It is also very often intended to be a settle- 
ment for the wife in case the marriage be dissolved through 
the husband’s death or otherwise.” In the social history of 
the civilised races the marriage portion has played so 
prominent a part, that, as we have spoken of a stage of 
marriage by purchase, we may speak of another and later 
stage where fathers are bound by custom or law to portion 
their daughters. The Jews® and Muhammedans* consider 
it a religious duty for a man to give a dower to his 
daughter. In Greece the dowry came to be thought 
almost necessary to make the distinction between a wife 
and a concubine.’ Isaeus says that no decent man would 
give his legitimate daughter less than a tenth of his 

1 Westermarck, of. czt. p. 405 sgq. a Athénes,’in Revue de législation et 
2 [bid. p. 411 sgg. de jurisprudence, xxiv. 152. Potter, 
3 Mayer, Rechte der Tsraeliten,  Archeologia Greca, ii. 268. Cy. 

li. 344. Meier and Schémann, Der attische 
4 Koran, iv. 3. Process, p. 513 Sq. 

5 Cauvet, ‘L’organisation de la famille 

WONG, IO Gea 

property 3" indeed, so great were the dowers given that in 
the time of Aristotle nearly two fifths of the mole 
territory of Sparta were supposed to belong to women.” 
In Rome, even more than in Greece, the marriage a 
became a mark of distinction for a legitimate wife ;*° and 
though later on Justinian in several of his constitutions 
declares that dos is obligatory for persons of high rank 
only,‘ the old custom did not fall into desuetude.? The 
Prussian ‘Landrecht’ still prescribes that the father, or 
eventually the mother, shall arrange about the wedding 
and fit up the house of the newly-married couple.° Accord- 
ing to the ‘ Code Napoléon,’ on the other hand, parents are 
not bound to give a dower to their daughters,’ and the 
same principle is generally adopted by modern legislation. 
It is true that especially in the so-called Latin countries 
there is still a strong tendency to dotation,® but another 
feeling, in some measure opposed to it, is gaining ground 
everywhere. In a society where monogamy is prescribed 
by law, where the adult women outnumber the adult men, 
where many men never marry, and where married women 
too often lead an indolent life—in such a society the 
marriage portion in many cases becomes a purchase-sum 
by means of which a father buys a husband for his daughter, 
as formerly a man bought a wife from her father. But, 
as Mr. Sutherland observes, “that pecuniary interests, 
either on one side or on the other, should conspicuously 
enter into the motives which lead to marriage becomes 
repulsive to the increasing delicacy of feeling ; and so we 
find that in cultured communities the dowry dies ‘out, 
just as the purchase-money declined in the civilised 
stages.” ° 

1 Tsaeus, Oratio de Pyrrhi hereditate, 
51, P. 43. 

2 Aristotle, Polztéca, li. 9, p. 1270 a. 

3 Laboulaye, Recherches sur la con- 
dition civile et politique des femmes, 
p- 38 sg. Ginoulhiac, Azstotre du 
régime dotal, p. 66. Meier and 
Schomann, of. c2¢. p. 513 Sg. 

4 Ginhoulhiac, of. cz¢. p. 103. 

® For dos necessaria in Germany 

during the Middle Ages, see Mitter- 
maier, Grundsatze des gemeinen deut- 
schen Privatrechts, ii. 3. 

6 Eccius, in von Holtzendorff, Ency- 
BAL der Rechiswissenschaft, ii. 414. 

” Code Napoléon, art. 204. 

8 See Maine, Zarly History of Insti- 
tutions, Pp. 339. 

iw Sutherland, Origin and Growth of 
the Moral Instinct, i. 243. 

Whilst most of the lower animal species are by instinct 
either monogamous or polygynous, with man_ every 
possible form of marriage occurs. There are marriages of 
one man with one woman (monogamy), of one man with 
many women (polygyny), of many men with one woman 
(polyandry), and, a a few exceptional cases, of many men 
with many women." 

Among the causes by which the forms of marriage are 
influenced the numerical proportion between the sexes 
plays an important part. Polyandry seems to be due 
chiefly to a surplus of men, though it prevails only where 
the circumstances are otherwise in favour of it. It pre- 
supposes an abnormally feeble disposition to jealousy, and 
has probably at all times been exceptional in the human 
race. ‘There is no solid evidence for the theory set forth 
by McLennan that it was the rule in early times. On 
the contrary, this form of marriage seems to require a 
certain degree of civilisation; we have no trustworthy 
account of its occurrence among the lowest savages. In 
polyandrous families the husbands are most frequently 
brothers, and the eldest brother, at least in many cases, has 
the superiority. It seems a fair conclusion that in such 
instances polyandry was originally an expression of fraternal 
benevolence on the part of the eldest brother, or of urgent 
demands on the part of the younger ones, who other- 
wise, on account of the scarcity of women, would have to 
live unmarried. If additional wives were afterwards 
acquired, they would naturally be considered the common 
property of all the brothers; and in this way the group 
marriage of the Toda type seems to have evolved.* 
Polygyny, also, is to some extent dependent upon the 
proportion Bearcat the sexes. It has been observed in 
India that polyandry occurs in those parts of the country 
where the males outnumber the females, polygyny in those 

1 Westermarck, of. czt. ch. xx. N.S. xxi. 703 sgg. Jdem, Studies in 
2 Tbid. p. 482. Ancient History, p. 112 sq. 
3 McLennan, ‘The Levirate and 4 Westermarck, of. czt. p. 510 sqg. 
Polyandry,’ in Fortnightly Review, Seealso Rivers, Zodas, pp. 515, 519, 
oie 

2) 
.@) 
i) 

where the reverse is the case.1 Indeed, in countries 
unaffected by European civilisation polygyny is likely 
to prevail wherever there is a majority of women. But 
the proportion between the sexes is only one cause out of | 
many to which polygyny is due. 

There are several reasons why a man may desire to 
possess more than one_wife.” Monogamy requires from 
him periodical continence, not only for a certain time 
every month, but among many peoples during the 
pregnancy of his wife, and as long as she suckles her child. 
One of the chief causes of polygyny is the attraction 
which female youth and beauty exercise upon a man ; and 
at the lower stages of civilisation women generally become 
old much sooner than in more advanced communities. 
The liking of men for variety is also a potent factor; the 
Negroes of Angola asserted that they ‘‘ were not able to 
eat always of the same dish.” * We must further take 
into account men’s desire for offspring, wealth, and 
authority. The barrenness of a wife is a very common 
reason for the choice of a new partner ; the polygyny of 
the ancient Hindus seems to have been due chiefly to the 
fact that men dreaded the idea of dying childless, and 
even now in the East the desire for offspring is one of the 
principal causes of polygyny.* The more wives, the more 
children ; and the more children, the greater power. In 
early civilisation a man’s relations and connections are 
often his only friends ; and where slavery does not prevail, 
next to a man’s wives the real servant, the only to be 
counted upon, is the child. Moreover, a man’s fortune is 
increased by a multitude of wives not only through their 
children, but through their work. Manual labour among 
savages is undertaken largely by women ; and when neither 
slaves nor persons who will work for hire can be procured, 

1 Goehlert, ‘Die Geschlechtsver- Congo,’ in Pinkerton, Codlection of 
schiedenheit der Kinder in den Ehen,’ Voyages, xvi. 299. 
in Zettschr. f. Ethnologie, xiii. 127. * Wallin,  eseanteckningar fran 
2 Westermarck, of. czt. p. 483 sq. Oriente, iii. 267. Le Bon, La civi- 
* Merolla da Sorrento, ‘ Voyage to J/ésation des Arabes, p. 424. Gray, 
China, i. 184. 

it becomes necessary for any man who requires many 
servants to have many wives. 

Nevertheless, however desirable polygyny may be from 
-the man’s point of view, it is altogether prohibited among 
many peoples, and in countries where it is an established 
institution it is practised—as a rule to which there are few 
exceptions—only by a comparatively small class. The 
proportion between the sexes partly accounts for this, but 
there are other causes of no less importance.? Where the 
amount of female labour is limited and no accumulated 
property exists, it may be very difficult for a man to keep 
a plurality of wives. Again, where female labour is of 
considerable value, the necessity of paying the purchase- 
sum for a wife is a hindrance to polygyny which can be 
overcome only by the wealthier men. There are, more- 
over, certain factors of a psychical character which are 
unfavourable to polygyny. When love depends on 
external attractions only, it is necessarily fickle ; but when 
it implies sympathy arising from mental qualities, there is 
a tie between husband and wife which lasts long after 
youth and beauty are gone. As another obstacle to 
polygyny we have to note the true monogamous 
sentiment, the absorbing passion for one, which is not 
unknown even among savage races. Polygyny is finally 
checked by the respect in which women are held by 
men. Jealousy is not exclusively a masculine passion, and 
it is the ambition of every wife to be the mistress of her 
husband’s house. Hence where women have succeeded in 
obtaining some power over their husbands, or where the 
altruistic feelings of men have become refined enough to 
lead them to respect the feelings of those weaker than 
themselves, monogamy is frequently the result. 

It is certain that polygyny has been less prevalent at the 
lowest stages of civilisation—where wars do not seriously 
disturb the proportion of the sexes, where life is chiefly 
supported by hunting and female labour is consequently of 
slight value, and where there is no accumulation of wealth 

1 Westermarck, of. czt. p. 435 599. 2 bid. p. 493 599. 

and no distinction of class—than it is at somewhat higher 
stages.' The more advanced savages and barbarians seem 
to indulge in this practice to a greater extent than the 
lower ones, many, or most, of whom are either little 
addicted to polygyny or strictly monogamous. Various 
forest tribes in Brazil are monogamous,’ and so are 
several of the Californian tribes—‘‘a humble and a 
lowly race, . . . one of the lowest on earth.” Thus the 
Karok do not allow bigamy even to a chief ; and though 
a man may own as many women for slaves as he can 
purchase, he brings obloquy on himself if he cohabits with 
more than one.’ Among the Veddahs® and Andaman 
Islanders ° monogamy is as rigidly insisted upon as any- 
where in Europe. The natives of Kar Nicobar “ have 
but one wife, and look upon unchastity as a very deadly 
sin.’ * Among the Koch and Old Kukis polygyny and 
concubinage are forbidden ;* whilst among some other 
aboriginal tribes in India a man, though not expressly for- 
bidden to have many wives, is blamed if he has more than 
one.” Among the Karens of Burma” and certain tribes 

of Indo-China, the Malay Peninsula, and the Indian 

Archipelago, polygyny is said either to be prohibited or 

unknown." The Hill Dyaks marry but one wife, and a 
chief who once broke through this custom lost all his 
influence.” In Australia there are said to be some truly 
monogamous tribes;7* in the Birria ‘tribe, for instance; 
‘“‘ the possession of more than one wife-is absolutely for- 
bidden, or was so before the coming of the whites.” ™ 

' Westermarck, of. ctt. p. 505 sgq. 7 Distant, zézd. iii. 4. 

2 von Martius, of. c2t. 1. 274, 2098. 8 Dalton, op. czt. p. 91. Stewart, 
Wallace, Zravels on the Amazon, pp. “Notes on Northern Cachar,’ in /ewr. 
509, 515 sgg. Waitz, Anthropologie As. Soc. Bengal, xxiv. 621. 
der Naturvolker, iii. 472. 9 Dalton, of. czt. pp. 28, 54. Jelling- 

® Powers, of. cit. pp. 5, 56, 406. haus,‘ Munda-Kolhs in Chota Nagpore,’ 
Wilkes, U. S. Exploring Expedition, in Zettschr. f. Ethnol. iii. 370. 

v. 188. 10 Smeaton, Loyal Karens of Burma, 
4\Powers, of. czt. p. 22. Damo. 
5 Bailey, in Zrans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. 11 Westermarck, of. czt. p. 436 sg. 

li. 291 sg. Hartshorne, in Jxdian 2 Low, Sarawak, p. 300. 

Antiqguary, Vill. 320. 13 Curr, Australian Race, i. 402; 
SeManweiiey oun. cathe. Test. Xie yin 37s 

135. 14 Tbid. ii. 378. 

' 
; 
; 

a 

q 

‘vr 

Monogamy is all the more likely to have been the general 
rule among our earliest human ancestors as it seems to be 
so among the man-like apes. Darwin certainly mentions 
the gorilla as a polygamist ;' but the majority of state- 
ments we have regarding this animal are to the opposite 
effect. Relying on the most trustworthy authorities, 
Professor Hartmann says, “ The gorilla lives in a society 
consisting of male and female and their young of varying 
Epes??? 

Whilst civilisation is thus up to a certain point favour- 
able to polygyny, it leads in its higher forms to 
monogamy. Owing to the decrease of wars, the death-rate 
of the men becomes less, and the considerable dispropor- 
tion between the sexes which among many warlike peoples 
makes polygyny almost a law of nature no longer exists 
among the most advanced nations. No superstitious belief 
keeps the civilised man apart from his wife during her 
pregnancy and while she suckles her child; and the 
suckling time has become much shorter since the introduc- 
tion of domesticated animals and the use of milk. To a 
cultivated mind youth and beauty are by no means the 
only attractions of a woman; and civilisation has made 
female beauty more durable. The desire for offspring 
becomes less intense. A large family, instead of being a 
help in the struggle for existence, is often considered an 
insufferable burden. A man’s kinsfolk are no longer his 
only friends, and his wealth and power do not depend 
upon the number of his wives and children. A wife 
ceases to be a mere labourer, and manual labour is to a 
large extent replaced by the work of domesticated animals 
and the use of implements and machines. Moreover, the 
sentiment of love becomes more refined, the passion for 
one more absorbing. The feelings of the weaker sex are 
frequently held in higher regard. And the better educa- 
tion bestowed on women enables them to live comfortably 
without the support of a husband. 

1 Darwin, Descent of Man, pp. 217, 2 Hartmann, Deze menschendhnlichen 
590 sq. Affen, p. 214. 

As for the moral valuation of the various forms of 
marriage, it should be noticed that even among polygynous 
and polyandrous peoples monogamy is permitted by 
custom or law, although in some instances it is associated 
with poverty and considered mean, whereas polygyny, as 
associated with greatness, is thought praiseworthy.’ Again, 
the notion that monogamy is the only proper form of 
marriage, and that any other form is immoral, is due 
either to the mere force of habit; or, possibly, to the 
notion that it is wrong of some men to appropriate a 
plurality of wives when others in consequence can get 
none; or to the feeling that polygyny is an offence 
against the female sex; or to the condemnation of lust. 
As regards the obligatory monogamy of Christian nations, 
we have to remember that monogamy was the only recog- 
nised form of marriage in the societies on which Christian- 
ity was first engrafted, and that it was the only form that 
could be tolerated by a religion which regarded every 
gratification of the sexual impulse with suspicion and in- 
continence as the gravest sin. In its early days the Church 
showed little respect for women, but its horror of sensual- 
ity was immense. 

A few words still remain to be said of a form of marriage 
which has of late been the subject of much discussion in 
connection with Australian ethnology. Many years ago 
attention was drawn to the fact that the Kamilaroi tribes 
in South Australia are divided into four classes, in which 
brothers and sisters are respectively Ipai and Ipatha, Ktbi 
and Kubitha, Mtri and Matha, Kumbu and Biuitha; and 
that the members of one class are forbidden to marry 
among themselves, but bound to marry into a certain 
other class. Thus Ipai may only marry Kubitha ; Kiubi, 
Ipatha ; Kumbu, Matha; and Miri, Batha. Jn a certain 
sense, we were told, every Ipai is regarded as married, not 
by any individual contract, but by organic law, to every 
Kubitha ; every Ktibi to every Ipatha, and so forth. If, 
for instance, a Kiibi meet a stranger Ipatha, they address 

1 Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 657. 

each other as “ spouse’’; and “a Kitbi thus meeting an 
Ipatha, though she were of another tribe, would treat her 
as his wife, and his right ‘to do so would be recognised by 
her tribe.”' The institution according to which the 
men of one division have as wives the women of another 
division, the Rev. L. Fison called “group marriage.” 
He contends that among the natives of South Australia it 
has given way in later times, in some measure, to indivi- 
dual marriage. But theoretically, he says, marriage is still 
communal: ‘it is based upon the marriage of all the 
males in one division of a tribe to all the females of 
the same generation in another division.” The chief 
argument advanced by Mr. Fison in support of his theory 
is grounded on the terms of relationship in use in the 
tribes. These terms belong to the “ classificatory system” 
of Mr. Morgan ;* but he admits that he is not aware of 
any tribe in which the actual practice is to its full extent 
what the terms of relationship imply. <“* Present usage,” 
he says, ‘‘ is everywhere in advance of the system so implied, 
and the terms are survivals of an ancient right, not precise 
indications of custom as it is.”* The same is granted by 
Mr. Howitt. Yet I have pointed out, in my criticism of 
the classificatory system, to what absurd results we must be 
led if, guided by such terms, we begin to speculate upon 
early marriage.” Moreover, as I have said, “if a Kubi 
and an Ipatha address each other as spouse, this does not 
imply that in former times every Kttbi was married to 
every Ipatha indiscriminately. On the contrary, the 
application of such a familiar term might be explained 
from the fact that the women who may be a man’s wives, 
and those who cannot possibly be so, stand ina widely 
different relation to him.”° ‘This suggestion derives 
support from the following statement made by Dr. 
Codrington with reference to the Melanesians :—‘“ Speak- 

1 Ridley, Kdmlaréz, p. 161 sq. (edit. 4 Howitt, ‘Australian Group Rela- 
1866, p- 35 sgg.). Fison and Howitt, tions,’ in Smzthsontan Report, 1883, 
Kamiularot and Kurnat, pp. 36, 51, 53. p- 817. 

2 Fison and Howitt, of. cz¢. p. 60. > Westermarck, of. ct. ch. v. 

3 [bid. p. 159 sq. 6 Jbid. p. 56. 

ing generally, it may be said that to a Melanesian _man all 
women, of his own generation at least, are either sisters or 
wives, to the Melanesian woman all men are either 
brothers or husbands.... It must not be understood 
that a Melanesian regards all women who are not of his 
own division as, in fact, his wives, or conceives himself to 
have rights which he may exercise. in regard to those 
women of them who are unmarried ; but the women who 
may be his wives by marriage and those who cannot 
possibly be so, stand in a widely different relation to 
hints24 

More recently Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have shown 
that a marriage system essentially similar to that of the 
South Australian natives prevails in Central Australia ; 
and they, also, regard it as a later modification of genuine 
group marriage. Nowadays, they say, the system of indi- 
vidual wives prevails—“ modified, however, by the prac- 
tice of customs according to which, at certain times, much 
wider marital relations are allowed.” But to this rule there 
is one exception :—‘‘ In the Urabunna tribe group marriage 
actually exists at the present day, agroup of men of a cer- 
tain designation having, not merely nominally but in actual 
reality, and under normal conditions, marital sates with 
a group of women of another special designation” ; here 
“individual marriage does not exist either in name o in 
practice.” ” But, after all, it appears that even among the 
Urabunna every woman is the special Nupa of one man, 
and that certain other men, her Piraungaru, only have a 
secondary right to her. Thus, if the Nupa man (the real, 
or at all events the chief, husband) be present, the Piraun- 
garu (accessory husbands) are allowed to have intercourse 
with her only in case the Nupa man consents.? Is this 
modification of the Urabunna group marriage a later de- 
velopment from a previous system according to which all 
the men of a certain group had an equal right to all the 

Codrington, Melanestans, p. 22 sg.  Lidem, Native Tribes of Central Aus- 
cd Spencer and Gi lien, Northern tralia, p. 62 sq. 
Tribes of Central Australia, p. 140, 3 Lidem, Native Tribes, p. 110. 

— 

women of another group? Here we are on dangerous 
ground ; nothing is more difficult than to decide whether 
certain customs are survivals or not. We find modifica- 
tions resembling those connected with the group marriage 
of the Urabunna both in polyandry and in polygyny ; the 
first husband in a polyandrous family is usually the chief 
husband, and the first wife in a polygynous family is very 
frequently the chief wife. We must certainly not conclude 
that these restrictions have been preceded by an earlier 
custom which gave equal rights to all the husbands or all 
the wives ; on the contrary, it is more likely that the 
higher position granted to the first husband or to the first 
wife is due to the fact that monogamy was the usual form 
of marriage.’ Similarly the Urabunna custom may very 
well have developed out of ordinary individual marriage,’ 
and the cause of it may perhaps be, as Mr. N. W. Thomas 
has suggested,* the difficulties which an Australian native 
often experiences in getting a wife.* As for other facts 
which have been adduced as evidence of Australian group 
marriage in the past, such as the jus prime noctis, &c., I 
only desire to emphasise the circumstance that extra- 
matrimonial intercourse is practised by the Australian 
natives in a variety of cases the real meaning of which 
seems obscure. In some instances at least, a magic 
significance appears to be attributed to it ;° and that it is 
a survival of group marriage, in the strict sense of the 
term, is again only a conjecture. 

I must admit, therefore, that the facts produced by 
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, and the severe criticism which 
they have passed on my sceptical attitude towards Mr. 
Fison’s group marriage theory have not been able to con- 
vince me that among the Australian aborigines individual 
marriage has evolved out of a previous system of marriage 
between groups of men and women. Nor has Mr. Howitt, 

1 Westermarck, of. cit. pp. 443-448, Cf Idem, Kinship and Marriage tn 

457, 458, 508. Australia, p. 138. 

2 Cf. Crawley, of. cit. p. 482 ; Lang, 4 See Westermarck, of. czt. p. 132 sg.3 
Soctal Origins, p. 105 sg. infra, p. 460. : 

3 Thomas, in a paper read before 5 See, e.g., Spencer and Gillen, 

the Anthropological Institute in 1905. Northern Tribes, p. 137 59. 

‘in his recent work on the ‘ Native Tribes of South-East 
Australia,’ in my opinion, sufficiently proved that such an 
evolution has taken place.1| He blames certain ‘“ ethnolo- 
gists of the study” for not being willing “‘to take the 
opinion of men who have first-hand knowledge of the 
natives” ;? but I think we do well in distinguishing be- 
tween statements based on direct observation and the 
observer’s interpretation of the stated facts. Even suppose, 
however, that group marriage really was once common in 
Australia, would that prove that it was once common 
among mankind at large? Mr. Howitt’s supposition that 
the practice of group marriage “ will be ultimately accepted 
as one of the primitive conditions of mankind ” ® is no doubt 
shared by a host of anthropologists. The group marriage 
theory will probably for some time to come remain the 
residuary legatee of the old theory of promiscuity ; the 
important works which have lately been published on the 
Australian aborigines have made people inclined to view 
the early history of mankind through Australian spectacles. 
But even the most ardent advocate of Australian group 
marriage should remember that the existence of kangurus 
in Australia does not prove that there were once kangurus 

in England. 

The time during which -marriage lasts varies extremely 
in the human race.* There are unions which, though 
legally recognised as marriages, do not endure long enough 

to deserve to be so called in the natural history sense of . 

the term; there are others which are dissolved only by 

1 Mr. Thomas has come to the same 
result in his book on ‘ Kinship and 
Marriage in Australia,’ which appeared 
when the present chapter was already 
in type. A detailed examination of the 

relationship no argument of any sort 
can be founded which assumes them 
to refer to consanguinity, kinship, or 
affinity. ‘‘It is therefore not rash to 
say that the case for group marriage, so 

facts which have been adduced as evi- 
dence of Australian group marriage (p. 
127 sgg.) has led him to the conclusion 
(p. 147) that prevailing customs in 
Australia, far from proving the present 
or former existence of group marriage 
in that continent, do not even render it 
probable, and that on the terms of 

far as Australia is concerned, falls to 
the ground.” 

2 Howitt, 
East Australia,’ 
185. 

° Idem, Native Tribes of South-East 
Australia, p. 281. 

+ Westermarck, of. cz¢. ch. xxiii. 

‘Native Tribes of South- 
in Folk-Lore, xvii. 

death. As has already been pointed out, it is probable 
that among primitive men the union of the sexes lasted till 
after the birth of the offspring, and we have perhaps some 
reason to believe that the connection lasted for years. On 
the whole, progress in civilisation has tended to make 
marriage more durable. It is evident that at the early stage 
of development at which women first became valuable as 
labourers, a wife was united with her husband by a new 
bond more lasting than youth and beauty. The tie was 
strengthened by the bride-price and the marriage portion. 
And a higher development of the paternal feeling, better fore- 
thought for the children’s welfare, in some instances greater 
consideration for women, and a more refined love passion 
have gradually made it stronger, until it has become in 
many cases indissoluble. Yet we must not conclude that 
divorcewill in the future be less frequent and more restricted 
by law than it is now in European countries. It should 
be remembered that the laws of divorce in Christian Europe 
owe their origin to an idealistic religious commandment 
which, interpreted in its literal sense, gave rise to legal 
prescriptions far from harmonising with the mental and 
social life of the mass of the people. The powerful authority 
of the Roman Church was necessary to enforce the dogma 
that marriage is indissoluble. The Reformation introduced 
somewhat greater liberty in this respect, and modern legis- 
lation has gone further in the same direction. In those 
Christian states of Europe where absolute divorce is per- 
mitted the grounds on which it may be sued for are nearly 
the same for the man and the woman, except in England, 
where the husband must be accused of one or other of 
several offences besides adultery. In Italy, Spain, and 
Portugal, a judicial separation may always be decreed on 
the ground of the adultery of the wife, but, on the ground 
of the adultery of the husband, only if it has been com- 
mitted under certain aggravating circumstances," ‘These 
laws imply that marriage is not yet a contract on the 
footing of perfect equality between the sexes ; but there 1s 

1 Glasson, Le mariage cévil et le divorce, pp. 291, 298, 304. 

a growing opinion that, where it is not, it ought to be so. 
Again, when both husband and wife desire to separate, it 
seems to many enlightened minds that the State has no 
right to prevent them from dissolving the marriage con- 
tract, provided the children are properly cared for; and 
that for the children, also, it is better to have the super- 
vision of one parent only than of two who cannot agree.

CELIBACY 

Amownc savage and barbarous races of men nearly every 
individual endeavours to marry as soon as he, or she, reaches 
the age of puberty.' Marriage seems to them indis- 
pensable, and a person who abstains from it is looked upon 
as an unnatural being and is disdained. Among the 
Santals a man who remains single “is at once despised by 
both sexes, and is classed next to a thief, or a witch: they 
term the unhappy wretch ‘No man.’”* Among the 
Kafirs a bachelor has no voice in the kraal.? In the 
Tupi tribes of Brazil no man was suffered to partake in 
the drinking-feast while he remained singlet The 
natives of Futunain the Western Pacific maintained that it 
was necessary to be married in order to hold a part in the 
happy future life, and that the celibates, both men and 
women, had to submit toa chastisement of their own before 
entering the fa/e-maz/e, or ‘‘ home of the dead.’ * According 
to Fijian beliefs, he who died wifeless was stopped by the 
god Nangganangga on the road to Paradise, and smashed 
to atoms.° 

Among peoples of archaic culture celibacy is likewise a 
great exception and marriage regarded asa duty. In ancient 

1 Westermarck, Hestory of Human 6 Pritchard, Polynesian  Remin- 
Marriage, p. 134 599. zscences, pp. 368, 372. Seemann, 
2 Man, Sonthalia, p. 101. Viti, p. § 399° sg. Fison, * Fijian 
3 yon Weber, Veer Jahre in Afrika, Burial Customs,’ in Jour. <Anthr. 

ii. 215, 
4 Southey, Hestory of Braztl, i, 240. 
5 Percy Smith, ‘Futuna,’ in /ovr. 
Polynesian Soc. i. 39 59. 

Inst. x. 139. Williams and Calvert, 
fijz, p. 206. For other instances see 
Westermarck, of. cz¢. p. 136, n. 10, 

Peru marriage was compulsory at a certain age." Among 
the Aztecs no young man lived single till his twenty-second 
year, unless he intended to become a priest, and for girls 
the customary marrying-age was from eleven to eighteen. 
In Tlascala, we are told, the unmarried state was so de- 
spised that a grown-up man who would not marry had his 
hair cut off for shame.? 

‘¢ Almost all Chinese,” says Dr. Gray, ‘‘ robust or infirm, 
well-formed or deformed, are called upon by their parents 
to marry as soon as they have attained the age of puberty. 
Were a grown-up son or daughter to die unmarried, the 
parents would regard it as most deplorable.” Hence a 
young man of marriageable age, whom consumption or 
any other lingering disease had marked for its own, would 
be compelled by. his parents or guardians to marry at 
once.» So indispensable is marriage considered by the 
Chinese, that even the dead are married, the spirits of all 
males who die in infancy or in boyhood being in due time 
married to the spirits of females who have been cut off at 
a like early age.* There is a maxim by Mencius, re- 
echoed by the whole nation, that it is a heavy sin to have 
no sons, as this would doom father, mother, and the whole 
ancestry in the Nether-world to a pitiable existence 
without descendants enough to serve them properly, to 
worship at the ancestral tombs, to take care of the ancestral 
tablets, and duly to perform all rites and ceremonies 
connected with the departed dead. For a man whose 
wife has reached her fortieth year without bringing him a 
son, it 18 an imperative duty to take a concubine.® In 
Corea ‘the male human being who is unmarried is never 
called a ‘ man,’ whatever his age, but goes by the name of 
‘yatow,’ a name given. by the Chinese to unmarriageable 
young girls ; and the ‘man’ of thirteen or fourteen has a 

1 Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part 3 Gray, Chzna, i. 186. 

of the Royal Commentaries of the 4 Tbzd. i. 216 sq. 

Yucas, 1. 306 sq. > Giles, Strange Stories from a 
2 Klemm, <Adlvemeine Cultur-Ge- Chinese Studio, i. 64, n. 10. de 

schichte der Menschheit, v. 46 sg. Groot, Religzous System of China, 
Bancroft, Matzve Races of the Pacific (vol. ii. book) i. 617. Indo-Chinese 
States, i. 251 sq. Gleaner, iii. 58. 

perfect right to strike, abuse, order about the ‘ yatow’ of 
thirty, who dares not as much as open his lips to 
complain.” 

Among the Semites, also, we meet with the idea that a 
dead man who has no children will miss something in Shéol 
through not receiving that kind of worship which ancestors 
in early times appear to have received.2 The Hebrews 
looked upon marriage as a religious duty.’ According tO” 
the Shulchan Aruch, he who abstains from marrying is 
guilty of plpeisheds diminishes the image of God, and 
causes the divine presence to withdraw from Israel ; hence 
a single man oe twenty may be compelled by the court 
to take a wife. Muhammedanism likewise regards 
marriage as a duty for men and women ; to neglect it 
without a sufficient excuse subjects a man to severe 
reproach.® <‘‘ When a servant [of God] marries,” said the 
Prophet, “ verily he perfects half his religion.” ° 

The so-called Aryan nations in ancient times, as M. 
Fustel de Coulanges and others have pointed out, regarded 
celibacy as an impiety and a misfortune : “an impiety, 
because one who did not marry put the happiness of the 
manes of the family in peril; a misfortune, because 

‘he himself would receive no worship after his death.” A 
man’s happiness in the next world depended upon his 
having a continuous line of male descendants, whose duty 
it would be to make the periodical offerings Foe the repose 
of his soul.” According to the ‘ Laws of Manu,’ marriage is 
the twelfth Sanskara, and as such a religious duty i incum- 
bent upon all.* Among the Hindus of the present day a 

1 Ross, History of Corea, p. 313. 5 Lane, Manners and Customs of 
2 Cheyne, ‘Harlot,’ in Cheyne and ‘¢he Modern Egyptians, 1. 197. 
Black, Encyclopedia Biblica, ii. 1964. 6 Tdem, Arabian Soctety in the 

3 Mayer, Rechte der Israeltten, pp. Middle Ages, p. 221. 
286, 353. Lichtschein, he nach 7 Fustel de Coulanges, La czté an- 
mosaisch-talmudischer Auffassung, p. 5 tigue, p. 54 sg. Hearn, The Aryan 
sqq. Klugmann, Dze Prawim Talmud, Household, pp. 69, 71. Mayne, Trea- 
Pp: 39 5g. tise on Hindu Law and Usage, p. 
+ Schulchan Aruch, iv. (‘Eben 68 sg. 
haezer’) i. I, 3. See also Yebamoth, 8 Laws of Manu, ii. 66 sg. Monier- 
fol. 63b sg., quoted by Margolis, Williams, /azan Wisdom, p. 246. 
‘Celibacy,’ in /ewtsh Encyclopedia, (Cf. Mayne, op. cit. p. 69. 
ill, 636. 
VOL, II 1D) 18) 

man who is not married is generally considered to be 
almost a useless member of the community, and is indeed 
looked upon as beyond the pale of nature ;* and the 
spirits of young men who have died without becoming 
fathers are believed to wander about in a restless miserable 
manner, like people burdened with an enormous debt 
which they are quite unable to discharge.* Similar views 
are expressed in Zoroastrianism. Ahura Mazda said to 
Zoroaster :—‘* The man who has a wife is far above him who 
lives in continence ; he who keeps a house is far above him 
who has none; he who has children is far above the 
childless man.”* The greatest misfortune which could 
befall an ancient Persian was to be childless.* To him 
who has no child the bridge of Paradise shall be barred ; the 
first question the angels there will ask him is, whether he 
has left in this world a substitute for himself, and if the 
answer be “ No” they will pass by and he will stay at the 
head of the bridge, full of grief. The primitive meaning of 
this is plain: the man without a son cannot enter Paradise 
because there is nobody to pay him the family worship.° 
Ashi Vanguhi, a feminine impersonification of piety, and 
the source of all the good and riches that are connected 
with piety, rejects the offerings of barren people—old men, 
courtesans, and children.® It is said in the Yasts, ‘“ This 
is the worst deed that men and tyrants do, namely, when 
they deprive maids that have been barren for a long time 
of marrying and bringing forth children.’ And in the 
eyes of all good Parsis of the present day, as in the time 
of king Darius and the contemporaries of Herodotus, the 
two greatest merits of a citizen are the begetting and 
rearing of a numerous family, and the fruitful tilling of 
the soil.® 

' Dubois, Description ‘of the Char- 
acter, &c. of the People of India, 
p32: 

2 “Monier - Williams, 

Khirad, Xxxv. 19. 
> Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of 
the East, iv. 47. Cf. Ldem, Ormazd 

Brahmanism et Ahriman, p. 294. 

and Hindiiism, p. 243 sq. 

3 Vendidéd, iv. 47. 

4 Rawlinson, in his translation of 
Herodotus, i. 262, n. 1. Cf. Hero- 
dotus, 1. 133, 136; Dénd-? Matnéde-t 

6 Vasts, xvii. 54. 

7 Ibid. xvii. 59. 

8 Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the 
East, iv. p. \xii. Cf. Ploss-Bartels, 
Das Wetb, i. 173. 

The ancient Greeks regarded marriage as a matter both 
of public and private importance.’ In various places 
criminal proceedings might be taken against celibates.” 
Plato remarks that every individual is bound to provide 
for a continuance of representatives to succeed himself as 
ministers of the Divinity ;° and Isaeus says, “All those 
who think their end approaching look forward with a 
prudent care that their houses may not become desolate, 
but that there may be some person to attend to their 
funeral rites and to perform the legal ceremonies at their 
tombs.” * So also the conviction that the founding of 
a house and the begetting of children constituted a moral 
necessity and a public duty had a deep hold of the Roman 
mind in early times.’ Cicero’s treatise ‘De Legibus ’— 
which generally reproduces in a philosophical form the 
ancient laws of Rome—contains a law according to which 
the Censors had to impose a tax upon unmarried men.® 
But in later periods, when sexual morality reached a very 
low ebb in Rome, celibacy—as to which grave complaints 
were made as early as 520 B.c.—naturally increased 
in proportion, especially among the upper classes. 
Among these marriage came to be regarded as a burden 
which people took upon themselves at the best in the 
public interest. Indeed, how it fared with marriage and 
the rearing of children is shown by the Gracchan agrarian 
laws, which first placed a premium thereon ;‘ and later the 
Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea imposed various penalties 
on those who lived in a state of celibacy after a certain 
age, though with little or no result.’ 

Celibacy is thus disapproved of for various reasons. It 

1 Miller, History and Antiquztzes of 
the Doric Race, ii. 300 sg. Fustel de 
Coulanges, of. czt. p. 55. Hearn, 
op. cit. p. 72. Dollinger, Zhe Gentzle 
and the Jew, ii. 234 sg. 

2 Pollux, Onomasticum, ili. 48. 

3 Plato, Leges, vl. 773. 

4 Tsaeus, Oratio de Apollodori here- 
ditate, 30, p. 66. Rohde observes 
(Psyche, p. 228), however, that such 
a belief did not exist in the Homeric 
age, when the departed souls in Hades 

were supposed to be in no way depen- 
dent upon the survivors. 
5 Mommsen, Azstory of Rome, 1. 

Fustel 

8 Cicero, De legibus, iii. 3. 
de Coulanges, of. czt. p. 55. 

7 Mommsen, of. czf. ili. 1213 iv. 
186 sg. 
8 Rossbach, Rédmdsche Ehe, p. 418. 
9 Mackenzie, Studies in Roman 

Law, p. 104. 

o 
1w) 
i) 

appears unnatural. It is taken as an indication of 
licentious habits. Where ancestors are worshipped after 
their death it inspires religious horror: the man who 
leaves himself without offspring shows reckless indifference 
to the religion of his people, to his own fate after death, 
and to the duties he owes the. dead, whose spirits depend 
upon the offerings of their descendants for their comfort. 
The last point of view, as we have seen, is particularly 
prominent among peoples of archaic culture, but it is 
not unknown at a lower stage of civilisation. hus 
the Eskimo about Behring Strait “appear to have 
great dread of dying without being assured that their 
shades will be remembered during the festivals, fearing if 
neglected that they would thereby suffer destitution in the 
future life”’ ; hence a pair of childless Eskimo frequently 
adopt a child, so that when they die there will be some one 
left whose duty it will be to make the customary feast and 
offerings to their shades at the festival of the dead.’ 
Finally, in communities with a keen public spirit, 
especially in ambitious states frequently engaged in war, 
celibacy is regarded as a wrong committed against the 
State. . 
Modern civilisation looks upon celibacy in a different 
light. The religious motive for marriage has ceased to 
exist, the lot of the dead being no longer supposed to de- 
pend upon the devotion of the living. It is said, in a 
general way, that marriage is a duty to the nation or the 
race, but this argument is hardly applied to individual 
cases. According to modern ideas the union between man 
and woman is too much a matter of sentiment to be properly 
classified among civic duties. Nor does the unmarried 
state strike us as particularly unnatural. The proportion 
of unmarried people is graduall y growing larger and the age 
at which people marry is rising.” The chief causes of this 
increasing celibacy are the difficulty of supporting a family 
under present conditions of life, and the luxurious habits of 

1 Nelson, ‘Eskimo about Bering xviii. 290. 
Strait,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Lthn. 2 Westermarck, of. cé¢. p. 146 

living in the upper classes of society. Another reason is that 
the domestic circle does not fill so large a place in life as it did 
formerly; the married state has in some measure lost its ad- 
vantage over the single state, and there are many more 
pleasures now that can be enjoyed as well or even better in 
celibacy. Moreover, by the diffusion of a finer culture 
throughout the community, men and women can less easily 
find any one whom they are willing to take as a partner for 
life; their requirements are more exacting, they have a 
livelier sense of the serious character of the marriage union, 
and they are less willing to contract it from any lower 
motives." , 

Nay, far from enjoining marriage as a duty incumbent 
upon all, enlightened opinion seems to agree that it is a 
duty for many people never to marry. In some European 
countries the marriages of persons in receipt of poor-law 
relief have been legally prohibited, and in certain cases the 
legislators have gone further still and prohibited all mar- 
riages until the contracting parties can prove that they 
possess the means of supporting a family.” The opinion 
has also been expressed that the State ought to forbid the 
unions of persons suffering from certain kinds of disease, 
which in all probability would be transmitted to the off- 
spring. People are beginning to feel that it entails a 
heavy responsibility to bring a new being into existence, 
and that many persons are wholly unfit for such a 
task. Future generations will probably with a kind of 
horror look back at a period when the most important, and 
in its consequences the most far-reaching, function which has 
fallen to the lot of man was entirely left to individual 
caprice and lust. 

Side by side with the opinion that marriage is a duty for 
all ordinary men and women we find among many peoples 

1 Jbid. p. 147 sgg. ‘Why is Single % See Mr. Galton’s papers on 
Life becoming more General?’ in 7ze  ‘‘ Eugenics” and the discussions of 
Nation, vi. 190 sq. the subject in Soczological Papers, vols. 

2Lecky, Democracy and Liberty, i. and il. 

ll. 181. 

the notion that persons whose function it is to perform 
religious or magical rites must be celibates." The Thlinkets 
believe that if a shaman does not observe continuous 
chastity his own guardian spirits will kill him.’ In Pata- 
gonia the male wizards were not allowed to marry.° 
In some tribes of the Guaranies of Paraguay “the female 
Payes were bound to chastity, or they no longer obtained 
credit.” * Celibacy was compulsory on the priests of the 
Chibchas in Bogota.? The Tohil priests in Guatemala 
were vowed to perpetual continence.® In Ichcatlan the 
high-priest was obliged to live constantly within the 
temple, and to abstain from commerce with any woman 
whatsoever ; and if he failed in this duty he was cut in 
pieces, and the bloody limbs were given as a warning to his 
successor.’ Of the women who held positions in the temples 
of ancient Mexico we are told that their chastity was most 
zealously guarded ; during the performance of their duties 
they were required to keep at a proper distance from the 
male assistants, at whom they did not even dare to glance. 
The punishment to be inflicted upon those who violated 
their vow of chastity was death ; whilst, if their trespass 
remained entirely secret, they endeavoured to appease the 
anger of the gods by fasting and austerity of life, dreading 
that in punishment of their crime their flesh would rot.® 
In Yucatan there was, connected with the worship of the 
sun, an order of vestals the members of which generally 
enrolled themselves for a certain time, but were afterwards 
allowed to leave and enter the married state. Some of 
them, however, remained for ever in the service of the 
temple and were apotheosised. Their duty was to attend to 
the sacred fire, and to keep strictly chaste, those who broke 

1 Some instances of this are stated 
by Landtman, Orzgzn of Priesthood, 
p. 156 sg. 

2 Veniaminof, quoted by Landtman, 
op. cit. p. 156. 

3 Falkner, Description of Patagonia, 
Pee BNR? fr 

4. Southey, 

371. 

History of Brazil, ii. 

» Simon, quoted by Dorman, Orégz 
of Primitive Superstitions, p. 384. 

6 Bancroft, of. czt. iii. 489. 

7 Clavigero, History of Mexico, i. 
274. 

8 Jé¢d. i. 275 sy. Torquemada, A/o- 
narchia Indiana, ii. 188 sgg. Bancroft, 
op. ctl. 1. 435 5g. Cf. Acosta, Hastory 
of the Indies, li. 333 sq. 

their vows being shot to death with arrows.! In Peru 
there were likewise virgins dedicated to the sun, who lived 
in perpetual seclusion to the end of their lives, who pre- 
served their virginity, and were forbidden to converse or 
have sexual intercourse with or to see any man, or even 
any woman who was not one of themselves.” And besides 
the virgins who thus professed perpetual virginity in the 
monasteries, there were other women, of the blood royal, 
who led the same life in their own houses, having taken a 
vow of continence. These women “ were held in great vene- 
ration for their chastity and purity, and, as a mark of 
worship and respect, they were called Oc//o, which was a 
name held sacred in their idolatry” ; but if they lost their 
virtue, they were burnt alive or cast into “the lake of 
ons.) 

Among the Guanches of the Canary Islands there were 
virgins, called Magades or Harimagades, who presided 
over the cult under the direction of the high-priest, and 
there were other virgins, highly respected, whose function 
was to pour water over the heads of newborn children, and 
who could abandon their office and marry whenever they 
pleased.* The priestesses of the Tshi- and Ewe-speaking 
peoples on the West Coast of Africa are forbidden to 
marry.” In a wood near Cape Padron, in Lower Guinea, 
lives a priestly king who is allowed neither to leave his 
house nor to touch a woman.° 

In ancient Persia there were sun priestesses who were 
obliged to refrain from intercourse with men." The nine 
priestesses of the oracle of a Gallic deity in Sena were 
devoted to perpetual virginity.” The Romans had their 
Vestal virgins, whose office, according to tradition, was 
instituted by Numa. They were compelled to continue 

1 Bancroft, of. cit. iii. 473. Lopez 121. dem, Ewe-speaking Peoples, p. 
Cogolludo, Historia de Yucathan, p. 142 

198. ® Bastian, Die deutsche Expedition 
2 Garcilasso de la Vega, of. ctt, ander Loango-Kiiste, i. 287 sq. : 

i, 291 sgq. 7 Justin, quoted by Justi, ‘Die 
3 [bid. 1. 305. Weltgeschichte des Tabari,’ in Das 
4 Bory de St. Vincent, Zssazs sur Ausland, 1875, p. 307. 

les Isles Fortunées, p. 96 Sq. ’ Pomponius Mela, De sztu orbis, 

5 Ellis, Zshe-speaking Peoples, p. ill. 6. 

unmarried during thirty years, which time they employed 
in offering sacrifices and performing other rites ordained 
by the law; and if they suffered themselves to be 
debauched they were delivered up to the most miserable 
death, being placed in a subterraneous cell, in their funeral 
attire, without any sepulchral column, funeral rites, or 
other customary solemnities.’ After the expiration of the 
term of thirty years they might marry on quitting the 
ensigns of their priesthood ; but we are told that very few 
did this, as those who did suffered calamities which were 
regarded as ominous by the rest, and induced them to 
remain virgins in the temple of the goddess till their 
death. In Greece priestesses were not infrequently re- 
quired to be virgins, if not for their whole life, at any rate 
for the duration of their priesthood.*? Tertullian writes :— 
“To the Achaean Juno, at the town Aegium, a virgin is 
allotted ; and the priestesses who rave at Delphi know not 
marriage. We know that widows minister to the African 
Ceres ; they not only withdraw from their still living 
husbands, but they even introduce other wives to them in 
their own room, all contact with males, even as far as the 
kiss of their sons, being forbidden them. . . We have 
heard, too,-of continent men, and Sone RIS the priests 
of the famous Egyptian bull.’* There were eunuch 
priests connected with the cults of the Ephesian Artemis,” 
the Phrygian Cybele,’ and the Syrian Astarte." 

Among the Todas of the Neilgherry Hills the “ dairy- 

man” or priest is bound to a celibate existence ;* and 

1 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, A7z¢2- Pe Stab Oy xIVenle 23 
guitates Romane, ii. 64 sgg. Plutarch, § Arnobius, Adversus gentes, v. 7 
Numa, x. 7 qq. (Migne, of. cz¢. v. 1095 sgq.). Farnell, 
2 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ii. 67. “Sociological Hypotheses concerning 
3 Strabo, xiv. I. 23. Miiller,.Das the Position of Women in Ancient 
sexuelle Leben der alten Kulturvolker, Religion,’ in Archiv f. Religionswi's. 
Pp. 44 sgg. Bliimner, Home Life of the vii. 78. 
Ancient Greeks, p. 325. Gotte, Das 7 Iucian, De dea Syria, 15, 27, 
Delphische O7 abel, p-. 78 sq. 50 599. 
4 Tertullian, dd wxorem, i. 6 (Migne, 8 Thurston, ‘Anthropology of the 
Patrologia cursus, 1. 1284). dem, De Todas and Kotas,’? in the Madras 
eee castitatis, 13 (Migne, ii. Government Museum’s Bedledzi, 1. 169, 

928 sq.). Cf Idem, De monogamia, 17 170, 193. Rivers, Todas, pp. 80, 99, 
(Migne, ll. 953): 230. i 

XLI CELIBACY | 

among the Hindus, in spite of the great honour in which 
marriage is held, celibacy has always commanded respect in 
instances of extraordinary sanctity.’ Those of the Sannyasis 
who are known to lead their lives in perfect celibacy receive 
on that account marks of distinguished honour and respect.? 
Already the time-honoured Indian institution of the four 

Asramas contained the germ of monastic celibacy, the 
Brahmacarin, or student, being obliged to observe absolute 
chastity during the whole course of his study.* The idea 
was further developed in Jainism and Buddhism. The 
Jain monk was to renounce all sexual pleasures, “ either 
with gods, or men, or animals’; not to give way to 
sensuality; not to discuss topics relating to women; not to 
contemplate the forms of women.* Buddhism regards 
sensuality as altogether incompatible with wisdom and 
holiness; it is said that ‘a wise man should avoid married 
life as if it were a burning pit of live coals.”° According 
to the legend, Buddha’s mother, who was the best and 
purest of the daughters of men, had no other sons, and her 
conception was due to supernatural causes.° One of the 
fundamental duties of monastic life, by an infringement of 
which the guilty person brings about his inevitable 
expulsion from Buddha's order, is that ‘an ordained monk 
may not have sexual intercourse, not even with an animal.” ’ 
In Tibet some sects of the Lamas are allowed to marry, 
but those who do not are considered more holy; and in 
every sect the nuns must take a vow of absolute continence.® 
The Buddhist priests of Ceylon are totally debarred from 
women.’ Chinese law enjoins celibacy on all priests, 
Buddhist or Taouist.”? And among the immortals of 

1 Monier-Williams, Buddhism, p. 88. 

25Dubois, of. cit p. 133. —C- 
Monier-Williams, Bradhmanism and 
Hindiism, p. 261. 

3 Kern, Wanual of Indian Buddhism, 

Dye eae a “Leth oe 

4 Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 
2094. ; 
5 Dhammika-Sutta, 21, quoted by 
Monier-Williams, Buddhism, p. 88. 

6 Rhys Davids, Azbdert Lectures on 
Buddhism, p. 148. 

7 Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 350 59. 

8 Wilson, Adode of Snow, p. 213. 

9 Percival, Account of the Island of 
Ceylon, p. 202. 

0 Wes, Uae SSF AALIA, SAO) Mer shin OY 
118. Medhurst, ‘ Marriage in China,’ 
in Zrans. Roy. Asiatic Soc. China 
Branch, iv. 18. Davis, China, i. 53. 

Taouism there are some women also, who have led an 
extaordinarily ascetic life." 

A small class of Hebrews held the idea that marriage is 
impure. The Essenes, says Josephus, “reject pleasure as 
an evil, but esteem continence and the conquest esl our 
passions to be virtue. They neglect wedlock.”* This 
doctrine exercised no influence on Judaism, but ea 
much upon Christianity. St. Paul considered celibacy to be 
preferable to marriage. ‘ He that giveth her (his virgin) 1 in 
marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage 
doeth better.”*® ‘It is good for a man not to touch a 
woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let each man 
have his own wife, and let each woman have her own hus- 
band.”’* If the unmarried and widows cannot contain let 
them marry, “for it is better to marry than to burn.” ® 
These and other passages° in the New Testament inspired 
a general enthusiasm for virginity. Commenting on the 
words of the Apostle, Tertullian points out that what is 
better is not necessarily good. It is better to lose one eye 
than two, but neither is good; so also, though it is better 
to marry than to burn, it is far becer neither to marry 
nor to burn." Marriage “consists of that which is the 
essence of fornication”’;* whereas continence ‘‘is a means 
whereby a man will traffic in a mighty substance of 
sanctity.” ® The body which our Lord wore and in which 
He carried on the conflict of life in this world He put on 
from a holy virgin; and John the Baptist, Paul, and all the 
others ‘‘ whose names are in the book of life”’ © cherished 
and loved virginity." Virginity works miracles: Mary, 
the sister of Moses, leading the female band, passed on 

1 Réville, Za Relzgion Chinotse, p. 
451 Sq. 

2 Josephus, De bello Judazco, ii. 8. 2 
See also Solinus, Collectanea rerum 
memorabtiliunt, XXXV. 9 Sq. 

3 1 Corinthians, vii. 38. 

4 Tbed. vil. 1 sq. 

5 Tbid. vil. 9. 

8 St. Matthew, xix. 12. 
Xiv. 4; &c. 

7 Tertullian, Ad wxoren, 1. 3 (Migne, 

Revelation, 

op. ctt. 1. 1278 sg.). Idem, De mono- 

gamia, 3 (Migne, ii. 932 sg.). 

3 Idem, De exhortatione 
9 (Migne, of. cit. ii. 925). 

® (dem, De exhortatione castitatis, 
10 (Migne, of. ct. ii. 925). 

10 Philippians, iv. 3. 

"St. Clement of Rome, Efzstola J. 
ad virgines, 6 (Migne, of. cit. Ser. 
Greeca, 1. 302). 

castztatis, 

‘o 
aes 

CELIBACY 

mea 411 
foot over the straits of the sea, and by the same grace 
Thecla was reverenced even by lions, so that the unfed 
beasts, lying at the feet of their prey, underwent a holy 
fast, neither with wanton look nor sharp claw venturing to 
harm the virgin.’ Virginity is like a spring flower, always 
softly exhaling immortality from its white petals.2 The 
Lord himself opens the kingdoms of the heavens to 
eunuchs.® If Adam had preserved his obedience to the 
Creator he would have lived for ever in a state of virgin 
purity, and some harmless mode of vegetation would have 
peopled paradise with a race of innocent and immortal 
beings.* It is true that, though virginity is the shortest 
way to the camp of the faithful, the way of matrimony 
also arrives there, by a longer circuit.° Tertullian himself 
opposed the Marcionites, who prohibited marriage among 
themselves and compelled those who were married to 
separate before they were received by baptism into the 
community.° And in the earlier part of the fourth century 
the Council of Gangra expressly condemned anyone who 
maintained that marriage prevented a Christian from 
entering the kingdom of God.’ But, at the end of the 
same century, a council also excommunicated the monk 
Jovinian because he denied that virginity was more 

meritorious than marriage.° 

The use of marriage was 

permitted to man only as a necessary expedient for the 

continuance of the human 

1 St. Ambrose, Zfzstola LXIII. 
34 (Migne, of. czt. xvi. 1198 sg. ). 

2 Methodius, Coxvivium decem vir- 
ginum, vii. 1 (Migne, of. czt. Ser. 
Greeca, xviii. 125). 

® Tertullian, De monogamia, 3 
(Migne, of. czz. il. 932). 

4 This opinion was held by Gregory 
of Nyssa and, in a later time, by John 
of Damascus. It was opposed by 
Thomas Aquinas, who maintained 
that the human race was from the 
beginning propagated by means of 
sexual intercourse, but that such inter- 
course was originally free from all 
carnal desire (von Eicken, Geschzchte 
der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, 
p- 437 sg. 3 see also Gibbon, Héstory of 

species, and as a restraint, 

the Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire, ii. 186). 

5 St. Ambrose, Epzstola LXTIII. 40 
(Migne, of. czt. xvi. 1200). 

6 Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, 
ID, 2003) Ive DT siece. (Mignes of. czt. 1. 
247, 280 sqq., 382). dem, De mono- 
gamia, 1, 15 (Migne, ii. 931, 950). 
Cf. Irenaeus, Contra Hereses, i. 28. 1 
(Migne, of. czt. Ser. Greeca, vii. 690 
sg.); Clement of Alexandria, Stro- 
mata, iil. 3 (Migne, of. cz¢. Ser. Greeca, 
Vill. 1113 sgq.). 

” Concilium  Gangrense, can. I 
(Labbe-Mansi, Sacrorum Conctliorum 
collectio, ii. 1106). 

8 Concilium Mediolanense, A.D. 390 
(Labbe- Mansi, of. cz¢. iii. 689 sq.). 

CELIBACY 

however imperfect, on the natural licentiousness of desire.’ 
The procreation of children is the measure of a Christian’s 
indulgence in appetite, just as the husbandman throwing 
the seed into the ground awaits the harvest, not sowing 
more upon it.” 

These opinions led by degrees to the obligatory 
celibacy of the secular and regular clergy. The conviction 
that a second marriage of a priest, or the marriage of a 
priest with a widow, is unlawful, seems to have existed 
from the earliest period of the Church ;* and as early as 
the beginning of the fourth century a synod held in 
Elvira in Spain insisted on the absolute continence of the 
higher ecclesiastics.* The celibacy of the clergy in general 
was prescribed by Gregory VII., who “looked with 
abhorrence on the contamination of the holy sacerdotal 
character, even in its lowest degree, by any sexual connec- 
tion.” But in many countries this prescription was so 
strenuously resisted, that 1t could not be carried through 
till late in the thirteenth century.” 

The practice of religious celibacy may be traced to 
several sources. In many cases the priestess is ob- 
viously regarded as married to the god whom she is 
serving, and is therefore forbidden to marry anybody else. 
In ancient Peru the Sun was the husband of the virgins 
dedicated to him.® ‘They were obliged to be of the same 
blood as their consort, that is to say, daughters of the 
Incas. ‘For though they imagined that the Sun had 
children, they considered that they ought not to be 
bastards, with mixed divine and human blood. So the 

1 St. Justin, Apologea I. pro Chris- 

tiants, 29 (Migne, of. czt. Ser. Grzeca, 
vi. 373). Clement of Alexandria, 
Stromata, ii. 23 (Migne, of. czt. Ser. 
Greeca, viil. 1089). Gibbon, of. c7z. 
il. 186. 

2 Athenagoras, Legatio pro Chris- 
tiants, 33 (Migne, of. cit. Ser. Greeca, 
vi. 966). 

3 Lea, Sacerdotal Celibacy in the 

Christian Church, p.37. Lecky, History 
of European Morals, ii. 328 sq. 
+ Concilium Eliberitanum, A.D. 305, 

Gi, 3B (Labbe- Mansi, of. cz¢. ii. 11) :— 

** Placuit in totum prohiberi episcopis, 
presbyteris, et diaconibus, vel omnibus 
clericis positis in ministerio, abstinere 
se a conjugibus suis, et non generare 
filios: quicumque vero fecerit, ab 
honore clericatus exterminetur.’ 

° Gieseler, Text-Book of Ecclesiastical 
History, ii. 275. Milman, Aéstory of 
Latin Christianity, ii. 150. 

§ Garcilasso de la Vega, of. cit. i 

207. 

virgins were of necessity legitimate and of the blood royal, 
which was the same as being of the family of the Sun.’’? 
And the crime of violating the virgins dedicated to the 
Sun was the same and punished in the same severe manner 
as the crime of violating the women of the Inca.2 Con- 
cerning the priestesses of the Tshi-speaking peoples of the 
Gold Coast, Major Ellis remarks that the reason for their 
celibacy appears to be that “a priestess belongs to the god 
she serves, and therefore cannot become the property of a 
man, as would be the case if she married one.”* So also 
the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast regard the 
women dedicated to a god as his wives.* In the great 
temple of Jupiter Belus, we are told, a single woman used 
to sleep, whom the god had chosen for himself out of all 
the women of the land; and it was believed that he came 
down in person to sleep with her. ‘“ This,” Herodotus 
says, “is like the story told by the Egyptians of what 
takes place in their city of Thebes, where a woman always 
passes the night in the temple of the Theban Jupiter. 
In each case the woman is said to be debarred all intercourse 
with men.”® In the Egyptian texts there are frequent 
references to “the divine consort,” neter hemt, a position 
which was generally occupied by the ruling queen, and 
the king was believed to be the offspring of such a union.° 
As Plutarch states, the Egyptians thought it quite possible 
for a woman to be impregnated by the approach of some 
divine spirit, though they denied that a man could have 
corporeal intercourse with a goddess.’ Nor was the idea 
of a nuptial relation between a woman and the deity 
foreign to the early Christians. St. Cyprian speaks of 
women who had no husband and lord but Christ, with 
whom they lived in a spiritual matrimony—who had 
“* dedicated themselves to Christ, and, retiring from carnal 

IN 01d a 292: 8 Wiedemann, Herodots zwettes Buch, 

2 bid. 1. 300. p. 268. Cf Erman, Life zn Ancient 

3 Ellis, 7sh2-speaking Peoples,p.121. Legypt, p. 295 sg. 

4 Idem, Ewe-speaking Peoples, pp. ” Plutarch, Mama, iv. 5. ldem, Sym- 
140, 142. postaca problemata, vill. 1. 6 Sq. 

5 Herodotus, 1. 181 sg. 

lust, vowed themselves to God in flesh and spirit.”* In 
the following words he condemns the cohabitation of such 
virgins with unmarried ecclesiastics, under the pretence of 
a purely spiritual connection :—“ If a husband come and 
see his wife lying with another man, is he not indignant 
and maddened, and does he ‘not in the violence of his 
jealousy perhaps even seize the sword? What? How 
indignant and angered then must Christ our Lord and 
Judge be, when He sees a virgin, dedicated to Himself, 
and consecrated to His holiness, lying with a man! and 
what punishments does He threaten against such impure 
connections. . . . She who has been guilty of this crime 
is an adulteress, not against a husband, but Christ.” * 
According to the gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, the Virgin 
Mary had in a similar manner dedicated herself as a virgin 
to God.* The idea that the deity is jealous of the chastity 
of his or her servants may also perhaps be at the bottom 
of the Greek custom according to which the hierophant and 
the other priests of Demeter were restrained from conjugal 
intercourse and washed their bodies with hemlock-juice in 
order to kill their passions,* as also of the rule which 
required the priests of certain goddesses to be eunuchs.” 
Religious celibacy is further connected with the idea 
that sexual intercourse is defiling. ~ In Efate, of the New 
Hebrides, it is regarded as something unclean.° The 
‘Tahitians believed that if a man refrained from all con- 
nections with women some months before death, he passed 

1 St. Cyprian, De habetu virginum, 
4, 22 (Migne, of. czt. iv. 443, 462). Cf. 
Methodius, Conuzveum decem virginune, 
vil. I (Migne, of. cz¢. Ser. (Greeca, 
Xvill. 125). 

2 St. Cyprian, EZpdstola LXT1., ad 
Pompontum de virginibus, 3 sg. (Migne, 
op. cit. iv. 305 sqq.). See also Neander, 
General History of the Christian Relt- 
gion and Church, 1. 378. The Council 
of Elvira decreed that such fallen 
virgins, if they refused to return back 
to their former condition, should be 
denied communion even at the moment 
of death (Conctlium LEliberitanum, 
A.D. 305, ch. 13 [Labbe-Mansi, of. céz. 

ii. 8]). 

3 Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, 8 ( Ante- 
Nicene Christian Library, xvi. 25). 
See also Gospel of the Nativity of 
Mary, 7 (tbed. xvi. 57 sq.). 

4 Wachsmuth, Hellendsche  <Alter- 
thumskunde, ii. 560. 
> Cf. Lactantius, Divine Tnstitu- 

tiones, 1. 17 (Migne, of. cz¢. vi. 206): 
—‘*Deum mater et amavit formosum 
adolescentem, et eumdem cum pellice 
deprehensum exsectis virilibus semivi- 
rum reddidit ; et ideo nunc sacra ejus 
a Gallis sacerdotibus celebrantur.” 

§ Macdonald, Oceanza, p. 181. 

immediately into his eternal mansion without any purifica- 
tion.’ Herodotus writes :—‘ As often as a Babylonian 
has had intercourse with his wife, he sits down before a 
censer of burning incense, and the woman sits opposite to 
him. At dawn of day they wash ; for till they are washed 
they will not touch any of their common vessels. This 
practice is also observed by the Arabs.”* Among the 
Hebrews both the man and woman had to bathe themselves 
in water, and were “ unclean until the even.” ? The idea that 
sexual intercourse is unclean implies that some degree of 
supernatural danger is connected with it;* and, as Mr. 
Crawley has pointed out, the notion of danger may de- 
velop into that of sinfulness.0 Where woman is regarded 
as an unclean being ® it is obvious that intercourse with 
her should be considered polluting, but this is not a 
sufficient explanation of the idea of sexual uncleanness. A 
polluting effect is ascribed to any discharge of sexual 
matter ‘—originally no doubt on account of its mys- 
terious propensities and the veil of mystery which 
surrounds the whole sexual nature of man. 

The idea of sexual defilement is particularly conspicuous 
in connection with religious observances. It is a common 
rule that he who performs a sacred act or enters a holy 
place must be ceremonially clean,* and no kind of unclean- 
ness is to be avoided more carefully than sexual pollution. 
Among the Chippewyans, “if a chief is anxious to know 
the disposition of his people towards him, or if he wishes 
to settle any difference between them, he announces his 
intention of opening his medicine-bag and smoking in his 

1 Cook, Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 
ii. 164. 

2 Herodotus, i. 198. 

3 Leviticus, xv. 18. 

4 The danger attributed to sexual in- 
tercourse has been much emphasised, 
and, I think, somewhat exaggerated, by 
Mr. Crawley in his book Zhe Mystec 
Rose. 

5 Crawley, of. czt. p. 214. 

6 See supra, i. 663 sgq. 

7 Gregory III., /udicia congrua 
penitentibus, ch. 24 (Labbe-Mansi, 

op. ctt. Xil. 293) :—‘‘ In somno peccans, 
si ex cogitatione pollutus, viginti duos 
psalmos cantet: si in sommno peccans 
sine cogitatione, duodecim psalmos 
cantet.” Paenitentiale Pseudo-Theo- 
dort, xxvill. 25 (Wasserschleben, Lzss- 
ordnungen der abendlindischen 
Kirche, p. 600):—‘* Qui in somno, 
non voluntate, pollutus sit, surgat, can- 
tetque vii. psalmos pcenitentiales.” 
Cf. ibid. xxviii. 6, 33 (Wasserschleben 
Pp. 559 Sg.). . 
8 See supra, ii. 294, 295, 352 5g. 

sacred stem. . . . No one can avoid attending on these 
occasions ; but a person may attend and be excused from 
assisting at the ceremonies, by acknowledging that he has 
not undergone the necessary purification, The having 
cohabited with his wife, or any other woman, within 
twenty-four hours preceding ‘the ceremony, renders him 
unclean, and, consequently, disqualifies him from perform- 
ing any part of it.” ’ Herodotus tells us that the Egyptians, 
like the Greeks, “ made it a point of religion to have no 
converse with women in the sacred places, and not to 
enter them without washing, after such converse.” * This 
statement is corroborated by a passage in the ‘ Book of the 
Dead.’* In Greece* and India® those who took part in 
certain religious festivals were obliged to be continent for 
some time previously. Before entering the sanctuary of 
Mén Tyrannos, whose worship was extended over the 
whole of Asia Minor, the worshipper had to abstain from 
garlic, pork, and women, and had to wash his _head.° 
Among the Hebrews it was a duty incumbent upon 
all to be ritually clean before entering the temple— 
to be free from sexual defilement,’ leprosy,° and the 
pollution produced by the association with corpses of 
human beings, of all animals not permitted for food, and 
of those permitted animals which had died a natural death 
or been killed by wild beasts ;° and eating of the con- 
secrated bread was interdicted to persons who had not 
been continent for some time previously.” A Muham- 
medan would remove any defiled garment before he com- 
mences his prayer, or otherwise abstain from praying alto- 
gether ; he would not dare to approach the sanctuary of a 
saint in a state of sexual uncleanness ; and sexual intercourse 
is forbidden for those who make the pilgrimage to Mecca." 

™ Mackenzie, Voyages to the Frozen  gieuses chez les Grecs, pp. 119, 123 sg. 

and Pacific Oceans, p. Cil. sq. ” Leviticus, chs. xii., xv. 
2 Herodotus, ii. 64. 8 Tbid. ch. xiii. sq. 
3 Wiedemann, Herodots  szwertes DWE 380 PIN Sei - Saisie TS. 
Buch, p. 269 sq. Numbers, xix. 14 sgg. Montefiore, 
* Wachsmuth, of. cet. ii. 560. LTibbert Lectures on the Religion of the 
® Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, Ancient Hebrews, p. 476. : 
p- 411. 10 Samuel, xxi. 4 sq. 

8 Foucart, Des associations relz- ll Koran, ii, 193. 

XLI CELIBACY 

The Christians prescribed strict continence as a prepara- 
tion for baptism? and the partaking of the Eucharist. 
They further enjoined that no married persons should 
participate in any of the great festivals of the Church if 
the night before they had lain together ;* and in the 
‘Vision ’ of Alberic,dating from the twelfth century, a special 
place of torture, consisting of a lake of mingled lead, pitch, 
and resin, is represented as existing in hell for the punish- 
ment of married people who have had intercourse on 
Sundays, church festivals, or fast-days.* They abstained 
from the marriage-bed at other times also, when they were 
disposed more freely to give themselves to prayer.? Newly 
married couples were admonished to practise continence 
during the wedding day and the night following, out of 
reverence for the sacrament ; and in some instances their 
abstinence lasted even for two or three days." 

Holiness is a delicate quality which is easily destroyed 
if anything polluting is brought into contact with the 
holy object or person. The Moors believe that if any- 
body who is sexually unclean enters a granary the grain 
will lose its daraka, or holiness. A similar idea probably 
underlies the belief prevalent among various peoples that 
incontinence, and especially illicit love, injures the 
harvest.” In Efate, xamim, or uncleanness, supposed to be 
contracted in various emergencies, was especially avoided 

1 St. Augustine, De fide et operibus, 
vi. 8 (Migne, of. cz¢. xl. 202). 

2 St. Jerome, Zpestola XLVIII. 15 
(Migne, of. cz¢. xxii. 505 5g.). 

3 Lecky, History of European 
Morals, ii. 324. St. Gregory the 
Great, Dzalogz, i. 10 (Migne, of. cit. 
Ixxvii. 200 sg.). 

ey Albericus,, V7zsz0,, ch. 6 5,. ps D7. 
Delepierre, L’enfer décrit par ceux qui 
Pont vu, p. 57 sg. On this subject see 
also Miller, Das sexuelle Leben der 
christlichen Kulturvolker, pp. 52; 53, 
120 sq. 

5 St. Jerome, Zpzstola XLVILI. 15 
(Migne, of. cz¢. xxii. 505). Fleury, 
Manners and Behaviour of the 
Christians, p. 75. 

® Muratori, Déssertazton? sopra le 

VOL. II 

antichita ttaliane, 20, vol. i. 347. 

7 Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 209 sqq. 
This is in my opinion a more natural 
explanation than the one suggested by 
Dr. Frazer, namely, that uncivilised 
man imagines ‘‘ that the vigour which 
he refuses to expend in reproducing his 
own kind,. will form as it were a store 
of energy whereby other creatures, 
whether vegetable or animal, will 
somehow benefit in propagating their 
species.”” This theory entirely fails to 
account for the fact that illicit love, by 
preference, is supposed to mar the fer- 
tility of the earth and to blight the 
crops—a belief which is in full accord- 
ance with my own explanation, in so 
far as such love is considered particu- 
larly polluting. 

EE 

by the sacred men, because it was believed to destroy their 
sacredness.! The priestly taboos, of which Dr. Frazer 
has given such an exhaustive account in ‘The Golden 
Bough,’ have undoubtedly in a large measure a similar 
origin. Nay, it seems that pollution not only deprives 
the holy person of his holiness, but is also supposed to 
injure him in a more positive way.. When the supreme 
pontiff in the kingdom of Congo left his residence to 
visit other places within his jurisdiction, all married people 
had to observe strict continence the whole time he was 
out, as it was believed that any act of incontinence 
would prove fatal to him.? In _ self-defence, therefore, 
gods and holy persons try to prevent polluted indi- 
viduals from approaching them, and their worshippers are 
naturally anxious to do the same. But apart from the 
resentment which the sacred being would feel against the 
defiler, it appears that holiness is supposed to react quite 
mechanically against pollution, to the destruction or 
discomfort of the polluted individual. All Moors are 
convinced that anyone who in a state of sexual unclean- 
ness would dare to visit a saint’s tomb would be struck by 
the saint; but_the Arabs’ of - Dukk4ala, in” Southern 
Morocco, also believe that if an unclean person rides a 
horse some accident will happen to him on account of the 
baraka with which the horse is endowed. It should 
further be noticed that, owing to the injurious effect of 
pollution upon holiness, an act generally regarded as sacred 
would, if performed by an unclean individual, lack that 
magic efficacy which would otherwise be ascribed to it. 
Muhammed represented ceremonial cleanliness as ‘ one- 
half of the faith and the key of prayer.’* The Moors 
say that a scribe is afraid of evil spirits only when he is 
sexually unclean, because then his reciting of passages of 
the Koran—the most powerful weapon against such spirits 
—would be of no avail. The Syrian philosopher Jam- 

1 Macdonald, Oceana, p. 181. 3 Pool, Studies in Mohammedanism, 
2 Labat, Relation historique de yp. 27. 
’’ Ethiopie occtdentale, i. 259 sq. 

blichus speaks of the belief that “the gods do not hear 
him who invokes them, if he is impure from venereal 
connections.”"’ A similar notion prevailed among the 
early Christians ; with reference to a passage in the First 
Epistle of the Corinthians,? Tertullian remarks that the 
Apostle added the recommendation of a temporary absti- 
nence for the sake of adding an efficacy to prayers.’ To 
the same class of beliefs belongs the notion that a sacri- 
ficial victim should be clean and without blemish.t The 
Chibchas of Bogota considered that the most valuable 
sacrifice they could offer was that of a youth who had 
never had intercourse with a woman. 

If ceremonial cleanliness is required even of the ordin- 
ary worshipper it is all the more indispensable in the case 
of a priest ;° and of all kinds of uncleanness none is to be 
more carefully avoided than sexual pollution. Sometimes 
admission into the priesthood is to be preceded by a period 
of continence.’ In the Marquesas Islands no one could 
become a priest without having lived chastely for several 
years previously.” Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of 
the Gold Coast men and women, in order to become 
members of the priesthood, have to pass through a long 
novitiate, generally from two to three years, during which 
they live in retirement and are instructed by the priests in 
the secrets of the craft; and ‘the people believe that, 
during this period of retirement and study, the novices 
must keep their bodies pure, and refrain from all commerce 
with the other sex.” ® The Huichols of Mexico, again, 
are of opinion that a man who wishes to become a shaman 
must be faithful to his wife for five years, and that, if 
he violates this rule, he is sure to be taken ill and will lose 
the power of healing.” In ancient Mexico the priests, all 

1 Jamblichus, De mzysterits, iv. 11. ’ Cf. Landtman, of. czt. p. 118 sqq. 
2 1 Corinthians, Vii. 5. 8 Waitz - Gerland, Anthropologie 
3 Tertullian, De exhortatione castt- der Naturvolker, vi. 387. 
tatis, 10 (Migne, of. c2t. li. 926). 9 Ellis, TZshz-speaking Peoples, 
4 See supra, il. 295 5g. L203 
5 Simon, quoted by Waitz, Anthro- 10 Lumholtz, CUnknown Mexico, ii. 
pologie der Naturvolker, iv. 363. 236. 

8 Cf. supra, ii. 352 59. 

the time that they were employed in the service of the 
temple, abstained from all other women but their wives, 
and ‘‘even affected so much modesty and reserve, that 
when they met a woman they fixed their eyes on the 
ground that they might not see her. Any incontinence 
amongst the priests was severely punished. The priest 
who, at Teohuacan, was convicted of having violated his 
chastity, was delivered up by the priests to the people, 
who at night killed him by the bastinado.”' Among the 
Kotas of the Neilgherry Hills the priests—who, unlike the 
“dairymen ” of their Toda neighbours are not celibates— 
are at the great festival in honour of Kamataraya forbidden 
to live or hold intercourse with their wives for fear of 
pollution, and are then even obliged to cook their meals 
themselves.” It seems that, according to the Anatolian 
religion, married fieroi had to separate from their wives 
during the period they were serving at the temple.* The 
Hebrew priest should*avoid all unchastity; he was not 
allowed to marry a harlot, or a profane, or a divorced 
wife,* and the high-priest was also forbidden to marry a 
widow.’ Nay, even in a priest’s daughter unchastity was 
punished with excessive severity, because she had profaned 
her father ; she was to be burned.° 

Carried further, the idea underlying all these rules and 
practices led to the notions that celibacy is more pleasing 
to God than marriage,’ and that it is a religious duty for 
those members of the community whose special office is to 
attend to the sacred cult. For a nation like the Jews, 
whose ambition was to live and to multiply, celibacy could 
never become an ideal ; whereas the Christians, who pro- 
fessed the most perfect indifference to all earthly matters, 
found no difficulty in glorifying a state which, however 
opposed it was to the interests of the race and the nation, 
made men pre-eminently fit to approach their god. Indeed, 

1 Clavigero, of. cét. p. i. 274. = LCUULtCUS) XXII TE 
2 Thurston, in the Madras Goyern- PUBS Sly Bits 
ment Museum’s Bulletin, i. 193. 8 Jbzd. xxi. 9. 

3 Ramsay, Cetzes and Bzshoprics of ’ Of supra, ii. 358. 
Phrygia, i. 136, 137, 150 sg. 

q 

a, 

far from being a benefit to the kingdom of God by pro- 
pagating the species, sexual intercourse was on the contrary 
detrimental to it by being the great transmitter of the sin 
of our first parents. This argument, however, was of a 
comparatively late origin. Pelagius himself almost rivalled 
St. Augustine in his praise of virginity, which he considered 
the great test of that strength of free-will which he asserted 
to be at most only weakened by the fall of Adam.! 

Religious celibacy is, moreover, enjoined or commended 
as a means of self-mortification supposed to appease an 
angry god, or with a view to raising the spiritual nature 
of man by suppressing one of the strongest of all sensual 
appetites. Thus we find in various religions celibacy side 
by side with other ascetic observances practised for similar 
purposes. Among the early Christians those young 
women who took a vow of chastity “did not look upon 
virginity as any thing if it were not attended with great 
mortification, with silence, retirement, poverty, labour, 
fastings, watchings, and continual praying. They were 
not esteemed as virgins who would not deny themselves 
the common diversions of the world, even the most 
innocent.” * ‘Tertullian enumerates virginity, widowhood, 
and the modest restraint in secret on the marriage-bed 
among those fragrant offerings acceptable to God which 
the flesh performs to its own especial suffering.’ Finally, 
it was argued that marriage prevents a person from serv- 
ing God perfectly, because it induces him to occupy him- 
self too much with worldly things. Though not 
contrary to the act of charity or the love of God, says 
Thomas Aquinas, it is nevertheless an obstacle to it.’ 
This was one, but certainly not the only, cause of the 
obligatory celibacy which the Christian Church imposed 
upon her clergy. 

1 Milman, op. czz. 1. 151, 153- naturale, Xxx. 43. See also von 

2 Fleury, of. cet. p. 128 sg. Eicken, of. czt. p. 445. 

3 Tertullian, De resurrectione carnts, ®° Thomas Aquinas, Szevea theo- 
8 (Migne, of. cet. 11. 806). logica, il.-i1. 184. 3. 

4 Vincentius Bellovacensis, Specelum

FREE LOVE—-ADULTERY 

Harp ty less variable than the moral ideas relating to 
marriage are these concerning sexual relations of a non- 
matrimonial character. ; 

Among many uncivilised peoples both sexes enjoy 
perfect freedom previous to marriage, and in some cases it 
is considered almost dishonourable for a girl to have no 
lover. 

The East African Barea and Kunama do not regard it as 
in the least disreputable for a girl to become pregnant, nor do 
they punish or censure the seducer.1 Among the Wanyoro 
“it constantly happens that.young girls spend the night with 
their lovers, only returning to their father’s house in the 
morning, and this is not considered scandalous.2. The Wadigo 
regard it as disgraceful, or at least as ridiculous, for a girl to 
enter into marriage as a virgin.? Among the Bakongo “ womanly 
chastity is unknown, and a woman’s honour is measured by the 
price she costs.” 4 Over nearly the whole of British Central 
Africa, says Sir H. Johnston, “ before a girl is become a woman 
(that is to say before she is able to conceive) it is a matter of 
absolute indifference what she does, and scarcely any girl 
remains a virgin after about five years of age.” Among the 
Baronga “Tl opinion publique se moque des gens continents plus 
quelle ne les admire.” ® According to Mr. Warner, “ seduc- 
tion of virgins, and cohabiting with unmarried women: and 

1 Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Stu- 4 Johnston, British Central Africa, 
dien, p. 524. p. 405. 

2 Emin Pasha in Central Africa, 5 bid. p. 409, note. 
p. 82. Cf. bed. p. 208 (Monbuttu). § Junod, Les Ba-Ronga, p. 29. 

3 Baumann, Usamébara, p. 152. 

CH. XLII 

widows, are not punishable by Kafir law, neither does any 
disgrace attach to either sex by committing such acts.”! In 
Madagascar “continence is not supposed to exist in either sex 
before marriage, . . . and its absence is not regarded as a vice.” 2 
Among the Maoris of New Zealand “girls were at perfect 
liberty to act as they pleased until married,” and chastity in 
single women was held of little account.? In the Tonga. 
Islands unmarried women might bestow their favours upon 
whomsoever they pleased without any opprobrium, although it 
was thought shameful for a woman frequently to change her 
lover. In the Solomon Islands “female chastity is a virtue 
that would sound strangely in the ear of the native”; and in 
St. Christoval and the adjacent islands, “ for two or three years 
after a girl has become eligible for marriage, she distributes her 
favours amongst all the young men of the village.” ® In the 
Malay Archipelago intercourse between unmarried people is 
very commonly considered neither a crime nor a disgrace ; ® and 
the same is perhaps even more generally the case among the 
uncivilised races of India and Indo-China.’ Among’ the 
Angami Nagas, for instance, “girls consider short hair, the 
symbol of virginity, a disgrace, and are anxious to become 
entitled to wear it long ; men are desirous before marriage to 
have proof that their wives will not be barren. . Chastity 
begins with marriage.” The Jakuts see nothing immoral in 
free love, provided only that nobody suffers material loss by it.® 
Among the Votyaks it is disgraceful for a girl to be little sought 
after by the young men, and it is honourable for her to have 
children; she then gets a wealthier husband, and a higher 
price is paid for her to her father.1? The Kamchadales set no 
great value on the virginity of their brides! Of the Point 
Barrow Eskimo Mr. Murdoch writes :—‘“ As to the relations 
between the sexes there seems to be the most complete absence 
of what we consider moral feelings. Promiscuous sexual 

1 Warner, in Maclean, Compendium  henkunde van Nederlandsch-Indié, ser. 

of Kafr Laws, p. 63. 

2 Ellis, Azstory of Madagascar, 1. 
137 Sg. 

3 Taylor, Ze Jka a Mazi, p. 33. 

Gisborne, Colony of New Zealand, 
ay Bye 
4 Mariner, Watives of the Tonga 

Tslands, ii. 174. 

> Guppy, Solomon Islands, p. 43. 

6 Wilken, ‘Plechtigheden en gebrui- 
ken bij verlovingen en huwelijken bij 
de volken van den Indischen Archipel,’ 
in Biydragen tot de taal- land- en vol- 

v. vol. lv. 434 599. 

7 Westermarck, History of Human 
Marriage, p. 71. Crooke, Tribes and 
Castes of the North-Western Provinces 
and Oudh, i. p. clxxxiv. 

8 Prain, ‘ Angami Nagas,’ in Revue 
colontale tnternationale, v. 491 Sg. 
9 Sumner, in four. Anthr. 

Xxxl. 96. 

1 Buch, ‘ Die Wotjiken,’ in Acta 
Soc. Sctentiarum Fennice, Xi. 509. 

1. Georgi, Azzssta, ili. 156. 

Inst. 

aoe FREE LOVE. CHAP. 

intercourse between married or unmarried people, or even 
among children, appears to be looked upon simply as a matter 
for amusement. As far as we could learn, unchastity in a girl 
was considered nothing against her. “The immorality of these 
people among themselves, as we witnessed it, seems too purely 
animal and natural to be of recent growth or the result of 
foreign influence. Moreover, a similar state of affairs has been 
observed among Eskimo elsewhere.” } 

Yet however commonly chastity is disregarded in the 
savage world, we must not suppose that such disregard is 
anything like a universal characteristic of the lower races. 
In a previous work I have given a list of numerous savage 
and barbarous peoples among whom unchastity before 
marriage is looked upon as a disgrace or a crime for a 
woman, sometimes punishable with banishment from the 
community or even with death ;* and it is noteworthy 
that to this group of peoples belong savages of so low a 
type as the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Igorrotes of Luzon,’ 
and certain Australian tribes.° I have also called attention 
to facts which seem to prove that in several cases the 
wantonness of savages is largely due to foreign influence. 
The pioneers of a “ higher civilisation” are very frequently. 
unmarried men who go out to make their living in un- 
civilised lands, and, though unwilling to contract regular 
marriages with native women, they have no objection to 
corrupting their morals.° Moreover, in many tribes the free 

1 Murdoch, ‘ Ethnological Results of 
the Point Barrow Expedition,’ in Azz. 
Rep. Bur. Eth. 1x. 419 sg. See also 
Turner, ‘Ethnology of the Ungava 
District,’ in Aun. Rep. Bur, Ethn. xi. 
189 (Koksoagmyut) ; Parry, Second 
Voyage for the Discovery of a North- 
West Passage, p. 529 (Eskimo of 
Igloolik and Winter Island). 

2 Westermarck, of. cz¢. p. 61 sgq. 

3 Nevill, ‘Vaeddas of Ceylon,’ in 
Taprobanian, i. 178. 

4 Meyer, ‘Igorrotes von Luzon,’ in 
Verhandl. Berliner  Gesellsch. ff. 
Anthrop. 1883, p. 384 sg. Blumen- 
tritt, ELthnographie der Philippinen, 

, 27, 

Ps Westermarck, of. cit. p. 64 Sg. 
Holden, in Taplin, Folklore of the 

South Australian Aborigines, p. 19. 

6 It is strange to hear froma modern 
student of anthropology, and especially 
from an Australian writer, that in sexual 
licence the savage has never anything 
to learn and that ‘‘all that the lower 
fringe of civilised men can do to harm 
the uncivilised is to stoop to the level 
of the latter instead of teaching them a 
better way” (Sutherland, Orzgzn and 
Growth of the Moral Instinct, i. 186). 
Mr. Edward Stephens (‘ Aborigines 
of Australia,’ in Jour. G& Proceed. 
Royal Soc. N. S. Wales, xxiii. 480) 
has a very different story to tell with 
reference to the tribes which once in- 
habited the Adelaide Plains in South 
Australia and whose acquaintance he 
made more than half a century ago. 

mee Oe A ee 

ia ta ith anes Mic amnasey 

ie 

intercourse which prevails between unmarried people is not 
of a promiscuous nature, and leads necessarily to marriage 
should the girl prove with child.’ Nay, among various un- 

cl 

vilised races not only the girl, but the man who seduces 

her is subject to punishment or censure. 

Among the East African Takue a seducer may have to pay 
the same sum as if he had killed the girl, although the fine is 
generally reduced to fifty cows.2) Among the Beni Amer and 
Marea he is killed, together with the girl and the child? In 
‘Tessaua a fine of 100,000 kurdi is imposed on the father of a 
bastard child.t| Among the Beni Mzab a man who seduces a 
girl has to pay two hundred francs and is banished for four 
years. Among the Teda he is exposed to the revenge of her 
father.6 “The Baziba look upon illegitimate intercourse between 
the sexes as the most serious offence, though no action is taken 
until the birth of a child; “then the man and woman are 
bound hand and foot and thrown into Lake Victoria.”? 
Among the Bakoki, whilst the girl was driven from home and 
remained for ever after an outcast, the man was fined three cows to 
her father and one to the chief. Certain West African savages 
described by Mr. Winwood Reade, who banish from the clan a 
girl guilty of wantonness, inflict severe flogging on the seducer.® 
In Dahomey a man who seduces a girl is compelled by law to 
marry her and to pay eighty cowries to the parent or master," 
Among some Kafir tribes the father or guardian of a woman 
who becomes pregnant can demand a fine of one head of cattle 
from the father of the child ;4! whilst in the Gaika tribe the 
mere seduction of a virgin incurs the fine of three or four head 
of cattle.!2. Casalis mentions an interesting custom prevalent 
among the Basutos, which on the one hand illustrates the 
belief that sexual intercourse in certain circumstances exposes a 
person to supernatural danger, and on the other hand indicates 
that unchastity in unmarried men is not looked upon with 
perfect indifference :—Immediately after the birth of a child the 
fire of the dwelling was kindled afresh. ‘For this purpose it 
was necessary that a young man of chaste habits should rub two 

1 Westermarck, of. czt. pp. 23, 24, 6 Nachtigal, Sahara wnd Sudan, i. 
Me 449. 
; 2 Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Stu- ” Cunningham, Uganda, p. 290. 
dien, p. 208. So7d ap. 102. r 
3 Jbid. p. 322. ® Reade, Savage Africa, p. 261. 
4 Barth, Rezsen zn Nord- und Cen- 10 Forbes, Dahomey, i. 26. 
tral- Afrika, ii. 18. Warner, in Maclean, of. cz¢. p. 64. 

> Chavanne, Die Sahara, p. 315. 12 Brownlee, zdzd. p. 112. 

pieces of wood quickly one against another, until a flame 
sprung up, pure as himself. It was firmly believed that a 
premature death awaited him who should dare to take upon 
himself this office, after having lost his innocence. As soon, 
therefore, as a birth was proclaimed in the village, the fathers 
took their sons to undergo the ordeal. “Those who felt them- 
selves guilty confessed their crime, and submitted to be scourged 
rather than expose themselves to the consequences, of a fatal 
temerity.” 1 Livingstone, speaking of the good name which 
was given to him by the Bakwains, observes :—“‘ No one ever 
gains much influence in this country without purity and upright- 
ness. ‘The acts of a stranger are keenly scrutinised by both 
young and old, and seldom is the judgment pronounced, even 
by the heathen, unfair or uncharitable. I have heard women 
speaking in admiration of a white man, because he was pure, 
and never was guilty of any secret immorality. Had he been, 
they would have known it, and, untutored heathen though they 
be, would have despised him in consequence.” ? 

Of the Australian Maroura tribe, Lower Darling, we are told 
that before the advent of the whites “their laws were strict, 
especially those regarding young men and young women. It was 
almost death to a young lad or man who had sexual intercourse 
till married.” Among various tribes in Western Victoria 
“illegitimacy is rare, and is looked upon with such abhorrence 
that the mother is always severely beaten by her relatives, and. 
sometimes put to death and burned. Her child is occasionally 
killed and burned with her. -The father of the child is also 
punished with the greatest severity, and occasionally killed,” # 

In Nias the pregnancy of an unmarried girl is punished with 
death, inflicted not only upon her but upon the seducer as well.° 
Among the Bodo and Dhimals of India-chastity is prized in 
man and woman, married and unmatried.6 Among the 
Tunguses “in irregular amours only the men are punished,” 
the seducer being obliged either to purchase the girl at a certain 
price or, if he refuses, to submit to corporal punishment.’ 
Among the Thlinkets, “if unmarried women prove frail the 
partner of their guilt, if discovered, is bound to make reparation 
to the parents, soothing their wounded honour with handsome 

1 Casalis, Basutos, p. 267 sq. > Wilken, in Azjdragen tot de taal- 

2 Livingstone, A@isstonary Travels,  land- en. volkenkunde van Neder- 
p. 513. landsch-Indié, ser. v. vol. iv. 444. 

3 Holden, in Taplin, Folklore of the 6 Hodgson, AZtscellaneous Essays, i. 
South Australian Aborigines, p. 19. 123. 

“Moo 

4 Dawson, Australian Aborigines, 

Georgi, op. cét. ili. 84. 
p. 28, 

presents.” + In certain North American tribes the seducer is 
said to be viewed with even more contempt than the girl whom 
he has dishonoured.? 

Passing to more advanced races, we find that chastity is 
regarded asa duty for unmarried women, whilst a different 
standard of morality is generally applied to men. ‘‘ Con- 
fucianism,” says Mr. Griffis, “virtually admits two 
standards of morality, one’ for man, another for woman. 
. .. Chastity isa female virtue, it is a part of womanly duty, 
it has little or no relation to man personally.” * Yet it is 
held up as an ideal even to men. It is said that in youth, 
when the physical powers are not yet settled, the superior 
man guards against lust.* Though licentious in their 
habits, the Chinese exalt and dignify chastity as a means 
of bringing the soul and body nearer to the highest 
excellence ;° one of their proverbs even maintains that “ of 
the myriad vices, lust is the worst.”° Chastity for its own 
sake, when defended by a woman at the expense of her 
life, meets with a reward at the hands of the Government. 
“If a woman ’’—so the Ordinances run—“ be compelled 
by her husband to prostitute herself for money, and takes 
her own life in order to preserve her chastity, or if an 
unmarried virgin loses her life in defending herself against 
violation, an honorary gate shall be erected in each case near 
the door of the paternal dwelling.” " According to the 
Chinese Penal Code, “criminal intercourse by mutual 
consent with an unmarried woman shall be punished with 
seventy blows,” whilst the punishment for such intercourse 
with a married woman is eighty blows.* 

Among the ancient Hebrews fornication was forbidden 
to women® but not tomen. The action of Judah towards 
the supposed harlot on the way to Timnath is mentioned 

1 Douglas, quoted by Petroff, Report 6 Smith, Proverbs of the Chinese, 

on Alaska, p. 177. p- 256. 
2 Westermarck, of. ct. p. 66. 7 de Groot, Religious System of 
3 Griffis, Religzons of Japan, p. 149. China, (vol. il. book) i. 752 sg. 
4 Tun Vu, xvi.7. P SMe Usie MQ, Iba TI ealbxah 
5 Wells Williams, AZtddle Kingdom,  p. 404. 

Maelo? 9 Leviticus, xix. 29.  Dewtleronony, 

xxiii. 18, 

as the most natural thing in the world,’ even though 
the perpetrator was a man of wealth and position, a man 
whom his brethren “shall praise ” ane before whom his 
‘“‘father’s children shall bow down.’’* Throughout the 
Muhammedan world chastity is ore as an essential 
duty for a woman.®? In Persia an unmarried girl who 
gave birth to a child would surely be killed.*| Among the 
Fellaheen of Egypt a father or brother in most instances 
punishes an unmarried daughter or sister who has been 
guilty of incontinence by throwing her into the Nile with 
a stone tied to her neck, or cutting her to pieces, and then 
throwing her remains into the river. Among the Jbala 
and Rif Berbers of Morocco she is also frequently killed. 
For unmarried men, on the other hand, chastity is by 
Muhammedans at most looked upon as an ideal, almost 
out of reach. The Caliph Ali said that ‘ with a man who is 
modest and chaste nobody should find fault.” ° Weare told 
that the Muhammedans of India consider it inconceivable 
that a Muslem should have illicit intercourse with a free 
Muhammedan woman ;" but connections with slave girls 
are regarded in a different light. | 
Among the Hindus sexual impurity is scarcely con- 
sidered a sin in the men,but ‘in females nothing is 
held more execrable or abominable. The unhappy 
inhabitants of houses of ill fame are looked upon as the 
most degraded of the human species.” * In one of the 
Pahlavi texts continence is recommended from the point 
of view of prudence :—‘‘ Commit no lustfulness, so that 
harm and regret may not reach thee from thine own 
actions.” ® But in Zoroastrianism, also, chastity is chiefly 
a female duty. It is written in the Avesta, “Any woman 
that has given up her body to two men in one day is 
sooner to be killed than a wolf, a lion, or a snake.” 

t Genesis, xxxviii. 15 S99. p- 106. 
2 Jbtd. xiix. 8. 8 Calcutta Review, ii. 23. Dubois, 
% Burton, Szzdh, p. 295. Description of the Character, &. of 
4 Polak, Persie, 1. 217. the People of India, p. 193. Cf. Laws 
5 Lane, Manners and Customs of the ore Manu, ix. 51 sq. 

Modern Egyptians, p. 209. ® Dind-t- Mainbsi Khirad, ii. 23 Sg. 
6 Ameer Ali, Z¢hics of Lslém, p. 30. 10 Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the 

7 Lane-Poole, Studies in a Mosque, Last, iv. 206, n. 1, 

2 ene 

Among the ancient Teutons an unmarried woman who 
belonged to an honourable family was severely punished 
for going wrong, and the seducer was exposed to the 
revenge of her family, or had to pay compensation for his 
deed." The yet un-Romanised Saxons, down to the days 
of St. Boniface, compelled a maiden who had dishonoured 
her father’s house, as well as an adulteress, to hang 
herself, after which her body was burned-and her paramour 
hung over the blazing pile; or she was scourged or cut 
with knives by all the women of the village till she 
was dead.” 

In Greece the chastity of an unmarried girl was 
anxiously guarded.’ According to Athenian law, the 
relatives of a maiden who had lost her virtue could with 
impunity kill the seducer on the spot.* Virginity was 
an object of worship. Chastity was the pre-eminent 
attribute of sanctity ascribed to Athene and Artemis, 
and the Parthenon, or virgin’s temple, was the noblest 
religious edifice of Athens.’ It is true that a certain class 
of courtesans occupied a remarkably high position in the 
social life of Greece, being admired and sought after even 
by the principal men. But they did so on account of 
their extraordinary beauty or their intellectual superiority ; 
to the Greek mind the moral standard was by no means 
the only standard of excellence. ‘The Romans, on the 
other hand, regarded the courtesan class with much con- 
tempt.’ In a.p. 19 the profligacy of women was checked 
by stringent enactments, and it was provided that no 
woman whose grandfather, father, or husband had been a 
Roman knight should get money by prostitution." The 
names of prostitutes had to be published on the aedile’s 
list, as Tacitus says, ‘according to a recognised custom 

1 Brunner, Deutsche hRechtsge- ® See Denis, Hestozre des théories et 

schichte, ii. 659 sqg. Wilda, Strafrecht des idées morales dans Pantiquité, i. 
der Germanen, p. 799 sgg. Nord- 69 sg. 

strom, SBidrag till den svenska sam- 4 Schmidt, Dze thik der alten 
hills-forfattningens historia, ii. 67.  Griechen, il. 193. 
Maurer, Bekehrung des Norwegischen 5 See Lecky, Hestory of European 
Stammes, il. 154. Morals, i. 105. 

2 Milman, story of Latin Chris- 8 Tbzd. ii. 300. 

tianity, li. 54. 7 Tacitus, Annales, il. 85. 

of our ancestors, who considered it a sufficient punishment 
on unchaste women to have to profess their shame.” * 
But both in Rome and Greece pre-nuptial unchastity in 
men, when it was not excessive” or did not take some 
especially offensive form, was hardly censured by public 
opinion.? The elder Cato expressly justified it.* Cicero 
says :—‘“‘If there be any one who thinks that youth is to 
be wholly interdicted from amours with courtesans, he 
certainly is very strict indeed. I cannot deny what he 
says ; but still he is at variance not only with the licence 
of the present age, but even with the habits of our 
ancestors, and with what they used to consider allow- 
able. For when was the time that men were not used 
to act in this manner? When was such conduct found 
fault with? When was it not permitted? When, in 
short, was the time when that which is lawful was not 
lawful?” ° Epictetus only went a little step further. 
He said to his disciples :—‘* Concerning sexual pleasures, 
it is right to be pure before marriage, as much as in you 
lies. But if you indulge in them, let it be according 
to what is lawful. But do not in any case make your- 
self disagreeable to those who use such pleasures, nor be: 
fond of reproving them, nor of putting yourself forward 
as not using them.’® Here chastity in men is at all 
events recognised as an ideal. But even in pagan anti- 
quity there were a few who enjoined it as a duty.’ 
Musonius Rufus emphatically asserted that no union of 
the sexes other than marriage was permissible,* and Dio 
Chrysostom desired prostitution to be suppressed by 
law.” Similar opinions grew up in connection with the 
Neo-Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean philosophies, and 
may be traced back to the ancient masters themselves. 
We are told that Pythagoras inculcated the virtue of 

Tacitus, dzmnales, ii. 85. Cicero, Pro Celio, 20 (48). 

2 Valerius Maximus (facta dic- ® Epictetus, Ezchividion, xxxiii. 8. 
tague memorabilia, ii. 5. 6) praises 7 Denis, of. cét. ii. 133 sgg. 
‘‘frugalitas ” as ‘‘ immoderato Veneris 8 Musonius Rufus, quoted by Sto- 
usu aversa.” hoe beeus, /Vorzlegium, vi. 61. . 

BreclyamOpacteidl. 404. ® Denis, of. czt. ii. 149 sgg. 

se Horace, Satz, 1. 2537 sy. 

FREE LOVE 

chastity so successfully that when ten of his disciples, 
being attacked, might have escaped by crossing a bean- 
field, they died to a man rather than tread down the 
beans, which were supposed to have a mystic affinity 
with the seat of impure desires.' Plato, again, is in 
favour of a law to the effect that “no one shall 
venture to touch any person of the freeborn or noble 
class except his wedded wife, or sow the unconsecrated 
and bastard seed among harlots, or in barren and un- 
‘natural lusts.” Our citizens, he says, ought not to be 
worse than birds and beasts, which live without inter- 
course, pure and chaste, until the age for procreation, 
and afterwards, when they have arrived at that period 
and the male has paired with the female and the 
female with the male, “Jive the rest of their lives in 
holiness and innocence, abiding firmly in their original 
compact.” * 

Much stronger was the censure which Christianity passed 
on pre-nuptial connections. While looking with sus- 
picion even on the life-long union of one man with one 
woman, the Church pronounced all other forms of sexual 
intercourse to be mortal sins. In its Penitentials sins of 
unchastity were the favourite topic; and its horror of 
them finds an echo in the secular legislation of the 
first Christian emperors. Panders were condemned to 
have molten lead poured down their throats.* In the 
case of forcible seduction both the man and woman, if 
she consented to the act, were put to death.* Even 
the innocent offspring of illicit intercourse were punished 
for their parents’ sins with ignominy and loss of certain 
rights which belonged to other, more respectable, members 
of the Church and the State.’ Persons of different sex 

1 Jamblichus, De Lythagorica vita, 
31 (191). Cf Jevons, in Plutarch’s 
Romane Questions, p. \xxxviil. sg. 

2 Plato, Zeges, vill. 840 sg. Cf. 
Xenophon, Memorabilia, 1. 3. 8. 

3 Lecky, of. c2t, il. 316. 

4 Codex Theodostanus, ix. 24. 1. 

5 Conctlium Claromontanum, A.D, 

1095, can. 11 (Labbe-Mansi, Sacrorum 
Conceliorum collectio, xx. 817):—‘* Ut 
nulli filii concubinarum ad ordines vel 
aliquos honores ecclesiasticos promo- 
veantur, nisi monchaliter vel canonice 
vixerint in ecclesia.” See also sapra, i. 
47. 

4.32 FREE LOVE — CHAP. 

who were not united in wedlock were forbidden by the 
Church to kiss each other ; nay, the sexual desire itself, 
though unaccompanied by any external act, was regarded 
as sinful in the unmarried.' In this standard of purity 
no difference of sex was recognised, the same obligations 
being imposed upon man and woman.* 

In this, as in so many other points. of morals, however, 
there is a considerable discrepancy between Christian 
doctrine and public opinion in Christian countries. The 

gross and open immorality of the Middle Ages indicates’ 

how little the idea of sexual purity entered into the 
manners and opinions of the people. The influence of 
the ascetic doctrine of the Church was in fact quite 
contrary to its aspirations. The institution of clerical 
celibacy lowered the estimation of virtue by promoting 
vice. During the Middle Ages unchastity was regarded 
as an object of ridicule rather than censure, and in the 
comic literature of that period the clergy are me 
represented as the great corrupters of domestic virtue.® 
Whether the tenet of chastity laid down by the code of 
Chivalry was taken more seriously may be fairly doubted. 
A knight, it was said, should be abstinent and chaste ; * he 
should love only the virtues, talents, and graces of his 
lady ;° and love was defined as the ‘‘ chaste union of two 
hearts by virtue wrought.”’° But whilst the knight had 
certain claims as regards the virtue of his lady, whilst he 
probably was inclined to draw his sword only for a woman 
of fair reputation, and whilst he himself professed to 
aspire only to her lip or hand, we have reason to believe 
that the amours im which he indulged with her were of a 
far less delicate kind. Sainte-Palaye observes, ‘“ Jamais 

1 «Perit ergo et ipsa mente vir- Domestic Manners and Sentiments in 
ginitas.” Katz, Grendriss des kanon- England during the Middle Ages, 

aschen Strafrechts, p. 114 sg. For the pp. 54, 281, 420. 
subject of kissing see also Thomas * Book of the Ordre of Chyualry, 

Aquinas, Summa theologica, ii.-li, fol. 40 

154. 4. 5 Sainte- Palaye, Mémoires sur 
2 Laurent, Ltudes sur l’histotre de  Panctenne Chevalerie, ii. 17. 

1’ Humanité, wv. 114. 6 Mills, Aestory of Chivalry, i. 

8 Wright, Zssays on Archeological 214 sq. 
Subjects, i. 238. Cf. zdem, History of 

: 
. 

XLII FREE LOVE 

on ne vit les moeurs plus corrompues que du temps de 
nos Chevaliers, et jamais le régne de la débauche ne fut 
plus universel.’’* For a mediaeval knight the chief object 
of life was love. He who did not understand how to win 
a lady was but half a man; and the difference between a 
lover and a seducer was apparently slight. The character 
of the seducer, as Mr. Lecky remarks, and especially 
of the passionless seducer who pursues his career simply as 
a kind of sport, and under the influence of no stronger 
motive than vanity or a spirit of adventure, has for many 
centuries been glorified and idealised in the popular 
literature of Christendom in a manner to which there is 
no parallel in antiquity.” 

The Reformation brought about some change for the 
better, if in no other respect at least by making marriage 
lawful for a large class of people to whom illicit love had 
previously been the only means of gratifying a natural 
desire, and by abolishing the monasteries. In fits of 
religious enthusiasm even the secular legislators busied 
themselves with acts of incontinence in which two 
unmarried adults of different sex were consenting parties. 
In the days of the Commonwealth, according to an act of 
1650, in cases of less serious breach of chastity than 
adultery and incest, each man or woman was for each 
offence to be committed to the common gaol for three 
months, and to find sureties for good behaviour during a 
whole year afterwards.* In Scotland, after the Reformation, 
fornication was punished with a severity nearly equal to 
that which attended the infraction of the marriage vow.* 
But the fate of these and similar laws has been either to be 
repealed or to become inactive.° For ordinary acts of 
incontinence public opinion is, practically at least, the only 
judge. In the case of female unchastity its sentence is 

1 Sainte-Palaye, of. czt. ii. 19. Cf 
Walter Scott, ‘Essay on Chivalry,’ 
in Miscellaneous Prose Works, vi. 
48 sq. 

Cilveclsys pm op-5 cel wll w40-m Cie 
Delécluze, Roland ow la Chevalerie, i. 
356. 

VOL, If 

3 Pike, History of Crime in Eng- 
Zand, ii. 182. 

+ Rogers, Socdal Life in Scotland, 
iba, PPIX, 

5 See Pike, of. czt. ii. 582; Hume, 
Commentaries on the Law of Scotland, 
il. 333- 

EFF 

severe enough among the upper ranks of society, whilst, so 
far as the lower classes is concerned, it varies considerably 
even in different parts of the same country, and is in many 
cases regarded as venial. As to similar acts committed by 
unmarried men, the words which Cicero uttered on behalf 
of Coelius might be repeated by any modern advocate who, 
in defending his client, ventured frankly to express the 
popular opinion on the subject. It seems to me that with 
regard to sexual relations between unmarried men and 
women Christianity has done little more than establish 
a standard which, though accepted perhaps in theory, is 
hardly recognised by the feelings of the large majority of 
people—or at least of men—in Christian communities, 
and has introduced the vice of hypocrisy, which appa- 
rently was little known in sexual matters by pagan 
antiquity. 

Why has sexual intercourse between unmarried people, 
if both parties consent, come to be regarded as wrong? 
Why are the moral opinions relating to it subject to so 
great variations? Why is the standard commonly so 
different for man and woman? We shall now try to find 
an answer to these questions. 

If marriage, as I am inclined to suppose, is based on an 
instinct derived from some ape-like progenitor, it would 
from the beginning be regarded as the natural form of 
sexual intercourse in the human race, whilst other more 
transitory connections would appear abnormal and con- 
sequently be disapproved of. I am not certain whether 
some feeling of this sort, however vague, is not still very 
general in the race. But it has been more or less or 
almost totally suppressed by social conditions which make 
it in most cases impossible for men to marry at the first 
outbreak of the sexual passion. We have thus to seek for 
some other explanation of the severe censure passed on 
pre-nuptial connections. 

It seems to me obvious that this censure is chiefly due 
to the preference which a man gives to a virgin bride. 
As I have shown in another place, such a preference is a 

fact of very common occurrence.’ It partly springs from 
a feeling akin to jealousy towards women who have had 
previous connections with other men, partly from the 
warm response a man expects from a woman whose 
appetites he is the first to gratify, and largely from an 
instinctive appreciation of female coyness. Each sex is 
attracted by the distinctive characteristics of the opposite 
sex, and coyness is a female quality. “In mankind, as 
among other mammals, the female requires to be courted, 
often endeavouring for a long time to escape from the 
male. Not only in civilised countries may courtship mean 
a prolonged making of love to the woman. Mariner’s 
words with reference to the women of Tonga hold true 
of a great many, if not all, savage and barbarous races of 
men. ‘It must not be supposed,’’ he says, ‘“ that these 
women are always easily won; the greatest attentions and 
most fervent solicitations are sometimes requisite, even 
though there be no other lover in the way.”? The 
marriage ceremonies of many peoples bear testimony to 
the same fact. One origin of the form of capture is the 
resistance of the pursued woman, due to coyness, 
partly real and partly assumed.* On the East Coast of 
Greenland, for instance, the only method of contracting a 
marriage is for a man to go to the girl’s tent, catch her 
by her hair or anything else which offers a hold, and drag 
her off to his dwelling without further ado ; violent scenes 
are often the result, as single women always affect the 
utmost bashfulness and aversion to any proposal of 
marriage, lest they should lose their reputation for 
modesty.* It is certainly not the woman who most 
readily yields to the desires of a man that is most 
attractive to him; as an ancient writer puts it, all men 
love seasoned dishes, not plain meats, or plainly dressed 

1 Westermarck, of. czt. p. 123 5g. Review, xxi. 897 sg. ; Westermarck, 

2 Mariner, of. cet. ii. 174. Cf. op. cit. p. 388; Grosse, Dee Formen 

Fritsch, Dze Eingeborenen Stid- der Familie, p. 107; Crawley, The 
ae tka’s, p. 445 (Bushmans). Mystic Rose, p. 305 sg. 

> Cf. Spencer, Principles of Socio- 4 Nansen, First Crossing of Green- 

logy, 1. 623 sg. ; tdem, in Fortnightly land, i. 316 sgq. 
i a 

fish, and it is modesty that gives the bloom to beauty.’ 
Conspicuous eagerness in a woman appears to a man 
unwomanly, repulsive, contemptible. His ideal 1s the 
virgin ; the libertine he despises. 

Where marriage is the customary form of sexual inter- 
course pre-nuptial incontinence in a woman, as suggesting 
lack of coyness and modesty, is therefore apt to disgrace 
her. At the same time itis a disgrace to, and consequently 
an offence against, her family, especially where the ties of 
kinship are strong. Moreover, where wives are purchased 
the unchaste girl, by lowering her market value, deprives 
her father or parents of part of their property. Among 
the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast, says Major 
Ellis, “chastity per se is not understood. An unmarried 
girl is expected to be chaste because virginity possesses a 
marketable value, and were she to be unchaste her parents 
would receive little and perhaps no head-money for her.” ” 
Among the’ Rendile of Eastern Africa, we are told, 
the unchastity of unmarried girls meets with severe retri- 
bution, the girl invariably being driven out from her 
home, for the sole and simple reason that her market value 
to her parents has been decreased.? The same commercial 
point of view is expressed in the Mosaic rule :—‘“ If a man 
entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, 
he shall surely endow her to be his wife. If her father 
utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money 
according to the dowry of virgins.” * But the girl is not 
the only offender. Whilst the disgrace of incontinence 
falls on her alone, the offence against her relatives is 
divided between her and the seducer. Speaking of the 
presents which, among the Thlinkets, a man is bound 
to give to the parents-of the girl whom he has seduced, 
Sir James Douglas observes, ‘The offender is simply 
regarded as a robber, who has committed depredation 
on their merchandise, their only anxiety being to make the 

1 Athenzeus, Dezprosophiste, xiii. 16. ® Chanler, Through Jungle and 
2 Ellis, Tsk - speaking Peoples, Desert, p. 317. 
p. 286. + Exodus, xxii. 16 sq. 

TOPO eo ars ee 

» 

z 

damages exacted as heavy as possible.” 1 Marriage by 
purchase has thus raised the standard of female chastity, 
and also, to some extent, checked the incontinence of the 
men. But it can certainly not be regarded as the 
sole cause of the duty of chastity, where such a duty 
is recognised by savages. Among the Veddahs, who 
do not make their daughters objects of traffic,’ the 
unmarried girls are nevertheless protected by their natural 
guardians “ with the keenest sense of honour.” * In many 
of the instances quoted above where a seduction is followed 
by more or less serious consequences for the seducer, 
the penalty he has to pay is evidently something else 
than the mere market value of the girl. 

Thus the men, by demanding that the women whom 
they marry shall be virgins, indirectly give rise to the 
demand that they themselves shall abstain from certain 
forms of incontinence. From my collection of facts 
relating to savages I find that in the majority of cases 
where chastity is required of unmarried girls the seducer 
also is considered guilty of a crime. But, as was just 
pointed out, his act is judged from a more limited point 
of view. It is chiefly, if not exclusively, regarded as 
an offence against the parents or family of the girl ; 
chastity per se is hardly required of savage men. Where 
prostitution exists they may without censure gratify their 
passions among its victims. Now, to anybody who 
duly reflects upon the matter it is clear that the seducer 
does a wrong to the woman also; but. I find no in- 
dication that this idea occurs at all to the savage mind. 
Where the seducer is censured the girl also is censured, 
being regarded not as the injured party but as an 
injurer. Even in the case of rape the harm done to the 
girl herself is little thought of. Among the Tonga 
Islanders “ rape, providing it be not upon a married woman 
or one to whom respect is due on the score of superior 

' Douglas, quoted by Petroff, of. cz?. Branch, ix. 340. Hartshorne, ‘ Wed- 
Daly das,’ in Zrdian Antiguary, Vill. 320. 

2 Le Mesurier, ‘ Veddas. of Ceylon,’ 3 Nevill, ‘ Vaeddas of Ceylon,’ in 
in Jour. Roy. Astatic Soc. Ceylon Taprobanian, i. 178. 

FREE LOVE 

rank from the perpetrator, is considered not as a crime 
but as a matter of indifference.” ! The same is the case in 
the Pelew Islands.? In the laws of the Rejangs of Sumatra 
referring to this offence, “there is hardly anything con- 
sidered but the value of the girl’s person to her relations, 
as a mere vendible commodity.’’* Among the Asiniboin, 
a Siouan tribe, the punishment for rape is based on the 
principle that the price of the woman has been depreciated, 
that the chances of marriage have been lessened, and that 
the act is an insult to her kindred, as implying contempt 
of their feelings and their power a protection. Even the 
Teutons in early days hardly severed rape from abduction, 
the kinsmen of the woman feeling themselves equally 
wronged in either case.° If the girl’s feelings are thus dis- 
regarded when she is an unwilling victim of violence, it 
can hardly be expected that she should be an object of pity 
when she is a consenting partner. Does not public opinion 
in the midst of civilisation turn against the dishonoured 
rather than the dishonourer ? 

There is yet another party to be considered, namely, the 
offspring. One would imagine that to every thinking 
mind, not altogether destitute of sympathetic feelings, the 
question what is likely to happen to the child if the 
woman becomes pregnant should present itself as one of 
the greatest gravity. But in judging of matters relating 
to sexual morality men have generally made little use of 
their reason and been guilty of much thoughtless cruelty. 
Although marriage has come into existence solely for the 
sake of the offspring, it rarely happens that in sexual 
relations much unselfish thought is bestowed upon unborn 

1 Mariner, of. ct. il. 107. 

2 Kubary, ‘ Die Verbrechen und das 
Strafverfahren auf den Pelau-Inseln,’ in 
Original-Mitthetl. aus der  ethnol. 
Abthetl. der konigl. Museen 2u Berlin, 
its WPS 

® Crawfurd, H7zstory of the Indian 
Archipelago, ii. 130. 

4 Dorsey, ‘Siouan Sociology,’ in 
Ann. kep. Bur. Ethn. xv. 226. 

> Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, 

i. 666. Pollock and Maitland, A7zs- 
tory of English Law before the Time of 
Edward I, ii. 490. According to 
Salic law, the fine for the rape of an 
megenua puella was 62% solidi, or only a 
little higher than the fine for a con- 
nection with her to which she herself 
consented (Lex Salica, Herold’s text, 
xlv. 43; xv. 3); whereas the fine for 
adultery with a free woman was 200 
solidi (zé¢d. xv. 1). 

aa 

individuals. Legal provisions in favour of illegitimate 
children have made men somewhat more careful, for their 
own sake, but they have also nourished the idea that the 
responsibility of fatherhood may be bought off by the 
small sum the man has to pay for the support of his 
natural child. Custom or law may exempt him even from 
this duty. Weare told that in Tahiti the father might 
kill a bastard child, but that, if he suffered it to live, he 
was ¢0 ipso considered to be married to its mother.’ This 
custom, it would seem, is hardly more inhuman than the 
famous law according to which “ la recherche de la pater- 
nité est interdite.”’ ” 

The great authority on the ethics of Roman Catholic- 
ism tries to prove that simple fornication is a mortal sin 
chiefly because it “tends to the hurt of the life of the 
child who is to be born of such intercourse,’ or more 
generally, because “‘it is contrary to the good of the off- 
spring.” * But this tender care for the welfare of illegiti- 
mate children seems strange when we consider the manner 
in which such children have been treated by the Roman 
Catholic Church herself. It is obvious that the extreme 
horror of fornication which is expressed in the Christian 
doctrine is in the main a result of the same ascetic 
principle which declared celibacy superior to marriage and 
tolerated marriage only because it could not be suppressed. 

Moral ideas concerning unchastity have also been in- 
fluenced by the close association which exists in a refined 
mind between the sexual impulse and a sentiment of affec- 
tion which lasts long after the gratification of the bodily 
desire seeWetnd) thevgerm “of -this feeling in the 
abhorrence with which prostitution is regarded by savage 
tribes who have no objection to ordinary sexual intercourse 
previous to marriage,* and in the distinction which among 
ourselves is drawn between the prostitute and the woman 

1 Cook, Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 4 #.g., the Chittagong Hill tribes 

its, Wap (Lewin, W2ld Races of South-Eastern 
2 Code Napoléon, § 340. India, p. 348). Cf. Westermarck, of. 
3 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theo-  ctt. p. 70 sq. 

logica, \l.-il. 154. 2. 

who yields to temptation because she loves. To indulge 
in mere sexual pleasure, unaccompanied by higher feelings, 
appears brutal and disgusting in the case of a man, and 
still more so in the case of a woman. After all, love is 
generally only an episode in a man’s life, whereas for a 
woman it is the whole of her life! The Greek orator said 
that in the moment when a woman loses her chastity her 
mind is changed.” On the other hand, when a man and a 
woman, tied to each other by deep and genuine affection, 
decide to live together as husband and wife, though not 
joined in legal wedlock, the censure which public opinion 
passes upon their conduct seems to an unprejudiced mind 
justifiable at most only in so far as it may be considered 
to have been their duty to comply with the laws of their 
country and to submit toa rule of some social importance. 

Sexual intercourse between unmarried persons of 
opposite sex is thus regarded as wrong from different 
points of view under different conditions, social or 
psychical, and all of these conditions are not in any con- 
siderable degree combined at any special stage of civilisa- 
tion. Sometimes the opinions on the subject are greatly 
influenced by the institution of marriage by purchase, 
sometimes they are influenced by the refinement of love ; 
and between such causes there can be no co-operation. 
This is one reason for the singular complexity which 
characterises the evolution of the duty of chastity ; but 
there is another reason perhaps even more important. 
The causes to which this duty may be traced are frequently 
checked by circumstances operating in an opposite direction. 
Thus the preference which a man is naturally disposed to 
give to a virgin bride may be overcome by his desire 
for offspring, inducing him to marry a woman who has 
proved capable of gratifying this desire.? It may also be 
ineffective for the simple reason that no virgin bride is to 
be found. Nothing has more generally prevented chastity 

‘Cf. Simmel, Aznlectung in die 2 Lysias, quoted by Schmidt, Dze 
Moralwissenschaft, i. 201; Paulsen, Lthtk der alten Griechen, i. 273. 
System der Ethik, ii. 274. 8 See supra, il. 423. 

from being recognised as a duty than social conditions 
promoting licentious habits. Even in savage society, 
where almost every man and every woman marry and most 
of them marry early in life, there are always a great 
number of unmarried people of both sexes above the age 
of puberty ; and, generally speaking, the number of the 
unmarried increases along with the progress of civilisation. 
This state of things easily leads to incontinence in men 
and women, and where such incontinence becomes habitual 
it can hardly incur much censure. Again, where the 
general standard of female chastity is high, the standard 
of male chastity may nevertheless be the lowest possible. 
This is the case where there is a class of women who can 
no longer be dishonoured, because they have already been 
dishonoured, whose virtue is of no value either to themselves 
or their families because they have lost their virtue, and 
who make incontinence’ their livelihood. Prostitution, 
being a safeguard of female chastity, has facilitated the 
enforcement of the rule which enjoins it as a duty, but at 
the same time it has increased the inequality of obligations 
imposed on men and women, It has begun to exercise 
this influence already at the lower stages of culture. 
Prostitution is by no means unknown in the savage world.' 
It is a recognised institution in many of the Melanesian 
islands ; ‘“‘at Santa Cruz,” says Dr. Codrington, “ where 
the separation of the sexes is so carefully maintained, 
there are certainly public courtesans.’’? . Prostitution 
prevails in many or most Negro countries ;* and so 
favourably, we are told, is this institution sometimes 
regarded, that rich Negro ladies on their death-beds buy 
female slaves and present them to the public, “in the 
same manner as in England they would have left a legacy 
to some public charity.”* The Wanyoro even have a 

1 See, ¢.g., Tutuila, ‘Line Islanders,’ Bartels, Das Wetb, 1. 536, 540 sgg. 

in Jour. Polynesian Soc. i. 270; 2 Codrington, Melanesians, p. 234 
Powell, Wanderings in a Wild  sqq. 
Country, p. 261 (natives of New 3 Emin Pasha in Central Africa, 

Britain); Davis, #7 Gringo, p. 221 p. 88. ; 
(Indians of New Mexico) ;_ Ploss- 4 Reade, Savage Africa, p. 547 sq. 

definite system of prostitution, governed by stringent laws 
which seem to be very old.!’ In Greenland, where it was 
“reckoned the greatest of infamies”’ for an unmarried 
woman to become pregnant,’ there were professional 
harlots already in early times ;* and the same was the case 
among many of the North American Indians.* Thus 
among the Omahas extra-matrimonial intercourse 1s, as a 
rule, practised only with public women, called minckeda ; 
and “so strict are the Omahas about these matters, that a 
young girl or even a married woman walking or riding 
alone, would be ruined in character, being liable to be 
taken for a minckeda, and addressed as such.” ° Public 
prostitution was tolerated, if not encouraged, among all 
the Maya nations, whifst intercourse with other unmarried 
women was punished with a fine or, if the affronted 
relatives insisted, with death.° ‘In order to avoid greater 
evils,” the Incas of Peru permitted public prostitutes, who 
were treated with extreme contempt ;’ but, with this 
exception, “to be lewd with single women was capital.” * 
Among all the civilised nations of the Old World pros- 
titution has existed, and still exists, as a tolerated in- 

stitution, even where legislators have endeavoured to 

suppress it.” Its prevalence in our modern society greatly 
increases the perplexity of public opinion in regard to 
sexual morality. Its victims are degraded and despised 
beyond description. At the same time their male customers 

1 Emin Pasha in Central Africa, 
p. 87. Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, 
li. 49. 

2 Egede, Description of Greenland, 
p. 141. 

3 Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 176. 

4 Carver, Zravels through the Jnte- 
rior Parts of North America, p. 375. 

5 Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethi. iii. 365. 

6 Bancroft, MVative Races of the 
Pacific States, ii. 676, 659. 

7 Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part of 
the Royal Commentaries of the Vncas, 
ils ENP Wee . 

8 Herrera, General Hestory of the 
West [Indtes, iv. 340. 

® Dufour, Azstozre dela prostitution, 
passim. Doolittle, Soczal Life of the 
Chinese, 1. 348. Wilkins, J/odern 
Hinduism, p. 412. Polak, ‘ Die Pros- 
titution in Persien,’ in Weener Medizin- 
wsche Wochenschrift, xi. 516, 517, 563 
sgqg. Lane, Modern Egyptians, i. 150. 
Weinhold, Altnordisches Leben, p. 259 
(ancient Scandinavians). Desmaze, 
Les pénalités anciennes, p. 61 sg. n. 43 
Mackintosh, Azstory of Civilisation in 
Scotland, i, 428 (Middle Ages); &c. 
Since the thirteenth century even the 
Church tolerated the establishment of 
brothels in the larger cities (Miiller, 
Das sexuelle Leben der christlichen 
Kulturvolker, p. 149). 

are tacitly allowed to support the trade. That the 
demand for a merchandise increases the production of it is 
in this case seldom thought of. But secrecy must be 
observed. In sexual matters openness is indecent, and the 
chief crime is to be found out. 

There is, moreover, a form of religious prostitution, just 
as there is religious celibacy. In fact, the two customs 
are sometimes very closely. connected with one another. 
Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast the 
chief business of the female kosi, or wife of the god to 
whom she is dedicated, is prostitution. “In every town 
there is at least one institution in which the best-looking 
girls, between ten and twelve years of age, are received. 
Here they remain for three years, learning the chants and 
dances peculiar to the worship of the gods, and prostituting 
themselves to the priests and the inmates of the male 
seminaries ; and at the termination of their novitiate they 
become public prostitutes. This condition, however, is 
not regarded as one for reproach; they are considered to 
be married to the god, and their excesses are supposed to 
be caused and directed by him. Properly speaking, their 
libertinage should be confined to the male worshippers at 
the temple of the god, but practically it is indiscriminate. 
Children who are born from such unions belong to the 
god.’ So also the priestesses on the Gold Coast, though 
not allowed to marry, are by no means debarred from 
sexual intercourse. They ‘are ordinarily most licentious, 
and custom allows them to gratify their passions with any 
man who may chance to take their fancy. A priestess who 
is favourably impressed by a man sends for him to her 
house, and this command he is sure to obey, through fear 
of the consequences of exciting her anger. She then tells 
him that the god she serves has directed her to love him, 
and the man thereupon lives with her until she grows 
tired of him, or a new object takes her fancy. Some 
priestesses have as many as half a dozen men in their train 
at one time, and may on great occasions be seen walking 

1 Pllis, Ewe-speaking Peoples, p. 141. 

rev FREE LOVE cHer 

in state, followed by them. Their life is one continual 
record of debauchery and sensuality, and when excited by 
the dance they frequently abandon themselves to the 
wildest excesses.”1 It seems that the “wife” of the 
Egyptian god at Thebes also in time became a libertine ; 
Strabo tells us that the beautiful woman who was dedicated 
to him had sexual intercourse with any man she chose 
“till the natural purification of her body took place,” after 
which she was given to a man.” In India every Hindu 
temple of any importance has its dancing girls, whose 
position is inferior only to that of the sacrificers.* 
Thus at Jigtinnat’ht-kshitrt in Orissa a number of 
women of infamous character are employed to dance and 
sing before the god. They live in separate houses, not at 
the temple. The Brahmins who officiate there continually 
have adulterous connections with them, and these women 
also prostitute themselves to visitors.* In the Canaanitish 
cults there were women, called kedéshoth, who -were 
consecrated to the deity with whose temple they were 
associated, and who at the same time acted as prostitutes.” 
At the local shrines of North Israel the worship of 
Yahveh itself was deeply affected by these practices ;° but. 
they were forbidden in the Deuteronomic code.’ Perhaps 
this temple prostitution may be accounted for by a belief 
that it bestowed blessings upon the worshippers. Accord- 
ing to notions which prevail to this day in Semitic 
countries, sexual intercourse with a holy person is regarded 
as beneficial to him or her who indulges in it.° 

Of asomewhat different character was the religious prosti- 
tution which prevailed in ancient Babylonia, in connection 
with the worship of Ishtar. Herodotus says that every 
woman born in that country was obliged once in her life 

1 Ellis, Zshz-speaking Peoples, p. ° Driver, Commentary on Deute- 
I2I sq. ronony, p. 264. Cheyne, ‘ Harlot,’ in 

2 Strabo, Geographica, xvi. 1. 46. Cheyne and Black, Azcyclopedia 
Cf. Wiedemann, Herodots zweites Buch,  Biblica, ii. 1965. 

p. 269. 8 Hosea, iv. 14. Cf. Cheyne, in 
* Warneck, quoted by Ploss-Bartels,  ncyclopedia Biblica, i. 1965. 
op. ctt. 1. 534- 7 Deuteronomy, xxiii. 17 sq. 

4 Ward, View of the History, &c. of 8 Ch infra, p. 488. 
the Hindoos, li. 134. 

to go and sit down in the precinct of Aphrodite, and there 
consort with a stranger. A woman who had once taken 
her seat was not allowed to return home till one of the 
strangers threw a silver coin into her lap, and took her 
with him beyond the holy ground. The silver coin could 
not be refused because, since once thrown, it was sacred. 
The woman went with the first man who threw her money, 
rejecting no one. When she had gone with him, and so 
satisfied the goddess, she returned home, and from that 
time forth no gift, however great, would prevail with her.’ 
Several allusions in cuneiform literature to the sacred pros- 
titution carried on at Babylonian temples confirm Hero- 
dotus’ statement in general.* A cult very similar to this 
was also found in certain parts of the island of Cyprus,* at 
Heliopolis in Syria,* and at Byblus.? In the worship of 
Anaitis the Armenians even of the highest families prosti- 
tuted their own daughters at least once in their lives, nor 
was this regarded as any bar to an honourable marriage 
afterwards.” Although such practices were generally ex- 
cluded from the ordinary Greek worships of Aphrodite, 
unchastity in the temple cult of that goddess is reported 
to have occurred at Corinth’ and in the city of the Locri 
Epizephyrii, who, according to the story, vowed to con- 
secrate their daughters to this service in order to gain 
the goddess’s aid in a war.° 

Various theories have been set forth to explain the 
religious prostitution of the Babylonian type. It has 
been interpreted as an expiation for individual marriage, 
as a temporary recognition of pre-existing communal 
rights at a time when “communal marriage” in the 
full sense of the term had already ceased to exist.” It 

1 Herodotus, i. 199. v. 10 (Migne, Ser. Graeca, Ixvil. 1243). 

2 Jeremias, /zdubar-Nimrod, p. 59 Eusebius, Veta Constantinz, ii. 56 
sg. Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia (Migne, Ser. Greeca, xx, 1124). 

and Assyria, p. 475 sg. Miirdter- 5 Lucian, De Syria Dea, 6 
Delitzsch, Geschzchte Babyloniens, p. 41. 6 Strabo, xi. 14. 16, 
3 Herodotus, i. 199. Athenzeus, 7 Tbzd. viii. 6. 20. 
Deipnosophiste, xii. 11, p. 516 a. 8 Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, 
4° Socrates, Astoria ecclesiastica, i. ii. 636. Athenzeus, xii. 11, p. 5164 
18 (Migne, op. czt. Ser. Greeca, Ixvii. 9 Avebury, Orig?n of Crvelisation, 

123). Sozomen, Astoria ecclestastica, pp. 559. 

has been supposed to be nothing but ordinary immorality 
practised under the cloak of religion.’ It has been 
saree aes as a form of sacrifice, either as a first-fruit 
offering ® or as an act by which a M0: siipp=t sacrifices 
her most precious possession to the deity.* To Dr. 
Farnell it seems to be ‘“a-special modification of a 
wide-spread custom, the custom of destroying virginity 
before marriage so that the bridegroom’s intercourse should 
be safe from a peril that is much dreaded by men in a 
certain stage of culture ; and here, as in other ritual,” he 
adds, “‘ it is the stranger that takes the peril upon him- 
self.” * But why should the stranger have been more 
willing than the bridegroom to expose himself to this 
danger? Considering that the act was performed at 
the temple of the goddess of fecundity, I think its object 
most probably was to ensure fertility in the woman ; this, 
in fact, is directly indicated by the words which the 
stranger, according to Herodotus, uttered when he threw 
the silver coin Tage her lap :—‘ The goddess Mylitta 
prosper thee!”° And from what has been said in a 
previous ee about the semi-supernatural character 

ascribed to strangers, about the efficacy of their blessings. 

and the benefits expected from their love,° we can see why 
a stranger was appointed to confer the blessing upon the 
girl.! 

Among ourselves an act of incontinence assumes a 

1 Jeremias, /zdubar-Nimrod, p. 60. 

2 Wiedemann, Herodots zweites Buch, 
p- 267 sg. 

3 Curtiss, Przmetive Semitic Religion 
To-day, p. 155. 

4 Farnell, ‘ Sociological Hypotheses 
concerning the Position of Women in 
Ancient Religion,’ in Archiv f. Relz- 
etonswiss. Vii. 88. 

> Herodotus, 1. 199. 

OM OU Pe Ay ManGl. x X1Vs 

7 Since the present chapter was ia 
type, some fresh attempts have been 
made to explain this religious prostitu- 
tion. Dr. Frazer (Adonis Attis Ostris, 
p. 23 sg.) regards it as a rite intended 
to ensure the fruitfulness of the ground 

and the increase of man and beast on 
the principle of homeeopathic magic. A 
very similar opinion has been expressed 
by Dr. Havelock Ellis (‘ Ursprung und 
Entwicklung der Prostitution,’ in AZzé- 
terschutz, iii. fasc. I sg.). According to 
Mr. Hartland, again (‘ Concerning the 
Rite at the Temple of Mylitta,’? in 
Anthropological Essays presented to 
£. B. Tylor, p. 189 sqg.), it was a 
puberty rite involving a sacrifice of 
virginity to which every Woman was 
subjected. | I cannot help thinking that 
my own theory, stated above, gives a 
more natural explanation of the rite in 
question. 

ae ne ee 

different aspect if one of the parties, either the man or the 
woman, is married. Involving a breach of faith, adultery 
is an offence against him or her to whom faith is due, and 
at the same time the seducer commits an offence against the 
husband of the adulteress. But here again our own views 
are not universally shared. 

Although it is hard to understand that the seducer 
could ever be regarded as guiltless, we are told that among 
a few peoples adultery is not held to be wrong ;' and Mr. 
Morgan states that among the Iroquois “ punishment was 
inflicted upon the woman alone, who was supposed to be 
the only offender.” * But these cases are certainly quite 
exceptional. Ina savage tribe a seducer may be thankful if 
he escapes by paying to the injured husband the value of 
the bride or some other fine, or if the penalty is reduced 
to a flogging, to his head being shaved, his ears cut. off, 
one of his eyes destroyed, or his legs speared. Very com- 
monly he has to pay with his life. We have seen that 
even among many peoples who generally prohibit self- 
redress an adulterer may be put to death by the aggrieved 
husband, especially if he be caught flagrante delicto ;* and 
in other cases he may be subject to capital punishment, in 
the proper sense of the word.* In Albania, even in our 
days, custom not only allows, but compels, the injured 
husband to kill the adulterer.° Hebrew law enjoined the 
man who committed adultery with another man’s wife 
to be put to death ; ° and Christian legislators followed the 
example. Constantine celebrated his new zeal for the 
sacramental idea of marriage by establishing the punish- 
ment of death for the seducer ;' adultery was in point of 

Se Davis 22 Gre. ep. e22T SQ. 
(Indians of New Mexico). Adair, 

(Bushmans). 
2 Morgan, League of the [roquozs, p. 

Liistory of the American Indians, p. 
146 (Cherokees). Krasheninnikoff, 
Listory of Kamschatka, p. 204.  Pre- 
jevalsky, Mongolia, i. 70 (Mongols). 
Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans, p. 
75 (Yendalines, one of the Karen 
tribes). Chanler, of. c2t. p. 317 (Ren- 
dile in Eastern Africa). Lichtenstein, 
Travels in Southern Africa, ii. 48 

a 
3 Supra, 1. 290 sqq. 

4 Supra, i. 189. 

5 Hahn, A/banesische 
Tighe 
8 Leviticus, xx. 10, Deuterononvy, 
TSO, LA, 

7 Codex Justintanus, 1x. 9. 29. 4. 

Studten, i. 

heinousness assimilated to murder, idolatry, and sorcery.’ 
Various medieval law-books punished the seducer with 
death ;® whilst in Scotland notorious and manifest adultery 
was made capital as late as 1563.° “This extreme severity, 
however, has been followed by extreme leniency. In 
Scotland, though adultery kept its place in the statute- 
book as a heinous and in some cases a capital crime, 
prosecution for it had ceased for many#:years before the 
time of Baron Hume ;* and in England it is no crime at 
all in the eyes of the law, only an ecclesiastical offence. 
The punishment of the seducer often varies according 
to his rank, or according to that of the husband, or 
according to the relative rank of both, or according to the 
rank of the adulteress. Among the Monbuttu, if the guilty 
woman belongs to the royal household, the adulterer is put 
to death, whereas otherwise he is only compelled to pay an 
indemnity to the offended husband.’ Among the Ewe- 
speaking peoples of the Slave Coast the fine imposed for 
adultery depends on the rank of the injured husband ;° and 
the same principle is found in Anglo-Saxon law." Among 
the Bakongo, again, the penalties for adultery “ vary from 
capital punishment to a trifling fine, according to the 
station of the offender or the district he= lives in. © 
Drury tells us that in the country of Anterndroea in 
Madagascar, “if a man lies with another man’s wife who 
is superior to him, he forfeits thirty head of cattle besides 
beads and shovels a great number,” whereas ‘if the men 
are of an equal rank, then twenty beasts are the fine.” ® 
According to the Chinese Penal Code, a slave who is 
guilty of criminal intercourse with the wife or daughter of 
a freeman, shall be punished at the least one degree more 

1 Codex Theodosianus, xi. 36. 1. St. 4 Hume, Commentaries on the Law 
Basil, quoted by Bingham, Works, vi. of Scotland, il. 302. 
432 Sg. 5 Casati, Zen Years in Equatoria, i. 

2 Du Boys, Wistoire du drott crimi- 163. 
mel des peuples modernes, ii. 606. 8 Ellis, L&be-speaking Peoples, yp. 
Idem, Histoire du droit criminel de 202. 
? Espagne, p. 391. “ Laws of Alfred, ii. 10. 

3 Erskine-Rankine, Prizciples of the 8 Johnston, Azver Congo, p. 404. 
Law of Scotland, p. 563. ® Drury, Journal, p. 183. 

ame ag 

severely than a freeman would have been under the same 
circumstances.! In India a man of one of the first three 
castes who committed adultery with a Sidra woman was 

_ banished, but aSddra who committed adultery with a es 

of one of the first three castes suffered capital punishment ; ” 
and an opinion is also quoted that for a Brahmana “shy 
once was guilty of adultery with a married woman of 
equal class, the penance was one-fourth of that prescribed 
for an outcast.2 In ancient Peru “an adulterer was 
punish’d with death, if the woman was of note, or else 
with the rack.” + 

We find no difficulty in explaining all these facts. In 
early civilisation a husband has often extreme rights over 
his wife. The seducer encroaches upon a right of which 
he is most jealous, and with regard to which his passions 
are most easily inflamed. Adultery is regarded as an 
illegitimate appropriation of the exclusive claims which the 
husband has acquired by the purchase of his wife, as 
an offence against property.’ It is said in the ‘ Laws of 
Manu’ that “seed must not be sown by any man on that 
which belongs to another.” ° How closely the seducer 1s 
associated with a thief is illustrated by the fact that among 
some peoples he is punished as such, having his hands, 
or one of them, cut off.’ Yet even among savages the 
offence is something more than a mere infringement of the 
right of ownership. The Kurile Islanders, says Krashe- 
ninnikoff, have an extraordinary way of punishing 
adultery : the husband of the adulteress challenges the 
adulterer to a combat. The result is generally the death 
of both the combatants; but it is held to be ‘as great 
dishonour to refuse this combat as to refuse an invitation 
toa duel among the people of Europe.” * The passion of 
jealousy, the feeling of ownership, and the sense of honour, 

1 Ta Tsing Leu Lee, sec. ccclxxiii. i. 77; Monrad, Skildring af Guinea- 
p. 409. Kysten, p. 5; Letourneau, L’évolutzon 

2 Apastamba, ii. 10. 27. 8 sq. de la morale, p. 154 59g. 

3 Geek We WO, Ae Wit 8 Laws of Mani, ix. 42. 

4 Herrera, of. cit. iv. 338. : Westermarck, op. cit. Pp. 130. 

5 See, ¢.g., Casalis, Basutos, p.225 ; 8 Krasheninnikoff, Azstory of Kam- 

Burton, Zwo Trips to Gorilla Land, schatka, p. 238. 
VAG) iret GG 

thus combine to make the seducer’s act an offence, and 
often a heinous offence, in the eyes of custom or law ; and 
for the same reasons as in other offences the magnitude 
of guilt is here also influenced by the rank of the parties 
concerned. Modern legislation, on the other hand, does 
not to the same extent as early law and custom allow a 
man to give free vent to his angry passion ; it regards the 

dishonour of the aggrieved husband as a matter of 

too private a character to be publicly avenged; and the 
faithfulness which a wife owes her husband is no longer 
connected with any idea of ownership. Moreover, the 
severity of earlier European laws against adultery was 
closely connected with Christianity’s abhorrence of all kinds 
of irregular sexual intercourse ; and secular legislation has 
more and more freed itself from the bondage of religious 
doctrine. 

Among some savage peoples it is the seducer only who 
suffers, whilst the unfaithful wife escapes without punish- 
ment.’ Jealousy, in the first place, turns against the rival, 
and the seducer is the dishonourer and the thief. But, as 
a general rule, the unfaithful wife is also looked upon as 
an offender, and the punishment falls on both. She 
is discarded, beaten, or ill-treated in some way or other, 
and not infrequently she is killed. Often, too, she 
is disfigured by her enraged husband, so that no man may 
fall in love with her ever after.” Indeed, so strong is the 
idea that a wife belongs exclusively to her husband, 
that among several peoples she has to die with him ;* and 
frequently a widow is prohibited from remarrying either 
for ever or for a certain period after the husband’s death.‘ 
In ancient Peru widows generally continued to live single, 
as “this virtue was much commended in their laws 
and ordinances.”* Nor is it in China considered proper 

ty VWestermarel, 0p) iczzn pe 1122. 2 Westermarck, of. ca. p. 122, 

Macpherson, JZemorzals of Service in 8 Joid. p. 125 sg. Supra, i. 472 
India, p. 133 (Kandhs). Batchelor,  sgg. 

Ainu of Japan, p. 189 sg. Scaramucci 4 Westermarck, Aestory of Human 
and Giglioli, ‘ Notizie sui Danakil, in  AWarrzage, p. 127 sgq. 
Archivio per l’antropologia ela etnologia, 5 Garcilasso de la Vega, of. cézf. i. 

xiv. 26. 305. 

: 
; 
’ 
“ 

-herself to a penalty of eighty blows.! 

; 

ADULTERY 

for a woman to contract a second marriage after her 
husband’s death, and a lady of rank, by doing so, exposes 
‘WAS an tattntul 
minister does not serve two lords, neither may a faithful 
woman marry a second husband ’’—this is to the Chinese 
a principle of life, a maxim generally received as gospel.” 
Among so-called Aryan peoples the ancient custom which 
ordained sacrifice of widows survived in the prohibitions 
issued against their marrying a second time.? Even now 
the bare mention of a second marriage for a Hindu 
woman would be considered the greatest of insults, and, if 
she married again, “‘she would be hunted out of society, 
and no decent person would venture at any time to 
have the slightest intercourse with her.” * In Greece’ and 
Rome * a widow’s remarriage was regarded as an insult to 
her former husband; and so it is still regarded among the 
Southern Slavs.” The early Christians, especially the 
Montanists and Novatians, strongly disapproved of second 
marriages by persons of either sex ;* a second marriage 
was described by them as a “kind of fornication,” * or as 
a “specious adultery.” "° It was looked upon as a manifest 
sign of incontinence, and also as inconsistent with the 
doctrine that marriage is an emblem of the union of Christ 
with the Church.” 

Conjugal fidelity, whilst considered a stringent duty in 
the wife, is not generally considered so in the husband. 
This is obviously the rule among savage and barbarous 
tribes ; but there are interesting exceptions to the rule. 
The Igorrotes of Luzon are so strictly monogamous that 

1 Gray, China, i. 215. 

2 de Groot, Religious System of 
China, (vol. ii. book) i. 745. 

3 Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of 
the Aryan Peoples, p- 391. 

4 Dubois, People of India, 

5 Pausanias, ii. 21. 7. 

6 Rossbach, Aomdsche Lhe, p. 262. 

7 Krauss, Sztte und Brauch der 
Stidslaven, p. 578. Cf. Ralston, Songs 
of the Russian People, p. 115 (Bul- 
garians). 

8 Mayer, Die Rechte der TIsraeliten, 

[By Tega 

Athener und Romer, ii. 290. Bingham, 
op. cit. Vi. 427 Sg. 3 Vill. 13 Sg. 

® Tertullian, De exhortatione castita- 
tis, 9 (Migne, Patrologie cursus, ii. 
924). 

1 Athenagoras, Legatto pro Chris- 
tzanis, 33 (Migne, op. cét. Ser. Graeca, 
vi. 967). 

U Gibbon, Hestory of the Decline and 
Fall of the Roman Empire, ii. 187. 
Lecky, fiistory of European Morals, 
e320; 

in case of adultery the guilty party can be compelled to 
leave the hut and the family for ever,’ and among various 
other monogamous savages adultery is said to be 
unknown.” The Dyak husband ‘preserves his vow of 
fidelity with a rectitude which makes jealousy a farce.” * 
The Toungtha, who marry only one wife, do not consider 
it right for a master to take advantage of his position 
even with regard to the female slaves in his house.* 
Nay, the duty of fidelity in the husband has been 
recognised even by some savage peoples who allow 
polygamy. The Abipones, we are told, thought it both 
wicked and disgraceful to have any illicit intercourse with 
other women than their wives; hence adultery was almost 
unheard of among them.” Among the Omaha Indians, 
“if a woman’s husband be guilty of adultery with another 
woman she may strike him or the guilty female in her 
anger,’ though she cannot claim damages.° -In several 
tribes of Western Victoria a wife whose husband has been 
unfaithful to her ‘“‘may make a complaint to the chief, 
who can punish the man by sending him away from his 
tribe for two or three moons’’;’ and among some 
aborigines in New South Wales similar complaints may 
be made to the elders of the tribe, with the result that 
the adulterous husband may have to suffer for his 
conduct.* The Kandhs of India deny the married man 
certain prerogatives which are granted to his wife : whilst 
constancy to her husband is so far from being re- 
quired in a wife, “that her pretensions do not, at 
least, suffer diminution in the eyes of either sex when 
fines are levied on her convicted lovers,” infidelity in 
a married man is held to be highly dishonourable, and 

1 Meyer, in Verhandl. Berliner 4 Lewin, Wild Races of South-Eastern 
Gesellsch. f. Anthrop. 1883, p. 385. India, p. 193 sq. 
2 Bailey, in 7rvans. Ethn. Soc. N. S. > Dobrizhoffer, Account of the 
ii. 291 sg. Hartshorne, in JLxudian  Abzpones, ii. 138. 
Antiguary, vill. 320 (Veddahs). Finsch, § Dorsey, ‘ Omaha Sociology,’ in 
Neu-Guinea, p. 101; Earl, Papuans, Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. iii. 364. 
p. 81 (Papuans of Dorey). ” Dawson, Australian Aborigines, p. 
3 Boyle, Adventures among the Dyaks 33. 
of Borneo, p. 236. See also Low, 8 Nieboer, Slavery as an Industriai 

Sarawak, p. 300 (Hill Dyaks). System, p. 18. 

~ off 

XLII ADULTERY | 453 

is often punished with deprivation of many social 
privileges.’ 

The duty which savages thus in certain instances have 
imposed on the husband is hardly at all recognised in the 
archaic State. The Mexicans “did not consider, nor did 
they punish, as adultery the trespass of a husband with 
any woman who was -free, or not joined in matrimony ; 
wherefore the husband was not bound to so much fidelity 
as was exacted from the wife,” adultery in her being 
inevitably punished with death.?_ In China, where adultery 
in a woman is branded as one of the vilest crimes and the 
guilty wife is oftentimes “cut into small pieces,” 
concubinage is a recognised institution of the country.’ 
In Corea “‘ conjugal fidelity—obligatory on the woman— 
is not required of the husband. . . . Among the nobles, 
the young bridegroom spends three or four days with his 
bride, and then absents himself from her for a considerable 
time, to prove that he does not esteem her too highly. 
Etiquette dooms her to a species of widowhood, while he 
spends his hours of relaxation in the society of his 
concubines, To act otherwise would be considered in 
very bad taste, and highly unfashionable.”* In Japan, 
“while the man is allowed a loose foot, the woman is 
expected not only to be absolutely spotless, but also 
never to show any jealousy, however wide the husband 
may roam, or however numerous may be the concubines 
in his family.”° According to Hebrew law adultery was 
a capital offence, but it presupposed that the guilty woman 
was another man’s wife.° The “Aryan” nations in early 
times generally saw nothing objectionable in the unfaith- 
fulness of a married man, whereas an adulterous wife was 
subject to the severest penalties." Until some time after 
the introduction of Christianity among the Teutons their 

1 Macpherson, Memorials of Service 4 Griffis, Corea, p. 251 sg. 
tn India, p. 133. } > Idem, Keligions of Japan, p. 320. 
2 Clavigero, Hestory of Mexico, 1. 6 Leviticus, xx. 10. Deuteronony, 
56. “ein 
3 Doolittle, of. czt. i. 339. Griffis, 7 Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquztces 

Religions of Japan, p. 149. of the Ayran Peoples, p. 388. 

law-books made no mention of the infidelity of husbands, 
because it was permitted by custom.’ The Romans 
defined adultery as sexual intercourse with another man’s 
wife ; on the other hand, the intercourse of a married man 
with an unmarried woman was not regarded as adultery.” 
The ordinary Greek feeling on the subject is expressed in 
the oration against Nezra, ascribed to Demosthenes, where 
the licence accorded to husbands is spoken of as a matter 
of course :—‘‘ We keep mistresses for our pleasures, con- 
cubines for constant attendance, and wives to bear us 
legitimate children and to be our faithful house- 
keepers.” ® 

At the same time the idea that fidelity in marriage ought 
to be Soeyproe was not altogether unknown in classical 
antiquity.* In a lost chapter of his ‘ Economics,’ which 
has come to us only through a Latin translation, Aristotle 
points out that it for various reasons is prudent for a man 
to be faithful to his wife, but that nothing is so peculiarly 
the property of a wife asa chaste and hallowed intercourse.® 
Plutarch condemns the man who, lustful and dissolute, goes 
astray with a courtesan or maid-servant; though at the 
same time he admonishes the wife not to be vexed or im- 
patient, considering that ‘it is out of respect to her that 
he bestows upon another all’ his wanton depravity.” ° 
Plautus argues that it is unjust of a husband to exact a 
fidelity which he does not keep himself.’ 

In its condemnation of adultery Christianity made no 
distinction between husband and wife.* If continence is a 
stringent duty for unmarried persons independently of 

1 Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, 3 Oratio in Neeram, p. 1386. 
p. 821. Nordstrém, of.-czt. ii. 675g. Cf. Schmidt, Die Ethzk der alten 
Stemann, Den danske Letshistorie Griechen, ii. 196 sq. 

tndttl Christian V.’s Lov, pp. 324, 3 Lecky, op. cit. ii. 312 Sq. Schmidt, 

633. Keyser, Zfterladte Skrifter, op. cit. li. 195 sg. 

vol. li. pt. ii. 325g, Brunner, Deutsche 5 Aristotle, ‘Bebe Pp. 3438 

Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 662. vol. i. 679. Cf. Isocrates, Wécocles 
2 Vinnius, Zz guatuor libros institu. sive Cyprii, 40. 

tdonme tmtpertalrum commentarius, iv. 6 Plutarch, Conjugalia pracepia, 16 
18.4, p. 993. Cf. Digesta,1.16.101.1; « 7 Plautus, Mercator, iv. 5. 
Mommsen, omdsches Strafrecht, p. 8 Laurent, of. cet. iv. 114. Gratian, 
688 sq. Decretum, li. 35. 5. 23: 

re 

= 

XLII ADULTERY Aes 

their sex, the observance of the sacred marriage vow must 
be so in a still higher degree. But here again there is a 
considerable discrepancy between the actual feelings of 
Christian peoples and the standard of their religion. Even 
in the laws of various European countries relating to 
divorce or judicial separation we find an echo of the 
popular notion that adultery is a smaller offence in a 
husband than in a wife.! : 

The judgment pronounced upon an unfaithful husband 
is of course influenced by the opinion about extra- 
matrimonial connections in general. Where it is con- 
sidered wrong for a man to have intercourse with either 
an unmarried woman or another man’s wife, adultery in a 

husband is ¢o 7pso condemned, But whether, or how far, 

infidelity on his part is stigmatised as an offence against 
his wife, chiefly depends upon the degree of regard which 
is paid to the feelings of women. ‘That a married man 
generally enjoys more liberty than a married woman is 
largely due to the same causes as make him the more 
privileged partner in other respects; but there are also 
special reasons for this inequality between the sexes. It 
was a doctrine of the Roman jurists that adultery is a 
crime in the wife, and in the wife only, on account of the 
danger of introducing strange children to the husband.’ 
Moreover, the temptation to infidelity and the facility in 
indulging in it are commonly greater in the case of the 
husband than in that of the wife; and, as we have often 
noticed before, actual practice is always apt to influence 
moral opinion. And a still more important reason for the 
inequality in question is undoubtedly the general notion that 
unchastity of any kind is more discreditable for a woman 
than for a man. 

1 See szpra, ii. 397- 2 Hunter, Zucposition of Roman Law, 
p- 1071.

HOMOSEXUAL LOVE 

Our review of the moral ideas concerning sexual rela- 
tions has not yet come to an end. ‘The gratification of 
the sexual instinct assumes forms which fall outside the 
ordinary pale of nature. Of these there is one which, 
on account of the ré/e which it has played in the moral 
history of mankind, cannot be passed over in silence, 
namely, intercourse between individuals of the same sex, 
what is nowadays commonly called homosexual love. 

It is frequently met with among the lower animals.' 
It probably occurs, at least sporadically, among every race 
of mankind.” And among some peoples it has assumed 
such proportions as to form a true national habit. 

In America homosexual customs have been observed 
among a great number of the native tribes. In nearly 
every part of the continent there seem to have been, since 
ancient times, men dressing themselves in the clothes and 
performing the functions of women, and living with other 

“ss, 

men as their concubines or 

1 Karsch, ‘ Paderastie und . Tribadie 
bei den Tieren,’ in Jahrbuch fiir sexuelle 
Zwischenstufen, i. 126 sgg. Havelock 
Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, 
‘Sexual Inversion,’ p. 2 sgq. 

2 Cf. Ives, Classification of Crinzes, 
p- 49. The statement that it is un- 
known among a certain people cannot 
reasonably mean that it may not be 
practised in secret. 

3 von Spix and von Martius, 7ravels 

wives.” Moreover, between 
iz Brazil, ii. 246; von Martius, Voz 
dem Rechtszustande unter den Urein- 
wohnern Brasiliens, p. 27 sg.; Lo- 
monaco, ‘Sulle razze indigene del 
Brasile,’ in Archivio per Pantropologiae 
la etnologia, xix. 46 ; Burton, Arabian 
Nights, x. 246 (Brazilian Indians). 
Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part of the 
Royal Commentaries of the YVueas, ii. 
441 sgg. ; Cieza de Leon, ‘La crénica 
del Pert [primera parte],’ ch. 49, in 

CH. XLIII 

young men who are comrades in arms there are /iaisons 
d’amitié, which, according to Lafitau, “ne laissent aucun 
soupgon de vice apparent, qupigu ‘il y ait, ou qu'il puisse 
y avoir, beaucoup de vice réel.” 

Homosexual practices are, or have been, very prominent 
among the peoples in the neighbourhood of Behring Sea.” 
In Kadiak it was the custom for parents who had a girl-like 
son to dress and rear him as a girl, teaching him only 
domestic duties, keeping him at woman’s work, and 
letting him associate only with women and girls. Arriving 

at the age of ten or fifteen years, he was married to some 

wealthy man and was then called an achnuchik or shoo- 

pan.” Dr. Bogoraz gives the following account of a 

Biblioteca de autores espaiioles, xxvi. 
403 (Peruvian Indians at the time of 
the Spanish conquest). Oviedo y 
Valdés, ‘Sumario de la natural historia 
de las Indias,’ ch. 81, in Azbioleca de 
autores espatioles, xxii. 508 (Isthmians). 
Bancroft, Matzve Races of the Pactfic 
States, 1. 585 (Indians of New Mexico) ; 
li. 467 sg. (ancient Mexicans). Diaz 
del Castillo, ‘Conquista de Nueva- 
Espaifia,’ ch. 208, in Azbhoteca de 
autores espaitoles, xxVi. 309 (ancient 
Mexicans). Landa, WRelacton de las 
cosas de Yucatan, p. 178 (ancient Yuca- 
tans). Nufez Cabeza de Vaca, ‘ Nau- 
fragios y relacion de la jornada que hizo 
a la Florida,’ ch. 26, in Bzblzoteca de 
autores espafioles, xxii. 538; Coreal, 
Voyages aux Indes Occtdentales, i. 33 
sg. (Indians of Florida). Perrin du Lac, 
Voyage dans les deux Loudstanes et chez 
les nations sauvages du Missourt, p. 
352; Bossu, Zravels through Lout- 
Sstana, i, 303. Hennepin, Vouvelle Dé- 
couverte @un tres Grand Pays Situé 
dans l’ Amerique, p. 219 sq. ; ‘ La Salle’s 
Last Expedition and Discoveries in 
North America,’ in Collections of the 
New-York Historical Society, ii. 237 
sg. 3 de Lahontan, AZémozres de 7 Ameé- 
rique septentrionale, p. 142 (Illinois). 
Marquette, Reczt des voyages, p. 52 5g. 
(Illinois and Naudowessies). Wied— 

Neuwied, Zyavels ix the Interior of 

North America, p. 351 (Manitaries, 
Mandans, &c.). 
Baptist Indian Misstons, p. 360 sq. 

McCoy, History of 

(Osages). Heriot, 7ravels through the 
Canadas, p. 278; Catlin, Worth Ameri- 
can Indians, ii. 214 sg. (Sioux). Dor- 
sey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in Azz. Rep. 
Bur. Ethn. ii. 365; James, Laxpedz- 
tion from Pittsburgh to the Rocky 
Mountains, 1. 267 (Omahas). Loskiel, 
History of the Mission of the United 
Brethren among the Indians, i. 14 
(Iroquois). Richardson, Arctic Search- 
ing Expedition, ii. 42 (Crees). Oswald, 
quoted by Bastian, Der Alensch itn der 
Geschichte, iii. 314 (Indians of Cali- 
fornia). Holder, in Mew York Medical 
Journal, December 7th, 1889, quoted 
by Havelock Ellis, of. cet. p. 9 sg. 
(Indians of Washington and_ other 
tribes in the North-Western United 
States). See also Karsch, ‘ Uranismus 
oder Pdaderastie und Tribadie bei den 
Naturvolkern,’ in Jahrbuch frir sexuelle 
Zwischenstufen, Wi, 112 sgq. 

1 Lafitau, AZoewrs des sauvages amert- 
guains, 1. 603, 607 sgq. 

2 Dall, Alaska, p. 402; Bancroft, 
op. ctt.i. 92; Waitz, Anthropologie der 
Naturvolker, ii. 314 (Aleuts). von 
Langsdorf, Voyages and Travels, ii. 48 
(natives of Oonalaska). Steller, Kamd- 
schatka, p. 289, n.a; Georgi, Russia, 
iil. 132 sg. (Kamchadales). 

3 Davydow, quoted by Holmberg, 
‘Ethnographische Skizzen tiber die 
Volker des russischen Amerika,’ in 
Acta Soc. Scientiarum Fennice, iv. 
400 sg. Lisiansky, Voyage Rownd the 
World, p. 199. von Langsdorf, of. czt. 

similar practice prevalent among the Chukchi :—“ It 
happens frequently that, under the supernatural influence 
of one of their shamans, or priests, a Chukchi lad at 
sixteen years of age will suddenly relinquish his sex and 
imagine himself to be a woman. He adopts a woman’s 
attire, lets his hair grow, and devotes himself altogether 
to female occupation. Furthermore, this disowner of his 
sex takes a husband into the yuwrt and does all the work 
which is usually incumbent on the wife in most unnatural 
and voluntary subjection. Thus it frequently happens in 
a yurt that the husband is a woman, while the wife is a 
man! These abnormal changes of sex imply the most 
abject immorality in the community, and appear to be 
strongly encouraged by the shamans, who interpret such 
cases aS an injunction of their individual deity.” The 
change of sex was usually accompanied by future shaman- 
ship ; indeed, nearly all the shamans were former delin- 
quents of their sex... Among the Chukchi male shamans 
who are clothed in woman’s attire and are believed to be 
transformed physically into women are still quite common ; 
and traces of the change of a shaman’s sex into that of a 
woman may be found among many other Siberian tribes.’ 
In some cases at least there can be no doubt that these 
transformations were connected with homosexual practices. 
In his description of the Koriaks, Krasheninnikoff makes 
mention of the ke’yev, that is, men occupying the position 
of concubines ; and he compares them with the Kamchadale 
koe kcuc, as he calls them, that is, men transformed into 
women. Every koe’kcuc, he says, is regarded as a 
magician and interpreter of dreams ; but from his confused 
description Mr. Jochelson thinks it may be inferred that 
the most important feature of the institution of the 
koe’ kcuc lay, not in their shamanistic power, but in their 
position with regard to the satisfaction of the unnatural 

il. 64. Sauer, Azlling’s Lxpedition to vi. 16. 

the Northern Parts of Russia, p. 176. ' Bogoraz, quoted by Demidoff, 
Sarytschew, ‘Voyage of Discovery to Shooting Trip to Kamchatka, p. 74 sq. 
the North-East of Siberia,’ in Collection 2 Jochelson, Aoryak Religion and 

of Modern and Contemporary Voyages, Myth, pp. 52, 53 0. 3- 

HOMOSEXUAL LOVE 

inclinations of the Kamchadales. The koe’kéuc wore 
women’s clothes, did women’s work, and were in the 
position of wives or concubines.” 

In the Malay Archipelago. homosexual love is common,” 
though not in all of the islands.’ It is widely spread 
among the Bataks of Sumatra.* In Bali it is practised 
openly, and there are persons who make it a profession.” 
The dasir of the Dyaks are men who make their living 
by witchcraft and debauchery. They “are dressed as 
women, they are made use of at idolatrous feasts and for 
sodomitic abominations, and many of them are formally 
married to other men.” © Dr. Haddon says that he never 
heard of any unnatural offences in Torres Straits 57 but in 
the Rigo district of British New Guinea several instances 
of pederasty have been met with,° and at Mowat in Daudai 
it is regularly indulged in.” Homosexual love is reported 
as common among the Marshall Islanders *° and in Hawaii."! 
From Tahiti we hear of a set of men called by the natives 
mahoos, who ‘assume the dress, attitude, and manners, of 
women, and affect all the fantastic oddities and coquetries 
of the vainest of females. They mostly associate with the 
women, who court their acquaintance. With the manners 
of the women, they adopt their peculiar employments. . . . 
The encouragement of this abomination is almost solely 

1 Jochelson, of. czt. p. 52 sg. 7 Haddon, ‘Ethnography of the 

2 Wilken, ‘ Plechtigheden en gebrui- 
ken bij verlovingen en huwelijken bij 
de volken van den Indischen Archipel,’ 
in Bidragen tot de taal- land- en volken- 
kunde van Nederlandsch-Indié, xxxiii. 
(ser. v. vol. iv.) p. 457 579. 

3 Crawfurd, History of the Indian 
Archipelago, iil. 139. Marsden, Hzstory 
of Sumatra, p. 261. 

4 Junghuhn, 
Sumatra, ii. 157, n.* 

5 Jacobs, Henigen tyjd onder de Ba- 
liérs, pp. 14, 134 sg. 

6 Hardeland, Dajacksch-deutsches 
Worterbuch, p. 53 sg.  Schwaner, 
Borneo, i. 186. Perelaer, Z¢hno- 
graphische beschryving der Dajaks, 
Ds ge: 

Die Battalinder auf 

Western Tribe of Torres Straits,’ in 
Jour. Anthr. Inst. xix. 315. 

8 Seligmann, ‘Sexual Inversion 
among Primitive Races,’ in Zhe Alien- 
ast and Neurologist, xxiii. 3 sqq. 

® Beardmore, ‘Natives of Mowat, 
Daudai, New Guinea,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
Tnst. xix. 464. Haddon, zd7d. xix. 
315. 

10 Flernsheim, Gez/rag 2uxr Sprache 
der Marshall-Inseln, p. 40. A different 
opinion is expressed by Senfft, in Stein- 
metz, Lechtsverhiltnisse von etnge- 
borenen Volkern in Afrika wnd Ozea- 
nen, Pp. 437. 

1 Remy, Aa Mooolelo Hawaii, p. 
xliii. 

confined to the chiefs.”! Of the New Caledonians 
M. Foley writes :—“ La plus grande fraternité n’est pas 
chez eux la fraternité utérine, mais la fraternité des armes. 
Il enest ainsi surtout au village de Poepo. II est vrai que 
cette fraternité des armes est compliquée de pédérastie. ae 
Among the natives of the Kimberley District in West 
Australia, if a young man on reaching a marriageable age 
can find no wife, he is presented with a boy-wife, known 
as chookadoo. In this case, also, the ordinary exogamic 
rules are observed, and ne “husband’”’ has to avoid his 
‘“¢ mother-in-law,” just as if he were married to a woman. 
The chookadoo is a boy of five years to about ten, when he 
is initiated. ‘‘ The relations which exist between him and 
his protecting dz//alu,” says Mr. Hardman, ‘“‘ are somewhat 
doubtful. There is no doubt they have connection, but 
the natives repudiate with horror and disgust the idea of 
sodomy.” * Such marriages are evidently exceedingly 
common. As the women are generally monopolised by 
the older and more influential men of the tribe, it is rare 
to find a man under thirty or forty who has a wife ; hence 
it is the rule that, when a boy becomes five years old, he 

is given as a boy-wife to one of the young men.* Accord- 

ing to Mr. Purcell’s description of the natives of the same 
district, ‘every useless member of the tribe”’ gets a boy, 
about five or seven years old; and these boys, who are 
called mullawongahs, are used for sexual purposes.* 
Among the Chingalee of South Australia, Northern 
Territory, old men are often noticed with no wives but 
accompanied by one or two boys, whom they jealously 
guard and with whom they have sodomitic intercourse.° 

' Turnbull, Voyage Round the World, and Customs of the Natives of the Kim- 

p- 382. See also Wilson, Afésstonary berley District,’ in Proceed. Roy. Lrish 
Voyage to the Southern Pacific, pp.  Acadenry, ser. iii. vol. i. 74. 

333, 301 ; Ellis, Polynestan Researches, = 100d. Dp: len ee 

i, 246, 258. > Purcell, ‘Rites and Customs of 
2 Foley, ‘Sur les habitations et les Australian Aborigines,’ in Verhandi. 

moeurs des Néo-Calédoniens,’ in Beul?, Berliner Gesellsch. Anthrop. 1893, 

Soc. a Anthrop. Paris, ser. iii. vol. ii.. p. 287. 

606. See also de Rochas, Wozvelle § Ravenscroft, ‘Some Habits and 

Calédonie, p. 235. Customs of the Chingalee Tribe,’ in 

3 Hardman, ‘Notes on some Habits  TZyans. Roy. Soc. South Australia, xv. 

7, = 

lo ST 

Fy 
‘ 
¢ 
t 

That homosexual practices are not unknown among other 
Australian tribes may be inferred from Mr. Howitt’s 
statement relating to South-Eastern natives, that unnatural 
offences are forbidden to the novices by the old men and 
guardians after leaving the initiation camp.! 

In Madagascar there are certain boys who live like 
women and have intercourse with men, paying those men 
who please them.’ In an old account of that island, dating 
irom) the seventeenth century, it is-saide- ‘Il yaa. 
quelques hommes qu’ils appellent Tsecats, qui sont hommes 
effeminez et impuissans, qui recherchent les garcons, et 
font mine d’en estre amoureux, en contrefaisans les filles et 
se vestans ainsi qu’elles leurs font des presents pour dormir 
auec eux, et mesmes se donnent des noms de filles, en faisant 
les honteuses et les modestes.... IIs haissent les femmes 
et ne les veulent point hanter.”® Men behaving like 
women have also been observed among the Ondonga in 
German South-West Africa* and the Diakité-Sarracolese 
in the French Soudan,’ but as regards their sexual habits 
details are wanting. Homosexual practices are common 
among the Banaka and Bapuku in the Cameroons.* But 
among the natives of Africa generally such practices seem 
to be comparatively rare,’ except among Arabic-speaking 

122. I am indebted to Mr. N. W. 5 Nicole, zézd. p. 111. 

Thomas for drawing my attention to 
these statements, 

1 Howitt, ‘Some Australian Cere- 
monies of Initiation,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
Inst. xiil. 450. 

2 Lasnet, in Axznales a’hygiene et de 
médecine coloniales, 1899, p. 494, quoted 
by Havelock Ellis, of. cz¢. p. 10. Cf. 
Rencurel, in Annales a’ hygiene, 1900, 
p- 562, quoted zbzd. p. 11 sy. See also 
Leguével de Lacombe, Voyage @ Mada- 
gascar, i. 97 sg. Pederasty prevails to 
some extent in the island of Nossi-Bé, 
close to Madagascar, and is very 
common at Ankisimane, opposite to it, 
on Jassandava Bay (Walter, in Stein- 
metz, Rechtsverhdltnisse, p. 376). 

3 de Flacourt, (7stozre de la grande 
isle Madagascar, p. 86. 

4 Rautanen, in Steinmetz, Mechts- 
verhaltnisse, Pp. 333: 

Die Ve. Bey 

7 Munzinger, Ostafrikanische Studien, 
p- 525 (Barea and Kunama).  Bau- 
mann, ‘Contrare Sexual-Erscheinungen 
bei der Neger-Bevolkerung Zanzibars,’ 
in Verhandl. der Berliner Gesellsch. frir 
Anthropologie, 1899, p. 668. Felkin, 
‘Notes on the Waganda Tribe of 
Central Africa,’ in Proceed. Roy. Soc. 
Edinburgh, xiii. 723. Johnston, Bretesh 
Central Africa, p. 404 (Bakongo). 
Monrad, Skildring af Guinea-Kysten, 
p- 57 (Negroes of Accra). Torday and 
Joyce, ‘Ethnography of the Ba-Mbala,’ 
in Jour. Anthr. [nst.xxxv. 410. Nicole, 
in Steinmetz, echtsverhdlinisse, p. 
111 (Muhammedan Negroes). Tellier, 
tbid. p. 159 (Kreis Kita in the French 
Soudan), Beverley, 2d/d. p. 210 
(Wagogo). Kraft, zdzd. p. 288 (Wa- 
pokomo). 

mG: HOMOSEXUAL LOVE CHAT! 

. 

peoples and in countries like Zanzibar,’ where there has 
been a strong Arab influence. In North Africa they are 
not restricted to the inhabitants of towns ; they are frequent 
among the peasants of Egypt” and universal among the 
Jbala inhabiting the Northern mountains of Morocco. 
On the other hand, they are much less common or even 
rare among the Berbers and the nomadic Bedouins,’ and it 
is reported that the Bedouins of Arabia are quite exempt 
from them.* 

Homosexual love is spread over Asia Minor and Meso- 
potamia.’ It is very prevalent among the Tartars and 
Karatchai of the Caucasus,® the Persians,’ Sikhs,® and 
Afghans; in Kaubul a bazaar or street is set apart for 
it.” Old travellers make reference to its enormous frequency 
among the Muhammedans of India,’ and in this respect 
time seems to have produced no change.'’ In China, where 
it is also extremely common, there are special houses 
devoted to male prostitution, and boys are sold by their 
parents about the age of four, to be trained for this occu- 
pation.” In Japan pederasty is said by some to have pre- 
vailed from the most ancient times, whereas others are of 
opinion that it was introduced by Buddhism about the 
sixth century of our era. The monks used to live with 
handsome youths, to whom they were often passionately 
devoted ; and in feudal times nearly every knight had as 

1 Baumann, in Verhanadl. Berliner 140. Havelock Ellis, of. czt. p. 5, 

Gesellsch. Anthrop. 1899, p. 668 sg. n. 2. Burton, Arabian Nights, x. 
2 Burckhardt, Travels im Nubia, 236. 

p. 135. ® Wilson, Adode of Snow, p. 420. 
®’ d@Escayrac de Lauture,—dfrika- Burton, Arabzan Nights, x. 236. 

nesche Wiste, p. 93. 10 Stavorinus, Voyages to the East- 

4 Burckhardt, Travels im Arabia, Indies, i. 456. Fryer, Mew Account of 
i. 364. See also von Kremer, Cz/- ast-/ndia, p. 97. Chevers, Manual 

turgeschichte des Orients, 1. 269. of Medical Jurisprudence for India, 
5 Burton, Arabian Nights, x. 232. p- 705. 
8 Kovalewsky, Cowtume contempo- it Chevers, of. cet. p. 708. 
raine, Pp. 340. 12 Indo-Chinese Gleaner, iii, 193. 
if Polak, ‘Die Prostitution in Per- Wells Williams, 7he AZiddle Kingdom, 
sien,’ in Wiener Medizinische Wochen- i. 836.  Matignon, ‘ Deux mots sur 
schrift, xi. 627 sqg. Idem, Persien, i. la pédérastie en Chine,’ in Archives 
237. Burton, Avabian Nights, x. 233 @anthropologie criminelle, xiv. 38 
sg. Wilson, Perstan Life and Cus- sqqg. WKarsch, Das gleichgeschlechtliche 
toms, Pp» 229. Leben der Ostastaten, p. 6 sqq. 

S Malcolm, Sketch of the Sikhs, p. 

Lad Al call ial 

his favourite a young man with whom he entertained rela- 
tions of the most intimate kind, and on behalf of whom: 
he was always ready to fight a duel when occasion occurred. 

Tea-houses with male gheishas were found in Japan till the 
middle of the nineteenth century. Nowadays pederasty 
seems to be more prevalent in the Southern than in the 
Northern provinces of the country, but there are also 
districts where it is hardly known.’ 

No reference is made to pederasty either in the Homeric 
poems or by Hesiod, but later on we meet with it almost 
as a national institution in Greece. It was known in Rome 
and other parts of Italy at an early period ;* but here also 
it became much more frequent in the course of time. At 
the close of the sixth century, Polybius tells us, many 
Romans paid a talent for the possession of a beautiful 
youth.®- During the Empire “il était d’usage, dans les 
familles patriciennes, de donner au jeune homme pubére 
un esclave du méme age comme compagnon de lit, afin 
qu'il pat satisfaire . . . ‘ses premiers élans ’ génésiques ”’ ; * 
and formal marriages between men were introduced with 
all the solemnities of ordinary nuptials.” Homosexual 
practices occurred among the Celts,° and were by no 
means unknown to the ancient Scandinavians, who had a 
whole nomenclature on the subject.’ 

Of late years a voluminous and constantly increasing 
literature on homosexuality has revealed its frequency in 
modern Europe. No country and no class of society is 
free from it. In certain parts of Albania it even exists as 
a popular custom, the young men from the age of sixteen 

1 Jwaya, ‘Nan sho k,’ in Jahrbuch Manlii’), 128 sgg. Cf. Martial, 2fz- 

fiir sexuelle Zwisthenstufen, iv. 266, srammata, Vili. 44. 16 sy. 

268, 270. Karsch, of. czt. p. 71 sgg. 5 Juvenal, Satire, ii. 117 Sgg. Mar- 
2 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, An- tial, of. cé¢. xii. 42. 

tiquitates Romane, vil. 2, Athenzeus, 6 Diodorus Siculus, Bzbotheca his- 

Deipnosophiste, xii. 14, p. 518 (Etrus- forica, v. 32. 7. Aristotle, Polttzca, ii. 

cans). Rein, Criémznalrecht der Romer, 9, p. 1269 b. 

p. 863. 7 ¢Spuren von Kontrarsexualitat bei 
3 Polybius, A¢storze, xxxil. II. 5. den alten Skandinaviern,’ in Jahrbuch 
4 Buret, La syphilis aujourdhuc et fiir sexuelle Zwischenstufen, iv. 244 

ehez les anciens, p. 197 sgg. Catullus,  sgq. 

Carmina, \xi. (‘In Nnuptias Juliz et 

HOMOSEXUAL LOVE 

upwards regularly having boy favourites of between twelve 
and seventeen.! 

The above statements chiefly refer to homosexual 
practices between men, but similar practices also occur 
between women.” Among the American aborigines there 
are not only men who behave like women, but women who 
behave like men. Thus in certain Brazilian tribes women 
are found who abstain from every womanly occupation and 
imitate the men in everything, who wear their hair in a 
masculine fashion, who go to war with a bow and arrows, 
who hunt together with the men, and who would rather 
allow themselves to be killed than have sexual inter- 
course with aman. ‘ Each of these women has a woman 
who serves her and with whom she says she is married ; 
they live together as husband and wife.” * So also there 
are among the Eastern Eskimo some women who refuse to 
accept husbands, preferring to adopt masculine manners, 
following the deer on the mountains, trapping and fishing 
for themselves.“ Homosexual practices are said to be 
common among Hottentot? and Herero" women. In 
Zanzibar there are women who wear men’s clothes in 
private, show a preference for masculine occupations, and 
seek sexual satisfaction among women who have the same 
inclination, or else among normal women who are won 
over by presents or other means.’ In Egyptian harems 
every woman is said to have a “friend.” * In Bali homo- 
sexuality is almost as common among women as among 

men, though it is exercised more secretly ;” and the same 

seems to be the case in India. 

1 Hahn, Albanesische Studien, 1. 168. 

2 Karsch, in Jahrbuch fiir sexuelle 
Zwischenstufen, ii. 85 sgg.  Ploss- 
Bartels, Das Wetb, i. 517 sgg. von 
Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia sexualis, 
p- 278 sgg. Moll, Dze Contrire 
Sexualempfindung, p. 247 sqq. Have- 
lock Ellis, of. cz¢. p. 118 sqq. 

3 Magalhanes de Gandayo, Hstozve 
de la Province de Sancta-Cruz, p. 116 
AY 

4 Dall, of. ciZ. p. 139. 

From Greek antiquity we 

5 Fritsch, quoted by Karsch, in 
Jahrbuch fiir sexuelle Zwischenstufen, 
lll. 87 sg. 

6 Fritsch, Dze Eingeborenen Sid- 
Afrika’s, p. 227. Cf. Schinz, Deutsch- 
Stidwest-Afrika, pp. 173, 177. 

7 Baumann, in Verhandl. Berliner 
Gesellsch. Anthrop. 1899, p. 668 sq. 

8 Havelock Ellis, of. cét. p. 123. 

9 Jacobs, Lentgen tijd onder de 
Balitrs, p. 134 sq. 

10 Havelock Ellis, of. cet. p. 124 59. 

ve ae 

XLIII 46 ‘ 
hear of “Lesbian” love. The fact that homosexuality has 
been much more frequently noticed in men than in women 
does not imply that the latter are less addicted toit. For 
various reasons the sexual abnormalities of women have 
attracted much less attention,’ and moral opinion has 
generally taken little notice of them. 

Homosexual practices are due sometimes to instinctive 
preference, sometimes to external conditions unfavourable 
to normal intercourse.” A frequent cause is congenital 
sexual inversion, that is, ‘‘ sexual instinct turned by inborn 
constitutional abnormality toward persons of the same 
sex.” * It seems likely that the feminine men and the 
masculine women referred to above are, at least in many 
instances, sexual inverts; though, in the case of shamans, 
the change of sex may also result from the belief that such 
transformed shamans, like their female colleagues, are par- 
ticularly powerful.*| Dr. Holder affirms the existence of 
congenital inversion among the North-Western tribes of the 
United States,’ Dr. Baumann among the people of Zan- 
zibar ;° and in Morocco, also, I believe it is common 
enough. But as regards its prevalence among non- 
European peoples we have mostly to resort to mere con- 
jectures ; our real knowledge of congenital inversion is 
derived from the voluntary confessions of inverts. The 
large majority of travellers are totally ignorant of the 
psychological side of the subject, and even to an expert it 
must very often be impossible to decide whether a certain 
case of inversion is congenital or acquired. Indeed, 
acquired inversion itself presupposes an innate disposition 
which under certain circumstances develops into actual 

HOMOSEXUAL LOVE 

inversion.’ 

1 See zbid. p. 121 sq. 

2 Another reason for such practices 
is given by Mr. Beardmore (in /ozs. 
Anthr. Inst. xix. 464), with reference 
to the Papuans of Mowat. He says 
that they indulge in sodomy because 
too great increase of population is 
undesired amongst the younger portion 
of the married people. Cf zzfra, p. 

WiOlio 20) 

Even between inversion .and normal sexuality 

484 sgq. 

8 Havelock Ellis, of. cz¢. p. 1. 

4 Jochelson, of. czt. p. 52 5g. 

> Holder, quoted by Havelock Ellis, 
op. cit. Pp. 9 Sg. 

® Baumann, in Verhandl. Berliner 
Gesellsch. Anthrop. 1899, p. 668 sq. 

7 Cf. Féré, Linstinct sexuel, quoted 
by Havelock Ellis, op. cz¢. p. 41. 

ial We 

there seem to be all shades of variation. Professor James 
thinks that inversion is “a kind of sexual appetite, of 
which very likely most men possess the germinal pos- 
sibility.” 1 This is certainly the case in early puberty. 2 

A very important cause of homosexual practices 1s 
absence of the other sex. There are many instances of 
this among the lower animals.’ Buffon long ago observed 
that, if male or female birds of various species were shut 
up together, they would soon begin to have sexual relations 
among themselves, the males.sooner than the females.* 
The West Australian boy-marriage is a substitute for 
ordinary marriage in cases when women are not obtainable. 
Among the Bororé of Brazil homosexual intercourse is 
said to occur in their men-houses enly when the scarcity of 
accessible girls is unusually great.® Its prevalence in 
Tahiti may perhaps be connected with the fact that there 
was only one woman to four or five men, owing to the 
habit of female infanticide. Among the Chinese in 
certain regions, for instance Java, the lack of accessible 
women is the principal cause of homosexual practices.’ 
According to some writers such practices are the results of 
polygamy.° In Muhammedan countries they are no doubt 
largely due to the seclusion of women, preventing free 
intercourse between the sexes and compelling the un- 
married people to associate almost exclusively with 
members of their own sex. Among the mountaineers of 
Northern Morocco the excessive indulgence in pederasty 
thus goes hand in hand with great isolation of the women 

1 James, Principles of Psychology, Ellis, of. cit. p. 2 sg. 
il. 439. See also Ives, of. czt. p. 56 4 Havelock Ellis, of. cet. p. 2. 

S9q. > von den Steinen, Unter den 
2 Dr. Dessoir (‘Zur Psychologie der  Maturvilkern Zentral-Brasiliens, p. 

Vita sexualis,’ in Allgemeine Zett- 502. 

schrift fiir Psychiatrie, \. 942) even 8 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, 1. 257 

goes so far as to conclude that ‘‘an sg. 

undifferentiated sexual feeling is normal, 7 Matignon, in Archives @anthro- 

on the average, during the first years of pologde créminelie, xiv. 42. Karsch, 

puberty.” But this is certainly an of. cit. p. 32 sgq. 

exaggeration (cf, Havelock Ellis, of. 8 Waitz, Anthropologie der Natur- 

Cit. Pe AT SQ). volker, iii. 113. Bastian, Der Mensch 
3 Karsch, in Jahrbuch fiir sexuelle in der Geschichte, iii. 305 (Dahomans). 

Zwischenstufen, ii. 126 sgg.. Havelock 

oes 

and a very high standard of female chastity, whereas 
among the Arabs of the plains, who are little addicted to 
boy-love, the unmarried girls enjoy considerable freedom. 
Both in Asia' and Europe’ the obligatory celibacy of the 
monks and priests has been a cause of homosexual practices, 
though it must not be forgotten that a profession which 
imposes abstinence from marriage is likely to attract a 
comparatively large number of congenital inverts. The 
temporary separation of the sexes involved in a military 
mode of life no doubt accounts for the extreme prevalence 
of homosexual love among warlike races,’ like the Sikhs, 
Afghans, Dorians, and Normans.* In Persia’ and 
Morocco it is particularly common among soldiers. In 
Japan it was an incident of knighthood, in New Caledonia 
and North America of brotherhood in arms. At least in 
some of the North American tribes men who were dressed 
as women accompanied the other men as servants in war 
and the chase.° Among the Banaka and Bapuku in the 
Cameroons pederasty is practised igo by men who 
are long absent from their wives.’ In Morocco I have 
heard it advocated on account of the convenience it affords 
to persons who are travelling. 

Dr. Havelock Ellis justly observes that when homo- 
sexual attraction is due simply to the absence of the other 
sex we are not concerned with sexual inversion, but merely 
with the accidental turning of the sexual instinct into an 
abnormal channel, the instinct being called out by an 
approximate substitute, or even by diffused emotional 
excitement, in the absence of the normal object.* But it 
seems to me probable that in such cases the homosexual 

1 Supra, ii. 462. Karsch, of. czt. pp. 6 Marquette, of. cz¢. p. 53 (Illinois). 
ip Pp. Pp q 

7 (China), 76 sqq. (Japan), 132 (Corea). 

2 See Voltaire, Déctéonnatre philo- 
sophigue, ‘Amour Socratique’ (Quures, 
vil. 82); Buret, Syphilis cn the Middle 
Ages and in Modern Times, p. 88 sq. 

3 Cf. Havelock Ellis, op. c7t. p. 5. 

+ Freeman, Rezgn of William Rufus, 
1150; 

5 Polak, in Wiener Medizinische 
Wochenschrift, xi, 628. , 

Perrin du Lac, Voyage dans les deux 
Loutsianes et chez les nations sauvages 
Gi mVIDSSOUT ZA Wh 2m C/a) NUNEZ 
Cabeza de Vaca, Joc. cét. p. 538 (con- 
cerning the Indians of Florida) :— 
‘c. . . tiran arco y llevan muy gran 
carga.” 

7 Steinmetz, Rechtsverhiltnisse yp. 
38. 

8 Havelock Ellis,‘ of. c2z¢. p. 3 

Eee 

attraction in the course of time quite easily develops into 
genuine inversion. I cannot but think that our chief 
authorities on homosexuality have underestimated the 
modifying influence which habit may exercise on the sexual 
instinct. Professor Krafft-Ebing' and Dr. Moll? deny 
the existence of acquired inversion except in occasional 
instances ; and Dr. Havelock Ellis takes a similar view, if 
putting aside those cases of a more or less morbid character 
in which old men with failing sexual powers, or younger 
men exhausted by heterosexual debauchery, are attracted 
to members of their own sex.? But how is it that in some 
parts of Morocco such a very large proportion of the men 
are distinctly sexual inverts, in the sense in which this word 
is used by Dr. Havelock Ellis,* that is, persons who for 
the gratification of their sexual desire prefer their own sex 
to the opposite one? It may be that in Morocco and in 
Oriental countries generally, where almost every individual 
marries, congenital inversion, through the influence of 
heredity, is more frequent than in Europe, where inverts 
so commonly abstain from marrying. But that this could 
not be an adequate explanation of the fact in question 
becomes at once apparent when we consider the extremely 
unequal distribution of inverts among different neighbour- 
ing tribes of the same stock, some of which are very 
little or hardly at all addicted to pederasty. I take the 
case to be, that homosexual practices in early youth have 
had a lasting effect on the sexual instinct, which at its 
first appearance, being somewhat indefinite, is easily turned 
into a homosexual direction. In Morocco inversion is 
most prevalent among the scribes, who from childhood 
have lived in very close association with their fellow- 
students. Of course, influences of this kind “ require a 
favourable organic predisposition to act on” ;° but this 
predisposition is probably no abnormality at all, only a 

1 Krafft-Ebing, of. c7zt. p. 211 sy. 5 Cf. Norman, ‘Sexual Perversion,’ 

4 Moll, of. czt. p. 157 sqq. in Tuke’s Dectionary of Psychological 
* Havelock Ellis, of. czt. p. 50 sg. Medicine, ii. 1156. : 

Cf. ibid. p. 181 sqq. ® Havelock Ellis, of. c##. p. 191. 
= 02d. p.1 3% ° 

bas 

wtp & 

feature in the ordinary sexual constitution of man.! It 
should be noticed that the most common form of inversion, 
at least in Muhammedan countries, is love of boys or 
youths not yet in the age of puberty, that is, of male 
individuals who are physically very like girls. Voltaire 
observes :—‘‘Souvent un jeune gargon, par la fraicheur de 
son teint, par l’éclat de ses couleurs, et par la douceur de 

ses yeux, ressemble pendant deux ou trois ans a une belle 

fille ; si on l’aime, c’est parce que la nature se méprend.” ? 
Moreover, in normal cases sexual attraction depends not 
only on sex, but on a youthful appearance as well; and 
there are persons so constituted that to them the latter 
factor is of chief importance, whilst the question of sex 
is almost a matter of indifference. 

In ancient Greece, also, not only homosexual intercourse, 
but actual inversion, seems to have been very common ; 
and although this, like every form of love, must hae 
contained a congenital element, there can be little doubt, 
I think, that it was largely due to external circumstances 
of a social character. It may, in the first place, be traced 
to the methods of training the youth. In Sparta it seems 
to have been the practice for every youth of good character 
to have his lover, or ‘“inspirator,”* and for every well- 
educated man to be the lover of some youth.* The rela- 
tions between the “inspirator”’ and the “listener”? were 
extremely intimate: at home the youth was constantly 
under the eyes of his lover, who was supposed to be to 
him a model and pattern of life ;° in battle they stood 
near one another and their fidelity ane affection were often 
shown till death ;° if his relatives were absent, the youth 

1 Dr. Havelock Ellis also admits (of. 
cit. p. 190) that, if in early life the 

phique, art. 

‘Amour  Socratique,’ 
(Guvres, vii. 81). 

Cf. Ovid, Meta- 

sexual instincts are less definitely deter- 
mined than when adolescence is com- 
plete, ‘‘it is conceivable, though un- 
proved, that a very strong impression, 
acting even on a normal organism, may 
cause arrest of sexual development on 
the psychic side. It is a question,” 
he adds, ‘‘I am not in a position to 
settle.” 

2 Voltaire, Dzcteonnatre Philoso- 

morphoses, x. 84 sq. 

3 Servius, J Vergilit Atneidos, x. 
325. For the whole subject of pede- 
rasty among the Dorians see Mueller, 
History anit Antiquities of the Doric 
Race, ii. 307 sg. 

4 Aelian, Varia historia, iil. 10. 

5 Mueller, of. cz¢. ii. 308. 

6 Xenophon, Hzstorta Greca, iv. 8. 
39: 

might be represented in the public assembly by his lover ; * 
and for many faults, particularly want of ambition, the 
lover could be punished instead of the ‘“listener.”* This 
ancient custom prevailed with still greater force in Crete, 
which island was hence by many persons considered to be 
the place of its birth.? Whatever may have been the case 
originally, there can be no doubt that in later times the - 
relations between the youth and his lover implied unchaste 
intercourse. And in other Greek states the education of 
the youth was accompanied by similar consequences. At 
an early age the boy was taken away from his mother, and 
spent thenceforth all his time in the company of men, 
until he reached the age when marriage became for him 
a civic duty.” According to Plato, the gymnasia and 
common meals among the youth “seem always to have 
had a tendency to degrade the ancient and natural custom 
of love below the level,not only of man, but of the beasts.’’® 
Plato also mentions the effect which these habits had on 
the sexual instincts of the men: when they reached man- 
hood they were lovers of youths and not naturally inclined 
to marry or beget children, but, if at all, they did so only 
in obedience to the law.’ Is not this, in all probability, 
an instance of acquired inversion? But besides the influence 
of education there was another factor which, co-operating 
with it, favoured the development of homosexual tendencies, 
namely, the great gulf which mentally separated the sexes. 
Nowhere else has the difference in culture between men 
and women been so immense as in the fully developed 
Greek civilisation. The lot of a wife in Greece was 
retirement and ignorance. She lived in almost absolute 
seclusion, in a separate part of the house, together with her 
female slaves, deprived of all the educating influence of 
male society, and having no place at those public spectacles 

1 Plutarch, Lycurgus, xxv. 1. Ellis and Symonds, Das hontriire 
2 bed. xvi. 8. Aelian, op: ce. ii. — Geschlechtsgeftihl, p. 55. 
10. , nee ° Tid. jy. 116, Dollinger, The 
3 Aelian, of. ci¢. 11. 9. Athenaeus, Gentzle and the Jew, ii. 244. 
Deipnosophiste, Xi. 77; P: 601. § Plato, Leges, i. 636.- Cf. Plutarch, 
4+ Cf. Symonds, ‘Die Homosexual- <Amatorius, v. 9 

itat in Griechenland,’ in Havelock 7 Plato, Symposium, p. 192. 

which were the chief means of culture! In such circum- 
stances it is not difficult to understand that men so highly 
intellectual as those of Athens regarded the love of women 
as the offspring of the common Aphrodite, who “is of the 
body rather than of the soul.” * They had reached a stage 
of mental culture at which the sexual instinct normally has 
a craving for refinement, at which the gratification of mere 
physical lust appears brutal. In-the eyes of the most 
refined among them those who were inspired by the 
heavenly Aphrodite loved neither women nor boys, but 
intelligent beings whose reason was beginning to be deve- 
loped, much about the time at which their beards began to 
grow.* In present China we meet with a parallel case. 
Dr. Matignon observes :—‘ Il -y a tout lieu de supposer 
que certains Chinois, rafiinés au point de vue intellectuel, 
recherchent dans la pédeérastie la satisfaction des sens et de 
esprit. La femme chinoise est peu cultivée, ignorante 
méme, quelle que soit sa condition, honnéte femme ou 
prostituee. Or le Chinois a souvent l’4me poétique: il 
aime les vers, la musique, les belles sentences des philo- 
sophes, autant de choses qu’il ne peut trouver chez le beau 
sexe de |’Empire du Milieu.’’* So also it seems that the 
ignorance and dullness of Muhammedan women, which is 
a result of their total lack of education and their secluded 
life, is a cause of homosexual practices; Moors are 
sometimes heard to defend pederasty on the plea that the 
company of boys, who have always news to tell, is so much 
more entertaining than the company of women. 

We have hitherto dealt with homosexual love as a fact ; 
we shall now pass to the moral valuation to which it is 
subject. Where it occurs as a national habit we may 
assume that no censure, or no severe censure, is passed on 
it. Among the Bataks of Sumatra there is no punishment 

1 ‘State of Female Society in Greece,’ pointed out by Dollinger (of. cz¢. ii. 
in Quarterly Review, xxii. 172 sgg. 244) and Symonds (loc. czt. pp. 77, 100, 
Lecky, History of European Morals, 101, 116 sgq.). 

ii. 287. Dollinger, of. cz¢. il. 234. 3 Plato, Symposium, p. 181. 
2 Plato, Sympostum, p. 181. That 4 Matignon, in Archives a@anthro- 

the low state of the Greek women was  %o/ogte criminelle, xiv. 41. 
instrumental to pederasty has been 

for it. Of the Feet among the Ngajus of Pula Patak, 
in Borneo, Dr. Schwaner says that ‘‘in spite of their 
loathsome calling they escape well- merited contempt. ee 
The Society Islanders had for their homosexual practices 
“not only the sanction of their priests, but the direct 
example of their respective .deities.”* The sserats of 
Madagascar maintained that they were serving the deity 
by leading a feminine life ;* but we are told that at 
Ankisimane and in Nossi-Bé, opposite to it, pederasts are 
objects of public contempt.’ Father Veniaminof says of 
the Atkha Aleuts that “sodomy and too early cohabitation 
with a betrothed or intended wife are called among them 
grave sins” ;° but apart from the fact that his account of 
these natives in general gives the impression of being 
somewhat eulogistic, the details stated by him only show 
that the acts in question were considered to require a 
simple ceremony of purification.’ There is no indication 

that the North American aborigines attached any oppro- . 

brium to men who had intercourse with those members of 
their own sex who had assumed the dress and habits of 
women. In Kadiak such a companion was on the contrary 
regarded as a great acquisition ; and the effeminate men 
themselves, far from being despised, were held in repute 
by the people, most of them being wizards.* We have 
previously noticed the connection between homosexual 
practices and shamanism among various Siberian peoples ; 
and it is said that such shamans as had changed their sex 
were greatly feared by the people, being regarded as very 
powerful.” Among the Illinois and Naudowessies the 

1 Junghuhn, of. cé¢. il. 157, n. weeds and carried them about his 
2 Schwaner, of. cit. i. 186. person ; then deposited them and threw 
8 Ellis, Polynestan Researches, i. his sin upon them, calling the sun as 
258. Cf. Moerenhout, Voyages. aux a witness, and, when he had eased his 

tles du Grand Océan, ii. 167 sq. 

4 de Flacourt, of. czt. p. 86. 

5 Walter, in Steinmetz, Rechtsver- 
haltnisse, p. 376. 

6 Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, 
Report on Alaska, p. 158. 

” [bid. p. 158:—‘* The offender 
desirous of unburdening himself selected 
a time when the sun was clear and 
unobscured; he picked up certain 

heart of all that had weighed upon it, 
he threw the grass or weeds into the 
fire, and after that considered himself 
cleansed of his sin.’ 

8 Davydow, quoted by Holmberg, 
Zoc, cut. P. 400 sg. Lisianski, of. ect. 
Pp. 199. 

° Bogoraz, quoted by Demidoff, of. 
cut. p. 75. Jochelson, of. czt. p. 52 sg. 

= weld 
tt, 

effeminate men assist in all the juggleries and the solemn 
dance in honour of the ca/umet, or sacred tobacco pipe, for 
which the Indians have such a deference that one may call 
it “the god of peace and war, and the arbiter of life and 
death” ; but they are not permitted either to dance or 
sing. They are called into the councils of the Indians, 
and nothing can be decided upon without their advice ; for 
because of their extraordinary manner of living they are 
looked upon as manitous, or supernatural beings, and 
persons of consequence.’ The Sioux, Sacs, and Fox 
Indians give once a year, or oftener if they choose, a feast 
to the Berdashe, or I-coo-coo-a, who is a man dressed in 
woman’s clothes, as he has been all his life. ‘‘ For extra-. 
ordinary privileges which he is known to possess, he is 
driven to the most servile and degrading duties, which he 
is not allowed to escape ; and he being the only one of the 
tribe submitting to this disgraceful degradation, is looked 

- upon as ‘medicine’ and sacred, and a feast is given to him 

annually; and initiatory to it, a dance by those few young 
men of the tribe who can... . dance forward and 
publicly make their boast (without the denial of the 
Berdashe) . . . . Such, and such only, are allowed to 
enter the dance and partake of the feast.” *» Among some 
American tribes, however, these effeminate men are said to 
be despised, especially by the women.’ In ancient Peru, 
also, homosexual practices seem to have entered in the 
religious cult. In some particular places, says Cieza de 
Leon, boys were kept as priests in the temples, with whom 
it was rumoured that the lords joined in company on days 
of festivity. They did not meditate, he adds, the com- 
mitting of such sin, but only the offering of sacrifice to 
the demon. If the Incas by chance had some knowledge 
of such proceedings in the temple, they might have 

1 Marquette, of. cit. p. 53 5g. les deux Loutstanes et chez les nations 
2 Catlin, Worth American Indians,  sauvages du Missourt, p. 352. Bossu, of. 
ll. 214 Sg. cet. 1. 303 (Chactaws). Oviedo y Valdés, 

3 “Ta Salle’s Last Expedition in Joc. cz¢. p.508 (Isthmians). von Martius, 
North America,’ in Collections of the  Vondem Rechtszustande unter a. Urein- 
New-Vork Historical Soctety, ii. 238  wohnern Brasiliens, p. 28 (Guaycuris), 
(Illinois). Perrin du Lac, Voyage dans 

ignored them out of religious tolerance.t But the Incas 
themselves were not only free from such practices in their 
own persons, they would not even permit any one who was 
guilty of them to remain in the royal houses or palaces. 
And Cieza heard it related that, if it came to their know- 
ledge that somebody had committed an offence of that 
kind, they punished it with such a severity that it was 
known to all.?. Las Casas tells us that in several of the 
more remote provinces of Mexico sodomy was tolerated, 
if not actually permitted, because the people believed that 
their gods were addicted to it; and itis not improbable 
that in earlier times the same was the case in the entire 
empire. But in a later age severe measures were adopted 
by legislators in order to suppress the practice. In 
Mexico people found guilty of it were killed.* In 
Nicaragua it was punished capitally by stoning,’ and none 
of the Maya nations was without strict laws against it.® 
Among the Chibchas of Bogota the punishment for it was 
the infliction of a painful death.’ However, it should be 
remembered that the ancient culture nations of America 
were generally extravagant in their punishments, and that 
their penal codes in the first place expressed rather the 
will of their rulers than the feelings of the people at 
large.® 

Homosexual practices are said to be taken little notice 
of even by some uncivilised peoples who are not addicted 
to them. In the Pelew Islands, where such practices occur 
only sporadically, they are not punished, although, if I 
understand Herr Kubary rightly, the persons committing 
them may be put to shame.” The Ossetes of the Caucasus, 

1 Cieza de Leon, Segunda parte de la 
Crénica del Peri, ch. 25, p. 99.. See 
also zdem, Cronica del Peri (primera 
parte], ch. 64 (Bzblioteca de autores 
espatioles, XXV1. 416 sq.). 

2 Idem, Segunda parte de la Crénica 
del Perit, ch. 25, p. 98. See also 
Garcilasso de la Vega, of. cv. ii. 132. 

3 Las Casas, quoted by Bancroft, of. 
Cian AGT S78 Cf, 2070. 11.677. 

4 Clavigero, History of Mexico, i. 357. 

> Squier, ‘Archeeology and Ethno- 

logy of Nicaragua,’ in Zrans. American 
Lthn. Soc. iii. pt. i. 128. 

6 Bancroft, op. cit. ii. 677. 

? Piedrahita, A7stortza general de las 
conguzestas del nuevo reyno de Granada, 
p. 46. 

8 See sepra, i. 186, 195. 

® Kubary, ‘Die Verbrechen und das 
Strafverfahren auf den Pelau-Inseln,’ 

in Original-Mitthetlungen aus der 

ethnologischen Abthetlung der konig- 
lichen Museen zu Berlin, i. 84. 

HOMOSEXUAL LOVE 

among whom pederasty is very rare, do not generally 
prosecute persons for committing it, but ignore the act.! 

The East African Masai do not punish sodomy.” 
also meet with statements of a contrary nature. 

But we 
In°a 

Kafir tribe Mr. Warner heard of a case of it—the only 
one during a residence of twenty-five years—which was 
punished with a fine of some cattle claimed by the chief.* 
Among the Ondonga pederasts are hated, and the men who 
behave like women are detested, most of them being 

wizards. 

The Washambala consider pederasty a grave 

moral aberration and subject it to severe punishment.° 
Among the Waganda homosexual practices, which have 
been introduced by the Arabs and are of rare occurrence, 
‘tare intensely abhorred,” the stake being the punish- 

ment.® 

such practices, are said to detest them.’ In 

The Negroes of Accra, who are not addicted to 

Nubia 

pederasty is held in abhorrence, except by the Kashefs 
and their relations, who endeavour to imitate the Mame- 

lukes in everything.*® 

Muhammed forbade sodomy,’ and the general opinion 
of his followers is that it should be punished like forni- 
cation—for which the punishment is, theoretically, severe 
enough '’—unless the offenders make a public act of peni- 

tence. 

In order to convict, however, the law requires 

that four reliable persons shall swear to have been eye- 
witnesses,!! and this alone would make the law a dead 
letter, even if it had the support of popular feelings ; but 

such support is certainly wanting. 

1 Kovalewsky, Cowtume 
raine, p. 340. 

2 Merker, Die Masaz, p. 208. The 
Masai, however, slaughter at once any 
bullock or he-goat which is noticed to 
practise unnatural intercourse, for fear 
lest otherwise their herds should be 
visited by a plague as a divine punish- 
ment (2dzd@. p. 159). 

3 Warner, in Maclean, Compendium 
of Kafir Laws, p. 62. 

4 Rautanen, in Steinmetz, Vechtsver- 
hdltnisse, p. 333 59- 

5 Lang, zdzd. p. 232. 

contentpo- 

In Morocco active 

6 Felkin, in Proceed. Roy. Soc, Edin- 
burgh, xii. 723. 

7 Monrad, of. czt. p. 57. 

8 Burckhardt, 7ravels tc Nubia, p. 
135, 

» Koran, iv. 20. 

0 Sachau, Auhammedantsches Recht 
nach Schafittischer Lehre, pp. 809, 
818 :—‘* Sodomita si mzhsan (that is, 
a married person in possession of full 
civic rights) est punitur lapidatione, si 
non est #zuhsan punitur et flagellatione 
et exsilio,” 

1 Burton, Arabian Nights, x. 224. 

pederasty is regarded with almost complete indifference, 
whilst the passive sodomite, if a grown-up individual, is 
spoken of with scorn. Dr. Polak says the same of the 
Persians.! In Zanzibar a clear distinction is made between 
male congenital inverts and male prostitutes ; the latter 
are looked upon with contempt, whereas the former, as 
being what they are “ by the will of God,’ are tolerated.’ 
The Muhammedans of India and other Asiatic countries 
regard pederasty, at most, as a mere peccadillo.* Among 
the Hindus it is said to be held in abhorrence,* but their 
sacred books deal with it leniently. According to the 
‘Laws of Manu,’ ‘‘a twice-born man who commits an 
unnatural offence with a male, or has intercourse with a 
female in a cart drawn by oxen, in water, or in the day- 
time, shall bathe, dressed in his clothes” ; and all these 
are reckoned as minor offences.? 

Chinese law makes little distinction between unnatural 
and other sexual offences. An unnatural offence is variously 
considered according to the age of the patient, and whether 
or not consent was given. If the patient be an adult, ora 
boy over the age of twelve, and consent, the case is treated 
as a slightly aggravated form of fornication, both parties 
being punished with a hundred blows and one month’s 
cangue, whilst ordinary fornication is punished with eighty 
blows. If the adult or boy over twelve resist, the offence 
is considered as rape ; and if the boy be angen twelve, the 
offence is rape irrespective of consent or. resistance, andes 
the boy has previously gone astray.° But, as a matter of 
fact, unnatural offences are regarded as less hurtful to the 
community than ordinary immorality,’ and pederasty is not 
looked down upon. ‘“ L’opinion publique reste tout a 
fait indifferente a ce genre de distraction et la morale ne 

; : Boats on awe 4 : 
1 Polak, in Wiener Medizinische tutes of Vishnu, liii, 4; Apastamba, i. 

Wochenschrift, xi. 628 sq. Q. 26. 73 Gautama, xxv. 7. 

2 Baumann, in Verhandl. Berliner 6 Alabaster, Votes and Commentaries 
Gesellsch. Anthrop. 1899, p. 669. on Chinese Criminal Law, p. 367 sqq. 

° Chevers, op. czf. p. 708. Burton, Ta Tsing Lew Lee, Appendix, no. 
Arabian Nights, x. 222 sqq. OScall, DE. EVAGE 

4 Burton, Arabian Nights, x. 237. 7 Alabaster, of. cét. p. 369. 

5 Laws of Manu, x1. 175. Cf Lnste- 

—— 

F: 
| 
? 
* 

sebrty HOMOSEXUAL LOVE oa 

s’en-é€meut en rien: puisque cela plait al’opérateur et que 
Yopéré est consentant, tout est pour le mieux ; la loi 
chinoise n’aime guére a s’occuper des affaires trop intimes. 
La pédeérastie est méme considérée comme une chose de 
bon ton, une fantaisie dispendieuse et partout un _ plaisir 
élégant. . . . La pédérastie a une consécration officielle en 
Chine. II existe, en effet, des pédérés pour |’Empereur.” ? 
Indeed, the only objection which Dr. Matignon has heard to 
be raised to pederasty by public opinion in China is that it 
has a bad influence on the eyesight.? In Japan there was 
no law against homosexual intercourse till the revolution 
of 1868.° In the period of Japanese chivalry it was con- 
sidered more heroic if a man loved a person of his own sex 
than if he loved a woman; and nowadays people are heard 
to say that in those provinces of the country where 
pederasty is widely spread the men are more manly and 
robust than in those where it does not prevail.‘ 

The laws of the ancient Scandinavians ignored homo- 
sexual practices ; but passive pederasts were much despised 
by them. They were identified with cowards and regarded 
as sorcerers. The epithets applied to them—argr, ragr, 
blandr, and others—assumed the meaning of “ poltroon”’ 
in general, and there are instances of the word arg being 
used in the sense of “ practising witchcraft.” This con- 
nection between pederasty and sorcery, as a Norwegian 
scholar justly points out, helps us to understand Tacitus’ 
statement that among the ancient Teutons individuals 
whom he describes as corpore infames were buried alive in 
a morass.” Considering that drowning was a common 
penalty for sorcery, it seems probable that this punishment 
was inflicted upon them not, in the first place, on account 
of their sexual practices, but in their capacity of wizards. 
It is certain that the opprobrium which the pagan Scandi- 
navians attached to homosexual love was chiefly restricted to 
him who played the woman’s part. In one of the poems 

1 Matignon, in Archives a’anthro- 4 Jwaya, in Jahrbuch fiir sexuelle 
pologie criminelle, xiv. 42, 43, 52. Zwischenstufen, iv. 266, 270 sq. 
2 Wizd.p. 44. 5 Tacitus, Germania, 12. 

3 Karsch, of. ct. p. 99. 

the hero even boasts of being the father of offspring borne 
by another man.* 

In Greece pederasty in its baser forms was censured, 
though generally, it seems, with no great severity, and in 
some states it was legally prohibited.” According to an 
Athenian law, a youth who prostituted himself for money 
lost his rights as a free citizen and was liable to the 
punishment of death if he took part in a public feast or 
entered the agora.? In Sparta it was necessary that the 
‘listener’ should accept the ‘‘inspirator” from real 
affection; he who did so out of pecuniary considerations 
was punished by the ephors.* We are even told that 
among the Spartans the relations between the lover and 
his friend were truly innocent, and that if anything un- 
lawful happened both must forsake either their country or 
their lives. But the universal rule in Greece seems to 
have been that when decorum was observed in the friend- 
ship between a man and a youth, no inquiries were made 
into the details of the relationship.° And this attachment 
was not only regarded as permissible, but was praised as 
the highest and purest form of love, as the offspring of 
the heavenly Aphrodite, as a path leading to virtue, as a 
weapon against tyranny, as a safeguard of civic liberty, as 
a source of national greatness and glory. Phaedrus said 
that he knew no greater blessing to a young man who is 
beginning life than a virtuous lover, or to the lover than 
a beloved youth; for the principle which ought to be the 
guide of men who would lead a noble life cannot be 
implanted by any other motive so well as by love.’ The 
Platonic Pausanias argued that if love of youths is held in 
ill repute it is so only because it is inimical to tyranny; 
“the interests of rulers require that their subjects should 

1 «Spuren von Kontrarsexualitat bei 3 Aeschines, Contra 7imarchuim, 21. 
den alten Skandinaviern (Mitteilungen 4 Aelian, Varta historia, ili. 10. Cf. 
eines norwegischen Gelehrten),’ in Plato, Zeges, viii. 910. : 
Jahrbuch fiir sexuelle Zwischenstufen, bi Aelian,. ops ua2Z met ment 2m Cyi 
iv. 245, 256 sqg. Maximus Tyrius, of. cz¢. xxvi. 8. 

2 Xenophon, Lacedemoniorum ves- ° Cf. Symonds, loc. czt. p. 92 sgg 
publica, li. 13. Maximus Tyrius, 7 Plato, Sympostum, p. 178. 

Dissertationes, XXV. 43 XXV1. 9. 

: 

be poor in spirit, and that there should be no strong bond 
of friendship or society among them, which love, above all 
other motives, is likely to inspire.” ' The power of the 
Athenian tyrants was broken by the love of Aristogeiton 
and the constancy of Harmodius; at Agrigentum in 
Sicily the mutual love of Chariton and Melanippus pro- 
duced a similar result; and the greatness of Thebes was 
due to the Sacred Band established by Epaminondas. For 
‘“‘in the presence of his favourite, a man would choose to ~ 
do anything rather than to get the character of a coward.” 
It was pointed out that the greatest heroes and the most 
warlike nations were those who were most addicted to the 
love of youths ;* and it was said that an army consisting 
of lovers and their beloved ones, fighting at each other’s 
side, although a mere handful, would overcome the whole 
world.* 

Herodotus asserts that the love of boys was introduced 
from Greece into Persia.® Whether his statement be 
correct or not, such love could certainly not have been a 
habit of the Mazda worshippers.® In the Zoroastrian books 
“unnatural sin”’ is treated with a severity to which there 
is a parallel only in Hebrewism and Christianity. Accord- 
ing to the Vendidad, there is no atonement for it.’ It is 
punished with torments in the other world, and is capital 
here below.S Even he who committed it involuntarily, 
by force, is subject to corporal punishment.’ eee it is 
a more heinous sin than the slaying of a righteous man.” 
‘‘ There is no worse sin than this in the good religion, and 
it is proper to call those who commit it worthy of death in 
reality. If any one comes forth to them, and shall see 

1 Plato, Sympostum, p. 182. 

2 Hieronymus, the Peripatetic, re- 
ferred to by Athenaeus, of. cz¢. xiii. 78, 
p. 602. See also Maximus Tyrius, 
op. cit. Xxiv. 2. 

8 Plutarch, Amatordus, xvii. 14. 

4 Plato, Symposzum, p. 178. 

5 Herodotus, i. 135. 

6 Ammianus Marcellinus says (xxiii. 
76) that the inhabitants of Persia were 

free from pederasty. But see also Sextus 
Empiricus, Pyrrhonie hypotyposes, 1. 
152. 

7 Vendidad, i. 123 viii. 27. 

8 Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of the 
Last, iv. p. 1xxxvi. 

9 Vendiddd, viii. 26. 

0 Dind-? Matnég-2 Khirad, xxxvi. 
I sgq. 

them in the act, and is working with an axe, it is requisite 
for him to cut off the heads or to rip up the bellies of 
both, and it is no sin for him. But it is not proper to 
kill any person without the authority of high-priests and 
kings, except on account of committing or permitting 
unnatural intercourse.” 

Nor are unnatural sins allowed to defile the land of the 
Lord. Whosoever shall commit such abominations, be he 
Israelite or stranger dwelling among the Israelites, shall be 
put to death, the souls that do them shall be cut off from 
their people. By unnatural sins of lust the Canaanites 
polluted their land, so that God visited their guilt, and 
the land spued out its inhabitants.” 

This horror of homosexual practices was shared by 
Christianity. According to St. Paul, they form the climax 
of the moral corruption to which God gave over the 
heathen because of their apostasy from him.* ‘Tertullian 
says that they are banished ‘not only from the threshold, 
but from all shelter of the church, because they are not 
sins, but monstrosities.” * St. Basil maintains that they 
deserve the same punishment as murder, idolatry, and 
witchcraft.” According to a decree of the Council of 
Elvira, those who abuse boys to satisfy their lusts are 
denied communion even at their last hour. In no other 
point of morals was the contrast between the teachings of 
Christianity and the habits and opinions of the world over 
which it spread more radical than in this. In Rome there 
~ was an old law of unknown date, called Lex Scantinia (or 
Scatinia), which imposed a mulet on him who committed 
pederasty with a free person;’ but this law, of which 

1 Sad Dar, ix. 2 sqq. 

2 Leviticus, xviii. 22, 

3 Romans, 1. 26 sq. 

4 Tertullian, De pudzcetia, 4 (Migne, 
Patrologie cursus, ii. 987). 

5 St. Basil, quoted by 
Works, Vi. 432 sq. 

6 Concthium LEliberttanum, ch. 71% 
(Labbe-Mansi, Sacrorzm Conctlioruim 
collectio, i. 17). 

24 Sgg.3 XX. 

3ingham, 

7 Juvenal, Sa¢zre, i. 43 sg. Valerius 
Maximus, facta adictague  me- 
morabilia, vi. 1. 7. Quintilian, J7s¢2- 
tutto oratorta, iv. 2. 69:—‘* Decem 
milia, quae poena stupratori constituta 
est, dabit.” Christ, Wzs¢. Legzs Scatinze, 
quoted by Déllinger, of. czé. ii. 274. 
Rein, Créminalrecht der Romer, p. 865 
sg. Bingham, of. czt. vi. 433 sgg. 
Mommsen, omesches Strafrecht, p. 
703 Sa. 

“3 

‘ 

1s 

HOMOSEXUAL LOVE 

very little is known, had lain dormant for ages, and the 
subject of ordinary homosexual intercourse had never 
afterwards attracted the attention of the pagan legislators. 
But when Christianity became the religion of the Roman 
Empire, a veritable crusade was opened against it. Con- 
stantius and Constans made it a capital crime, punishable 
with the sword.” Valentinian went further still and ordered 
that those who were found guilty-of it should be burned 
alive in the presence of all the people.’ Justinian, terrified 
by certain famines, earthquakes, and _pestilences, issued an 
edict which again condemned persons guilty of unnatural 
offences to the sword, “lest, as the result of these impious 
acts, whole cities should perish together with their inhabi- 
tants,” as we are taught by Holy Scripture that through 
such acts cities have perished with the men in them.* “A 
sentence of death and infamy,” says Gibbon, “ was often 
founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or 
a servant, . . . and pederasty became the crime of those to 
whom no crime could be imputed.” ” 

This attitude towards homosexual practices had a pro- 
found and lasting influence on European legislation. 
Throughout the Middle Ages and later, Christian law- 
givers thought that nothing but a painful death in the 
flames could atone for the sinful act." In England Fleta 

1 Mommsen, of. czt. p. 704. Rein, 
op. cit. p. 866. The passage in Dzgesta, 
xlvili. 5. 35. I, refers to stuprzm inde- 

li. 491, n. 2. Clarus, Practica crimin- 
alis, book v. § Sodomia, 4 (Ofgera 

omnia, ii. 151). Jarcke, Handbuch des 

pendently of the sex of the victim. 

2 Codex Theodosianus, ix. .7. 3- 
Codex Justinianus, ix. 9. 30. 

3 Codex Theodosianus, ix. 7. 6. 

4 Novelle, 77. See also zbzd. 141, 
and Jnstitutiones, iv. 18. 4. 

5 Gibbon, Hestory of the Decline and 
Fall of the Roman Empire, v. 323. 

6 Du Boys, Hzstotre du droit crimenel 
de l’ Espagne, pp. 93, 403. Les Etab- 
lissements de Saint Lous, 1. 90, vol. 
ii. 147.  Beaumanoir, Coutumes du 
Beauvoisis, Xxx. 11, vol. i, 413. 
Montesquieu, De Pesprit des lots, xii. 6 
(Quvres, p. 283). Hume, Commen- 
taries on the Law of Scotland, ii. 335; 
Pitcairn, Crzmznal Trials tn Scotland, 

VOL. Il 

gememmen deutschen Strafrechts, iii. 172 
sgg. Charles V.’s Peinliche Gerichtsord- 
nung, art. 116. Henke, Geschichte des 
deutschen peinlichen Rechts, i. 289. 
Numa Praetorius, ‘ Die strafrechtlichen 
Bestimmungen gegen den _ gleichge- 
schlechtlichen Verkehr,’ in Jahrbuch 
fiir sexuelle Zwischenstufen, i. 124 sqq. 
In the beginning of the nineteenth 
century sodomy was still nominally 
subject to capital punishment by burn- 
ing in Bavaria (von Feuerbach, A7vztzk 
des LKleinschrodischen Entwurfs zu 
einem petnlichen Gesetzbuche fiir dite 
Chur-Pfalz-Bayrischen Staaten, ii. 13), 
and in 5 as late as 1843 (Du Boys, 
op. cit. p. 721). 

speaks of the offender being buried alive ;* but we are 
elsewhere told that burning was the due punishment.” 
As unnatural intercourse, however, was a subject for eccle- 
siastical cognizance, capital punishment could not be 
inflicted on the criminal unless the Church relinquished 
him to the secular arm; and it seems very doubtful 
whether she did relinquish him. Sir Frederick Pollock 
and Professor Maitland consider that the statute of 1533, 
which makes sodomy felony, affords an almost sufficient 
proof that the temporal courts had not punished it, and 
that no one had been put to death for it for a very long 
time past.® Jt was said that the punishment for this crime 
—which the English law, in its very indictments, treats as 
a crime not fit to be named “—was determined to be capital 
by “the voice of nature and of reason, and the express 
law of God” ;° and it remained so till 1861,° although in 
practice the extreme punishment was not inflicted.’ In 
France persons were actually burned for this crime in the 
middle and latter part of the eighteenth century.* But in 
this, as in so many other respects, the rationalistic move- 
ment of that age brought about a change.” To punish 
sodomy with death, it was said, is atrocious ; when uncon- 
nected with violence, the law ought to take no notice of 
it at all. It does not violate any other person’s right, 
its influence on society is merely indirect, like that of 
drunkenness and free love; it is a disgusting vice, but 
its only proper punishment is contempt.’? This view was 
adopted by the French ‘Code pénal,’ according to which 
homosexual practices in private, between two consenting 
adult parties, whether men or women, are absolutely un- 

Hlétasd937. 3 sO4e 
Britton, i. 10, vol. i. 42. 

3 Pollock and Maitland, Aestory of 
English Law before the Time of 

Law of England, i. 475. 

7 Blackstone, of. c2t. iv. 218. 

8 Desmaze, Pénalités anciennes, p. 
211. Havelock Ellis, of. cz¢. p. 207. 

Edward I, ii. 556 sq. 

4 Coke, Third Part of the Institutes 
of the Laws of England, p. 58 sq. 
Blackstone, Comemzentartes on the Laws 
of England, iv. 218. 

5 Blackstone, of. cz¢. iv. 218. 

8 Stephen, /Z2story of the Criminal 

® Numa Praetorius, Joc. ci¢. p. 121 
Sqq. 

10 Note of the editors of Kehl’s 
edition of Voltaire’s ‘ Prix de la justice 
et de Vhumanité,’ in Qauvres completes, 
We Ais Dini: 

punished. The homosexual act is treated as a crime only 
when it implies an outrage on public decency, or when | 
there is violence or absence of consent, or when one of the 
parties is under age or unable to give valid consent.! 
This method of dealing with homosexuality has been 
followed by the legislators of various European countries,” 
and in those where the law still treats the act in ques- 
tion per se as a penal offence, notably in Germany, a 
propaganda in favour of its alteration is carried on with 
the support of many men of scientific eminence. This 
changed attitude of the law towards homosexual inter- 
course undoubtedly indicates a change of moral opinions. 
Though it is impossible to measure exactly the degree of 
moral condemnation, I suppose that few persons nowadays 
attach toit the same enormity of guilt as did our forefathers. 
And the question has even been put whether morality 
has anything at all to do with a sexual act, committed by 
the mutual consent of two adult individuals, which is pro- 
ductive of no offspring, and which on the whole concerns 
the welfare of nobody but the parties themselves.* 

From this review of the moral ideas on the subject, in- 
complete though it be, it appears that homosexual practices 
are very frequently subject to some degree of censure, 
though the degree varies extremely. ‘This censure is no 
doubt, in the first place, due to that feeling of aversion or 
disgust which the idea of homosexual intercourse tends to 
call forth in normally constituted adult individuals whose 
sexual instincts have developed under normal conditions. 
I presume that nobody will deny the general prevalence 
of such a tendency. It corresponds to that instinctive 
repugnance to sexual connections with women which is 
so frequently found in congenital inverts; whilst that 
particular form of it with which legislators have chiefly 
 busied themselves evokes, in addition, a  physical 
disgust of its own. And in a society where the large 

! Code pénal, 3305gg. Cf. Chevalier, 2 Numa Praetorius, /oc. cct. pp. 
Linverston sexuelle, p. 431 sgg.3; 131-133, 143 svg. [ 
Havelock Ellis, of. cz¢. p.. 207 sg. 3 See, 2.g., Bax, Ethics of Socralism, 

pe 120; 

I 1 2 

majority of people are endowed with normal sexual 
desires their aversion to homosexuality easily develops into 
moral censure and finds a lasting expression in custom, 

law, or religious tenets. On the other hand, where 

special circumstances have given rise to widely spread 
homosexual practices, there will be no general feeling of 
disgust even in the adults, and the: moral opinion of the 
society will be modified accordingly. The act may still be 
condemned, in consequence of a moral doctrine formed 
under different conditions, or of the vain attempts of 
legislators to check sexual irregularities, or out of 
utilitarian considerations; but such a condemnation would 
in most people be rather theoretical than genuine. At 
the same time the baser forms of homosexual love may be 
strongly disapproved of for the same reasons as the baser 
forms of intercourse between men and women; and the 
passive pederast may be an object of contempt on account of 
the feminine practices to which he lends himself, as also an 
object of hatred on account of his reputation for sorcery. 
We have seen that the effeminate men are frequently 
believed to be versed in magic;' their abnormalities 
readily suggest that they are endowed with supernatural 
power, and they may resort to witchcraft as a substitute 
for their lack of manliness and physical strength. But 
the supernatural qualities or skill in magic ascribed to men 
who behave like women may also, instead of causing 
hatred, make them honoured or reverenced. 

It has been suggested that the popular attitude towards 
homosexuality was originally an aspect of economics, a 
question of under- or over-population, and that it was 
forbidden or allowed accordingly. Dr. Havelock Ellis 
thinks it probable that there is a certain relationship 

1 See also Bastian, in Zeztschr. f.  tton of Patagonia, p. 117), the male 
Ethnol, i. 88 sg. Speaking of the wizards are chosen ‘for their office when 
witches of Fez, Leo Africanus says they are children, and ‘‘a preference is 
(History and Description of Africa, ii. always shown to those whoat that early 
455) that ‘‘they haue a damnable time of life discover an effeminate dis- 
custome to commit vnlawfull Venerie position.” They are obliged, as it were, 
among themselues.” Among the Pata- to leave their sex, and to dress them- 
gonians, according to Falkner (Descrz- _ selves in female apparel. 

a 

Cay aN 

between the social reaction against homosexuality and 
against infanticide :—‘ Where the one is regarded leniently 
and favourably, there generally the other is also ; where 
the one is stamped out, the other is usually stamped 
out.” ' But our defective knowledge of the opinions of 
the various savage races concerning homosexuality hardly 
warrants such a conclusion ; and if a connection really 
does exist between homosexual practices and infanticide it 
may be simply due to the numerical disproportion between 
the sexes resulting from the destruction of a multitude of 
female infants.” On the other hand we are acquainted 
with several facts which are quite at variance with Dr. 
Ellis’s suggestion. Among many Hindu castes female 
infanticide has for ages been a genuine custom,’ and yet 
pederasty is remarkably rare among the Hindus. The 
ancient- Arabs were addicted to infanticide,‘ but not to 
homosexual love,’ whereas among modern Arabs the case 
is exactly the reverse. And if the early Christians deemed 
infanticide and pederasty equally heinous sins, they did so 
certainly not because they were anxious that the population 
should increase; if this had been their motive they would 
hardly have glorified celibacy. It is true that in a few 
cases the unproductiveness of homosexual love has been 
given by indigenous writers as a reason for its encourage- 
ment or condemnation. It was said that the Cretan law 
on the subject had in view to check the growth of popula- 
tion; but, like Dollinger,° I do not believe that this 
assertion touches the real root of the matter. More 
importance may be attached to the following passage in 
one of the Pahlavi texts :—‘‘ He who is wasting seed 
makes a practice of causing the death of progeny ; when 
the custom is completely continuous, which produces an 
evil stoppage of the progress of the race, the creatures 
have become annihilated ; and certainly, that action, from 
which, when it is universally proceeding, the depopulation 

1 Havelock Ellis, of. cz. p. 206. > von Kremer, Culturgeschichte des 
2 Cf. supra, ii. 466(Society Islanders). Orders, il. 129. , 
3 Supra, i. 407. 6 Déllinger, of. c2z. 11. 239. 

4 Supra, i. 406 sg. 

of the world must arise, has become and furthered the 
greatest wish of Aharman.”' I am, however, of opinion 
that considerations of this kind have generally played only 
a subordinate, if any, part in the formation of the moral 
opinions concerning homosexual practices. And it can 
certainly not be admitted that the severe Jewish law 
against sodomy was simply due to the fact that the 
enlargement of the population was a strongly felt social 
need among the Jews.” However much they condemned 
celibacy, they did not put it on a par with the abominations 
of Sodom. The excessive sinfulness which was attached 
to homosexual love by Zoroastrianism, Hebrewism, and 
Christianity, had quite a special foundation. It cannot be 
sufficiently accounted for either by utilitarian considerations 
or instinctive disgust. The abhorrence of incest is gener- 
ally a much stronger feeling than the aversion to homo- 
sexuality. Yet in the very same chapter of Genesis 
which describes the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah 
we read of the incest committed by the daughters of Lot 
with their father ;° and, according to the Roman Catholic 
doctrine, unnatural intercourse is an even more heinous 
sin than incest and adultery.* The fact is that homo- 
sexual practices were intimately associated with the gravest 
of all sins: unbelief, idolatry, or heresy. 

According to Taroaetament unnatural sin had been 
created by Angra Mainyu.2 ‘* Aharman, the wicked, 
miscreated the demons and fiends, and also the remaining 
corrupted ones, by his own unnatural intercourse.” ° Such 
intercourse is on a par with Afrasiyab, a Turanian kin 
who conquered the Iranians for twelve years ;' with Dahak, 
a king or dynasty who is said to have conquered Yim and 
reigned for a thousand. years ;* with Tdar-i Bradar-vakhsh, 

1 Déadistan-t Dintk, \xxvii. 11. 

2 Havelock Ellis, of. czt. p. 206. 

3 Genesis, xix. 31 sgq. 

4 Thomas Aquinas, 
logica, i.-1l. 154. 12. 
riss des kanonischen 
WOE, lite, Xo), OER, eenetews 
criminalis, book v. § Sodomia, Addi- 
tiones, I (Ofera omnia, ii. 152) :— 

Summa theo- 
Katz, Grund- 
Strafrechts, pp. 

“Hoe vitium est majus, quam si quis 
propriam matrem cognosceret.” 

5 Vendidad, i. 12. 

8 Dind-? Matnég-? Khirad, viii. 10. 

7 Sad Dar, ix. 5. West’s note to 
Dind-t? Matnég-t Khirad, viii. 29 (Sacred 
Books of the East, xxiv. 35, n. 4). 

8 Sad Dar, ix. 5. West’s note to 
Dind-? Matnog-t Khirad, viii. 29 

a heterodox wizard by whom the best men were put to 
death.! He who commits unnatural sin is “in his whole 
being a Daéva”’ ;* and a Daéva-worshipper is not a bad 
Zoroastrian, but a man who does not belong to the 
Zoroastrian system, a foreigner, a non-Aryan.*’ In the 
Vendidad, after the statement that the voluntary com- 
mission of unnatural sin is a trespass for which there is no 
atonement for ever and ever, the question is put, When is 
it so? And the answer given is:—If the sinner be a 
professor of the religion of Mazda, or one who has been 
taught init. If not, his sin is taken from him, in case 
he makes confession of the religion of Mazda and resolves 
never to commit again such forbidden deeds.* This is to 
say, the sin is inexpiable if it involves a downright 
defiance of the true religion, it is forgiven if it is 
committed in ignorance of it and is followed by submission. 
From all this it appears that Zoroastrianism stigmatised 
unnatural intercourse as a practice of infidels, as a sign of 
unbelief. And I think that certain facts referred to above 
help us to understand why it did so. Not only have 
homosexual. practices been commonly associated with 
sorcery, but such an association has formed, and partly 
still forms, an incident of the shamanistic system prevalent 
among the Asiatic peoples of Turanian stock, and that 
it did so already in remote antiquity is made extremely 
probable by statements which I have just quoted from Zoro- 
astrian texts. Tothis system Zoroastrianism was naturally 
furiously opposed, and the “change of sex” therefore ap- 
peared to the Mazda worshipper as a devilish abomination. 

So also the Hebrews’ abhorrence of sodomy was largely 
due to their hatred of a foreign cult. According to 
Genesis, unnatural vice was the sin of a people who were 
not the Lord’s people, and the Levitical legislation 
represents Canaanitish abominations as the chief reason 

e 

(Sacred Books of the East, xxiv. 35, 2 Vendiddd, viii. 32. : 

my 3): 3 Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of 
1 Sad Dar, ix. 5. West's note to the Last, iv. p. li. 

Dédistan-? Dintk, \xxii. 8 (Sacred 4 Vendidad, viii. 27 sg 

Books of the East, xviii. 218). 

why the Canaanites were exterminated." Now we know 
that sodomy entered as an element in their religion. 
Besides fedéshath, or female prostitutes, there were kedéshim, 
or male prostitutes, attached to their temples.” The word 
kadesh, translated ‘“sodomite,” properly denotes a man 
dedicated to a deity ;* and it appears that such men were 
consecrated to the mother of the gods, the famous Dea 
Syria, whose priests or devotees they were considered to 
be. The male devotees of this and other goddesses were 
probably in a position analogous to that occupied by the 
female devotees of certain gods, who also, as we have seen, 
have developed into libertines ; ° and the sodomitic acts com- 
mitted with these temple prostitutes may, like the connec- 
tions with priestesses, have had in view to transfer blessings 
to the worshippers.° In Morocco supernatural benefits are 
expected not only from heterosexual, but also from 
homosexual intercourse with a holy person. The kedéshim 
are frequently alluded to in the Old Testament, especially 
in the period of the monarchy, when rites of foreign 
origin made their way into both Israel and Judah.’ And 
it is natural that the Yahveh worshipper should regard their 
practices with the utmost horror as forming part of an 
idolatrous cult. 

The Hebrew conception of homosexual love to some 
extent affected Muhammedanism, and _ passed into 
Christianity. The notion that it is a form of sacrilege 
was here strengthened by the habits of the gentiles. St. 
» Paul found the abominations of Sodom prevalent among 
nations who had ‘changed the truth of God into a lie, 
and worshipped and served the creature more than the 

ERLLUUCLCUS PSK O 

2 Deuteronomy, xxiii. 17. Driver, 
Commentary on Deuteronomy, p. 264. 

3 Driver, of. czt. p. 264 sg. Selbie, 

*Sodomite,’ in Hastings, Dectconary of 

the Bible, iv. 559. 

2 (Sys jews, 7772 (Oly he lS ayn 
(Migne, of. czt. xxv. 851). Cook’s 
note to 1 Azzgs, xiv. 24, in his edition 
of The Holy Bible, ii. 571. See also 
Lucian, Lzczus, 38. 

> Supra, ii. 444. 

® Rosenbaum suggests (Geschichte 
der Lustseuche tm Alterthume, p. 120) 
that the eunuch priests connected with 
the cult of the Ephesian Artemis: and 
the Phrygian worship of Cybele like- 
wise were sodomites. 

UN NGL Mein Sabin CLEO Sais MAIR SSal. 
46. 2 Kings, xxiii. 7. Job, xxxvi. 14. 
Driver, of. czt. p. 265. 

— 

| 

-— 

Kreator. + During the Middle Ages heretics were one 
of unnatural vice as a matter of course.? Indeed, s 

closely was sodomy associated with heresy that the same 
name was applied to both. In ‘La Coutume de 
Touraine-Anjou’ the word herite, which is the ancient 
form of hérétique,® seems to be used in the sense of 
“sodomite” ;* and the French dougre (from the Latin 
Bulgarus, Bulgarian), as also its’ English synonym, was 
originally a name given to a sect of heretics who came from 
Bulgaria in the eleventh century and was afterwards 
applied to other heretics, but at the same time it became the 
regular expression for a person guilty of unnatural inter- 
course? In medieval laws sodomy was also repeatedly 
mentioned together with heresy, and the punishment was 
the same for both." It thus remained a religious offence 
of the first order. It was not only a “vitium nefandum 
et super omnia detestandum,”’ but it was one of the four 
“clamantia peccata,’ or cr ying sins,” a- ‘crime de 
Majestie, vers le Roy celestre.”® Very naturally, there- 
fore, it has come to be regarded with somewhat greater 
leniency by law and public opinion in proportion as they 
have emancipated themselves from theological doctrines. 
And the fresh light which the scientific study of the sexual 
impulse has lately thrown upon the subject of homo- 
sexuality must also necessarily influence the moral ideas 
relating to it, in so far as no scrutinising judge can fail to 
take into account the pressure which a powerful non- 
volitional desire exercises upon an agent’s will. P) 

1 Romans, i. 25 sqq. wousts, XXX. I1, vol. 1. 413 :—‘“‘ Qui 

2 Littré, Dictionnaire ae la langue 
francaise, i. 386, ‘Bougre.’ Haynes, 
Religious Persecution, p. 54. 

SM oittre, op. zz. 1. ZO1O) | oblere- 

tichite. 
4 Les Etablissements de Saint Loutzs, 
JOO NVOl. ln47.0 Violet ml his 

Introduction to the same work, i. 254. 
5 Littré, of. cét. i. 386, ‘ Bougre.’ 
Murray, Mew Lnglish Dictionary, i 
1160, ‘ Bugger.’ Lea, History of the 
Inquisition of the Middle Ages, i. 115, 
note. 
6 Beaumanoir, Cowtumes du Beau- 

erre contre le foi, comme en mescreance, 
de le quele il ne veut venir a voie de 
verité, ou qui fet sodomiterie, il doit 
estre ars, et forfet tout le sien en le 
maniere dessus.” Britton, i. 10, vol. 
i. 42. Montesquieu, De Vesprit des 
lois, xii. 6 (Quvres, p.283). Du Boys, 
fTistotire du drott criminel del Espagne, 
pp. 486, 721. 
7 Clarus, Practica criminals, book 
v. 3 Sodomia, 1 (Opera omnia, ii. 151). 
8 Coke, Third Part of the /nstitutes 
of the Laws of England, p. 59. 
9 Mirror, quoted zbid. p. 58.

REGARD FOR THE LOWER ANIMALS 

Men’s conduct towards the lower animals is frequently 
a subject of moral valuation. 

Totem animals must be treated with deference by those 
who bear their names, and animals generally regarded as 
divine must be respected by all ; of this more will be said 
in a subsequent chapter.' Among various peoples the 
members of certain animal species must not be killed, be- 
cause they are considered to be receptacles for the souls of 
departed men,’ or because the species is believed to have 
originated through a transformation of men into animals.” 
The Dyaks of Borneo have a superstitious dread of killing 
orang-utans, being of opinion that these apes are men who 
went to live in the forest and abstain from speaking 
merely in order to be exempt from paying taxes.* The 
Moors consider it wrong to kill a monkey, because the 
monkey was once a man whom God changed into his 
present shape as a punishment for the sin he committed by 
performing his ablutions with milk ; and they would never 
do harm to a stork, because, as they say, the stork was 
originally a judge, who passed unjust sentences upon his 
fellow creatures and therefore became what he is. They 
also account it a sin to kill a swallow or a pigeon, a white 
spider or a bee, because they regard them as holy. Other 
creatures, again, are spared by the Moors because they 

! Infra, on Duties to Gods. $ See Meiners, Al/leemeine Geschichte 

2 Infra, p. 516 sq. der Keligionen, i. 213 sgq. 
* Selenka, Sonnige Welten, p. 57. 

——, 

appear uncanny or are suspected of being evil spirits in 
disguise. It is believed that anybody who kills a raven 
easily goes mad and that he who kills a toad will get fever 
or die ; and no Moor would dare to hit a cat or a dog in 
the dark, since it seems very doubtful what kind of being 
it really is. Superstitions of this sort are world-wide. 

It is a common belief among uncultured peoples that a 
person who slays an animal is exposed to the vengeance 
either of its disembodied spirit or of all the other creatures 
belonging to the same species.’ Hence, as Dr. Frazer 
has shown, the savage often makes it a rule to spare the 
lives of those animals which he has no pressing motive for 
killing, at least such fierce and dangerous ones as are 
likely to exact a bloody revenge for the slaughter of any 
of their kind ; and when, for some reason or other, he 
overcomes his superstitious scruples and takes the life of 
the beast, he is anxious to appease the victim and its 
kindred by testifying his respect for them, or making 
apologies, or trying to conceal his share in procuring the 
death of the animal, or promising that its remains will be 
honourably treated.” The Sti¢ns of Cambodia, for instance, 
who believe that animals have souls which wander about 
after death, ask pardon when they have killed one, lest its 
soul should visit and torment them ; and they also offer it 
sacrifices proportioned to the strength and size of the 
animal.* When a party of Koriaks have killed a bear or 
a wolf, they skin the beast, dress one of their family in 
the skin, and dance round the skin-clad man, saying that 
it was not they who killed the animal but someone else, 
by preference a Russian.t The Eskimo about Behring 
Strait maintain that the dead bodies of various animals 
must be treated very carefully by the hunter who obtains 
them, so that their shades may not be offended and bring 
bad luck or even death upon him or his people.’ 

CR Szpra, i. 258. 4 Bastian, Der Mensch in der 
2 Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 389 sqq. Geschichle, iii. 26. 
3 Mouhot, Zyavels in the Central > Nelson, ‘Eskimo about Bering 
Parts of Indo-China, 1. 252. Strait,’ in Anz. Rep. Bur. Ethn, xvii, 

438. 

The savage, moreover, desires to keep on good terms 
with animals which, without being feared, are either eaten 
or valued for their skins. Hence, when he captures one, 
he shows such deference for it as may be necessary for 
inducing its fellows to come and be killed also.t. Alaskan 
hunters preserve the bones of sables and beavers out of 
reach of the dogs for a year and then bury them carefully, 
lest the spirits which look after these species should con- 
sider that “they are regarded with contempt, and hence 
no more should be killed or trapped.” * The Thompson 
River Indians of British Columbia said that when a deer 
was killed its fellows would be well pleased if the hunters 
butchered the animal nicely and cleanly.? The Hurons 
refrained from throwing fish bones into the fire, lest the 
souls of the fish should go and warn the other fish not to 
let themselves be caught, since, if they were, their own 
bones would also be burned.* Some savages respect the 
bones of the animals which they eat because they believe 
that the bones, if preserved, will, in the course of time, 
be reclothed with flesh and the animal thus come to life 
again.” 

Besides the creatures which primitive man treats with 
respect because he dreads their strength and ferocity or 
on account of the benefits he expects from them, there is 
yet a third class of animate beings which he sometimes 
deems it necessary to conciliate, namely, vermin that 
infest the crops.° Among the Saxons of Transylvania, in 
order to keep sparrows from the corn, the sower begins 
by throwing the first handful of seed backwards over his 
head, saying, “‘ That is for you, sparrows.” " And of the 
Dravidian tribes of Mirzapur we are told that, when 
locusts threaten to eat up the fruits of the earth, the 
people catch one, decorate its head with a spot of red 

1 Frazer, op. czt. li. 403 sgq. * Sagard, Le grand voyage du pays 
* Dall, Alaska, p. 89. des Hlurons, p. 255. 
3 Teit, ‘Thompson Indians of British ° Frazer, op. ct. ii. 415 sqg. 
Columbia,’ in Alemoirs of the American ® Lbtid, il. 422 sqq. 
Museum of Natural Hestory, ‘ Anthro- 7 Heinrich, quoted zbzd. 11. 423. 

pology,’ i. 346. 

—" 

ee. 
ape 

LOWER ANIMALS 

XLIV 493 | 

lead, salaam to it, and let it go; after which civilities the 
whole flight immediately departs.' 

Domestic animals are frequently objects of superstitious 
reverence.” They are expected to reward masters who 
treat them well, whereas those who harm them are 
believed to expose themselves to their revenge. Among 
the Eskimo about Behring Strait dogs are never beaten 
for biting people, lest the zvua or shade of the dog should 
become angry and prevent the wound from healing.’ 
Butchers are often regarded as unclean, and the original 
reason for this was in all probability fhe idea that they 
were haunted by the spirits of the animals they had slain. 
Among the Guanches of the Canary Islands it was un- 
lawful for anybody but professional butchers to kill 
cattle, and a butcher was forbidden to enter other 
persons’ houses, to touch their property, and to keep 
company with any one not of his own trade? In 
Morocco a butcher, like a manslayer, is thought to be 
haunted by juin (jinn), and it seems that in this case also 
the notion of haunting jnin has replaced an earlier belief 
in troublesome ghosts.’ So, too, the ancient Troglodytes 
of East Africa, who seriaed fice whole sustenance from 
their flocks sae herds, are said to have looked upon 
butchers as unclean.’ In the rural districts of Japan it 
is believed that a butcher will have a cripple among his 
descendants.’ 

How far ideas of this sort may account for the great 
disinclination of many peoples to kill their cattle, it is 
impossible to say; but they certainly do not constitute 
the only motive. We have noticed above that pastoral 
tribes are unwilling to reduce their herds and agricultural 
peoples to kill the ploughing ox, because this would imply 

Popular 
of Northern 

Religion and 
India, i. 

1 Crooke, 
Folk-Lore 

} See Robertson Smith, Relzgion of 
the Semites, p. 296 sqq. 

3 Nelson, in Anz. Rep. Bur. Ethn. 
XVill. 435. 

+ Abreu de ’Galindo, Héstory of the 

Discovery and Conquest of the Canary 
Lslands, p. 7159. Bory de St. Vincent, 
Etssaes sur les Isles Fortunées, p. 
103 sg. 

SCF SUPTE, 1a) 370: 

6 Robertson Smith, of, cz. p. 
206 sq. 

7 Griffis, MZkado’s Empire, p. 472. 

loss of valuable property.! And apart from economic 
considerations, we may assume that feelings of genuine 
sympathy also induce them to treat their animals with 
kindness. The altruistic sentiment has not necessarily 
reference to members of the same species only ; of this 
we find instances even among animals in confinement 
and domesticated animals, which frequently become 
attached to individuals of a different species with whom 
they live together. And the savage feels himself much 
more closely related to the animal world than does his 
civilised fellow creature; indeed, as we have seen, he 
habitually obliterates the boundaries between man and 
beast and regards all animals as practically on a footing 
of equality with himself.? Among the pastoral races of 
Africa the men delight in attending their cattle, and spend 
much time in ornamenting and adorning them; the 
herdsman knows every beast in his herd, calls it by its 
name, and affectionately observes all its peculiarities. Of 
the Bahima, a cow tribe in Uganda, the Rev. J. Roscoe 
tells us that the men form warm attachments for their 
cattle ; some of them love the animals like children, pet 
and coax them, talk to them, and weep over their 
ailments, and should a favourite die their grief is so 
extreme that it sometimes leads to suicide.” The mythical 
founder of the kingdom of Uganda, Kintu, is said to have 
been so humane and averse from the sight of blood, that 
“even cattle killed for necessary food were slaughtered 
at some distance from his dwelling.” ° But cattle are 
not the only dumb creatures that excite tender feelings 
in the bosom of a savage. The For tribe of Central 
Africa regard it as a characteristic of a good man to be 
kind to animals in general, and consider it wicked to be 
otherwise.’ Concerning the Eastern Central Africans Mr. 

IT SUPKa, Ue BBTe § Felkin, ‘Notes on the Waganda 

2 See supra, i. 112. Tribe,’ in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edin- 

3 Supra, i. 258. burgh, xiii: 764. 

4 Ratzel, Aestory of Mankind, ii. 7 Felkin, ‘Notes on the For Tribe,’ 
AIS. in Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. 

5 Roscoe, ‘ Bahima,’ in /oz7. Anthr. 232 Sy. 

Inst. XXXVil. 94. Sy. 

XLIV LOWER ANIMALS 4.95 

Macdonald writes that if they appear destitute of pity, 
say, for their fowls in their method of carrying them, it 
is because they do not reflect that it gives them pain—“all 
would admit that it was a cruel thing to pain the fowl”’ ; 
and they have fables in their Janguage which show a desire 
to enter minutely into the feelings of dumb creatures, 
representing, for instance, fowls as reasoning on their 
hard fate in being killed for their” master’s supper.’ 
Among the Indians of the province of Quito, according 
to Juan and Ulloa, the women are so fond of their fowls 
that they will not sell them, much less kill them with 
their own hands ; “so that if a stranger, who is obliged 
to pass the night in one of their cottages, offers ever so 
much money for a fowl, they refuse to part with it, and 
he finds himself under a necessity of killing the fowl 
himself. At this his landlady shrieks, dissolves in tears, 
and wrings her hands, as if it had been an only son; till 
seeing the mischief past remedy she wipes her eyes, and 
quietly takes what the traveller offers her.”? North 
American Indians, again, are very fond of their hunting 
dogs. Those on the west side of the Rocky Mountains 
“appear to have the same affection for them that they 
have for their children ; and they will discourse with 
them, as if they were rational beings. They frequently 
call them their sons or daughters ; and when describing 
an Indian, they will speak of him as father of a particular 
dog which belongs to him. When these dogs die, it is 
not unusual to see their masters or mistresses place them 
ona pile of wood, and burn them in the same manner as 
they do the dead bodies of their relations ; and they 
appear to lament their deaths, by crying and howling, 
fully as much as if they were their kindred.” * So also 
the natives of Australia often display much affection for 
their dogs ; Mr. Gason has seen women crying over a 
dog when bitten by a snake as if it had been one of their 
own children, and if a puppy has lost its mother the 

1 Macdonald, A/rzcana, 1. 10 sg. 3 Harmon, /ournal of Voyages zn 
2 Juan and Ulloa, Voyage to South the Interior of North America, jp. 
America, i. 420 sq. 335 Sg. 

women suckle and nurse it.' Of the Maoris of New 
Zealand we read that their extreme love of offspring “ was 
also carried out to excess towards the young of brutes— 
especially of their dogs, and, afterwards, of cats and pigs 
introduced. Hence it was by no means an unusual sight 
to see a woman carrying her child at her back, and a pet 
dog, or pig, in her bosom. 22 The Geen of North- 
Eastern Siberia believe that if a person is cruel to brutes 
his soul will after his death migrate into some domestic 

animal—a dog, a horse, or a reindeer.? Even the. 

miserable Veddahs of Ceylon are said to be indignant at 
the needless killing of a beast.* 

On the other hand we also hear of savages who are 
greatly lacking in sympathy for’ the brute creation. 
Darwin says that humanity to the lower animals 1s appar- 
ently unfelt by savages, except towards their pets.’ 
Mr. Atkinson charges the New Caledonians with great 
cruelty to animals.° The Tasmanians appeared much to 
enjoy the tortures of a wounded bird or beast.’ It is not 
to be expected that people whose kindly feelings towards 
men hardly extend beyond the borders of their own 
communities should be compassionate to wild animals. 
They may also appear wantonly cruel because they do not 
realise the pain which they inflict. And, like children, 
they may enjoy the agony of a suffering beast or bird 
because it excites their curiosity. 

It is obvious from what has been said above that 
already at the savage stage men’s conduct towards the 
lower animals must in some cases be a matter of moral 
concern. For hand in hand with the altruistic sentiment 
we always find the feeling of sympathetic resentment 
whenever there is an occasion for its outburst. Moreover, 

1 Gason, ‘ Dieyerie Tribe,’in Woods, 4 Sarasin, Ergebnisse naturwissen- 
Native Tribes of South Australia, p.  schaftlicher Forschungen auf Ceylon, 
259. Fraser, Aborigines of New South iii. 539. 

Wales, p. 5. Williams, ‘ Yircla > Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 
Meening Tribe,’ in Curr, Zhe Austra- 123. 

lian Race, i. 402. § Atkinson, ‘Natives of New 
2 Colenso, AZaor? Races of New Caledonia,’ in Folk-Lore, xiv. 248. 
Zealand, p. 43. 7 Davies, quoted by Ling Roth, 

3 Ratzel, of. cet i. 231. Tasmanians, p. 66, 

«cabal 

GR dy LOWER ANIMALS 

acts which are, or are believed to be, i injurious to the 
agent, by exposing him to an animal’s revenge or other- 
wise, are prohibited because they are imprudent ; and, as we 
have often noticed, such prohibitions are apt to assume a 
moral character. Finally, if a certain mode of conduct is 
considered to be productive of public harm, as is the case 
with any act or omission which reduces, or is supposed to 
reduce, the supply of food or animal clothing, it is 
naturally looked upon as a wrong against the community. 

Similar facts have, among peoples of a higher culture, 

‘led to moral rules inculcating regard for Be ys amar rit 
which have often assumed a definite shape in their laws or 
religious books. 

According to Brahmanism tenderness towards all 
creatures is a duty incumbent upon the four castes. It is 
said that “‘ he who injures innoxious beings from a wish 
to give himself ‘Pleasure, never finds happiness, neither 
living nor dead.”* If a blow is struck against animals in 
baer to give them pain, the judge shall inflict a fine in 
proportion to the amount of pain caused, just as if the 
blow had been struck against a man.” The killing of 
various creatures, including fish and snakes, reduces the 
offender to a mixed caste ;* and, according to ‘ Vishnu 
Purana,’ fishermen go after death to the same hell as awaits 
prisoners, incendiaries, and treacherous friends.* To kill a 
cow is a great crime ;*° whereas he who unhesitatingly 
abandons life for the sake of a cowis freed even from the 
guilt of the murder of a Brahmana, and so is he who 
saves the life of a cow.” Among many of the Hindus 
the slaughter of a cow excites more horror than the 
killing of a man, and is punished with great severity, even 
with death.’ 

In Buddhism, Jainism, and Taouism the respect for 
animal life is extreme. A disciple of Buddha may not 

' Laws of Manu, v. 45. 1. Laws of Manu, xi. 109 sgq. 
2 bid. viii. 286. 6 Laws of Manu, xi. 80. 
® bid. xi. 69. 7 Barth, Relzgzons of India, p. 264. 

4 Vishhu Purana, p. 208 sq. 
° Tristitutes of Vishnu, ip 
Gautama, xxii. 18. 

VOL, Il 

16 sgg. 
Apastamba, i. 26. 

Kipling, Beast and Man tn India, p. 
118 sg. Crooke, Things Indian, p. 
gl. 

K K 

knowingly deprive any creature of life, not even a worm 
or an ant. He may not drink water in which animal life 
of any kind whatever is contained, and must not even 
pour it out on grass or clay.' And the doctrine which 
forbids the killing of animate beings is not only professed, 
but in a large measure followed, by the great majority of 
people in- Buddhistic countries. In Siam the tameness of 
many living creatures which in Europe fly from the 
presence of man is very striking. Instances have been 
known in which natives have quitted the service of 
Europeans on account of their unwillingness to destroy 
reptiles and vermin, and it is a not uncommon practice for 
rich Siamese to buy live fish to have the merit of restoring 
them to the sea.” In Burma, though fish is one of the 
staple foods of the people, the fisherman is despised ; not 
so much, perhaps, as if he killed other living things, but 
he is still an outcast from decent society, and “will have 
to suffer great and terrible punishment before he can be 
cleansed from the sins that he daily commits.”* The 
Buddhists of Ceylon are more forbearing : they excuse the 
fisherman by saying that he does not kill the fish, but only 
removes it from the water.* In Tibet all dumb 
creatures are treated with humanity, and the taking of 
animal life is rather strictly prohibited, except in the case 
of yaks and sheep needed for food. Owing to the cold- 
ness of the climate, flesh forms an essential staple of diet ; 
but the butchers are regarded as professional sinners and 
are therefore the most despised of all classes in Tibet. 
Wild animals and even small birds and fish are seldom or 
never killed, on account of the religious penalties attached 
to this crime.°* 

The Jain is stricter still in his regard for animal life. 
He sweeps the ground before him as he goes, lest animate 
things be destroyed ; he walks veiled, lest he inhale a living 
organism ; he considers that the evening and night. are 

1 Oldenberg, Buddha, pp. 290 n.,* People, p. 230. 
351. 4 Schmidt, Ceylon, p. 316 sq. 

2 Bowring, Svan, i. 107. > Waddell, Buddhism of Tibet, p. 
3 Fielding Hall, Zhe Soul of a@ 567 sg. 

of oes 

not times for eating, since one might then swallow a live 
thing by mistake ; and he rejects not only meat but even 
honey, together with various fruits that are supposed to 
contain worms, not because of his distaste for worms but 
because of his regard for life.' Some towns in Western 
India in which Jains are found have their beast hospitals, 
where animals are kept and fed. At Surat there was 
quite recently an establishment of this sort with a house 
where a host of noxious and offensive vermin, dense as 
the sands on the sea-shore, were bred and nurtured ; and at 
Anjar, in Kutch, about five thousand rats were kept in a 
certain temple and daily fed with flour, which was procured 
by a tax on the inhabitants of the town.” 

According to ‘Thai-Shang,’ one of the books of 
Taouism, a good man will feel kindly towards all 
creatures, and refrain from hurting even the insect tribes, 
grass, and trees ; and he is a bad man who “shoots birds 
and hunts beasts, unearths the burrowing insects and 
frightens roosting birds, blocks up the dens of animals 
and overturns nests, hurts the pregnant womb and breaks 
eggs.” * In the book called ‘ Merits and Errors Scrutin- 
ised,’ which enjoys great popularity in China, it is said to 
be meritorious to save animals from death—even insects if 
the number amounts to a hundred,—to relieve a brute 
that is greatly wearied with work, to purchase and set at 
liberty animals intended to be slaughtered. On the other 
hand, to confine birds in a cage, to kill ten insects, to be 
unsparing of the strength of tired animals, to disturb 
insects in their holes, to destroy the nests of birds, without 
great reason to kill and dress animals for food, are all 
errors of various degrees. And “to be the foremost to 
encourage the slaughter of animals, or to hinder persons 
from setting them at liberty,” is regarded as an error of 
the same magnitude as the crime of devising a person’s 
death or of drowning or murdering a child.* Kindness 

' Hopkins, elzgions of India, p. Hospital for Animals at Surat,’ in 
288. Barth, of. cz¢. p. 145. Kipling,  /owr. Roy. Aszatic Soc. i. 96 sq. 

op. cit. p. 10 sg. 3 That-Shang, 3 sq. ha 
2 Burnes, ‘Notice of a remarkable 4 Indo-Chinese Gleaner, ii). 164, 
205 5g. 

Km Ik 2 

to animals is conspicuous in the writings of Confucius and 
Mencius ;' the Master angled but did not use a net, he 
shot but not at birds perching.”. Throughout Japan, 
according to Sir Edward Reed, “the life of animals 
has always been held more or ee sacred. . .,. neither 
Shintoism nor Buddhism requiring or justifying the 
taking of the life of any creature for sacrifice.” ° 

The ‘regard for the lower animals which is shown by 
these Eastern religions and their adherents is to some 
extent due to superstitious ideas, similar to those which we 
found prevalent among many savages. Dr. de Groot 
observes that in China the virtues of benevolence and 
humanity are extended to animals because these, also, have 
souls which may work vengeance or bring reward.* The 
conduct of Orientals towards the brute creation has 
further been explained by their belief in the transmigration 
of souls. But it seems that the connection between their 
theory of metempsychosis and their rules relating to the 
treatment of animals is not exclusively, nor even chiefly, 
one of cause and effect, but rather one of a common origin. 
This theory itself may in some measure be regarded as a 

result of that intimacy which prevails in the East between 

animals and men. Buddhism recognises no fundamental 
distinction between them, only an _ accidental or 
phenomenal difference ;° and the step is not long from 
this attitude to the doctrine of metempsychosis. Captain 
Forbes maintains that the humanity with which the 
Burmans treat dumb animals comes “more from the 
innate good nature and easiness of their dispositions than 
from any effect over them of this peculiar doctrine” ;° and 
they laugh at the suggestion made by Europeans that 
Buddhists abstain from taking life because they believe in 
the transmigration of souls, having never heard of it 
before. Their motive, + says Mr. Fielding Hall, is 
compassion and noblesse oblige.’ But by its punishments 

eeMlencius 1. 1. 7. ° Rhys Davids, Azhberd Lectures on 
J bite VE ah, Ap Buddhism, p. 214. 

3 Reed, Japan, 1. 61. ® Forbes, British Burma, jones 

4 de Groot, Religious System of 7 Fielding Hall, of. czt. p. 237 sg. 

China, (vol. iv. book) ii. 450. 

ee a 

— Oe. On 

-and rewards, religion has greatly increased the natural 

regard for animal life and welfare, and introduced a new 
motive for conduct which originally sprang in the main 

from kindly feeling. 

In Zoroastrianism we meet with a different attitude 
towards the lower animal world. A fundamental distinc- 
tion is made between the animals of Ormuzd and those of 
Ahriman. To kill one of the former is a heinous sin, to 
kill one of the latter is a pious deed.! Sacred above all 
other animals is the dog. The ill-feeding and maltreat- 
ment of dogs are prosecuted as criminal, and extreme 
penalties are inflicted on those who venture to kill them.” 
Nay, if there be in the house of a worshipper of Mazda 
a mad dog who has no scent, the worshippers of Mazda 
“shall attend him to heal him, in the same manner as they 
would do for one of the faithful.”* In the eyes of the 
Parsis, animals are enlisted under the standards of either 
Ormuzd or Ahriman according as they are useful or 
hurtful to man; but M. Darmesteter is of opinion that 
they originally belonged to the one or the other not on 
account of any such qualities, but according as they 
chanced to have lent their forms to either the god or the 
fiend in the storm tales. “It was not animal psychology,”’ 
he says, ‘that disguised gods and fiends as dogs, otters, 
hedge-hogs, and cocks, or as snakes, tortoises, frogs, and 
ants, but the accidents of physical qualities and the caprice 
of popular fancy, as both the god and the fiend might be 
compared with, and transformed into, any object, the idea 
of which was suggested by the uproar of the storm, the 
blazing of the lightning, the streaming of the water, or the 
hue and shape of the clouds.” * This hypothesis, however, 
seems to attach undue importance to mythical fancies, and 
it presupposes an almost unbounded and capricious 
allegorism, for which there is apparently little foundation 

1 Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, 
p. 283. 

2 Vendidéd, xiii. sq. Geiger, 
Civilization of the Eastern Iranians, 
il. 36. 

3 Vendiddad, xiii. 35. 

+ Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of 

the East, iv. (ist edit.) p. Ixxi. sg. 
See also zdem, Ormazd et Ahriman, 

p. 283 sqq. 

fia Js 

in facts. The suggestion that the animals are referred to 
either the one or the other category according as they are 
useful or obnoxious to man, is at all events borne out by 
a few salient features, although in many details the matter 
remains obscure. 

It appears that among the Zoroastrians, also, the respect 
for the life of animals is partly due to superstitious ideas 
about their souls and fear of their revenge. According to 
the ‘ Yasts,’ “ the souls of the wild beasts and of the tame ” 
are objects of worship ;' and in one of the Pahlavi texts 
it is said that people should abstain from unlawfully 
slaughtering any species of animals, since otherwise, in 
punishment for such an act, each hair of the animal 
killed becomes like a sharp dagger, and he who is unlaw- 
fully a slaughterer is slain.” But here again we may 
assume the co-operating influence of the feeling of sym- 
pathy. Various passages in the Zoroastrian ‘ Gathas ’ which 
enjoin kindness to domestic animals* suggest as their 
motives not only considerations of utility but genuine 
tenderness. In a later age Firdausi sang, “ Ah! spare 
yon emmet rich in hoarded grain: He lives with pleasure, 
and he dies with pain.’ * And of the modern Persian 
Dr. Polak says that, ‘‘ naturally not cruel, he treats animals 
with more consideration than men.” ’ His present religion, 
too, enjoins kindness to animals as a duty. 

According to Muhammedanism, beasts, birds, fish, in- 
sects, are all, like man, the slaves of God, the tools of His 
will. There is no intrinsic distinction between them and the 
human species, except what accidental diversity God may 
have been pleased to make.° Muhammed said to his 
followers :—‘‘ There is not a beast upon the earth nor a 
bird that flies with both its wings, but is a nation like to 
you; . . . to their slord eshall® they sbeqoatmered: au 
Muhammedan law prescribes that domestic animals shall 

Pass, exis 54) Anniversary Discourse,’ in <Aszatich 
2 Shidvast La-Shdyast, x. 8. Researches, iv. 12. 
% Darmesteter, in Le Zend-Avesta. 5 Polak, Persdenm, i. 12. 

1, Dacvile > Cf. Palgrave, Journey through 

* Firdausi, quoted by Jones, ‘Tenth Central and Lastern Arabia, i. 368. 
\ 7 Koran, vi. 38. 

be treated with consideration and not be overworked ;! 
and in various Muhammedan countries this law has also 
been habitually put into practice. The Moslems of India 
are kind to animals.’ _In his earlier intercourse with the 
people of Egypt, Mr. Lane noticed much humanity to 
beasts.° Montaigne said that the Turks gave alms to 
brutes and had hospitals for them ;* and Mr. Bosworth 
Smith is of opinion that beasts of burden and domestic 
animals are nowhere in Christendom—with the one ex- 
ception, perhaps, of Norway—treated with such unvarying 
kindness and consideration as they are in Turkey. “In 
the East,” he adds, “so far as it has not been hardened by 
the West, there is a real sympathy between man and the 
domestic animals ; they understand one another.” * 

So also the ancient Greeks were on familiar terms with 
the animal world. This appears from the frequency with 
which their poets illustrate human qualities by metaphors 
drawn from it. And as men were compared with animals, 
so animals were believed to possess human peculiarities. 
When a beast was going to be sacrificed it had to give its 
consent to the act by a nod of the head before it was 
killed. Animals were held in some measure responsible 
for their deeds; they were tried for manslaughter, 
sentenced, and executed.’ On the other hand, honours 
were bestowed upon beasts which had rendered signal 
services to their masters. The graves of Cimon’s mares 
with which he three times conquered at the Olympic games 
were still in the days of Plutarch to be seen near his own 
tomb ;* anda certain Xanthippus honoured his dog by 
burying it on a promontory, since then called ‘the dog’s 
grave,” because when the Athenians were compelled to 
abandon their city it swam by the side of his galley to 
Salamis.’ According to Xenocrates, there were in existence 

1 Sachau, JJuhammedanisches Recht, * Montaigne, “ssazs, ii. 11. 
pp. 18, 103. 5 Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and 
2 Pool, Studies in Mohammedanism,  Mohammedanisn, pp. 180, 217. 
pp. 176, 177; 247. Cf. Heber, Journey 8 Schmidt, Dze Ethtk der alten 
through the Upper Provinces of India,  Griechen, il. 96 sg. 
ill, BGI 1 Supra,i. 254. 
3 Lane, Aodern Egyptians, p. 8 Plutarch, Cato Major, v. 6. 

2093. 9 Tbed. v. 7. 

at Eleusis three laws which had been made by an ancient 
legislator, namely :—‘‘ Honour your parents ; Sacrifice to 
the gods from the fruits of the earth ; Injure not animals.” * 
At Athens a man was punished for flaying a living ram.” 
The Areopagites once condemned a boy to death because 
he had picked out the eyes of some quails.* As we have 
noticed before, the life of the ploughing ox was sacred ; * 
and young animals in particular were believed to be under 
the protection of the gods.° An ancient proverb says that 
“there are Erinyes even for dogs.”® This seems to 
indicate that the Greeks, also, were influenced by the 
common notion that the soul of an animal may take 
revenge upon him who killed it, the Erinys of the slain 
animal being originally its persecuting ghost. Among the 
Pythagoreans, again, the rule that animals which are not 
obnoxious to the human race should be neither injured 
nor killed was connected with their theory of metem- 
psychosis ;* and in some cases the prohibition of slaying 
useful animals may be traced to utilitarian motives.” But 
both in Greece and Rome kindness to brutes was also 
inculcated for their own sake, on purely humanitarian 
grounds. Porphyry says that, as justice pertains to 
rational beings and animals have been proved to be 
possessed of reason, it is necessary that we should act 
justly towards them.” He adds that “he who does not 
restrict harmless conduct to man alone, but extends it to 
other animals, most closely approaches to divinity ; and if 
it were possible to extend it to plants, he would preserve 
this image in a still greater degree.” According to 
Plutarch kindness and beneficence to. creatures of every 
species flow from the breast of a well-natured man as 

1 Porphyry, De abstinentia ab esu 7 Jamblichus, De Pythagorica vita, 
animaliui, 1V. 22. 21 (98). 

2 Plutarch, De carniwm esu oratio 8 Diogenes Laertius, Vite pheloso- 
ty Spill 2 phorum, viii. 2. 12 (77). Aristotle, 

§ Quintilian, De tnstetateone oratoria, Rhetorica, i. 13. 2, p. 1373 b. Schmidt, 
V.9- 13. op. ett. ii. 94. 

SSE, “le, Be} iie ® Porphyry, of. cé?. iv. 22. Swpra, 
_° Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 48 syg. ii. 331. 
Xenophon, Cyegetzcaus, v. 14. 10 Porphyry, of. cz¢. iii. 18. 

6 Schmidt, of. cé¢. ii. 96. NM Tbéd, iti. 28. 

Ps ee 

streams that issue from the living fountain. We ought 
to take care of our dogs and horses not only when they 
are young, but when they are old and past service. We 
ought not to violate or kill anything whatsoever that has 
life, unless it hurt us first.2 And if we cannot live 
unblamably we should at least sin with discretion: when 
we kill an animal in order to satisfy our hunger we should 
do so with sorrow and. pity, without abusing and 
tormenting it.° Cicero says it is a crime to injure an 
animal.* And Marcus Aurelius enjoins man to make use 
of brutes with a generous and liberal spirit, since he has 
reason and they have not.? 

In the Old Testament we meet with several instances of 
kindly feeling towards animals.° God watches over and 
controls the sustenance of their life. He sends springs 
into the valleys which will give drink to every beast 
of the field. He gives nests to the birds of the heaven, 
which sing among the branches. He causes grass to 
grow for the cattle; and the young lions, roaring after 
their prey, seek their food from God.’ Whilst the Jews, 
as Professor Toy observes, found it hard to conceive 
of the God of Israel as thinking kindly of its enemies, 
they had no such feeling of hostility towards beasts and 
birds. But at the ‘same time man is the centre of the 
creation, a being set apart from all other sentient 
creatures as God’s special favourite, for whose sake 
everything else was brought into existence. The sun, 
the moon, and the stars were placed in the firmament of 
the heaven to give light upon the estate of man.? For 
his sustenance the fruits of the earth were made to grow, 
and to him was given dominion over the fish of the sea, 
often quoted as instances of tenderness 
towards animals allow of another and 

more natural interpretation. This is 
especially the case with the sabbatarian 

1 Plutarch, Cato Major, v. 3 sq. 
2 Idem, Questiones Romane, 75. 
3 Idem, De carniwm esu oratio LI, 

thy 3 es] 
4 Cicero, De republica, iil. II. injunctions referring to domestic 
5 Marcus Aurelius, Commentariz, animals. 

vi. 23. 

6 See Bertholet, Dze Stellung der 
Tsvaeliten 2 den Fremden, p. 14. 
Various passages, however, which are 

7 Psalms, civ. 10-12, 14, 17, 21. 

5 Toy, Judaism and Christianity, 
p. 81. 

9 Genesis, i. 16 sq. 

and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing 
that moves upon the earth.’ And when the earth is to be 
replenished after the deluge, the same privileges are again 
granted to him. ‘The fear of man and the dread of man 
shall be upon all living creatures, into his hand are they 
all delivered, they shall all be meat for him.’ And they are 
given over to his supreme and. irresponsible control 
without the slightest injunction of kindness or the 
faintest suggestion of any duties towards them. They 
are to be regarded by him simply as food.’ 

Among the Hebrews the harshness of this anthro- 
pocentric doctrine was somewhat mitigated by the sympathy 
which a simple pastoral and agricultural people naturally 
feels for its domestic animals. In Christianity, on the 
other hand, it was further strengthened by the exclusive 
importance which was attached to the spiritual salvation 
of man. He was now more than ever separated from 
the rest of sentient beings. Even his own animal nature 
was regarded with contempt, the immortality of his soul 
being the only object of religious interest. ‘It would 
seem,” says Dr. Arnold, “as if the primitive Christian, by 
laying so much stress upon a future life in contradistinction 
to this life, and placing the lower creatures out of the pale 
of hope, placed them at the same time out of the pale of 
sympathy, and thus laid the foundation for this utter dis- 
regard of animals in the light of our fellow-creatures.” 4 
St. Paul asks with scorn, ‘Doth God take care for oxen?’”’® 
No creed in Christendom teaches kindness to animals as a 
dogma of religion.® In the Middle Ages various councils 
of the Church declared pe unlawful for the clergy” 
but the obvious reason for this prohibition was its horror 
of bloodshed,* not any consideration for the animals. 

1 Genesis, i. 28. killmg of animals (Baur, Das AZanz- 
ED icd aie. 25 chééische Religionssystem, p. 252 sqq.) 3 
3 Cf. Evans, ‘Ethical Relations but Manichaeism did not originate on 
between Man and Beast,’ in Popular Christian ground (Harnack, ‘ Manichze- 
Science Monthly, x\v. 637 sq. ism,’ in Lxcyclopedia Britannica, xv. 
4 Arnold, quoted by Evans, in 485 ; Supra, il. 312). 
Popular Science Monthly, xv. 639. 7 Le Grand @Aussy, Héstocre de la 
® 1 Corinthians, 1x. 9. vie privée des Frangots, i. 394 sq. 

6 The Manicheeans prohibited all 8 Supra, i. 381 sg. 

Mr. Mauleverer in Sir Arthur Helps’ ‘Talk about 
Animals and their Masters,’ says, “Upon a moderate 
calculation, I think I have heard, in my time, 1320 
sermons ; and I do not recollect that i in any one of them 
I ever heard the slightest allusion made to the conduct of 
men towards animals.”’ Nor is there any such allusion 
in most treatises on Ethics which base their teachings 
upon distinctly Christian tenets. The kindest words, 
I think, which from a Christian point of view have been 
said about animals have generally come from Protestant 
sectariang, Quakers and Methodists,? whereas Roman 
Catholic writers—with a few exceptions *—, when they deal 
with the subject at all, chiefly take pains to show that 
animals are entirely destitute of rights. Brute beasts, says 
Father Rickaby, cannot have any rights for the reason that 
they have no understanding and therefore are not 
persons. We have no duties of any kind to them, as 
neither to stocks and stones ; we only have duties about 
them. We must not harm them when they are our 
neighbour’s property, we must not vex and annoy them 
for spert, because it disposes him who does so to 
inhumanity towards his own species. But there is no 
shadow of evil resting on the practice of causing pain 
to brutes im sport, where the pain is not the sport itself, 
but an incidental concomitant of it. Much more in all 
that conduces to the sustenance of man may we give pain 
to animals, and we are not “ bound to any anxious care 
to make this pain as little as may be. Brutes are as shings 
in our regard: so far as they are useful to us, they 
exist for us, not for themselves ; and we do right in 
using them unsparingly for our need and convenience, 
though not for our wantonness.”* According to Woother 

. 

1 Helps, Some Talk about Animals 490 syg.; Chalmers, ‘Cruelty to 
and their Masters, p. 20. Cf. Mrs. Animals,’ in Methodist Magazine (New 
Jameson, Common-Place Book of York), ix. 259 sqg. 

Thoughts, p. 212. ®’ See de la Roche-Fontenelles, 
2 See Gurney, Veews and Practices L’ Lglise et la pitié envers les animaux, 

of the Society of Friends, p. 392 sg. n. passim. : 

8; Richmond, ‘Sermon on the Sin of 4 Rickaby, Moral Philosophy, yp. 

Cruelty to the Brute Creation,’ in 248 sgg. See also Addis and Arnold, 

Methodist Magazine (London), xxx. Catholic Dictionary, p. 33; Clarke, 

$10 REGARD FOR THE CHAP. 
by those of a refined taste.' As late as 1824 Sir Robert 
(then Mr.) Peel argued strongly against the legal prohibi- 
tion of bull-baiting.’ 

About two years previously, however, humanity to 
animals had, for the first time, become a subject of English 
legislation by the Act which prevented cruel and improper 
treatment of cattle. This Act was afterwards followed by 
others which prohibited bear-baiting, cock-fighting, and 
similar pastimes, as also cruelty to domestic animals in 
general. In 1876 vivisection for medical or scientific 
purposes was subjected to a variety of restrictions, and 
since 1900 cases of ill-treatment of wild animals in 
captivity may be dealt with under the Wild Animals in 
Captivity Protection Act.* On the Continent cruelty to 
animals was first prohibited by criminal law in Saxony, in 
1838,’ and subsequently in most other European states. 
But in the South of Europe there are still countries in 
which the law is entirely silent on the subject.° 

Whatever be the professed motives of legislators for 
preventing cruelty to animals, there can be no doubt 
that the laws against it are chiefly due toa keener and 
more generally felt sympathy with their sufferings. The 
actual feelings of men have commonly been somewhat 
more tender than the theories-of law, philosophy, and 
religion. The anthropocentric exclusiveness of Christianity 
was from ancient times to some extent counterbalanced by 
popular sentiments and beliefs. In the folk-tales of 
Europe man is not placed in an isolated and unique 
position in the universe. He lives in intimate and 
friendly intercourse with the animals round him, attributes 
to them human qualities, and regards them with mercy.’ 
Tender feelings towards the brute creation are also displayed 

in many legends of saints.* 

' Kames, Zssays on the Principles of 

Morality, p. 7. 

2 Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 
New Series, x. 491 sqq. 

3 Statutes of Great 
Treland, \xil. 403 sqq. 

+ Stephen, Vew Commentaries on the 

Britain and 

St. Francis of Assisi talked 

Laws of England, iv. 213 sqq. 

> von Hippel, of. czt. p. 1. 

8 Jbid. p. 90 sg. 

" Supra, i. 259. Schwarz, Prahds- 
torisch-anthropologische Studien, p. 203. 

* Lecky,  istory of European 
Morals, ii. 168 sgg. Joyce, Social 

XLIV LOWER ~ ANIMALS eia 

with the birds and called them “ brother birds” or “ little 
sister swallows,’ and was seen employed in removing 
worms from the road that they might not be trampled 
by travellers." John Moschus speaks of a certain abbot 
who early in the morning not only used to give food to 
all the dogs in the monastery, but would bring corn to the 
ants and to the birds on the roof.? In the ‘ Revelations 
of St. Bridget’ we read, “Let a man fear, above all, me, 
his God, and so much the gentler will he become towards 
my creatures and animals, on whom, on account of me, 
their Creator, he ought to have compassion.” * Many 
kind words about animals have come from poets and 
thinkers. Montaigne says that he has never been able to 
see without affliction an innocent beast, which is without 
defence and from which we receive no offence, pursued 
and killed. Shakespeare points out that “ the poor beetle 
that we tread upon, in corporal sufferance finds a pang as 
great as when a giant dies.’’® Mandeville thinks that if 
it was not for that tyranny which custom usurps over us, 
no men of any tolerable good-nature could ever be 
reconciled to the killing of so many animals for their 
daily food, as long as the bountiful earth so plentifully 
provides them with varieties of vegetable dainties.” 
Towards the end of the eighteenth century Bentham 
wrote :—‘*‘ Men must be permitted to kill animals ; but 
they should be forbidden to torment them. Artificial death 
may be rendered less painful than natural death by simple 
processes, well worth the trouble of being studied, and of 
becoming an object of police. Why should the law 
refuse its protection to any sensitive being? A time 
will come when humanity will spread its mantle over 
everything that breathes. The lot of slaves has begun to 

History of Ancient Ireland, i. 2 St Bridget, “quoted by Helps; 
Smsae op. cit. Pp. 124. 

1 Sabatier, ZLzfe of St. Francis of 4 Montaigne, Zssazs, i. 11. 
Assist, p. 176 sg. Digby, Mores ® Shakespeare, JZeasure for Measure, 
Catholict, il. 291. mnt Ne 

2 Moschus, Pratum speritwale, 184 6 Mandeville, Hable of the Bees, p. 
(Migne, Patrologie cursus, Ser. Graeca, 187. 
Ixxxvii. 3056). 

1) REGARD FOR THE CHAP. 

excite pity ; we shall end by. softening the lot of the 
animals which labour for us and supply our wants.’’* Some 
years later Thomas Young pronounced hunting, shooting, 
and fishing for sport to be “ unlawful, cruel, and sinful.”’? 
And in the course of the nineteenth century humanity to 
animals, from being conspicuous in a few individuals 
only, became the keynote of a movement gradually 
increasing in strength. Humanitarians, says Mr. Salt, 
“insist that the difference between human and non-human 

is one of degree only and not of kind, and that we owe - 

duties, the same in kind though not in degree, to all our 
sentient fellow-beings.” ® Some people maintain that it 
is wrong to kill animals for food or in sport; but the 
most vigorous attacks concerning the treatment of the 
brute creation are at present directed against the practice 
of vivisection. The claim is made that this practice should 
be, not merely restricted, but entirely prohibited by law. 
And while the antivivisectionists generally endeavour to 
deny or minimise the scientific importance of experiments 
on living animals, their cry for the abolition of such 
experiments is mainly based on the argument that 
humanity at large has no right to purchase relief from its 
own suffering by torturing helpless brutes. 

This rapidly increasing- sympathy with animal suffering 
is no doubt to a considerable extent due to the decline of 
the anthropocentric doctrine and the influence of another 
theory, which regards man, not as an image of the deity 
separated from the lower animals by a special act of creation, 
but as a being generally akin to them, and only representing 
a higher stage in the scale of mental evolution. Through 
this doctrine the orthodox contempt for dumb creatures 
was succeeded by feelings of affinity and kindly interest. 
But apart from any theory as regards human origins, 
growing reflection has also taught men to be more 
considerate in their treatment of animals by producing a 
more vivid idea of their sufferings. Human thought- 

1 Bentham, Theory of Levislation, 2 Young wop: cet. Pp. 75) S¢s 

p-. 428 sg. 3 Salt, Animals’ Rights, p. v. 

as ae 7 

- 

less has been responsible for much needless pain to 
which they have been made subject. In spite of some 
improvement it is so still; whilst, at the same time, the 
movement advocating greater humanity to animals is 
itself not altogether free from inconsistencies and a 
certain lack of discrimination. 

It has been observed that the Neapolitan would not 
act so cruelly as he does to~almost all animals 
except the cat if he could bring himself to conceive 
their capacity for joy and pain.t So also we ourselves 
should often behave differently if we realised the tortures 
we thoughtlessly cause to creatures whose sufferings 
escape our notice from want of obvious outward expres- 
sion. While the practice of whipping young pigs to 
death to make them tender, which occurred in England 
not much more than a century ago,’ would nowadays be 
regarded with general horror, cruelties inflicted for 
gastronomic purposes upon creatures of a lower type are 
little thought of. Cray-fish, oysters, and fish in general, 
as Mandeville observed, excite hardly any compassion at all, 
because “they express themselves unintelligibly to us ; 
they are mute, and their inward formation, as well as 
outward figure, vastly different from ours.”* On the 
_ other hand, even passionate sportsmen describe the 
hunting of monkeys as repulsive on account of their 
resemblance to man; Rajah Brooke thought it almost 
barbarous to kill an orang-utan, unless for the sake of 
scientific research.* Buddhism itself declares that “ he 
who takes away the life of a large animal will have greater de- 
merit than he who takes away the life of a small one... . The 
crime is not great when an ant is killed ; its magnitude in- 
creases in this progression—a lizard, a guana, a hare, a deer, 
a bull, a horse, and an elephant.” How little the feelings 
which underlie men’s opinions concerning conduct towards 

1 <Cruelty to Animals in Naples,’ i. 100. Cf Rengger, Waturgeschichte 

in Saturday Review, lix. 854. der Stiugethtere von Paraguay, jp. 
2 The World, 1756, nr. 190, p. 1142. 26. 

Young, of. cz¢, p. 129. é 5 Hardy, Manual of Budhism, pp. 
3 Mandeville, of. czt. p. 187. 478, 480. 

4 Brooke, Zen Vears in Sarawak, 

VOL. II Mb IE 

‘et (ae 

Ip 

the lower animals are influenced by reflection is also 
apparent in the present crusade against vivisection, when 
compared with the public indifference to the sufferings 
inflicted on wild animals in sport. The vivisector who in 
cold blood torments his helpless victim in the interest of 
science and for the benefit of mankind is called a coward, 
and is a much more common object of hatred than ‘the 
sportsman who causes agonies to the creature he pursues 
for sheer amusement. ‘The pursued animal, it is argued, 
has “free chances of escape.’”’? This*is an excellent 
argument—provided we share the North American 
Indian’s conviction that an animal can never be killed 
without its own permission. 

At present there is among ourselves no topic of moral 
concern which presents a greater variety of opinion than 
the question how far the happiness of the lower animals 
may be justly sacrificed for the benefit of man. The 
extreme views on this subject might, no doubt, be 
somewhat modified, on the one.hand by a more vivid 
representation of animal suffering, on the other hand by 
the recognition of certain facts, often overlooked, which 
make it unreasonable to regard conduct towards dumb 
creatures in exactly the same light as conduct towards 
men. It should especially be remembered that the 
former have none of those long-protracted anticipations of 
future misery or death which we have.’ If they are 
destined to serve as meat they are not aware of it; 
whereas many domestic animals would never have come 
into existence, and been able to enjoy what appears a very 
happy lite, but for the purpose of being used as food. 
But though greater intellectual discrimination may 
somewhat lessen the divergencies of moral opinion on the 
subject, nothing like unanimity can be expected, for the 
simple reason that moral judgments are ultimately based 
upon emotions, and sympathy with the animal world is 
a feeling which varies extremely in different individuals. 

1 Cobbe, of. cz¢. p. 10. Prigciples of Morals and Legislation, 
2 Cf. Bentham, Zntroduction to the  p. 311, n. 

emp eth Mgr 

ee ee 

sas indienne

a REGARD FOR THE DEAD_ Ae 

Moratity takes notice not only of men’s conduct 

- towards the living but of their conduct towards the dead. 
_ There is a general tendency in the human mind to 

assume that what has existed still exists and will exist. 
When a person dies it is difficult for those around him to 
conceive that he is really dead, and when the cold motion- 
less body bears sad testimony to the change which has 

‘taken place, there is a natural inclination to believe that the 

soul has only changed its abode. In the savage the ten- 
dency to assume the continued existence of the soul after 
death is strongly supported by dreams and visions of his 
deceased friends. What else could these mean but visits of 

their souls ? 

There are, it is true, some savages who are reported to 
believe in the annihilation of the soul at the moment of 
death, or to have no notion whatever of a future state.! 
But the accuracy of these statements 1s hardly beyond sus- 
picion. We sometimes hear that the very people who 
are said to deny any belief in an after-life are afraid of 
ghosts.” A native of Madagascar will almost in the same 

1 Powers, Zrebes of California, p 

348 sg. (Miwok). Brinton, AZyths of 

the New World, p. 233 59. (some Oregon 
Indians). Lumholtz, Among Can- 
nibals, p. 101 (natives of the “Herbert 
River, Northern Queensland). Martin, 
Reisen in den Molukken, p. 155 (Al- 
fura). Worcester, Philippine Islands, 
p. 412 (Mangyans). Colquhoun, 

Amongst the Shans, p. 76 (Lethtas). 
Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 257 
(Oraons). Petherick, Zravels in Cen- 
tral Africa, 1. 321 (Nouaer tribes). 
Du Chaillu, Zxplorations tn Equatorial 
Africa, p. 385. 

2 New, Life 7 Eastern. Africa, p. 
105. 

breath declare that when he dies he ceases altogether he F 

exist and yet confess the fact that he is in the habit of)” 

praying to his dead ancestors." Of the Masai in Eastern, 
Africa some writers state that they believe in annihilation,: 
others that they attribute a future existence to their ets 

medicine-men, or influential: people.? The ideas on this 

subject are often exceedingly vague, and inconsistencies are 
only to be expected. 

The disembodied soul is commonly supposed to have the 
shape of a small unsubstantial human image, and to be in 
its nature a sort of vapour, film, or shadow.* It is 
believed to have the same bodily wants and to possess the 
same mental capacities as its owner possessed during his life- 
time. It is not regarded as invulnerable or immortal—it 
may be hurt and killed. It feels hunger and thirst, heat 
and cold. It can see and hear and think, it has human 
passions and a human will, and it has the power to influence 
the living for evil or for good. ‘These notions as regards 
the disembodied soul determine the relations between the 
living and the dead. 

The dead are supposed to have rights very similar to 
those they had whilst alive. The soul must not be killed 
or injured. The South Australian Dieyerie, for instance, 
show great reverence for certain trees, which are believed 
to be their fathers transformed ; they will not cut them 
down and protest against the settlers doing so.’ So also 
some of the Philippine Islanders maintain that the souls 
of their forefathers are in trees, which they therefore 
spare.” The North American Powhatans refrained from 
doing harm to some small wood-birds, which were 
supposed to receive the souls of their chiefs.’ In Lifu, 

1 Ellis, Hestory of Madagascar, i. 5 Gason, ‘ Dieyerie Tribe,’ in Woods, 
BE Native Tribes of South Australia, p. 
* Thomson, Zhrough Masai Land, 280. 
p- 259. Hinde, Zhe Last of the Masai, § Blumentritt, ‘ Der Ahnencultus der 
p- 99. Malaien des Philippinen-Archipels,’ in 
3 Johnston, Uganda, ii. 832. Hollis,  A“étthecl. d. hais. u. kin. Geograph. 
Masai, pp. 304, 305, 307. Eliot, zbzd. Geselisch. in Wien, xxv. 164 sgq. 
ob XO, 7 Brinton, Myths of the New World, 
* Tylor, Premetive Culture, i. 429. poz: 

when a father was about to die, surrounded by members 
of his family, he might say what animal he would be, for 
instance a butterfly or some kind of bird, and that 
creature would be sacred to his family, who would neither 
injure nor kill it. The Rejangs of Sumatra imagine that 
tigers in general contain the spirits of departed men, and 
“‘no consideration will prevail on a countryman to catch 
or to wound one, but in self-defence, or immediately after 
the act of destroying a friend or relation.”* Among 
other peoples monkeys, crocodiles, or snakes, being 
thought men in metempsychosis, are held sacred and must 
not be hurt.* Some Congo Negroes, again, abstain for a 
whole year after a death from sweeping the house, lest the 
dust should injure the delicate substance of the ghost.* In 
China, for seven days after a man’s death his widow and 
children avoid the use of knives and needles, and even of 
chopsticks, eating their food with their fingers, so as not 
to wound the ghost.? And to this day it remains a 
German peasants’ belief that it is wrong to slam a door, 
lest one should pinch a soul in it.® 

But the survivors must not only avoid doing anything 
which might hurt the soul, they must also positively 
contribute to its comfort and subsistence. They often 
provide it with a dwelling, either burying the deceased 1n his 
own house, or erecting a tent or hut on his grave. Some 
Australian natives kindle a fire at a few yards’ distance 
from the tomb, and repeat this until the soul is 
supposed to have gone somewhere else ;’ others, again, 
are in the habit of wrapping the body up in a rug, 
professedly for the purpose of keeping it warm.* In the 
Saxon district of Voigtland people have been known to 

1 Codrington, quoted by Tylor, 4 Bastian, Der Mensch in der Ge- 
‘Remarks on Totemism,’ in Jour.  schichte, ii. 323. 

Anthr. Inst. xxviii. 147. 5 Gray, China, 1. 288. 

* Marsden, estory of Sumatra, p. 6 Wuttke, Der de wtsche Volksaber- 
292. The same belief prevails among jlaube der Gegenwart, § 609, p. 396 sy. 
the natives of the Malay Peninsula 7 Roth, Morth- West- eee Queens- 
(Newbold, Brelish Settlements in the land Aborigines, p. 165. 

Straits of Malacca, i. 192). 8 Fraser, Aborigines of New South 

® Meiners, Geschichte der Kelivionen, Wales, p. 79 sq. 
1,212. Tylor, Primdteve Culture, ii. 8. 

put into the coffin an umbrella and a pair of galoshes.’ 
An extremely prevalent custom is to place provisions in 
or upon the grave, and very commonly feasts are given 
for the dead. Weapons, implements, and other movables 
are deposited in the tomb ; domestic animals are buried or 
slaughtered at the funeral’ ;° and, as we have seen before, 
even human beings are sserificed Pes the dead to serve 
them as companions or attendants, or to vivify their spirits 
with their blood, or to gratify their craving for revenge.* 
The offerings made to the dead may be gifts presented 
to them by the survivors, but the regular funeral sacrifice 
consists of the deceased person’s own individual property. 
Among savages the whole, or a large part, of it is often 
consigned to the grave or destroyed.? The right of 
ownership does not cease with death where the belief 
prevails that the dead stand in need of earthly chattels. 
The recognition of this right is also.apparent in the severe 

condemnation of robbery or violation committed at a- 

tomb. Among various North American tribes such an 
act was regarded as an offence of the first magnitude and 
provoked cruel revenge.’ Of the Chippewa Indians it is 
said that however bad a person may be or however much 
inclined to steal, the things left at a grave, valuable or 
not, are never touched, being sacred to the spirit of the 

1 Kohler, Volksbrauch im Votgt- pp. 166 sg. (Arru Islanders). Kloss, Zz 
lande, p. 441. the Andamans and Nicobars, p. 304 
2 See Tylor, op. c#t. ch. xi. sg.3; (Kar Nicobarese). Batchelor, Azz 
Spencer, Prznciples of Soctology, 1.155 and thetr Foik-Lore, p. 560 sg. Georgi, 
Sqq-,5 257 sqg.; Frazer, ddonds Attis Russia, iv. 152 (Burats).  Caillié, 

Ostris, Pp. 242 sqq. 

3 See Spencer, of. cé#..i. 184 sgq. 

+ Supra, i. 472 Sqq. 

5 Boas, ‘Central Eskimo,’ in Ann. 
Rep. Bur, Ethn. vi. 580. Murdoch, 
‘Ethn. Results of the Point Barrow 
Expedition,’ zéz@. ix. 424 sg. (Point 
Barrow Eskimo). Powell, zézd. iii. p. 
lvii. (North American Indians). Yarrow, 
‘Mortuary Customs of the North 
American Indians,’ 262d. i. 98 (Pimas), 
100 (Comanches). McGee, ‘ Siouan 
Indians,’ zb¢d@. xv. 178. Roth, of. céé. 
p- 164 (certain (Queensland tribes). 
Colenso, Maord Races of New Zealand, 
p- 57. Kolff, Voyages of the Dourga, 

Travels through Central Africa, i. 164 
(Bagos). Burrows, Land of the Pig- 
mites, p. 107 (Monbuttu). Decle, Zhree 
Years in Savage Africa, p. 79 (Barotse). 
Strabo, xi. 4. 8 (Albanians of the 
Eastern Caucasus). See also Spencer, 
Principles of Soctology, 1. 185 sq. 3 Post, 
Entwicklungsgeschichte des Familien- 
rechts, Pp. 295 sg.3; tdem, Grundriss 
der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz, ii. 
173 sg. 3 wfra, p. 514 sg. 

6 Sagard, Voyage du Pays des Hu- 
rons, p. 288. Gibbs, ‘ Tribes of West- 
ern Washington and Northwestern 
Oregon,’ in Contributions to North 
American Ethnology, i. 204. 

REGARD FOR THE DEAD 
ped” Among the Maoris “the least violation yor any 
portion of the precincts of the dead is accounted the 
greatest crime that a human being can commit, and is 
visited with the direst revenge of a surviving ‘abe ce 
The laws of Athens* and Rome‘ and the ancient 
Teutonic law-books °* punished with great severity the 
plunder of a corpse or a tomb. In Rome the punishment 
was death if the offence was committed by force, otherwise 
condemnation to the mines. 

Like living men the dead are sensitive to insults and 
fond of praise ; hence respect must be shown for their 
honour and self-regarding pride. De mortuis nil nisi bonum; 
od yap écOAa KatOavoics Keptopelv én avdpacw.° In Greece 
custom required that at the funeral meal the virtues of the 
deceased should be enumerated and extolled,’ and calumny 
against a dead person was punished by law.* The same was 
the case in ancient Egypt.’ In Greenland, after the inter- 
~ ment, the nearest male relative of the dead commemorated 
in a loud plaintive voice all the excellent qualities of the 
departed: Among the Iroquois the near relatives and 
friends approached the body in turn and addressed it in a 
laudatory speech.” 

; The dead also demand obedience and are anxious that 
1 the rules they laid down while alive should be followed by 
the survivors. Hence the sacredness which is attached to 

a will; hence also, in a large measure, the rigidity of 
: ancestral custom. The greatest dread of the natives of 

South-Eastern Africa “is to offend their ancestors and the 
only way to avoid this is to do everything according to 

1 Reid, ‘ Religious Belief of the Oji-  Gvzechen, ii. 122 sg. 

bois,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iii. 112. 8 Rohde, Psyche, p. 224. 

2 Polack, AZanners and Customs of ® Diodorus Siculus, i. 92. 5. Erman, 
the New Zealanders, i. 111 sg. Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 322. 

*Cicero, De legibus, i, 26; See ” Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 218. 
also Schmidt, Dze thik der alten me Morgan, League of the Troquots, p- 
Griechen, ii. 105 Sq. 7/5, ee 

4 Digesta, xlvii. 12, ‘ De sepulchro 2 Ellis, Polynestan Researches, iii. 
violato,’ 116 (Tahitians). Shortland, 77adztcons 

> Wilda, Das Strafrecht der Ger- and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, 
manen, Pp. 975 599. p- 257. Sarbah, ante Customary 

6 Ayrchilochus, Relzguze, 40. Laws, p. 82. Schmidt, Dze Ethzk der 

7 Schmidt, Dze thik der alten alten Griechen, ii. 124 sq. 

REGARD FOR THE, DEAD 

OO) CHAP, 
traditional usage.’’? Among the Basutos “the anger of 
the deified generations could not be more directly provoked 
than by a departure from the precepts and examples they 
have left behind them.” ? The Ewe-speaking peoples of the 
Slave Coast have a proverb which runs :—‘“ Follow the 
customs of your father. ie he did not do, avoid doing, 
or you will harm yourself.” ° Among the Aleuts the old 
men always impress upon the native youth the great 
importance of strictly observing the customs of their fore- 
fathers in conducting the chase and other matters, as any 
neglect in this respect would be sure to bring upon them 
disaster and punishment.*/ The Kamchadales, says Steller, 
consider it a sin to do anything which is contrary to the 
precepts of their ancestors.” The Papuans of the Motu 
district, in New Guinea, believe that when men and women 
are bad—adulterers, thieves, quarrellers, and the like—the 
spirits of the dead are angry with them.® One of the most 
powerful sentiments in the mind of a Chinese is his rever- 
ence for ancestral custom ; and in a large sense Japan also 
is still a country governed by the voices that are -hushed.’ 
The life of the ancient Roman was beset with a society of 
departed kinsmen whose displeasure he provoked if he varied 
from the practice handed down from his fathers. The 
expression mos majorum, “‘ the custom of the elders,” was 
used by him as a charm against innovation.® 

Besides such duties to the dead as are similar in nature 
to those which men owe to their living fellow men or 
superiors, there are obligations of a different character 
arising from the fact of death itself. The funeral, the rites 
connected with it, and the mourning customs are largely 
regarded as duties to the dead. 

1 Macdonald, Lzaght in Africa,  schatka, p. 274. 

p: Bee 8 Chalmers, Pioneering in New 
2 Casalis, Basutos, p. 254. Guinea, p. 169. 
3 Ellis, Hze- speaking Peoples of the " Griffis, Religions of Japan, 
Slave Coast, p. 263. p-. 308. ; 

4 Elliott, A/aska and the Seal Islands, 
p- 170. Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, 
Report on the 
Alaska, p. 156. 

5 Steller, Beschrethune von Kamt- 

Population, &c. of 

8 Granger, ‘ Moral Life of the Early 
Romans,’ in /zternat. Jour. of Ethics, 
vil. 287. Jldem, Worship of the 
Romans, pp. 65, 66, 138. 

REGARD FOR THE DEAD 

The grave is represented as a place where the deceased finds 
his desired rest, and if denied proper burial he is believed 
not only to walk but to suffer. The Iroquois considered 
that unless the rites of burial were performed, the spirits 
of the dead had to wander for a time upon the earth in a 
state of great unhappiness ; hence their extreme solicitude 
to recover the bodies of their slain in battle! The 
Abipones regard it as the greatest misfortune for the dead 
to be left to rot in the open air, and they therefore inter 
even the smallest bone of a departed friend.” In Ashantee 
the spirits of those who for some reason or other have 
been deprived of the customary funeral rites are doomed, 
in the imagination of the people, to haunt the gloom of 
the forest, stealing occasionally to their former abodes in 
rare but lingering visits, troubling and bewitching their 
neglectful relatives.? The Negroes of Accra believe that 
happiness in a future life depends not only. upon courage, 
power, and wealth in this world, but also upon a proper 
burial. In some Australian tribes the souls of those 
whose bodies have been left to lie unburied’ are supposed 
to have to prowl on the face of the earth and about the 
place of death, with no gratification but to harm the 
living ;° or there is said to be no future existence for them, 
as their bodies will be devoured by crows and native 
dogs.© Among the Bataks of Sumatra nothing is con- 
sidered to be a greater disgrace to a person than to be 
denied a grave; for by not being held worthy of burial 
he is declared to be spiritually dead.’ The Samoans 
believed that the souls of unburied friends, for instance 
such as had been drowned or had fallen in war, haunted 
them everywhere, crying out ina pitiful tone, ‘Oh, how 
cold! Oh, how cold!”’* According to Karen ideas the 

1 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, in Trans. Ethn. N.S. i. 
p- 175. 236 sq. 

2 Dobrizhoffer, Account of the 6 Chauncy, in Brough Smyth, 4dore- 
Abipones, ii. 254. gines of Victoria, i. 280. 

3 Bowdich, JZesszon to 7 Buning, in Glimpses of the Eastern 

Soc. 

228, 

Ashantee, 

p. 262 sg. Archipelago, p. 75. 
4 Monrad, Skildring af Guinea- 8 Turner, Wnetcen Years in Poly- 
Kysten, nesia, p. 233. Hood, Cruzsein H.ALS. 

5 Oldfield, ‘ Aborigines of Australia,’ 

“Fawn” inthe Western Pacific, p. 142. 

traditional usage.””? Among the Basutos “the anger of 
the deified generations could not be more directly provoked 
than by a departure from the precepts and examples they 
have left behind them.” ? The Ewe-speaking peoples of the 
Slave Coast have a proverb which runs :—‘“ Follow the 
customs of your father. ie he did not do, avoid doing, 
or you will harm yourself.” ° Among the Aleuts the old 
men always impress upon the native youth the great 
importance of strictly observing the customs of their fore- 
fathers in conducting the chase and other matters, as any 
neglect in this respect would be sure to bring upon them 
disaster and punishment. The Kamchadales, says Steller, 
consider it a sin to do anything which is contrary to the 
precepts of their ancestors.’ The Papuans of the Motu 
district, in New Guinea, believe that when men and women 
are bad—adulterers, thieves, quarrellers, and the like—the 
spirits of the dead are angry with them.® One of the most 
powerful sentiments in the mind of a Chinese is his rever- 
ence for ancestral custom ; and in a large sense Japan also 
is still a country governed by the voices that are -hushed.’ 
The life of the ancient Roman was beset with a society of 
departed kinsmen whose displeasure he provoked if he varied 
from the practice handed down from his fathers. The 
expression mos majorum, ‘the custom of the elders,” was 
used by him as a charm against innovation.® 

Besides such duties to the dead as are similar in nature 
to those which men owe to their living fellow men or 
superiors, there are obligations of 2 different character 
arising from the fact of death itself. The funeral, the rites 
connected with it, and the mourning customs are largely 
regarded as duties to the dead. 

1 Macdonald, Lzght ix Africa,  schatka, p. 274. 

p. 192. 8 Chalmers, Pioneering in New 

* Casalis, Lab py 2 Guinea, p. 169. 

3 Ellis, Ave-spe aking Peoples of the 7 Grifhs, Religions of Japan, 
Stee Coast, De AOS, p. 308. 

4 Elliott, Alaska and the Seal Islands, 8 Granger, ‘ Moral Life of the Early 
p- 170. Veniaminof, quoted by Petroff, Romans,’ in /uternat. Jour. of Ethics, 
Report on the Population, &c. of vii. 287, Idem, Worship of the 
Alaska, p. 156. Romans, pp. 65, 66, 138. 

5 Steller, Beschretbung von Kamt- 

XLV REGARD FOR THE DEAD Go 

The grave is represented as a place where the deceased finds © 
his desired rest, and if denied proper burial he is believed 
not only to walk but to suffer. The Iroquois considered 
that unless the rites of burial were performed, the spirits 
of the dead had to wander for a time upon the earth in a 
state of great unhappiness ; hence their extreme solicitude 
to recover the bodies of their slain in battle.1 The 
Abipones regard it as the greatest misfortune for the dead 
to be left to rot in the open air, and they therefore inter 
even the smallest bone of a departed friend.” In Ashantee 
the spirits of those who for some reason or other have 
been deprived of the customary funeral rites are doomed, 
in the imagination of the people, to haunt the gloom of 
the forest, stealing occasionally to their former abodes in 
rare but lingering visits, troubling and bewitching their 
neglectful relatives.? The Negroes of Accra believe that 
happiness in a future life depends not only. upon courage, 
power, and wealth in this world, but also upon a proper 
burial. In some Australian tribes the souls of those 
whose bodies have been left to lie unburied’ are supposed 
to have to prowl on the face of the earth and about the 
place of death, with no gratification but to harm the 
living ;° or there is said to be no future existence for them, 
as their bodies will be devoured by crows and native 
dogs. Among the Bataks of Sumatra nothing is con- 
sidered to be a greater disgrace to a person than to be 
denied a grave; for by not being held worthy of burial 
he is declared to be spiritually dead.’ The Samoans 
believed that the souls of unburied friends, for instance 
such as had been drowned or had fallen in war, haunted 
them everywhere, crying out in a pitiful tone, ‘Oh, how 

cold! Oh, how cold!”* According to Karen ideas the 

1 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, in Trans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. iti. 228, 
p- 175. 236 Sq. ; 

2 Dobrizhoffer, Account of the 6 Chauncy, in Brough Smyth, Adore- 
Abipones, ii. 284. gines of Victoria, i. 280. 

3 Bowdich, AZisston to Ashantee, 7 Buning, in Glimpses of the Eastern 
p-. 262 sg. Archipelago, p. 75. 

4 Monrad, Skildring af Guinea- 8 Turner, Vénetcen Years in Poly- 
Kysten, p. 4. nesia, p. 233. Hood, Cruzse in H.M.S. 

5 Oldfield, ‘ Aborigines of Australia,’ ‘‘ Hawn” tn the Western Pacific, p. 142. 

spirits of those who die a natural death and are decently 
buried go to a beautiful country and renew their earthly 
life, whereas the ghosts of persons who by accident are 
left uninterred will wander about the earth, occasionally 
showing themselves to mankind.’ Confucius connected 
the disposal of the dead immediately ee the great virtue 
of submission and devotion to superiors.” No act is in 
China recognised more worthy a virtuous man than that 
of interring stray bones and covering up exposed coffins,’ 
and to bury a person who is without friends is considered 
to be as great a merit as to save life* It is also held 
highly important to provide the proper place for a grave ; 
the Taouists maintain that “‘if a coffin be interred in an 
improper spot, the spirit of the dead is made unhappy, 
and avenges itself by causing sickness and other calamities 
to the relatives who have not taken sufficient care for its 
repose.” ° The ancient Chaldeans believed that the spirits 
of the unburied dead, having neither place of repose nor 
means of subsistence, wandered through the town and 
country, occupied with no other thought than that of 
attacking and robbing the living.® In classical antiquity 
it was the most sacred of duties to give the body its 
funeral rites,” and the Greeks referred the right of 
sepulture to the gods as its authors.* 

So also among. peoples who practise cremation the dead 
themselves are considered to be benefited by being 
burned. The Nayars of Malabar are of opinion that no 
time should be lost in setting about the funeral, as the 
disposal of a corpse either by cremation or burial as soon 

' Cross, quoted by Mac Mahon, Far op. 689. Jeremias, Die babylonisch- 

Cathay, p. 202 sg. Mason, ‘Religion, assyrischen Vorstellumgen vom Leben 
&c. among the Karens,’ in ovr. nach dem Tode, p. 54 sqgg. Halévy, 
Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxxiv. pt. ii. 203.  Mélanges de critique et @ histoire 
*de Groot, Religious System of relatifs aux peuples sémetigues, p. 
China, (vol. i. book) i. 659. 368. 
3 Giles, Strange Stortes from a “ See Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten 
Chinese Studio, i. 147, n. 11. Griechen, il. 97 sqqg.; Granger, Worship 
4+ Indo-Chinese Gleaner, iii. 161. of the Romans, p. 37 sqq.; Aust, Die 
> Legge, Aeligions of China, eels der Romer, p. 226 sq. 
p. 200. 8 Sophocles, Antigone, 454 Sq. 

6 Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, Euripides, Supplices, 563. 

z 
A 
: 

as possible after death is conducive to the happiness of 
the spirit of the departed ; they say that “the collection 
and careful disposal of the ashes of the dead gives peace 
to his spirit.” The Thlinkets maintain that those whose 
bodies are burned will be warm and comfortable in the 
other world, whereas others will have to suffer from cold. 
“Burn my body! -Burn me!” pleaded a dying Thlinket ; 
“JT fear the cold. Why should I govshivering through all 
the ages and the distances of the next world?” ? The 
ancient Persians, on the other hand, considered both 
cremation and burial to be sins for which there was no 
atonement, and exposed their dead on the summits of 
mountains, thinking it a great misfortune if neither 
birds nor beasts devoured their carcases.2 So also the 
Samoyedes and Mongols held it to be good for the deceased 
if his corpse was soon devoured by beasts,‘ and the 
Kamchadales regarded it as a great blessing to be eaten by 
a beautiful dog.” The East African Masai, who likewise, 
as a rule, expose their dead to the wild beasts, say that if 
the corpse is eaten by the hyznas the first night, the 
deceased must have been a good man, as the hyenas are 
supposed to act by the command of ’Ng ais, or God.° 
Certain ceremonies are professedly performed for the 
purpose of preventing evil spirits from doing harm to the 
dead." This is sometimes the case with cremation ; we 
are told that among some Siberian peoples the dead are 
burned so as to be “effectually removed from the 
machinations of spirits.” ° The Teleutes believe that the 

1 Fawcett, ‘ Nayars of Malabar,’ in 272. Cf. Yarrow, in Ann. Rep. Bur. 

the Madras Government Museum’s £¢hn, i. 103 (Caddoes or Timber 
Bulletin, iii. 245, 251. Indians). 
2 Dall, Alaska, p. 423. Petroff, of. 5 Steller, of. cz#. p. 273. 
cit, p. 175. McNair Wright, Azong 6 Merker, Die Masaz, p. 193. 
the Alaskans, p. 333- 7 See Frazer, ‘Certain Burial 
3 Vendidéd, i. 13, 173 Vi. 45 Sgy.; Customs as illustrative of the Primitive 

vili. 10. Darmesteter, in Sacred Books Theory of the Soul,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
of the East, iv. p. \xxv. sgg. Agathias,  Jmst. xv. 87 sg.; Hertz, ‘La repré- 

Historia, ii. 22 sg. (Migne, Patrolegze sentation collective de la mort,’ in 
cursus, Ser. Graeca, Ixxxvill. 1377). année soctologique, x., 1905-1906, p. 
Herodotus, i. 140; ill. 16. 56. 5g. 

4 Preuss, Dze Begrabnisarten der 8 Georgi, of. cit. iii. 264. 

Amerikaner und Nordostastaten, p. 

spirits of the earth do much mischief to the departed ; 
hence their shamans drive them off at ue funeral by 
striking the air several times with an axe.t. In Christian 
countries the PEane -bell has likewise been supposed to 
repel evil spirits.” 

Fasting after a death is regarded as a dutiful tribute to 
the dead ; the Chinese say that it is ““a means of raising 
the ads up to the soul, a means to enable the sacrificer 
to perform in a more perfect way the acts of worship 
incumbent upon him, by bringing about a closer contact 
between himself and the soul.” *® The self-mutilations 
performed by the relatives of the dead are supposed to be 
pleasing to him as tokens of affliction ;* and the same is 
of course the case with the Jamentations at funerals. In 
some Central Australian tribes the custom of painting the 
hody of a mourner is said to have as its object “‘ to render 
him or her more conspicuous, and so to allow the spirit to 
see that it is being properly mourned for.”° The 
mourning dress is a sign of regard for the dead. Nay, 
even the custom of not mentioning his name is looked 
upon in the same light. Some peoples maintain that to name 
him would be to disturb his rest,° or that he would take 
it as an indication that his relatives are not properly 
mourning for him, and would feel it as an insult.’ 

As the duties to the living, so the duties to the dead 
are greatly influenced by the relationship between the 
parties. Everywhere the obligation to satisfy the wants 
of the deceased is incumbent upon those who were nearest 
to him whilst alive. In the archaic State, as we have seen, it is 
considered the greatest misfortune which can befall a person 
to die without descendants, since in such a case there would be 
nobody to attend to his soul.* Confucius said, “For a 

1 Georgi, op. czt. ili. 264. 6 Nansen, Zskemo Life, p. 233 
2 Frazer, in Jour. Anthr. Zust.xv.87. (Greenlanders), Tout, ‘ E thnology of 
3 de Groot, of. cz. (vol. ii. book) i. the Stlatlumh of British Columbia,’ in 
657. Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 138. Georg 
+ Dorman, Origin of Primitive op. ctt. iii. 27 (Samoyedes). 
Superstitions, p. 216 sgy. * Spencer and Gillen, WVative Tribes 
° Spencer and Gillen, Wative Tribes of Central Australia, p. 498. 

of Central Australia, p. 511. 8 Supra, ii. 400 sgq. 

‘ 
A 
z 
| 
‘ 

man to sacrifice to a spirit which does not belong to him 
is* flattery.”’ The distinction between a tribesman or 
fellow countryman and a stranger also applies to the 
dead. In Greenland a stranger without relatives or 
friends was generally suffered to lie unburied? Among 
North American Indians it is permitted to scalp warriors 
of a hostile tribe, whereas ‘there is no example of 
an Indian having taken the scalp of a man of his 
own tribe, or of one belonging to a nation in alliance 
with his own, and whom he may have killed in a 
quarrel or a fit of anger’’;* and an Indian who would 
never think of desecrating the grave of a tribesman may 
have “no such scruple in regard to the graves of another 
tribe.” * Yet already from early times we hear of the 
recognition of certain duties even to strangers and 
enemies. The Greeks of the post-Homeric age made it a 
rule to deliver up a slain enemy so that he should receive 
the proper funeral rites.’ It was considered a disgraceful 
act of Lysander not to accord burial to Philocles, the 
Athenian general at Aegospotami, together with about 
four thousand prisoners whom he put to the sword ;° and 
the Athenians themselves boasted that their ancestors had 
with their own hands buried the Persians who had fallen 
in the battle of Marathon, holding it to be ‘a sacred and 
imperative duty to cover with earth a human corpse.’ ” 
According to the Chinese penal code, ‘destroying, 
mutilating, or throwing into the water the unenclosed and 
unburied corpse of a stranger,’ though a much less 
serious crime than the same injury inflicted upon the 
corpse of a relative, is yet an offence punishable with 
100 blows, and perpetual banishment to the distance of 
3,000 /ee.® 

The duties to the dead also vary according to the age, 

lium Vu; i. 24. 1. Griechen, li. 100 sgg. Rohde, of. cet. 

2 Cranz, of. cit. i, 218. 

3 Domenech, Seve Vears’ Restdence 
in the Great Deserts of North America, 
‘hile sy 
4 Dodge, Ow Wild Indians, p. 162. 
5 Schmidt, Dze Zthik der alten 

p. 200 sg. 
6 Pausanias, iX. 32. 9. 
0 Mpihok sh, BP IE: Thies, 2h Cy 
Sia (sume Lew Lee, sec, cclxxvi. p. 

205. 

. 
~~ 

REGARD FOR THE DEAD 

sex, and social position of the departed. Among the 
natives of Australia children and women are interred with 
but scant ceremony.t In the tribes of North-West- 
Central Queensland nobody paints his body in mourning 
for a young child. In Eastern Central Africa the spirit 
of a child which dies when about four or five days of age 
gets nothing of the attention usually bestowed on the 
dead.* Among the Wadshagga married persons are buried 
in their huts, whilst the bodies of unmarried ones and 
especially children are put in some hidden place, where 
they are left to rot or be devoured by beasts.* Some 
Siberian tribes were formerly accustomed to inhume adults 
only, whereas the corpses of children were exposed on 
trees. The natives of Port Jackson, in New South 
Wales, consigned their young people to the grave, 
but burned those who had passed middle age.° The 
Kondayamkottai Maravars, a Dravidian tribe of Tinne- 
velly in Southern India, bury the corpses of unmarried 
persons, whilst those of married ones are cremated.’ —In 
some other tribes in India burial is practised in the case 
of young children only,* and this has long been a rule of 
Brahmanism.” Among the Andaman ‘Islanders, again, 
infants are buried within the encampment, been all 
other dead are carried to some distant and secluded spot 
in the jungle.” We meet with a kindred custom in the 
neighbourhood of Victoria Nyanza in Central Africa: in 
Karagwe and Nkole “children are buried in the huts 
themselves, grown-up people outside, generally in culti- 
vated fields, or in such as are going to be cultivated.” ™ 
The bodies of women are sometimes disposed of in a 

1 Curr, The Australian Race, 1. 8 Thurston, in the Madras Govern- 

89. 

2 Roth, of. czt. p. 164. 

3 Macdonald, Afrzcana, i. 59. 

4 Volkens, Der Kzlimandscharo, p. 
253. ae 

> Georgi, of. cét. iii. 31 (Koibales). 

6 Collins, Avelish Colony of New 
South Wales, i. 601. 
7 Fawcett, ‘ Kondayamkottai Mara- 

vars,’ in Jour. Anthr. Lust. xxiii. 64. 

ment Museum’s Szzd/etiz, i. 198(Kotas). 
Fawcett, ‘Nayars of Malabar,’ zécd. 
iii. 245. 
° Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 
273. 
10 Man, ‘ Aboriginal Inhabitants of 
the Andaman Islands,’ in Joa. Anthr-. 
Inst. xii. 144. 
MN \ollmann, 

Victoria Nyanza, p. 
63 sg 
Sng. 

‘ 
f 
. 

eet 

different way from those of men. ‘Thus among the 
Blackfeet Indians the latter were fastened in the branches 
of trees so high as to be beyond the reach of wolves, and 
then left to slowly waste in the dry winds; whilst the 
body of a woman or child was thrown into the underbush 
or jungle, where it soon became the prey of the wild 
animals." Among the Tuski (Chukchi), who cremate 
or rather boil the bodies of good men, women are not 
usually burned, on account of the scarcity of wood.’ 

Class oceans likewise influence the disposal of the 
dead. In some American tribes cremation seems to be 
reserved for persons of higher rank.’ Among the pagans 
of Obubura Hill district in Southern Nigeria “ the bodies 
of ordinary people are buried in the bush, sometimes 
being merely thrown on the ground, but those of chiefs 
and important men and women are buried in their huts or 
in the adjoining verandah.” * The Masai throw away the 
corpses of ordinary persons to be eaten by hyzenas, whereas 
medicine-men and influential people are buried.° The 
Nandi do not bury their dead unless they have been very 
important persons.” Among the Waganda, when a chief 
dies, he is buried in a wooden coffin, whilst the bodies of 
slaves are thrown into the jungle." Some other African 
peoples throw the corpses of slaves into a morass or the 
nearest pool of water.° The Thlinkets committed them 
to the tender mercies of the sea.° Among the Maoris a 
slave would not be greatly bewailed after death, nor have 
his bones ceremonially scraped.’ The Roman ‘Law of the 
Twelve Tables’ prohibited the bodies of slaves from being 
embalmed." Moral distinctions, also, are noticeable in 

1 Yarrow, Zntroduction to the Study 8 Denham and Clapperton, 7raveds 
of Mortuary Customs among the North in Northern and Central Africa, ii. 
American Indians, p. 67. 64 (natives of Kano). Pogge, Jm 

2 Dall, of. czt. p. 382. Reiche des Muata Jamwo, p. 243 

3 Preuss, of. czt. p. 301. (Kalunda). 

4 Partridge, Cross River Natives, 9 Holmberg, ‘ Ethnographische 

Retr Skizzen tiber die Volker des russischen 

5 Hollis, of. czt. pp. 304, 305, 307; Amerika,’ in Acta Soc. Sctent. Fennice, 
Eliot, zbzd. p. xx. iWegea ee Wall ogsmece pp. 417, 420. 

b Johnston, Ueanda, ii. 880.  Colenso, of. czt. p. 30. 

7 Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, i. 188. NM Lex Duodecim Tabularum, x. 6. 

a 
the treatment of the dead. In some parts of Central 
America the bodies of men of high standing who had 
committed a crime were, like those of the common people, 
exposed to be devoured by wild beasts! Among the 
Tuski the corpses of bad men were simply left to rot.’ 
In Greenland the body of a dead malefactor was dis- 
membered, and the separate limbs were thrown apart.” 
To the same class of facts belong the punishments which 
were inflicted upon the corpses of criminals in classical 
antiquity and formerly in Christian Europe.* 

From this survey of facts we shall now pass to a con- 
sideration of the causes from which the duties to the dead 
have sprung. In the first place, there can be no doubt that 
these duties to a considerable extent are based upon the feel- 
ing of sympathetic resentment, in the same way as is the case 
with duties to living persons. Death does not entirely 
extinguish the affection which was felt for a person whilst 
he was alive. The rites and customs connected with a 
death are very largely similar to or identical with natural 
expressions of grief, and in spite of their ceremonial 
character it is impossible to believe that they are altogether 
counterfeit. Weare told by trustworthy eye-witnesses that, 
although the self-inflicted pain and the loud lamentations 
which form part of a funeral among the Australian blacks 
are not to be taken as a measure of the grief actually felt, 
this expression of despair ‘is not all artificial or pro- 
fessional’? ;° and Mr. Man believes that among the 
Andaman Islanders “in the majority of cases the display 
of grief is thoroughly sincere.”® But the dead also 
inspire other feelings than sympathy and sorrow, and the 
duties towards them have consequently a complex origin. 

The souls of the dead are not generally supposed to 
lead a merely passive existence. They are conceived as 

1 Preuss, of. czt. p. 301. li, 254. 
ee Dalle op. ile Pag Oee > Fraser, Adorigines of New South 
3 Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Wales, p. 44. Spencer and Gillen, 
Esk 7mo, p. O04. Native Tribes of Central Australia, 
2 Ayrault, Des proces faicts au ca-  p. 510 sq. 
daver, p. 5 sgg. Trummer, Vortriége ®§ Man, in four. Anthr. Inst. xii. 

tiber Tortur, Sc. 1. 455 sgg. Supra, 145. 

¢ 
' 
& 
e 

» 

capable of acting upon the living, of conferring upon 
them benefits, or at all events of inflicting upon them 
harm. Death has in some respects enhanced their powers. 
They know what is going on upon earth, what those 
whom they have left behind are doing. Their power 
of acting, also, is greater than that which they possessed 
when they were tied to the flesh. They are raised to a 
higher sphere of influence ; magic properties are ascribed 
even to their corpses. Their character may remain on 
the whole unchanged, and so, too, their affection for their 
surviving friends. Hence they often become guardians of 
their descendants. Among the Amazulu the head of each 
house is worshipped by his children; remembering his 
kindness to them while he was living, they say, ‘ He will 
still treat us in the same way now he is dead.”’ The 
Herero invoke the blessings of their deceased friends or 
relatives, praying for success against their enemies, an 
abundance of cattle, numerous wives, and prosperity in 
their undertakings.” On the West African Slave Coast 
the head of a family, after death, often becomes its pro- 
tector, and is sometimes regarded as the guardian of a 
whole community or village. The Mpongwe teach the 
child “to look up to the parent not only as its earthly 
protector, but as a friend in the spirit-land.”* The 
Gournditch-mara in Australia believed that “the spirit 
of the deceased father or grandfather occasionally visited 
the male descendant in dreams, and imparted to him 
charms (songs) against disease or against witchcraft.” ° 
The Veddah of Ceylon invokes the spirits of his departed 
relatives ‘“‘as sympathetic and kindred, though higher 
powers than man, to direct him to a life pleasing to the 
gods, through which he may gain their protection or 
favour.”® The Nayadis of Malabar, on certain ceremonial 

1 Callaway, Religious System of the 4 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 394. 
Amazulu, p. 144 Sg. 5 Wison and Howitt, Aamzlarot and 

2 Andersson, Lake eam, p. 222. Kurnat, p. 278. 

3 Ellis, Zze-speaking Peoples, p. 6 Nevill, ‘Vaeddas of Ceylon,’ in 

104. See also zbzd. p. 24 (Slaveand Tafrobantan, i. 194. 
Gold Coast natives). 

VOL. I! M M 

REGARD FOR THE DEAD CHAP. 

§30 
occasions, offer solemn prayers that the souls of the 
departed may protect them from the ravages of wild 
beasts and snakes.! The Vedic people called upon the aid 
of their dead :—“O Fathers, may the sky-people grant 
us life; may we follow the course of the living.” ’ So 
also the Zoroastrian Fravashis, who corresponded to the 
Vedic “ Fathers,” helped their own kindred, borough, town, 
or country.* Aeschylus, in his ‘ Eumenides,’ represents 
Orestes as saying, “‘ My father will send me aid from the 
tomb.” * The Lar Familiaris, the spirit guardian of the 
Roman family, was undoubtedly the spirit of a deceased 
ancestor.? The old Slavonians believed that the souls of 
fathers watched over their children and their children’s 
children. Jn Galicia the people still think that their 
hearths are haunted by the souls of the dead, who make 
themselves useful to the family ; and among the Czechs it 
is a common belief that departed ancestors look after the 
fields and herds of their descendants and assist them in 
hunting and fishing.® 

* But the ancestral guardian spirit does not bestow his 
favours for nothing. He must be properly attended to,’ 
and if neglected he easily becomes positively dangerous to 
his living relatives. The same Africans who invoke the 
dead in adversity think them “capable of wreaking their 
vengeance on those who do not liberally minister to their 
wants and enjoyments.”’* The Chaldeans believed that 

1 Tyer, ‘Nayadis of Malabar,’ in 
the Madras Government Museum’s 
Bulletin, iv. 72. 

2 Rig-Veda, x. 57. 5. 
op. ctt. p. 143 5g. 

3 Vasts, xili. 66 sgg.; &c. 

4 Aeschylus, Humenzdes, 598. 

® Jevons, in Plutarch’s Romane 
Questions, p. xli. Rohde, of. céz. p. 
232. 

§ Ralston, Songs of the Russdan 
People, pp. 119, 121. For other 
instances of a similar kind, see Shooter, 
Kafirs of Natal, p. 161; Arbousset 
and Daumas, Zo to the North-East 
of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, 
p. 340 (Bechuanas) ; Casalis, Baszczos, 
p- 248; Wilken, Het andmsme bij de 

Cf. Hopkins, 

volken van den Indischen Archipel, 
p- 194 sgg.; Nansen, Zskimo Life, p. 
290 (Greenlanders) ; Jessen, Af/handling 
over de Norske Finners og Lappers 
fledenske Religion, p. 27; Friis, 
Lappisk Mythologi, p. 115 sg.3 von 
Diiben, Lappland, p. 249 ; Abercromby, 
Pre- and Proto-historic Finns, 1. 178 
(Mordvins) ; von Wlislocki, Volksglaube 
der Zigeuner, p. 43 sgg. (Gypsies). 

7 Wilken, of. cz¢. p. 194 sg. (peoples 
in the Malay Archipelago). Aber- 
cromby, of. ct. 1. 178 (Mordvins). 
Jessen, of. c2¢. p. 27; Friis, of. c2z. p. 
116 sg, (Laplanders). 

8 Rowley, Religion of the Africans, 
p. 90. 

XLV REGARD FOR THE DEAD eur 

the departed who otherwise carefully watched over the 
welfare of his children, if abandoned and forgotten, 
avenged himself for their neglect by returning to torment 
them in their homes, by letting sickness attack them, and 
by ruining them with his imprecations.'!. The Vedic poet 
prays to the Fathers, ‘‘ May ye not injure us for whatever 
impiety we have as men committed.”* The Fravashis 
come to the help of those only who treat them well, and 
are “dreadful unto those who vex them.”*? In Rome, 
according to Ovid, once upon a time when the great 
festival of the dead was not observed, and the manes 
failed to receive the customary gifts, the injured spirits 
revenged themselves on the living, and the city ‘ became 
heated by the suburban funeral pyres.” * So also, accord- 
ing to Slavonic beliefs, the dead “might be-induced, if 
proper respect was not paid to them, to revenge them- 
selves on their forgetful survivors.” ® 

Moreover, we must not conclude that wherever the 
spirits of deceased ancestors are invoked as guardians they 
are necessarily looked upon as essentially benevolent to 
their descendants.° Concerning the ancient Babylonians 
and Assyrians Professor Jastrow writes :—‘‘ In general the 
dead were not favorably disposed towards the living, and 
they were inclined to use what power they had to work 
evil rather than for good. In this respect they resembled 
the demons, and it is noticeable that an important class of 
demons was known by the name ekimmu, which is one of 
the common terms for the shades of the dead.” " The 
Greeks were much afraid of their dead, and regarded 
their “heroes” as extremely irritable, in later times as 
exclusively malicious.* It appears from Ovid’s ‘Fasti’ 
that fear was the predominant feeling of the Romans with 
reference to the spirits of the departed, who were sup- 

1 Halévy, of. czt. p. 368. 6 Cf. Karsten, Orzgz2 of Worship, 

2 Rig- Veda, x. 15. 6. p. 122 sgq. 

SOBYs75e xii 3 4 251505) OCC, 7 Jastrow, of. cd. p. 581. 

4 Ovid, Fastz, il. 549 sg. 8 Rohde, of. cet. pp. 177 Sgg., 22 

5 Ralston, of. czt. p. 335. n. 4. Schmidt, Die Zthik der alten 
Griechen, li. 130. 

M M 2 

CHAE: 

a2 REGARD FOR THE DEAD 

posed to wander about by night, causing men to pine 
away or bewitching them into madness.’ Even in China, 
where the souls of the dead are supposed effectually to 
control the destiny of the living,’ malevolent rather than 
benevolent inclinations are ascribed to them by the 
popular belief, as appears from the fact that the words for 
“shost” and “devil” are the same and form a portion of the 
objectionable epithets applied to foreigners.? Generally 
speaking, my collection of facts has led me to the con- 
clusion that the dead are more commonly regarded as 
enemies than friends,‘ and that Professor Jevons’ and 
Mr. Grant Allen® are mistaken in their assertion that, 
according to early beliefs, the malevolence of the dead 1s 
for the most part directed against strangers only, whereas 
they exercise a fatherly care over the lives and fortunes of 
their descendants and fellow clansmen. 

Thus the Bondeis in East Africa apparently make little 
difference between a devil and a departed ancestor.’ Among 
the Fjort of Loango the good people who have left this life 
“are generally considered the enemies of mankind.”® Other 
Africans maintain that the spirits of the dead hover in the air, 
“watching the destiny of friends, haunting houses, killing 
children, injuring cattle, and causing disease and destruction,” 
all being malevolent to the living.®. Of the Savage Islanders in 
Polynesia we are told that “no effort of the missionary can 
avail to break them of their belief in the malevolence of ghosts, 
even of those who loved them best in life; the spirits of the 
dead seem compelled to work ill to the living without their own 
volition.” !° In Tahiti the spirits of parents and children, 
sisters and brothers, ‘seemed to have been regarded as a sort of 

So ttle Dall ellie 

1 Ovid, Fastz, v. 429 sqqg. Granger, 
Worship of the Romans, p. 67. 

2 de Groot, of. czt. (vol. v. book) 
ii. 464. 

® Dennys, /olk-Lore of China, p. 

3. See also Legge, Religions of 
) S D a) < 

China, pp. 13, 201. 

4 Dr. Steinmetz (4¢hnol. Studien 
sur ersten Entwickhing der Strafe, 
i, 283) has arrived at the same con- 
clusion. See also Meiners, Geschichte 
der Religionen, 1. 301 sgg.; (Karsten, 

op. cit. p. 115 5gg. 

> Jevons, Litroduction to the History 
of Religion, p. 53 59. 

§ Grant Allen, Evolution of the Idea 
of God, p. 347 Sq. 

’ Dale, ‘Natives inhabiting the 
Bondei Country,’ in Jour, Anthr. Inst. 
Saver 33. 

8 Dennett, Folklore of the Fyort, p. 
Il Sg. 

® Burton, Lake Regions of Central 
Africa, ii. 344. 

Thomson, Savage Island, p. 94. 

demons.” + Among the Maoris “ the nearest and most beloved 
relatives were supposed to have their natures changed by death, 
and to become malignant, even towards those they formerly 
3 loved.”? The natives of Erromanga, in the New Hebrides, 
| maintained that all the spirits of their departed ancestors were 
evil, and roamed the earth doing harm to men.3 In the tribes 
inhabiting the mouth of the Wanigela River, in New Guinea, 
all dead ancestors are supposed to be constantly on the watch 
to deal out sickness or death to anyone who may displease 
them ; hence the natives are most particular to do nothing that 
should raise their anger. Australian natives believe that a 
deceased person is malevolent for a long time after death, and 
the more nearly related the more he is feared. The anztos, or 
ghosts, of the Tagales in the Philippine Islands are likewise 
perpetually anxious to do harm to their descendants, trying to 
kill people, especially shortly after death, and being the causes 
of nearly all diseases.6 “The Saora of the Madras Presidency 
only know the existence of the departed souls by the mischief 
they do, and think that all ills are occasioned either by ancestral 
spirits or gods.’ In the North-Western Provinces of India the 
diwars, or genii loci, are oftentimes “the spirits of good men, 
Brahmans, or village heroes, who manage, when they become 
objects of worship, to be generally considered very malicious 
devils” ; ® and the ghosts of all low caste natives are notoriously 
malignant.? ‘The Tibetans are of opinion that a ghost is 
always malicious, and that it returns and gives troubles either 
on account of its malevolence or its desire to see how its former 
property is being disposed of.° “he Finns and other peoples of 
the same stock believed that the souls of the dead were generally 
intent to do harm to the living, their nearest relatives included." 
Thus, according to Votyak ideas, even a mother may become 

1 Ellis, 

334 59- , ; 
aetaylor led 2 ons) Dp. LS. 

* Orijen delos habitantes de la Oceania,’ 
Da L5Gee woblacion, spn20. 6 (Css 2bzd. 
‘Poblacion,’ p. 17; Blumentritt, p. 

Polynesian Researches, i. 

See also zbzd. pp. 137, 2213 Polack, 
op. ctt. 1. 242. 

3 Robertson, Lrromanga, p. 389. 

4 Guise, ‘Tribes inhabiting the 
Mouth of the Wanigela River,’ in 
Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxvi. 216. 

5 Fraser, Aborigines of New South 
Wales, p. 80. Curr, The Australian 
Race, i. 87. 

6 Blumentritt, in AZe¢thecl. d. kazs. 
wu. kon. Geograph. Gesellsch. in Ween, 
p. 166 sgg. de Mas, /nforme sobre el 
estaao de las Islas Filipinas en 1842, 

168 (Igorrotes). 

7 Fawcett, Saoras, pp. 43, 51. 

8 Elliot, Races of the North Western 
Provinces of India, p. 243. 

9 Crooke, Popular Religion of 
Northern India, 1. 269. 

10 Waddell, Buddhism of Tibet, 
. 498. 

1 Castrén, Mordiska resor och 
forskningar, iii. 121 sgg. Waronen, 

Vainajainpalvelus muztnarsilla Suo- 

malaisilla, p. 23. 

the enemy of her own child from the moment of her death.! 

Among the Ainu of Japan, “if a man is at a loss for the 
authorship of any particular calamity, which has befallen him, 
he is very apt to refer it to the ghost of a dead wife, mother, 
grandmother, or, still more certainly, to that of a dead mother- 
in-law” ;? an ‘Ainu who accompanied Mr. Batchelor would 
on no account come within twenty-five or thirty yards of the 
spot where his own mother was burned.? The Koniagas 
believe that after death every man becomes a devil. Accord- 
ing to ideas prevalent among the Central Eskimo, the dead are 
at first malevolent spirits, who frequently roam around the 
villages, causing sickness and mischief and killing men by their 
touch ; but subsequently they are supposed to attain to rest and 
are no ‘longer feared.6 "The Tarahumares of Mexico are afraid 
of their dead ; a mother asks her deceased infant to go away 
and not to come back, and the weeping widow implores her 
husband not to carry off, or do harm to, his own sons or 
daughters. Mr. Bridges informs us that the Fuegian word for 
a ghost, cishpich, is also an adjective signifying “frightful, 
dreadful, awful.” 7 

The belief in the irritable or malevolent character of 
the dead is easily explained. As Bishop Butler observed, 
we presume that a thing will remain as it is except when 

we have some reason to think that it will be altered.® 

And in the case of the souls of departed friends men may 
have reason to suppose that they undergo a change. 
Death is commonly regarded as the gravest of all mis- 
fortunes ; hence the dead are believed to be exceedingly 
dissatished with their fate: According to primitive ideas 
a person only dies if he is killed—by magic if not by 
force,—and such a death naturally tends to make the soul 
revengeful and ill-tempered. It is envious of the living 
and is longing for the company of its old friends; no 

1 Buch, ‘Die Wotjaken,’? in Acta > Boas, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. 

Soc. Sczent. Fennitce, xii. 607. vi. 591. 
2 Howard, Life with Trans-Stbertan 6 Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, i. 
Savages, p- 196. 380, 382. 
3 Batchelor, Azz of Japan, p. 7 Bridges, ‘ Manners and Customs of 
220 sq. the Firelanders,’ in A Voice for South 
2 Holmberg, in Acta Soc. Sctent. America, xiii. 201. ; 
Fennice iv 492 a Butler, Analogy of Religion, i. 1, 

p. 82. 

i 

wonder, then, that it sends them diseases to cause their 
death. The Basutos maintain that their dead ancestors 
are continually endeavouring to draw them to themselves, 
and therefore attribute to them every disease ;! and dic 
Tarahumares in Mexico suppose that the dead make their 
relatives ill from a feeling of loneliness, that they, too, 
may die and join the departed.’ But the notion that the 
disembodied soul is on the whole a malicious being con- 
stantly watching for an opportunity to do harm to the 
living is also, no doubt, intimately connected with the 
instinctive fear of the dead: which is in its turn the out- 
come of the fear of death. 

We are told, it is true, that many savages meet death 
with much indifference, or regard it as no great evil, but 
merely as a change to a life very similar to this.? But it 
is a fact often noticed among ourselves, that a person on the 
verge of death may resign himself to his fate with the 
greatest calmness, although he has been afraid to die 
throughout his life. Moreover, the fear of death may be 
disguised by thoughtlessness, checked by excitement, or 
mitigated by dying in company. ‘There are peoples who 
are conspicuous for their bravery, and yet have a great 
dread of death.* Nobody is entirely free from this 
feeling, though it varies greatly in strength among 
different races and in different individuals. In many 
savages it is so strongly developed, that they cannot bear to 
hear death mentioned.’ And inseparably mingled with this 
Islanders), Georgi, of. cét. ill. 266 

(Siberian shamans). Monrad, of. cé¢. 
23 (Negroes of Accra). Brinton, 

1 Casalis, op. czt. p. 249. 
2 Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, i. 
380. p- 

3 Turner, ‘ Ethnology of the Ungava 
District,’ in Aun. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 
192 (Hudson Bay Eskimo), 269 sg. 
(Hudson Bay Indians). de Brebeuf, 
‘Relation de ce qui s’est passé dans le 
pays des Hurons,’ in Relations des 
JSésuites, i. 1636, p. 129. Roth, Vorth- 
West-Central Queensland Aborigines, 

161. Tregear, ‘Niue,’ in Jour. 
Polynesian Soc. ii. 14 (Savage Is- 
landers). Williams and Calvert, 7772, 
p. 2045g. Romilly, From my Veran- 
dah in New Guinea, p. 45 (Solomon 

Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 72. 

4 #.g., the Kalmucks (Bergmann, 
Nomadische Stretfereten unter den 

“almtiken, ii, 318 sqg.) and the ancient 
Caribs (Miiller, Geschichte der Amert- 
kanischen Urrelrgionen, p. 215). 

5 Dunbar, ‘Pawne Indians,’ in 
Magazine of American History, viii. 
742. Batchelor, Azuw of Sym, p 
203. Bergmann, of. cit. il. 318. 
Bosman, Description of the Coast of 
Guinea, p. 327 (Negroes of Fida), Du 
Chaillu, Explorations in Equatorial 

fear of death is the fear of the dead. ‘The place in which > 

a death occurs is abandoned,' or the hut is destroyed,” or 
the corpse is carried out from it as speedily as possible.’ 
The survivors neorOn to frighten away the ghost by 
firing off guns,‘ or shooting into the grave,’ or throwing 

sticks and stones poehing themselves after they 
To prevent the return of the ghost 

interred the corpse.° 

the body is buried face downwards,” 

have 

or its limbs are 

firmly tied,* or, in extreme cases, it is fixed in the ground 

with a stake driven through 1¢2° 

We may assume that 

these and many other funeral ceremonies are very closely 
connected with the fear of the pollution of death; for 
even when their immediate object is to keep the ghost at 

Africa, p. 338. Kropf, Das Volk der 
Xosa-Kaffern, p. 155. For other 
instances of savages’ great fear of death, 
see Bridges,-in A Vocce for South 
America, xiii. 211 (Fuegians) ; Miiller, 
Geschichte der Amertkanischen Urreli- 
gionen, p. 215 (Caribs); Dunbar, in 
Magazine of American History, v. 
334 (various North American tribes) ; 
Brinton, Myths of the New World, 
p- 238 ; Georgi, of. czt. il. 400 (Jakuts) ; 
Bosman, of. cét. p. 130 (Gold Coast 
natives). 

1 Dorman, of. ct. p. 22 (North 
American Indians). von den Steinen, 
Unter den Naturvolkern Zentral- 
Brasiliens, p. 502 (Borord). Hyades 
and Deniker, AZésston sctentifique du 
Cap Horn, vil. 379 (Fuegians). Curr, 
The Australian Race, i. 44. Fraser, 
Aborigines of New South Wales, p. 82. 

Spencer and Gillen, Mative Trzbes of 

Central Australia, p. 498. Worcester, 
Philippine Islands, p. 496 (Tagbanuas 
of Busuanga). Bailey, ‘ Veddahs of 
Ceylon,’ in Zrans. Ethn. Soc. N. S. ii. 
296; Deschamps, Carnet a’un voyageur, 
p. 383 (Veddahs). Decle, of. cz¢. p. 
79 (Barotse). von Diiben, Lappland, 
Pp. 241, 249. 

2 Hyades and Deniker, of. cz¢. vii. 
379 (Fuegians). Batchelor, 
Japan, p. 222 sg. Worcester, of. cit. 
p- 108 sg. (Tagbanuas of Palawan). 
Butler, Zyvavels tm Assam, p. 228. 
Fawcett, Saovas, p. 50 sg. Cunning- 
ham, Uganda, p. 130 (Bavuma), 

3 Howard, of. cet. p. 197 {Ainu). 

Ainu of 

Selenka, Sonnige Welten, p. 89 
(Dyaks). The rapid pace of the 
funeral procession among the Bataks 
(von Brenner, Gesuch bez den Kanni- 
balen Sumatras, p. 235) probably 
belongs to the same class of facts. 

# von Brenner, of. cit. p. 235 
(Bataks). Fawcett, Saoras, p. 46 sq. 

Pu von) Brenner. (ofan cee ap ees 
(Bataks). von Wlislocki, Volksglaube 
der Magyaren, p. 134. 

6 Crooke, Zrzbes and Castes gers 
North-Western Provinces, 1. 

(Aheriya, in Duab), 287 (Bhangi, ne 

sweeper tribe of Hindustan). Ralston, 

: a cvt. p. 320 (ancient Bohemians). 

7 Dorsey, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Athn. 
xl. 420 (Omahas). Crooke, of. cé#. i. 
44 (Aheriya, in Duab). 

8 Zimmer, <Adtindzsches Leben, p. 
402 (Vedic people). Turner, in Azz. 
keep. Bur. Ethn., xi. 191 (Hudson Bay 
Eskimo). Yarrow, zézd. i. 98 (Pimas 
of Arizona). Southey, 7story — of 
Brazil, i, 248 (Tupinambas). Of the 
trussing and tying of the dead body 
which is practised in various Australian 
tribes the blacks themselves say that it 
is done ‘‘to prevent the spirit of the 
deceased from wandering in the night 
from its bed, and disturbing the living 
and doing them harm” ( Fraser, 
Aborigines “of New South Wales, p. 79 
sg.; see also Curr, The Australian 
Race, i. 44, 87). 

9 Supra, ui. 256. Tyltén-Cavallius, 
Warend och Werdarne, i. 472 (Middle 
Ages). 

a 

REGARD FOR THE DEAD Loe 
a distance, it is likely that they are largely due to dread 
of its presence for the reason that it is conceived as a seat 
of deadly contagion. It seems to me that anthropolo- 
gists, in their explanations of funeral ceremonies, have 
too much accentuated the volitional activity of ghosts. 
To take an instance. The common custom of carrying 
the dead body away through some aperture other than the 
door,’ has generally been interpreted as a means of 
preventing the ghost from finding its way back to the old 
home ; but various facts indicate that it also may have 
sprung from a desire to keep the ordinary exit free from 
pollution. According to the Vendidad a spirit of death 
is breathing all along the way which a corpse has passed ; 
hence no man, no flock, no being whatever that belongs 
to the world of Ahura Mazda is allowed to go that way 
until the deadly breath has been blown away to hell.? In 
the capital of Corea there is a small gate in the city-wall 
known as the “Gate of the Dead,” through which alone 
a dead body can be carried out, and no one is ever allowed 
to enter through that passage-way.* In China even a 
messenger who delivers tidings of death strictly abstains 
from passing the threshold of the houses at which he 
knocks, unless urgently requested by the inmates to walk 
in.” Among the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia a 
moutner, who is regarded as unclean, “must not use the 
house door, but a separate door is cut for his use’’; girls 
at puberty, whilst in a state of uncleanness, may leave 

op. cit, iil. 26 sg. 3; Jackson, in Jowr. 

1 Cf. supra, ii. 303. 

2 Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 26 sg. 
Frazer, in Jowr. Anthr. Inst. xv. 69 sg. 
Trumbull, Zhreshold Covenant, p. 23 
sqg. Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, pp. 
372, 373, 414 5g. Lippert, Chréstenthum, 
Volksglaube und Volksbrauch, p. 391 
sg. Egede, Description of Greenland, 
p- 152 sg.; Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 
245 sg. (Greenlanders). Turner, in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 191 (Hudson 
Bay Eskimo). 
the Alaskans, p. 313. — Jochelson, 
‘Koryak Religion,’ in Jesup North 
Pacific Expedition, vi. 110 sg. Georgi, 

McNair Wright, Among 

Anthr. Inst. xxiv. 406 (Samoyedes). 
Ramseyer and Kiihne, Your Years in 
Ashantee, p. 50. Kalund, ‘Skandina- 
vische Verhaltnisse,’ in Paul, Grenadrzss 
der germanischen Philologie, ii. pt. ii. 
227 (ancient Scandinavians). 

> Vendidid, viii. 14 sgg.  Dar- 
mesteter, in Sacred Books of the East, 
ly. p. xxiv. sq. 

4 Trumbull, 
p. 24. 
> de Groot, of. czt. (vol. ii. book) i. 
644. 

Threshold Covenant, 

and enter their room only through a hole made in the 
floor ;' and men who have polluted themselves by par- 
taking of human flesh are for four months allowed to go 
out only by the secret door in the rear of the house.” 
Even the water and fire ceremonies performed in con- 
nection with a death have been represented as methods of 
preventing the ghost from attacking the living by placing 
a physical barrier of water or fire between them.*? But I 
see no reason whatever to assume, with Dr. Frazer, that 
‘“‘the conceptions of pollution and purification are merely 
the fictions of a later age, invented to explain the purpose 
of a ceremony of which the original intention was for- 

gotten.” * 

It is obvious that the beliefs held as regards the 
character, activity, and polluting influence of the dead 

greatly affect the conduct of the survivors. 

They are 

naturally anxious to gain the favour of the disembodied 

1 Boas, in /f/th Report on the North- 
Western Tribes of Canada, p. 42 sqq. 

2 Tdem, quoted by Frazer, Golden 
Bough, i. 341 sg. Among the Bhuiyar, 
a Dravidian tribe in South Mirzapur, 
each house has two doors, one of which 
is only used by menstruous women; 
and when such a woman has to quit the 
house ‘‘ she is obliged to creep out-on 
her hands and knees so as to avoid 
polluting the house thatch by her 
touch ” (Crooke, Zrzbes and Castes of 
the North-Western Provinces, ii. 87). 
Among the Thompson River Indians of 
British Columbia meat was only taken 
into the hunting lodge through a hole 
in the back of the structure, because 
the common door was used by women 
and women were regarded as unclean 
(Teit, ‘ Thompson Indians,’ in AZemozrs 
of the American Museum of Natural 
History, ‘ Anthropology,’ i. 347). In 
other instances ordinary people are 
prohibited from using a door through 
which a sacred person has _ passed, 
obviously’ because contact with his 
sanctity is looked upon as dangerous. 
In some of the South Sea Islands, 
where the first-born, whether male or 
female, was especially sacred, no one 
else was allowed to pass by the door 
through which he or she entered the 

paternal dwelling (Gill, Zzfe zz the 
Southern. Isles, p. 46). ‘‘In some 
parts of the Pacific, the door through 
which the king or queen passed in 
opening a temple was shut up, and ever 
after made sacred” (Turner, W2zefeen 
Years in Polynesia, p. 328). Ezekiel 
(xliv. 2 sg.) represents the Lord as 
saying :—‘‘ This gate shall be shut, it 
shall not be opened, and no man shall 
enter in by it; because the Lord, the 
God of Israel, hath entered in by it, 
therefore it shall be shut. It is for the 
prince; . . . he shall enter by the way 
of the porch-of that gate, and shall go 
out by the way of the same.” Among 
the Arabs in olden days those who 
returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca 
entered their houses not by the door 
but by a hole made in the back wall 
(Palmer, in Sacred Books of the East, 
vi. 27, n. I). This practice was for- 
bidden by Muhammed (Koran, ii. 
185). 

3 Frazer, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xv. 
76 Sd]. 

4 Tt should be added, however, that 
Dr. Frazer’s important essay on ‘ Burial 
Customs’ was published more than 
twenty years ago and therefore perhaps 
does not exactly represent the author’s 
present views on the subject. 

soul, to avert its ill-will, to keep it at a distance, and to 
avoid the defilement of death. Self-interest is often a 
conspicuous motive for acts and omissions which are 
regarded as duties to the dead, and prudence also has a 
very large share in their being enjoined as obligatory. 
This is obviously true of the offerings made to the dead. 
The Thompson River Indians of British Columbia threw 
some food on the ground near the grave of the deceased, 
“that he might not visit the house in search of food, 
causing sickness to the people.”* Among the Iroquois, 
“on the death of a nursing child two pieces of cloth are 
saturated with the mother’s milk and placed in the hands 
of the dead child so that its spirit may not return to 
haunt the bereaved mother.”* The Negroes of Accra, 
when asked why they slaughtered animals at the tombs of 
their departed friends, answered that they did so in order to 
prevent the ghosts from walking.? The Monbuttu place 
some oil and other victuals in the little hut which is 
erected for the dead in the forest, so that his spirit shall 
not return to his old home in search of food. For the 
same reason the Bataks of Sumatra put various things 
into the graves of their deceased friends, ask the dead to 
be quiet and not to long for the company of the living, 
and finish their address with the words, ‘“‘ Here you have 
still some sirih and tobacco, and every year, at harvest 
time, we shall give you some rice.”° Among the 
Chuvashes the son says to his departed father, “ We 
remember you with a feast, here are bread and different 
kinds of food for you, everything you have before you, 
do not come to us.”° It is considered particularly 
dangerous to keep back and make use of articles which 
belonged to the dead. The Gypsies burn on the grave 
all those chattels which the deceased was in the habit of 
using during his lifetime, ‘‘ because his soul would other- 
wise return to torment his relatives and claim back his 

‘4 
. 
¥ 
’ 

1 Teit, doc. ctl. p. 329. + Burrows, of. czt. p. 103. 
2 Smith, ‘ Myths of the Iroquois,’ in » von Brenner, of. czt. p. 234 5gq. 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethi. ii. 69. ® Castrén, of. ct. iil. 123 sq. 

3 Monrad, of. ct. p. 26. 

property.” ? A Saora gave the following reason for the 
custom of burning all the belongings of a dead person :— 
“If we do not burn these things with the body, the 
Kulba (soul) will come and ask us for them and trouble 
us.” ? The Kafirs believe that, after his death, ‘a man’s 
personality haunts his possessions.” ® Among the Brazilian 
Tupinambas “ whoever happened to have any thing which 
had belonged to the dead produced it, that it might be buried 
with him, lest he should come and claim it.”* When a 
Navaho Indian dies within a house the rafters are pulled 
down over the remains and the place is usually set on 
fire ; after that nothing would induce a Navaho to touch 
a piece of the wood or even approach the immediate 
vicinity of the place, the shades of the dead being regarded 
‘‘as inclined to resent any intrusion or the taking of any 
liberties with them or their belongings.’ The Greenlanders, 
as soon as a man is dead, “throw out every thing which 
has belonged to him; otherwise they would be polluted, 
and their lives rendered unfortunate. The house is 
cleared of all its movables till evening, when the smell 
of the corpse has passed away.” ° 

The fear of the dead has also taught men to abstain 
from robbing or violating their tombs. The Omahas 
believe that, if anybody touched an article of food exposed 
at a grave, “the ghost would snatch away the food and 
paralyse the mouth of the thief, and twist his face out 
of shape for the rest of his life; or else he would be 
pursued by the ghost, and food would lose its taste, and 
hunger ever after haunt the offender.”* The Brazilian 
Coroados “avoid disturbing the repository of the dead, 
for fear they should appear to them and torment them.” * 

lyon Whislocki, 

Volksglaube der ON Cramz Ops Citadel. 

yi al idk keel alc 

Zigeuner, Pp. 100. 

2 Fawcett, op. cit. p. 47. 

3 Kidd, Zhe Essential Kafr, p. 83. 

4 Southey, of. cé¢. i. 248. Cf von 
den Steinen, Unter den Naturvolkern 
Zentral-Brastliens, p. 502 (Bororo). 

> Mindeleff, ‘Navaho Houses,’ in 
Ann, Rep. Bur. Ethn. xvii. 487. 

7 La Flesche, ‘ Death and Funeral 
Customs among the Omahas,’ in /ozr. 
American Folk-Lore, ii. 11. Cf. Reid, 
in. four. <Anthr. Inst. i. Viz 
(Chippewas). 

8 yon Spix and von Martius, Z77aveds 
tw Brazil, ii, 251. 

REGARD FOR THE DEAD 

The Maoris suppose that the violation of a burial place 

would bring disease and death on the criminal.! 

The 

extreme dislike of the Chinese to disturbing a grave is 
based on the supposition that the spirit of the person 
buried will haunt and cause ill-luck or death to the 

disturber.? 

According to the popular beliefs of the 

Magyars, he who seizes upon anything belonging to a - 
tomb, even if it were only a flower, willbe :unhappy for 

the rest of his life.® 

The Rumanians of Transylvania 

think that a person who picks a flower which grows on a 
grave will die in consequence, and that he who smells at’ 
such a flower will lose his sense of smell.* 

The transgression of ancestral custom, 

as we have 

already seen, is supposed to be punished by the spirits of 
the dead; and the sacredness of a will largely springs from 

superstitious fear. 

The South Slavonian belief that, if a 

son does not fulfil the last will of his father the soul of 

the father will curse him from the grave,’ 

has its counter- 

part in the denunciatory clause in Anglo-Saxon landbooks, 
which usually curses all and singular who attack the 

donee’s title.° 

The custom of praising the dead, again, is mainly flat- 
tery, and the lamentations over them are not altogether 

sincere.’ 

By their excessive demonstrations of grief the 

Andaman Islanders hope to conciliate the spirits of the 
departed, and to be preserved from many misfortunes 

which might otherwise befall them.*® 

The Central Aus- 

tralian native fears “that, unless a sufficient amount of 

grief be displayed, he will be harmed by the offended 

Ulthana or spirit of the dead man. 

i Polack, op: cz. 1. 112. 

2 Dennys, of. czt. p. 26. de Groot, 
op. cit. (vol. iv. book) il. 446 sg. 

3 yon Whlislocki, 
Magyaren, p. 135. Cf zdem, 
elaube der Zigeuner, p. 96 sq. 

4 Prexl, ‘Geburts- und Todtenge- 
briiuche der Rumianen in Siebenbiirgen,’ 
in oes lvii. 30. 

5 Supra, i. 624. 
§ Pollock He: Maitland, History of 

Volks- 

Volksglaube der 

The Angmagsa- 

English Law before the Time of Edward 
He oe 251 sg. 

7 See Gibbs, /oc. cet. p. 205 (tribes 
of Western Washington and North- 
Western Oregon); Wied-Neuwied, 
Leetse nach Brasilien, ii. 56 (Botocudos). 

8 Man, in Jowr. Anthr. mst. xii. 
145. 

® Spencer and Gillen, Wafive 7irzbes 
of Central Australia, p. 510. 

liks on the East Coast of Greenland say that they cry 
and groan and perform other mourning rites ‘“‘in order to 
prevent the dead from getting angry.”! But the loud 
wailing of mourners may also, like the shouting after 
a death,” be intended to drive away the ghost, or perhaps 
death ieee 

- Fearsis certainly a very common motive for funeral and 
mourning rites which have been interpreted as duties to. — 
the dead. This is the case with the various methods of 
disposing of the corpse. Thus the custom of leaving it 

as food for beasts of prey * is, in some instances at least, 
deliberately practised for the purpose of preventing the 
ghost from walking. ‘The Herero who accompanied Chap- 
man said of two of their sick comrades who formed part 

of the company, ‘‘ You must throw them away, and let 

the wolves eat them ; then they won’t come and bother 
us.” * Cremation, also, has frequently been resorted to 

as a means of protecting the living from unwelcome visits 

of the dead, or, as the case may be, of effectually getting 

rid of the contagion of death.’ The Vedic people, while 
burning the corpses of their dead, cried aloud, “‘ Away, go 
away, O Death! injure not our sons and our men.”° In 
Northern India the corpses of all low caste people are 
either cremated or buried face- downwards, in order to 
prevent the evil spirit from escaping and troubling its 
neighbours,’ The Nayars of Malabar not only believe that 

the collection and careful disposal of the ashes of the dead 
man gives peace to his spirit, but, ‘‘ what is more import- 
ant, the pacified spirit will not fnereateees injure the living 
member of the Faravad (house or family), cause mis- 

1 Holm, ‘Ethnologisk Skizze af Travel in South Africa, p. 234 
Angmagsalikerne,’ in JZeddelelsér om (Ovambo). 

Grénland, x. 107. 4+ Chapman, Zravels 72 the Interior 
2 Spencer and Gillen, of. czé, p. 506. of South Africa, ii. 282. 

Cf. Robertson Smith, Pe/zgion of the 5G: Rohde, (op. cz, ps 28 esq7. 

Semzles, p. 432, n. 2. (ancient Greeks) ; Preuss, of. cf. p. 
% For this custom see also Murdoch, 294. 

in Ann. Rep. Bur. Lthn. ix. 424 sq. 8 Rig- Veda, x. 18. I. 

(Point Barrow Eskimo) 5 Nordenskiold, " Crooke,  Fopular Religion of 

Vegas fird kring Asien och Europa, Northern India, i. 269. 
li. 93 (Chukchi) ; Andersson, /Voles on 

OR oy OP tani 

carriage to the women, possess the men, as with an evil 

spirit, and so on.”' In Tibet a ghost which makes its” 

presence felt in dreams or by causing deliriousness or tem- 
porary insanity is disposed of by cremation.* In _ his 
description of the Savage Islanders, Mr. Thomson tells 
us of a mother who destroyed her own daughter’s grave 

_ by fire in order to burn the spirit which was afflicting her.’ 

Among the ancient Scandinavians the bodies of persons 
who were believed to walk after death were dug up from 
their graves and burned.* And exactly the same is done 
in Albania to this day.° 4 

Burial itself has served a similar purpose.° According 
to the Danish traveller Monrad, the Negroes of Accra 
expressly believe that by covering the body of a dead 
person with earth they keep the ghost from walking and 
causing trouble to the survivors; and he adds that 
exactly the same superstition prevails in Jutland in Den- 
mark.’ This belief is also preserved in the Swedish word for 
committing a corpse to the earth, jordfdsta, which literally 
means ‘‘ to fasten to the earth.” In Gothland, in Sweden, 
there was an old tradition of a man called Takstein who 
in his lifetime was overbearing and cruel and after his 
death haunted the living, in consequence of which “a 
wizard finally earth-fastened him in such a manner that he 
afterwards lay quiet.”’* But burial has often been supple- 
mented by other precautions against the return of the 
ghost. Hogstrém says that the Laplanders carefully 
wrapped up their dead in cloth so as to prevent the soul 
from slipping away.” The practice of placing logs or 
stones immediately over the corpse may have a similar 
origin ; in some Queensland tribes, when an individual 
has been killed by tne whole tribe in punishment for some 

1 Fawcett, in the Madras Govern- 
ment Museum’s #z//ezz7, iii. 251. See 
also Iyer, ‘ Nayadis of Malabar,’ zézd. 
ive 70. 

2 Waddell, of. czt. p. 498. 

3 Thomson, Savage /s/and, p. 134. 

4 Kalund, Zoc. czt. p. 227. 

5 yon Hahn, Albanesische Studzen, 

thy, Guileyere 

6 Cf. Frazer, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 
xv. 64 sg. ; Preuss, of. czt. p. 292 sq. 

7 Monrad, of. ce¢. p. 13. 

8 Laffler, Den wvottlindska Takster- 

9 Hogstrom, eskrifning ofver de 
tel Sveriges Krona lydande Lapmarker, 

p. 207. 

REGARD PORSTHESDEAD 

serious crime, boomerangs are substituted for the ordinary 
logs, evidently for fear of the ghost.’ The Chuvashes, 
again, put two stakes across the coffin of a dead man for 
the purpose of preventing him from lifting up the cover.’ 
Graves are often provided with mounds, tomb-stones, or 
enclosures in order to keep the dead from walking.? The 
Omahas raise no mound over a man who has been killed 
by lightning, but bury him face downwards and with the 
soles of his feet split, in the belief that he will then go to 
the spirit-land without giving further trouble to the 
living. The Savage Islanders pile heavy stones upon the 
grave to keep the ghost down.’ The Cheremises believe 
that the ghosts cannot step over the fence-poles with 
which they surround the graves.° When ceremonies like 
that of striking the air at a funeral or the ringing of bells 
are represented as means of keeping off evil spirits from 
the dead, we have reason to suspect that their original 
object was to keep off the ghost from the living. At 
Central Australian funerals women beat the air with the 
palms of their hands for the express purpose of driving the 
spirit away from the old camp which it is supposed to 
haunt, and the men beat the air with their spear-throwers.’ 
The Bondeis of East Africa frighten the ghosts by beating 
drums.* And at Port Moresby, in New Guinea, when 
the church bell was first used, the natives thanked the 
missionaries for having driven off numerous bands of 
chosts.® 

That the mourning fast is essentially a precaution taken 
by the survivors, and not a tribute to the dead, is obvious 
from what has been said in a previous chapter.’ When 
mourners mutilate, cut, or beat themselves, the original 
object of their doing so seems often to be to ward off the 

1 Roth, of. czt. p. 165. 
2 Castrén, of. cét. lil. 121. 

6 Castrén, of. c2z. iii. 122. 
’ Spencer and Gillen, Wative Trzbes 

Ae a 

3 Cf. Frazer, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 
xv. 65 sg. 3 Preuss, of. cet. p. 203. 

4 Dorsey, in dzn. Rep. Bur. Lthn. 
x1. 420. La Flesche, in /ow. Amerzcan 
Folk-Lore, \. 11. 

° Thomson, Savage /sland, p. 52. 

of Central Australia, p. 506. 

8 Dale, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxv. 
238. 

® Chalmers and Gill, Work and 
Adventure in New Guinea, p. 260. 

WW Sopris O2 mv Ge 

Se 

contagion of death.! Among the Bedouins of Morocco 
women at funerals not only scratch their faces, but also 
rub the wounds with cow-dung, and cow-dung is regarded 
as a means of purification. The mourning customs of 

5 painting the body and of assuming a special costume have 

been explained as attempts on the part of ‘the survivors to 
disguise themselves ;* but the latter custom may also 
have originated in the idea that a mourner is more or less 
polluted for a certain period and that therefore a dress 
worn by him then, being a seat of contagion, could not be 
used afterwards. Egede writes of the Greenlanders, “ If 
they have happened to touch a corpse, they immediately 

cast away the clothes they have then on; and’ for this 

reason they always put on their old clothes when they go 
to a burying, in which they agree with the Jews.” ® 
There can, finally, be no doubt that the widespread 
prohibition of mentioning the name of a dead person * 
does not in the first instance arise from respect for the 
departed, but from fear. To name him is to summon 
him ; the Indians of Washington ‘Ferritory even change 
their own names when a relative dies, because “they 
think the spirits of the dead will come back if they hear 
the same name called that they were accustomed to hear 

1 Cf. Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 302. peoples in Siberia). Jackson, in 

2 Frazer, in Jowr. Anthr. Inst. xv. Jour. Anthr. Inst. _ xxiv. 406 
73.  Ldem, ‘¥olk-Lore in the Old (Samoyedes). Rivers, Zodas, p. 625 
Testament,’ in Azthropological Essays  sgg. Crooke, Tribes and Castes of the 
presented to EF. B. Tylor, p. 110. North-Western Provinces, i. 11. 

wevigede, 0p. Ci. Pp. TOs (Agariya, a Dravidian tribe). von 

4 Tylor, Researches into the Early  Wlislocki, Volksglaube der Zigeuner, 
History of Mankind, p. 144. Nyrop, p. 96 (Gypsies). Yseldijk, in Ghmpses 
‘Navnets magt,’ n Jf@indre afhand- of the Eastern Archipelago, p. 42. 
linger udgivne af det philolog?sk-  (Kotting, in theislandof Flores). Roth, 
historiske samfund, pp. 147-151, 190 orth - West - Central Queensland 
sg. and passim. Frazer, Golden Aborigines, p. 164. Spencer and 
Bough, i. 421 sqgg. Clodd, Yom Zit Gillen, ative Tribes of Central 
Tot, p. 166 sgg. Nansen, Eskimo Life, Australia, p. 498. Fraser, Aborigines 
p.. 230 sg. (Greenlanders). Miiller, of New South Wales, p. 82. Thornton, 
Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreli- in Hill and Thornton, Adordgines of 
gtonen, p. 84(North American Indians). Mew South Wales, p. 7. Vison and 
Bourke, ‘Medicine-Men of the Apache,’ Howitt, of. cz#. p. 249 (Kurnai). Curr, 
in Aun. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 462. Squatting im Victoria, p. 272 
Batchelor, Azza and their Folk-Lore, (Bangerang). UHinde, of. czt. p. 50 
p. 242. Georgi, of. cit. ili. 27, 28, (Masai). Duveyrier, Exploration du 
262 sg. (Samoyedes and shamanistic Sahara, p. 415 (Touareg). Werner, 

VOL. Il N N 

REGARD FOR THE DEAD 

before death.” ! But apart from this, a dead man’s name 
itself is probably felt to be defiling, or at all events 
produces an uncanny association of thought, which even 
among ourselves makes many people reluctant to mention 
it.2 And to do so may also be a wrong to other persons 
who would be endangered thereby. Among the Goajiro 
Indians of Colombia, to mention a dead man before his 
relatives is a dreadful offence, which is often punished 
even with death.® 

By all this I certainly do not mean to assert that the 
funeral and mourning customs to which I have just 
referred have exclusively or in every case originated in 
fear of the dead or of the pollution of death. Burial may 
also be genuinely intended to protect the body from 
beasts or birds; and the same may be the case with 
mounds, tombstones, and enclosures.* Some savages are 
reported to burn the dead in order to prevent their bodies 
from falling into the hands of enemies,’ which might be 
bad both for the dead and for their friends, as charms 
might be made from the corpses.° Moreover, cremation 
does away with the slow process of transformation to 
which a dead body is naturally subject, and this process is 
regarded not only as a danger to the living but also as 
painful to the deceased himself.’ The same object may be 
achieved by exposing the corpse to wild animals. And 
we should also remember that the putrefactive process 

‘Custom of ‘‘ Hlonipa,”’ in Jour. 3 Simons, ‘Exploration of the 

African Soc. 1905, April, p. 346 Goajira Peninsula,’ in Proceed. Roy. 
(Zulus). Geograph. Soc. N. S. vii. 791. 
1 Swan, Residence in Washington 4 Cranz, of. czt.i. 217 (Greenlanders). 

Territory, p. 189. 

2 Thad much difficulty in inducing 
my teacher in Shelha, a Berber from 
the Great Atlas Mountains, to-tell me 
the equivalent for ‘‘illness”’ in his own 
language; and when he finally did 
so, he spat immediately afterwards. 
Among the Central Australian Arunta 
the older men will not look at the 
photograph of a deceased person 
(Gillen, ‘ Aborigines of the McDonnell 
Ranges,’ in Report of the Horn Ex- 
sedition, iv. ‘ Anthropology,’ p. 168). 

Tumer, in Aun. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 
192 (Hudson Bay Eskimo). Yarrow, 
zbid. 1. 102 (Wichita Indians). Dunbar, 
in Magazine of American History, viii. 
734 (Pawnee Indians). Curr, Zhe 
Australian Race, i. 87. 

5 Hyades and Deniker, of. c7¢. vii. 
379 (Fuegians). Preuss, of. c#t. p. 
310 (Seminole Indians of Florida). 

8 Ralph, quoted by Hartland, 
Legend of Perseus, ii. 437 (Haidahs of 
British Columbia). 

See! Mertza/onmacrnpayits 

ho tae ee lie 

itself, whether accompanied by any superstitious ideas or 
not, is a sufficient motive for disposing of the dead body 
in some way or other—either by burial or cremation or 
exposure ; and if one method is held objectionable 
another will be resorted to. Among the Masai the 
custom of throwing away corpses is said to spring from 
the notion that to bury them would be to poison the 
soil;* and the Zoroastrian law enjoining the exposure of 
the dead was closely connected with the sacredness 
ascribed to fire and earth and the consequent dread of 
polluting them. 

Again, as for the mutilations and self-inflicted wounds 
which accompany funerals, I have suggested in a previous 
chapter that they may be partly practised for the purpose 
of refreshing the departed soul with human blood ;* or, 
as Dr. Hirn observes, they may be instinctive efforts to 
procure that relief from overpowering feelings which is 
afforded by pain and the subsequent exhaustion.? The 
reluctance to name the dead may, in some measure, be 
traced to a natural unwillingness in his old friends to 
revive past sorrows.* And with reference to the mourning 
apparel, Dr. de Groot believes—if rightly or wrongly I 
am not in a position to decide—that, so far as China is 
concerned, it originated in the custom of sacrificing to the 
dead the clothes on one’s own back. He thinks that this 
explanation is confirmed by the fact that in the age of 
Confucius it was customary for the mourners to throw off 
their clothes as far as decency allowed when the corpse 
was being dressed.” 

There are several reasons why practices connected with 
death which originally sprang from self-regarding motives 
have come to be enjoined as duties. We have first to 
remember the various factors mentioned above® which tend 
to make self-regarding conduct a matter of moral concern, 

1 Thomson, Zhrough Masat Land, (WKurnai). Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 

P25. 422. ees 
2 Supra, i. 476. 5 de Groot, of. cz¢. (vol. ii. book) i, 
3 Hirn, Or7eins of Art, p. 66 sq. 475 Sq. 

4 Fison and Howitt, of. cet. p. 249 ® Supra, ii. 266 sq. 
Ni Nie, 

But in this case the transition from the prudential to the 
obligatory has been much facilitated by the circumstance 
that all the acts which a person’s self-interest induces him 
to perform or to abstain from have direct reference to 
another individual, and, indeed, to an individual who is 
supposed to reward benefits bestowed upon him or -at all 
events to resent injuries and neglect, These punishments 
and rewards sent by the departed soul are all the more 
readily recognised to be well deserved, as the claims of the 
dead are similar in nature to those of the living and are at 
the same time in some degree supported by sympathetic 
feelings in the survivors. Nor is it difficult to explain why 
even such practices as are not originally supposed to comfort 
the dead have assumed the character of duties towards them. 
The dead are not only beings whom it is dangerous to 
offend and useful to please, but they are also very easily 
duped. No wonder therefore that the living are anxious 
to put the most amiable interpretation upon their conduct, 
trying to persuade the ghost, as also one another, that 
they do what they do for fis benefit, not for theirown. It 
is better for him to have rest in his grave than to wander 
about on earth unhappy and homeless. It is better for 
him to enjoy the heat of the flames than to suffer from the 
cold of an arctic climate. It is better for him to be eaten 
by an animal—say, a beautiful dog or a hyzna sent by God 
—than to lie and rot in the open air. And all the mourn- 
ing customs, what are they if not tokens of grief? More- 
over, if the corpse is not properly disposed of or any 
funeral or mourning rite calculated to keep off the ghost 
is not observed, the dead man will easily do harm to the 
survivors. And does not this indicate that they have been 
neglectful of their duties to him? 

The mixture of sympathy and fear which is at the 
bottom of the duties to the dead accounts for the fact that 
these duties are rarely extended to strangers. A departed 
stranger is not generally an object of either pity or fear. 
He expects attention from his own people only, he haunts 
his own home. But he may of course be dangerous to 

Piper ee Cay 

“1 

anybody who directly offends him, for instance by inflicting 
an injury upon his body, or to people who live in the 
vicinity of his grave. We are told that the Angami 
Nagas bestow as much care on the tombs of foes who have 
fallen near their villages as on those of their own warriors.! 
So also the differences in the treatment of the dead which 
depend upon age, sex, and social position are no doubt 
closely connected with variations in the feelings of sym- 
pathy, respect, or fear,’ although in many cases we are 
unable to explain those differences in detail. Among the 
Australian natives women and children are said to be 
interred with little ceremony because they are held to be 
very inferior to men while alive and consequently are not 
much feared after death;*® and if in Eastern Central 
Africa the attention usually bestowed upon the dead is 
not extended to children which die when four or five days 
old, the reason seems to be that such children are hardly 
supposed to possess a soul. We may assume that the 
special treatment to which the bodies of criminals are 
subject is due not only to indignation but, in some 
instances at least, to fear of their ghosts. And we have 
noticed above that suicides, murdered persons, and those 
struck with lightning are sometimes left unburied because 
no one dares to interfere with their bodies, or perhaps in 
order to prevent them from mixing with the other dead.’ 

It should finally be noticed that the duties to the 
departed become less stringent as time goes on. As Dr. 
Hertz has recently shown, the fear of the dead is greatest 
as long as the process of decomposition lasts and till the 
second funeral is performed, and this ceremony brings 
the period of mourning to an end.° - Moreover, the dead 
are gradually less and less thought of, they appear less 
frequently in dreams and visions, the affection for them 
fades away, and, being forgotten, they are no longer 
feared. ‘The Chinese say that ghosts are much more 

1 Prain, ‘ Angami Nagas,’ in Revue 3 Curr, The Australian Race, i. 89. 
colontale internationale, V.»493. 4+ Macdonald, Africana, i. 68. 
2 Gj Valet, (ite, GS jy, IPE 5 Supra, ti. 238 sq. 

132 599. 6 Hertz, loc. cit. passin, 

liable to appear very shortly after death than at any other 
period. The natives of Australia are only afraid of the 
spirits of men who have lately died.’ In the course of 
time savages also become more willing to speak of their 
dead. But whilst the large bulk of disembodied souls 
sooner or later lose their individuality and dwindle into 
insignificance or sink into the limbo of All Souls, it may 
be that some of them escape this fate, and, instead of being 
ignored, are raised to the rank of gods. 

Progress in intellectual culture has a tendency to affect 
the notions of death. The change involved in it appears 
greater. The soul, if still thought to survive the death of 
the body, is more distinctly separated from it ; it is rid 
of all sensuous desires, as also of all earthly interests. 
Duties to the dead which arose from the old ideas may 
still be maintained, but their meaning is changed. 

Thus the funeral sacrifice may be continued as a mark 
of respect or affection. In Melanesia, for instance, at the 
death-meals which follow upon funerals or begin before 
them, and which still form one of the principal insti- 
tutions of the natives, a piece of food is put aside for the 
dead. “It is readily denied now,” says Dr. Codrington, 
“that the dead . . . are thought-to come and eat the 
food, which they say is given as a friendly remembrance 
only, and in the way of associating together those whom 
death has separated.””"* In many cases the offerings made 
to the dead have become alms given to the poor, just as 
has been the case with sacrifices offered to gods ;° and 
this almsgiving 1s undoubtedly looked upon as a duty to 
the dead. Among the Omahas goods are collected from 
the kindred of the dead between the death and the funeral, 
and when the body has been deposited in the grave they 

1 Dennys, of. cit. p. 76. Men of the Apache,’ in Anz. Rep. 
2 Curr, Zhe Australian Race,i. 44, Bur. Ethn. ix. 462. Frazer, Golden 

$7. Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. Bough, i. 431 sqq. 

279 (Northern Queensland aborigines). 4 Codrington, AZelanestans, p. 271 
3 Tout, ‘ Ethnology of theStlatlumh sg. Cf zbzd, p. 128. 

of British Columbia,’ in Jour. Anthr. > Supra, i. 565 sqq. 

Lust, xxxv. 138. Bourke, ‘ Medicine- 

— 

are brought forth and equally divided among the poor 
who are assembled on the spot.’ At a Hindu funeral in 
Sindh, on the road to the burning place, the relatives of 
the dead throw dry dates into the air over the corpse ; 
these are considered as a kind of alms and are left to the 
poor.” Among some peoples of Malabar, at the ¢rdddha, 
or yearly anniversary of a death, not less than three 
Brahmins are well fed and presented with money and 
cloth ;* and according to Brahmanism the ¢rdddha is “a 
debt which is transferred from one generation to another, 
and on the payment of which depends the happiness of the 
dead in the next life.’* Among Muhammedans alms, 
generally consisting of food, are distributedinconnection with 
a death in order to confer merits upon the deceased.° Thus 
in Morocco bread or dried fruits are given to the poor who 
are assembled at the grave-side on the day of the funeral, 
as also on the third and sometimes on the fortieth day 
after it, on the tenth day of Muharram, and in many 
parts of the country on other feast-days as well, when the 
graves are visited by relatives of the dead. ‘These alms 
are obviously survivals of offerings to the dead them- 
selves. While residing among the Bedouins of Dukkala, 
I was told that if the funeral meal were omitted the dead 
man’s mouth would be filled with earth; and it is a 
common custom among the Moors that, if a dead person 
appears in a dream complaining of hunger or thirst, food 
or drink is at once given to some poor people. Among 
the Christians, in former days, alms were distributed in 
the church when, soon after a death or on the anniversary 
of a death, the sacrifice of the mass was offered ; and alms 
were also given at funerals and at graves, in the hope that 
their merit might be of advantage to the deceased.® At 
Mykonos, in the Cyclades, on some fixed days after the 

4 La Flesche, in Jour. American 4 Barth, Religions of India, p. 52. 
Folk- Lore, ii. 8 sqq. 5 Garnett, Women of Turkey, i. 

2 Burton, Szzdh, p. 350. 496. Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 

3 Fawcett, ‘Notes on some of the 530. Certeux and Carnoy, L’ Algérie 
People of Malabar,’ in the Madras  ¢radztzonnelle, p. 220, 

Government Museum’s #z/etin, iii. 6 Uhlhorn, De christliche Liebes- 
ple thatigkert, i. 281. 

burial a dish consisting of boiled wheat adorned with 
sugar plums or other delicacy is put on the tomb, and 
finally distributed to the poor at the church door ;* and 
in some parts of Russia the people still believe that if the 
usual alms are not given at a funeral the dead man’s soul 
will reveal itself to his relatives in the form of a moth 
flying about the flame of a candle.* The supposed 
conferring of merits upon the dead and the prayers on 
their behalf, so common both in Christianity and Muham- 
medanism, are the last remains of a series of customs by 
means of which the living have endeavoured to benefit 
their departed friends. 

But even when the dead are no longer believed to be in 
need of human care, nay, though death be thought to put 
an end to existence, there are still duties, if not to the 
dead, at all events to those who were once alive. A 
person may be wronged by an act which he can no longer 
feel, There are rights that are in force not only during 
his lifetime but after his death. A given promise is not 
buried with him to whom it was made. A dead man’s will 
is binding. His memory is protected against calumny, 
These rights have the same foundation as all other 
rights : the feelings of the person himself and the claims of 
others that his feelings shall be respected. We have 
wishes with regard to the future when we live no more. 
We take an interest in persons and things that survive 
us. We desire to leave behind a spotless name. And the 
sympathy felt for us by our fellow men will last when we 
ourselves are gone. 

1 Bent, Cyclades, p. 221 sq. ? Ralston, of. czt. p. 117. 

hcl 
sy 
> = 
Ya 
x

CANNIBALISM 

Berore we take leave of the dead we have still to 
consider the practice of eating them. 

Habitual cannibalism, permitted or in some cases 
enjoined by custom, has been met with in a large number 
of savage tribes and, as a religious or magical rite, among 
several peoples of culture. It is, or has been, particularly 
prevalent in the South Sea Islands, Australia, Central 
Africa, and South and Central America But it has also 
been found among various North American Indians, in 
certain tribes of the Malay Archipelago, and among a few 

peoples on the Asiatic continent. 

And it is proved to 

have occurred in many parts of Europe.’ 

' For the prevalence and extension 
of cannibalism, see Andree, Dze Anthro- 
pophagie, p. 1 sgg.; Bergemann, Deze 
Verbreitung der Anthropophagze, p. 5 
sqq.; Steinmetz, Endokannibalismits, p. 
2 sgg. ; Schneider, Dze Naturvolher, i. 
121 sgg. 3 Letourneau, L’évolution de 
la morale, p. 82 sqg.; Ritson, Adbstin- 
ence from Animal Food, p. 125 sqy. ; 
Hartland, Legend of Perseus, i. 279 
sqq- 3; Schaafhausen, ‘Die Menschen- 
fresserei und das Menschenopfer,’ in 
Archiv f. Anthropologie, iv. 248 sqq. ; 
Henkenius, ‘Verbreitung der Anthro- 
pophagie,’ in Deztsche Rundschau f. 
Geographie u. Statistik, xv. 348 sqg. ; 
de Nadaillac, ‘ L’Anthropophagie et 
les sacrifices humains,’ in Mevue des 
Deux Mondes, \xvi. 406 sqq. 3 zden, in 
Bulletins de la Soc. & Anthrop. de 
Paris, 1888, p. 27 sgqg.; Dorman, 

Origin of Primitive Superstitions, p. 
145 sgg. (American aborigines) ; Koch, 
‘Die Anthropophagie der siidameri- 
kanischen Indianer,’ in /7¢ernationales 
Archiv ‘f. Ethnographie, xii. 84 sqq. ; 
Preuss, Die Begrabnisarten der Amere- 
haner und Nordostasiaten, p. 217 sgq.3 
Vos, ‘ Die Verbreitung der Anthropo- 
phagie auf dem asiatischen Festlande,’ 
in ILntern. Archiv f. Ethnogr. iii. 
69 sgg.; de Groot, Religious System 
of China, (vol. iv. book) ii. 363 sgg. 5 
Hiibbe-Schleiden, Z7¢hzopzen, p. 209 
sgg. ; Matiegka, ‘ Anthropophagie in 
der prihistorischen Ansiedlung bei 
Knovize und in der prahistorischen Zeit 
iiberhaupt,’ in Aditthecl. d. Anthrop. 
Gesellsch. tn Wien, xxvi. 129 sqg.3 
Wood-Martin, Zvaces of the Elder 
Faiths of Ireland, ii. 286 sqq. 

Sometimes the whole body is eaten, with the exception 
of the bones, sometimes only a part of it, as the liver or 
the heart. Frequently the victim is an enemy or a 
member of a foreign tribe, but he may also be a relative 
or fellow tribesman. Among various savages exo- and 
endo-anthropophagy prevail simultaneously ; but many 
cannibals restrict themselves to eating strangers, slain 
enemies, or captives taken in war, whereas others eat their 
own people in preference to strangers, or are exclusively 
endo-anthropophagous. ‘Thus the Birhors of the Central 
Provinces of India are said to eat their aged relatives, but 
to abhor any other form of cannibalism ;* and in certain 
Australian tribes it is not the dead bodies of slain enemies 
that are eaten, but the bodies of friends, the former being 
left where they fell.2 Sometimes people feed on the 
corpses of such kinsmen as have happened to die, 
sometimes they kill and eat their old folks, sometimes 
parents eat their children, sometimes criminals are eaten 
by the other members of their own community. The Aus- 
tralian Dieyerie have a fixed order in which they partake 
of their dead relatives:—“ The mother eats of her 
children. The children eat of their mother. Brothers-: 
in-law and sisters-in-law eat of each other. Uncles, 
aunts, nephews, nieces, grandchildren, grandfathers, and 
grandmothers eat of each other. But the father does not 
eat of his offspring, or the offspring of the sire.” * 
Among some peoples cannibalism is an_ exclusively 
masculine custom, the women being forbidden to eat human 
flesh, except perhaps in quite exceptional circumstances.* 

1 Dalton, Zthnology of Bengal, p. + Coquilhat, Sur le Haut-Congo, p. 
220 sq. 274 (Bangala). Torday and Joyce, 
2 Palmer, ‘Some Australian Tribes,’ ‘Ethnography of the Ba-Mbala,’ in 

in Jour, Anthr. /nst. xii. 283; Fraser,  _Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxv. 403 sq. Tidem, 
Aborigines of New South Wales, p. ‘Ethnography of the Ba-Huana, zdzd. 
56; Howitt, Vative Tribes of South-  xxxvi. 279. Reade, Savage Africa, p. 
East Australia, p. 753 (Queensland 158 (West Equatorial Africans). Thom- 

aborigines). Dawson, Azstralian son, Story of New Zealand, i. 145; 
Aborigines, p. 67 (tribes of Western Best, Art of War, as conducted by 
Victoria). the Mi aori,’ in Jour. Polynesian Soc. 

3 Gason, ‘Dieyerie Tribe,’ in Woods, xi. 71 (some of the Maoris). von Langs- 

Native Tribes of South Austraha, p.  dorf, op. ctt. i. 134 (Nukahivans). 
274. Erskine, Cruzse among the Islands of 

The practice of cannibalism may be traced to many 
different sources. It often springs from scarcity or lack 
of animal food.t’ In the South Sea Islands, according to 
Ellis, “the cravings of nature, and the pangs of famine, 
often led to this unnatural crime.” ? The Nukahivans, 
who were in the habit of eating their enemies slain in 
battle, also killed and ate their wives and children in 
times of scarcity, but not unless forced to it by the 
utmost necessity. Hunger has been represented as the 
motive for cannnibalism in some North and West 
Australian tribes, parents sometimes consuming even 
their own children when food is scarce. The Indians 
north of Lake Superior often resorted to the eating of 
human flesh when hard pressed by their enemies or 
during a famine.? Among the Hudson Bay Eskimo 
‘instances are reported where, in times of great scarcity, 
families have been driven to cannibalism after eating their 
dogs and the clothing and other articles made of skins.” ° 

But whilst among some peoples starvation is the only 
inducement to cannibalism, there are others who can plead 
no such motive for their anthropophagous habits. The 
Fijians, until lately some of the greatest man-eaters 
on earth, inhabit a country where food of every kind 
abounds." The Brazilian cannibals generally have a great 

CANNIBALISM 

Western Pacific, p. 260 (Fijians). pp. 304 sg. 
Spencer and Gillen, Morthern Tribes 2 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, 1. 
of Central Australia, p. 548. With 359. 

reference to the natives of Australia 
Mr. Curr says (Zhe Australian Race, 
i. 77) that ‘‘ human flesh seems to have 
been entirely forbidden to females” ; 
but this certainly does not hold true of 
all the Australian tribes. 

1 Bergemann, of. czt. p. 48. de 
Nadaillac, in Bull. Soc. d@ Anthr. 1888, 
p. 27 sgg. Idem, in Revue des Deux 
Mondes, \xvi. 428 sg. Steinmetz, 
Endokunnibalismus, p. 25 sqgg. Lip- 
pert, Kelturgeschichle der Menschhett, 
li. 281 sgg. Wenkenius, foc. czt. p. 
348 sg. Letourneau, L’évolution de la 
Morale, p. 97. Matiegka, Zoc. cit. p. 
136. Hiibbe-Schleiden, A¢hzopzen, p. 
216 sg. Rochas, La Nouvelle Calédonie, 

3 von Langsdorf, of. czt. 1. 144. 

* Lumholtz, Among Cannibals, p. 
134. Nisbet, A Colonial Tramp, ii. 
143. Oldfield, ‘Aborigines of Aus- 
tralia,’ in Zrans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. iii. 
285. In hard summers the new-born 
babies were all eaten by the Kaura 
tribe in the neighbourhood of Adelaide 
(Howitt, of. czt. p. 749). 

5 Warren, in Schoolcraft, Jndian 
Tribes of the United States, ii. 146. 

6 Turner, ‘ Ethnology of the Ungava 
District,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. thn. xi. 
187. 

7 Williams and Calvert, 772, p. 182. 
Erskine, of. czt. p. 262. 

plenty of game or fish.' In Africa cannibalism prevails 
in many countries which are well supplied with food.’ 
Thus the Bangala of the Upper Congo have been known 
to make frequent warlike expeditions against adjoining 
tribes seemingly for the sole object of obtaining human 
flesh to eat, although their. land is well provided with a 
variety of vegetable food and domestic animals, to 
say nothing of the incredible abundance of fish in its 
lakes and rivers. Of the cave-cannibals in the Trans- 
Gariep Country, 1 in South Africa, a traveller remarks with 
some surprise :—‘‘ They were inhabiting a fine agricultural 
tract of country, which also abounded in game. Notwith- 
standing this, they were not contented with hunting and 
feeding upon their enemies, but preyed much upon each 
other also, for many of their captures were made from 
amongst the people of their own tribe.”* Far from 
being an article of food resorted to in emergency only, 
human flesh is not seldom sought for as a delicacy.” 
The highest praise which the Fijians could bestow on a 
dainty was to say that it was ‘“‘ tender as a dead man.” © 
In various other islands of the South Seas human flesh is 
spoken of as a delicious food, far superior to pork." The 

1 von Martius, Beztrage zur Ethno- Joyce, ‘Ba-Mbala,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
graphie Amertka’s, i. 538. Koch, loc. Just. xxxv. 404. Jidem, ‘Ba-Huana,’ 
ctt. p. 87. de Nadaillac, in Bzd/. Soc. zbid. xxxvi. 279. 

@ Anthr. 1888, p. 30 sq. 6 Wilkes, U. S. Exploring Expedi- 

2 Johnston, ‘ Ethics of Cannibalism,’ —¢zov, iii. tor. Cf Williams and Calvert, 
in fortnightly Review, N.S. xlv. 20 of. cé¢. pp»175, 178, 195. 

sqgq. Ulibbe-Schleiden, A¢hzopcen, p. 7 Romilly, Western Pacific, p. 59 
212. de Nadaillac, in Aull. Soc. (New Irelanders). Idem, From my 
@ Anthr. 1888, p. 32 sg. Verandah in New Guinea, p. 65. 

3 Coquilhat, of. cz¢. pp. 271, 273. Brenchley, Crazse of H.M.S. Curacoa, 
Johnston, in Fortnightly Review, N.S. _p. 209; Turner, Samoa, p. 313 (natives 

xlv. 20. of Tana, in the New Hebrides). Cf 
4 Layland, quoted by Burton, Zzwo zbzd. p. 344 (New Caledonians) ; Hale, 
Trips to Gorilla Land, 1. 216. U.S. Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI. 

> Bergemann, op. cit. p. 49 sg. von  Lthnography and Philology, p. 39 
Langsdorf, of. cet. i. 141. Hitibbe- (Polynesians). The Bataks of Sumatra 
Schleiden, Z¢Azopien, p. 218. Johnston, likewise consider human flesh even 
in Fortnightly Review, N.S. xlv. better than pork (Junghuhn, Dée Bat- 

20 sgg. (various African peoples).  ¢alinder auf Sumatra, ii. 160 sq.). For 
Kingsley, Zravels ex West Africa, p. the high appreciation of its taste see 

330 (Fans). Reade, of. czt. p. 158 also Marco Polo, Book concerning the 
(West Equatorial Africans). Coquilhat, A?xgdoms and Marvels of the East, ii. 
p. cit. p. 2701 (Bangala). Tordayand 179 (hill people in Fokien), 209 

x 

CANNIBALISM 

D7. 

Australian Kurnai said that it tasted better than beef.! 
In some tribes in Australia a plump child is considered “a 
sweet mouthful, and, in the absence of the mother, clubs 
in the hands of a few wilful men will soon lay it low.” ? 
Of certain natives of Northern Queensland we are told 
that the greatest incentive to taking life is their appetite 
for human flesh, as they know no greater luxury than the 
flesh of a black man.?® 

However, bodily appetites, whether hunger or 
gourmandise, are by no means the sole motives for 
cannibalism. Very frequently it is described as an act of 
revenge.« The Typees of the Marquesas Islands, 
according to Melville, are cannibals only when they seek 
to gratify the passion of revenge upon their foes.? The 
cannibalism of the Solomon Islanders seems mainly to 
have been an expression of the deepest humiliation to 
which they could make a person subject.° The Samoans 
affirmed that, when in some of their wars a body was 
occasionally cooked, “it was always some one of the 
enemy who had been notorious for provocation or cruelty, 
and that eating a part of his body was considered the 
climax of hatred and revenge, and was not occasioned by 
the mere relish for human flesh.” To speak of roasting 
(Islanders in the Seas of China); 

Schaafhausen, Joc. cit. p. 247 Sg.3 
Matiegka, /oc. czt. p. 136, n. 3. 

(Negroes). Burton, Zwo Trips to 
Gorilla Land, i. 216 (natives of Bonny 
and New Calabar). Miiller, Geschzchte 

1 Howitt, of. cét. p. 752. 

2 Fraser, Aborigines of New South 
Wales, pp. 3, 57- 

3 Lumholtz, op. cet. pp. 101, 271. 

4 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, 1. 
310 (Tahitians). von Langsdorf, of. 
cet. i, 149 (Nukahivans). Forster, 
Voyage round the World, i. 315 
(natives of Tana and generally). Powell, 
Wanderings in a Wild Country, p. 
248 (natives of New Britain and New 
Ireland). Howitt, Malzves of South- 
Last Australia, pp. 247,751. Marsden, 
History of Sumatra, p. 391; Buning, 
in Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago, 
p- 74 sg.; Junghuhn, of. cz. il. 156, 
160 (Bataks). de Groot, of. czt. (vol. 
iv. book) ii. 369 sgg. (ancient Chinese). 
Schneider, Die Leligton der afrika- 
nischen Naturvilker, p. 208 sg. 

der Amertkanischen Urreligionen, p. 
145 sg. Carver, Travels through the 
Intertor Parts of North America, p. 
303 sg. (Naudowessies). Keating, Ax- 
pedition to the Source of St. Peter's 
River, i. 104 (Potawatomis). Koch, 
loc. cit. pp. 87, 89 sgg. (South Ameri- 
can tribes). von Humboldt, Zvavels 
to the Equinoctial Regions of the New 
Continent, v. 421 (Indians of Guyana). 
Wied-Neuwied, Reise nach Brasilien, 
ii. 50 (Botocudos and some other 
Brazilian tribes). Lomonaco, ‘ Sulle 
razze indigene del Brasile,’ in Avchzvio 
per Vantropologia eé la etnologta, xix. 
58 (Tupis). Andree, of. c7t. p. 102 
sg. and passim. 

5 Melville, Zyfee, p. 181. 

6 Parkinson, Zur Lthnographie der 
nordwestlichen Salomo Lnseln, p. 14. 

CANNIBALISM 

him is the very worst language that can be addressed to a 
Samoan, and if applied to a chief of importance, he may 
raise war to avenge the insult.’ Among the Maoris 
human flesh was frequently eaten from motives of revenge 
and hatred, to cast disgrace on the person eaten, and to 
strike terror. “It was such a disgrace for a New 
Zealander to have his body eaten, that if crews of English- 
men and New Zealanders, all friends, were dying of 
starvation in separate ships, the English might resort to 
cannibalism, but the New Zealanders never would.” ? 
Even in Fiji, where cannibalism was largely indulged in for 
the mere pleasure of eating human flesh as food, revenge is 
said to have been the chief motive for it.’ Thus, “in any 
transaction where the national honour had to be avenged, 
it was incumbent upon the king and principal chiefs—in 
fact, a duty they owed to their exalted station—to avenge 
the insult offered to the country by eating the perpetrators 
Oinitsiea 

The practice of eating criminals, which is quite a 
common form of cannibalism, seems to be largely due to 
revenge or indignation.” In Lepers’ Island, in the New 
Hebrides, the victims of it were not generally enemies 
who had been killed in fighting, but “it was a murderer 
or particularly detested enemy who was eaten, in anger 
and to treat him ill.”° Among the Bataks of Sumatra 
offenders condemned for certain capital crimes, such as 
atrocious murder, treason, and adultery, were usuall 
eaten by the injured persons and their friends with all 
the signs of angry passion.’ But this form of cannibalism 
may also have another foundation.® If for any reason 
there is a desire to eat human flesh, an unsympathetic 
being like a criminal is apt to be chosen as a victim. 

1 Turner, Mneteen Years in Poly- 
nesta, p. 194. Cf. Pritchard, Poly- 
nestan Reminiscences, p. 125 Sq. 

2 Thomson, Story of New Zealand, 
1. 141 sgg. Yate, Account of New 
Zealand, p. 129. Dieffenbach, Z7aveds 
in New Zealand, ii. 128. Taylor, Ze 
Tha a Maut, p. 353. Best, in Jour. 
Polynesian Soc. xi. 71 Sq. 

3 Wilkes, of. cz¢. ili. IOT. 
and Calvert, of. cz¢. p. 178. 

4 Seemann, /7¢z, p. 181. 

5 Cf. Matiegka, loc. czt. p. 137. 

8 Codrington, AZelaneséans, p. 344. 

7 Marsden, of. cz¢. p. 391. Junghuhn, 
op. ctt. ii, 156 Sq. 

8 See Steinmetz, of. czt. p. 55 sg. 

Williams 

lhe aie isu capes 

CANNIBALISM 

ony. 

It is said that some of the Line Islanders in the South 
Seas began their cannibalism by eating thieves and slaves.' 
In Melanesia, where human sacrifices were combined with 
the eating of bits of the victim, “advantage was taken of 
a crime, or imputed crime, to take a life and offer the 
man to some f¢indalo.”’? 

It has been questioned whether cannibalism can be a 
direct expression of hatred ;* but for no good reason. 
To eat a person is, according to primitive ideas, to anni- 
hilate him as an individual,* and we can readily imagine 
the triumphant feelings of a savage who has his enemy 
between his jaws. The Fijian eats in revenge even the 
vermin which bite him, and when a thorn pricks him he 
picks it out of his flesh and eats it. The Cochin-Chinese 
express their deepest hatred of a person by saying, “I 
wish I could eat his liver or his flesh.” ° Other people 
want to “drink the blood ” of their enemies. 

The idea that a person is annihilated or loses his 
individuality by being eaten has led to cannibalism not 
only in revenge but as an act of protection, as a method 
of making a dangerous individual harmless after death.’ 
Among the Botocudos warriors devoured the bodies of 
their fallen enemies in the belief that they would thus 
be safe from the revengeful hatred of the dead.& In 
Ashantee “‘ several of the hearts of the enemy are cut out 
by the fetish men who follow the army, and the blood 
and small pieces being mixed (with much ceremony and 
incantation) with various consecrated herbs, all those who 
have never killed an enemy before eat a portion, for it is 
believed that if they did not, their vigour and courage 
would be secretly wasted by the haunting spirit of the 

1 Tutuila, ‘ Line Islanders,’ in /ozr. 
Polynesian Soc. i, 270. 

2 Codrington, of. cz¢. p. 135. 

3 Steinmetz, of. czt. p. 33. 

4 Dieffenbach, of. cit. ii. 118 
(Maoris). Johnston, in Sortnightly 
Review, N. S. xlv. 27 (Negroes of the 
Niger Delta). Koch, doc. czt. pp. 87, 
tog. Lippert, Der Seelencult, p. 69. 
Idem, Kulturgeschichte der Menschhett, 

ll. 282 5g. 

5 Pritchard, of. cé¢, p. 371. 

8 von Langsdorf, of. c2t. i. 148. 

’ Cf. Lippert, Kulturgeschichte der 
Menschhett, ii. 282; Koch, loc. cit. 
pp. 87, 109. 

8 Featherman, Soczal History of Man- 
kind, ‘Chiapo- and Guarano-Maranon- 
jans,’ p. 355. 

CANNIBALISM 

deceased.””! In Greenland ‘‘a slain man is said to have 
the power to avenge himself upon the murderer by 

‘rushing into him,’ which can only be prevented by eating 
a piece of his liver.”? Many cannibals are in the habit 
of consuming that part of a slain enemy which is supposed 
to contain his soul or courage or strength, and one reason 
for this practice may be the wish to render him incapable 
of doing further harm. Queensland natives eat the 
kidneys of the persons whom they have killed, believing 
that “the kidneys are the centre of life.”* Among the 
Maoris a chief was often satisfied with the left eye of his 
enemy, which they considered to be the seat of the oe 
or they drank the blood from a corresponding belief ;* or 
in the case of a blood feud the heart of the enemy, it 
senting the vital essence of him, was eaten “to fix or 
make firm the victory and the courage of the victor.” ° 
Other peoples likewise eat the hearts or suck the brains of 
their foes. 

Moreover, by eating the supposed seat of a certain 
quality in hig enemy the cannibal thinks not only that he 
deprives his victim of that quality, but also that he 
incorporates it with his own system.° In many cases this is 
the chief or the only reason for the practice of cannibalism. 
The Shoshone Indians supposed that they became 
animated by the heroic spirit of a fallen foe if they partook 
of his flesh.’ Among the Hurons, if an enemy had 
shown courage, his heart, roasted and cut into small pieces, 

1 Bowdich, AZ@sszon to Ashantee, p. 
300. 

2 Rink, Zales and Traditions of the 
Eskimo, p. 45. 

® Lumholtz, of. cét. p. 272. 

4 Dieffenbach, of. cz#. 11. 128 sg. 

5 Best, in Jour. Polynestan Soc. xi. 
83, 147. 

§ Blumentritt, ‘ Der Ahnencultus der 
Malaien des Philippinen-Archipels,’ in 
Mittheil. d. kats. u. konig. Geograph. 
Gesellsch. in Wren, xxv. 154 (Italones). 
Lewin, Weld Races of South-Eastern 
India, p. 269 (Kukis). de Groot, of. 
Cite (vol. iv. book) i. 373 sgg. (ancient 
Chinese). 

Schneider, Die Religion der 

afrikunischen Naturvilker, p. 209 sq. 
(Negroes). Dorman, of, cz. p. 145 sg. 
(North American Indians). Keating, 
op. cit. 1. 104 (Potawatomis). Koch, 
loc. cit. pp. 87, 89 sgg., 109 (South 
American Indians). Andree, of. cit. 
p. IoI sg. and passtm. Lippert, Der 
Seelencult, p. 70 sqgy. Idem, Kultur- 

geschichte, 11. 282. Trumbull, Blood 
Covenant, p. 128 sgg. Frazer, Golden 
Bough, i. 357 sgg. Gomme, £¢h- 

nology in Kolklore, p. 151 sgg. Crawley, 
Mystic Rose, p. 101 sgq. 

7 Featherman, of. été. 
Maranonians,’ p. 206. 

© Aoneo- 

was given to the young men and boys to eat.!. The Ewe- 
speaking peoples of the Slave Coast used to eat the hearts 
of foes remarkable for sagacity, holding that the heart is 
the seat of the intellect as well as of courage.” Among 
the Kimbunda of South-Western Africa, when a new 
king succeeds to the throne, a brave prisoner of war is 
killed in order that the king and nobles nay eat his flesh, 
and so acquire his strength and courage.* The idea of 
transference very largely underlies Australian cannibalism.’ 

In some tribes enemies are consumed with a Es to 
acquiring some part of their qualities and courage.® The 
Dieyerie devour the fatty portions of their foes because 
they think it will impart strength to them.’ And similar 
motives are often given for the practice of eating relatives 
or friends. When a man is. killed in one of the 
ceremonial fights in the tribes about Maryborough, 1 

Queensland, his friends skin and eat him in the hope that 
his virtues as a warrior may go into those who partake of 
him.’ Among the natives of the River Darling, in New 
South Wales, a piece of flesh is cut from the dead body 
and taken to the camp, and after being sun-dried is cut up 
into small pieces, which are distributed among the relatives 
and friends of the deceased. Some of them use the 
piece in making a charm, or throw it into the river to 
bring a flood and fish, but others suck it to get strength 
and courage.* In certain Central Australian tribes, when 
a party starts on an avenging expedition, every man of 
it drinks some blood and also has some spurted over 
his body, so as to make him lithe and active ; the elder men 

- 

1 Parkman, Jesuits te North Amer- 5 Howitt, Mateve Tribes of Souuth- 
2ca, P. XXXiX. Last Australia, p. 752. 

2 Ellis, Zwe-speaking Peoples of the 6 Gason, in four. Anthr. Inst. 
Slave Coast, p. 100. XXIV. 172. 

3 Magyar, Reisen in Siid-Afrika, p. 7 Howitt, of. czt. p. 753. McDonald, 
D7 “Mode of Preparing the Dead among 

i ares Aborigines of New South the Natives of the Upper Mary River, 
Wales, pp. 56, 81. Brough Smyth, Queensland,’ in Jour, Anthr. Lnst. ii. 
Aborigines of Victoria, 1. p. XXxvilil. 179. 
Howitt, ‘ Australian Medicine Men,’ 8 Bonney, ‘ Aborigines of the River 
in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xvi. 30. Langloh Darling,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xiii. 
Parker, Huahlayi Tribe, p. 38. Gason, 135. 

: Dieyerie Tribe,’ in Curr, Opuciet. UW. 52) 

VOL. Il (@) XO) 

indicate from whom the blood is to be drawn, and the 
persons thus selected must not decline.* In certain South 
Australian tribes ‘cannibalism is only practised by old men 
and women, who eat a baby in order to get the youngster’s 
strength. Among other natives of the same continent, 
as we have noticed above, a mother used to kill and eat her 
first child, as this was believed to strengthen her for later 
births.2 And in various Australian tribes it is, or has 
been, the custom when a child is weak or sickly to kill its 
infant brother or sister and feed it with the flesh to make 
it strong. Many of the Brazilian Indians are in the 
habit of burning the bones of their departed relatives, 

-and mix the ashes with a drink of which they partake for 
the purpose of absorbing their spirits or virtues.” Dr. 
Couto de Magalhaes was informed that the savage 
Chavantes “eat their children who die, in the hope of 
gathering again to their body the soul of the child.” ° 

The belief in the principle of transference has also led 
to cannibalism in connection with human sacrifice and to 
the eating of man-gods. At Florida, in the Solomon 
Islands, human flesh was eaten in sacrifice only.’ In 
Hawaii, “ aprés le sacrifice, le peuple, qui d’ailleurs ne fut 
jamais anthropophage, pratiquait une sorte de communion 
en mangeant certaines parties dela victime.”* In West 
Equatorial Africa, according to Mr. Winwood Reade, 
there are two kinds of cannibalism—the one is simply an 

1 Spencer and Gillen, Walive Tribes La France équinoxiale, ii. 173 (Cob- 

of Central Australia, p. 461. 

2 Crauford, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 
SIN. INIA 

3 Supra, i. 458. 

4 Howitt, Mative Tribes of South- 
Last Australia, p. 749 sg. (all the 
tribes of the Wotjo nation, and the 
Tatathi and other tribes on the Murray 
River frontage). Stanbridge, ‘ Tribes 
in the Central Part of Victoria,’ in 
Trans. Lthn: Soc. omdon. Naser ls 
289. Spencer and Gillen, Wateve Trzbes 
of Central Australia, pp. 52, 475 (Lu- 
ritcha tribe). 

5 Wallace, Zravels on the Amazon, 
p- 498 (Tarianas, Tucanos, and some 
other tribes of the Uaupés). Coudreau, 

béos, of the Uaupés). Monteiro, quoted 
by von Spix and von Martius, Lezse 77 
Brasilien, ii. 1207, n. * (Jumanas). 
Koch, /oc. cet. p® 83 sg. Dorman, of. 
Ci Oy asic 

5 Couto de Magalhaes, Zvabalho 
preparatorio para aproveitamento do 
selvagent edo solo por elle occupado no 
Brazl—O selvagem, p. 132. Cf. de 
Castelnau, Lxpédztion dans les parties 
centrales de? Amérique du Sud, iv. 382 
(Camacas). 

7 Codrington, of. czt. p. 343. See 
also Geiseler, Dze Oster-Insel, p. 30 sq. 
(Easter Islanders). 

® Remy, Aa Movolelo Hawai, p. xl. 

es 

CANNIBALISM 

act of gourmandise, the other is sacrificial and is 
performed by the priests, whose office it is to eat a 
portion of the victims, whether men, goats, or fowls. 
And this sacrificial cannibalism is not restricted to the 
priests. In British Nigeria “no great human sacrifice 
offered for the purpose of appeasing the gods and 
averting sickness or misfortune is considered to be 
complete unless either the priests or the people eat the 
bodies of the victims” ;* and among the Aro people in 
Southern Nigeria the human victims offered to the god 
were eaten by all the people, the flesh being distributed 
throughout their country. The inhabitants of the 
province of Caranque, in ancient Peru, likewise consumed 
the flesh of those whom they sacrificed to their gods.‘ 
The Aztecs ate parts of the human bodies whose blood 
had been poured out on the altar of sacrifice,’ and so did 
the Mayas.° In Nicaragua the high-priests received the 
heart, the king the feet and hands, he who captured the 
victim took the thighs, the sane were given to the 
trumpeters, and the rest was divided among the people.’ 
In ancient India it was a prevalent opinion that he who 
offered a human victim in sacrifice should partake of its 
flesh ; though, in opposition to this view, it was also said 
that a man cannot be allowed, much less required, to eat 
human flesh. The sacrificial form of cannibalism 
obviously springs from the idea that a victim offered to a 
supernatural being participates in his sanctity ® and from 
the wish of the worshipper to transfer to himself some- 
thing of its benign virtue. So also the divine qualities of 
a man-god are supposed to be assimilated by the person who 

Lectures on the Religions of Mexzco 
and Peru, p. 89. Bancroft, Vatzve 
Races of the Pacific States, i. 176 5 iil. 

1 Reade, op. cit. p. 158. See also 
Schneider, Dze Religion der afrika- 
nischen Naturvolker, p. 209 sq. 

2 Mockler-Ferryman, Sridish Ni- 
geria, p. 261. 

3 Partridge, Cross River Natives, p. 
m4 Ranking, Researches on the Con- 
guest of Peru, p. 89. 

5 Prescott, Wzstory of the Conquest 
Réville, Azbbert 

of Mexico, p. 4I. 

443 99. : 

® Bancroft, of. cz¢. il. 725. 

 Jbed. i. 725. 

8 Weber, ‘ Ueber Menschenopfer bei 
den Indern der vedischen Zeit,’ in 
Indische Streifen, i. 72 sq. 

9 See supra, i. 445 sg. 

ORO ey? 

CANNIBALISM 

eats his flesh or drinks his blood.! This was the idea of 
the early Christians concerning the Eucharist. In the holy 
food they assumed a real bestowal of heavenly gifts, a bodily 
self-communication of Christ, a miraculous implanting of 
divine life. The partaking of the consecrated elements 
had no special relation to.the forgiveness of sins ; but 
it strengthened faith and knowledge, and, especially, it 
was the guarantee of eternal life, because the body of 
Christ was eternal. The holy food was described as the 
“medicine of immortality.” ° 

In various other instances human flesh or blood is 
supposed to have a supernatural or medicinal effect 
upon him who partakes of it. The Banks’ Islanders in 
Melanesia believe that a man or woman may obtain a 
power like that of Vampires by stealing and eating a 
morsel of a corpse ; the ghost of the dead man would 
then “join in a close friendship with the person who had 
eaten, and would gratify him by afflicting 7 one against 
whom his ghostly power might be directed.” Australian 
sorcerers are said to acquire ieee magic influence by eating 
human flesh. The Egyptian natives who accompanied 
Baker on one of his expeditions imagined that the rite of 
consuming an enemy’s liver would give a fatal direction 
to a random bullet. Among the aborigines of Tasmania 
a man’s blood was often administered as a healing 
draught.° In China the heart, the liver, the gall, and the 
blood of executed criminals are used for life-strengthening 

purposes ;‘ thus 

ae 
at Peking, 

when a person has been 

executed by the sword, certain large pith balls are steeped 

in the blood and, under the name of ‘ blood-bread,”’ 
a medicine for consumption.* 

sold as 
Tertullian speaks of those 

“who at the gladiatorial shows, for the cure of epilepsy, 

1 See Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 
353, 300. ; 

® Harnack, Hestory of Dogma, i. 211 3 
ii. 144 sgg.3 iv. 286, 291, 294, 206, 
297, 299 Sq. 

* Codrington, of. cz¢. p. 221 sq. 

4 Eyre, Lxpeditions of Discovery 
wnto Central Australia, ii. 255. 

352, 

° Baker, /smazlia, p. 393. 

6 Bonwick, Dazly Life and Origin of 
the Tasmanians, p. 89. 
“ de Groot, of. czt. (vol. iv. book) ii 
377: 

8 Rennie, quoted by Yule, in his 
translation of Marco Polo, i. 275, n. 7. 

" XLVI 

quaff with greedy thirst the blood of criminals slain 
in the arena, as it flows fresh from the wound.”! So 
also in Christian Europe the blood of criminals has been 
drunk as a remedy against epilepsy, fever, and other 
diseases.” In these cases the ascription of a healing effect 
to the blood of the dead may perhaps have been derived 
from a belief in the transference of some quality which they 
possessed in their lifetime ; the blood or life of a sound 
and strong individual might impart health to the sickly. 
But the mystery of death would also give to the corpse a 
miraculous power of its own, especially when combined 
with the horror or awe inspired by an executed felon. 

In other instances, again, the belief in the wonderful 
effects of cannibal practices may have originated in the 
notion that, if a person or the essential part of him is eaten, 
he ceases to exist even as a spirit, or at all events loses 
his power of doing mischief. Among the Indians of 
British Guiana, when a man is pointed out as the secret 
murderer of a relative who has died, the avenger will 
shoot him through the back ; and if he happens to fall 
dead to the ground, his corpse is dragged aside and buried 
in a shallow grave. The third night the avenger goes 
to the grave and presses a pointed stick through the 
corpse ; and if on withdrawing the stick he finds blood on 
the end of it, he tastes the blood in order to ward off any 
evil effects that might follow from the murder, returning 
home appeased and apparently at ease. But if it happens 
that the wounded individual is able to escape, he charges 
his relatives to bury him after his death in some place 
where he cannot be found. This is to punish the 
murderer for his deed, ‘“‘inasmuch as the belief prevails, 
that if he taste not the blood he must perish by 
madness.” * In Prussia it was a popular superstition that 

1 Tertullian, Afologetecus, 9 (Migne, 
Patrologia cursus, 1. 321 sq.). 

2 Strack, Der Blutaberglaube in der 
Wuttke, Der 

Menschhett, p. 27 sqq. 
deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegen- 
wart, § 189 sgg., p- 137 Sg. Jahn, 
‘Ueber den Zauber mit Menschenblut,’ 

in Verhandl. d. Berliner Gesellsch. f. 
Anthrop. 1888, p. 134 sgg. Havelock 
Ellis, Zhe Crimznal, p. 284. Peacock, 
‘Executed Criminals and Folk-Medi- 
cine,’ in Holk-Lore, vil. 270 sy. 

3% Bernau, Adisstonary Labours tn 
Lritish Guiana, p. 57 sq. 

if a murderer cut off, roasted, and ate a piece of his 
victim’s body, he would never after think of his deed.t 
But by eating a part of the corpse a homicide may also 
protect himself against the vengeance of the survivors, 
presumably because he has now absorbed their relative 
into his own system.” The natives of New Britain eat 
their enemies and fix the leg and arm bones of the victims 
at the butt end of their spears, believing that this not 
only gives them the strength of the man whose bones they 
carry but also makes them invulnerable by his relatives.’ 
The Botocudos thought that by devouring their fallen 
enemies they both protected themselves from the hatred 
of the dead and at the same time prevented the arrows ot 
the hostile tribe from hitting them.* In Greenland the 
relatives of a murdered person, when highly enraged, will 
cut to pieces the body of the murderer and devour part 
of the heart or liver, “thinking thereby to disarm his 
relatives of all courage to attack them.” ® In the South 
of Italy there is a popular belief that a murderer will not 
be able to escape unless he taste or bedaub himself with 
his victim’s blood.® Sometimes, we are told, cannibalism 
is even supposed to have a positively injurious effect upon 
the victim’s relatives, in accordance, as it seems, with the 
principle of sympathetic magic. . Among the Chukchi, in 
the case of revenge for blood, the slayers eat a little bit of 
the enemy’s heart or liver, supposing that they in this way 
cause the hearts of his kinsfolk to sicken.’ 

Human flesh or blood is not only believed to impart 
certain qualities or beneficial magic energy to him who 
partakes of it, but also serves as a means of transferring 
conditional curses from one person to another. This 
I take to be the explanation of cannibalism as a covenant 
rite ; in a previous chapter I have tried to show that the 

1 yon Tettauand Temme, Dze Volks- iv. 382. 

sagen Ostpreussens, p. 267. 5 Cranz, History of Greenland, i. 
2 Cf. Uartland, of. czt. ii. 245 sg. 178. 
3 Powell, Wanderings in a Wild S Pasquarelli, quoted by Hartland, 
Country, p. 92. op. crt. 246. 
4 Castelnau, Auxpédition dans Tes 7 Ratzel, History or Mankind, ii. 

parties centrales de? Amérique du Sua, 212. 

as 

XLVI CANNIBALISM ae 69 

main principle underlying the blood-covenant is the idea 
that the transference of blood conveys to the person who 
drinks it, or is inoculated with it, a conditional curse 
which will injure or destroy him should he break his 
promise." The drinking of human blood, or of wine 
mixed with such blood, has been a form of covenant 
among various ancient and medizval peoples, as well as 
among certain savages. In some South Slavonic districts 
compacts between different clans are even now made by 
their representatives sucking blood from each other’s 
right hands and swearing fidelity till the grave.* In certain 
parts of Africa, again, the partaking of human flesh, gener- 
ally prepared in a kind of paste mixed with condiments 
and kept in a quaintly-carved wooden box and eaten with 
round spoons of human bone, constitutes a bond of union 
between strangers who are suspicious of one another or 
between former enemies, or accompanies the making of 
a solemn declaration or the taking of an oath. Among 
the Bambala, a Bantu tribe in the Kasai, south of the 
River Congo, cannibalism accompanies the ceremony by 
which a kind of alliance is established between chiefs of 
the same region. The most powerful chief will invite 
the other chiefs of the neighbourhood to a meeting held 
on his territory, in order to make a compact against 
bloodshed. ‘A-slave is fattened for the occasion and 
killed by the host, and the invited chiefs and their fol- 
lowers partake of the flesh. Participation in this banquet 
is taken as a pledge to prevent murder. Supposing that 
a chief, after attending an assembly of this kind, kills a 
slave, every village which took part in the bond has the 
right to claim compensation, and the murderer 1s sure to 
be completely ruined.” ® 

For the practice of eating relatives or friends, finally, 
some special reasons are given besides those already men- 

1 Supra, ii. 208. N.F. 1. 196. 

2 Strack, of. cet. p. 9 sgg. Riihs, 4 Johnston, in Lortnightly Review, 
Handbuch der Geschichte des Mittel- N.S. xlv. 28. 
alters, p. 323. Supra, il. 207 sq. ° Torday and Joyce, in Jour. Anthr. 

3 Krauss, ‘Suhnung der Blutrache Jwst, xxxv. 404, 409. 
im Herzégischen,’ in Am O7-Quell, 

tioned. It is represented as a mark of affection or respect 
for the dead,! as an act which benefits not only the person 
who eats but also him who is eaten. The reason which 
the Australian Dieyerie assign for their endo-anthropophagy 
is, that should they not eat their relatives they would es 
perpetually crying and become a nuisance to the camp.” 
The natives of the Boulia district, Queensland, among 
whom children that die suddenly are partly eaten by the 
parents and their blood brothers and sisters, say that 
“ putting them along hole’’ would make them think too 
much about their beloved little ones.* In the Turrbal 
tribe in Southern Queensland a man who happened to be 
killed in one of the ceremonial combats which followed 
the initiation rites was eaten by those members of the 
tribe who were present ; and the motive stated is that the 
ate him because “they knew him and were fond of him, 
and they now knew where he was, and his flesh would not 
stink.’ * The Bataks of Sumatra declared that they fre- 
quently ate their own relatives when aged and infirm, 
“not so much to gratify their appetite, as to perform a 
pious ceremony.”° Among the Samoyedes old and 
decrepit persons who were no longer able to work let 
their children kill and eat them in the hope that they 
thereby might fare better after death.’ The Indian of 
Hayti “would think he was wanting to the memory of 
a relation, if he had not thrown into his drink a small 
portion of the body of the deceased, after having dried it 
. and reduced it to powder.” ’ Among the*Botocudos 
old men who were unable to keep up in the march were 
at their own request eaten up by their sons so that their 

1 Dawson, of. cz. p. 
Western Victoria). 
Jour. Anthr. Inst. ii. 
the Upper Mary River, 

67 (tubes of xxivs 172: 
McDonald, in 274. 
179 (natives of 3 Roth, Worth-West-Central Queens- 

Lden, in Woods, op. czt. p. 

(Queensland). 

Featherman, of. cz/. ‘ Oceano-Melane- 
sians,’ p. 243 (Hawaiians). Southey, 
History of Brazil, i. 379 (Tapuyas). 
Marcgravius de Liebstad, W7storza re- 
rum naturalium Brasilie, viii. 12, p. 
282 (ancient Tupis). 

2 Gason, in /our. 

Anthr. Just, 

land Aborigines, p. 166. 

* Howitt, of. cit. p. 753. 

2 Leyden, ‘Languages and Litera- 
ture of the Indo- Chinese Nations,’ in 
Astalick Researches, x. 202. 

8 Preuss, of. cet. p. 218. 

7 Bembo, quoted by von Humboldt, 
op. cit, Vv. 248, 

CANNIBALISM 

XV 569 
enemies should be prevented from digging up and in- 
juring their bodies ;' whilst mothers not infrequently 
consumed _ their deal children out of love.2 The 
Mayorunas considered it more desirable for the de- 
parted to be eaten by relatives than by worms ;* and 
the Cocomas, a tribe of the Marafion and Lower Huallaga, 
said it was better to be inside a friend than to be swal- 
lowed up by the cold earth.* It is impossible to decide 
how far these statements represent original motives for 
the custom of eating dead relatives. They may be later 
interpretations of a habit which in the first place sprang 
from selfishness rather than love. 

The cannibalism of modern savages has often been 
represented as the survival of an ancient practice which 
was once universal in the human race.’ ‘The advocates 
of this theory, however, have not generally made any 
serious attempts to prove it. I have in another place put 
the question how ethnographical facts can give us in- 
formation regarding the early history of mankind, and 
my answer was :—We have first to find out the causes of 
the social phenomena; we may then from the prevalence 
of the causes infer the prevalence of the phenomena 
themselves, if the former must be assumed to have 
operated without being checked by other causes.° This 
seems a very obvious method; but, so far as I know, 
Dr. Steinmetz is the only one who has strictly applied 
it to the question of cannibalism. He has arrived at the 
conclusion that primitive man most probably was in the 
habit of eating the bodies of his dead kinsmen as also of 
slain enemies. His argument is briefly as follows :— 

1 Voss, in Verhandl. Berliner Ge- 279. Schurtz, Specseverbote, p. 25. 
sellsch. Anthr. 1891, p. 26. Réville, zbbert Lectures on the 

2 Waitz, Anthropologie der Natur- Religions of Mexico and Peru, p. 87. 
volker, ili. 4.46. Johnston, in Fortnightly Review, N.S. 

3 yon — Schiitz-Holzhausen, Der xiv. 28. M. Letourneau (L’évolution 

Amazonas, ;). 209. 

4 Markham, ‘List of the Tribes in 
the Valley of the Amazon,’ in Jour. 
Anthr. Inst. xxiv. 253. 

5 Andree, of. cét. p. 98 sg. Lippert, 
Kulture seschichte der Menschhett, i. 

de la morale, p. 76) calls cannibalism 
“le péché originel de toutes les races 
humaines.” 

6 Westermarck, Wistory of Human 
Marriage, p. 3 Sq. 

The chief impulse ot primitive man was his desire for 
food. He fed not only on fruits and vegetables, but on 
flesh. His taste for animal food was not limited by any 
sufficient esthetic horror of human corpses. Nor was he 
kept back from eating them by fear of exposing himself 
to the revenge of the disembodied soul of his victim, nor 
by any fantastic sympathy for the dead body. Conse- 
quently, he was an habitual cannibal.’ If I cannot accept 
Dr. Steinmetz’s conclusion it is certainly not because I 
find fault with his method, but because I consider his 
chief premise exceedingly doubtful. 

It is quite likely that early man preferred cannibalism 
to death from starvation, and that he occasionally 
practised it from the same motive as has induced many 
shipwrecked men even among civilised peoples to have 
recourse to the bodies of their comrades in order to save 
their lives. But we are here concerned with habitual 
cannibalism only. Although I consider it highly probable 
that man was originally in the main frugivorous, there can 
be no doubt that he has from very early times fed largely 
on animal food. We may further take for granted that 
he has habitually eaten the flesh of whatever animals he 
could get for which he had a taste and from the eating 
of which no superstitious or sentimental motive held him 
back. But that he at first had no aversion to human 
flesh seems to me a very precarious assumption. 

A large number of savage tribes have never been 
known to be addicted to cannibalism, but are, on the 
contrary, said to feel the greatest dislike of it. In times of 
scarcity the Eskimo will eat their clothing sooner than 
touch human flesh. The Fuegians have been reported to 
devour their old women in cases of extreme distress ;? 
but Mr. Bridges, who has spent most part of his life 
among them, emphatically affirms that cannibalism is 
unknown amongst the natives of Cape Horn and that 

1 Steinmetz, Zxdokannibalismus, p. 214. King and Fitzroy, Voyages of 

34. 599. the “ Adventure” and ‘ Beagle,” ii 
9 = » ; 
2 Darwin, Journal of Researches, p, 183, 189. 

they abhor it. Concerning the natives of South 
Andaman Mr. Man observes :—‘“ Not a trace could be 
discovered of the existence of such a practice in their 
midst, even in far-off times. ... They express the 
greatest horror of the custom, and indignantly deny that 
it ever held a place among their institutions.” We meet 
with similar statements with reference to many African 
tribes. The editor of Livingstone’s ‘Last Journals’ says 
that it was common on the River Shiré to hear Manganja 
~and Ajawa people speak of tribes far away to the north 
who eat human bodies, and that on every occasion the 
fact was related with the utmost abhorrence and disgust.’ 
Amongst the Dinka the accounts of the cannibalism of 
the Niam-Niam excites as much horror as amongst 
ourselves.* The Bakongo “shudder with repugnance at 
the mere mention of eating human flesh.” ® Among 
the Bayaka, in the Congo Free State, “cannibalism is 
never found, and is regarded as something quite abhor- 
rent.” ° No intermarriage takes place between the Fans 
and their non-cannibal neighbours, as “their peculiar 
practices are held in too great abhorrence.”" According 
to Burton, cannibalism “ is execrated by the Efiks of Old 
Calabar, who punish any attempts of the kind with 
extreme severity. ~~ Even amongst’ the South Sea 
Islanders there are tribes which have been known to view 
cannibalism with great repugnance.” 

It is true that the information which a traveller visiting 
a savage tribe receives as regards its attitude towards 

1 Bridges, ‘ Manners and Customs 
of the Firelanders,’ in A Vozce for 
South America, xiii. 207. [dem, quoted 
by Hyades and Deniker, MMzsston 
scientifique du Cap Horn, vii. 259. 

2 Man, ‘ Aboriginal Inhabitants of 
the Andaman Islands,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
Inst. xii. 113. 

3 Livingstone, Last Journals, i. 39. 

4 Schweinfurth, MWeart of Africa, i. 
158. 

°s Ward, Five Years with the Congo 
Cannibals, p. 37. 

8 Torday and Joyce, ‘ Ethnography 
of the Ba-Yaka,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 

XXXVl. 42. 

7 Du Chaillu, 2xAlorations in Equa- 
torial Africa, p. 97. 

8 Burton, Zo Trips to Gorilla Land, 
i, 216 sq. 

SUNisbetnopswcee atetao,) Durer, 
Samoa, p. 305 (Savage Islanders). 
Angas, Polynesia, p. 385 (natives of 
Bornabi, in the Caroline Islands), 
Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country, 
p- 247 (some of the tribes in New 
Guinea). Calder, ‘Native Tribes of 
Tasmania,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. iii. 
23; Ling Roth, <Adorégines of Tas- 
mania, p. 111. 

igap? CANNIBALISM | CHAP. 

cannibalism is often apt to be misleading. There is 
nothing as to which many savages are so reticent or the 
practice of which they will deny so readily as cannibalism, 
though at the same time they are much inclined to accuse 
other peoples of it.1 The reason why they are so anxious 
to conceal its prevalence among themselves is of course 
their knowledge of the detestation in which it is held by the 
visiting stranger ; but not infrequently they really seem 
to feel that it is something to be ashamed of. It has been 
said of some Australian natives that, “unlike many other 
offences with which they are justly charged, © ~"..this one 
in general they knew to be wrong,” their behavious when 
they were questioned on the subject showing that “ they 
erred: knowingly and wilfully.”” At all events the re- 
proaches of the whites have been taken to heart with re- 
markable readiness. Even among peoples who have been 
extremely addicted to it, cannibalism has disappeared with 
a rapidity to which, I think, there is hardly any parallel in 
the history of morals. Erskine wrote in the middle of the 
last century :—‘‘Our experience in New Zealand has proved 
that this unnatural propensity can be eradicated from the 
habits of a whole savage nation, in the course of a single 
generation. I have head it piserced that there did not 
exist in 1845 many New Zealand males of twenty years 
of age who had not, in their childhood, tasted of human 
flesh ; yet it is perfectly well known that at the present 
time “he occurrence of a single case of cannibalism, in any 
part of those islands, would attract as much notice as in 
any country of Europe ; ; and that, when a native can be 
induced to talk on the subject, Re information is given 
reluctantly, and with an unmistakable consciousness of 
degradation, and a feeling of shame that he and _ his 

“Curr, The Australian Race,i.773 op. ctt. p. 190 sg. (Fijians). Melville, 
Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, op. cit. p. 341 (Polynesians). Reade, 
ih [Os SSSQally Ga Fraser, Aborigines of op. cit. p. 159; Kingsley, Travels. in 
New South Wales, p. ‘56. Romilly, West Africa, p. 330 (Fans). At the 
Western Pacific, p. 59 sqg. Ldem, From same time there are many cannibals who 
my Verandah tn New Guinea, p. 68. make no attempts to conceal the 
Powell, of. ctt. pp. 52, 59 (natives of practice. 
the Duke of York Group). Erskine, 2 Brough Smyth, of. céé. i. p. xxxviii. 

CANNIBALISM 

XLVI Lg 
countrymen should ever have been liable to such a 
reproach.’’' Of the Bataks it was said some time ago 
that the rising generation began to refrain from cannibal- 
ism, and that those of them who had submitted to ~ 
European rule thought with horror of the wild times when 
they or their ancestors were addicted to it.2 Cieza de 
Leon remarks with some astonishment that, as soon as 
the Peruvian Incas began to put a-stop to this practice 
among all the peoples with whom they came in contact, 
it was in a short time forgotten throughout their empire 
even by those who had previously held it in high estima- 
tion.’ Moreover, the extinction of cannibalism has not 
always been due to the intervention of superior races.* 
Even among peoples very notorious for cannibalism 
there are individuals who abhor the practice. Dr. 
Schweinfurth asserts that some of the Niam-Niam “ turn 
with such aversion from any consumption of human flesh 
that they would peremptorily refuse to eat out of the 
same dish with any one who was a cannibal.”° With 
reference to Fijian cannibalism Dr. Seemann observes :— 
“It would be a mistake to suppose that all Fijians, not 
converted to Christianity, are cannibals. There were 
whole towns, as for instance Nakelo, on the Rewa river, 
which made a bold stand against this practice, declaring 
that it was tabu, forbidden to them by their gods, to 
indulge in it. The common people throughout the 
group, as well as women of all classes, were by custom 
debarred from it. Cannibalism was thus restricted to the 
chiefs and gentry, and again amongst them there is a 
number... who never eat human flesh, nor go near the 
biers when any dead bodies have been brought in, and who 
abominate the practice as much as any white man does,”’ ® 

1 Erskine, of. czt. p. 275 sq. 

2 Buning, in Glimpses of the Lastern 
Archipelago, p. 74. 

3 Cieza de Leon, Segunda parte de 
la Crénica del Perit, ch. 25, p. 100. 

4 Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologie der 

Naturvolker, vi. 158 sgg. (Polynesians). 
Casalis, Gasutos, p. 303.  Raubot, 

Psychology of the Emotions, p. 295 sq. 
Schurtz, Sfezseverbote, p. 20. Cy. 
Spencer and Gillen, Mative Tribes of 
Central Australia, p. 324. 

> Schweinfurth, of. cet, ii. 18 5g. 

6 Seemann, /2/z, p. 179 sg. Cf. 
Williams and Calvert, of. cz¢. p. 179. 

It should also be remembered that many cannibals eat | 

human flesh not as ordinary food, but only in special 
circumstances, and that their cannibalism is often restricted 
to the devouring of some small part of the victim’s body. 

The dislike of cannibalism may be a complex feeling. In 
many instances sympathy for the dead is undoubtedly one 
of its ingredients. It is true that endo-anthropophagy is fre- 
quently described as a mark of affection, but on the other 
hand there are many cannibals who never eat their dead 
friends though they eat strangers or foes. Some cannibals 
exchange their own dead for those of another tribe so as 
to avoid feeding on their kinsmen ;* the natives of Tana, 
in the New- Hebrides, are said to do so “when they 
happen to have a particular regard for the deceased.” ” 
But neither affection nor regard can be the reason why 
savages abstain from eating their enemies. I think that 
aversion to cannibalism is most likely, in the first instance, 
an instinctive feeling akin to those feelings which regulate 
the diet of the various animal species. Although our 
knowledge of their habits in this respect is defective, 
there can be little doubt that carnivorous animals as a 
rule refuse to eat members of their own species ; and this 
reluctance is easy to understand considering its race- 
preserving tendency. 

Moreover, the eating of human flesh is regarded with 
some degree of superstitious dread. This is not seldom 
the case even among peoples who are themselves can- 
nibals. In Lepers’ Island, in the New Hebrides, where 
cannibalism still prevails, the natives say that “to eat 
human flesh is a dreadful thing,” and that a man-eater 
is a person who is afraid of nothing ; hence “ men will buy 
flesh when some one has been killed, that they may get 
the name of valiant men by eating it.”* In those parts 
of Fiji where cannibalism was a national institution, only 
the select few, the taboo-class, the priests, chiefs, and 
higher orders, were deemed fit to indulge in it; and 

1 Arbousset and Daumas, Exflora- pp. 22, 47. 

tory Tour to the Cape of Good Hope, p. 2 Brenchley, of. cz. p. 200. 
123. Steinmetz, LAndokannibalismus, 3 Codrington, of. cit. p. 344. 

Care eee 

whilst every other kind of food was eaten with the 
fingers, human flesh was eaten with forks, which were 
handed down as heirlooms from generation to generation, 
and with which the natives would not part even for a 
handsome equivalent.'. The Fijians of Nakelo, again, 
who did not practise cannibalism, attributed to it those 
fearful skin diseases with which children are so often 
visited in Fiji.2 The New Caledonians, who are exo- 
anthropophagous, believe that if a man eats a tribes- 
fellow he will break out into sores and die. Among the 
Maoris no men but sacred chiefs could partake of 
human flesh without becoming sapu, in which state they 
could not return to their usual occupations without having 
the apu removed from their bodies. So also among the 
Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia a man who has 
eaten human flesh as a ceremonial rite is for a long time 
afterwards subject to a variety of restrictions, being con- 
sidered unclean. For sixteen days he must not eat any 
warm food. For four months he is not allowed to blow 
hot food in order to cool it. For the same period he 
uses a spoon, dish, and kettle of his own, which are 
thrown away after the lapse of the prescribed time. He 
must stay alone in his bedroom, and is not allowed to go 
out of the house door but must use the secret door in the 
rear of the house. And for a whole year he must not 
touch his wife, nor is he allowed to gamble or to work.’ 
Among the West African Fans, before a cannibal meal, 
the corpse is carried to a hut built on the outskirts of the 
settlement. There “it is eaten secretly by the warriors, 
women and children not being allowed to be present, or 
even to look upon man’s flesh; and the cooking pots 
used for the banquet must all be broken. A joint of 
“black brother’ is never seen in the villages.” ° So also 

1 Seemann, V7ztz, pp. 179, 181 sg. U.S, National Museum, 1895, p- 537 

2 [bid. p. 179 Sg. sg. Cf, Woldt, Kaptein Jacobsens 

3 Atkinson, ‘Natives of New Cale- Reiser tl Nordamertkas Nordvesthyst, 
donia,’ in /o/k-Lore, xiv. 253. Pp: 44 sgg.3 Mayne, four Years im 

4 Thomson, of. cet. i. 147 5g. British Columbia, p. 256 sq. 

5 Boas, ‘Social Organization of the 6 Burton, Zwo Trips to Gorilla 

Kwakiutl Indians,’ in Report of the Land, i. 212. 

among the Bambala, south of the River Congo, vessels in 
which human flesh mes been cooked are broken and the 
pieces thrown away.’ In Eastern Central Africa the 
person who eats a human being is believed to run a great 
risk ; Mr. Macdonald knew a headman whose success in 
war pe attributed to the fact that he had eaten the whole 
body of a strong young man, but it was supposed that if 
he had not been protected by powerful charms, such 
cannibalism might have been dangerous to him.” 

One reason for this superstitious dread of cannibalism 
is undoubtedly fear of the dead man’s spirit, which is then 
supposed not to be annihilated by the act, but to become 
a danger to him who partakes of the corpse. The Fijian 
cannibals avowed ‘that they were always frightened at 
night lest the spirit of the man they had eaten should 
haunt them.” ? In the Luritcha tribe in Central Australia 
care is invariably taken to destroy the bones of those 
enemies who have been eaten, “as the natives believe 
that unless this is done the victims will arise from the 
coming together of the bones, and will follow and harm 
those who have killed and eaten them.’”* And among 
the Kwakiutl Indians the taboos imposed upon a cannibal 
are more obligatory when he has devoured a corpse than 
when he has contented himself with taking bites out of a 
living man.’ But it may also be that the superstitious 
fear of cannibalism is to some extent an outcome of the 
natural reluctance to partake of human flesh, just as the 
aversion to eating certain animals may give rise to the 
idea that their meat is unwholesome food,’ and as the 
supernatural dangers attributed to incest spring from the 
instinctive horror of it.’ 

The fact that so many peoples partake or are known to 
have partaken of human flesh without repugnance, or 
even with the greatest eagerness, by no means proves 

1 Torday and Joyce, in Jour. Anthr. of Central Australia, p. 475. 

ma XXXV. 404. oP ABNOR Uae, Tae 1 ey Si (CIE 
2 Macdonald, Africana, i. 170. Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 342. 
> Pritchard, of. cit. p. 372. : Supra, Ib eyes 

4 Spencer and Gillen, Mateve Tribes 7 Supra, ii. 375 59. 

Pee 

XLVI CANNIBALISM on 

that there was no original aversion to it in the human 
race. It is easy to imagine that the feeling of reluctance 
may have been overcome by other motives, such as 
hunger, revenge, the desire to acquire another person’s 
courage or strength, the hope of making an enemy 
harmless, or of gaining supernatural benefits. And every- 
body knows that men and even many animals, when once 
induced to taste a certain food which they have previously 
avoided, often conceive a great liking for it. There is 
evidence that this also applies to cannibalism. In 1200 
Egypt was afflicted with a terrible famine, in consequence 
of which the poor fed even upon human corpses and fell 
to devouring children. An eyewitness, the Arabian 
physician ‘ Abd-Allatif, writes that, when the poor began 
to eat human flesh, the wonder and horror excited were 
such, that these crimes were in every mouth, and people 
were never weary of the extraordinary topic. But by 
degrees custom operated, and produced even a taste for 
such detestable repasts. Many men made children their 
ordinary food, eating them from pure gluttony and 
laying up stores of their flesh. Various modes of cooking 
and seasoning this kind of food were invented ; and the 
practice soon spread through the provinces, so that there 
was not a single district in which cannibalism became not 
common. By this time it caused no longer either surprise 
or horror, and the matter was discussed with indifference. 
Diverse rich people, who could have procured other food, 
seemed to become infatuated, and practised cannibalism as 
a luxury, using murderers as their purveyors and inviting 
their friends to dinner, without taking too much trouble 
to conceal the truth.’ There is a similar story from 
Polynesia. Cannibalism, we are told, was introduced 
into Futuna by king Veliteki in consequence of a great 
tempest which brought on a disastrous famine ; but in 
time it became a dreadful scourge, which threatened to 
depopulate the island. The desire to eat human flesh 
arrived at such a point that wars no longer sufficed to 

1 ‘Abd-Allatif, Relation de? Eoypte, p. 360 gg. 
VOL. Il Bae 

CANNIBALISM 

furnish victims in sufficient numbers, hence the people 
took to hunting down members of their own tribes.’ It 
has been suggested that in other islands of the South Seas 
cannibalism likewise arose in times of great famine, and 
that the inhabitants, becoming used to it, acquired a taste 
for human flesh.2 In Western Equatorial Africa, again, 
gastronomic cannibalism has been supposed to be a 
practical extension of the sacrificial ceremony, neither the 
women nor the young men being allowed to touch the 
dainty.* That such a practice may easily grow up when 
the beginning has been made, is well illustrated by the 
words of a cannibal chief who declared that he who has 
once indulged in a repast of human flesh will find it very 
difficult to abstain from it in the future.* 

The question whether early man was in the habit of 
eating human flesh may thus, I think, be resolved into 
the question whether his natural shrinking from it may be 
assumed to have been subdued by any of those factors 
which in certain circumstances have induced men to 
become habitual cannibals. For such an assumption I 
find no sufficient grounds. On the contrary, I] maintain 
that it is made highly improbable by the fact that 
cannibalism is much less prevalent among the lowest 
savages than among races somewhat more advanced in 
culture.” In America, instead of being confined to savage 
peoples, it was practised “to a greater extent and with 
more horrible rites among the most civilised. Its 
religious inception,’ Mr. Dorman adds, ‘was the cause 
of this.’° Humboldt observed long ago :— The 
nations who hold it a point of honour to devour their 
prisoners are not always the rudest and most ferocious.... 
The Cabres, the Guipunavis, and the Caribees, have 

1 Percy Smith, ‘Futuna,’ in /ovr. 

Polynesian Soc. \. 37. 
2 Macdonald, Oceanza, p. 

try, p. 248. 
% Reade, of. czt. p. 158. 
4 Powell, of. czz. p. 248. 

196 sg. 
Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Coun- 

5 See Peschel, Races of Man, p. 
162 sg. ; Schneider, Die Naturvilker, 
i. 186; Bergemann, of. cit. p. 53; 
Ratzel, of. czt. ii, 352; Sutherland, 
Origin and Growth of the Moral In- 
stinct, 1. 372. 

8 Dorman, of. cit. p. 152. 

always been more powerful and more civilised than the 
other hordes of the Oroonoko ; and yet the former are 
as much addicted to anthropophagy, as the last are 
repugnant to it.”’' In Brazil, Martius found the 
cannibalism of the Central Tupis to form a strange 
contrast to their relatively high state of culture.’ 
Cannibals like the Fijians and Maoris were on the verge of 
semi-civilisation, and the Bataks of Sumatra were already 
in early times so advanced as to frame an alphabet of 
their own, though after the Indian model. Among the 
African Niam-Niam and Monbuttu a great predilection 
for human flesh coexists with a remarkable degree of 
culture ; whereas in the dwarf tribes of Central Africa, 
which are of a very low type, Mr. Burrows never heard 
of a single case of cannibalism.’ 

It would be very instructive to follow the history of 
cannibalism among those peoples who are, or have lately 
been, addicted to it, if we were able to do so; but the 
subject is mostly obscure. The most common change 
which we have had an opportunity to notice is the decline 
and final disappearance of the practice under European 
influence ; but we must not assume that every change 
has been in the direction towards extinction. Among the 
East African Wadoe and Wabembe cannibalism is, 
according to their own account, of modern origin. Mr. 
Torday informs me that among some of the Congo 
natives it is spreading in the present day. In the Solomon 
Islands it has recently extended itself ; it is asserted by 
the elder natives of Florida that man’s flesh was formerly 
never eaten except in sacrifice, and that human sacrifice is 
an innovation introduced from further west.’ Erskine 
maintains that in Fiji cannibalism, though a very ancient 
custom, did not prevail in earlier times to the same extent 
as it did more recently ;° and Mr. Fornander has arrived 

1 yon Humboldt, of. cz. v. 424 sq. 4 Burton, Zwo TZrifs to Gorilla 
2 ven Martius, of. cz. i. 199 sq. Land, i. 214. 
3 Burrows, Land of the Pigmies, p. ° Codrington, of. cz?. p. 343, 

149. EN ENckiIne, "0p. aeea ps 272) 

Pep 2 

at the conclusion that among the Polynesians this practice 
was not an original heirloom brought with them from 
their primitive homes in the Far West, but was adopted 
subsequently by a few of the tribes under conditions and 
circumstances now unknown.’ For various reasons, then, 
it is an illegitimate supposition to regard the cannibalism of 
modern savages as a survival from the first infancy of 
mankind, or, more generally, from a stage through which 
the whole human race has passed. 

As for the moral opinions about cannibalism, we may 
assume that peoples who abstain from it also generally 
disapprove of it, or would do so if they were aware of its 
being practised. Aversion, as we have often noticed, 
leads to moral indignation, especially where the moral 
judgment is little influenced by reflection. Another 
source of the condemnation of cannibalism may be sym- 
pathetic resentment resulting from the idea that the dead 
is annihilated or otherwise injured by the act, or from the 
feeling that it is an insult to him to use his body as an 
article of food ; but this could certainly not be the origin 
of savages’ disapproval of eating their foes. Among 
civilised races, as well as among non-anthropophagous 
savages, horror or disgust is undoubtedly the chief reason 
why cannibalism 1s condemned as wrong. This emotion is 
often so intense that the same people whose moral feelings 
are little affected by a conquest, with all its horrors, made 
for the purpose of gain, shudder at the stories of wars 
waged by famished savages for the purpose of procuring 
human flesh for food. On the other hand, where the 
natural aversion to such food is for some reason or other 
overcome, the disapproval of cannibalism is in consequence 
no longer felt. But an attitude of moral indifference 
towards this practice has also been advocated on a totally 
different ground, by persons whose moral emotions are 
too much tempered by thought to allow them to pronounce 
an act as wrong simply because it creates in them disgust. 

1 Fornander, Account of the Polynesian Race, i. 132. 

x 
‘

THE BELIEF IN SUPERNATURAL BEINGS 

WE now come to the last of those six groups of moral 
ideas into which we have divided our subject—ideas con- 
cerning conduct towards beings, real or imaginary, that 
are regarded as supernatural. But before we enter upon 
a discussion of human behaviour in relation to such beings, 
it is necessary to say some words about man’s belief in 
their existence and the general qualities attributed to 
them. 

Men distinguish between two classes of phenomena— 
“ natural” and “ supernatural,” ' between phenomena which 
they are familiar with and, in consequence, ascribe to 
“natural causes,’ and other phenomena which seem to 
them unfamiliar, mysterious, and are therefore supposed to 
spring from causes of a “supernatural” character. We 
meet with this distinction at the lowest stages of culture 
known to us, as well as at higher stages. It may be that 
in the mind of a savage the natural and supernatural are 
often confused, and that no definite limit can be drawn 
between the phenomena which he refers to the one class 
and those which he refers to the other ; but he certainly 
sees a difference between events of everyday occurrence 
or ordinary objects of nature and other events or objects 
which fill him with mysterious awe. The germ of sucha 

' T do not share the objections raised to the word ‘superhuman,” when 
by various writers to the term ‘‘super- applied to inanimate things or animals 
natural.” It has the sanction of com- 

which are objects of worship. 
mon usage; and I consider it preferable 

distinction is found even in the lower animal world. The 
horse fears the whip but it does not make him shy ; on 
the other hand, he may shy when he sees an umbrella 
opened before him or a paper moving on the ground. 
The whip is well known to the horse, whereas the moving 
paper or umbrella is strange and uncanny. Dogs and 
cats are alarmed by an unusual noise or appearance, and 
remain uneasy till they have by examination satisfied 
themselves of the nature of its cause.! Professor Romanes 
frightened a dog by attaching a fine thread to a bone and 
surreptitiously drawing it from the animal, giving to the 
bone the appearance of self-movement; and the same 
dog was frightened by soap-bubbles.*. Even a lion is 
scared by an unexpected noise or the sight of an un- 
familiar object; a horse, the lion’s favourite prey, has 
been known to wander for days in the vicinity of a troop 
of these animals and be left unmolested simply because it 
was blanketed and knee-haltered.2 And we are told of a 
tiger which stood trembling and roaring in an ecstasy of fear 
when a mouse tied by a string toa stick had been inserted 
into its cage.* Little children are apt to be terrified by 
the strange and irregular behaviour of a feather as it 
glides along the floor or lifts itself into the air.” 

But the primitive mind not only distinguishes between 
the natural and the supernatural, it makes, practically, yet 
a further distinction. The supernatural, like the natural, 
may be looked upon in the light of mechanical energy, 
which discharges itself without the aid of any volitional 
activity. This is, for instance, the case with the super- 
natural force inherent in a tabooed object ; mere contact 
with such an object communicates the taboo infection. 
So also the baneful energy in a curse is originally con- 
ceived as a kind of supernatural miasma, which injures 
or destroys anybody to whom it cleaves; in fact, to 

1 Morgan, Animal Life and Intelli- 4 Basil Hall, quoted zdzd. p. 81. See 
gence, p. 339. also z6zd. p. 78 sgg. 3 Vignioli, AZyth 
2 Romanes, Anzmal Intelligence, p. and Sctence, p. 58 sqq. 
455 5g. > Sully, Stadies of Childhood, p. 205 

3 Gillmore, quoted by King, Zhe — sq. 
Supernatural, p. 80. 

taboo a certain thing commonly consists in charging it 
with a curse. On the other hand, supernatural qualities 
may also be attributed to the mental constitution of 
animate beings, especially to their will. Such an attribu- 
tion makes them supernatural beings, as distinct from any 
ordinary individuals who, without being endowed with 
special miraculous gifts, may make use of supernatural 
mechanical energy in magical practices. This distinction is 
in many cases vague ; a wizard may be looked upon as a 
god and a god as a wizard. But it is nevertheless essen- 
tial, and lies at the bottom of the difference between 
religion and magic. Religion may be defined as a belief 
in and a regardful' attitude towards a supernatural being 
on whom man feels himself dependent and to whose will 
he makes an appeal in his worship. Supernatural me- 
chanical power, on the other hand, is applied in magic. 
He who performs a purely magical act utilises such power 
without making any appeal at all to the will of a super- 
natural being. 

This, I think, 1s what we generally understand by 
religion and magic. But in the Latin word religio there 
seems to be no indication of such a distinction. KRe/igio 
is probably related to re/igare, which means “to tie.” It 
is commonly assumed that -the relationship between these 
words implies that in religion man was supposed to be tied 
by his god. But I venture to believe that the connection 
between them allows of another and more natural interpre- 
tation—that it was not the man who was tied by the god, 
but the god who was tied by the man. This interpretation 
was suggested to me by certain ideas and practices pre- 
valent in Morocco. ‘The Moors are in the habit of tying 
rags to objects belonging to a szyid, that is, a place where 
a saint has, or is supposed to have, his tomb, or where 
such a person is said to have sat or camped. In very 
many cases, at least, this tying of rags is ‘ér upon the 

1 Though somewhat indefinite, the call it religion when a savage flogs his 
epithet ‘‘regardful” seems a necessary fetish to make it submissive, 
attribute of a religiousact, We do not 

ila agate aria dy rameaiadal 

te 

SUPERNATURAL BEINGS 

saint, and /‘dr implies the transference of a conditional 
curse.! Thus, in the Great Atlas Mountains I found a 
large number of rags tied to a pole which was stuck in a 
cairn dedicated to the great saint Mulai ‘Abd-til-Kader, 
and when I asked for an explanation the answer was that 
petitioners generally fasten a strip of their clothes to the 
pole muttering some words like these :—‘“‘O saint, behold ! 
I promised thee an offering, and | will not release (literally 
‘open’) thee until thou attendest to my business.” If 
the petitioner’s wish is fulfilled he goes back to the place, 
offers the sacrifice which he promised, and unties the knot 
which he made. A Berber servant of mine from Aglu in 
Stis told me that once when in prison he invoked Lalla 
Rah’ma Yusf, a great female saint whose tomb is in a 
neighbouring district, and tied his turban, saying, “1 am 
tying thee, Lalla Rih’ma Yusf, and I am not going to 
open the knot till thou hast helped me.” Or a person in 
distress will go to her grave and knot the leaves of some 
palmetto growing in its vicinity, with the words, “I tied 
thee here, O saint, and I shall not release thee unless thou 
releasest me from the toils in which I am at present.” 
All this is what we should call magic, but the Romans 
would probably have called it re/igio. They were much 
more addicted to magic than to true religion ; they wanted 
to compel the gods rather than to be compelled by them. 
Their religio was probably nearly akin to the Greek 
xatddecuos, Which meant not only an ordinary tie, but also 
a magic tie or knot or a bewitching thereby.” Plato 
speaks of persons who with magical arts and incantations 
bound the gods, as they said, to execute their will. That 
religio, however, from having originally a magical signifi- 
cance, has come to be used in the sense which we attribute 

1 See Westermarck, ‘ Z-‘dr, or the 
Transference of Conditional Curses in 
Morocco,’ in Azthropological Essays 
presented to E. B. Tylor, p. 361 sgq. 

2 TI am indebted to my friend Mr. 
R. R. Marett for drawing my attention 
to this meaning of the word karddecpos. 
So also the verb karadém means not 
only ‘‘to tie” but “‘ to bind by magic 

knots” (Athenaeus, Detpnosophiste, xv. 
9, p. 670; Dio Cassius, Mestoria 
Romana, \. 5), and caradeots is used to 
denote ‘‘a binding by magic knots ” 
(Plato, Zeges, xi. 933). See Liddell- 
Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, p. 7543 
Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of 
Greek Religion, p. 138 sqq. 
3 Plato, Respublica, ii. 364. 

THE BELIEF IN 

to the term “religion,” is not difficult to explain. Men 
make use of magic not only in relation to their fellow 
men, but in relation to their gods. Magical and religious 
elements are often almost inseparably intermingled in one 
and the same act ; and, as we shall soon see, the magical 
means of constraining a god are often externally very 
similar to the chief forms of religious worship, prayer 
and sacrifice. 

That mystery is the essential characteristic of super- 
natural beings is proved by innumerable facts. It is 
testified by language. The most prominent belief 
in the religion of the North American Indians was 
their theory of manitou, that is, of “a spiritual and 
mysterious power thought to reside in some material 
form.” ‘The word is Algonkin, but all the tribes had 
some equivalent for it.' Thus the Dacotahs express the 
essential attribute of their deities by the term wakan, 
which signifies anything which they cannot comprehend, 
“whatever is wonderful, mysterious, superhuman, or 
supernatural.”* The Navaho word digi’n likewise means 
“sacred, divine, mysterious, or holy” ;* and so does 
the Hidatsa term mahopa.* In Fiji “the native word 
expressive of divinity is ka/ou, which, while used to denote 
the people’s highest notion of a god, is also constantly 
heard as a qualification of anything great or marvellous.” ® 
The Maoris of New Zealand applied the word atua, 
which is generally translated as “ god,” not only to spirits 
of every description, but to various phenomena not under- 
stood, such as menstruation.and foreign marvels, a compass, 
for instance, or a barometer.® The natives of Madagascar, 

1 Dorman, Origin of Primitive 3 Matthews, Vavaho Legends, p. 37. 
Superstitions, p. 226. Parkman, /eszz¢s 4 Idem, Hidatsa Indians, p. 47 sq. 
in North America, p. \xxix. Brinton, > Williams and Calvert, /%72, p. 183. 
Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 102. 6 Best, ‘Lore of the Whare-Ko- 

Hoffman, ‘ Menomini Indians,’ in 47272. 
Rep. Bur. Hthn. xiv. 39, 0. 1. 

hanga,’ in Jour. Polynesian Soc. xiv. 
210. Dieffenbach, 7ravels tn New 

2 Schooleraft, Archives of Aboriginal 
Knowledge, iv. 642. Dorsey, ‘ Siouan 
Cults,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 
366. McGee, ‘Siouan Indians,’ zdzd. 
xv. 182 sg. 

Zealand, ii. 116, 118. The word tupua 
(or 4¢2fwa) is used in a very similar way 
(Tregear, Maort-Polynesian Compara- 
tive Dictionary, p. 557). 

says Ellis, designate by the term ndriamanitra, or god, 
everything that exceeds the capacity of their under- 
standing. ‘‘ Whatever is new and useful and extraordinary, 
is called god. . Rice, money, thunder and lightning, 
and earthquakes, are-alltcalledy pods ie) J aratasy, Or 
book, they call god, from its “wonderfil capacity of 
speaking by merely looking at it.” The Monbuttu use 
the word kilima for anything ae do not understand— 
the thunder, a shadow, the reflection in water, as well as the 
supreme being in which they vaguely believe.? The Masai 
conception of the deity (wgd7), says Dr. Thomson, ‘seems 
to be marvellously vague. I was Ngai. My language 
was Nedi. Ngai was in the steaming holes. . . . In fact, 
whatever struck them as strange or incomprehensible, 
that they at once assumed had some connection with 
Negai.”* Mr. and Mrs. Hinde use “the Unknown”? as 
their equivalent of the word ngdi.* 

The testimony of language is corroborated by kindred 
facts referring to the nature of those objects which are 
most commonly worshipped.’ Among all the American 
tribes, says Mr. Dorman, “any remarkable features in 
natural scenery or dangerous places became objects of 
superstitious dread and veneration, because they were 
supposed to be abodes of gods.”°® A great cataract, a 
difficult and dangerous ford in a river, a spring bubbling 
up from the ground, a volcano, a high mountain, an 
isolated rock, a curious or unusually large tree; the eens 
of the raeodon or of some other immense animal_—all 
were looked upon by the Indians with superstitious respect 

1 Ellis, Aestory of Madagascar, i. between Siam and Annam). In Lord 

390 sgq. Kames’s Essays on the Principles of 
2 Burrows, Land of the Pigmies, p. Morality and Religion there is (p. 309 

100. Sgq-) an interesting discussion on the 
3 Thomson, 7hrough Masai Land,p. dread of unknown objects. 

260. § Dorman, of. cit. p. 300. See also 
4 Hinde, Last of the Masaz, p. 99. Miiller, Geschichte der Amerikant- 
5 See, besides the instances referred  schen Urreligionen, i. 52; Harmon, 

to below, Karsten, Origzn of Worship, Voyages and Travels in the Interior of 
p- 14 sgg.; von Brenner, Besuch bec North America, p. 363 sg.; Smith, 
den Kannibaten Sumatras, p. 220 ‘Myths of the Iroquois,’ in Axx. Rep. 
(Bataks); AZzttecl. d. Geog’ oraph. Ge- Bur. Hthn. ii. 51. 

sellsch. zu Jena, iii. 14 (Bannavs, 

or were propitiated by offerings.’ In Fiji “every object 
that is specially fearful, or vicious, or injurious, or novel,” 
is eligible for admission to the native Pantheon? It is 
said that when the Aétas of the Philippines saw the first 
locomotive passing through their country “ they all fell 
upon their knees in abject terror, worshipping the strange 
monster as some new and powerful deity.”* Of the 
shamanistic peoples in Siberia Georgi writes, “ All the 
celestial bodies, and all terrestrial objects of a considerable 
magnitude, all the phenomena of nature that can do good 
or harm, every appearance capable of conveying terror 
into a weak and superstitious mind, are so many gods to 
whom they direct a particular adoration.” * Among the 
Samoyedes ‘a curiously twisted tree, a stone with an 
uncommon shape would receive, and in some quarters 
still receives, not only veneration but actual ceremonial 
worship.” ° Castrén states that the Ostyaks worshipped no 
other objects of nature but such as were very unusual and 
peculiar either in shape or quality.” The Lapps made 
offerings not only to large and strange-looking objects, 
but to places which were difficult to pass, or where some 
accident had occurred, or where they had been either 
exceptionally unlucky or exceptionally lucky in fishing or 
the chase." The Ainu of Japan deify all objects and 
phenomena which seem to them extraordinary or dreadful.® 
In China “a steep mountain, or any mountain at all 
remarkable, is supposed to have a special local spirit, who 
acts as guardian.”* The average middle-class Hindu, 
according to Sir Alfred Lyall, worships stocks or stones 
which are unusual or grotesque in size, shape, or position 3 or 

— fli 

i } 

1 Dorman, of. czt. pp. 279, 290, 291, 
302, 303, 308, 313-315, 319. Chamber- 
lain, in Jour. Amerecan Folk-Lore, i. 
157 (Mississagua Indians). Georgi, 
Russia, iii. 237 sg. (Aleuts.) 

2 Williams and Calvert, of. cet. p. 
183. 

3 Lala, Phzlippine Islands, p. 96. 

4 Georgi, of. cet. ill. 256. 

5 Jackson, in four. <Anthr. Inst. 
xxiv. 398. Cf Castrén, Vordiska resor 

och forskning ar, ili, 230. 

6 Castrén, of. ct. ill. 227. 

7 [bid. iii, 210. Hogstrém, Beskrif- 
ning ofver de til Sveriges Krona 
lydande Lapmarker, p. 182.  Leem, 
Beskrivelse over Finmarkens Lapper, 
Pp. 442 sg. Friis, Lappesk AZythologe, p. 
133 59. 

8 Sugamata, quoted in ZL’ Anthro- 
pologie, x. 98. 
9 Edkins, Religion 7x China, p. 221. 

of 

¥ 
hap a See A 

Prive tert 

inanimate things which are gifted with mysterious motion ; 

or animals which he fears ; or visible things, animate or 
inanimate, which are directly or indirectly useful and 
profitable or which possess any incomprehensible function 
or property.’ From all parts of Africa we hear of similar 
cults.” The Negroes of Sierra Leone dedicate to their 
spirits places which “inspire the spectator with awe, or 
are remarkable for their appearance, as immensely large 
trees rendered venerable by age, rocks appearing in the 
midst of rivers, and having something peculiar in their 
form, in short, whatever appears to them strange or un- 
common.” * When Tshi-speaking natives of the Gold 
Coast take up their abode near any remarkable natural 
feature or object, they worship and seek to propitiate its 
indwelling spirit; whereas they do not worship any of 
the heavenly bodies, the regularity of whose appearance 
makes little impression upon their minds.* Through- 
out East Africa the people seem to attach religious sanctity 
to anything of extraordinary size; in the island of 
Zanzibar, where the hills are low, they reverence the 
baobab tree, which is the largest growing there, and in all 
parts of the country where hills are not found they 
worship some great stone or tall tree.” In Morocco places 
of striking appearance are generally supposed to be haunted 
by jun (jinn) or are associated with some dead saint. As 
I have elsewhere tried to show, the Arabic jinn were 
probably “ beings invented to explain what seems to fall 
outside the ordinary pale of nature, the wonderful and 
unexpected, the superstitious imaginations of men who 
fear” ;° and the saint was in many cases only the 
successor of the zzz. Indeed, the superstitious dread of 
unusual objects is not altogether dead even among our- 

1 Lyall, Astatic Studies, p. 7. 4 Ellis, Voruba-speaking Peoples of 

2 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 388 the Slave Coast, p. 282. Ldem, Tshi- 
(Mpongwe). Mockler-Ferryman, speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, p. 
British Nigerta, p. 255. Fritsch, 21. 
Die LEingeborenen Siid-Afrika’s, p. > Chanler, Zhvrough Jungle and 
340 (Hottentots). Desert, p. 188. 

? Winterbottom, Watzve Africans in .° Westermarck, ‘ Nature of the Arab 
the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone,i. Ginn,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxix, 

223 268. 

selves. It survives in England to this day in the habit of 
ascribing grotesque and striking landmarks or puzzling 

antiquities to the Devil, who became the residuary legatee 
of obsolete pagan superstitions in Christian countries.! 
‘The common prevalence of animal worship is no doubt 
due to the mysteriousness of the animal world ; the most 
uncanny of all creatures, the serpent, is also the one most 
generally worshipped. ‘Throughout India we meet with 
the veneration of animals which by their appearance or 
habits startle human beings.” In the Indian tribes of 
North America animals of an unusual size were objects of 
some kind of adoration.® In certain parts of Africa a cock 
crowing in the evening or a crane alighting on a house-top 
is regarded as supernatural.* White men have often 
been taken for spirits by red, yellow, or black savages, 
when seen by them for the free time.’ Religious venera- 
tion is among various races bestowed on persons suffering 
from some abnormality, such as deformity, albinoism, or 
madness.° Some South American Indians “ regard as 
divinities all phenomenal children, principally such as are 
born with a larger number of fingers or toes than is 
natural.” The Hindus venerate persons remarkable for 
any extraordinary qualities—great valour, virtue, or even 
vice.* By performing miracles men directly prove that 
they are supernatural beings. [he Muhammedan saints, 
like the Christian in olden days, are believed to perform all 
kinds of wonders, such as flying in the air, passing unhurt 

1 Lyall, of. cet. p. 9. 

EN Crd pals: 

3 Dorman, of. czt. p..258. Harmon, 
op. ctt. p. 304. 

+ Macdonald, 

» 39: 

> Avebury, Origin of Czvilisation, 
pp: 272, 273, 375. Goblet d’Alviella, 
Hibbert Lectures on the Origin and 
Growth of the Conception of God, p. 67. 
Schultze, /eteschismus, p. 224. In 
Australia and elsewhere white people 
were taken for ghosts by the natives 
(Fison and Howitt, Aamdzlaro? and 
Kurnat, p. 248 ; Brough Smyth, 4do77- 
gines of Victoria, il. 269 sg.; Tylor, 

Religion and Myth, 

es emitive Culture, i. 5 SG. 5 Spencer, 

Principles of Soctology, i. 170 sq.). 

6 Schultze, of. ce#. p. 222. Supra, 
1.270 sg. ‘‘ Among many savage or 
barbarous peoples of the world albinos 
have been reserved for the priestly 
office ” (Bourke, ‘ Medicine-Men of the 
Apache,’ in Anz. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 
460). 

7 Guinnard, Three Years’ 
among the Patagonians, p. 144. 

8 Monier - Williams, Srahmanism 
and Hindiism, p. 350. For criminal- 
worship in Sicily, see Peacock, ‘ Exe- 
cuted Criminals and Folk-Medicine,’ in 
folk-Lore, Vii. 275. 

Slavery 

through fire, walking upon water, transporting themselves 
in a moment of time to immense distances, or supporting 
themselves and others with food in desert places... When 
Muhammed first claimed to bethe Prophet of Allah, he 
was urged to give proof of his calling by working some 
miracle ; and though he uniformly denied that he possessed 
such power, it was nevertheless ascribed to him even by his 
contemporaries.” 

The dead are objects of worship much more 
commonly than are the living. Whilst the human 
individual consisting of body and soul is as a rule well- 
known, the disembodied soul, seen only in dreams or 
visions, is a mysterious being which inspires the survivors 
withawe. Mr. Spencerand Mr.Grant Allen even regard the 
worship of the dead as “ the root of every religion.”’* But 
this is to carry the ghost theory to an extreme for which 
there is no justification in facts. The spirits of the dead 
are worshipped because they are held capable of influencing, 
in a mysterious manner, the welfare of the living ; but 
there is no reason to assume that they were originally con- 
ceived as the only supernatural agents existing. We have 
noticed that even the lower animals show signs of the 
same feeling as underlies the belief in supernatural beings ; 
and we can hardly suppose that they are believers in 
chosts. 

On account of their wonderful effects medicines, 
intoxicants, and stimulants, are frequently objects of 
veneration. Most of the plants for which the American 
Indians had superstitious feelings were such as have 
medical qualities ;* tobacco was generally held sacred by 
them,° and so was cocoa in Peru.’ The Vedic deification 

1 Lane, Arabian Society in the git. Grant Allen, Zhe Evolution of 
Middle Ages, p. 49. Westermarck, ‘he /dea of God, pp. 91, 433, 438, &c. 

‘Sul culto dei santi nel Marocco,’ 4 Dorman, of. c7t. p. 298 sg. Dorsey, 
in Actes du XII. Congrés International ‘Siouan Cults,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. 
des Ortentalistes, il. 153 59g. Ethn, xi. 428. 

2 Muir, Lzfe of Mahomet, i. p. Ixv. 5 Mooney, ‘ Myths of the Cherokee,’ 

sq. Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and in Ann, Rep. Bur. Ethn. xix. 439. 
Mohammedanism, p. 19. Sell, Hazth Dorman, of. czz. p. 295. 
of Islim, p. 218. ® Dorman, of. c7t. p. 295. 

2 Spencer, Principles of Soctology, i. 

592 TH Ee BERIT S IN CHAP, 

of the drink soma was due to its exhilarating and invigor- 
ating effects.’ 

Among all the phenomena of nature none is more 
wonderful, impressive, awe- inspiring than thunder, and 
none seems morexgenerally to have given rise to religious 
veneration. But with growing reflection man finds a 
mystery even in events of daily occurrence. The Vedic 
poet, when he sees the sun moving freely through the 
heavens, asks how it comes that it does not fall downward, 
although “unpropped beneath, not fastened firm, and 
downward turned ”’ ;? and it seems to him a miracle that 
the sparkling Raters of all rivers flow into one ocean 
without ever filling it.? ‘* Verily,” says the Koran, “in 
the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the 
succession of night and day, are signs to those possessed 
of minds.” * 

The attribution of miraculous power to a certain object 
or being may be due to direct experience of some effect 
produced by it, as in the case of a medical plant, or a 
poisonous sanices Olea miracle-working spring, or a 
Christian or Muhammedan saint. Or it may be based on 
the inference that objects with a strange and mysterious 
appearance also possess strange and mysterious powers. 
This inference, too, is in a way supported by facts. The 
unusual appearance of the object makes an impression on 
the person who sees it, and predisposes him to the belief 
that the object is endowed with secret powers. If then 
anything unusual actually happens in its neighbourhood 
or shortly after it has been seen, the strange event is 
attributed to the influence of the strange object. Thus=a 
Siberian tribe came to regard the camel as the small-pox 
demon because, just when the animal had appeared among 
them for the first time with a passing caravan, the small 
pox broke out.” Of the British Guiana itaskern we are 

1 Whitney, ‘Vedic Researches in 3 Ibid. v. 85. 6. 
Germany,’ in Jor. American Oriental 4 Koran, iii. 87. 
SAR. Th, — ABV) Macdonell, Vedic > Tiele, Elements of the Sctence of 
Mythology, p. 108. Religion, i. 70. i 

2 Riz- Veda, iv. 13. 5. 

aan 

told by Mr. Im Thurn that if his eye falls upon a rock in 
any way abnormal or curious, and if shortly after any evil 
happens to him, he regards rock and evil as cause and 
effect, and perceives a spirit inthe rock.!| With the lapse 
of time the data of experience readily increase. Ifa certain 
object has gained the reputation of being supernatural, it is 
looked upon asthe cause of all kinds of unusual events which 
may possibly be associated with it. When I visited the 
large cave Imi-ntakkandut in the Great Atlas Mountains, 
the interior of which is said to contain a whole spirit city, 
my horse happened to stumble on my way back to my 
camp, and fell upon one of my servants who was carrying 
agun. The gun was broken and the man became lame 
for some days. I was told that the accident was caused 
by the cave-spirits, because they were displeased at my 
visit. When the following day I again passed the cave 
with my little caravan, heavy rain began to fall ; and now 
the rain was attributed to the ill-temper of the spirits. 
Startling events are ascribed to the activity not only of 
visible, but of invisible supernatural agents. Thus 
sudden or strange diseases are, at the lower stages of 
civilisation, commonly supposed to be occasioned by a 
supernatural being, which has taken up its abode in the 
sick person’s body, or otherwise sent the disease.” 
Among the Maoris, for instance, ‘“‘each disease was 
supposed to be occasioned by a different god, who resided 
in the part affected.”* The Australian Kurnai maintain 
that phthisis, pneumonia, bowel complaints, and insanity 
are produced by an evil spirit, ‘‘ who is like the wind.” * 
According to Moorish beliefs convulsions, epileptic or 
paralytic fits, rheumatic or neuralgic pains, and certain 
rare and violent epidemics, like the cholera, are caused by 
spirits, which either strike their victim, or enter his body, 
or sometimes, in the case of an epidemic, shoot at the 

1 Im Thurn, /déans of Guzana, p. heits-Damonen,’ in Archiv fiir Re- 
354- ¥ ligionswissenschaft, ii. 86 sgg. Karsten, 
2 Tylor, Primdtive Culture, ii. 146 op. cét. p. 27 599. : 
sgg. Schneider, De Naturvilher, i. * Taylor, 7e cha a Maut, p. 137. 
217, Bartels, Dze Medzcin der Natur- 4 Fison and Howitt, of. cz¢. p. 250. 
volker, p. 27 sgg. Hofler, ‘Krank- 

WO, wil Q Q 

THE BELIEF IN 

people with poisonous arrows. Indeed, unexpected 
events of every kind are readily pacriees to super- 
natural influence, in Morocco and elsewhere. Among 
the North American Indians “the storms and tempests 
were generally thought to be produced by aérial spirits 
from hostile lands.”’? Among the Hudson Bay Indians 
“ everything not understood is attributed to the working 
of one of the numerous spirits.” ‘Dans toute 
Afrique,” says M. Duveyrier in his description of the 
Touareg, “il n’y a pas un individu, éclaire ou ignare, 
instruit ou illettre, qui n’attribue aux. génies tout ce qul 
arrive Be eordinace sur la terre’’® Of the South 
African natives Livingstone writes, ‘‘ Everything not to 
be accounted for by common causes, whether of good or 
evil; as ascribed to theeDeity. = With the progress of 
science the chain of natural causes is extended, and, as 
Livy puts it, it is left to superstition alone to see the 
interference of the deity in trifling’ matters. Among 
ourselves the ordinary truths of science are so generally 
recognised that in this domain God is seldom supposed 
to interfere. On the other hand, with regard to social 
events, the causes of which are often hidden, the idea 
of Providence is still constantly needed to fill up the gap 
of human ignorance. 

Man’s belief in supernatural agents, then, is an attempt 
to explain strange and mysterious phenomena which 
suggest a volitional cause.? The assumed cause is the 
will of a supernatural being. Such beings are thus, in 
the first place, conceived as volitional. But a being 
which has a will must have a mind, with emotions, 
desires, and a certain amount of intelligence. Neither 
the savage nor ourselves can imagine a volitional being 

$94 CHAP. 

1 Dorman, of. cz. p. 350. Zambest, p. 521 Sq: 

2 Turner, ‘ Ethnology of the Ungava 
District,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. 
al, Oy 

3 Duveyrier, Exploration du Sahara, 

p- 418. See also Schneider, Religion 
a afrikanischen Naturvolker, p. 103. 

4 Livingstone, xfedition to the 

5 Already Hobbes (Zevdathan, i. 12, 
p. 79) traced, in part, the origin of 
religion to the fact that when man can- 
not assure himself of the true causes of 
things, he supposes causes of them. 
See also Meiners, Geschichte der Re- 
figtonen, i. 16. 

which has nothing but a will. If an object of nature, 
therefore, is looked upon as a_ supernatural agent, 
mentality and life are at the same time attributed to it as 
a matter of course. This I take to be the real origin of 
animism. It is not correct to say that “as the objects of 
the visible world are conceived as animated, volitional, 
and emotional, they may be deemed the originators of 
those misfortunes of which the true cause is unknown.” ! 
This is to reverse the actual order of ideas. Inanimate 
things are conceived as volitional, emotional, and animate, 
because they are deemed the originators of startling events. 
The savage does not speculate upon the nature of things 
unless he has an interest in doing so. He is not generally 
inquisitive as to causes.” The natives of West Australia, 
says Eyre, “are not naturally a reasoning people, and by 
no means given to the investigation of causes or their 
effects.” * In matters not concerning the common wants of 
life the mind of the Brazilian Indian is a blank.t When 
Mungo Park asked some negroes, what became of the 
sun during the night ? they considered his question a very 
childish one ; “ they had never indulged a conjecture, nor 
formed any hypothesis, about the matter.”’ I often 
found the Beduins of Morocco extremely curious, but 
their curiosity consisted in the question, What? rather 
than in the question, Why? 

Whilst belief in supernatural agents endowed with a will 
made the savage an animist, the idea that a mind presup- 
poses a body, when thought out, led to anthropomorphism. 
Impossible as it is to imagine a will without a mind, it is 
hardly less impossible to imagine a mind without a body. 
The immaterial soul is an abstraction to which has been 
attributed a metaphysical reality, but of which no clear 
conception can be formed. As Hobbes observed, the 
opinion that spirits are incorporeal or immaterial, ‘could 

1 Peschel, Races of Man, p. 245. 4 Bates, Zhe Naturalist on the Rrver 
2 Cf. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Amazons, ii. 163. 
i. 86 sg. ; Karsten, of. cit. p. 43 5g. 5 Mungo Park, Z7avels in the In- 

3 Eyre, Lxfeditions of Discovery terior of Africa, i. 413. 
into Central Australia, il. 355. 

Or Op 

never enter into the mind of any man by nature ;_ because, 
though men may put together words. . . . as Spirit and 
Incorporeall ; yet they can never have the imagination of 
anything answering to them.” ' Descartes himself frankly 
confessed, ‘‘ What the soul itself was I either did not 
stay to consider, or, if I did, I imagined that it was some- 
thing extremely rare and subtile, like wind, or flame, or 
ether, spread through my grosser parts.’’? The super- 
natural agents were consequently of necessity considered 
to possess a more or less material constitution. The dis- 
embodied human soul which the savage saw in dreams or 
visions, in the shadow or the reflection, was only the 
least material being which he could imagine ; and when 
raised to the dignity of an ancestor-god, it by no means 
lost its materiality, but, on the contrary, tended to acquire 
a more substantial body. 

Of a grosser substantiality and very unlike the human 
shape are the inanimate objects of nature which 
receive divine veneration. It has been said of savages 
that they do not worship the thing itself, only the 
spirit dwelling in it. But such a distinction cannot be 
primitive. The natural object is worshipped because it 1s 
believed to possess supernatural power, but it is neverthe- 
less the object itself that is worshipped.’ Castrén, who 
combined great personal experience with unusual acuteness 
of judgment, states that the Samoyedes do not know of 
any spirits attached to objects of nature, but worship the 
objects as such; “in other words, they do not separate 
the spirit from the matter, but adore the thing in its 
totality as a divine being.” * Of the deification of the 
Nerbudda river Sir W. H. Sleeman likewise observes, 
“As in the case of the Ganges, it is the river itself to 
whom they address themselves, and not to any deity 
residing in it, or presiding over it—the stream itself is 
the deity which fills their imaginations, and receives their 

1 Hobbes, of. cz¢. i. 12, p. 80. wessenschaft, p. 35; Parkman, of. ci. 
z Descartes, Meditationes, 2, p. 10. p. Ixvii. (North American Indians). 
3 Cf. Tiele, Max Miiller und Fritz 4 Castrén, of. c#t. ili. 192. Cf. zbzd. 

Schultze tiber ein Problem der Religions- iii. 161, 200 sg. 

a 
ran sineetiicsiie santana 

homage.” ' The animist who endows an inanimate object 

with a soul regards the visible thing itself as its body.’ 
How a being with such a body, like a tree or a stone, 
can hear the words of men, can see their doings, and can 
partake of the food they offer, might be difficult to 
explain—if it had to be explained. But, as I have said, 
the inquisitiveness of savage curiosity does not go to the 
roots of things, and religion is in its essence mystery. 
However, in proportion as a supernatural being comes 
more and more to occupy the thoughts of its worshippers 
and to stir their imagination, a more distinct personality 
is attributed to it ; and at length neither the ethereal or 
vaporous materiality of a departed human soul, nor the 
crude substantiality of an inanimate object is considered a 
satisfactory body for such a being. It is humanised also 
with regard to its essential shape. The Koriaks of 
Siberia believe “that objects and phenomena of nature 
conceal an anthropomorphic substance underneath their 
outer forms”’ ; but they also show the first signs of a belief 
in spiritual owners or masters ruling over certain classes 
of things or over large objects. The supernatural being 
which is originally embodied in a natural phenomenon is 
gradually placed behind it. In the Vedic hymns we may 
study this anthropomorphism as a process in growth. 
The true gods of the Veda are almost without exception 
the deified representatives of the phenomena or forces of 
nature,’ which are personified, though in varying degrees. 
When the name of the god is the same as that of his natural 
basis, the personification has not yet advanced beyond the 
rudimentary stage ; names like Dyaus (“ heaven’), Prthivi 
(“earth”), Surya (‘“‘sun’’), Usas (“dawn”), represent 
the double character of natural phenomena and of the 
personalities presiding over them. Speaking of the 
nature of the gods, the ancient Vedic interpreter Yaska 
remarks that “what is seen of the gods is certainly not 
1 Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections Myth,’ in Jesup Nor Pacthc Expedt- 
of an Indian Offictal, i. 20. tion, Vi. 115, 118. 

2 Castrén, of. cet. iii. 164 sg. 4 Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, p. 
3 Jochelson, ‘Koryak Religion and 591 sgq. 

THE BELIEF IN 

anthropomorphic, for example the sun, the earth, and so 
forth.” + Again, when the name of the god is different 
from that of the physical substance he is supposed to 
inhabit, the anthropomorphism is more developed, though 
never very distinct. The Vedic people always recognised 
behind its gods the natural forces of which they were the 
expression, and their physical appearance often only repre- 
sents aspects of their natural bases figuratively described 
to illustrate their activities. The sun is spoken of as 
the eye with which Varuna observes mankind ;* or it is 
said that the all-seeing sun, rising from his abode, goes 
to the dwellings of Mitra and Varuna to report the deeds 
of men.’ Even to this day the Hindu, to whatever sect 
he may belong, does homage to the rising sun every 
morning of his life by repeating a text of the Veda.* The 
god does not very readily change his old solid body for 
another which, though more respectable, has the dis- 
advantage of being invisible. The simple unreflecting 
mind finds it easier to worship a material thing which 
may be seen, than a hidden god, however perfect in 
shape. To the common Japanese the sun is still the 
god to whom he prays morning and evening.® Whilst 
Chinese scholars declare that the sacrifice offered to 
Heaven “ is assuredly not addressed to the material and 
sensible heaven, which our eyes see, but to the Master 
of heaven, earth, and all things,” ° the people are less 
metaphysical ; and the Russian peasant to this day makes 
an appeal to the Svarog of the old religion when crying, 
“Dost thou hear, O Sky? dost thou see, O Sky?”’ 
That the worship of animals survives at comparatively 
late stages of civilisation is probably due to the double 
advantage of their bodies being both visible and animate. 

1 Mirukta, vil. 4, quoted by Hop- 
kins, Religions of India, p. 209. 

2 Rig-Veda, 1. 50.6. Hopkins, of. 
cul. p. 67. Cf. ‘Rég-Veda, 1. 25. 10 
Gip.B ‘ily tigloy 2 

3 Rig- Veda, vii. 60. 1 sg. See Mac- 
donell, of. czt. pp. 2, 15, 17, 233 Muir, 
Original Sanskrit Texts, v. 6; Barth, 

Relisions of India, p. 178 ; Oldenberg, 
Religion des Veda, p. 591 sqq. 

4 Monier-Williams, rahmanism and 
fTinditism, p. 342. 

> Griffis, Religions of Japan, p. 87. 

6 Legge, Motions of the Chinese 
concerning God and Spirits, p. 38. 

* Ralston, Songs of the Russian 

People, p. 362. 

spate ical ial 

But though man created his gods in his own image 
and likeness, endowing them with a mind and a_ body 
modelled after his own, he never lost sight of the 
difference between him and them. He always ascribed 
to them a superior power of action ; otherwise they 
would have been no gods at all. In many cases, at least, 
he also attributed to them a superior knowledge. The 
Bechuanas maintain that their gods are much wiser than 
they are themselves.‘ In the admonitions of an Aztek 
mother to her daughter reference is made to a god who 
‘sees every secret fault.”* The gods “of the Greeks 
and Romans were possessed of superhuman wisdom,’ 
and so was Yahveh. It is true that the anthropomorphic 
god acquires knowledge of the affairs of men through his 
senses. When hearing the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, 
Yahveh said, “I will go down now, and see whether they 
have done altogether according to the cry of it, which 
is come unto me; and if not, I will know.’ * But 
the senses of a god are generally superior to those of 
a man. ‘‘A god,’ says Orestes, “can hear even from 
a distance.’° Varuna has an all-seeing eye, and the 
Zoroastrian Mithra has a thousand ears and ten thousand 
eyes.° In other respects, also, the bodies of gods excel 
the bodies of men. Sometimes they are more beautiful, 
sometimes they have a gigantic shape. When Ares is 
felled to the ground by the stone flung by Athene, his 
body covers seven roods of land.’ When Here takes a 
solemn oath, she grasps the earth with one hand and 
the sea with the other.* In three steps Poseidon goes 
an immense distance ;° in three paces Vishnu traverses 
earth, air, and sky.” 

However, the tendency to make gods more and more 

1 Arbousset and Daumas, 2wxplora- 4 Genesis, xviil. 20 sg. 
tory Tour to the North-East of the 5 Aeschylus, Hzmentdes, 297. 
Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, p. SMG in Se 7 
eV Gles oe 7 Thad, xxi. 407. 
2 Sahagun, Héstoria general de las 8 Jbid. xiv. 272 sq. 
cosas de Nueva Espafia, vi. 19, vol, ii. 9 bid. xiii. 20. 
Veils 10 Grimm, TZeztontc Mythology, i. 
3 Cf. Westcott, Assays inthe History 325. 
of Religious Thought, p. 101. 

perfect—of which I shall say more in a following chapter 
—gradually led to the notion that materiality is a quality 
which is not becoming to a god ; hence men endeavoured, 
to the best of their ability, to grasp the idea of a 
purely spiritual being, endowed with a will and even 
with human emotions, but. without a material body. 
Like Xenophanes in Greece, the Inca Yupangut in Peru 
protested against the prevailing anthropomorphism, 
declaring that purely spiritual service was befitting the 
almighty creator, not tributes or sacrifices." In the 
Bible we notice a successive transformation of the nature 
of the deity, from crude sensuousness to pure spirituality. 
According to the oldest traditions, Yahveh works and 
rests, he plants the garden of Eden, he walks in it in 
the cool of the day, and Adam and Eve hear his 
voice. In a great part of the Old Testament he is 
expressly bound by conditions of time and space. He 
is attached in an especial manner to the Jerusalem 
temple or some other shrine, and his favour is gained 
by definite modes of sacrifice. At the time of the 
Prophets the cruder anthropomorphisms of the earlier 
religion have been overcome ; Yahveh is no longer seen 
in person, and by a prophet like Isaiah his residence 
in Zion is almost wholly dematerialised. Yet, as 
Professor Robertson Smith observes, not even Isaiah 
has risen to the full height of the New Testament 
conception that God, who is spirit and who is to be 
worshipped spiritually, makes no distinction of spot 
with regard to worship, and is equally near to receive 
men’s prayers in every place.” Moslem theologians take 
pains to point out that God neither is begotten nor 
begets, and that he is without figure, form, colour, and 
parts. He hears all sounds, whether low or loud ; but 
he hears without an ear. He sees all things, even the 
steps of a black ant on a black stone in a dark night ; 
but he has no eyes, as men have. He speaks; but not 

1 Brinton, American Hero-Myths, p. Toy, Judaism and Christianity, p. 87. 
236. er Montefiore, op. cit. p. 424. Robertson 
2 Goblet d’Alviella, of. czt. p. 216. Smith, Religzon of the Semites, jek, WY 

as ahi ll le 

with a tongue, as men do.' He is endowed with know- 
ledge, feelings, and a will.” Thus the dematerialised god 
still retains a mental constitution modelled upon the 
human soul, with all its bodily desires and imperfections 
removed, with its higher qualities indefinitely increased, 
and, above all, endowed with a supernatural power of 
action. 

In following chapters we shallsee how the moral 
ideas of men have been influenced by the attributes they 
ascribe to supernatural beings. 

1 Risalah-i-Berkevi, quoted by Sell, 2 Sell, op. czé. p. 185. 
op. cit. p. 166 sg.

DUATESHLONGODS 

Men not only believe in the existence of supernatural 
beings, but enter into frequent relations with them. In 
every religion we may distinguish between two elements : 
a belief, and a regardful attitude towards the object of 
this belief. At the same time the assumption that super- 
natural beings exist is not necessarily connected with 
religious veneration of them. Relations may be estab- 
lished with some of them to the exclusion of others. If 
the relations between man and a certain supernatural 

being are of a more or less permanent character, the 

latter is generally called his god. 

As man attributes to his gods~a variety of human 
qualities, his conduct towards them is in many respects 
determined by considerations similar to those which 
regulate his conduct towards his fellow men. He endows 
them with rights quite after human fashion, and imposes 
on himself corresponding duties. 

Gods have the rights to life and bodily integrity. 
They are not necessarily either invulnerable or immortal. 
According to ancient Egyptian beliefs, the life of a god is 
indeed longer than that of a man, but death puts an end 
to the one as well as to the other.” The Vedic gods were 
mortal at first; immortality was only bestowed upon 

' See Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 1 cient Egyptians, p. 173. Cf. Maspero, 

SOY. Dawn of Ctvilization, p. 111 ; Erman, 
* Wiedemann, Religton of the An- Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 265. 

\ h thddtdatmasaiid 

DUTIES TO GODS 

them by Savitr or by Agni, or they obtained it by drink- 
ing soma, or by practising continence and austerity, or by 
the performance of certain ceremonies.! Nor were the 
Greek gods eternal by nature ; me secured immortality 
by feasting on nectar and ambrosia.” The Scandinavian 
gods had in Idun’s apples a means of preserving perpetual 
freshness and youth; but for all that they were subject 
to the encroachments of age, and their death is spoken of 
without disguise.* 

Though liable to death, the invisible anthropomorphic 
gods generally run little risk of being killed by men. 
But the case is different with such supernatural beings 
as live on earth in a visible and destructible shape. 
- They may be, and occasionally are, slain by human hands, 
although in this case _ killing hardly means As 
destruction, the soul surviving the death of the body. 
But to kill such a being is in ordinary circumstances 
looked upon as a dangerous act. We have noticed above 
that people are often reluctant to slay animals of certain 
species for fear lest either the disembodied spirit of the 
slain animal or others of its kind should avenge the injury ;* 
and the danger is naturally increased when the victim and 
its whole species are regarded as divine. Savages as a 
rule avoid killing animals of their own totem, and various 
statements imply that the act is disapproved of.’ 

It has been suggested that this regard for the life of a 
totemic animal is due to the notion that a man is akin to 
his totem. But the various taboos imposed upon him 
with reference to it, and the nature of the penalties 
incurred by the taboo-breaker,’ indicate that the relation 
between a human individual and the animal members of 
his totem are after all somewhat different from that 
between cousins. It seems that the totemic animal is in 

1 Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, :. 17. 

Oldenberg, Religzon des Veda, p. 176. 
2 Thad, v. 339 599: 

317 Sg. 
2 Gein, op. cit. 1. 318 59g. 
+ Supra, i. 491. 

Odyssey, V. 199. 
Cf Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, 1. 

> See Frazer, Zotemism, p. 7 sgq. 

5 Robertson Smith, Religion of the 
Semites, p. 285. Cf. Frazer, Totemism, 
Me See Frazer, Zotemtsm, p. 11 sqq. 3 
Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of 
Central Australia, pp. 322, 324 5g. 

the first place looked upon as a supernatural being, and 
that a person’s attitude towards it depends on the degree 
of dread or veneration which he feels for it. Such sacred 
- animals as are not conceived to be of one stock with their 
devotees are equally tabooed ; in ancient Egypt, we are 
told, offences against holy animals were punished even 
with death! On the other hand, so little respect is not 
seldom felt for the totem that it is treated in a way to 
which there is no parallel in the treatment of human 
relatives. Speaking of the native tribes of Central 
Australia, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen observe, “‘ That the 
totemic animal or plant is not regarded exactly as a close 
relative, whom it would be wrong to kill, or to assist any- 
one else to kill, is very evident ; on the contrary, the 
members of one totem not only, as it were, give their 
permission to those who are not of the totem to kill and 
eat the totemic animal or plant, but... they will 
actually help in the destruction of their totems.”* The 
South Australian Narrinyeri kill their totemic animals 
if they are good for food.? A Bechuana will kill his 

totem if it be a hurtful animal, for instance a lion ; the 

slayer then only makes an apology to the beast and goes: 

through a form of purification for the sacrilege.* Among 
the Menomini Indians a man belonging to the Bear clan 
may kill a bear, although he must first address himself 
to his victim and apologise for depriving it of life.’ 
The Indian tribes in the South-Eastern States had no 
respect for their totems and would kill them when they 
got the chance.© Among the Thlinkets a Wolf man will 
hunt wolves without hesitation, although he calls them 
his relatives when praying them not to hurt him.’ 

In certain cases divine animals are killed as a religious 

1 Wiedemann, Herodots zweites Buch, ° Hoffman, ‘ Menomini Indians,’ in 
p. 279. Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xiv. 44. 

2 Spencer and Gillen, Wative Tribes 6 Adair, History of the American 
of Central Australia, p. 207. Indians, p. 16. 

3 Taplin, ‘ Narrinyeri,’ in Woods, ? Boas, in /u/th Report on the North- 

Native Tribes of South Australia, p. Western Tribes of Canada, p. 23. For 
63. some other instances see Frazer, 
4 Casalis, Basutos, p. 211. Totemism, p. 19. 

/ 
Maree a 

ore = te 

or magical ceremony. Several instances of this have been 
pointed out by Dr. Frazer.'| Sometimes, when the 
revered animal is habitually spared, it is nevertheless 
killed on rare and solemn occasions. In other cases, 
when the revered animal is habitually killed, there is a 
special annual atonement, at which a select individual of 
the species is slain with extraordinary marks of respect 
and devotion. Dr. Frazer has offered ingenious explana- 
tions of both customs. As regards the former one he 
argues that the savage apparently thinks that a species 
left to itself will grow old and die like an individual, and 
that the only means he can think of to avert the catas- 
trophe is to kill a member of the species in whose veins 
the tide of life is still running strong and has not yet 
stagnated among the fens of old age; “the life thus 
diverted from one channel will flow, he fancies, more 
freshly and freely in a new one.”* The latter custom, 
again, is explained by Dr. Frazer as a kind of atonement ; 
by showing marked deference to a few chosen individuals 
of a species the savage thinks himself entitled to exter- 
minate with impunity all the remainder upon which he 
can lay hands.’ These explanations, as Dr. Frazer him- 
self is the first to admit, are only hypothetical, but, so far 
as I know, they are the only ones yet offered. However, 
it is worth noticing that certain acts accompanying the 
slaughter of divine animals sometimes clearly indicate a 
desire in the worshippers to transfer to themselves super- 
natural benefits—as when they eat the flesh of the animal, 
or sprinkle themselves with its blood, or by other means 
place themselves in contact with it ; and it may be that in 
such cases the animal is killed for the express purpose of 
communicating tothe people the sanctity, or beneficial magic 
energy, with which it isendowed. The Madi or Moru tribe 
of Central Africa furnish an instructive example. Once a 
year, as it seems, a very choice lamb is killed by a man 
belonging to a kind of priestly order, who sprinkles some 

1 Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 366 2 Tbid. ii. 368. 
59Q- 3 (bid. ii. 435. 

of the blood four times over the assembled people and 
then smears each individual with the same fluid. But 
this ceremony is also observed on a small scale at other 
times—if a family is in any great trouble, through illness 
or bereavement, their friends and neighbours come to- 
gether and a lamb is killed with a view to averting further 
evil. Among the Arunta and some other tribes in Central 
Australia, as we have noticed above, at the time of _ 
Intichiuma, totemic animals are killed with the object of 
being eaten. But here the sacramental meal is a magical 
ceremony intended to multiply the species, so as to 
increase the food supply for 6ther totemic groups; the 
fundamental idea being that the members of each totemic 
group are responsible for providing other individuals with 
a supply of their totem.’ 

Dr. Frazer has also called attention to various instances 
in which a man-god or divine king is put to death by 
his worshippers, and has suggested the following explana- 
tion of this custom :—Primitive people sometimes believe 
that their own safety and even that of the world is bound 
up with the life of one of these god-men or human in- 
carnations of the divinity. They therefore take the 
utmost care of his life, out of a regard for their own. 
But no amount of care and precaution will prevent the 
divine king from growing old and feeble and at. last 
dying. And in order to avert the catastrophes which 
may be expected from the enfeeblement of his powers and 
their final extinction in death, they kill him as soon as he 
shows symptoms of weakness, and his soul is transferred 
to a vigorous successor before it has been seriously im- 
paired by the threatened decay. But some peoples appear 
to have thought it unsafe to wait for even the slightest 
symptom of decay and have preferred to kill the divine 
king while he is still in the full vigour of life.  Ac- 
cordingly, they have fixed a term beyond which he 

1 Felkin, ‘Madi or Moru Tribe of Gillen, Wative Tribes of Central Aus- 
Central Africa,’ in Proceed. Roy. Soc. tralia, ch. vi. Lidem, Northern Tribes 

Edinburgh, xi. 336 sq. of Central Australia, ch. ix. sq. 
2 Supra, i. 210 sg. Spencer and 

may not reign, and at the close of which he must die, the 
term fixed upon being short enough to exclude the proba- 
bility of his degenerating physically in the interval. Thus 
it appears that in some places the people could not trust 
the king to remain in full bodily and mental vigour for 
more than a year; whilst in Ngoio, a province of the 
ancient kingdom of Congo, the rule obtains that the chief 
who assumes the cap of sovereignty one day shall be put 
to death on the next.' 

Every reader of Zhe Golden Bough must admire the 
ingenuity, skill, and learning with which Dr. Frazer has 
worked out his theory, even though he may fail to find 
the argument in every point convincing. It is obvious 
that the supernatural power of divine kings is frequently 
supposed to be influenced by the condition of their bodies. 
In some cases it is also obvious that they are killed on 
account of some illness, corporal defect, or symptom of 
old age, and that the ultimate reason for this lies in the 
supposed connection between physical deterioration and 
waning divinity. But, as Dr. Frazer himself observes, in 
the chain of his evidence a link is wanting: he can 
produce no direct proof of the idea that the soul of the 
slain man-god is transmitted to his royal successor.” In 
the absence of such evidence I venture to suggest a some- 
what different explanation, which seems to me more in 
accordance with known facts—to wit, that the new king 
‘is supposed to inherit, not the predecessor’s soul, but his 
divinity or holiness, which is looked upon in the light of 
a mysterious entity, temporarily seated in the ruling 
sovereign, but separable from him and transferable to 
another individual. 

This modification of Dr. Frazer’s theory is suggested by 
certain beliefs prevalent among the Moors. The Sultan of 
Morocco, who is regarded by the people as “the vice- 
gerent of God,” appoints before his death some member 
of his family—by preference one of his sons—as his 
successor, and this implies that his daraka, or holiness, will 

1 Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 5 sqq. 2 bid. ii. 56. 

be transferred to the new sovereign. But his holiness may 
also be appropriated by a pretender during his lifetime, 
which proves that it is regarded as something quite dis- 
tinct from his soul. Thus the people told me that the pre- 
tender Buhamara had come into possession of the Sultan’s 
baraka, and that he would subsequently hand it over to 
one of the Sultan’s brothers, who was then denied his 
liberty. Like the sultans of Morocco, the divine Kafir 
kings of Sofala, who were put to death if afflicted with 
some disease, nominated their successors.’ In ancient 
Bengal, again, whoever killed the king and succeeded in 
placing himself on the royal throne, was immediately 
acknowledged as king ; the people said, “‘ We are faithful 
to the throne, whoever fills the throne we are obedient 
and true to it.’ In the kingdom of Passier, on the 
northern coast of Sumatra, whose sacred monarch was not 
allowed by his subjects to live long, ‘“ the man who struck 
the fatal blow was of the royal lineage, and as soon as he 
had done the deed of blood and seated himself on the 
throne he was regarded as the legitimate king, provided 
that he contrived to maintain his seat peaceably aoe a single 
day.” ® In these cases, it seems, the sanctity was con- 
sidered to be aherae in the frone and to be partly 
communicated to persons. who. came into close contact 
with it.* 

Now, as we have noticed before, holiness is generally 
held to be exceedingly susceptible to any polluting in- 
fluence,’ and this would naturally suggest the idea that, 
in order to remain unimpaired, it has to be removed from 
a body which is defiled by disease or blemish. Such an 
idea may be supposed to underlie those cases in which 

1 Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 10. wonder-working talismans or fetishes, 
2 Sheek abs Way the possession of which carries with it 
F Miteh Te, the right to the throne. Among the 
4 Since the above was written, Dr. Yorubas of West Africa a miraculous 

Frazer himself has kindly drawn my virtue seems to be attributed to the 
attention to some statements in his royal crown, and the king sometimes 
Lectures on the Early History of the sacrifices sheep to it (2dz@. p. 124, n. 1). 
Kingship (p. 121 sgg.) from which it 5 See especially supra, li. 294-296, 
appears that insome parts of the Malay 352, 353, 415 sgq. 

region the regalia are regarded as 

= —" 

even the slightest bodily defect is a sufficient motive for 
putting the divine king to death. It is of the greatest 
importance for the community that the holiness on which 
its welfare depends should not be attached to an in- 
dividual whose organism is no longer a fit receptacle for 
it, and who is consequently unable to fulfil the duties in- 
cumbent upon a divine monarch ; and it may be thought 
that the only way of removing the holiness from him is 
to kill him. The same explanation would seem to apply 
to the killing of kings or magicians who have actually 
proved incapable of bringing about the benefits expected 
from them, such as rain or good crops,’ although in these 
instances the murderous act may also be a precaution 
against the revenge they might otherwise take for being 
deposed, or it may be a punishment for their failure,’ or 
have the character of a sacrifice to a god.’ Moreover, 
the disease, weakness, or physical deterioration of the 
king might cause his death ; and, owing to the extremely 
polluting effect ascribed to natural death, this would be 
the greatest catastrophe which could happen to the holi- 
ness seated in him. ‘The people of Congo believed that 
if their pontiff, the Chitomé, were to die a natural death, 
the world would perish, and the earth, which he alone 
sustained by his power and merit, would immediately be 
annihilated ; hence, when he fell ill and seemed likely to 
die, the man who was destined to be his «successor 
entered the pontiff's house with a rope or a club and 
strangled or clubbed him to death.* Similar motives may 
also have induced people to kill their divine king after a 
certain period, as everybody is sooner or later liable to 
fall ill or grow weak and die. But I can also imagine 
another possible reason for this custom. Supernatural 

1 Frazer, Golden Lough, i. 158 sq. 
Landtman, Origin of Priesthood, p. 
144 599. : “ 

2 Landtman, of. czf. p. 144. Divine 
animals are sometimes treated in a 
similar way. In ancient Egypt, if the 
sacred beasts could not, or would not, 
help in emergency, they were beaten ; 

ViO Ewe 

and if this measure failed to prove 
efficacious, then the creatures were 
punished with death (Wiedemann, 
Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 
178 ; dem, Herodots zwettes Buch, p. 
428 sq.). 

OT Supra le. AA: 

+ Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 8. 

18, AR 

energy is sometimes considered so sensitive to external 
influences that it appears to wear away almost by itself in 
the course of time. I have heard from Arabs in 
Morocco that a pretender’s holiness usually lasts only for 
half a year. And it may be that some of the divine 
kings mentioned by Dr. Frazer were exposed to a similar 
fatality and therefore had to be slain in time. 

As the right to life, generally granted to gods, is thus in 
certain circumstances abrogated for the benefit of their 
worshippers, so their right to bodily integrity may be 
suspended if their behaviour does not answer the ex- 
pectations of their devotees. Men punish their gods as 
they punish their fellow men. Among the Amazulu, 
when it thunders or, as they say, ‘“‘ the heaven is coming 
badly,” the doctors go out and scold it ; ‘‘they take a stick 
and say they are going to beat the lightning of 
heaven.”’ The negro cudgels his fetish unmercifully to 
make it submissive.” The Samoyede flogs his idol or 
throws it away if he does not succeed in his doings.*® The 
idols of the Typees, in the Marquesas Islands, “ received 
more hard knocks than supplications.”’* When his 
guardian spirit proves stubborn, the Hudson Bay 
Eskimo deprives it of food, or strips it of its garments.? 

In normal circumstances men regard it as a duty, not 
only to refrain from killing or injuring their gods, but 
positively to promote their existence and comfort, 
According to early beliefs, supernatural beings are subject 
to human needs. The gods of the heathen Siberians 
laboured for their subsistence, engaged in hunting and 
fishing, and laid up provisions of roots against times of 
dearth. When the heavens appear checkered with 
white clouds on a blue surface, the Maoris of New 
Zealand say that the god is planting his potatoes and 

1 Callaway, Religious System of the 4 Melville, 7ypee, p. 261. 

Amazulu, Pp. 404. > Turner, ‘ Ethnology of the Ungava 
? Bastian, Afrikandsche Reisen, p. District,’ in Aun. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 
61. 194. 
* von Struve, in Azs/and, 1880, p. ® Georgi, Russéa, ili. 250. 

795; 

other divine edibles." The Fijian gods are described as 
enormous eaters.? The Vedic gods wore clothes, were 
great drunkards, and suffered from constant hunger ;* I 
need only refer to the numerous passages in the Rig- 
Veda where mention is made of the appetite or thirst of 
Indra and the pleasure he has in filling his belly. An 
Egyptian god cannot be conceived without his house in 
which he lives, in which his festivals are solemnised, and 
which he never leaves except’on professional days. His 
dwelling has to be cleaned, and he is assisted at his toilet 
by his attendants ; the priest has to dress and serve his 
god, and places every day on his table offerings of food 
and drink.’ So also the Chaldean gods had to be 
nourished, clothed, and amused; and the stone or 
wooden statues erected to them in the sanctuaries 
furnished them with bodies which they animated with 
their breath.°® 

The idea that supernatural beings have human 
appetites and human wants leads to the practice of 
sacrifice. Whatever means they may have of earning 
their livelihood, they are certainly not indifferent to 
gifts offered by men. If such offerings fail them 
they may even suffer want and become feeble and 
powerless. The Egyptian gods, says M. Maspero, 
“were dependent upon the gifts of mortals, and the 
resources of each individual deity, and consequently his 
power, depended on the wealth and number of his 
worshippers.”" We meet with the same idea at every 
step in the Vedic hymns.* Should sacrifices cease for an 
instant to be offered, the gods would cease to send rain, 

1 Polack, Manners and Customs of — Religion,’ in Proceed. Soc. Biblical 
the New Zealanders, i. 244. Archeology, xiv. 153 sgg. Maspero, 
2 Williams and Calvert, 772, pp. of. ct. p. 679. 
184, 195. i Wiaspero, 074) 622... 302. Gf, 

3 Oldenberg, Religzon des Veda, pp. 
304, 366 sgg. Barth, LRelegions of 
India, p. 36, n. 2. 

4 Rig-Veda, ii. 11. 11; vill. 4. 10; 
Will. 07) 4.5 Vill. 178.75 &. SO, 13/599. 

De rmane OP GZ PD 273550 27.5, 
279. Maspero, af. cz. p. 110. j 

6 Ball, ‘Glimpses of Babylonian 

Wiedemann, Anczent Lgyptian Doc- 
trine of the Immortality of the Soul, p. 
19. 
BU RAced a, Wn W5a 2 sex. 52.5 Sg. 3 
x. 121. 7. Cf. Atharva-Veda, xi. 7. 14 
sg.; Hopkins, Relzgions of India, p. 
149; Kaegi, Rigveda, p. 31; Dar- 
mesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, p. 329. 

Rae Rae 

Gi DUTIES? TOsGODs CHAP. 

to bring back at the appointed hour Aurora and the sun, 
to raise and ripen harvests—not only because they would 
be unwilling, but because they would be unable to do so.* 
It was by sacrifice that the gods delivered the world from 
chaos, and it is by sacrifice that man prevents it from 
lapsing back into the same state ;° in the ‘Laws of 
Manu’ it is said that sacrifices support “both the 
movable and the immovable creation.” *® The Zoroas- 
trian books likewise represent the sacrifice as an act 
of assistance to the gods, by which they become 
victorious in their combats with the demons.* When 
not strengthened by offerings they fly helpless before 
their foes. Overcome by the demon Apaosha, the 
bright and glorious Tistrya cries out in distress :— 
‘“Woe is me, -O Ahura Mazda !.. .. Men eanes 
worship me with a sacrifice in which I am invoked 
by my own name. ... If men had worshipped me 
with a sacrifice in which I had been invoked by my 
own name, as they worship the other Yazatas with 
sacrifices in which they are invoked by their own 
names, I should have taken to me the strength of ten 
horses, the strength of ten camels, the strength of 
ten bulls, the strength of ten mountains, the strength 
Of mtene rivers: * 

Men are induced by various motives to offer sacrificial 
gifts to supernatural beings. In early religion the most 
common motive is undoubtedly a desire to avert evils ; 
and we have reason to believe that such a desire was the 
first source of religious worship. In spite of recent 
assertions to the contrary, the old saying holds true that 
religion was born of fear. Those who maintain that the 
savage is little susceptible to this emotion,® and that he 
for the most part takes his gods joyously,’ show ignorance 

PMBAGt C7. Cela OMa Or the East (1st edit.), iv. p. lxviii. 
2 Rig-Veda, x. 130. Barth, of. cit, Mayan Sti, Ba Sa 
js Byfc 6 Gruppe, Die eréechischen Culte und 
3 Laws of Manu, iil. 75 sgq. Mythen, p. 244 sg. 
4 See Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahrt- ” Grant Allen, Zvolution of the Idea 

man, p. 3273; Ldem, im Sacred Books of of God, p. 347. 

DUTIES; TO: GONS 

of facts. One of his characteristics is great nervous 
susceptibility," and he lives in constant apprehension of 
danger from supernatural powers. We are told of the 
Samoyedes that a sudden blow on the outside of a tent 
will sometimes throw the occupants into spasms. ‘‘ The 
Indian,” says Parkman, “lived in perpetual fear. The 
turning of a leaf, the crawling of an insect, the cry of a 
bird, the creaking of a bough, might be to him the 
mystic signal of weal or woe.”* From all quarters of the 
uncivilised world we hear that terror or fear is the 
predominant element in the religious sentiment, that 
savages are more inclined to ascribe evil than good to 
the influence of supernatural agents, that their sacrifices 
and other acts of worship more frequently have in view 
to avert misfortunes than to procure positive benefits, or 
that, even though benevolent deities are believed in, 
much more attention is paid to malignant ones.? And 
even among peoples who have passed beyond the stage of 

1 See Brinton, Religions of Primitive 
Peoples, p. 14. 
2 Parkman, Jesuzts 2 North America, 

p- Ixxxiv. 
3 Dorman, Origin of Primitive 
Superstitions, p. 391 (American In- 

dians generally). Miiller, Geschichte 
der Amertkanischen Orreligionen, pp. 
84, 171, 214, 260. von Spix and von 
Martius, Zyravels tn Brazil, ii. 243 
(Coroados). Brett, Judian Tribes of 
Guiana, p. 361 sg.; Im Thurn, Among 
the Indians of Guiana, p. 367 Sq. 
Dunbar, ‘ Pawnee Indians,’ in JWaga- 
zine of American Fitstory, viii. 736. 
McGee, ‘Siouan Indians,’ in Azz. 
Rep. Bur. Ethn. xv. 184. Murdoch, 
‘Ethn. Results of the Point Barrow 
Expedition,’ 22d. ix. 432 (Point Barrow 
Eskimo). Ross, ‘ Eastern Tinneh,’ in 
Smithsonian Report, 1866, p. 300. 
Radloff, Schamanenthum, p. 15 (Turk- 
ish tribes of the Altai). Fawcett, 
Saoras, p. 57. Campbell, Weld Tribes 
of Khondistan, p. 163 sg. Hunter, 
Annals of Rural Bengal, i. 181 sg. 
(Santals). Mouhot, Zvavels tn the 
Central Parts of Indo-China, i. 29 
(Bannavs of Cambodia). Man, ‘ Ab- 

original Inhabitants of the Andaman 
Islands,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 
157- Wilken, Het animisme bz7 de 
volken van den Indischen Archipel, p. 
207 sg. St. John, Lzfe zx the Forests 
of the Far East, i. 69, 70, 178; Low, 
Sarawak, p. 253; Selenka, Sonnzge 
Welten, p. 111 (Dyaks). von Brenner, 
Besuch bet den Kannibalen Sumatras, 
p. 216. Kubary, ‘ Die Palau-Inseln,’ 
in Jour. des Museum Godeffroy, iv. 44 
(Pelew Islanders). Williams and Cal- 
vert, zz, p. 189. Percy Smith, 
“Uea,’ in Jour. Polynestan Soc. i. 114. 
Turner, Samoa, p. 21. Ellis, Poly- 
nesian Researches, i. 336 (Tahitians). 
Taylor, Ze Zka a Mau, pp. 104, 148; 
Yate, Account of New Zealand, p. 141; 
Polack, of. cz¢. i. 244(Maoris). Fritsch, 
Die Eingeborenen Stid-Afrika’s, pp. 
338, 339, 341 (Hottentots). Decle, 
Three Years in Savage Africa, p. 153 
(Matabele). Livingstone, J7Zzsszonary 
Travels, p. 435 (peoples inhabiting the 
country north of the Zambesi). Mon- 
rad, Skildring af Guinea-Kysten, p. 2 
(Negroes of Accra). See also Karsten, 
Origin of Worship, p. 44 sqq. ; infra, 
p- 665 sag. 

614. DUTIES TO GODS CHAP. 

savagery fear still remains a prominent factor in their 
religion. The great bulk of Homeric cult-operations lay 
in propitiatory rites in avoidance of evil.’ ‘No one,” 
says Sir Monier-Williams, “ who has ever been brought 
into close contact with the Hindus in their own country 
can doubt the fact that the worship of at least ninety per 
cent. of the people of India in the present day is a 
worship of fear.”* In one of the Pahlavi texts we read 
that “he is not to be considered as faithful who has no 
fear of the sacred beings.”*® The Egyptian Amon Ra, 
who is praised as ‘“‘ the beautiful and beloved god, who 
giveth life by all manner of warmth, by all manner of fair 
cattle,” is at the same time styled “Lord of fear, great 
one of terror.”* The Psalmist says that ‘the fear of the 
Lord is the beginning of wisdom,”® and, as Noldeke 
points out, “the fear of God” was used in its literal 
sense.” Although the Koran has much to tell about the 
loving kindness of God, the god of Islam evokes much 
more fear than love. Faith is said by Muhammedan 
theologians to ‘stand midway between hope and 
tear, | 

Hope, indeed, forms an element in every religion, 
even the lowest. The assumed authors of painful or 
alarming events became objects of worship because they 
were conceived, not as mechanical causes, but as personal 
agencies which might be influenced by the regardful 
attitude of the worshipper. The savage is not so 
irrational as to make offerings to beings from whom he 
expects no benefits in return. And in proportion as the 
deities grew more benignant and their sphere of action 
was extended, their worshippers became more confident, 
expecting from them not only mercy but positive 
assistance. 

We may suppose that already at an early stage of 

1 Cf. Keller, Homeric Society, p. 115 4 Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient 
Sg. Egyptians, p. 111 sq. 
2 Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and VP sa ini exis LO: 
Hindiiism, p. 230. 8 Noldeke, in Archiv fiir Religions- 
3 Dind-t Mainog-? Khirad, xxxix. wissenschaft, 1. 362. 

33: T Sell, Hazth of Islam, p. 165. 

—) 

DUTIES TO GODS 

culture man, occasionally, was struck by some unexpected 
fortunate event and ascribed it to the influence of a 
friendly spirit with which he was anxious to keep on 
amicable terms. Among the Tshi-speaking peoples of 
the Gold Coast worship is the result not only of fear, 
but also of the hope of obtaining some direct advantage 
or protection.’ The pagans of Siberia accompanied their 
sacrifices with words like these :—“‘ Behold what I bring 
you to eat; bring me then in return children, cattle, and 
a long life.’® The Point Barrow Eskimo, when he ar- 
rives at a river, throws into the air a small piece of tobacco, 
crying out, “Spirits, spirits, I give you tobacco, give me 
plenty of fish!” * Of the Sia Indians (Pueblos) Mrs. 
Stevenson writes that their religion is not mainly one of 
propitiation, but rather of supplication for favours and 
payment for the same—they “do the will of and thereby 
please the beings to whom they pray.” * We even hear 
of savages making thank-offerings to their gods. In Fiji, 
after successful fishing for turtle, or remarkable deliverance 
from danger in war or at sea, or recovery from sickness, 
a kind of thank-offering was sometimes presented to the 
deities.» When certain natives of Eastern Central Africa, 
after they have prayed for a successful hunting expedition, 
return home laden with venison or ivory, they know that 
they are indebted to “their old relative” for their good 
fortune, and give him a thank-offering.® We are told that 
in Northern Guinea, when a person has-been repeatedly 
fortunate through the agency of a fetish, “he contracts a 
feeling of attachment and gratitude to it.”” Yet we have 
reason to suspect that the gratitude of the sacrificer 1s com- 

1 Ellis, 7shz-speakeng Peoples of the 
Gold Coast, p. 17. Cf. Idem, Yoruba- 
speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, p. 

6 Macdonald, Africana, i. 61. For 
other instances of thank-offerings see 
Shooter, Kajfirs of Natal, p. 165; 

ee he 

2 Georgi, Ressta, lll. 284. 

3 Murdoch, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. 
ties BIR ; 

4 Stevenson, ‘Sia,’ in Ann. Ref. 
Bur. Ethn. xi. 67. 

5 Williams and Calvert, of. czt. p. 
195. 

Smith, ‘Myths of the Iroquois,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ii. 51 ; Jochel- 
son, ‘ Koryak Religion and Myth,’ in 
Jesup North Pacific Expedition, vi. 25, 
92. Leem, Beskrivelse over Finmar- 
hens Lapper, p. 431 (Lapps). 

7 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 212. 

monly of the kind which La Rochefoucauld defined as “a 

secret desire to receive greater benefits in the future.” ' 
Sometimes the. thank-offering, if it may be called so, is ex- 
pressly preceded by avow. Among the Kansas the warrior, 
when going to war says, facing the East, ‘I wish to pass 
along the road to the foe! O Wakanda! I promise 
you a blanket if I succeed”; and turning to the West, 
“© Wakanda! I promise you a feast if I succeed.”? 
Even in religions of a higher type the offering of sacrificial 
gifts is mainly a sort of bargain with the god to whom 
they are offered. In the Vedic hymns the gods are 
addressed by phrases like these, “If you give me this, I 
shall give you that,” or, “ As you have given me this, I 
shall give you that.”*® The singer naively confesses, 
“I looked forth in spirit, seeking good, O Indra and 
Agni, to relations and kinsmen; but I have no other 
helper than you; therefore | have made you a powerful 
song.” * The Greeks expressed the idea connected with 
their sacrifices in the proverbial saying, Sapa Oeovs 
metOev. The ancient Hebrew view on the subject is 
illustrated by the vow of Jacob :—“ If God will be with 
me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give 
me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come 
again to my father’s house-in peace ; then shall the Lord 
be my God: And this stone, which I have set for a 
pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt 
give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.” ° 

In many cases the sacrificial victims are intended to 
serve as substitutes for other individuals, whose lives are 
in danger. We have previously noticed that the practice 
of human sacrifice is mainly based on the idea of substitu- 
tion.’ We have also seen that a growing reluctance to 
this practice often led to the offering of animals instead of 

4 La Rochefoucauld, Maximes, 298. 302-326, 430 sgg. : 

2 Dorsey, ‘ Mourning and War Cus- 4 Rig-Veda, i. 109. 1. Cf. zbed. i. 
toms of the Kansas,’ in American 71. 7. i 
Naturalist, xix. 678. ° Plato, Respubleca, ili. 390. 

3 Miiller, Physical Religion, yp. 100. 8 Genesis, xxviii. 20 sqq. 

Oldenberg, eligion des Veda, pp. 7 Supra, ch, xix, 

i 

XLVIII DUTIES TO GODS AGL 

men.’ But we have no right to assume that the sacrifice 
of an animal for the purpose of saving the life of a man 
is in every case a later modification of a previous human 
sacrifice. The idea that spirits which threaten the lives 
of men are appeased by other than human blood may in 
some instances be primary though in others it is derivative. 
The Moors invariably sacrifice an animal at the foundation 
of a new building; and though this is said to be ‘4@r upon 
the spirit owners of the place some idea of substitution 
seems also to be connected with the act, as they maintain 
that if no animal were killed the inmates of the house 
would die or remain childless. A similar practice prevails 
in Syria, where the people believe that “every house 
must have its death, either man, woman, child, or 
animal.” * Among the Jews it is or has been the custom 
for the master of each house to kill a cock on the eve 
of the fast of atonement. Before doing so he strikes 
his head with the cock three times, saying at each stroke, 
“Tet this cock be a commutation for me, let him be 
substituted for me” ; and when he strangles his victim 
by compressing the neck with his hand, he at the same 
time reflects that he himself deserves to be strangled.’ 
These customs can certainly not be regarded as survivals 
of an earlier practice of killing a human being. More- 
over an animal is sometimes sacrificed for the purpose of 
saving the lives of other animals. Thus in a place in 
Scotland, in 1767, a young heifer was offered in the 
holy fire during a cattle-plague.* And in Great Benin, 
in West Africa, on the anniversary of the death of Adolo, 
king Overami’s father, not only twelve men, but twelve 
cows, twelve goats, twelve sheep, and twelve fowls were 
offered, and Overami, addressing his father, asked him to 
look after the “ cows, goats, and fowls, and everything in 
the farms,” as well as the people.’ Sacrifices which are 

l Supra, i. 469 sq. 608. 

2 Curtiss, Primcteve Semitic Religion 5 Moor and Roupell, quoted by 
To-day, p. 224 sq. Read and Dalton, Azteguzties fron the 

3 Allen, Wodern Judaism, p. 400. City of Benin, p. 6, and by Ling Roth, 

4 Grimm, TZeztontc Mythology, i. Great Benin, p. 70 sg. 

substitutional in character may or may not be intended to 
satisfy the material needs of supernatural beings. In 
some cases, as we have seen, their object 1S e appease a 
resentful god by the mere death of the victim.’ 

We have further noticed that, in the case of human 
sacrifice, the victim is occasionally ‘regarded as a messenger 
peceen: the worshippers and their god, even though the 
primary object of the rite be a different one.2 The same 
is sometimes true of other offerings as well. The 
Iroquois’ sacrifice of the white dog* was, according to 
Mr. Morgan, intended “to send up the spirit of the dog 
as a messenger to the Great Spirit, to announce their 
continued fidelity to his service, and, also, to convey to 
him their united thanks for the blessings of the year” ; 
and in their thanksgiving addresses they were in the habit 
of throwing leaves of tobacco into the fire from time to 
time that their words might ascend to the dwelling of the 
Great Spirit in the smoke of their offerings.’ ‘The Huichols 
of Mexico often use the arrows-which they sacrifice to 
their gods as carriers of special prayers.° 

Not only are sacrifices used as bearers of prayers, but 
they are also frequently offered for the purpose of trans- 
ferring curses. In Morocco every siyid" of any importance 
1s constantly visited by persons who desire to invoke the 
saint to whom it is dedicated with a view to being cured 
of some illness, or being blessed with children, or getting 
a suitable husband or wife, or receiving help against an 
enemy, or deriving some other benefit from the saint. To 
secure his assistance the visitor makes ‘dr upon him ; and 
the Moorish ‘é7, of which I have spoken above,’ implies 
the transference of a conditional curse, whether it be made 
Broo an ordinary man or a saint, living or dead. The 
“ar put upon a saint may consist in on owing stones upon a 
cairn connected with his sanctuary, or making a pile of 

Bs Supra, i. 438 sqq. ®> Morgan, League of the Lrogitts, 

2 Supra, i. 465 sg. p: oO Sgq. 

3 Cf. Hubert and Mauss, ‘ Essai sur > Lumholtz, Viknown Mextco, ii. 205. 
la nature et la fonction du sacrifice,’ in 7 For the meaning of this word see 
Lannée soctologigite, ii. 106, n. 1. Supra, ii. 584. 

4 See supra, i. 53, 64. 8 Supra, i, 586 sg. 3 ii. 584 sg. 

\ 
a! 

DUTIES: *TO)GODS 

stones to him, or tying a piece of cloth at the szyid, or 
knotting the leaves of some palmetto or the stalks of 
white broom growing in its vicinity, or offering an animal 
sacrifice to the saint.’ This making of ‘dr is accompanied 
by a promise to reward the saint if he grants the request ; 
but the sacrifice offered in fulfilment of such a promise 
(/-wa ‘da) is totally distinct from that offered as ‘4r. It isa 
genuine gift, whereas the ‘dr-sacrifice is a means of con- 
straining the saint. When an animal is killed as ‘ér the 
usual phrase dismillah, “ In the name of God,” is not used, 
and the animal may not be eaten, except by poor people.” 
On the other hand, the animal cahiche: is sacrificed as wé@‘da 
is always killed ‘“‘ in the name of God,” and is offered for 
the very purpose of being eaten by the saint’s earthly 
representatives. Nothing can better show than the 
Moorish distinction between /-‘dr and -wé‘da how futile 
it would be to try to explain every kind of sacrifice by 
one and the same principle. The distinction between 
them is fundamental : the former is a threat, the latter is 
a promised reward.’ But at the same time it is not im- 
probable that the idea of transferring curses to a super- 
natural being by means of a sacrifice was originally sug- 
gested by the previous existence of sacrifice as a religious 
act, combined with the ascription of mysterious propensi- 
ties to blood, and especially to sacrificial blood, which, 
according to primitive ideas, made it a most efficient con- 
ductor of curses. 

1] Westermarck, ‘L-‘dr, or the inherent in 2-‘d7. 

Transference of Conditional Curses in 
Morocco,’ in Anthropological Essays 
presented to EL. B. Tylor, p. 368 sqq- 

® However, if the styzd has a 
mkdddam, or regular attendant, he tries 
to induce the petitioner to give him the 
victim alive, so that he may himself kill 
it ‘fin the name of God,” and thus 
make it eatable. Then the descendants 
of the saint, if he has any, and the 
mkdddam himself, have no hesitation in 
eating the animal, even though it was 
intended by the visitor as ‘@r on the 
saint, d¢smilléh being a holy word 
which removes the curse or evil energy 

3 When I have asked how it is that a 
saint, although invoked with /-‘dr, does 
not always grant the request made to 
him, the answer has been that the saint 
does all that he can, but that he is not 
all-powerful and the failure is due to 
the fact that God does not listen to his 
prayer. But it also occurs that a person 
who has in vain made ‘ér upon a saint 
goes to another séy¢d to complain of 
him. There is a general belief that 
saints do not help unless ‘dv is made on 
them—an idea which is not very flatter- 
ing to their character. 

There are obvious indications that the ‘dr-sacrifice of 
the Moors is not unique of its kind, but has its counter- 
part among certain other peoples. In ancient religions 
sacrifice is often supposed to exercise a constraining in- 
fluence on the god to whom it is offered. We meet 
with this idea in Zoroastrianism,’ in many of the Vedic 
hymns,” and especially in Brenmanism. “¢ Flere,” says 
Barth, ‘‘the rites of religion are the real deities, or ot any 
rate they constitute together a sort of independent and 
superior power, before which the divine personalities dis- 
appear, and which almost holds the place allotted to destiny 
in other systems. ‘The ancient belief, which is already 
prominent in the Hymns, that sacrifice conditionates the 
regular course of things, is met with here in the rank of a 
commonplace, and is at times accompanied with incredible 
details.” > Now, there can be little doubt that this ascrip- 
tion of a magic power to the sacrifice, by means of which 
it could control the actions of the gods, was due to the 
idea that it served as a conductor of imprecations ; for it 
was invariably accompanied by a formula which was con- 
sidered to possess irresistible force. In the invocation 

lies the hidden energy which gives the efficacy to the. 

without Brahmanaspati, the lord of prayer, sacri- 
fice does not succeed.4 ‘The Greeks actually offered 
anathemata, or curses, to their gods.’ The ancient Arabs, 
again, after killing the sacrificial animal, threw its hair on 
a holy tree as a curse.® But so little has the true import 
of such sacrifices been understood even by eminent 
scholars, that they have been represented as votive 
offerings or gifts to the deity.’ 

Considering that the idea of sacrifice being a conductor 
of imprecations has hitherto almost entirely escaped the 
notice of students of early religion, it is impossible to say 

sacrifice ; 

1 Darmesteter, Orvmazd ef Ahriman, 
p- 330. 

2 Rig- Veda, ii. 45. 13 iv. 15. 53 vi 
51. 8; vill. 2.6. Oldenberg, Religion 
des Veda, p. 311 sq. 

3 Barth, Religions of India, p. 47 
Sq. 

4 Rig-Veda, i. 18. 7. 

e Rouse, Greek Voteve Offerings, p. 
337 599. 

® Wellhausen, Leste 
fTeidentumis, p. 124. 

7-Rouse, op: cet. p. 337:  Well- 
hausen, of. cz¢. p. 124. 

arabischen 

Seer em 

how widely it prevails and whether it also occurs in the 
savage world. We know that the practice of cursing a 
god not only was familiar to the ancient nations of culture, 
including the Egyptians,’ Hebrews, and other Semites,” 
but is common among peoples like the South African 
Bechuanas* and the Nagas of India.* And that the 
shedding of blood is frequently applied as a means of 
transferring curses is suggested by various cases in which, 
however, the object of the imprecation is not a god but a 
man. We have previously noticed the reception sacrifices 
offered to visiting strangers, presumably for the purpose of 
transmitting to them conditional curses ;° and a ver 

similar idea seems to underlie certain cases of oath-taking. 
Sometimes the oath is taken in connection with a sacrifice 
made to a god, and then the sanctity of the sacrificial 
animal naturally increases the efficacy of the self-impreca- 
tion. In other instances the oath is taken on the blood of 
an animal which is killed for the purpose, apparently 
without being sacrificed to a god. But in either case, I 
believe, the blood of the animal is thought not only to add 
supernatural energy to the oath, but to transfer, as it were, 
the self-imprecation to the very person who pronounces it. 
The Mrus, a Chittagong hill tribe, ‘‘ will swear by one of 
their gods, to whom, at the same time, a sacrifice must be 
offered.” ° Among the ancient Norsemen both the 
accused and the accuser grasped the holy ring kept for 
that purpose on the altar, stained with the blood of a 
sacrificial bull, and made oath by invoking Freyr, Niordr, 
and the almighty among the Asas.’ At Athens a person 
who charged another with murder made an oath with 
imprecations upon himself and his family and his house, 
standing upon the entrails of a boar, a ram, and a bull, 

1 Book of the Dead, ch. 125. 6 Lewin, Wild Races of South- 

2 Exodus, xxii. 28. 1Samuel, xvii. astern India, p. 233. Cf. ebid. p. 
43. Lsaiah, viii, 21. 244 (Pankhos and Bunjogees). 

3° Chapman, Zravels in the Interior 7 Landnamabok, iw. 7 (Lslendinga 
of South Africa, \. 45 sq. Sdgur, 1. 258). Lea, Superstition and 

4 Woodthorpe, ‘ Wild Tribesinhabit- Force, p. 27. Keyser, L/fterladte 
ing the so-called Naga Hills,’ in Jour,  Skrifter, ii. pt. 1. 388. Gummere, 
Anthr. Inst. xi. 70. Germanic Origins, Pp. 301. 

5 Supra, i. 590 sg. 

which had been sacrificed by special persons on the 
appointed days.’ Tyyndareus “sacrificed a horse and 
swore the suitors of Helen, making them stand on the 
pieces of the horse,” the oath being to defend Helen and 
him who might be chosen to marry her if ever they 
should be wronged.” One of the three binding forms of 
oath prevalent among the SAnsiya in India is to “all 2 
cock and pouring its blood on the ground swear over it.’ 
When the Annamese swear by heaven and earth, se 
often kill a buffalo or he-goat and drink its bocce 
Among the ancient Arabs comrades in arms swore fidelity 
to each other by dipping oe hands in the blood of a 
camel killed for the purpose.? 

The last mentioned case, which implies shedding of 
blood as a means of sealing a compact, leads us to a 
special class of sacrifices offered to gods, namely, the 
covenant sacrifice, known to us from Semitic antiquity. 
The Hebrews, as Professor Robertson Smith observes,° 
thought of the national religion as constituted by a 
formal covenant sacrifice at Mount Sinai, where half of . 
the blood of the sacrificed oxen was sprinkled on the 
altar and the other half on the people,’ or even by a still 
earlier covenant rite in which the parties were Yahve and 
Abraham ;° and the idea of sacrifice establishing a cove- 
nant between God and man is also apparent in the 
Psalms.° In various cases recorded in the Old Testa- 
ment sacrifice is accompanied by a sacrificial meal ;'° ‘‘ the 
god and his worshippers are wont to eat and drink 
together, and by this token their fellowship is declared 

1 Demosthenes, Oratio(xxz22.) contra 
Aristocratem, 67 Sq., Pp» 642. 

2 Pausanias, iii. 20. 9. For Homeric 
oath sacrifices see //zad, il. 260 sgq. ; 
xix. 250 sgg. ; Keller, Homerec Soczety, 
p. 176 sqq. 

3 Crooke, Zrzbes and Castes of the 
North-Western Provinces, iv. 281. 

4 Kohler, Rechtsvergletchende Stu- 
dien, p. 208. 

5 Wellhausen, 
Heidentums, p. 128. 

Reste  arabischen 

8 Robertson Smith, Religion of the 
Semites, p. 318 sg. 

7 Exodus, xxiv. 4 59q. 

8 Genesis, xv. 8 sqq. 

TRIB My 
10“Genests, xxxi. 54. Exodus, xxiv. 
0 ae Samuel, xi, I5. Wellhausen 

says (Prolegomena to the History of 
Israel, p..71) that, according to the 
practice of the older period, a meal was 
ey always connected with a sacri- 
ice. 

and sealed.”! Robertson Smith and his followers have 

represented this as an act of communion, as a sacrament 
in which the whole kin—the god with his clansmen— 
unite, and in partaking of which each member renews his 
union with the god and with the rest of the clan. At 
first, we are told, the god—that is, the totem god—him- 
self was eaten, whilst at a later stage the practice of 
eating the god was superseded by the practice of eating 
with the god. Communion still remains the core of 
sacrifice ; and it is said that only subsequently the prac- 
tice of offering gifts to the deity develops out of the 
sacrificial union between the worshippers and their god.’ 
But I venture to think that the whole of this theory is 
based upon a misunderstanding of the Semitic evidence, 
and that existing beliefs in Morocco throw new light upon 
the covenant sacrifice. 

The Moorish covenant (‘éhéd) is closely connected with 
the Moorish ‘ér. Whilst -‘ér is one-sided, /-‘ahéd is 
mutual, both parties transferring conditional curses to 
one another. And here again the transference requires a 
material conductor. Among the Arabs of the plains and 
the Berbers of Central Morocco chiefs, in times of re- 
bellion, exchange their cloaks or turbans, and it is believed 
that if any of them should break the covenant he would 
be punished with some grave misfortune. Among the 
Ulad Bu ‘Aziz, in the province of Dukkala, it is a 
common custom for persons who wish to be reconciled 
after a quarrel to go to a holy man and in his presence 
join their right hands so that the fingers of the one go 
between the fingers of the other, after which the saint 
throws his cloak over the united hands, saying, ‘ This is 
‘ihéd between you.” Or they may in a similar manner 
join their hands at a saint’s tomb over the head of the 
box under which the saint is buried, or they may perform 
the same ceremony simply in the presence of some 
friends. In either case the joining of hands is usually 

1 Robertson Smith, of. cz¢. p. 271. of Perseus, i. 236. Jevons, Litroduc- 
2 Jbid. \ec. ix. sgg. Wartland, Legend tron to the Hrstory of Religion, p. 225. 

accompanied by a common meal, and frequently the 
hands are joined over the dish after eating. If a person 
who has thus made a compact with another is afterwards 
guilty of a breach of faith, it is said that “God and the 
food will repay him”; in other words, the conditional 
curse embodied in the food which he ate will be realised. 
All over Morocco the usual method of sealing a compact 
of friendship is by eating together, especially at the tomb 
of some saint. As we have noticed above,’ the sacredness 
of the place adds to the efficacy of the imprecation, but 
its vehicle, the real punisher, is the eaten food, because it 
contains a conditional curse. 

The ‘éhéd of the Moors helps us to understand the 
covenant sacrifice of the ancient Semites. The only 
difference between them is that the former is a method 
of establishing a compact between men and men, whilst 
the latter established a compact between men and their god. 
The idea of a mutual transference of conditional curses 
undoubtedly underlies both. It should be noticed that in 
the Old Testament also, as among the Moors, we meet with 
human covenants made by the parties eating together.’ 
Thus the Israelites entered into alliance with the 
Gibeonites by taking of their victuals, without consulting 
Yahve, and the meal was expressly followed by an oath.® 
In other instances, again, the common dish consisted of 
sacrificial food, either because the sacredness of such food 
was supposed to make the conditional curse embodied in 
it more efficacious, or because the deity was included as a 
third party to the covenant. 

Whilst in some cases the object of a sacrifice is to 
transfer conditional curses either to the god to whom it 
is made, or to both the god and the worshipper, the 
victim or article offered may in other instances be used as 
a vehicle for transferring benign virtue to him who 
offered it or to other persons. As we have noticed 

1 Supra, i. 587. ; op. cet. p. 271. Nowack, Lehrbuch 
> Genesis, XxVi. 30; xxxi. 46. 2 der hebriischen Archdologie, i. 359 
Samuel, iii. 20 sg. Robertson Smith, 3 Joshua, ix. 14 sq. 

a. ——— 

y 

XLVIII DUTIES TO GODS 625° 

above,’ a sacrifice is very frequently believed to be 
endowed with beneficial magic energy in consequence of 
its contact or communion with the supernatural being 
to which it is offered, and this energy is then supposed 
to have a salutary effect upon the person who comes in 
touch with it. I have said before that in Morocco magic 
virtue is ascribed to various parts of the sheep which is 
sacrificed at the “Great Feast,” and-that every offering 
to a holy person, especially a dead saint, is considered 
to participate to some extent in his sanctity.2 The Vedic 
people regarded sacrificial food as a kind of medicine.® 
The Siberian Kachinzes blessed their huts with sacrificial 
milk.* The Lapps strewed the ashes of their burnt- 
offerings upon their heads.’ It is quite possible that in 
some instances a desire to receive the benefit of the 
supernatural energy with which the sacrifice is endowed 
is by itself a sufficient motive for offering it to a god. 

As is the case with other rites, sacrifices also have a 
strong tendency to survive the ideas from which they 
sprang. Thus when the materialistic conception of the 
nature of gods faded away, offerings continued to be 
made to them, though their meaning was changed. As 
Professor Tylor observes, “the idea of practical accept- 
ableness of the food or valuables presented to the deity, 
begins early to shade into the sentiment of divine gratifi- 
cation or propitiation by a reverent offering, though in 
itself of not much account to so mighty a divine. 
personage.” ® Sacrifice then becomes mainly, or exclu- 
sively, a symbol of humility and reverence. Even in the 
Rig-Veda, in spite of its crude materialism, we meet with 
indications of the idea that the value of a sacrifice lies in 
the feelings of the worshipper ; if unable to offer an ox or 
cow, the singer hopes that a small gift from the heart, a 
fagot, a libation, a bundle of grass, offered with reverence, 

1 Supra, i. 445 sg. See also Hubert 4 Georgi, of. cet. il. 275. 

and Mauss, /oc. cz¢. p. 133. 5 von Diiben, Lappland och Lap- 
2 Supra, 1. 445 Sg. parne, p. 258. Wet ‘ 
3 Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, 8 Tylor, Primitive Culture, il. 394. 
Pp. 328 sgq. 

VOL. Il Ss 

will be more acceptable to the god than butter or honey.* 
In Greece, though the sacrificial ritual remained un- 
changed till the end of paganism, we frequently come 
upon the advanced reflection that righteousness is the 
best sacrifice, that the poor man’s slight offering avails 
more with the deity than hecatombs of oxen.” According 
to Porphyry, the gods have no need of banquets and 
magnificent sacrifices, but we should with the greatest 
alacrity make a moderate oblation to them of our own 
property, as “the honours which we pay to the gods 
should be accompanied by the same promptitude as that 
with which we give the first seat to worthy men.’” It is 
said in the Talmud that “he who offers humility unto 
God and man, shall be rewarded with a reward as if he 
had offered all the sacrifices in the world.’”* 

I have here spoken of the practice of sacrifice and the 
ideas on which it is based. But sacrifice has also a moral 
value attached to it. Though no doubt in many cases 
optional, it is under various circumstances regarded as a 
stringent duty. This is particularly the case with the 
offerings regularly made by the community at large on 
special occasions fixed by custom. 

As supernatural beings have material needs like men, 
they also possess property like men, and this must not 
be interfered with. The Fjort of West Africa believe 
that the spirits of the rivers kill those who drink their 
waters and sometimes punish those who fish in them for 
egreediness, by making them deaf and dumb.’ When 
their chief god “played” by thundering, the Amazulu 
said to him who was frightened, ‘““Why do you start, 
because the lord plays? What have you taken which 
belongs to him?”’® The Fijians speak of a deluge 

1 Rig- Veda, viii. 19. 5. Kaegi, of. 3 Porphyry, De abstinentia ab esu 
cit, Pp. 30. animalium, ii. 60. 

2 Farnell, Czlts of the Greek States, i. 4 Deutsch, Leterary Remains, p. 55. 
IOI. Schmidt, Dze “thik der alten > Dennett, Folklore of the Fjort, p. 
Griechen, il. 43. Westcott, Essays in 5, sq. 
the History of Religious Thought, p. ® Callaway, Religzous System of the 
116, Amazulu, p. 57. 

XLVIII DUTIES-1O, GODS 627 
the cause of which was the killing of a favourite bird 
belonging to the god Ndengei by two mischievous lads, 
his grandsons.' In Efate, of the New Hebrides, to steal 
cocoanuts which are consecrated to the worship of the 
gods at some forthcoming festival “would be regarded 
as a much greater offence than common stealing.” ” So, 
too, the pillaging of a temple has commonly been looked 
upon as the worst kind of robbery.* Among the 
Hebrews any trespass upon ground which was hallowed 
by the, localised presence of Yahveh was visited with 
extreme punishment.* In Arabia people were forbidden 
to cut fodder, fell trees, or hunt game within the 
precincts of a sacred place.” The Moors believe that a 
person would incur a very great risk indeed by cutting the 
branch of a tree or shooting a bird in the form of a siyid, 
or dead saint. The form is the homestead and domain 
of the saint, and he is the owner of everything within its 
borders. But the offence is not exclusively one against 
property, and it may be doubted whether originally any 
clear idea of ownership at all was connected with it. 
In a holy place all objects are endowed with supernatural 
energy, and may therefore themselves, as it were, avenge 
injuries committed against them. hin is true of the 
horm of a saint, as well as of any other sanctuary, all his 
belongings being considered to partake of his sanctity. 
But, as a matter of fact, the so-called tomb of a saint is 
frequently a place which was at first regarded as holy by 
itself, on account of its natural appearance, and was only 
afterwards traditionally associated with a holy person, 
when the need was felt of giving an .anthropomorphous 
interpretation of its holiness.’ According to early ideas a 

1 Williams and Calvert, of. czt. p. 
Br2e 

2 Macdonald, Oceania, p. 208. 

3 Schmidt, 2¢hzk der alten Griechen, 
ii, 19 sg. Cicero, De legibus, i. 9, 
16; Mommsen, domdsches Strafrecht, 
Pp: 458. Wilda, Strafrecht der Germanen, 
Pesos Dahn, Bausteine, ii. 106 
(Teutons). Du Boys, Histoire du droit 
criminel des peuples modernes, ii. 605 

sq. Filangieri, Za sctenza della legis- 
laztone, iv. 205 (laws of Christian 
countries). 

4 Montefiore, Mzbbert Lectures on 
the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews, 
p. 38. 

®° Wellhausen, este arabischen 

Heidentums, p. 106. 

6 Westermarck, ‘Sul culto dei santi 
nel Marocco,’ in Actes du X/I. Congres 

SS 2 

sacred object cannot with impunity be appropriated for 
ordinary purposes ;* but, on the other hand, visitors are 
allowed to take a handful of earth from the tomb of the 
saint or in certain cases to cut a small piece of wood from 
some tree growing in his orm, to be used as a charm.’ 
It also deserves notice that the saint protects not only his 
own property, but any goods left in his care ; hence the 
country Arabs of Morocco often have their granaries in 
the Adriimat of saints. 

Moreover, anybody who takes refuge at a siyid is for 
the moment safe. The right of sanctuary is regarded as 
very sacred in Morocco, especially in those parts of the 
country where the Sultan’s government has no power. 
To violate it is an outrage which the saint is sure to 
punish. I saw a madman whose insanity was attributed 
to the fact that he once had forcibly removed a fugitive 
from a saint’s tomb; and of the late Grand-Vizier it is 
said that he was killed by two powerful saints of Dukkala, 
on whose refugees he had laid violent hands. Even the 
descendants of the saint or his manager (mkdddam) can 
only by persuasion and by promising to mediate between 
the suppliant and his pursuer induce the former to leave 
the place. As is well known, this is not a custom 
restricted to Morocco. Among many peoples, at 
different stages of civilisation, sacred places give shelter 
to refugees.” 

Among the Central Australian Arunta there is in each local 
totem centre a spot called ertnatulunga, in the immediate 
neighbourhood of which everything is sacred and must on no 
account be hurt. ‘The plants growing there are never inter- 
fered with in any way ; animals which come there are safe 

International des Ortentalistes, 1.175. given by Andree, ‘Die Asyle,’ in 

Cf. Goldziher, MWithammedanische Stu- 
dien, ii. 344 sgq. 

1 See Robertson Smith, of, cz¢. lec. 
iv. and Additional Note B. 

2 Westermarck, in Actes du XT, 
Congres International des Orientalistes, 
ili. 167 sg. 

3 Various instances of this have been 

Globus, xxxvili. 301 sg.; Frazer, 
‘Origin of Totemism,’ in Fortnightly 
Review, N. S. lxv. 650 sgg. ; Hellwig, 
Das Asylrecht der Naturvolker, passim; 
Bulmerincq, Das Asylrecht, passim ; 
Fuld, ‘Das Asylrecht im Alterthum 
und Mittelalter,’ in Zeztschr. f. vergl. 
Rechiswiss, vii. p. 103 sqq. 

j 

from the spear of the hunter; and a man who was being 
pursued by others would not be touched so long as he remained 
at this spot.1 In Upolu, one of the Samoan Islands, a certain 
god, Vave, had his residence in an old tree, which served as an 
asylum for murderers and other great offenders; if that tree 
was reached by the criminal he was safe, and the avenger could 
pursue no farther, but had to wait for investigation and 
trial.2 In the island of Hawaii there were two puhonuas, or 
cities of refuge, which afforded an inviolable-sanctuary even to 
the vilest criminal who entered their precincts, and during war 
offered safe retreat to all the non-combatants of the neighbouring 
districts who flocked into them, as well as to the vanquished, 
As soon as the fugitive had entered, he repaired to the presence 
of the idol and made a short ejaculatory address, expressive of 
his obligations to him in reaching the place with security. The 
priests and their adherents would immediately put to death 
anyone who should have the temerity to follow or molest those 
who were once within the pale of the pahw tabu, and, as the 
put it, under the shade or protection of the spirit of Keave, the 
tutelary deity of the place. After a short period, probably not 
more than two or three days, the refugee was permitted to 
return unmolested to his home, the divine protection being 
supposed still to abide with him.* In Tahiti the morais, or holy 
places, likewise gave shelter to criminals of every kind.4 At 
Maiva, in the South-Eastern part of New Guinea, “should a 
man be pursued by an enemy and take refuge in the dudbu [or 
temple], he is perfectly safe inside. Any one smiting another 
inside the dubu would have his arms and legs shrivelled up, and 
he could do nothing but wish to die.” ® 

In many North American tribes certain sacred places or 
whole villages served as asylums, in which those who were 
pursued by the tribe or even an enemy were safe as soon as they 
had obtained admission.6 Among the Acagchemem Indians, 
in the valley and neighbourhood of San Juan Capistrano in 
California, a criminal who had fled to a vanquech, or place of 
worship, was secure not only as long as he remained there, but 

1 Spencer and Gillen, ative Tribes 5 Chalmers and Gill, Work and 

of Central Australia, p. 133 59g. 

2 Turner, Samoa, p. 64 sg. 

3 Ellis, Zour through Hawazz, p. 
155 sgg.  Jarves, History of the 
Hawaiian Islands, p. 28 sq. 

4 Turnbull, Voyage round the World, 
p- 366. Wilson, M€esstonary Voyage 
to the Southern Pacific Ocean, p. 351. 

Adventure in New Guinea, p. 186. 

6 Adair, Aistory of the American 
Indians, pp. 158,159, 416. Bradbury, 
Travels in the Intertor of America, p. 
165 sy. (Aricaras of the Missouri). 
Bourke, ‘Medicine-Men of the Apache,’ 
in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. ix. 453. 
Kohl, &ttcht-Gamz, p. 271 (Chippe- 
was). 

DUTIES TO GODS 

also after he had left the sanctuary. It was not even lawful to 
mention his crime, but all that the avenger could do to him was 
to point at him and deride him, saying, “Lo, a coward, who 
has been forced to flee to Chinigchinich!”” This flight, how- 
ever, turned the punishment from the head of the criminal upon 
that of some of his relatives. . 

The South-Central African Barotse have a city of refuge. 
“¢ Anyone incurring the king’s wrath, or committing a crime, 
may find safety by ‘fleeing to this town. ‘The man in charge 
of it is expected to plead for him before the chief, and he can 
then return to his house in peace.” Among the same people 
the tombs of chiefs are sanctuaries or places of refuge,® and this 
is also the case among the Kafirs.4 So, too, in the monarchical 
states of the Gallas homicides enjoy a legal right of asylum if 
they have succeeded in taking refuge in a hut near the burial- 
place of the king. Among the Ovambo in South-Western 
Africa the village of a great chief is abandoned at his death, 
except by the members of a certain family, who remain there to 
prevent it from falling into utter decay. Condemned criminals 
who contrive to escape to one of these deserted villages are safe, 
at least for a time ; for not even the chief himself may pursue a 
fugitive into the sacred place.6 In Congo Frangais there are 
several sanctuaries :—“ The great one in the Calabar district is 
at Omon. ‘Thither mothers of twins, widows, thieves, and 
slaves fly, and if they reach it aresafe.”" In Ashantee a slave 
who flies toa temple and dashes himself against the fetish cannot 
easily be brought back to his master. Among the Negroes of 
Accra criminals used to ‘seat themselves upon the fetish,” that 
is, place themselves under its protection; but murderers who 
sought refuge with the fetish were always liable to be delivered 
up to their pursuers.® A traveller in the seventeenth century 
tells us that in Fetu, on the Gold Coast, a criminal who 
deserved death was pardoned by taking refuge in the hut of the 
high-priest.°. Among the Krumen of the Grain Coast the 
house of the high-priest (40dz0) “Sis a sanctum to which culprits 

1 Bancroft, Mateve Races of the 
Pacific States, iii. 167.  Boscana, in 
[Robinson,] Zzfe 22 California, p. 262 
Gis 

2 Arnot, Garenganse, p. 77. 

® Decle, Zhree Years in 
Africa, p. 75: 

4 Rehme, ‘ Das Recht der Amaxosa,’ 
in Zettschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss, x. 51. 

5 Paulitschke, Zthnographie Nordost- 
Afrikas, Die  getstige 

Savage 

Cultur der 

Danéakil, &c. p. 157. 

8 Schinz, Dewtsch-Stidwest-Afrika, 
p- 312. 

” Kingsley, Zvavels tn West Africa, 
p: a00: 

8 Bowdich, A@zsston to Ashantee, p. 

2Ons Che Monrad, OP MCLLR eA De 

® Monrad, of. czt. p. 89. 

0 Miiller, Die Africanische 
schafft Fetu, p. 75. 

Land- 

may betake themselves without the danger of being removed by 
anyone except by the dedio himself.” 1 In Usambara a murderer 
cannot be arrested at any of the four places where the great 
wizards of the country reside.? 

In other Muhammedan countries besides Morocco the tombs 
of saints, as also the mosques, are or have been places of refuge.3 
In Persia the great number of such asylums proved so injurious 
to public safety, that about the middle of the nineteenth 
century only three mosques were left which were recognised by 
the government as affording protection to criminals of every 
description.* Among the Hebrews the right of asylum 
originally belonged to all altars,> but on the abolition of the 
local altars it was limited to certain cities of refuge.® Accord- 
ing to the Old Testament manslayers could find shelter there 
only in the case of involuntary homicide; but this was 
undoubtedly a narrowing of the ancient custom. Many 
heathen sanctuaries of the Phoenicians and Syrians retained 
even in Roman times what seems to have been an unlimited 
right of asylum ;7 and at certain Arabian shrines the god like- 
wise gave shelter to all fugitives without distinction, and even 
stray or stolen cattle that reached the holy ground could not be 
reclaimed by their owners.® 

On the Coast of Malabar a certain temple situated to the 
south-east of Calicut affords protection to thieves and adulterous 
women belonging to the Brahmin caste, but this privilege is 
reckoned among the sixty-four anatcharams, or “ abuses,” which 
were introduced by Brahmanism.? Among the Kafirs of the 
Hindu-Kush there are several “cities of refuge,” the largest 
being the village of Mergrom, which is almost entirely peopled 
by chiles, or descendants of persons who have slain some fellow 
tribesman.!° In the Caucasus holy groves offer refuge to 
criminals, as also to animals, which cannot be shot there." 

In Greece many sanctuaries possessed the right of asylum 
down to the end of paganism, and any violation of this right 

a 

1 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 129. 

2 Krapf, Rezsex in Ost-Afrthka, i. 
132. 
°; Goldziher, Muhammedanische 
Studien, 1. 237 Sg. Quatremére, 
‘Mémoire sur les asiles chez les 
Arabes,’ in Alémotres de P Institut de 
France, Académie des Inscriptions et 
Belles-Lettres, xv. pt. ll. 313 sg. 

4 Polak, Perséen, ii. 83 sgg. Brugsch, 
Im Lande der Sonne, p. 246. 

5 Exodus, xxi. 13 sg. Cf. Robertson 

Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 148, 
ede 

8 Numbers, xxxv. 11 sgqg. Deuter- 
onomy, iv. 41 Sqg. 3 XIX. 2 Sqq. 

7 Robertson Smith, of. cz¢. p. 148. 

8 Jord. p. 148 sg. 

9 Graul, Reese nach Ostindien, ii. 
332, 335- E 

10 Scott Robertson, Adfirs of the 
Hindu-Kush, p. 441. 

11 Hahn, Kauwkasische Retsen, p. 122. 

was supposed to be severely punished by the deity.1. According 
to an old tradition, Romulus established a sanctuary, dedicated 
to some unknown god or spirit, on the slope of the Capitoline 
Hill, proclaiming that all who resorted to it, whether bond or 
free, should be safe.2_ This tradition, and also some other state- 
ments made by Latin writers? seem to indicate that from 
ancient times certain sacred places in Rome gave shelter to 
refugees ; but it was only in a comparatively late period of 
Roman history that the right of sanctuary, under Greek influ- 
ence, became a recognised institution of some importance.* 
This right was expressly conferred upon the temple which in 
the year 42 B.c. was built in honour of Cesar;° and other 
imperial temples, as also the statues of emperors, laid claim to 
the same privilege.6 When Christianity became the religion of 
the State a similar claim was made by the churches ; but a legal 
right of asylum was only granted to them by Honorius in the 
West and Theodosius in the East.’ Subsequently it was 
restricted by Justinian, who decreed that all manslayers, 
adulterers, and kidnappers of women who fled to a church 
should be taken out of it.® 

The right of sanctuary existed among the pagan Slavs, or 
some of them,® and probably also among the ancient ‘Teutons.?° 
After their conversion to Christianity the privilege of asylum 
within the church was recognised in most of their codes. In 
the Middle Ages and later, persons who fled to a church or to 
certain boundaries surrounding it were, for a time at least, safe 
from all persecution, it being considered treason against God, an 
offence beyond compensation, to force even the most flagrant 
criminal from His altar. The ordinary of the sacred place, or 

1 Tacitus, Azsales, ii. 60 sgg. 
Farnell, of. czt. 1. 73. Westcott, of. 
cit, p. 115. Schmidt, Dze Lthzk der 
alten Griechen, ii. 285. Bulmerincgq, 

incq, of. czt. p. 58 sgg.; Mommsen, 
Rémisches Strafrecht, p. 458 sq. 

> Dio Cassius, xlvii. 19. 

6 Tacitus, Azzales, iv. 67. Suet- 

Si csuhhs Aba 

op. cit. Pp. 35 Sgg. 
118 sgq. 

2 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, A7222- 
guitates Romane, il. 15. Livy, 1. 8. 
BMA Plutarch, Romulus, ix. 5. 
Strabo; v.35)2,p) 230: 

3 Valerius Maximus, facta dictague 
memorabilia, vil. 9. 1. Dionysius of 
Halicarnassus, Antzguztates Romane, 
vi. 45. Cicero, De lege agraria oratio 
secunda, 14 (36). See also Hartung, 
Die Religion der Romer, ii. 58 sq. 

4 See Tacitus, Annales, i. 36; 
Plautus, ARzdens, 723; Dio Cassius, 
Historia Romana, x\vii. 19 ; Bulmer- 

Fuld, Joc. ctt. p. onius, 7Z%berzws, 53. Mommsen, of. 

ctt. p. 460. 
Mommsen, of. cz¢. p. 461 sq. 
Novella, xvi. 7. 

® Helmold, Chronzk dev Slaven, i. 
83, p. 170. 

10 Wilda, Das Strafrecht der Ger- 
manen, p. 248 sg.  Stemann, Den 
danske Retshestorie indtil Christian V.’s 
MGB Johor > ihek Brunner, Deztsche 
Rechtsgeschichte, i. 610. Fuld, Joc. 
cit. p. 138 sg. Frauenstaidt, Blutrache 
und Todtschlagstihne im Deutschen 
Mittelalter, p. 51. 

XLVITI 

his official, was the only one who could try to induce him to 
leave it, but if he failed, the utmost that could be done was 
to deny the refugee victuals so that he might go forth 
voluntarily! In the ‘Lex Baiuwariorum’ it is asserted in 
the strongest terms that there is no crime which may not be 
pardoned from the fear of God and reverence for the saints.? 
But the right of sanctuary was gradually subjected to various 
restrictions both by secular legislation and by the Church.’ 
Innocentius III. enjoined that refuge should not be given to 
a highway robber or to anybody who devastated cultivated fields 
at night;* and according to Beaumanoir’s ‘Coutumes du 
Beauvoisis,’ dating from the thirteenth century, it was also 
denied to persons guilty of sacrilege or arson.® The Parliament 
of Scotland enacted that whoever took the protection of the 
Church for homicide should be required to come out and 
undergo an assize, that it might be found whether it was com- 
mitted of “forethought felony” or in “ chaudemelle” ; and 
only in the latter case was he to be restored to the sanctuary, 
the sheriff being directed to give him security to that effect 
before requiring him to. leave it.6 In England, in the reign of 
Henry VIII., there were certain places which were allowed to 
be “ places of tuition and privilege,” in addition to churches and 
their precincts. “Chev were in fact cities of permanent refuge 
for persons who should, according to ancient usage, have 
abjured the realm, after having fled in the ordinary way to 
achurch. ‘There was a governor in each of these privileged 
places, charged with the duty of mustering every day his men, 
who were not to exceed twenty in each town and who had to 
wear a badge whenever they appeared out of doors. But when 
these regulations were made, the protection of sanctuary was 
taken away trom persons guilty of murder, rape, burglary, high- 
way robbery, or arson. ‘The law of sanctuary was then left 
unchanged till the reign of James I., when, in theory, the 
privilege in question was altogether denied to criminals.’ Yet 
as a matter of fact, asylums continued to exist in England so 

1 Milman, History of Latin Christ- 
tanity, ii. 59.  Bulmerincg, of. céz. 
p- 73 sgg. Fuld, loc. ctt. p. 136 sgg. 
Bracton, De legzbus et consuetudinibus 
Anglia, fol. 136 b, vol. il. 392 sg. 
Réville, ‘L’abjuratio regni,’ in Revue 
historique, 1.-14 sgg. Pollock and 
Maitland, Wrstory of English Law be- 
fore the Time of Edward I. ii. 590 sq. 
Innes, Scotland in the Middle Ages, p. 

195 5g. 

2 Lex Batuwartorum, i. 7. 

® Brunner, of. cet. ii. 611 sg. Bul- 
merincq, op. cet. p. 91sgg. Fuld, loc. 
ct. p. 140 sg. 

4 Gregory IX. Decretales, iii. 49. 6. 

5 Beaumanoir, Coutumes du Beau- 
voists, Xi. 15 sgg., Vol. i. 164 sg. 

§ Innes, of. czt. p. 198. 

’ Pike, Hestory of Crimein England, 
il. 253. Blackstone, Commentaries om 
the Laws of England, iv. 347, n. a. 

DUTIES TO GODS 

late as the reign of George I., when that of St. Peter’s at West- 
minster was demolished.? In the legislation of Sweden the last 
reference to the privilege of sanctuary is found in an enactment 
of SS In France it was abolished by an ordonnance of 
1539.2. In Spain it existed even in the nineteenth century.* 
Not long ago the most important churches in Abyssinia,’ the 
monastery of Affaf Woira in the same country,® and the quarter 
in Gondar where the head of the Abyssinian clergy has his 
residence,’ were reported to be asylums for criminals. And the 
same is the case with the old Christian churches among the 
Suanetians of the Caucasus.§ 

The right of sanctuary has been ascribed to various 
causes. Obviously erroneous is the suggestion that places 
of refuge were established with a view to Does 
unintentional offenders from punishment or revenge.® 
The restriction of the privilege of sanctuary to cases of 
accidental injuries is not at all general, and where it occurs 
it is undoubtedly an innovation due to moral or social 
considerations. Very frequently this privilege has been 
attributed to a desire to give time for the first heat of 
resentment to pass over before the injured party could 
seek redress." But although I admit that such a desire 
may have helped to preserve the right of asylum where 
it has once come into existence, I do not believe that it 
could account for the origin of this right. We should 
remember that the privilege of sanctuary not only affords 

1 Jusserand, yzglish Wayfaring phte des Rechts, § 117, p. 108. Powell, 

Life in the Middle Ages, p. 166. 

2 Nordstrom, Bidrag till den svenska 
samhills-forfatiningens historia, il. 
405. 

° Du Boys, Westocre du droit criminel 
des peuples modernes, i. 246. 

4 dem, Histoire du drott criminel de 
L Espagne, p. 227 Sq. 

5 Hellwig, of. czt. p. 52. 

8 Harris, Highlands of ethiopia, ii. 

93: 

7 Riippell, Rezse in Abyssinzen, ii. 
74, 81. von Heuglin, Rezse nach 
Abessinien, p. 213. 

8 yon Haxthausen, 
p. 160, n.* 

9 Hegel, 

Transcaucasia, 

Grundlinien der Philoso- 

‘Outlines of Sociology,’ in Saturday 
Lectures, p. $2. 

10 Meiners, Geschichte der Mensch- 
hett, p. 189. Nordstrom, of. cz¢. ii. 
401. Pardessus, Loz Saligue, p. 656. 
Bulmerincq, of. ct. pp. 34, 47. Fuld, 
loc. cit. pp. 102, 118, 119, 294 sag. 
Kohler, Shakespeare vor dem Forum 
der Jurisprudenz, p. 185. Quatremére, 
loc. cut. p. 314. Mr. Mallery (/sraetite 
and Indian, p. 33 sq.), also, thinks. that 
the original object of the right of 
sanctuary was to restrict vengeance and 
maintain peace, and that this. right only 
subsequently appeared as a prerogative 
of religion. 

i: ns 

temporary protection to the refugee, but in many cases 
altogether exempts him from punishment or retaliation, 
and that shelter is given even to animals which have fled 
to a sacred place. And, if the theory referred to were 
correct, how could we explain the fact that the right of 
asylum is particularly attached to sanctuaries ? 

It has been said that the right of sanctuary bears 
testimony to the power of certain places to transmit their 
virtues to those who entered them.' But we have no 
evidence that the fugitive is supposed to partake of the 
sanctity of the place which shelters him. In Morocco 
persons who are permanently attached to mosques or the 
shrines of saints are generally regarded as more or less 
holy, but this is never the case with casual visitors or 
suppliants ; hence it is hardly for fear of the refugee that 
his pursuer refrains from laying handson him. Professor 
Robertson Smith has stated part of the truth in saying 
that “‘ the assertion of a man’s undoubted rights as against 
a fugitive at the sanctuary is regarded as an encroachment 
on its holiness.”” There is an almost instinctive fear 
not only of shedding blood,’ but of disturbing the peace 
in a holy place ; and if it is improper to commit any act 
of violence in the house of another man, it is naturally 
considered equally offensive, and also infinitely more 
dangerous, to do so in the homestead of a supernatural 

being. 

1 Granger, Worship of the Romans, 
Da 223157. 

2 Robertson Smith, Religzon of the 
Semites, p. 148. 

3 Supra, i. 380. 

4 Among the Barea and Kunama in 
Eastern Africa a murderer who finds 
time to flee into another person’s house 
cannot be seized, and it is considered a 
point of honour for the community to 
help him to escape abroad (Munzinger, 
Ostafrikanische Studien, p. 503). In 
the Pelew Islands ‘‘no enemy may be 
killed ina house, especially not in the 
presence of the host” (Kubary, ‘ Die 
Palau-Inseln in der Siidsee,’ in /ozr. 
d. Museum Godeffroy, iv. 25). In 

In the Tonga Islands, for instance, “it is for- 

Europe the privilege of asylum went 
hand in hand with the sanctity of the 
homestead (Wilda, of. czt. pp. 242, 243, 
538, 543; Nordstrom, of. czt. il. 435 5 
Fuld, /oc. cz. p. 152; Frauenstadt, of. 
cit. p: 63 sgg.); and the breach of a 
man’s peace was proportionate to his 
rank. Whilst every man was entitled 
to peace in his own house, the great 
man’s peace was of more importance 
than the common man’s, the king’s 
peace of more importance than the 
bar6n’s, and in the spiritual order the 
peace of the Church commanded yet 
greater reverence (Pollock, ‘The 
King’s Peace,’ in Law Quarterly Re- 
view, i. 40 Sg.). 

bidden to quarrel or fight upon consecrated ground.” * 
But this is only one aspect of the matter ; another, equally 
important, still calls for an explanation. Why should 
the gods or saints themselves be so anxious to protect 
criminals who have sought refuge in their sanctuaries ? 
Why do they not deliver them ue to justice through 
their earthly representatives ? 

The answer lies in certain ideas which refer to human 
as well as divine protectors of refugees. The god or 
saint is in exactly the same position as a man to whose 
house a person has fled for shelter. Among various 
peoples le domicile of the chief or king is an asylum for 
criminals ;? nobody dares to attack a man who is sheltered 
by so mighty a personage, and from what has been said 
above, in connection with the rules of hospitality, it is 
also evident why the chief or king feels himself compelled 
to protect him. By being in close contact with his host, 
the suppliant is able to transfer to him a dangerous curse. 
Sometimes a criminal can in a similar way be a danger to 
the king even from a distance, or by meeting him, and 
must in consequence be pardoned. In Madagascar an 

offender escaped punishment if he could obtain sight of 

the sovereign, whether before or after conviction ; hence 
criminals at work on the highroad were ordered to 
withdraw when the sovereign was known to be coming 
by.2. Among the Bambaras “une fois la sentence 
prononcée, si le condamné parvient a cracher sur un 

1 Mariner, JVatzves of the Tonga Group). Turner, WVzneteen Years in 
Islands, ii. 232. Cf. 267a4.-227. Polynesia, p. 334 (Samoans). Rautanen, 

2 seaman, Voyages and Travels tz in Steinmetz, Rechtsverhdltnisse, py. 
the Interior of North America, p. 297 342 (Ondonga). Schinz, of. cé¢. p. 312 
(Tacullies). Lewin, Az// Tracts of (Ovambo). Rehme, ‘Das Recht der 
Chittagong, p. 100 (Kukis), Junghuhn, Amaxosa,’ in Zeztschr. f. vergl. Rechts- 
Die Battalinder auf Sumatra, i. 329 wiss. x. 50. Merker, quoted by 

(Macassars and Bugis of Celebes). Kohler, ‘ Banturecht in  Ostafrika,’ 
Tromp, ‘ Uit de Salasila van Koetei,’ zdz¢d. xv. 55 (Wadshagga). Merker, Dze 
in gy pace tot de taal- land- en volk- Masaz, p. 206. Among the Barotse 
enkunde van Nederlandsch-Indié, the residences of the Queen and the 

xxxvil. 84 (natives of Koetei, a district Prime Minister are places of refuge 
of Borneo). Jung, quoted by Kohler,  (Decle, of. cz¢. p. 75). 

‘Recht der Marschallinsulaner,’ in 3 Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 
Zettschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss. xiv. 447 3.76. 

(natives of Nauru in the Marshall 

ay Cat Aw aoe 

prince, non-seulement sa personne est sacrée, mais elle est 
nourrie, logée, etc., par le grand seigneur qui a eu 
Yimprudence de se tenir a portée de cet étrange 
projectile.” * In Usambara even a murderer is safe as 
soon as he has touched the person of the king.” Among 
the Marutse and neighbouring tribes a person who is 
accused of any crime receives pardon if he lays a cupa— 
the fossilised base of a conical shell, which is the most 
highly valued of all their instruments—at the feet of his 
chief ; and a miscreant likewise escapes punishment if he 
reaches and throws himself on the king’s drums.? On 
the Slave Coast “‘ criminals who are doomed to death are 
always gagged, because if a man should speak to the king 
he must be pardoned.”* In Ashantee, if an offender 
should succeed in swearing on the king’s life, he must be 
pardoned, because such an oath is believed to involve 
danger to the king ; hence knives are driven through the 
cheeks from opposite sides, over the tongue, to prevent 
him from speaking.’ Soalso among the Romans, accord- 
ing to an old Jewish writer, a person condemned to death 
was gagged to prevent him from cursing the king.° 
Fear of the curses pronounced by a dissatisfied refugee 
likewise, in all probability, underlay certain other customs 
which prevailed in Rome. A servant or slave who 
came and fell down at the feet of Jupiter’s high-priest, 
taking hold of his knees, was for that day freed from the 
whip ; and if a prisoner with irons and bolts at his feet 
succeeded in approaching the high-priest in his house, he 
was let loose and his fetters were thrown into the road, 
not through the door, but from the roof.’ Moreover, if a 
criminal who had been sentenced to death accidentally met a 
Vestal virgin on his way to the place of execution, his life 

1 Raffenel, Mouveau voyage dans le 4 Ellis, Zwe-speaking Peoples of the 
pays des negres, i. 385. Slave Coast, p. 224. 

2 Krapf, Rezsex zn Ost-Afritka, ir. eT Livan 224 
132, n. * See also Schinz, of. czt. p. 6 Quoted by Levias, ‘Cursing,’ in 
312 (Ovambo). Jewish Encyclopedia, iv. 390. 

3 Gibbons, Exploration in Central 7 Plutarch, Questzones Romane, 111. 

Africa, p. 129. Lamindebted to Mr. Aulus Gellius, Woctes Altice, x. 15. 8, 
N. W. Thomas for drawing my atten- Io. 
tion to this statement. 

was saved.’ So sensitive to imprecations were both Jupiter’s 
high-priest and the priestesses of Vesta, that the Praetor 
was never allowed to compel them to take an oath.” 
Now, as a refugee may by his curse force a king or a 
priest or any other man with whom he establishes some 
kind of contact to protect him, so he may in a similar 
manner constrain a god or saint as soon as he has entered 
his sanctuary. According to the Moorish expression he is 
then in the ‘dr of the saint, and the saint is bound to pro- 
tect him, just as a host is bound to protect his guest. It is 
not only men that have to fear the curses of dissatisfied 
refugees. Let us once more’ remember the words 
which Aeschylus puts into the mouth of Apollo, when 
he declares his intention to assist his suppliant, Orestes :— 
“Terrible both among men and gods is the wrath of a 
refugee, when one abandons him with intent.” ® 

1 Plutarch, Mumia, x. 5. 3 Aeschylus, Eumenzdes, 232 sqq. 
2 Aulus Gellius, of.cz/. x. 15. 31. 

a

DUTIES TO GoDs (concluded) 

SUPERNATURAL beings are widely believed to have a 
feeling of their worth and dignity. They are sensitive to 
insults and disrespect, they demand submissiveness and 
homage. 

“‘ The gods of the Gold Coast,” says Major Ellis, “are 
jealous gods, jealous of their dignity, jealous of the adula- 
tion and offerings paid to them; and there is nothing 
they resent so much as any slight, whether intentional or 
accidental, which may be offered them. ... There 
is nothing that offends them so deeply as to ignore them, 
or question their power, or laugh at them.” ' The wrath 
of Yahveh burst forth with vehemence whenever his 
honour or sanctity was in the least violated, however un- 
intentionally.” Many peoples consider it insulting and 
dangerous merely to point at one of the celestial bodies ; ° 
and among the North American Indians it is a wide- 
spread belief that, if anybody points at the rainbow, the 
finger will wither or become misshapen.’ 

Nor is it to supernatural danger only that a person ex- 
poses himself by irreverence to a god, but in many cases 
he is also punished by his fellow men. On the Slave Coast 
insults to a god “‘are always resented and punished by the 

1 Ellis, 7shz-speaking Peoples of the Dorman, Origin of Primitive Super- 
Gold Coast, p. I. stitions, p. 344 (Chippewas). Wuttke, 

2 Cf. Montefiore, Aibbert Lectures Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegen- 
on the Religion of the Ancient Hebrews, wart, § 11, p. 13 sg. 

pp- 38, 102. 4 Mooney, ‘ Myths of the Cherokee,’ 
3 Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p.341. in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xix. 257, 442. 

bee DUTIES TO GODS ae 

priests and worshippers of that god, it being their duty to 
guard his honour.” Among the ancient Peruvians ® and 
Hebrews,* as also among Christian nations up to com- 
paratively recent times, blasphemy was a capital offence. 
In England, in the reign of Henry VIII., a boy of fifteen 
was burned because he had spoken, much after the fashion 
of a parrot, some idle words affecting the sacrament of 
the altar, which he had chanced to hear but of which he 
could not have understood the meaning.* According to 
Muhammedan law a person guilty of blasphemy is to be 
put to death without delay, even though he profess 
himself repentant, as adequate repentance for such a sin is 
deemed impossible.’ These and similar laws are rooted in 
the idea that the god is personally offended by the insult. 
It was the Lord himself who made the law that he who 
blasphemed His name should be stoned to death by all 
the congregation.’ ‘‘ Blasphemy,” says Thomas Aquinas, 
‘‘as being an offence directly against God, outweighs 
murder, which is an offence against our neighbour .. . . 
The blasphemer intends to wound the honour of God.” ‘ 
That blasphemy is, or should be, punished not as a sin 
against the deity but as an offence against the religious 
feelings of men, is an idea.of quite modern origin. 

In many cases it is considered offensive to a supernatural 
being merely to mention his name. Sometimes the name 
is tabooed on certain occasions only or in ordinary con- 
versation, sometimes it is not to be pronounced at all. 

In Morocco the zuiéin (jinn) must not be referred to by 
name in the afternoon and evening after the ‘dsar. If 
speaking of them at all, the people then make use of some 
circumlocution; the Berbers of Southern Morocco call 
them wid-iddnin, “those others,’ or. wid-urd-hér nin, 
‘those unseen,” or w7d-tntl-tisnt, ‘those who shun salt.” 
The Greenlanders dare not pronounce the name of a glacier 

1 Ellis, Lwe-speaking Peoples of the ii. 56. 

Slave Coast, p. 81. > Lane, Manners and Customs of the 
2 Prescott, Hzstory of the Conquest of Modern Egyptians, p. 123. 

Peru, i. 42. 8 Leviticus, xxiv. 16. 
3 Leviticus, xxiv. 14 sqq. 7 Thomas Aquinas, Szmma theolo- 

4 Pike, Hestory of Crimein England,  gica, ii.—ii. 13.3.1. 

as they row past it, for fear lest it should be offended and 
throw off an iceberg." Some North American Indians 
believe that if, when travelling, they mention the names of 
rocks or Pind: or rivers, they will have much rain or be 
wrecked or be devoured by some monster in the river.? 
The Omahas, again, “are very careful not to use names 
which they regard as sacred on ordinary occasions ; and no 
one dares to sing sacred songs except the chiefs and old 
men at the proper times.’’* Some other Indians con- 
sidered it a profanation to mention the name ‘of their 
highest divinity. Among certain Australian natives 
the elders of the tribe impart to the youth, on his 
initiation, the name of the god Tharamaliin ; but there is 
such a disinclination to pronounce his name that, in 
speaking of him, they generally use elliptical expressions, 
such as “‘ He,” “the man,”’ or “the name I told you of,” 
and the women only know him by the name of Papang 
(father).° The Marutse and allied tribes along the 
Zambesi shrink from mentioning the real name of their 
chief god Nyambe and therefore substitute for it the word 
molemo, which has a very comprehensive meaning, denoting, 
besides God, all kinds of good and evil spirits, medicines, 
poisons, and amulets.° According to Cicero, there was 
a god, a son of Nilus, whose name the Egyptians 
considered it a crime to pronounce ;* and Herodotus is 
unwilling to mention the name of Osiris on two occasions 
when he is speaking of him.* The divine name of 
Indra was secret, the real name of Agni was un- 
known.’ The gods of Brahmanism have mystic names, 
which nobody dares to speak.’ The real name of 
Confucius is so sacred that it 1s a statutable offence in 

1 Nansen, Zskzmo Life, P. 233: also dem, Native Tribes of South-East 

2 Nyrop, * Navnets magt,’in AZindre Australia, pp. 489, 495. 
Afhandlinger udgivne af det philo- e Holub, Seven Years in South 
degese historiske Samfund, 1887, p. 28. Africa, ii. 301. =I 

3 Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology,’ in 7 Cicero, De natura deorum, iii, 22 

Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn., iii. 370. (56). 5 

4 Adair, History of the American Se iierodotms, i. 132,071. 
Indians, p. 54. 9 Hopkins, Religzons of India, pp. 

2 Home, ‘Some Australian Beliefs,’ 93, III. 

in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xiii: 192. See 10 Jbzd. p. 184. 
VOL. II eee Th 

ae DUTIES TOnGODS - oHaP. 

China to pronounce it ; and the name of the supreme god 
of the Chinese is equally tabooed. ‘“‘ Tien,” they say, 
‘‘means properly only the material heaven, but it also 
means Shang-Te (supreme ruler, God) ; for, as it is not 
lawful to use his name lightly, we name him by his 
residence, which is in fien.”1 The “great name” of 
Allah is a secret name, known only to prophets, and 
possibly to some great saints.” Yahveh said, “Thou 
shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain ; 
for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his 
name in vain” ;*® and orthodox Jews avoid mention- 
ing the word Yahveh altogether.“ Among Christian 
nations, as Professor Nyrop observes, there is a common 
disinclination to use the word “‘God” or its equivalents 
in everyday speech. The English say good instead of God 
(‘‘ good gracious,’ “my goodness,” ‘thank goodness’) ; 
the Germans, Potz instead of Gotrs (“ Potz Welt,” “ Potz 
Wetter,’ ‘°Potz Blitz); the french; d/ev instead-of Dreq 
(“ corbleu,” ‘“ morbleu,” ‘“ sambleu ’’); the Spaniards, 
brios or diez instead of Dios (“voto 4 brios,” “juro a 
DEOS,-- PareaieZawe ys: 

These taboos have sprung from fear. There is, first, 
something uncanny in mentioning the name of a super- 
natural being, even apart from any definite ideas connected 
with the act. But to do. so 1s also supposed to summon 
him or to attract his attention, and this may be considered 
dangerous, especially if he is looked upon as malevolent or 
irritable, as is generally the case with the Moorish jan. 
The uncanny feeling or the notion of danger readily leads 
to the belief that the supernatural being feels offended if 
his name is pronounced ; we have noticed a similar associa- 
tion of thought in connection with the names of the dead. 
But a god may also have good reason for wishing that his 
name should not be used lightly or taken in vain. Accord- 

1 Friend, ‘ Euphemism and Tabu in 3 Exodus, xx. 7. 
China,’ in Folk-Lore Record, iv. 76. * Herzog - Plitt, Real-Encyklopddie 
Cf. Edkins, Religion in China, p. 72. Suir protestantische Theologie, vi. 501 sq. 
2 Sell, Hazth of Islim, p. 185. Lane, 5 Nyrop, Joc. c#t. p. 155 S9q. 
Modern Egyptians, p. 273. 

SS 
S 

REIN DUTIES TO GODS 

ing to primitive ideas a person’s name is a part of his 
personality, hence the holiness of a god may be polluted by 
his name being mentioned in profane conversation. More- 
over, it may be of great importance for him to prevent his 
name from being divulged, as magic may be wrought ona 
person through his name just as easily as through any part 
of his body. In early civilisation there is a common 
tendency to keep the real name of a human individual 
secret so that sorcerers may not make an evil use of it ;? 
and it is similarly believed that gods must conceal their 
true names lest other gods or men should be able to 
conjure with them.” The great Egyptian god Ra declared 
that the name which his father and mother had given him 
remained hidden in his body since his birth, so that no 
magician might have magic power over him.’ The list 
of divine names possessed by the Roman pontiffs in their 
indigttamenta was a magical instrument which laid at their 
mercy all the forces of the spirit world ;* and we are told 
that the Romans kept the name of their tutelary god secret 
in order to prevent their enemies from drawing him away 
by pronouncing it. There is a Muhammedan tradition 
that whosoever calls upon Allah by his “ great name ” will 
obtain all his desires, being able merely by mentioning it to 
raise the dead to life, to kill the living, in fact to perform 
any miracle he pleases.° 

One of the greatest insults which can be offered a god 
is to deny his existence. Plutarch was astonished at 
people’s saying that atheism is impiety, while at the same 
time they attribute to gods all kinds of less creditable 
qualities. ‘I for my part,” he adds, “would much 
rather have men to say of me that there never was a 

1 Tylor, Zarly History of Mankind, 
p- 139 sgg. Andree, Ethnographische 
Parallelen, p. 179 sgg. Frazer, Golden 
Bough, i. 403 sqg. Clodd, Yom Tzt 
Tot, pp. 53-55, 81 sgg. Haddon, 
Magic and Fetishism, p. 22 sq. 

2 Tylor, of. cit. p. 124 sg. Frazer, 
op. cit. i. 443. Clodd, of. c2t. p. 173. 
Haddon, of. cet. p. 23 sgq. 

3 Frazer, op. cit. 1. 444. 

4 Granger, Worship of the Romans, 
pp. 212, 277. Cf. Jevons, in Plutarch’s 
Romane Questions, p. lvii: 

5 Plutarch, Quest2ones Romane, 61. 
Pliny, Aestorta naturalis, xxviii. 4. 
Macrobius, Satwrnalza, iii. 9. 

8 Sell, of. cz#. p. 185. Lane, Modern 
Legyptians, p. 273. 

ieee 2, 

we DUTIES TO GODS FO 

Plutarch at all, nor is now, than to say that Plutarch is a 
man inconstant, fickle, easily moved to anger, revengeful 
for trifling provocations, vexed at small things.” * But 
Plutarch seems to have forgotten that a person is always 
most sensitive on his weak points, and that the weakest 
point in a god is his existence. Religious intolerance is 
in a large measure the result of that feeling of uncertainty 
which can hardly be eradicated even by the strongest will 
to believe. It is a means of self-persuasion in a case 
where such persuasion is sorely needed. Moreover, a 
god who is not believed to exist can be no object of 
worship, and to be worshipped is commonly held to be the 
chief ambition of a god. But atheism is a sin of civilisa- 
tion. Uncultured people are ready to believe that all 
supernatural beings they hear of also exist. 

Some gods are extremely ungenerous towards all 
those who do not recognise them, and only them, as 
their gods. To believe in Ahura Mazda was the first 
duty which Zoroastrianism required of a man; it was 
Angra Mainyu, the evil spirit, that had countercreated the 
sin of unbelief.” Doubt destroyed even the effects of 
good actions ;° indeed, only the true believer was to be 
regarded as a man.* The faithful were summoned to 
a war to the death against the opposing spirits, the Daevas, 
and their followers. % And to judge from ancient writers, 
the Persians, when they came into contact with nations of 
another religion, also carried into practice the intolerant 
spirit of their own.” Yahveh said :—“ Thou shalt have no 
other gods before me.... Thou shalt not bow down 
thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am 
a jealous God.” " In the pre-prophetic period the existence 
of other gods was recognised,” but they were not to be 

1 Plutarch, De superstitione, 10. ésche Alterthumskunde, i ili. 692. 
2 Venaidéd, i. 8. 16. 8 Spiegel, of. cz. iii. 708. 
3 Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, US OXOCUS, MRKeTS sabe 
1 ee ea eee > se: Kuenen, LMibbert Lectures on Na- 
4 Dind-t Mainig-? Khirad, xiii. 6 tional Religions and Universal Reli- 
Sqq. gions, p. 119. Baudissin, Stadzen 207 

5 See Darmesteter, in Sacred Books  semitischen Religionsgeschichte, i. 49 
of the East, iv. p. li.; Spiegel, Zra@n- — sqq. 

daa, 

worshipped by Yahveh’s people. Nor was any mercy 
to be shown to their followers, for Yahveh was “a man of 
war.” * The God of Christianity inherited his jealousy. 
In the name of Christ wars were waged, not, it is true, 
for the purpose of exterminating unbelievers, but with a 
view to converting them to a faith which alone could save 
their souls from eternal perdition. So far as the aim of 
the persecution is concerned we can thus notice a distinct 
progress in humanity. But whilst the punishment which 
Yahveh inflicted upon the devotees of other gods was 
merely temporal and restricted to a comparatively small 
number of people—he took notice of such foreign nations 
only which came within his sphere of interests,—Christ- 
lanity was.a proselytising religion on a large scale, anxious 
to save but equally ready to condemn to everlasting 
torments all those who refused to accept it, nay even the 
milliards of men who had never heard of it. In this 
point Christianity was even more intolerant than the 
Koran itself, which does not absolutely confine salvation 
to the believers in Allah and his Prophet, but leaves some 
hope of it to Jews, Christians, and Sabzeans, though all 
other infidels are hopelessly lost.’ 

That Muhammedanism has in course of time become 
the most fanatical of existing religions is due to political 
rather than religious causes. For a thousand years the 
Christian and Muhammedan world were engaged in a 
deadly contest, in which the former came off victorious. 
Most nations confessing Islam have either lost their inde- 
pendence or are on the verge of losing it. The memory 
of past defeats and cruelties, the present state of subjec- 
tion or national weakness, the fear of the future—are all 
factors which must be taken into account when we judge 
of Moslem fanaticism. In its younger days Islam was 
undoubtedly, not only in theory but in practice, less 
intolerant than its great rival, Christian subjects of 
Muhammedan rulers being on the whole treated with 

l Exodus, xv. 3. 2 Koran, v. 73. 

consideration.’ Earlier travellers in Arabia also speak 
favourably of the tolerance of its inhabitants. Niebuhr 
was able to write :—“ I never saw that the Arabs have any 
hatred for those of a different religion. They, however, 
regard them with much the same contempt with which 
Christians look upon the Jews in Europe . «.. The 
Mahometans in India appear to be even more tolerant 
than those of Arabia . . . . The Mussulmans in general 
do not persecute men of other religions, when they have 
nothing to fear from them, unless in the case of an inter- 
course of gallantry with a Mahometan woman.’ ? In 
China the Muhammedans live amicably with the infidel, 
regarding their Buddhist neighbours “with a kindly 
feeling which it would be hard to find in a mixed 
community of Catholics and Evangelicals.”* Muham- 
medanism looks upon the founder of Christianity with 
profound reverence, as one of the apostles of God, as 
the only man without sin. Christian writers, on the 
other hand, till the middle of the eighteenth century 
universally treated Muhammed asa false prophet and rank 
impostor. Luther called him “a devil, and a first-born 
child of Satan,” whilst Melanchthon was inclined to see in 
him both Gog and Magog.* 

Equal in enormity with the sin of not believing in a 
certain god is sometimes the sin of having a false belief 
about him. It seems strange that a god should be so 
easily offended as to punish with the utmost severity those 
who hold erroneous notions regarding some attribute of his 
which in no way affects his honour or glory, or regarding 
some detail of ritual. Thomas Aquinas himself admits that 
the heretic intends to take the word of Christ, although he 
fails “in the election of articles whereon to take that 
word.” But it is in this election that his sin consists. 

1 See von Kremer, Czlturgeschichte 
des Orients, 11. 166 sq. 

2 Niebuhr, Zravels through Arabia, 
li. 192, 189 sg. Cf. d’Arvieux, Travels 
in Arabia the Desart, p. 123; Wallin, 
Notes taken during a Journey through 
Northern Arabia, p. 21, 

3 Lane-Poole, Studies in a Mosque, 
p- 298 sg. 

4 [Deutsch,] ‘Islam,’ in Quarterly 
Review, cxxvil. 295 sg. Bosworth 
Smith, Wohammed and Mohammedan- 
zsm, pp. 67, 69. Pool, Studies in 
Mohammedanism, p. 406, 

RLIX DUTIES “TO GODS 647 

Instead of choosing those articles which are truly taught 
by Christ, he chooses those which his own mind suggests 
to him. Thus he perverts the doctrines of Christ, and in 
consequence deserves not only to be separated from the 
Church by excommunication, but to be banished from the 
world by death. Moreover, the heretic is an apostate, a 
traitor who may be forced to pay the vow which he has 
once taken.” The extreme rigour of this sophistical 
argumentation can only be understood in connection with 
its historical surroundings. It presupposes a Church 
which not only regards itself as the sole possessor of 
divine truth, but whose cohesion and power depend upon 
a strict adherence to its doctrines.* Nor was ita religious 
motive only that induced Christian sovereigns to persecute 
heretics. Certain heresies, as Manichzism and Donatism, 
were expressly declared to affect the common welfare ;* 
and the Frankish kings treated heretics not only as 
rebels against the Church, but as traitors to the State, 
as confederates of hostile Visigoths or Burgundians 
or Lombards.’ 

Whilst intolerance is a characteristic of all monotheistic 
religions which attribute human passions and emotions to 
their godhead, polytheism is by nature tolerant. A god 
who is always used to share with other gods the worship 
of his believers cannot bea very jealous god. The pious 
Hennepin was struck by the fact that Red Indians were 
“incapable of taking away any person’s life out of hatred 
to his religion.” ° Among the natives of the African Gold 
and Slave Coasts, though a man must show outward 
respect for the gods so as not to provoke calamities, he 
may worship many gods or none, just as he pleases. 
“There is perfect liberty of thought in matters of 
religion. . . . At this stage, man tolerates any form of 
religion that tolerates others ; and as he thinks it perfectly 

Thomas Aquinas, of. c?¢. ii.-ii. IT. 4 Milman, Hestory of Latin Chris- 
1B ee are eee tianity, li. 33- 
2 Tbed, ii. -ii. 10. 8. Pozi 101. 
3 Cf. Ritchie, Matural Rights, p. 6 Hennepin, Mew Discovery of a 

183. Vast Country in America, ii. 70. 

natural that different people should worship different gods, 
he does not attempt to force his own personal opinions 
upon anyone, or to establish conformity of ideas.”* On _ 
the Slave Coast even a sacrilege committed by a European 
is usually regarded with indifference, as the gods of a 
country are supposed to be concerned about the actions of 
the people of that country only.? ‘The characteristics of 
Natural Religion,” says Sir Alfred Lyall, “the con- 
ditions of its existence as we see it in India, are complete 
liberty and material tolerance ; there is no monopoly either 
of divine powers or even of sacerdotal privilege.” ° In 
China the hatred of foreigners has not its root in religion. 
The Catholics residing there were left undisturbed until © 
they began to meddle with the civil and social institutions 
of the country ;* and the difficulty in persuading the 
Chinese to embrace Christianity is said by a missionary to 
be due to their notion that one religion is as good as 
another provided that it has a good moral code.” Among 
the early Greeks and Romans it was a principle that the 
religion of the State should be the religion of the people, 
as its welfare was supposed to depend upon a strict 
observance of the established cult ; but the gods cared for 
external worship rather than for the beliefs of their 
worshippers, and evidently took little notice even of ex- 
pressed opinions. Philosophers openly despised the very 
rites which they both defended and practised ; and religion 
was more a pretext than a real motive for the persecutions of 
men like Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Socrates, and Aristotle.® 
So also the measures by which the Romans in earlier times 
repressed the introduction of new religions were largely 
suggested by worldly considerations ; “they grew out of 
that intense national ‘spirit which sacrificed every other 
»1 Ellis, Yoruba-speaking Peoples of 2 Ellis, Awe-speaking Peoples, p. 81. 
the Slave Coast, p. 295. See also /den, 3 Lyall, Watural Religion in [ndia, 
Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave yp. 52. 

Coast, p. 81; Monrad, Skildring af * Davis, Chena, ii. 7. Cf. Edkins, 
Guinea-Kysten, p. 28; Kubary, ‘Die of. czt. p. 178. 

Verbrechen und das Strafverfahren auf 5 Edkins, of. cet. p. 75. 

den Pelau-Inseln,’ in Original-Mittheil. 8 See Schmidt, Die Ethik der allen 

aus a, ethnol. Abthetl. d. kinigl. Museen _Griechen, ii. 24 sgq. 
su Berlin, i. 90, 

interest to the State, and resisted every form of innova- 
tion, whether secular or religious, that could impair the 
unity of the national type, and dissolve the discipline 
which the predominance of the military spirit and the stern 
government of the Republic had formed.” * It has also 
been sufficiently proved that the persecutions of the 
Christians during the pagan Empire sprang from motives 
quite different from religious intolerance. Liberty of 
worship was a general principle of the Imperial rule. That 
it was denied the Christians was due to their own aggres- 
siveness, as also to political suspicion. They grossly 
insulted the pagan cult, denouncing it as the worship of 
demons, and every calamity which fell upon the Empire was 
in consequence regarded by the populace as the righteous 
vengeance of the offended gods. Their proselytism 
disturbed the peace of families and towns. Their secret 
meetings aroused suspicion of political danger ; and this 
suspicion was increased by the doctrines they professed. 
They considered the Roman Empire a manifestation of 
Antichrist, they looked forward with longing to its destruc- 
tion, and many of them refused to take part in its defence. 
The greatest and best among the pagans spoke of the 
Christians as “ enemies,” or “ haters of the human race.” ” 

The same difference in toleration between monotheistic: 
and polytheistic religions shows itself in their different 
attitudes towards witchcraft. A monotheistic religion is 
not necessarily averse from magic ; its god may be supposed 
to have created magical as well as natural energy, and 
also to have given mankind permission to utilise it in a 
proper manner. Both Christianity in its earlier phases and 
Muhammedanism are full of magical practices expressly 
sanctioned by their theology—for instance, the use made 
of sacred words and of the relics of saints. But besides 
this sort of magic there is another kind—witchcraft, in the 
narrow sense of the term,—which is ascribed to the 

1 Lecky, History of Huropean 2 Lecky, of. cz¢. i. 408 sgg. Ramsay, 
Morals, i. 403. Cf. Dio Cassius, The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 
Historia Romana, li. 36, 346 sgg. See also supra, 1. 345 Sg. ; 

ii. 178 sg. 

assistance of exorcised spirits, regarded not as the willing 
agents but as the adversaries of God ; and this practice is 
naturally looked upon as highly offensive to His feelings. 
In Christianity witchcraft was esteemed the most horrible 
form of impiety.’ The religious law of the Hebrews— 
which generally prohibited all practices that savoured of 
idolatry, such as soothsaying and oracles—punished witches 
and wizards with death.” Islam disapproves of all magic 
which is practised with the assistance of evil spirits, or 
jinn, although such magic is very prevalent and popularly 
tolerated in Muhammedan countries.® Among polytheistic 
peoples, again, witchcraft is certainly in many cases 
treated with great severity ; a large number of uncivilised 
races punish it with death,* and among some of them it is 
the only offence which is capital.° But then witchcraft is 
punished because it is considered destructive to human life 
or welfare.© “In Africa,” says Mr. Rowley, “there is 
what is regarded as lawful as well as unlawful witchcraft, 
the lawful being practised professedly for the welfare of 
mankind, and in opposition to the unlawful, which is re- 
sorted to for man’s injury.” But “ the purposes of witch- 

! Lea, History of the Inquzsztion, 
ili, 422, 453. Pollock and Maitland, 
History of English Law before the Teme 
of Edward I. ii. 552 sqq. 
cit. 1x. 69. 

rotse). Casalis, Basutos, p. 229. Kidd, 
The Essential Kafir, p. 148 sg. Sibree, 
The Great African Island, p. 292 (Mala- 
Milman, of. gasy). Swettenham, Macay Sketches, 
Lecky, Rise and Influence p. 196 (Malays of Perak). Dalton, 

of Rationalism tn Lurope, i. 26. Keary, 
Outlines of Primitive Beltef among the 
Indo-European Races, p. 511 sgq. 
Rogers, Soczal Life in Scotland, ii. 
265, 208. Ralston, Sozgs of the Rus- 
stan People, pp. 386, 416.59. 

2 Exodus, xxii. 18. Levtticus, xix. 
26, 31; xx. 6, 27. Deuteronomy, 
XVlil. 10 sgg. 

3 Polak, ersten, 1. 348. 
Modern Egyptians, 1. 333. 

4 Supra, i. 189 sg. Cruickshank, 
Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast, ii. 
179. Bowdich, Afsston to Ashantee, 
p- 260. Johnston, Lretesh Central 
Africa, p. 403 (Bakongo). Cunning- 
ham, Uevanda, pp. 35 (Banyoro), 140 
(Bavuma), 305 (Basukuma). Arnot, 
Garenganze, p. 75.  Decle, Three 
Years in Savage Africa, p. 76 (Ba- 

Lane, 

Ethnology of Bengal, p. 257 (Oraons). 
Egede, Description of Greenland, p. 
123 5g. Krause, Dze Tlinkit-Indianer, 
p: 293 sg. Jones, quoted by Kohler, 
‘Die Rechte der Urvélker Nord- 
amerikas,’ in Zeztschr. f. vergl. Rechts- 
wiss. Xil. 412 (Chippewas). Morgan, 
League of the Lroguozs, p. 330; Seaver, 
Life of Mrs. Jemzson, p. 167 (Iroquois). 
Powell, ‘ Wyandot Government,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. i. 67. Steven- 
son, ‘ Sia,’ zb¢7. xi. 19. Lumholtz, Un- 
known Mexico, i. 325 (Tarahumares). 
Forbes, ‘ Aymara Indians of Bolivia 
and Peru,’ in Jour. Athn. Soc. N.S. ii. 

AG, ia 

5 Supra, i. 180. 

6 Cf. Dorsey, ‘Omaha Sociology, in 
Ann, Rep. Bur. Ethn, iii. 364. 

XLIX DUTIES TO GODS 6e1 

craft are now generally wicked ; its processes generally 
involve moral guilt ; the spirits invokes are, for the most 
part, avowedly evil me maleficent.” Among the Gaika 
tribe of the Kafirs “witchcraft is supposed to be an 
influence for evil, possessed by one individual over another, 

or others.” ” Among the Bondeis “the meaning of 
witchcraft is simply murder.” ? ‘That witchcraft, as a 
malicious practice, must be a graveand at the same time 
frequent offence among savages, is obvious from the 
common belief that death, disease, and misfortunes of every 
description are caused by it. From a similar point of 
view it is condemned by polytheistic nations of a higher 
type. Among the Aztecs of ancient Mexico anybody who 
employed sorcery or incantations for the purpose of doing 
harm to the community or to individuals was sacrificed to 
the gods.*- The Chinese Penal Code punishes with death 
those who have been convicted of writing and editing 
books of sorcery, or of employing spells and incantations, 

“in order to agitate and influence the minds of the 
people.” ° But, according to Mr. Dennys, the hatred of 
witches and wizards cherished in the West does not seem 
to exist in China; ‘those reputed to possess magic 
powers are regarded with dread, but it is rare to hear of 
any of them coming to untimely end by mob violence.”’ ® 
The Laws of Hammurabi, the ancient Babylonian legis- 
lator, enjoin that “if a man weave a spell and put a ban upon 
a man, and has not justified himself, he that wove the spell 
upon bum shall be put to death.””’ It is said in ‘ Vishnu 
Purana’ that ne who practises magical rites “ for the harm 
of others ” is punished in the hell called Krimisa.» Among 
the ancient Teutons not every kind of magic but only 
such as was considered of injurious nature was criminal.” 

1 Rowley, Aeligton of the Africans, States, ii. 462. 
p- 125 sg. Seealso Kidd, 7he Essen- Tae isine Leu Lee sece CClvi.. )). 
tial Kafir, p. 148. 273. 
2 Maclean, Compendium of Kafir ® Dennys, Lolk-Lore of China, p. 80. 
Laws, p. 123 7 Laws of Bammurabe, i. 
PeDaleren rer Anthr. Inst. xxv. 8 Vishnu Purdna, p. 208. 
223. ® Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, 
4 Bancroft, Wadzve Races of the Pacific ii. 678. 

CHAR? 

In Rome, also, what was deemed harmless magic was left 
undisturbed, whereas, according to the ‘ Law of the Twelve 
Tables,’ “he who affects another by magical arts or with 
poisonous drugs” is to be put to death ; ' and during the 
Empire persons were severely persecuted for political 
astrology or divination practised with a view to discovering 
the successors to the throne.” Plato writes in his ‘ Laws’ :— 
‘“¢ He who seems to be the sort of man who injures others 
by magic knots or enchantments or incantations or any of 
the like practices, if he be a prophet or divine, let him 
die; and, if not being a prophet, he be convicted of 
witchcraft, as in the previous case, let the court fix what he 
ought to pay or suffer.”® As Mr. Lecky justly remarks, 
both in Greece and Rome the measures taken against witch- 
craft seem to have been almost entirely free from religious 
fanaticism, the magician being punished because he injured 
man and not because he offended God.* Sometimes we 
find even among a polytheistic people that sorcery is 
particularly opposed by its priesthood ;° but the reason 
for this is no doubt hatred of rivals rather than religious 
zeal. Miss Kingsley, however, does not think that the 
dislike of witchcraft in West Africa at large has originally 
anything to do with the priesthood.° 

The religious intolerance which has accompanied the 
rise of monotheism is, as we have just observed, the result 
of the nature attributed to its godhead. But the 
evolution of religion does not end with the triumph of a 
jealous and irritable heavenly despot. There is a later 
stage where men believe in a god or supernatural power 
which is absolutely free from all human weakness, and in 
such a religion intolerance has no place. It has been said 
that the tolerant spirit of Buddhism’ is due to religious 

1 Lex Duodecim Tabularum, viii. 25. 

2 Lecky, Westory of European Morals, 
1. 420. 

3 Plato, Leges, xi. 933. 

4 Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, i. 
18. 

> Kingsley, West African Studies, 
p- 137. Rink, Greenland, p, 201. 

6 Kingsley, West African Studies, 
Peelssesgs 

7 Hardy, Zastern Monachism, p. 412. 
Monier-Williams, Buddhzsm, p. 126. 
Waddell, Buddhism of Tibet, p. 568. 
Edkins, Religion tn China, p. 127. 
Gutzlaff, Sketch of Chinese History, 
i.70. Forbes, British Burma, p. 32259. 

ht aa DUTIES? TO-GODS ~ 653 

indifference,’ but the original cause of it seems to be the 
absence of a personal god ; and the increasing tolerance of 
modern Christianity is undoubtedly connected with the 
more ethical view it takes of the Deity when compared 
with the opinions of earlier ages. It should be remem- 
bered, however, that religious toleration does not mean 
passive indifference with regard to dissenting religious ideas. 
The tolerant man may be a great propagandist. He may 
do his utmost to eradicate, by means of persuasion, what 
he considers to be a false belief. He may even resort to 
stronger measures against those who do mischief in the 
name of their religion. But he does not persecute any- 
body for the sake of his faith ; nor does he believe in an 
intolerant and persecuting god. 

Supernatural beings, according to the belief of many 
races, desire to be worshipped not only because they 
depend upon human care for their subsistence or comfort, 
but because worship is anact of homage. We have seen 
that sacrifice, after losing its original significance, still 
survives as a reverent ” offering. So also prayer 1s 
frequently a tribute to the self-regarding pride of the god 
to whom it is addressed. A supplication is an act of 
humility, more or less flattering to the person appealed to 
and especially gratifying where, as in the case of a god, the 
granting of the request entails no deprivation or loss, but 
on the contrary is rewarded by the worshipper. More- 
over, the request is very commonly accompanied by 
reverential epithets or words of eulogy ; and praise, nay 
even flattery, is just as pleasant to superhuman as to 
human ears. Gods are addressed as great or mighty, as 
lords or kings, as fathers or grandfathers.” A prayer of 
the ancient Peruvians began with the following words :— 
“QO conquering Viracocha! Ever present Viracocha ! 
Thou art in the ends of the earth without equal!” ® 
1 Forbes, of. cz. p. 322. Cf. Kuenen, Peoples, p. 105. 
Hibbert Lectures on National Religions 3 de Molina, ‘Fables and Rites of 

and Universal Religions, p. 290. the Yncas,’ in Warratives of the Rites 
2 See Brinton, Religions of Primitive and Laws of the Yncas, p. 33. 

The ancient Egyptians ina their gods," the Vedic and 
Zoroastrian hymns are full of praise. Muhammedans 
invoke Allah by sentences such as, ‘‘ God 1s great, ” “Goo 
is merciful,” ‘‘God is he who seeth and heareth.” Words 
of praise, as well as words of thanks, addressed to a god, 
may certainly be the expressions of unteflecting admiration 
or gratitude, free from all thought-of pleasing him ; but 
where laudation is demanded by the god as a price for 
good services, it is simply a tribute to his vanity. There 
is a Chinese story which amusingly illustrates this little 
weakness of so many gods :—At the hottest season of the 
year there was a heavy fall of snow at Soochow. The 
people, in their consternation, went to the temple of the 
Great Prince to pray. Then the spirit moved one of them 
to say, “‘ You now address me as Your Honour. Make 
it Your Excellency, and, though I am but a lesser deity, 
it may be well worth your while to do so.”’ Thereupon 
the people began to use the latter term, and the snow 
stopped at once.” The Hindus say that by praise a per- 
son may obtain from the gods whatever he desires.* 

We have different means of gratifying a person’s 
self-regarding pride: one is to praise him, another is to 
humiliate ourselves. Both have been adopted by men 
with reference to their gods. Besides hymns of praise 
there are hymns of penitence, the object of which is 
largely to appease the angry feelings of offended gods. 
Prayers for remission of sins form a whole literature 
among peoples like that of the Vedic age, the Chaldeans,! 
and the Hebrews, who commonly regarded calamities to 
which men were subject not as the result of an inexor- 
able fate nor as the machinations of evil spirits, but 
as divine punishments. According to early ideas, as 
we have seen, sin is a substance charged with injurious 

1 Amélineau | L’évolution des idées men, passim. Miirdter-Delitzsch, Ge- 
morales dans l Heypte ancienne, p. 214.  schichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, p. 

2 Giles, Strange Stories from a 38 sg. Delitesch, Wo lag das Paradies ? 
Chinese Studio, il. 294. p. 86. Hommel, Die semttischen 

> Ward, View of the History, Litera- Volker und Sprachen, p- 315 sqgq. 

ture, and Religion of the Hindoos,ii.69. Meyer, Geschichte des Alerthums, i. 
= Zimmern, Babylonische Busspsal- 178. 

ae 

energy, from which the infected person tries to rid 

himself by mechanical means.'' But at the same time the 
effect of sin is conceived as a divine punishment, and this 
suggests atonement. In the Rig-Veda we not only hear of 
the removal of sins by magical operations, but the gods 
are requested to free the sufferer from his sin.’ 

Gods are fond of prayers not only as expressions of 
humility or repentance but for other reasons as well. 
In early religion a prayer is commonly connected 
with an offering, :since the god is not supposed to 
bestow his favours gratuitously.’ By the call contained 
in it he is invited to partake of the offering, or his atten- 
tion is drawn to it.* ‘Compassionate father!” says the 
Tanna priest when he offers first-fruits to a deified 
ancestor ; “here is some food for you, eat it, and be 
kind to us on account of it!”°® In one of the Pahlavi 
texts it is said that when the guardian spirits of the 
righteous are invited they accept the sacrifice, whereas if 
they are not invited “they go up the height of a spear 
and will remain.”° Throughout the Yasts we hear of 
the claims of deities to be worshipped with sacrifices in 
which they are invoked by their own names and with the 
proper words.’ Mithra complains, “If men would 
worship me with a sacrifice in which I were invoked by 
my own name, as they worship the other Yazatas with 
sacrifices in which they are invoked by their own names, 
then I would come to the faithful at the appointed time.” ® 

1 Supra, i. 52 5qq. 

2 See Oldenberg, Dze Religion des 
Veda, pp. 292, 296, 317 sq. 

3 Tylor, Primzteve Culture, ii. 364 
sqq. Georgi, Russza, ii. 272 (shaman- 
istic peoples of Siberia). Maspero, 
Etudes de mythologie et adarchéologie 
éeyptiennes, 1. 163; Ldem, Dawn of 
Civilization, p. 124, n. 5 (ancient 
Egyptians). Darmesteter, in Sacred 
Books of the East, iv. (1st ed.) p. Ixix. 
(Zoroastrians). Oldenberg, of. cz¢. p. 
430 sgg. ; Barth, Religzons of India, p. 
34 (Vedic people). Donaldson, ‘ Ex- 
piatory and Substitutionary Sacrifices 
of the Greeks,’ in 7rans. Roy. Soc. 

Edinburgh, xxvii. 430. Grimm, Zeze- 
tonic Mythology, 1. 29. Among the 
Kafirs of Natal ‘‘a soldier wounded in 
battle would only pray if his hurt were 
slight ; but if it were serious, he would 
vow a sacrifice on his return, naming 
perhaps the particular beast ” (Shooter, 
Kajirs of Natal, p. 164). 

4 Cf. Brinton, Religions of Primitive 
Peoples, Pp. 104. 

® Turner, JVzmeteen Years tn Poly- 
nesta, p. 88. 

6 Shdyast La-Shdyast, 1x. 12. 

( Vasts, Vill. 23 897.03 Ke 30. 

STL Se IS OES Bea yi 

According to Vedic and Zoroastrian texts the gods were 
purified, strengthened, and encouraged not only by 
offerings but by prayers, although it is difficult in this 
respect to distinguish between two elements in one and 
the same rite which are so closely interwoven with each 
other. By his invocations man assists the gods in their 
combats with evil demons, he sends his prayer between 
the earth and the heavens there to smite the fiends.2, Ina 
Vedic hymn the people are exhorted to “sing to Indra a 
song very destructive to the demons.” * By pronouncing 
the praise of Asha, Zarathustra brings the Daevas to 
naught ;* by mentioning the name of Ahura Mazda their 2 
malice is most effectually destroyed.” Thus prayer may = 
be a religious duty also on account of the magic efficacy : 
ascribed to it, and the same is the case with incantations 
directed against evil spirits. 

In earlier chapters we have often noticed how curses 
gradually develop into genuine prayers, and vice versa may a 
prayer develop into a curse or spell. Dr. Rivers observes 
that the formule used in Toda magic have the form of 
prayers.° So also Assyrian incantations are often dressed 
in the robe cf supplication, and end with the formula, ‘“‘ Do 
so and so, and I shall gladden thine heart and worship 
thee in humility.” ’ Vedic texts which were not originally 
meant as charms became so afterwards. Incantations are 
comparatively rare in the Rig-Veda, and seem even to be 
looked upon as objectionable, but towards the end of the 
Vedic period the reign of Brahma, the power of prayer, as 
the supreme god in the Indian Pantheon began to dawn.® 

& Vastsy xt. 80. "Cft 1022. oxi. 90; 
BS bcd 3) A LO, DD. 10, 

8 Rivers, Zodas, pp. 450, 453. 

7 Tallqvist, ‘Die assyrische Beschwé- 

1 See Bergaigne, La religion védique, 
ii. 237, 250, 273 sgg.; Zimmer, Alziz- 
disches Leben, p. 337 sqgq. ; Oldenberg, 
Religion des Veda, p. 437; Macdonell, 

Vedic Mythology, p. 60; Meyer, Ge- 
schichte des Alterthunis, 1. 534 sq. 
(Zoroastrianism). 

BDV OSH, XXVill- 7 CSE Ses 
Vendidad, xix. 1, 2,8sqgg. Darmesteter, 
Ormaad et Ahriman, pp. 101, 119, 131, 
193. dem, in Sacred Books of the 
East, iv. (ist ed.) p. Ixix. 

3 Rig- Veda, viii. 78. 1. 

rungsserie Maqlti,’ in Acta Soc. Scéent. 
Fenntce@, XX. 22. 

8 Oldenberg, of. cz#. p. 311, sgg. 
Hopkins, 9f. cz¢. p. 149. Roth, ‘ Brah- 
ma und die Brahmanen,’ in Zez¢schr. a. 
Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellsch. 
1. 67, 71. Darmesteter, Essazs orien- 
faux, p. 132. 

ee a 

DUTIES TO GODS 

XLIX 6 ai 
Brahma is a force by which the gods act, by which they 
are born, and by which the world has been formed 3! 
but it is also the prayer which ascends from the altar to 
heaven and by means of which man wrests from the gods 
the boon he demands*—‘ the prayer governs them.” ® 
This omnipresent force is personified in Brahmanaspati, the 
lord of prayer, who resides in the highest heaven but of 
whom not only every separate god but the priest himself 
becomes a manifestation at the moment he pronounces the 
mantras or sacred texts.* It is a current saying in India 
that the whole universe is subject to the gods, that the 
gods are subject to the mantras, that the mantras are 
subject to the Brahmans, and that therefore the Brahmans 
are the real gods.’ In Zoroastrianism prayers are not made 
efficacious by devotion and fervency, but to the words 
themselves belongs a mysterious power and the mere 
recitation of them, if correct and faultless, brings that 
power into action;° in the Yasts prayer is regarded as a 
goddess, as the daughter of Ahura Mazda.’ In ancient 
Egypt, M. Maspero observes, ‘la priére n’était pas comme 
chez nous une pétition que l'homme présente au dieu, et 

ue le dieu est libre d’accepter ou de refuser 4 son gré: 
c’était une formule dont les terms ont une valeur impéra- 
tive, et dont l’énonciation exacte oblige le dieu a concéder 
ce qu’on lui demande.’* Greek literature supplies other 
instances of men conjuring their gods by incantations ;° 
the word dpa means both prayer and curse." And “in the 
Roman, as in the majority of the old Italian cults, prayer 
is a magic formula, producing its effect by its own inherent 
quality.”” ** 

UV asic xiii O23) XVil, 10: 

Barth, 
8 Maspero, Zvudes de mythologie et 

1 Atharva- Veda, xi. 

5. 5: 
op. cit. p. 38. 

2 Roth, Zoc. czt. p. 66 sgg. Barth, of. 
cit. p. 38. Darmesteter, Ormazd et 
Ahriman, p. 101. 

3 Rie-Veda, vi. 51. 8. 

4 Barth, op. cet. p. 15 sg. 
Cis Pe JL: 

5 Monier-Williams, brahmanism and 
Hindiiism, p. 201 sq. 

6 See Geiger, C2vzlization of the 
Eastern Iranians, i. 71. 

VOLe It 

Roth, Zoc. 

a archéologie égyptiennes, i. 163. 

9 See Usener, Gotternamen, p. 335 
Sq: 
10 Cf. von Lasaulx, Der Fluch bei 
Griechen und Rimern, p. ©. So also 
the Manx word gwee means both prayer 
and curse (Rhys, Ce/tzc Folk/ore, i. 349). 

" Renan, Azbbert Lectures on the 
Influence of the Institutions, &c. of 
Rome on Christianity, p. 10 sg. Cf. 

Ua 

Whilst an ordinary curse readily develops into a prayer 
when the name of a god is brought in for the purpose of 
giving magic efficacy to the curse, a prayer may contrariwise 
assume a magic character by being addressed: to a god—just 
Asha ctince: becomes endowed with magic energy in con- 
sequence of its contact or communion with the supernatural 
being to which it is offered ; and the constraining force in 
the prayer or sacrifice may then be directed even against 
the god himself. But there can be little doubt that the 
extreme importance which the magic element in the cult 
attained among the nations of ancient civilisation was 
chiefly due to the prevalence of a powerful priesthood or 
class of person well versed in sacred texts. A successful 
incantation presupposes a certain knowledge in him who 
utters it. The words of the formule are fixed and may 
not suffer the slightest modification under penality of los- 
ing their potency. Right intonation is equally important.’ 
The Brahmanic mantras ‘“‘ must be pronounced according 
to certain mystic forms and with absolute accuracy, 
or their efficacy is destroyed” ; nay, if in the repetition of a 
mantra the slightest mistake is made, either by omission of 
a syllable or defective pronunciation, the calamity which it 
was intended to bring down on an enemy will inevitably 
recoil on the head of the repeater.” The potency of 
the incantation largely lies in the voice, which is the 
magical instrument par exce/lence.2 A Buddhist priest who 
was asked what advantage he could expect to derive from 
merely repeating a number of words with the sense of 
which he was entirely unacquainted, gave the answer that 
the advantage of often repeating the sounds was incaleul- 
able, infinite ;* and a Muhammedan writer argues that 
prayers which are offered in any other language than 

Jevons, in Plutarch’s Romane Questions, 
p. xxvul.; Granger, Worship of the 
Romans, p. 158. 

u Maspero, Etudes, i. 109 ; 
Dawn of Civilization, pp. 146, 213 
(ancient Egyptians). Sayce, Azbdert 
Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient 
Babylonians, p. 319.  Darmesteter, 
Ormasd et Ahriman, p. 9. Sell, Faith 

Idem, 

of Isldm, pp. 53> 791 334s 341: 

2 Monier-Williams, Brdhmanismand 
Hinduism, p. 199. 

2 Vasts, iv. 5. Maspero, £tudes, 
ll. 373 sg. 3 Idem, Dawn of Civiliza- 
tion, p. 146 (ancient Egyptians). Sell, 
op. crt. p. 318 (Muhammedans), 

4 Indo-Chinese Gleaner, iii. 145. 

Arabic are profane and useless, because “the sounds of 
this language ’—whether understood or not-—“ fliuminate 
the darkness of men” and “purify the hearts of the 
faithful.” * Ideas of this sort are of course most strongly 
advocated by those who derive the greatest profit from 
them—priests or scribes. And it is easy to understand 
that with their increasing influence among a superstitious 
and credulous people the magic significance which is so 
readily ascribed to a religious act also has a tendency to 
grow in importance. 

Among all sins there is none which gods resent more 
severely than disobedience to their commandments. Mr. 
Macdonald says of the Efatese, in the New Hebrides, that 
no people under the sun is more obedient to what they 
regard as divine mandates than these savages, who believe 
that an offence against a spiritual being means calamity 
and death.” The Chaldeans had a lively sense of the 
risks entailed upon the sinner by disobedience to the gods.’ 
According to the Bible disobedience was the first sin 
committed by man, and death was introduced into the 
world as its punishment. ‘Rebellion is as the sin of 
witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.” * 
On the history of morals this demand of obedience has 
exercised considerable influence. It gives emphasis to 
moral rules which are looked upon as divine injunctions, 
and it helps to preserve such rules after the conditions from 
which they sprang have ceased to exist. The fact that 
they have become meaningless does not render them less 
binding ; on the contrary, the mystery surrounding them 
often increases their sanctity. The commandments of a 
god must be obeyed independently of their contents, simply 
because disobedience to him isasin. Acts totally different 
in character, crimes of the worst description and practices 

1 [ndo-Chinese Gleaner, iii. 146. Testament Theology, ii. 286. For other 

2 Macdonald, Oceanza, p. 201. instances see z9-Veda, vil. 89. 53 

3 Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, p. Geiger, Czvelization of the Eastern 
682. Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies?  Trantans, i. p. li. 3 Schmidt, Die Ethzk 
p. 86. der alten Griechen, ii. 51 sq. 

41 Samuel, xv. 23. Schultz, Old 

UP Uy 2 

by themselves perfectly harmless, are grouped together as 
almost equally offensive to the deity because they have been 
forbidden by him.’ And moral progress is hampered by a 
number of precepts which, though rooted in obsolete 
superstitions or antiquated ideas about right and wrong, 
have an obstinate tendency to persist on account of their 
supposed divine origin.” 

Duties to gods are in the first place based on prudential 
considerations. Supernatural beings, even when on the 
whole of a benevolent disposition, are no less resentful 
than men, and, owing to their superhuman power, much 
more dangerous. On the other hand, they may also 
bestow wonderful benefits upon those who please them. 
The general rule that prudence readily assumes a moral 
value holds particularly true of religious matters, where 
great individual interests are at stake. Waterland says 
in his Sermon on Self-love :—‘‘ The wisest course for any 
man to take is to secure an interest in the life tocome. .. . 
He may love himself, in this instance, as highly and as 
tenderly as he pleases. There can be no excess of fond- 
ness, or self-indulgence, in respect of eternal happiness. 
This is loving himself in the best manner, and to the best 
purposes. All virtue and piety are thus resolvable into a 
principle of self-love. ... . (t= is) with: “referencemsers 
ourselves, and for our own sakes, that we love even God 
himself.” 

At the same time it may be not only in people’s own 
interests, but in the interests of their fellow men as well, 
for them to be on friendly terms with supernatural beings. 
These beings often visit the iniquity of fathers or 
forefathers upon children or descendants, or punish the 
community for the sins of one of its members ;* and, on 
the other hand, they reward the whole family or group 
for the virtues of a single individual.® So also, when the 

: Cf. supra, i. 193 sqg. definition of virtue in his Principles of 
* Cf. Pollock, Zssays on Jurispru- Moral and Political Philosophy, i. 7 
dence and Ethics, p. 306 sq. (Complete Works, ii. 38 3 supra, i. 300). 

3 Waterland, ‘ On Self-Love,’ in 7%e 4 Supra, i. 48 sqq. 
English Preacher, i. 101 sg. Cf. Paley’s 5 Supra, i. 96 sqq. 

members of a community join in common acts of worship, 
each worshipper promotes not only his own welfare, but 
the welfare of his people. In early religion it is of the . 
utmost importance for the tribe or nation that the estab- 
lished cult should be strictly observed. This is a fact which 
cannot be too much emphasised when we have to explain 
how conduct which is pleasing to a god has come to be 
regarded as a moral duty; for, if the latest stages of 
religious development be excepted, the relations between 
men and their gods are communal rather than individual 
in character. Ahura Mazda said, “‘ If men sacrifice unto 
Verethraghna, made by Ahura, if the due sacrifice and 
prayer is offered unto him just as it ought. to be 
performed in the perfection of holiness, never will a 
hostile horde enter the Aryan countries, nor any plague, 
nor leprosy, nor venomous plants, nor the chariot of a 
foe, nor the uplifted spear of a foe!”"1~ Thus the duties 
to gods are at the same time social duties of the first order, 
owing to the intensely social character of religious relation- 
ships. 

Another circumstance which has contributed to the 
moral condemnation of offences against gods is that 
people are anxious to punish such offences in order to 
prevent the divine wrath from turning against themselves ; ” 
for punishment, as we have seen, easily leads to moral 
disapproval. But although prudential considerations of 
some kind or other be the chief cause of the ‘obligatory 
character attached to men’s conduct towards their gods, 
they are not the only cause. We must also remember 
that gods are regarded with genuine reverence by their 
worshippers ; and where this is the case offences against 
religion naturally excite sympathetic resentment in the 
latter, whilst great piety calls forth sympathetic approval 
and is praised as a virtue. 

I have here spoken of duties which men consider they 
owe to their gods, not of duties to supernatural beings in 
general. This distinction, though not always easy to 

1 Vasts, xiv: 48. 2 Supra, 1. 194. 

follow in detail, is yet of vital importance. People may 
no doubt be afraid to offend and even anxious to please 
other spirits besides their gods, but religious duties chiefly 
arise where there are established relationships between men 
and supernatural beings ; indeed, it may even bea duty to 
refrain from worshipping or actually to persecute other 
spirits, as is the case in monotheistic religions. Men 
depend for their welfare on their gods more than on any 
other members of the spiritual world. They select as 
their gods those supernatural beings from whom they 
think they have most to fear or most to hope. Hence it 
is generally in the relations to them only that those factors, 
prudential and reverential, are to be found which lead to 
the establishment cf religious duties.

GODS AS GUARDIANS OF MORALITY 

As men are concerned about the conduct of their fellow 
men towards their gods, so gods are in many cases con- 
cerned about men’s conduct towards one another—disap- 
proving of vice and punishing the wicked, approving of 
virtue and rewarding the good. But this is by no means 
a universal characteristic of gods. It is a quality 
attributed to certain deities only and, as it seems, in most 
instances slowly acquired. 

We are told by competent observers that the super- 
natural beings of savage belief frequently display the 
utmost indifference to all questions of worldly morality. 
According to Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, the Central 
Australian natives, though they assume the existence of 
both friendly and mischievous spirits, ‘have not the 
vaguest idea of a personal individual other than an actual 
living member of the tribe who approves or disapproves 
of their conduct, so far as anything like what we call 
morality is concerned.” * The Society Islanders main- 
tained that “the only crimes that were visited by the dis- 
pleasure of their deities were the neglect of some rite or 
ceremony.”” The religious belief of the Gonds of 
Central India is said to be wholly unconnected with any 
idea of morality ; a moral deity demanding righteous con- 
duct from his creatures, our informant adds, is a religious 

1 Spencer and Gillen, Vorthern 2 Ellis, Polynestan Researches, i. 
Tribes of Central Australia, p. 491. 397. 

conception far beyond the present capacity either of the 
Indian savage or the ordinary Hindu.’ Of the Ewe-, 
Yoruba-, and Tshi-speaking peoples of the West African 
Slave and Gold Coasts Major Ellis writes :—‘‘ Religion, 
at the stage of growth in which we find it among these 

three groups of tribes, has no connection with morals, or . 

the relations of men to one another: It consists solely of 

ceremonial worship, and the gods are only offended when | 

some rite or ceremony has been neglected or omitted. .. . 
Murder, theft, and all offences against the person or 
against property, are matters in which the gods have no 
immediate concern, and in which they take no interest, 
except in the case when, bribed by a valuable offering, 
they take up the quarrel in the interests of some faithful 
worshipper.” ? So also among the Bambala, a Bantu 
tribe in the Kasai, south of the River Congo, “ there is no 
belief that the gods or spirits punish wrong-doing by 
afflicting the criminal or his family, nor are the acts of a 
man supposed to affect his condition after death.”* The 
Indians of Guiana, says Mr. Im Thurn, observe an admir- 
able code of morality, which exists side by side with a 
simple animistic form of religion, but the two have abso- 
lutely no connection with one another.* With reference 
to the Tarahumares of Mexico Dr. Lumholtz states 
that the only wrong towards the gods of which an Indian 
may consider himself guilty is that he does not dance 
enough. ‘For this offence he asks pardon. Whatever 
bad thoughts or actions toward man he may have on his 
conscience are settled between himself and the person 
offended.” ‘In the primitive Indian’s conception of a 
god,” Mr. Parkman observes, “ the idea of moral good 
* Forsyth, Mighlands of Central p.10. The Ewe god Mawu is repre- 
India, p. 145. See also Hodgson,  sented.as an exception to this rule 
Miscellaneous Essays, i. 124 (Bodo  (znfra, p. 686). 
and Dhimals); Caldwell, Zzzevelly * Torday and Joyce, ‘Ethnography 

Shanars, p. 36; Lyall, Aszatic Studzes, of the Ba-Mbala,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
p- 453 Radloff, Das Schamanenthum, Inst. xxxv. 415. 

js 183) (Turkish tribes of the Altai). 4Im Thur, J/zdians of Guiana, 
2 Ellis, Yoruba-speaking Peoples of  p. 342. 
the Slave Coast, p. 293. Ldem, Tshi- > Lumholtz, Unknown Mexico, i. 

speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, 332. 

a 

has no part. His deity does not dispense justice for this 
world or the next.” ! 

That many savage gods are so thoroughly selfish as to 
care about nothing else than what concerns their own 
interests, may also be inferred from the character attri- 
buted to them. We have seen that the altruistic senti- 
ment is the chief source from which moral emotions spring, 
and of the gods of various uncivilised peoples we hear not 
only that they are totally destitute of benevolent feelings, 
but that they are of a malicious nature and mostly intent 
on doing harm to mankind.” 

The Maoris of New Zealand regarded their deities as 
the causes of pain, misery, and death, as mighty enemies 
from whom nobody ever thought of getting any aid or 
good, but who were to be rendered harmless by means of 
charms or spells or by sacrifices offered to appease their wrath.’ 
The Tahitians “supposed their gods were powerful spiritual 
beings, in some degree acquainted with the events of this 
world, and generally governing its affairs ; never exercising any 
thing like benevolence towards even their most devoted followers, 
but requiring homage and obedience, with constant offerings ; 
denouncing their anger, and dispensing destruction on all who 
either refused or hesitated to comply.”* ‘The Fijians “ formed 
no idea of any voluntary kindness on the part of their gods, 
except the planting of wild yams, and the wrecking of 
strange canoes and foreign vessels on their coast”; and 
that some of these beings were conceived as positively wicked 
is indicated by the names given them—“the adulterer,” 
“the rioter,” ‘“‘the murderer,” and so forth.6 ‘The people 
of Aneiteum, in the New Hebrides, maintained that “earth 
and air and ocean were filled with natmasses, spiritual beings, 
but all malignant, who ruled over- everything that affected 
the human race. .. Their deities, like themselves, were 

1 Parkman, /esuzts an North America, 
p. Ixxviii. See also Eastman, Dacotah, 
p. xx; Schooleraft, Zidian Tribes of 
the United States, ii. 195 (Dacotahs). 

2 See Meiners, Geschichte der Re- 
ligionen, i. 405; Tylor, Primdtive 
Culture, ii. 329; Avebury, Origin of 

Civilisation, p. 232 Sgg.; Roskoff, 
Geschichte des Ti eufels, i. 209. ¢ 
Frazer, Golden Bough, il. 40 Sqg. 3 

Karsten, Origin of Worship, p. 46 sq9. 
3 Taylor, Ze /ka a Maut, pp. 104, 
148. Colenso, JJZaort Races of New 
Zealand, p. 62. Cf. Dieffenbach, 
Travels in New Zealand, ii. 118. 
4 Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 

336. 

® Williams and Calvert, 7272, p. 195. 
6 Tbid, p. 185. 

all selfish and malignant; they breathed no spirit of 
benevolence.” ? 

The Santal of India believes in no god from whose benignity 
he may expect favour, but in “a multitude of demons and evil 
spirits, whose spite he endeavours by supplications to avert.” 
Even his family god “represents the secret principle of evil, 
which no bolts can shut out, and which dwells in unseen but 
eternally malignant presence beside every hearth.”? The 
Kamchadales do not seem to have hoped for anything good 
from their deities; Kutka himself, the creator of the universe 
and the greatest of the gods, was once caught in adultery 
and castrated.® 

According to the beliefs of the Koksoagmyut, or Hudson 
Bay Eskimo, all the minor spirits are under the control of the 
great spirit whose name is Tung ak, and this being “is nothing 
more or less than death, which ever seeks to torment and harass + 
the lives of people that their spirits may go to dwell with 3 
him.” * Nay, even the special guardian spirit by which each : 
person is supposed to be attended is malignant in character and 
ever ready to seize upon the least occasion to work harm upon 
the individual whom it accompanies; its good offices. can 
be obtained by propitiation only.© Among the Nenenot, 
or Indians of Hudson Bay, “the rule seems to be that all spirits 
are by nature bad, and must be propitiated to secure their 
favour.” ® Of various Brazilian tribes we are likewise told that 
they do not believe in the existence of any benevolent spirits. 
Thus the Coroado Indian acknowledges only an evil principle, 
which sometimes meets him in the form of a lizard or a 
crocodile or an ounce or a man with the feet of a stag, 
sometimes transforms itself into a swamp, and leads him astray, 
vexes him, brings him into difficulty and danger, and even ‘kills 
him.’ The Mundrucus of the Cupari have no notion of a 
good supreme being, but believe in an evil spirit, regarded merely 
as a kind of hobgoblin, who is at the bottom of all their 
little failures and gives them troubles in fishing, hunting, and so 
forth.2 The Uaupés, says Mr. Wallace, “appear to have 
no definite idea of a God. . . . They have much more definite 
ideas of a bad spirit, ‘ Jurupari,’ or Devil, whom they fear and 

1 Inglis, Zz the New Hebrides, pp. gava District,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. 

y. 
“ 
“ 

30, 32. Ltthn. xi. 272. 
2 Hunter, Avnals of Rural Bengal, 5 (bid. p. 194. 
iby SHE AAA } 6 707d. p19 3" sy. 
® Klemm,  Cvzltewr-Ceschichte der “ von Spix and von Martius, 77aveds 
Menschhett, ii. 318 sg. Steller, Be- in Brazil, ii. 243. 
schretbung von Kamtschatka, p. 2064. 8 Bates, The Naturalist on the River 

4 Turmer, ‘Ethnology of the Un- Amazons, ii. 137. 

endeavour through their pagés [or medicine men] to propitiate. 
When it thunders, they say the ‘ Jurupart’ is angry, and their 
idea of natural death is that the ‘ Jurupari’ kills them.” ! 

In Eastern Africa, according to Burton, “the sentiment 
generally elicited by a discourse upon the subject of the existence 
of a Deity is a desire to see him, in order to revenge upon him 
the deaths of relatives, friends, and cattle.” 2 The only quality 
of amoral character which the Wanika are said to ascribe to 
the supreme being, Mulungu, is that of vindictiveness and 
cruelty. To the Matabele the idea of a benevolent deity is 
utterly foreign, but they have a vague notion of a number of evil 
spirits always ready to do harm, and the chief among these are 
the spirits of their ancestors.* All the good the Bechuanas enjoy 
they ascribe to rainmakers, but “all the evil that comes they attri- 
bute toa supernatural being” ; ° of their principal god, Morimo, 
Mr. Moffat never once, in the course of twenty-five years 
spent in missionary labour, heard that he did good or was capable 
of doing so. Among various other African peoples, travellers 
assure us, supernatural beings are supposed to exercise a potent 
influence for evil rather than for good, or beneficent spirits are, 
at any rate, almost unknown.’ On the Gold Coast, according 
to Major Ellis, the majority of spirits are malignant, and every 
misfortune is ascribed to their action. ‘I believe,” he adds, 
“ that originally all were conceived as malignant, and that the 
indifference, or the beneficence (when propitiated by sacrifice 
and flattery), which are now believed to be characteristics of 
some of these beings, are later modifications of the original 
rea. & 

Of many savages it is reported that they have notions 

of good, as well as of evil spirits, but that they chiefly or 
exclusively worship the evil ones, since the others are 
supposed to be so good that they require no offerings or 

homage.” 
1 Wallace, Zravels on the Amazon, 
po. 
* Burton, Lake Regions of Central 
Aff 2a, li. 348. 
3 New, Life, Wanderings, and 
Labours in Eastern Africa, p. 103 sq. 
& Decle, Three Years in Savage 
Afr ica, p. 153. 
® Campbell, Second Journey in the 
Interior of South Africa, ii. 204. 
6 Moffat, MJisstonary Labours tn 
Southern Africa (ed. 1842), p. 262. 

But adoration of supernatural beings which are 

7 Rowley, Religion of the Africans, 
p. 55. Kingsley, Zravels zt West 
Africa, p. 443. Mockler-Ferryman, 
British Nigeria, p. 255 sq. 

8 Ellis, Zshz-sfeaking Peoples, pp 
12, 18, 20. Cf. Cruickshank, Zighteen 
Vears on the Gold Coast, ii. 134. 

9 Wilken, Met Animisme by de 
volken van den Indischen Archipel, p. 
207 sg. Perham, ‘Sea Dyak Religion,’ 
in Jour. Straits Branch Roy. Asiatic 
Soc. no. 10, p. 220; St. John, Lzfe zx 

GODS AS GUARDIANS OF 

considered at least occasionally beneficent is also very 
prevalent among uncivilised peoples.’ The gods of the pagan 
Lapps were all good, although they took revenge upon 

those who offended them.? 

Among 

the Navaho Indians 

of New Mexico “the gods who are supposed to love and 
help men the most receive the greatest honour”’ ; whereas 
the evil spirits are not worshipped except, rumour says, 

by the witches.’ 

The belief in guardian or tutelary 

spirits of tribes, clans, villages, families, or individuals, is 

extremely widespread.* 

These spirits may be exacting 

enough—they are often greatly feared by their own 

the Lorests of the Far East, i. 69 sq. 
(Sea Dyaks). Blumentritt, ‘Der Ah- 
nencultus und die religidsen An- 
schauungen der Malaien des Philippi- 
nen-Archipels,’ in JZ2tthetl. d. hats. 
u. kon. Geograph. Gesellsch. in Ween, 
xxv. 166 sgg. Prain, ‘ Angami Nagas,’ 
in Revue coloniale internationale, v. 
489. Forsyth, op. cet. pp. 141, 143 
(Gonds). Hooker, Azmalayan Jour- 
mals, 1. 126 (Lepchas). Robertson, 
History of America, i. 383; Miiller, 
Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urre- 
ligionen, pp. 150, I51, 232, 260; 
Dorman, Origin of Primitive Super- 
stition, p. 30 (American Indians). 

Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage 

Life, p. 212 (Ahts). Falkner, Descr7p- 
tion of Patagonia, p. 116; Prichard, 
Through the Heart of Patagonia, p. 

1 See supra, ii. 615 sg. 

2 yon Diiben, Lappland, pp. 227, 
285. Friis, Lappisk ALythologz, p. 106. 
Jessen, JVorske Linners og Lappers 
fledenske Religion, p. 33. 

3 Matthews, Mavaho Legends, p. 40. 
See also zdzd. p. 33. 

4 Hillis, 7shz-speaking Peoples of the 

Gold Coast, pp. 17, 18, 77, 92. Ldem, 
Lwe-speaking Peoples of the Slave 

Coast, p. 75. Wilson, Western Africa, 
p. 387 (Mpongwe). Tuckey, Azver 
Zaire, p. 375. Ellis, Hzstory of Mada- 
gascar, 1. 395 Sq. Q 
Mankind, i. 321 (various South Sea 
Islanders). Turner, Samoa, p. 17 sg. 
Williams and Calvert, 7272, p. 185 sg. 
Inglis, of. czt. p. 30 (people of Anei- 
teum). Christian, Caroline Islands, p. 

Ratzel, Wzstory of 

75. Wilken, Het Animesme, pp. 231 
sgqg- (Minahassers, Macassars, and 
Bugis of Celebes), 243 (Javanese). Se- 
lenka, Sonnige Welten, p. 103 Sg. 
(Dyaks). Forbes, Jrsulinde, p. 203 
(natives of Tenimber). von Brenner, 
Besuch bet den Kannibalen Sumatras, 
p- 221 (Bataks). Mason, ‘ Religion, 
&c. among the Karens,’ in Jour. Astatic 
Soc. Bengal, xxxiv. 196. Hunter, 
Annals of Rural Bengal, i. 182, 186 
sg. (Santals). Hodgson, Azscellaneous 
Essays, 1. 128 (Bodo and Dhimals). 
Bailey, ‘ Veddahs of Ceylon,’ in Trans. 
eithna Soc. NGS tile 30l s Neville 
‘Vaeddas of Ceylon,’ in 7afrobanian, 
1. 194. Schmidt, Ceylon, p. 291 sg. 
(Tamils). Bergmann, Vomadische Stret- 
Jereten unter den Kalmiiken, wi. 182 
sg. Abercromby, Pre- aid Proto-historic 
Finns, 1. 160 (Ostiaks). Buch, ‘ Die 
Wotjaken,’ in Acta Soc. Scient. Fen- 
mice, xii. 595.sg. Castrén, Wordiska 
resor och forskningar, iii. 106, 107, 174 
sg. (Finnish tribes). Boas, ‘ Central 
Eskimo,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. 
Vi. 0591.) Durer.) cicd. axl Ossi. 
(Hudson Bay Eskimo), 272 (Hudson 
Bay Indians). Hoffman, ‘ Menomini 
Indians,’ zézd. xiv. 65. McGee, ‘Si- 
ouan Indians,’ zézd. xv. 179; Parkman, 
op, cit. p. \xx; Dorman, op. cit. p. 
227 (North American Indians). Miiller, 
Geschichte der Amerikanischen Orre- 
figionen, pp. 72 (North American In- 
dians), 171 (Indians of the Great 
Antilles). Couto de Magalhaes, 77a- 
batho preparatorio para aproveitamento 
do selvagem no Braztl—O selvagem, p. 
128 sgg. Tylor, of. cit. ii. 199 sgg. 

worshippers, and sometimes described as distinctly malig- 
nant by nature ;* but their general function is neverthe- 
less to afford assistance to the person or persons with 
whom they are associated. At the same time it should be 
noticed that the goodness of many savage gods only 
consists in their readiness to help those who please them 
by offerings or adoration; and in no case does their 
benevolence prove that they take an active interest in 
morality at large. A friendly supernatural being is not 
necessarily a guardian of men’s behaviour towards their 
fellow men. In Morocco the patron saint of a town, 
village, or tribe is not in the least concerned about any 
kind of conduct which has not immediate reference to 
himself.? It is believed that even the robber may, by in- 
voking a dead saint, secure his assistance in an unlawful 
enterprise. 

On the other hand, instances are not wanting in which 
savage gods are supposed to punish the transgression of 
rules relating to worldly morality. Occasionally, as we 
have noticed above, such gods are represented as avengers 
of some special kind of wrong-doing—murder,’ theft,* 
niggardliness,’ want of hospitality,® or lying.’ Of certain 
Negro tribes we are told that, “when a man is about to 
commit a crime, or do that which his conscience tells him 
he ought not to do, he lays aside his fetiche, and covers 
up his deity, that he may not be privy to the deed.” * 
The Tonga Islanders “firmly believe that the gods 
approve of virtue, and are displeased with vice; that 
every man has his tutelar deity, who will protect him as 
long as he conducts himself as he ought to do ; but, if 
he does not, will leave him to the approaches of misfor- 

tune, disease, and death. . . . All rewards for virtue or 

punishments for vice happen to men in this world only, 
1 Schmidt, Cey/on, p. 291 sy.(Tamils). 3 Supra, 1. 378 sq. 

Turner, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xi. 4 Supra, i. 59 sq. 

193 sg. (Hudson Bay Eskimo), 272 Bb S7zpra, 1. 501 sq. 

(Hudson Bay Indians). McGee, zdzd. 6 Supra, i. 578. 

xv. 179; Miiller, op. cz¢. p. 72 (North 7 Supra, ii. 114 sq. 

American Indians). 8 Tuckey, of. ct. -p. y/pe Gi 
2 For a singular exception to this Monrad, Sk7ldring af Guinea-Kysten, 
rule see supra, ll. 67 5g. job Py i? 

and come immediately from the 

*! ~The: Ainu™o8 

gods.’ 

Japan are heard to say, ‘We could not go contrary to 
the customs of our ancestors without bringing down upon 

us the wrath of the gods. 

And of various savages we 

are told that they believe in the existence of a supreme 
being who is a moral lawgiver or judge. 

In Australia, especially in New South Wales and Victoria but 
also in other parts of the continent, many of the native tribes 
have the notion of an “ All-father,” called Baiame, Daramulun, 
Mungan-ngalla, Bunjil, Nurelli, Nurundere, or by some other 

name.? 

He is represented as an anthropomorphic, supernatural 

being and as the father of the race or the maker of everything, 
who at one time dwelt on the earth but afterwards ascended to 

a land beyond the sky, where he still remains. 

He is of a 

kindly disposition, and requires no worship; in a very few 
cases only we meet with some faint traces of a cult offered him.* 

1 Mariner, JWVatives of the Tonga 
Lslands, ii. 149, 107. 

2 Batchelor, Aznu of Japan, p. 243 
Sq. 
% Henderson, Colonies of New South 
Wales, p. 147. de Strzelecki, ew 
South Wales, p. 339. Manning, ‘ Ab- 
origines of New Holland,’ in Jour. and 
Proceed. Roy. Soc. N.S. Wales, xvi. 
157 59g. 
sgg. Cameron, ‘Some Tribes of New 
South Wales,’ in /owr. Anthr. Inst. 
xiv. 364 sg. Langloh Parker, Zuah- 
layt Tribe, p. 4 sgg. Threlkeld, Ax 
Australian Language as spoken by the 
Awabakal, p. 47. Mathews, Aboriginal 
Tribes of New South Wales and Vic- 
toria, p. 138 sgg. Mathew, Zaglehawk 
and Crow, p. 146 sgg. Fountain and 
Ward, Rambles of an Australian 
Naturalist, p. 296. ALisstons-Llatt aus 
der Briidergemetne, xvi. 101, 1433 
Parker, Aborigines of Australia, p. 
243 Dawson, Australian Aborigines, 
p- 49 (tribes in Victoria). Brough 
Smyth, Adorigines of Victoria, i. 423 
sgg. Taplin, ‘ Narrinyeri,’ in Woods, 
Native Tribes of South -Australa, p. 
55 sgg- Howitt, Wateve Tribes of 
South-Hast Australia, p. 489 sg. 
Spencer and Gillen, Worthern Tribes 
of Central Australia, p. 498 sg. (Kait- 
ish). Strehlow, quoted by Thomas, 

Ridley, Admilarét, p. 135-- 

‘Religious Ideas of the Arunta,’ in 
frolk- Lore, xvi. 429 sg. Idem, quoted 
by von Leonhardi, ‘Religidse und 
totemistische Vorstellungen der Aranda 
und Loritja in Zentralaustralien,’ in 
Globus, xci. 286 sg. Curr, The Aus- 
tralian Race, 1. 253 (Larrakia) ; ii. 465, 
475 (some Cape River natives). Lang, 
Cooksland, p. 459 sy.: Ldem, Queens- 
land, p. 379 sg. Roth, Zthnol. Studies 
among the North- IV Vest-Central Queens- 
land Aborigines, pp. 16, 153, 158. 
Salvado, Jlémotres htstorigues sur 
l’ Australie, p. 258 (natives of West 
Australia). 

4 When the natives of Cooksland, in 
North-Eastern Australia, rob a wild 
bees’ hive they generally leave a little 
of the honey for Buddai, the super- 
natural ancestor of their race (Lang, 
Cooksland, p. 460; Ldem, Queensland, 
p. 380). Mrs. Langloh Parker (op. 
czt. pp. 8, 9, 79, 89) was told that in 
the Euahlayi tribe prayers are addressed 
to Byamee at funerals for the souls of 
the dead, and that at some initiatory 
rites the oldest medicine-man present 
addresses a prayer to him asking him to 
give the people long life as they have 
kept his law ; but they do not profess 
to pray or to have prayed to Byamee on 
any other occasions (cf Manning, Zoc. 
cit. p. 164). The natives inhabiting 

He is frequently believed to have instituted the initiation cere- 
monies,' and to have given the people their laws.2 Thus 
Nurundere is said to have taught the Narrinyeri all the rites and 
ceremonies whether connected with life or death ; on inquiry 
why they adhere to any custom, the reply is that Nurundere 
commanded it.2 At the dsorah, or initiation, of the Euahlayi 
tribe, Byamee is proclaimed as “ Father of All, whose laws the 
tribes are now obeying”; and in one of their myths he is 
described as the original source of all the totems and of the law 
that persons of the same totem may not intermarry.* Bunjil 
taught the Kulin the arts of life, and told them to divide them- 
selves into two intermarrying classes so as to prevent marriages 
between kindred.6 Daramulun instructed the Yuin what to 
do and gave them laws which the old people have handed down 
from father to son to the present time.® And in several instances 
the Australian “ All-father” is represented as a guardian of 
morality who punishes the wicked and rewards the good. 
Bunjil “ very frequently sent his sons to destroy bad men and 
bad women... who had killed and eaten blacks.” ” 
Daramulun, or Tharamulun, who from his residence in the sky 
watches the actions of men, “is very angry when they do things 
that they ought not to do, as when they eat forbidden food.” ® 
The natives of the Herbert River, in Queensland, believe that 
anybody who takes a wife from the prohibited sub-class, or who 
does not wear the mourning necklace for the prescribed period, 
or who eats forbidden food, will sooner or later die in con- 
sequence, since his behaviour is offensive to Kohin, a 
supernatural being who is supposed to have his dwelling in the 
Milky Way but to roam about at night on earth as a 
gigantic warrior killing those whom he meets.? Most 
commonly, however, the retribution is said to come after death. 

the neighbourhood of Lake Boga in 
Victoria have to placate Pei-a-mei by 
dances (A/7sstons-Llatt aus der Briider- 
gemeine, xvi. 143). Of the South- 
Eastern Australian Daramulun Mr. 
Howitt says (0p. czt. p. 507 sg.) that, 
although there is no worship of him, 
“‘the dances round the figure of clay 
and the invocating of his name by the 
medicine-men certainly might have led 
up to it.” 

1 Manning, /oc. ct. p. 1653 Ridley, 
op. cit. pp. 141, 155; Langloh Parker, 
op. cet. p. 7 (Boyma, Baiame, Byamee). 
Howitt, of. cet. p. 495 (Daramulun). 
M’Kinlay, quoted zdzd. p. 496. Mr. 
Threlkeld says (of. cet. p. 47) that 

Koin, an imaginary male being who 
has the appearance of a black, is sup- 
posed to precede the coming of the 
natives from distant parts when they 
assemble to celebrate certain of their 
ceremonies. 

2 Howitt, of. czt. 
the Wiimbaio). 
zbid. p. 496. 

3 Taplin, in Woods, of. cz¢. p. 55. 

# Langloh Parker, of. cet. p. 7 sg. 

© Howitt, of. cz. p. 491. 

6 bid. p. 495. 

Brough Smyth, of. ct. i. 423. 
8 Howitt, of. czt. p. 495. 
9 bid. p. 499. 

p. 489 (Nurelli of 
M’Kinlay, quoted 

The tribes about Maryborough, in Queensland, maintain that 
the ghosts of those who are good or those who have a high 
degree of excellence in any particular line—fishing, hunting, 
fighting, dancing, and so forth—are See by Birral to an 
island in the Far ‘North, where he resides." Among the Cape 
River tribes, “when a Blackfellow dies whose actions during 
life have been what they hold to be good, he is said to ascend to 
Boorala (7.e., to the Creator, literally ‘ good’ ), where he lives 
much as he did on earth, less the usual terrestrial discomforts ”’ ; 
whereas to the man who has led a bad life death is thought to 
be simple annihilation.2 The Kulin said that when they die 
they will be subjected to a sort of trial by Binbeal, “the good 
being rewarded in a better land, the bad driven away, but where 
they seemed to have no idea.”? According to another 
account, again, Binbeal, after he has subjected the spirits of the 
deceased to an ordeal of fire to try whether they are good or 
bad, liberates the good at once, whereas the bad are confined 
and punished.4 “he [lawarra, who lived from thirty to a 
hundred miles south of Sidney, believed that when people 
die they are brought up to a large tree where Mirirul, the 
supreme ruler, examines and judgesthem. ‘The good he takes 
up to the sky, the bad he sends to another place to be punished. 
The women said to their children when they were naughty, 
“ Mirirul will not allow it.”> Among the Wathiwathi, in 
New South Wales, the belief prevails that if the spirit of a bad 
man escapes the traps which are set for it on its course in the 
sky, it is sure to fall into the hell of fire. The good spirit, on 
the other hand, is received by two old women who take care of 
it till it becomes accustomed to its new abode; and after a time 
the great god, Tha-tha-puli, comes with a host of spirits to see 
the newcomer and to try his strength.6 According to a report 
written by Archdeacon Ginther in 1839, Baiame is supposed to 
like the blacks who are good ; and “ there is also an idea enter- 
tained by the more thoughtful that good natives will go to 
Baiame when they die.”" Later authorities state that Baiame 
is believed not only to reward the good after death, but also to 
punish the wicked—that is, persons who tell lies = kill men by 
striking them secretly or who are unkind towards the old and 
sick or, generally, who break his laws8 A very elaborate 

1 Howitt, op. cz¢. p. 498. 8 Cameron, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. 

25 Curr, of. crt. ti. A7 5: xiv. 364 sg. 

3 Parker, Aborigines of Australia, ? Giinther, quoted by Thomas, in 
p- 24. Man, 1905, p. 51. 

ee Ridleyarop acim pseua iis 8 Ridley, of. cet. pp. 135, 136, 140 

DMiteh jos WeYe Langloh Parker, of. cz¢. p. 70 

~~ 
= 

theory of retribution is communicated by Mr. Manning, whose 
notes date from 1844 or 1845. Boyma (Baiame) is said to be 
seated far away in the north-east on an immense throne made of 
transparent crystal and standing in a great lake. He has a son, 
Grogoragally, equal with him in omniscience, who acts as 
mediator for the souls to the Great God. His office is to 
watch over the actions of mankind and to bring to life the dead 
to appear before the judgment-seat of his Father, who alone 
pronounces the judgment of eternal happiness in heaven or 
eternal misery in a hell of everlasting fire. Women and boys 
dying before the initiation, however, do not go to heaven; the 
men have a vague idea that another world is reserved for them. 
There is also a third person, half human, half divine, called 
Moodgeegally, who makes Boyma’s will known to mankind and 
is the avowed enemy of all wicked people, transmitting their 
misdeeds to Grogoragally.! 

It seems probable that these statements represent a mixture 
of Christian ideas and genuine aboriginal beliefs. There is 
reason to believe that the Australian notion of an “ All-father ” 
is not in the first instance due to missionary influence ; ? we 
have records of it from a comparatively early date, it is spread 
over a wide area, it has been found among natives who live in 
a state of great isolation, and the multitude of different names 
by which the “ All-father”’ is called in different tribes does not 
suggest a recent origin from a common source. He may very 
well be a mythical ancestor. Mr. Howitt observes that the 
master in the sky-country represents the Australian idea of a 
headman—“ a man who is skilful in the use of weapons of 
offence and defence, all-powerful in magic, but generous and 
liberal to his people, who does no injury or violence to any one, 
yet treats with severity any breaches of custom or morality.” 
But he may also be a personification of supernatural force in 
general, or a being who has been invented to account for all 
kinds of marvellous phenomena. ‘The word altjira, by which 
the Arunta call their great god, is apparently not a proper name ; 
according to Kempe, it is applied to five gods, whose names he 
gives, as also to the sun, moon, and remarkable things generally.* 
And Mulkari, who figures in the beliefs of some Queensland 
tribes, is described not only as “a benevolent, omnipresent, 
supernatural being,” but as “anything incomprehensible,” as 

1 Manning, Joc. c2¢. p. 159 sgq. sgg. 3; von Leonhardi, in Globus, xci. 
2 See especially Howitt, of. czt. p. 287. ; 
504 sgg.; Lang, Magic and Relgion, 3 Howitt, of. cet. p. 507. See also 

p- 25 sgg.; Thomas, in Man, p. 50 bid. p. Sol. 
4 Thomas, in Folk-Lore, xvi. 431. 

VOL. II nS DK 

the supernatural power who makes everything which the 
blacks cannot otherwise account for.1 On the other hand, it 
is hardly possible to doubt that in various instances Christian 
conceptions have been infused into the aboriginal belief either 
by the natives themselves or by our informants.” Biblical traits 
are conspicuous in some of the legends. Bishop Salvado tells us 

that, according to West Australian beliefs, the Creator, Moto- 

gon, “ employa ces paroles: ‘ Terre, parais dehors’ : et il souffla, 
et la terre fut créée. ‘Eau, parais dehors’ ; et il souffla, et l’eau 
fut créée.”® The believers in Nourelle give the following 
account of the origin of death:—The first created man and 
woman were told not to go near a certain tree in which a bat 
was living, as the bat was not to be disturbed. But one day 
the woman, while gathering firewood, went near the forbidden 
tree ; the bat flew away and after that came death. And the 
same natives also believe that Nourelle created a great serpent, 
to which he gave power over all created things.® So also the 
doctrine of a hell with everlasting fire has almost certainly a 
foreign origin ; and in some other points the genuineness of the 
Australian theories of retribution is at least open to doubt, even 
though the function of a judge cannot be regarded as incom- 
patible with the notion of a mythical headman in the sky. 
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen observe that it would be a very easy 
matter indeed to form, as the result of a general statement such 
as might be made by any individual native in reply to a question, 
a perfectly wrong impression with regard to the native’s idea as 
to the existence of anything like-a supreme being inculcating 
moral rules. Of the Central Australian aborigines they say :— 
‘“* Any such idea as that of a future life of happiness or the 
reverse, as a reward for meritorious or as a punishment for 
blameworthy conduct, is quite foreign to them. . . . We know 
of no tribe in which there is a belief of any kind in a supreme 
being who rewards or punishes the individual according to his 
moral behaviour, using the word moral in the native sense.” 7 
So far as the Arunta are concerned, this statement is confirmed 
by Mr. Strehlow. He writes that their god Altjira, who lives 
in the sky and shows himself to man in the lightning, is a 

1 Roth, of. cz#. pp. 36, 153. 

markably similar to an Eastern legend. 
2 Mr. J. D. Lang (Queensland, p. 

3 Salvado, of. czt. p. 258. 

379 sg. ; Cooksland, p. 459 sg.) even 
suspects Asiatic influence in the case of 
Buddai, or Budjah, the mythical an- 
cestor of certain Queensland aborigines. 
Not only, does his name remind of 
Buddha, but a story told of him is re- 

4 Brough Smyth, of. cz¢. i. 428. 

5 bid. i. 423. 

6 Spencer and Gillen, MWorthern 
Tribes of Central Australia, p. 492 
5qq. 

” [bid. p. 491. 

good god who never inflicts any punishments on human 
beings. 

From various Polynesian and Melanesian islands we hear of a 
supreme being—called Io by the Maoris,? Tangaroa by the 
Samoans, ‘Taaroa by the Society Islanders,! and so forth >—who 
has made everything, but who is too remote and indistinct to be 
an object of worship and takes no interest in the morals of men. 
In some instances at least he seems to be a very shadowy deifi- 
cation of the forces of nature. Thus Io is described as “the 
great originator, the All-Father, who pervades space, has no 
residence, and cannot be localised”; and the conception of 
‘Tangaroa is equally abstract.6 Mr. Guppy learned that the 
natives of ‘Treasury Island and the Shortlands, in the Solomon 
Group, believe in a Good Spirit who lives in a pleasant land, 
whither all men who have led good lives go after death ; whereas 
all bad people are transported to the crater of Bagana, the burn- 
ing volcano of Boueanry, which is the home of the Evil Spirit 
and his companion spirits.’ But this belief savours too much 
of a Christian hell to be accepted as genuine without further 
evidence. 

The Sea Dyaks of Borneo have a great good god called 
Batara, or Petara, who created the world and rules over it, and 
is the cause of every blessing. He is not susceptible to human 
influence, and therefore receives no worship. But he approves 
of industry, honesty, purity of speech, and skill in word and 
work. He punishes theft, injustice, disrespect for old persons, 
and adultery ; and immorality among the unmarried is supposed 
to bring a plague of rain upon the earth as a punishment 
inflicted by Petara, In general, says Mr. Perham, he is against 
man’s sin; but over and above moral offences many sins have 
been invented which are simply the infringement of pemate, or 
tabu.8 Like many other great gods of savages, Petara is lacking 
in individuality. He is at all events not now supposed to be one 
supreme god, but the general belief is that there are many Petaras 
—in fact as many Petarasas men. Each man, the people say, 
has his own peculiar Petara, his own tutelary deity, and if a 

1 Strehlow, quoted by Thomas, in 
Folk-Lore, xvi. 429 sg. ldem, quoted 
by von Leonhardi, in Glodzs, xci. 287. 

2 Gudgeon, « Maori Religion,’ in 
Jour. Polynesian Soc. xiv. 108 sq. 

3 Jord. p. 108 sq. 

4 Ellis, Polynesian 

23 SY4 
; ? hor, op. ctt. ii. 344 S9g. Hoff- 
mann, La notion de l’ktre supréme 

Researches, i. 

chez les peuples non civiltsés, p. 70 qq. 

§ Gudgeon, in Jour. Polynesian Soc. 
xiv. 108. 

7 Guppy, Solomon Islands, p. 53. 

8 Perham, ‘ Petara,’ in Jour. Strazts 
Branch Roy. Asiatic Soc. no. 8, p. 149 
sq. St. John, Lzfe zx the Forests of the 
Har East, i. 69 sq. Selenka, of. czt. 

P- 97 599. 

person is miserable it is because his Petara is miserable.t This 
account, however, loses much of its interest when we find that 
the name Batara or Petara has obviously been borrowed from 
Sanscrit, where the word bhattdra means “lord” or “ master.” ” 
The great gods of some other peoples in the Malay Archipelago, 
again, have names which are derived from Arabic—Lahatala, 
Latala, or Hatalla, from 4//ah ta‘dla. Hence when the Alfura 
of Bura are heard to say that their highest god, Opo-geba-snulat 
or Lahatala, writes down in a book the actions of men so as to 
be able to reward the virtuous and punish the wicked as they 
deserve, there is every reason to think of influence from 
Muhammedanism.? 

The Andaman Islanders are reported to believe in a supreme 
being, Puluga, who was never born and is immortal, who has 
created the world and all its objects, who is omniscient when it 
is day, knowing even the thoughts of their hearts. Whilst 
pitiful to those in distress, he is angered by the commission ot 
certain sins—falsehood, theft, grave ‘assault, murder, adultery, and 
burning wax. He is the judge from whom each soul receives 
its sentence after death. The “spirits” of the departed are sent 
by him to a place comprising the whole area under the earth, to 
await the resurrection. The “souls” of the departed, again, 
pass either into paradise or to another place which might be 
described as purgatory, a place of punishment for those who have 
been guilty of heinous sins, such as murder. At the resurrec- 
tion the soul (from which evil emanates) and the spirit (from 
which all good emanates) will be reunited and will henceforth 
live permanently on the new earth, since the souls of the wicked 
will then have been reformed by the punishments inflicted on 
them during their residence in the “ purgatory.”* Mr, Man, 
who has given us this account, thinks it is extremely improbable 
that the legends about Piluga, about the powers of good and evil, 
and about a world beyond the grave, are the result of the teach- 
ing of missionaries or others.© But his assumption that they 
are indigenous seems hardly justified by the very scanty know- 
ledge we possess of the past history of these islanders, Con- 
sidering their low state of culture, the metaphysical subtlety in 
some of the notions recorded by Mr. Man would certainly be 
more astonishing if India were not so near. 

1 Perham, in Jour. Straits Branch 4 Man, ‘Aboriginal Inhabitants of 
Roy. Asiatic Soc. no. 8, p. 134 59. the Andaman Islands,’ in Jour. Anthr. 
* Ibid. p. 133. Wilken, Het Anz-  Jnst. xii. 112, 157, 158, 161 sg. 
msme, Pp. 162. 5 Jbid. p. 156. 

3 Wilken, of. cz¢. pp. 162, 240 sq. 

Among the Karens of Burma the belief is held that Hades 
has a king or judge who stands at the door to admit or reject 
those who apply for admission into his kingdom. He decides 
the future of each. “Those who have performed meritorious 
works are sent to the regions of happiness above; those who 
have done wickedness, such as striking father or mother, are 
delivered over to the king of hell who is in waiting; whilst 
those who have neither performed deeds of merit nor are guilty 
of great crimes are allotted a place in. Hades.1 At the same 
time the Karens’ ideas of a future state are described as confused, 
indefinite, and contradictory. Mr. Mason writes :—“ They 
seem to be a melee of different systems. That which appears 
to me indigenous Karen. . . represents the future world as a 
counterpart of this, located under the earth, where the 
inhabitants are employed precisely as they are here.”? The 
Paharias of the Rajmahal Hills believe that the souls of those 
who have been disobedient to the commands of Bedo Gosain 
will be condemned either to inhabit some portion of the 
vegetable kingdom for a certain number of years, or to be cast 
into a pit of fire, where the offender will suffer eternal 
punishment or be regenerated in the shape of a dog or a cat. 
‘Those who have led a good life, on the other hand, will be 
rewarded, first by enjoying a short but happy residence with 
Bedo Gosain in heaven, and subsequently by being born a second 
time on earth of women and being exalted to posts of great 
honour, as also by possessing an abundance of worldly goods.* 
In these notions our chief informant, Lieutenant Shaw, sees 
traces of Hinduism.4 Lack of detailed information makes it 
impossible to decide whether the belief in a creator and 
heavenly judge which has been found in some other uncivilised 
tribes in India might be traced to a similar influence. The 
Munda Kols in Central Bengal maintain that the good and 
almighty Singbonga, who lives in the sky and is connected with 
the sun, has made everything. Being so far away he occupies 
himself very little with earthly matters, and is only in 
exceptional cases an object of worship; but he sees everything 
which happens, and is said to punish theft and insincerity.®° So 
also the Kukis recognise a benevolent and all-powerful god 

1 Mason, in Jour. Astatic Soc. Bengal, Soc. Bengal, xx. 556. 

xxxiv. 196. 4 Shaw, in Aszatick Researches, iv. 
2 Lbid. p. 195. 46. 
3 Shaw, ‘Inhabitants of the Hills ® Jellinghaus, ‘Sagen, Sitten und 

near Rajamahall,’ in Aszatick Researches, Gebriuche der Munda-Kolhs in Chota 
iv. 48 sgg. Sherwill, ‘Tour through Nagpore,’ in Zeztschr. f. Ethnologie, 
the Rajmahal Hills,’ in Jour. Aszatic iii. 330 sg. 

and creator, called Puthén, who is the judge of all mortals and 
awards punishments to the wicked both in this world and in the 
next.t 

The Ainu of Japan believe in a great god or creator who 
bestows blessings upon the good and visits the bad with disease, 
unless they repent. They also say that good people go after 
death to the “island of the Great Spirit,” or to the “kingdom of 
God,” to lead a happy life ; whereas bad people go to the “ bad 
island,” or to the “ wet underground world,” in which they 
suffer discomfort or, according to some, are burned in everlast- 
ing fires.2 Of the pagan Samoyedes we are told that they 
regard the great Num as the creator of the universe, as an all- 
powerful and omniscient being, who protects the innocent, 
rewards the virtuous, and punishes the wicked.? But the 
primitive Num, who was simply the sky, was too far removed 
from the nomads who wandered across the frozen plain, to 
interfere to prevent catastrophe or accomplish their well-being ; 
and in the provident actions and overseeing which some of the 
Samoyedes now ascribe to him, “we can clearly enough trace 
the influence of the missionary and the suggestion ot the 
Christian faith.” 4 

Dr. Rink asserts that the Greenlanders considered Tornarsuk 
as the supreme being on whom they were dependent 
for any supernatural aid, and in whose abodes in the depth 
of the earth all such persons as had striven and suffered for the 
benefit of their fellow men should find a happy existence after 
death. Dr. Nansen, however, is of opinion that ‘Tornarsuk 
owes a great deal to missionary influence.6 That he was not 
so superior a being as is commonly stated is evident from 
Captain Holm’s description of the Angmagsaliks in Eastern 
Greenland, where he is represented as a monster living in the 
sea, of about the same length as a big seal, but thicker.’ And 
to judge from Egede’s description dating from the earlier part of 
the eighteenth century, Tornarsuk’s notions of justice, if he had 
any, must in olden times have been very limited, as he took to 
his subterranean paradise only women that died in labour and 
men that perished at sea.® 

1 Stewart, ‘Northern Cachar,’ in xxiv. 398. See also Castrén, of. cit. 

Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxiv. 628. 

2 von Siebold, Die Azno auf der 
Insel Yesso, p. 24. Batchelor, Azz 
of Japan, pp. 199, 235 sgg. Howard, 
Life with Trans-Siberian Savages, p. 
193. 

3 Castrén, of. cét. iii. 14. 

4 Jackson, in four. Anthr. Inst. 

lil. 14-16, 182 sgq. 

5 Rink, Greenland, p. 141. 

6 Nansen, Eskimo Life, p. 242. 

7 Holm, ‘Ethnologisk Skizze af 
Angmagsalikerne,’ in Meddelelser om 
Gronland, x. 115. 

8 Egede, Description of Greenland, 
Pp. 197. 

or 

The “ Great Spirit ” so often referred to in accounts of North 
American Indians, is described as a being too elevated and remote 
to take much interest in the destinies and actions of men and 
too benevolent by nature to require propitiation or worship. 
Schoolcraft asserts that in their oral traditions there is no 
attempt ‘to make man accountable to him, here or hereafter, 
for aberrations from virtue, good will, truth, or any form of 
moral right. With benevolence and pity as prime attributes the 
Great Transcendental Spirit of the Indian does not take upon 
himself a righteous administration of the world’s affairs, but, on 
the contrary, leaves it to be filled, and its affairs, in reality, 
governed, by demons and fiends in human form.”! Yet 
there are instances in which he is represented in a different 
light. “The most essential moral precepts of the Iroquois “ were 
taught as the will of the Great Spirit, and obedience to their re- 
quirements as acceptable in his sight” ;? but whilst highly 
gratified with their virtues, he detested their vices, and punished 
them for their bad conduct not only in this world but in a 
future state of existence. The Potawatomis considered that 
rape was visited by the anger of the Great Spirit. Ti-ra’-wa, 
the supreme being of the Pawnees, applauds valour, abhors 
theft, and punishes the wicked by annihilation, whilst the good 
dwell with him in his heavenly homeo The Indians of 
Alabama told Bossu that those who behave themselves foolishly 
and disregard the supreme being will after death go to a barren 
land full of thorns and briars, with no hunting and no wives, 
whereas those who neither rob nor kill nor take other men’s 
wives will occupy a very fertile country and live there a happy 
life.6 Keating states that, according to the beliefs of the 
Dacotahs, men go to the residence of the Great Spirit if they 
have been good and peaceable, or if they died by the hand of 
their enemy, but that their souls are doomed to the residence of 
the Evil Spirit if they perish in a broil with their own country- 
men.’ ‘This statement, however, is not supported by other 
authorities. Prescott writes of the same Indians :—‘“ They 
have very little notion of punishment for crime hereafter in 
eternity : indeed, they know very little about whether the Great 

Spirit has anything to do with their affairs, present or future.” § 
1 Schoolcraft, op. czt. 1. 35. p- 355. Lang, Making of Religion, 
2 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, pp. 257. 
Peale 8 Bossu, Zravels through Louisiana, 
3 Seaver, Warrative of the Life of i. 256 sq. 
Mrs. Jemison, p. 155. 7 Keating, of. cét. 1. 393 59- 
4 Keating, Hapeditzon to the Source 8 Schoolcraft, of. cz. ii. 195. C/. 
of St. Peter's River, i. 127. zbtd. ili. 229. 

5 Grinnell, Pawnee Hero Stories, 

And among the Omaha and Ponka, who are branches of the same 
people, the old men used to say to their fellow tribesmen, “If 
you are good, you will go to the good ghosts ; if you are bad you 
will go to the bad ghosts.” But nothing was ever said of going 
to dwell with Wakanda, or with demons! As regards the 
origin of the North American notion of the Great Spirit 
different opinions have been expressed. On the one hand we 
are told that it is essentially only “the Indian’s conception of 
the white man’s god,” which belongs not to the untutored but 
to the tutored mind of the savage.2 On the other hand it is 
argued that the belief in the Great Spirit must be a native 
product, since it is reported to have occurred already before the 
arrival of the earliest Jesuit missionaries. Unfortunately, how- 
ever, we cannot be sure that our informants have accurately in- 
terpreted the beliefs of the Indians. Mr. Dorsey has pointed 
out that a fruitful source of error has been a misunderstanding of 
their terms and phrases.t_ “The Dacotah word wakanda, which 
a: been rendered into “¢ Great Spirit,” simply means “‘ mystery,” 
‘“‘ mysterious,” and signifies rather a quality than a definite 
eiuee Among many tribes the sun is wakanda, among the 
same tribes the moon is wakanda, and so are thunder, lightning, 
the stars, the winds, as also various animals, trees, and inanimate 
objects or places of a striking character ; even a man, especially 
a medicine-man, may be considered wakanda.®> So, too, the 
Menomini term mashd’ ma’ nido, or “ great unknown,” is not to 
be understood as implying a belief in one supreme being ; there 
are several manidos, each supreme in his own realm, as well as 
many lesser mysteries, or deities, or spirits. Mr. Dorsey also 
observes that in many cases Indians have been quick to adopt the 
phrases of civilisation in communicating with white people, 
whilst in speaking to one another they use their own terms.’ At 
the same time it seems to me that if the notion of a Great Spirit 
had altogether a Christian origin we might expect to find an idea 
of moral retribution more commonly associated with it than the 

in Anz. 

1 Dorsey, ‘Siouan Cults,’ 
Rep. Bur. thn. xl. 419. 

* Smith, ‘Myths of the Iroquois,’ 
Wa aU Ty IG, LETS SBAH Wh WD, 
Tylor, ‘ Limits of Savage Religion,’ in 

Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxi, 284. Boyle, 
‘Paganism of the Civilised Iroquois,’ 
zbed. xxx. 206. 

3 Lang, Waking of Religion, p. 251 
sgq. Idem, Magic and Religion, p: 
19 5qq- Hoffmann, op. cit. p. 86 sg. 

4 Dorsey, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. 
xi. 365 sg. 

5 Joid. p. 366. McGee, in Anz. 
Rep. Bur: Ethn. xv. 181 sgg. Cf. 
James, Expedition to the Rocky Moun- 
tains, i. 268; Tylor, op. cét. ii. 343. 

6 Hoffman, ‘ Menomini Indians,’ in 
Ann. Rep. Bur. Hihn. xiv. 39, n. I. 
Cf. Parkman, Jeszzts 2% North America, 
Os Iboraike. 

7 Dorsey, in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. 
xi. 365. See also Smith, zézd. ii. 112. 

Schoolcraft (of. czt. i. 15) as a * Soul 
of the Universe which inhabits and 

statements imply, It may be that among the North American 
Indians also, as among some other peoples, a vague conception of 
something like a supreme being has arisen through a personifica- 
tion of the mysteriesin nature.t But if this be the case the 
interest which the Great Spirit in rare instances takes in human 
conduct may all the same be due to missionary influence. It is 
certainly not an original characteristic of his nature. Among 
the Iroquois and Pawnees, who attribute to their great god the 
function of a moral judge, he also receives offerings—? a 
circumstance which indicates that he cannot be regarded as a 
typical representative of his class. 

In South America, too, several tribes have been found to 
believe in a benevolent Great Spirit, who is indifferent to men’s 
behaviour and is not worshipped by them.? Of the Passés, 
however, we are told by a Portuguese official who travelled in 
Brazil in 1774~—75 that they have the idea of a creator who 
rewards good people by allowing their souls to stay with him 
and punishes the wicked by turning their souls into evil spirits.‘ 
But according to Mr. Bates “ these notions are so far in advance 
of the ideas of all other tribes of Indians . . . that we must 
suppose them to have been derived by the docile Passés 
from some early missionary or traveller.”® Of the Fuegians, 
again, Admiral Fitzroy writes:—“ A great black man is 
supposed to be always wandering about the woods and moun- 
tains, who is certain of knowing every word and every action ; 
who cannot be escaped, and who influences the weather accor- 
ding to men’s conduct.” Of this influence our informant gives 
the following instance. A native related a story of his brother 
who once killed a man—one of those very wild men who wan- 
der about in the woods supporting themselves by theft—because 
he stole from him a bird. Afterwards he was very sorry for what 
he had done, particularly when it began to blow hard. In tell- 
ing the story, the brother said:—“ Rain come down—snow 
come down—hail come down—wind blow—blow—very much 
blow. Very bad to kill man. Big man in woods no like it, he 
very angry.” The same native also reproached the surgeon 
3 Bernau, Afissionary Labours in 

1 The Great Spirit is represented by 
British Guiana, p. 49. Hoffmann, 

animates every thing,” and is supposed 

to exist under every possible form in the 
world, animate and inanimate. Of 
Ti-ra’-wa it is said that he ‘‘is in and 
of everything” (sera, i. 448). 

2 Seaver, op. cit. p. 155. Supra, i. 
448. 

op. cit. Pp. 9O gg. 

4 Ribeiro de Sampaio, Dzario da 
viagem, Pp. 79. 

5 Bates, Zhe Naturalist on the River 
Amazons, ii. 244. Cf. zbid. ii. 162; 
Dobrizhoffer, Account of the Abipones, 
ii. 57 sg.; Miiller, Geschichte der 
Amerikanischen Orreligtonen, p. 289. 

of the Beagle for shooting some young ducks with the old bird:— 
“ Very bad to shoot little duck—come wind—come rain—blow 
—very much blow.”! In the latter case, however, no mention 
was madeof the black man in the woods. From Admiral Fitzroy’s 
account Mr. Andrew Lang draws the conclusion that the Fue- 
gians have evolved the idea of a high deity, an ethical judge, who 
“ makes for righteousness,” who searches the heart, who almost 
literally “marks the sparrow’s fall,” and whose morality is 
so much above the ordinary savage standard that he regards the 
slaying of a stranger and an enemy, caught redhanded in 
robbery, as a sin.2 This statement may serve as a specimen 
of the spirit in which its author deals with the subject of supreme 
beings in savage beliefs. There is after all some difference 
between a high moral god and a mythical weather doctor who 
lives in the woods and sends bad weather if a wild man, who 
also lives in the woods, is killed. Mr. Bridges, our most trust- 
worthy authority on the Fuegians, says nothing of the black 
man, but states that nearly all the old men among the Fuegians 
are medicine-men, and that these wizards make frequent incant- 
ations in which they seem to address themselves to a mysterious 
being called Aiapakal. And they also believe in another spirit, 
named Hoakils, from whom they pretend to obtain a super- 
natural power over life and death.? 

The South African Bushmans, another very backward people, 
are likewise represented by Mr. Lang and M. Hoffmann as be- 
lievers in a supreme being. A native said to Mr. Orpen that 
Cagn made all things, and that the people prayed to him :— 
“© Cagn! O Cagn! are we not your children, do you not see 
our hunger? Give us food.” And he gave them what they asked 
for both hands full. But although he was at first very good 
and nice, he afterwards “got spoilt through fighting so many 
things.” ® However, according to another statement, made by 
a person who from childhood had much intercourse with Bush- 
mans and knew their language, they did not believe in a God or 
the great father of men, but in a devil who made everything 
with his left hand.6 The Hottentots spoke of Tsui-goab as 
“the giver of all blessings, the Father on high, All-father, the 

1 King and Fitzroy, Voyages of the 
“ Adventure” and ‘* Beagle,” ii. 180. 

2 Lang, Making of Religion, pp. 
188, 198. The same description of the 
Fuegian black man is repeated by M. 
Hoffmann (0p. cz¢. p. 40). 

3 Bridges, quoted by Hyades and 
Deniker, MMcsston scientifique du Cap 

Fforn, vii. 256. 

* Lang, Making of Religion, p. 210. 
Hoffmann, of. czt. p. 40 sg. 

> Orpen, ‘Glimpse into the Mytho- 
logy of the Maluti Bushmen,’ in Zhe 
Cape Monthly Magazine, N.S. ix. 2. 

® Campbell, Second Journey in the 
Interior of South Africa, i. 29. 

Veer MWe 

avenger, who fought daily the battle for his people.” They 
thus identified him with the ancestor of the tribe, but Tsui— 
goab was also the name by which they called the Infinite. 
Among the pagans of Africa there is, in fact, a very wide- 
spread belief in a benevolent supreme deity, a creator or 
maker of things, who lives in or above the sky, who generally 
takes no concern whatever in the affairs of mankind, who 
mostly receives no worship, and is, as a rule, totally in- 
different to good or evil.2 In some rare instances only he 
is described as a judge of human conduct. ‘Thus some of the 
Bechuanas believe that a being who is vaguely called by the 
name of Lord and Master of things, Mongalinto, punishes 
thieves by striking them with the lightning.? According to an 
old writer, Father Santos, the natives of Sofala in South-Eastern 
Africa acknowledge a god, called Molungo, “who both in this 
and the world to come they fancy measures retribution for the 
good and evil done in this.” “They believe in the existence of 
twenty-seven paradises, where everyone enjoys a pleasure pro- 
portionate to the merits of his life; while those who have 
passed their lives in wickedness are supposed to be condemned 
to a privation from the sight of the holy presence of Molungo, 
and to suffer torments in one of the thirteen hells they assume 
to exist, each according to the evil he has done.t The Baluba, 
a Bantu people of Equatorial Africa, have the notion of a 
creator, named Fidi-Mukullu, who punishes the souls of the 
wicked before they are reborn on earth, whereas the good 
return to life again, in the shape of chiefs or other important 
persons, immediately after they have died.» “The Awemba, 

1 Hahn, The Supreme Being of the 
Khot- Khoi, pp. 122, 126 sq. 

2 Livingstone, JZsszonary Travels, 
p- 641 (tribes of the Zambesi). Rattray, 
Stories and Songs in Chinyanja, p. 
198 (natives of Central Angoniland). 
Stigand, ‘ Natives of Nyassaland,’ in 
Jour. Roy. Anthr. Inst, xxxvil. 130. 
Roscoe, ‘ Bahima,’ zézd. xxxvii. 108 sg. 
Wilson and Felkin, Uganda, i. 206. 
Beltrame, Jf Fiume Bianco et Dénka, 
pp: 191, 192, 276 sg. Kingsley, ‘ Fetish 
View of the Human Soul,’ in Folk- 
Lore, viii. 142 sg. 3 Ldem, Travels in 
West Africa, pp. 442, 508. Parkinson, 
‘ Asaba People of the Niger,’ in /ozr. 
Anthr. Inst. xxxvi. 312. Bosman, 
Description of the Coast of Guinea, 
pp. 121 sg. (Gold Coast natives), 348 
(Slave Coast natives). Cruickshank, 
Eighteen Years on the Gold Coast, ii. 

126 sg. Ellis, Zshz-speaking Peoples 
of the Gold Coast, p. 26 sgg. Idem, 
Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, 
p-33 sg. Winterbottom, ative Africans 
in the Netghbourhood of Sterra Leone, 
i. 222. Wilson, Western Africa, p. 
209 (natives of Northern Guinea). 
Rowley, Religion of the Africans, pp. 
15, 16, 54. Tylor, of. cet. ii. 347 sgq. 
Lang, Making of Religion, p. 230 sgq. 
Hoffmann, of. cz¢. p. 45 sgq. 

3 Arbousset and Daumas, 2xplora- 
tory Tour to the North-East of the 
Colony of Good Hope, p. 322 sq. 

4 Santos, ‘History of Eastern 
Ethiopia,’ in Pinkerton, Codlection of 
Voyages and Travels, xvi. 687. 

5 Wissmann, Wolf, &c., lve Lnnern 
Afrikas, p. 158. Wissmann, Quer 
durch Afrika, p. 379. 

another Bantu people, oe inhabit the stretch of country lying 
between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Bangweolo, acknowledge 
a supreme being, Leza, who “is the Judge of the dead, and 
condemns _ thieves, adulterers and murderers to the state of 
Vibanda, or Viwa (evil “pis exalting the good to the rank of 
mipashi, or benevolent spirits.”+ | Other natives in the neigh- 
bourhood of Lake Tanganyika recognise a creator called Kabesa, 
who lives in the sky and admits to his abode the souls of good 
people after death, but turns away the souls of the wicked.? 
The Akikuyu of British East Africa recognise three gods all of 
whom are called Ngai. One of them, however, is considered 
the supreme deity. “If a man is good this Ngai can give him 
much property. If he does wrong the same power can strike 
him down with disease and cause his livestock to dwindle away. 

The sudden death of a man, for instance by lightning, is 
ascribed to some evil act of his life being punished by Ngai.” % 
Proyart tells us that the Negroes aL Loango Pabicgeual In *2 
supreme being, Zambi, who had created all that is good in the 
world, who was himself good and loved justice in others, and 
who severely punished fraud and perjury.* It is of course 
impossible to say exactly how far the statements referring to 
African supreme beings represent unadulterated native beliefs. 
In criticising Kolb’s account of the supreme and perfect god of 
the Hottentots, Bishop Callaway observes, ‘“‘ Nothing is more 
easy than to enquire of heathen savages the character of their 
creed, and during the conversation to impart to them . . . ideas 
which they never heard before, and presently to have these come 
back again as articles of their own original faith, when 1 in reality 
they are but the echoes of one’s own thoughts.” 5 With 
reference to the West African native Miss Kingsley likewise 
remarks that he has a wonderful power of assimilating foreign 
forms of belief, and that when he once has got hold of a new 
idea it remains in his mind long after the missionaries who put 
it there have passed away. And besides the teaching of 
missionaries there are in Africa several factors which for 
centuries have tended to introduce foreign conceptions, namely, 
intercourse with European settlers, the operations of the slave 
trade, and the influence of Muhammedanism.’ But at the same 

1 Sheane, ‘Awemba Religion,’ in Pinkerton, Collection of Voyages and 

Jour. Anthr, Inst. xxxvi. 150 sq. Travels, xvi. 594. 

* Schneider, Dee Religion der afri- SJ Callaw ay, Religious System of the 
hanischen Naturvolker, p. 84. Amazulu, p. 105 sg. 

3 Tate, ‘Kikuyu Tribe,’ in /our. & 5 Kingsley, i in Folk-Lore, viil. 150. 
Anthr. Inst. xxxiv. 263. ’ Cf. Rowley, Religion of the 

4 Proyart, ‘History of Loango,’ in Africans, pp. 28, 90; Wilson, Western 

i 

time it seems exceedingly probable that the African belief in a 
supreme being has a native substratum. In many cases he is 
apparently the heaven god ;1 but he may also be a mythical 
ancestor, as the Hottentot god Tsui-goab and the Zulu god 
Unkulunkulu ; or a personification of the supernatural, as is 
suggested by such names as the Masai Ngai, the Monbuttu 
Kilima, and the Malagasy Andriamanitra;? or the assumed 
cause of anything which particularly fills the savage mind with 
wonder or awe. Among the natives. of~ Northern Guinea, 
according to Mr. Wilson, “every thing which transpires in the 
natural world beyond the power of man, or of spirits, who are 
supposed to occupy a place somewhat higher than man, is at 
once and spontaneously ascribed to the agency of God.” ? Nay, 
for reasons which will be stated immediately, I am even of 
opinion that the function of a moral judge, occasionally 
attributed to the great god of African pagans, has in some 
instances an independent origin. 

Generally speaking, then, it seems that the All-father, 
supreme being, or high god of savage belief may be traced 
to several different sources. When not a “loan-god”’ 
of foreign extraction, he may be a mythical ancestor or 
headman ; or a deification of the sky or some large and 
remote object of nature, like the sun ; or a personification 
or personified cause of the mysteries or forces of nature. 
The argument that the belief in such a being is “irreducible” 
because it prevails among savages who worship neither 
ancestors nor nature,* can carry no weight in consideration 
of the fact that he himself, as a general rule, is no object 
of worship. In various instances we have reason to sup- 
pose that even though the notion of a supreme being 1s 
fundamentally of native origin, foreign conceptions have 
been engrafted upon it ; and to these belongs in particular 
the idea of a heavenly judge who in the after-life punishes 
the wicked and rewards the good. But we are not entitled 
to assume that the idea of moral retribution as a function of 
the great god has in every case been adopted from people of 

Africa, p. 229 sg.; Cruickshank, of.  ingstone, Exfeddtion to the Zambest, p. 

Gir. Mi.) 120, 521 sg., quoted supra, il. 594. 
1 See Tylor, of. ctt. ii. 347 sgg. 4 Lang, Afagic and Religion, p. 42. 
2 See supra, il. 586 sg. Hoffmann, of. czt. pp. 122, 126, 131. 

3 Wilson, of. cét. p. 209. See also Liv- 

a higher culture. A mythical ancestor or headman may of 
his own accord approve of virtue and disapprove of vice ; 
and, besides, justice readily becomes the attribute of a god. 
who is habitually appealed to in curses or oaths. That the 
supreme being of savages is thus invoked, is in some cases 
directly stated by our authorities. In making solemn 
treatises, the Hurons called on Oki, the heaven god.’ 
The Negroes of Loango, who believed that Zambi, the 
supreme being, punished fraud and perjury, took his name 
in testimony of the truth.2 Among the Awemba the 
supreme god Leza, who is believed to reward the good 
and to punish thieves, adulterers, and murderers, is in- 
voked both in blessings and curses, the injured man pray- 
ing that Leza will send a lion to devour the evildoer.’ In 
the Ewe-speaking Ho tribe on the Slave Coast the great 
god Mawu, who is said to inflict punishment on the 
wicked, is frequently appealed to in law-cases, by the judge 
as well as by the plaintiff and the accused.* In Northern 
Guinea the name of the supreme being is solemnly called 
on three times at the ratification of an important treaty, or 
when a person is condemned to undergo the “ red-water 
ordeal.’ Of the Mpongwe we are told that “when a 
covenant is about to be formed among the different 
tribes, Mwetyi [the supreme being] is always invoked as 
a witness, and is commissioned with the duty of visiting 
vengeance upon the party who shall violate the engage- 
ment. Without this their national treaties would have 
little or no force. When a law is passed which the people 
wish to be especially binding, they invoke the vengeance 
of Mwetyi upon every transgressor, and this, as a general 
thing, is ample guarantee for its observance.”° Among 
the East African Wakamba, when the supposed criminal 
is to undergo the ordeal of the hatchet, a magician makes 
him repeat the following words :—“If I have stolen the 
property of so and so, or committed this crime, let 

1 Tylor, of. czt. il. 342. * Spieth, Dée Hwe-Stamme, p. 415. 
2 Proyart, Joc. cét. p. 594. > Wilson, Western Africa, p. 210. 
3 Sheane, in /our. Anthr. Inst. 8 bed. p. 392. 

Sool, WEN. 

Mulungu respond for me ; but if I have not stolen, nor 
done this wickedness, may he save me.” The magician 
then passes the red-hot iron four times over the flat hand of 
the accused ; and the people believe that if he is guilty, his 
hand will be burned, but that, if innocent, he will suffer no 
injury... Among the Masai a person who is accused of 
cattle-lifting and on that account subjected to the ordeal of 
drinking a mixture of blood and milk, has first to swear, 
“ O God, I drink this blood, if I have stolen the cattle 
this blood will kill me.” Should he not diewithin a fortnight 
he is considered innocent.2, The Madi of. Central Africa 
have various means of trial by ordeal, through which it is 
believed that the guilt of a suspected individual can be 
detected ; and “‘ before any of these trials the men look up 
and solemnly invoke some invisible being to punish him if 
euilty, or help him if innocent.” * Of the natives of the 
Zambesi, all of whom have an idea of a supreme being, 
Livingstone states that, when undergoing an ordeal, ‘“ they 
hold up their hands to the Ruler of Heaven, as if appeal- 
ing to him to assert their innocence.” * 

It has often been said that the oath and ordeal involve a 
belief in the gods as vindicators of truth and justice, that 
they are “‘appeals to the moral nature of the Divinity.” ° 
If this were true, moral retribution would certainly be an 
exceedingly common function of savage gods, But, as 
we have noticed before,° the efficacy ascribed to an oath 
is originally of a magic character, and if it contains an ap- 
peal to a god he is, according to primitive notions, a mere 
tool in the hand of the person invoking him. So also the 
ordeal is essentially a magical ceremony. In many cases 
at least, it contains a curse or an oath which has reference 
to the guilt or innocence of a suspected person, and the 

1 Krapf, Zravels in Eastern Africa, 

p- 173- 

2 Merker, Die Masaz, p. 211. 

3 Felkin, ‘Notes on the Madi,’ in 
Proceed. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, xii. 

34- 

4 Livingstone, Msstonary Travels, 
p- 641 sg. : 

5 Tiele, Elements of the Science of 

Religion, i. 86. Réville, Les religions 
des peuples non-ctvilisés, i. 103. Brin- 
ton, Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 
225. Schneider, Religion der afrika- 
nischen Naturvolker, p. 255. Hodgson, 
Miscellaneous Essays, i. 126. Dahn, 
Bausteine, ii. 21, 24. Gummere, 
Germanic Origins, p. 183. 
8 Supra, i. 118 sgq. 

proper object of the ordeal is then to give reality to the 
imprecation for the purpose of establishing the validity or 
invalidity of the suspicion. 

Thus in West Africa the common ordeal which consists in 
drinking a certain draught or “eating the fetish” is regularly 
accompanied by an oath or a curse. In the Calabar the 
accused person, before swallowing the ju-ju drink mbiam, which 
is made of filth and blood, recites an oath beginning with the 
words, “If I have been guilty of this crime,” and ending with 
the words, “ Then, Mbiam, Thou deal with me!” And when- 
ever this ordeal is used the greatest care is taken that the oath 
shall be recited in full.2 Of the Negroes of the Gold Coast 
Bosman states that “if any person is suspected of thievery, and 
the indictment is not clearly made out, he is obliged to clear 
himself by drinking the oath-draught, and to use the imprecation, 
that the Fetiche may kill him if he be guilty of thievery.” 3 
In Ashantee, “when any one denies a theft, an aggry bead is 
placed in a small vessel, with some water, the person holding it 
puts his right foot against the right foot of the accused, who in- 
vokes the power of the bead to kill him if he is guilty, and then 
takes it into his mouth with a little of the water.”* Among 
the Negroes of Northern Guinea, in the case of the “ red-water 
ordeal,” the accused “invokes the name of God three times, 
and imprecates his wrath in case he is guilty of the particular 
crime laid to his charge.” He then steps forward and drinks 
freely of the “red-water ”—that is, a decoction made from the 
inner bark of a tree of the mimosa family. If it nauseates and 
makes him vomit freely, he is at once pronounced innocent, 
whereas, if it causes vertigo and he loses self-control, it is regarded 
as evidence of guilt.2 According to an old account, the 
Negroes of Sierra Leone have a “ water of cursing,” boiled of 
barks and herbs. The witch-doctor puts his divining-staff into 
the pot and drops or presses the water out of it upon the arm or 
leg of the suspected person, muttering over it these words :—“ Is 
he guilty of this, or hath he done this or that ; if yea, then let 
it scald or burn him, till the very skin come off.” If the 
person remains unhurt they hold him innocent, and proceed to 

1 See, besides the references below, _p. 465. 
Monrad, Skzldring af Guinea-Kysten, 3 Bosman, of. cet. p. 125. 
p- 35 sg: (Negroes of Accra) ; Beecham, * Bowdich, Afisszon to Ashantee, p. 
Ashantee, p. 215 sgg.; Ratzel, of. cit. 267. 
iii, 130. ® Wilson, Western Africa, p. 225 

2 Kingsley, Zravels tn West Africa, sq. 

"> hie 

a 

, 
Pj 

vi 

the trial of another, till the guilty is discovered.1_ Among the 
Wadchagga of Eastern Africa the medicine-man gives to the 
accused a poisonous draught with the words, “If you fall down, 
you have committed the crime and told a lie, if you remain 
standing we recognise that you have spoken the truth.” 2 

Among the Hawaiians, in the ordeal called wai haalulu, “prayer 
was offered by the priest” while a large dish of water was 
placed before the culprit, who was required to hold his hands over 
the fluid; and if it shook, his fate was sealed.2 Among the 
Tinguianes in the district of El Abra in Luzon, if a man is 
accused of a crime and denies it, the headman of the village, who 
is also the judge, causes a handful of straw to be burned in his 
presence. ‘Ihe accused then holds up an earthen pot and says, 
“May my belly be changed to a pot like this if I am guilty of 
the crime of which I am accused.” If he remains unchanged 
in body, the judge declares him innocent. The following 
ordeal is in use among the Tunguses of Siberia. A fire is 
made and a scaffold erected near the hut of the accused. A 
dog’s throat is then cut and the blood received in a vessel. 
The body is put on the wood of the fire, but in such a position 
that it does not burn. The accused passes over the fire, 
and drinks two mouthfuls of the blood, the rest whereof is 
thrown into the fire ; and the body of the dog is placed on the 
scaffold. Then the accused says :—‘‘ As the dog’s blood burns 
in the fire, so may what J have drunk burn in my body ; and as 
the dog put on the scaffold will be consumed, so may I be con- 
sumed at the same time if I be guilty.”® 

The “trial of jealousy” mentioned in the Old Testament 
involved a curse pronounced by the priest to the effect that 
the holy water which the woman suspected of adultery had to 
drink should cause her belly to swell and her thigh to rot.6 In 
India the ordeal was expressly regarded as a form of the oath, the 
same word, sapatha, being used to denote both.’ We have seen 
above that in the Middle Ages every judicial combat was neces- 
sarily preceded by an oath, which essentially decided the 
issue of the fight and the question of guilt.8 So also at the 
moment when the hot iron was raised and the accused took 

1 Dapper, Africa, p. 405. 8 Numbers, v. 20 sqq. 

2 Volkens, Der Atlmandscharo, p. 7 Jolly, ‘Beitrige zur indischen 
249. Rechtsgeschichte,’ in Zedtschr. d. Deut- 

3 Jarves, History of the Hawaiian schen Morgenlaindischen _ Geselisch. 
Islands, p. 20. xliv. 346. Oldenberg, Dze Religion 

4 Lala, Philippine Lslands, p. 100. aes) Veda, p. 510, nm, 1. See also 

5 Hartland, Legend of Perseus, ii.  Patetta, Le ordalie, p. 14. 

85 sg. 8 Supra, i. 505. 

VOL. II Yay: 

it into his hand, the Deity was invoked to manifest the truth.’ 
The ordeal of the Eucharist involved the following formula recited 
by the victim :—“ Et si aliter est quam dixi et juravi, tunc hoc 
Domini nostri Jesu Christi corpus non pertranseat gutur meum, 
sed hzreat in faucibus meis, strangulet me suffocet me ac inter- 
ficiat me statim in momento.” ? 

To the list of ordeals which contain an oath or a curse 
as their governing element many other instances might 
probably be added in which no imprecation has been 
expressly mentioned by our authorities in their short 
descriptions of the ceremonies. This is all the more 
likely to be the case as magical practices often imply im- 
precations which are not formally expressed.? But there 
may also be ordeals which have a different origin. Thus 
the custom of swimming witches seems to have arisen 
from the notion that everything unholy is repelled by 
water and unable to sink into its depths ;* and the ordeal 
of touching the corpse of a murdered person no doubt 
originated in the belief that the soul of such a person 
lingered about the body until appeased by the shedding 
of the murderer’s blood and that “by the murderer’s 
approach, and especially by his polluted touch, the soul 
was excited to an instant manifestation of its indignation, 
by appearing in the form in which it was supposed to 
subsist, vz. in that of blood.” ® However, even though 
all ordeals have not the same foundation, it seems highly 
improbable that any people, in the first instance, resorted 
to this method of discovering innocence and guilt from a 
belief in a god who is by his nature a guardian of truth 
and justice. 

Nor must we make any inference as to the moral 
character of gods from the mere prevalence of a belief in 

1 Beames, in his 

Translation of 
Glanville, p. 351 Sg. 

2 Dahn, of. ced. ii. 16. 

3 See, for instance, Westermarck, 
‘Lar, or the Transference of Con- 
ditional Curses in Morocco,’ in Anthro- 
pological Essays presented to E. B. 
Tylor, p. 361 sqq. 

* Binsfeldius, Zractatus de confes- 

Stonibus maleficorum et sagarum, Pp. 
315. In the North-East of Scotland it 
was believed that, if a person committed 
suicide by drowning, the body did not 
sink, but floated on the surface (Gregor, 
folk-Lore of the North-East of Scotland, 
p. 208). 

5 Pitcairn, Crzemznal Trials in Scot- 
land, iil. 187. 

: MORALITY 

a future world where men are in some way or other 
punished or rewarded for their conduct during their life. 
Such a belief is said to be fairly common among un- 

civilised races ;! 

and, although in several cases it is 

undoubtedly due to Christian or other foreign influence,’ 
I agree with Dr. Steinmetz that we are not entitled to 

1 Thomson, Savage Island, p. 94. 

Percy Smith, ‘Futuna,’ in Jour. Poly- 

nesian Soc. 1. 39. Seemann, /727, p. 
400; Williams and Calvert, F772, p. 
208. Codrington, Melanesians, p. 274 
sg. (Banks’ Islanders). Inglis, Mew 
Flebrides, p. 313; Turner, Samoa, p. 
326 (people of Aneiteum). Campbell, 
A Year in the New Hebrides, p. 169 
(people of Tana). Schwaner, Borneo, 
1. 183 (natives of the Barito district). 
Selenka, of. czt. pp. 88, 94, 112 
(Dyaks). von Brenner, of. czt, p. 240 
(Bataks of Sumatra). de Mas, /nforme 
sobre el estado de las Islas Filipinas, 
‘Orijen, &c.’ p. 14. Best, ‘ Prehistoric 
Civilisation in the Philippines,’ in Jozr. 
Polynesian Soc. i. 200 (Tagalo-Bisaya 
tribes). Worcester, Phz/zppine Islands, 
p- 110 (Tagbanuas of Palawan). 
Smeaton, Loyal Karens of Burma, p. 
186 sg. Anderson, Mandalay to 
Momien, p. 146 (Kakhyens). Lewin, 
Wild Races of South-Eastern India, p. 
243 sg. (Pankhos and Bunjogees). 
Hunter, Rural Bengal, i. 210 (Santals). 
Macrae, ‘ Account of the Kookies,’ in 
Astatick Researches, vii. 195 ; Butler, 
Travels in Assam, p. 88 (Kukis). 
Stewart, ‘ Notes on Northern Cachar,’ 
in Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xxiv. 620 
(Old Kukis), 632 (Nagas). Macpherson, 
Memorials of Service in India, p. 92 
sgg. (Kandhs). Thurston, ‘Todas of 
the Nilgiris,’ in the Madras Govern- 
ment Museum’s 4uzt/letin, 1. 166 sg. 
Breeks, 7rtbes and Monuments of the 
Nilagiris, p. 28 (Todas and Badagas). 
Radloff, of. czt. p. 11 sg. (Turkish 
Tribes of the Altai). Georgi, Russza, 
i, 106 (Chuvashes). 
Greenland, i. 186. Hall, Arctic Re- 
searches among the Esquimaux, p. 571 
sg. Lyon, Private Journal, p. 372 
sgg. (Eskimo of Igloolik). Boas, 
“Central Eskimo,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. 
Ethn. vi. 590. Nelson, ‘ Eskimo about 
Bering Strait,’ zzd. xviii. 423. Doug- 
las, quoted by Petroff, Report on Alaska, 

Cranz, History of 

p- 177 (Thlinkets). Harrison, ‘ Re- 
ligion and. Family among the Haidas,’ 
in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxi. 17 sqq. 
Duncan, quoted by Mayne, Four 
Years in British Columbia, p. 293 sq. 
(Coast Indians of British Columbia). 
Mackenzie, Voyages to the Frozen and 
Pacific Oceans, p. cxix. (Chippewyans). 
Morgan, League of the Lroguozs, p. 168 
sgg- Harmon, Journal of Voyages in 
the Interior of North America, p. 364 
sg. (Indians on the East side of the 
Rocky Mountains). Keating, of. czt¢. 
i. I10 sg. (Potawatomis) ; ii. 158 sg. 
(Chippewas). Say, quoted by Dorsey, 
‘Siouan Cults,? in Azn. Rep. Bur. 
Ethn. xi. 422 (Kansas). Stevenson, 
‘Sia,’ zbzd. xi. 145 sg. Bartram, in 
Trans. American Ethn. Soc. i. pt. i. 
27 (Creek and Cherokee Indians). 
Powers, Zribes of California, pp. 34, 
58, 59, 91, 110, 144, 155, 161. Bu- 
chanan, lVorth American Indians, p. 
235 sgg.; Heriot, Zravels through the 
Canadas, pp. 362, 536; Catlin, orth 
American Indians, i. 156, and ii. 243; 
Domenech, Great Deserts of North 
America, ii. 380 (various Indian tribes 
of North America). von Martius, 
Beitrige sur Ethnographie Amerika’s, 
i. 247 (Guatds). von den Steinen, Unter 
den Naturvolkern Zentral-Lrasiliens, 
p- 435 (Paressi). de Azara, Voyages 
dans 1 Amérique méridionale, ii. 138 
(Payaguas). Bosman, of. czt. p. 424 
(people of Benin). Wilson, Western 
Africa, p. 217 (Negroes of Northern 
Guinea). Reade, Savage Africa, p. 539 
(Ibos). Mungo Park, Zvravels in the 
Interior of Africa, p. 250 (Mandingoes). 
Tylor, op. czt. ii. 83 sgg. Marillier, 
La survivance de Vadme et Vidée de 
justice chez les peuples non ctvilisés, 
Pp. 33 sgg. Steinmetz, “thnologesche 
Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der 
Strafe, ii. 368 sgq. 

ENG Mlylormosemert. 54, OL S7gas 
Marillier, /oc. cz¢. p. 32 sg. 

YY au? 

assume that it is soin allt It seems that the savage mind 
may by itself, in various ways, come to the idea of some 
kind of moral retribution after death. First, the condi- 
tion of the dead man is often supposed to depend upon 
the attentions bestowed on him by the survivors. 
Mr. Turner was told that, in the belief of the St. Augus- 
tine Islanders in Polynesia, the souls of the departed “ if 
good” went to a land of brightness and clear weather in 
the heavens, but ‘“‘if bad’’ were sent to mud and dark- 
ness ; and the answer to his next question informed him 
that in this case ‘‘ goodness ” meant that the friends of the 
deceased had given him a good funeral feast, and that 
“badness” meant that his stingy friends had provided 
nothing at all.” Although Mr. Turner sees no moral distinc- 
tion in these terms, there may be one nevertheless. Speaking 
of the Efatese, in the New Hebrides, Mr. Macdonald 
observes :—‘‘ A man’s condition in the future would be, 
to some extent, happy or miserable according to his life 
here. Supposing he were a worthless fellow, very scanty 
worship would be rendered to him at his death and few 
animals slain to accompany him to the spirit world ; and 
thus he would occupy an inferior position there corre- 
sponding to his social worthlessness here. This belief, 
our informant adds, ‘‘ has undoubtedly great influence in 
making men strive to live so as to obtain the good 
opinion of their fellows, and leave an honourable memory 
behind them at death.? The Bushmans, who maintain 
that the dead will ultimately go to a land abounding in 
excellent food, put a spear by the side of a departed 
friend in order that, when he arises, he may have some- 
thing to defend himself with and procure a living ; but, if 
they hate the person, they deposit no spear, so that on 
his resurrection he may either be murdered or starved.* 
The dead may also have to suffer from the curses of 
those whom they injured while alive. At Motlav, in the 

a 

~ 
* 

\ 

we 

2 Steinmetz, Studien, li. 366 sgg. 2 Turmer, Samoa, p. 292 sq. 
Idem, *Continuitat oder Lohn und 3 Macdonald, Oceanza, p. 209. 
Strafe im Jenseits der Wilden,’ in 4 Campbell, Second Journey in the 

Archiv f. Anthropologie, xxiv. 577 5qq. Interior of South Africa, i. 29. 

Banks’ Islands, relatives ‘‘ watch the grave of a man 
whose life was bad, lest some man wronged by him 
should come at night and beat with a stone upon the 
grave, cursing him.” * At Gaua, in the same group, 
“when a great man died his friends would not make it 
known, lest those whom he had oppressed should come 
and spit at him after his death, or govgov him, stand 
bickering at him with crooked fingers and drawing in the 
lips, by way of curse.”’? The Maoris were careful to 
prevent the bones of their dead relatives from falling into 
the hands of their enemies, “who would dreadfully 
desecrate and ill-use them, with many bitter jeers and 
curses.” * A person may, moreover, himself during his 
lifetime directly provide for his comfort in the life to 
come, and if the act by which he does so is apt to call forth 
approval its result is easily interpreted as its reward. 
Thus the Kukis of India believe that all enemies whom 
a person has killed will in his future abode be in attend- 
ance on him as slaves ;* and this belief probably accounts 
for their opinion that nothing more certainly oe 
future happiness than destroying a number of enemies.’ 

We have further to notice the common idea that a 
person’s character after his death remains more or less as 
it was during his life. Hence the souls of bad people are 
supposed to reappear in the shape of obnoxious animals ° 
or become evil spirits,’ and this may lead to the notion 
that they have to do so as a punishment for their wicked- 
ness... And as the revengeful feelings of men likewise 
are believed to last beyond death, offenders may in the 

a 

Codrington, of. cz¢. p. 269. Anthropologze der Naturvolker, ii. 419 

2 [bid. p. 269. (Maravi). Southey, Azstory of Brazzl, 
3 Colenso, Maort Races, p. 28. iii. 392 (Guaycurus). Powers, 7rzbes 
4 Dalton, £¢hnology of Bengal, p. 46. of California, pp. 144 (Tatu), 155 (Kato 
wy Macrae, ‘Account of the Kookies,’ | Pomo). 

in Asiatick ‘Researches, vil. 195. 7 Bailey, ‘Wild Tribes of the 

6 Hill and Thornton, Adorigines of 
New South Wales, p. 4. Ratzel, of. cz¢. 
i. 317 (Solomon Islanders). Junghuhn, 
Die Battalinder auf sees li. 338 
(natives of Bali and Lombok), Cross, 
quoted by Mac Mahon, /ar Cathay and 
Farther India, p. 203 (Karens). Waitz, 

Veddahs,’ in 7rans. Ethn. Soc. N.S. ii. 
302, n. { (Sinhalese). von den Steinen, 
Onter den Naturvolkern Zentral-Brast- 
fiens, p. 349 (Bakairi). 

8 See Steinmetz, Studien, ii. 376; 
Idem, in Archiv ftir Anthropologie, 
xxiv. 603 5g. 

other world have to suffer from the hands of those whom 
they injured in this." Some of the Nagas of Central 
India maintain that “a murdered man’s soul receives that 
of his murderer in the spirit world and makes him his 
slave.” > The Chippewas think that in the land of the dead 
“‘ the souls of bad men are haunted by the phantoms of the 
persons or things they have injured.”* In Aurora, in the 
New Hebrides, the belief prevails that the ghosts of those 
whom a man has wronged in this world take a full 
revenge upon him after death.* According to the Banks’ 
Islanders, if a person has killed a good man without 
cause, the good man’s ghost withstands his murderer, 
when the latter after death wants to enter into Panoi, the 

ood place ; but if one man has killed another in fair 
fight he will not be withstood by the person whom he slew.” 
And not only the offended party but the other dead as well 
may, from dislike or fear, be anxious to refuse the souls 
of bad people admittance to their company. In the belief 
of the Pentecost Islanders, when the soul of a murdered 
man comes to the land of ghosts with the instrument of 
death upon him, he tells who killed him, and when the 
murderer arrives the ghostly people will not receive him, 
but he has to stay apart with other murderers. The 
Iroquois allot separate villages even to the souls of those 
who have died in war and of those who have committed 
suicide, because the other dead are afraid of their presence.” 
Among the Negroes of Northern Guinea, according to 
Mr. Wilson, “ the only idea of a future state of retribution 
is implied in the use of a separate burial-place for those 
who have died ‘by the red-water ordeal’ or who have 
been guilty of grossly wicked deeds” ;* and if a person’s 
body is buried apart, his soul will naturally remain equally 
isolated.” That the frequent idea of the bad being separ- 

! Cf. Marillier, loc. czt. p. 44 sq. passé dans le pays des Hurons,’ in 
2 Fytche, Burma, i. 354. Relations des Jésuites, 1636, p. 104 sq. 
3 Keating, of. czt. ii. 158 sg. Hewitt, ‘The Iroquoian Concept of 

4 Codrington, of. czt. p. 279 sq. the Soul,’ in Jour. of American Folk- 
5 Tbid. p. 274. Lore, viil. 109. 
8 Jbid. p. 288. 8 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 210. 

7 Brebeuf, ‘ Relation de ce qui s’est ® See sepra, ii. 236 sq. 

ated from the good after death is largely due to the assumed 
unwillingness of the latter to associate with dangerous or 
disreputable souls, seems probable from the fact that, in the 
beliefs of the lower races, paradise generally plays a much 
more prominent part than hell, the lot of the wicked being 
to suffer want rather than to be subjected to torments.' 
But, finally, it must also be remembered that the other 
world is a creation of men’s fancy, and may therefore be 
formed in accordance with their hopes and wishes. 
Beyond the gloom of death they imagine a paradise where 
life is much happier than here on earth.? Why, then, 
might not their moral feelings, only too often ungratified 
in the reality of the present, occasionally seek satisfaction 
in the dreams of the future ? 

The belief in a moral retribution after death may thus 
originate in various ways, quite independently of any 
notion of a god who acts as a judge of human conduct. 
When such a belief is said to prevail among a savage people 
it is by no means the rule that the rewards or punishments 
are associated with the activity of a divine being. And 
when, as is sometimes the case, the fate of the dead is sup- 
posed to depend upon the will of a high god, the notions 
held about the other world, and especially about the place 
reserved for the wicked, in several instances suggest influ- 
ence from a more advanced religion. But on the other 
hand it is not an idea which seems incompatible with 
genuine savage thought that, in cases where the souls of 
men are believed to go to live with gods, the latter select 
their companions and, like the human inhabitants of the 
other world, refuse admittance to undesirable individuals. 

Religious ideas have no doubt already at the savage 

1 This is especially the case among the 
Indians of North America (cf Brinton, 
Myths of the New World, p. 242 sq. ; 
Dorman, of. céf. p. 333; Steinmetz, in 
Archiv f. Anthrop. xxiv. 591). See 
also Codrington, of. czt. p. 274 sg. 
(Banks’ Islanders). 

2 Dove, ‘ Aborigines of Tasmania,’ 
in Zasmanian Jour. Natural Science, 
i. 253. Polack, Manners and Customs 

of the New Zealanders, i. 254 ; Dieffen- 
bach, Zravels 12 New Zealand, ii. 118. 
Percy Smith, ‘ Futuna,’ in Jou. Foly- 
nestan Soc. i. 39. Batchelor, Azz of 
Japan, p. 225. Steller, of. czt. p. 269 
(Kamchadales). Cranz, of. cit. i. 186 
(Greenlanders). Robertson, zstory 
of America, ii. 202. Arbousset and 
Daumas, of. czt. p. 343 (Bechuanas). 

stage begun to influence the moral consciousness even in 
points which have no direct bearing upon the personal in- 
terests of gods ; but this influence is not known to have 
been so great as it has often been represented to be. I can 
find no solid foundation for the statements made by recent 
writers, that “ the historical beginning of all morality is 
to be found in religion”; * that even in the earliest period 
of human history “religion and morality are necessary 
correlates of each other” ;* that ‘all moral command- 
ments originally have the character of religious command- 
ments”’;° that in ancient society ‘all morality—as 
morality was then understood—was consecrated and en- 
forced by religious motives and sanctions” ;* that the 
clan-god was the guardian of the tribal morality. From 
various facts stated in this and earlier chapters I have 
been led to the conclusion that among uncivilised races 
the moral ideas relating to men’s conduct towards one 
another have been much more influenced by the belief in 
magic forces which may be utilised by man, than by the 
belief in the free activity of gods. 

1 Pfleiderer, Phzlosophy and Develop- * Robertson Smith, Religion of the 
ment of Religion, iv. 230. Semites, Ds 207.0 C/s 20td. pais 3. 

2 Caird, Lvolution of Religion, i. > Jevons, Jutroduction to the History 
237 of Religion, pp. 112, 177. 

3 Wundt, Lthik, p.» 99

GODS AS GUARDIANS OF MORALITY (continued) 

From the gods of savage races we shall now pass 
to consider the attitudes of more civilised gods towards 
matters of worldly morality. 

The deities of ancient Mexico were generally clothed 
with terror, and delighted in vengeance and human 
sacrifices. But there was also the god Quetzalcoatl, 
generous of gifts, mild and gentle, and so averse from 
such sacrifices that he shut his ears with both hands 
when they were mentioned.t The god Tezcatlipoca, 
again, was looked upon as the austere guardian of law 
and morals; but, as Professor Tylor observes, the 
remarkable Aztec formulas collected by Sahagun, in 
which this deity is so prominent a figure, show traces of 
Christian admixture in their material, as well as of 
Christian influence in their style.” It seems that the 
Mexicans had reached no fixed or systematic conclusions 
as to the relation of the moral to the religious life.’ 
They held that departed souls attained different degrees 
of felicity or of wretchedness according to their different 
modes of death. Warriors who died on the battle-field 
or in the hands of the enemy’s priests, and merchants 
who died on their journey, went to the house of the sun ; 
those who were killed by lightning, who were drowned, 

1 Brinton, AZyths of the New World, 8 Réville, Azbdert Lectures on the 
p- 294 sg. Bancroft, Mative Races of Native Religions of Mexico and Peru, 
the Pacific States, iii. 259. p. 104 sq. 

2 Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 344. 

or who died from some incurable disease went to a 
terrestrial paradise ; and those who died of old age or 
any ordinary disease went to a land of darkness and 
desolation, where they after a time sunk in a sleep which 
knew no waking." 

Among the ancient Peruvians morality obtained a 
religious sanction through the divinity ascribed to their 
rulers. ‘“ They considered every mere order of the king 
to be a divine decree,” says Garcilasso de la Vega; “how 
much more would they venerate the special laws instituted 
for the common good. They said that the sun had 
ordered these laws to be made, and had revealed them 
to his child the Ynca; and hence a man who broke 
them was held to be guilty of sacrilege.”? According 
to the beliefs of the higher classes, the Incas were after 
death transported to the mansion of the Sun, their father, 
where they still lived together as his family. The nobles 
would either follow them there or would live beneath 
the earth under the sceptre of Supay, the god of the 
dead. There was no idea of positive suffering inflicted 
on the wicked under his direction, but the subterranean 
abode was gloomy and dismal. Exceptional considerations 
of birth, rank, or valour-in war determined the passage 
of chosen souls to heaven, where their lot would be 
far happier than that of the souls who remained in the 
regions below. The common people, on the other hand, 
thought of the future life as a continuation, pure fae 
simple, of the present existence.* 

The great gods of ancient Egypt were mostly conceived 
as friendly beings. Amon Ra, “the king of the gods,” 
was, in his character of the sun god, the creator, preserver, 
and supporter of all living things. He it is who makes 
pasture for the herds and fruit trees for men, on his 
account the Nile comes and mankind lives. He is verily 
of kindly heart : ‘‘ when men call to him he delivers the 

1 Bancroft, of. czt. lil. 532 sgg. of the Royal Commentaries of the Yneas, 
Clavigero, History of Mexico, i. 242 sq. i. 148. 
? Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part 3 Reville, of. czt. p. 236 sq. 

fearful from the insolent.” He is “the vizier of the 
poor, who takes no bribes,” and who does not corrupt 
witnesses ; and to him officials pray for promotion.! 
Thoth, the moon god, was also the god of all wisdom 
and learning, who gave men “speech and writing,” who 
discovered the written characters, and by his arithmetic 
enabled gods and men to keep account of their 
possessions.” Osiris ruled over the whole of Egypt as 
king, and instructed its inhabitants in all that was good— 
in agriculture as well as in the true religion—and gave 
them Jaws.? After a long and blessed reign, however, 
he fell a prey to the machinations of his brother Set, and, 
having been slain, was constrained to descend into the 
Underworld, where he evermore lived and reigned as 
judge and king of the dead. But the wicked god Set 
was also an object of worship; for he was strong and 
mighty, a terror to gods and men, and kings were 
anxious to secure his favour. We have noticed above 
that certain Egyptian gods were believed to look after 
property ° or to be guardians of truth;° and closely 
connected with the latter function was their love of 
justice. Thoth, who was called to witness by him who 
wished to give assurance of his honesty and good faith," 
was styled “the judge in heaven’’;* while his wife 
Maa, or Maat, was the goddess of both truth and 
justice, and her priests were the supreme judges.” But 
it seems that the Egyptian gods after all chiefly took 
notice of such acts as concerned their own wellbeing. 

1 Erman, Handbook of Egyptian 

Upper Egypt, while Osiris’ son Horus, 
Religion, pp. 58-60, 83. Wiedemann, 

who defeated him, was the protector 

Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 
114. 

2 Erman, of. cet, p. II. 
Dawn of Civilization, p. 220. 

3 Erman, of. cit. p. 32. Sdem, 
Life in Ancient Egypt, p. 270. Mas- 
pero, of. cit. p. 174. Plutarch, De 
Tsdide et Ostride, 13. Diodorus 
Siculus, Bzbliotheca htstorica, 1. 14, 15, 
25. Kaibel, Epigrammata Greca, p. 
xxi. 

4 It is probable that Set originally 
was the divine protector of the kings of 

Maspero, 

of the kings of Lower Egypt (Erman, 
Handbook of Egyptian Religion, p. 19 
Se) 
" Supra, ii. 60. 
8 Supra, ii. 115. 
1 Supra, i. 121. 
8 Erman, Zgyptian Religion, p. 11. 
9 Supra, i. 115. Wiedemann, of. 

cit. p. 142. Ameélineau, L’évolution 
des idées morales dans TEgypte 
anctenne, pp. 182, 187. Erman, 

Leyptian Religion, p. 21. 

CHAPS 

This is true even of Osiris, “the great god, the lord 
of justice,” 1 in whose presence the judgment of the dead 
was given which decided upon their admission into his 
kingdom. In thousands upon thousands of funerary 
inscriptions we read words like these :—“ May a royal 
offering be given to Osiris, that he may grant all manner 
of good things, food and drink to the soul of the 
deceased.” ? And whilst the living paid him his dues 
in sacrifices repeated from year to year at regular intervals, 
the dead were not allowed to receive directly the sepulchral 
meals or offerings of kindred on feast-days, but all that 
was addressed to them must first pass through the hands 
of the god.* In the ‘Negative Confession,” which 
the worshippers of Osiris taught to their dead, great 
importance was attached to religious offences, such as 
to snare the birds of the gods, to catch the fish in their 
lakes, to injure the herds in the temple domains, to 
diminish the food in the temples, to revile the god. 
At the same time the list of offences which excluded 
the dead from Osiris’ kingdom contained very many 
of a social character—murder, oppression, stealing, 
robbing minors, fraud, lying, slander, reviling, adultery.* 
But the meaning of this seems to have been, not so much 
that the god was animated by a righteous desire to punish 
the wicked and reward the good, as, rather, that he 
did not like to have any rascals among his vassals. As to 
the fate of the non-justified dead very little is said, and 
the punishment devised for them seems to have been 
a comparatively modern invention.® Nay, the virtuous 
dead themselves depended for their welfare upon their 

1 Erman, egyptian Religion, p. whom it can be said, ‘‘ There is no 
IOI. evil which he hath done,” the saying 
2 Wiedemann, of. czt. p. 217. penetrates to the sun god, and he 
3 Maspero, op. cé¢. p. 117. receives him kindly in heaven. The 
4 Erman, Zgyptian Religion, p. 103 deceased also profits with regard to his 

Sqq. 

5 Wiedemann, of. czt. p. 95 sg. 
Idem, Egyptian Doctrine of the 
Immortality’ of the Soul, p. 55. 
Erman, egyptian Religion, p. 105. 
In the Pyramid texts we read that, if 
among the deceased there is one of 

reception there if he has never spoken 
evil of the king nor slighted the gods. 
But, as a rule, it is rather bodily 
cleanliness which the gods demand of 
their new companion in heaven, and 
they themselves help to purify him 
(Erman, p. 94). 

knowledge of magic words and formulas, upon amulets 
laid in their tombs, and upon the offerings made to them 
by their kindred. Ignorant souls, or those ill prepared 
for the struggle, were overcome by hunger and thirst, 
were attacked by demons and poisonous animals in 
traversing the regions of the Underworld, and, when 
in Osiris’ kingdom, had to work and till the land and 
earn their own living if the offerings ceased.1 The Book 
of the Dead is itself essentially a collection of spells 
intended to secure to the dead victory over evil demons 
and protection from the gods; and the ‘“ Negative 
Confession” is a later addition, which shows that origin- 
ally the conduct of earthly life was not considered at all.’ 
So also in the book of Am Dduat the whole doctrine 
of a future life is based upon a belief in the power of 
magic, with the single exception that nobody can look 
forward to possessing fields in Dtat who in life has been 
an enemy of the god Ra.° 

The religion of the Chaldeans was a religion of dread. 
Everywhere they felt themselves surrounded by hostile 
demons ; feared above all were the seven evil spirits, who 
were everywhere and yet invisible, who slipped through 
bolts and doorposts and sockets, and who had power even 
to bewitch the gods.* In their incessant warfare against 
these fiends men were assisted by the more propitious 
among the deities : by Marduk, the ‘‘ merciful” god, the 
god of the youthful sun of spring and early morning ;° 
by Ea, the “good” god, the god of the waters of the 

1 Erman, Lzfe in Ancient Egypt, 
p- 315 sgg. Ldem, Egyptian Religion, 
p- 99 sg. Maspero, of. czt. p. 185 sg. 
Idem, Ltudes de mythologie et @ archéo- 
logie égyptiennes, i. 347. Wiedemann, 
Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, pp. 
279, 296. 
the Immortality of the Soul, p. 60 sq. 

2 Maspero, LZtudes, i. 348. 
Amélineau, of. cz¢, p. 243. Renouf, in 
Book of the Dead, p. 220. Erman, 

Leyptian Religion, p. 101. 

%’ Wiedemann, eligion of the 
Ancient Lgyptians, p. 94 Sg. 
Maspero, Ztudes, ii. 163. 

Idem, Egyptian Doctrine of 

4 Jastrow, Heligion of Babylonia and 
Assyria, p. 260 sgg. Smith, Chaldean 
Account of Geneszs, pp. 87, 88, 106 sg. 
Idem, Chaldiétsche Genesis, edited by 
Delitzsch, pp. 83, 306 sg. 

5 Miirdter-Delitzsch, 
Babyloniens und Assyriens, p. 31. 
Sayce, Azbbert Lectures on the 
Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, p. 
98. King, Babylonian Magic and 
Sorcery, p: 52 sgg. Jensen, Dze 
Kosmologie der Babylonier, pp. 87, 88, 
249 sg. Schrader-Zimmern, Die 
Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, 

p- 372 59. 

Geschichte 

deep and the source of wisdom ;* by Gibil-Nusku, the lord 
of fire, who put to flight the demons of night when the 
fire was kindled on the household hearth, and who in the 
flame carried to the other gods the sacrifices offered them ; ° 
as also by the tutelary deities of each individual, house- 
hold, and city.* The gods were on the whole favourably 
disposed towards man. But they helped only those who 
piously observed the prescribed rites, who recited the 
conventional prayers and offered them sacrifices ; on such 
persons they bestowed a happy old age and a numerous 
posterity. On the other hand, he who did not fear his 
god would be cut down like a reed ; and by neglecting the 
slightest ceremonial detail the king excited the anger of 
the deities against himself and his subjects.* During the 
whole of their lives the Chaldeans were haunted by the 
dread of offending their gods, and they continually im- 
plored pardon for their sins.° But the sinner became 
conscious of his guilt only as a conclusion drawn from the 
fact that he was suffering from some misfortune, which he 
interpreted as a punishment sent by an offended god. It 
mattered little what had called forth the wrath of the god 
or whether the deity was acting in accordance with just 
ideas ; ° and in none of the penitential psalms known to us 
is there any indication that the notion of sin comprised 
offences against fellow men. It is true that in the 
incantation series ‘Shurpu’ not only offences against gods 
and ceremonial transgressions, but a large number of 
wrongs of a social character, are included in the list of 
possible causes of the suffering which the incantation is 
intended to remove. On behalf of the afflicted individual 
the exorciser asks :—‘‘ Has he sinned against a god, Is his 
guilt against a goddess, Is it a wrongful deed against his 

1 Hommel, Dze semztischen Volker sg. Maspero, Dawz of Civilization 
) > D 

und Sprachen, 1. 374 sgg. Miirdter- 
Delitzsch, of. czt. p. 27. Sayce, op. 
cit. pp. 131, 140. 

2 Tallqvist, ‘Die assyrische Besch- 
worungsserie Maqlt,’ in Acta Soc. 
Sczent. Mennice@, xx. 25, 28 sq. 

3 Miirdter-Delitzsch, of. cz¢. p. 37 

pp- 643, 674, 682 sq. 

4 Jeremias, Dze babylontsch-assyrt- 
schen Vorstellungen vom Leben nach 
dem Tode, p. 46 sg. Maspero, Dawn 
of Cevilizatzon, pp. 697, 705. 

> See Zimmern, Babylonische Buss- 
psalmen, passim. 

8 Cf. Jastrow, of. cet. p. 313 599. 

— 

master, Hatred towards his elder brother, Has he despised 
father or mother, Insulted his elder sister, Has he sue 
too little,’ Has he withheld too much, For ‘ no” said ‘ yes,’ 
For ‘ yes’ Said “no? ?)..°.o Has he fixed a false boundary, 
Not fixed a just boundary, Has he removed a boundary, a 
limit, or a territory, Has he possessed himself of his neigh- 
bour’s house, Has he approached his neighbour’s wife, Has 
he shed the blood of his neighbour, Robbed his neighbour’s 
dress?” and so forth.? But I fail to see any legitimate 
ground for the conclusion which Schrader and Zimmern 
have drawn from these passages, to wit, that the gods were 
believed to be angry with persons guilty of any of the 
offences enumerated.* It seems to me quite obvious that 
the evils which were hypothetically associated with injuries 
inflicted upon fellow men were ascribed, not to the avenging 
activity of a god, but to the curses of the injured party. 
The gods are expressly invoked to relieve the unhappy 
individual from the curses under which he is suffering, 
whether he has been cursed by his father, mother, elder 
brother, elder sister, friend, master, king, or god, or has 
approached an accursed person, or slept in such a person’s 
bed, or sat on his chair, or eaten from his dish or drunk 
from his cup.* In these incantations there is no plea for 
forgiveness ; the possible causes for the suffering are 
enumerated simply because the mention of the real cause 
is supposed to go a long way towards expelling the evil.’ 
Some of the gods, however, are invoked as judges. This 
is frequently the case with Shamash, the sun god, ‘the 
supreme judge of heaven and earth,’”’ who, seated on a 
throne in the chamber of judgment, receives the supplica- 
tions of men.° Of the moon god Sin it is said in a hymn 

1 In mercantile transactions (Jastrow,  Szrpz, 11. 89-93, 99-104, pp. 7, 23. 
op. cit. p. 291, n. 2). 5 See Jastrow, of. czt. p. 292. 

2 Zimmern, Beztriige 217 Kenntnis ® Tallqvist, Magli, il. 04. 
der babylonischen _ Religion, ‘Die Zimmern, Surpu, ii. 130, p. 9. 
Beschworungstafeln Surpu,’ p- 3 599- Idem, Babylonische Hymnen und 

3 Idem, in Schrader, Die Ketlin-  Gebete, p. 13. Miirdter-Delitzsch, of. 
schriften und das Alte Testament, p. cit. p. 28. Schrader-Zimmern, of, cit. 
612. Dee QOS AStLOWs Op. Cela) PPsau7iTy 

4 Zimmern, Dze Beschworungstafeln 120, 209 599: 

dedicated to him that his “ word produces truth and justice, 
so that men speak the truth.”? And the lord of fire is 
addressed as a judge, who burns the evildoers and annihilates 
the bad,’ and is exhorted by the conjurer to help him to his 
right ;° but this probably means little more than the 
invocation, ‘Eat my enemies, destroy those who have 
done harm to me.” * Of a moral retribution after death 
there is no trace in the Chaldean religion. Those who 
have obtained the goodwill of the gods receive their reward 
in this world, by a life of happiness and of good health, 
but the moment that death ensues the control of the gods 
comes toanend, Al]] mankind, kings and subjects, virtuous 
and wicked, go to Arald, the gloomy subterranean realm 
presided over by Allatu and her consort Nergal, where the 
dead are doomed to everlasting sojourn or imprisonment 
in a state of joyless inactivity. A kind of judgment is 
spoken of, but nothing indicates that it 1s based on moral 
considerations.’ According to the Gilgamesh epic, however, 
the fortunes awaiting those who die are not all alike. 
Those who fall in battle seem to enjoy special privileges, 
provided that they are properly buried and there is some- 
one to make them comfortable in their last hour and to 
look after them when dead. But he whose corpse remains 
in the field has no rest in the earth, and he whose spirit is 
not cared for by any one is consumed by gnawing hunger.® 

In a still higher degree than the Chaldean religion Zoro- 
astrianism represents an incessant struggle againstevil spirits. 
Here everything in heaven and on earth is engaged in the 
conflict ; it is a war between two mighty sovereigns, Ahura 
Mazda and Angra Mainyu, and their respective forces.’ 

= 
y 
a 
.. 
a 

1 Zimmern, Labylonische Hymnen 
und Gebete, p. 12. 

2 Tallqvist, AZaghi, i. 95; 1. 79, 89, 
T16, 130, 131, 184. 

Se UcUaA eu Ag 

= Nesdeh, ss, WAGey Sail, sIPXC}, 

5 Jeremias, of. Gees passin. 
Schrader-Zimmern, of. czt. p. 636 sq. 
Jastrow, of. cet. p. 565 sgg. Jensen, 
op. cit. p. 217 Sgg. 

6 Haupt, ‘Die zwélfte Tafel des 

babylonischen § Nimrod-Epos,’ in 
Beitrdge zur Assyriologie, 1. 69 sq. 
Jensen, ‘ Das Gilgamis(Nimrod)-Epos,’ 
xu. 6, in <Assyrisch-Babylonische 
Mythen und Epen, p. 265. 

7 According to the Vendiddd (i. 3 
sgg-) Angra Mainyu constantly 
countercreated the creations of Ahura 
Mazda. But this idea is not yet to be 
found in the Gathas, where the 
wickedness of Ako Mainyu is only 

‘oymer rT 

Whatever works for the good of man comes from and strives 
for Ahura Mazda, whatever works for the harm of man 
comes from and strives for Angra Mainyu. There can be no 
doubt that the powers of goodness will absolutely triumph 
in the end; but though Angra Mainyu and his band have 
been defeated, the battle is still raging. Ahura Mazda, 
being the originator of everything good in the world, is 
also the founder of the order of the universe, ‘‘ the creator 
of the righteous order.” In the Vendidad he is asked 
about the rules of life, and he is pleased to answer ;? M. 
Darmesteter observes that the Avesta and the Pentateuch 
are the only two religious books known in which legislation 
descends from the heavens to the earth in a series of con- 
versations between the lawgiver and his god.’ The sacred 
law of Zoroastrianism enjoins charity * and industry,* it 
condemns the murder of a believer,°® abortion,’ theft,® non- 
payment of debts,’ and, with special emphasis, falsehood 
and breach of faith, ’° and unnatural intercourse."! But the 
“good thoughts, words, and deeds’ most urgently insisted 
upon are orthodoxy, prayer, and sacrifice; whilst the 
greatest sins are apostasy, transgressions of the rules of 
ceremonial cleanliness, and offences against sacred beings. 
It is less criminal to kill a man than to serve bad food to 
a shepherd’s dog; for the manslayer gets off with ninety 
stripes, whereas the bad master will receive two hundred.” 
And the killing of a water dog is punished with ten 
thousand stripes.'* Offenders will be liable to penalties not 
only here below, but in the next world as well, where 
Ahura Mazda, “the discerning arbiter,” “ establishes “ evil 

for the evil, and happy blessings for the good.” The 

represented as an attempt to destroy 8 Vendiddd, iii. 41; Vv. 14. 
the good creation (see Lehmann, 7 [bid. xv. 9 sqq. 
Zarathustra, ii. 75, 165). 8 Supra, ii. 60. Yasna, xi. 3. 
1 Yasma, xxxi. 7. Darmesteter, ®9 Vendiddd, iv. 1. 
Ormazd et Ahriman, pp. 19, 24, 88, 10 “Supra, il. 93. 
&e. ll Supra, ii. 479 Sq. 
2 Vendiddd, xviii. 13 599. 2 Vendtddd, iv. 40 ; xiil. 24 3 xv. 3. 
3 Darmesteter, in Sacred Books of 13 [btd. xiv. I sq. 
the East, iv. (2nd edit.) p. lviii. US WoW day S90 Ele 
4 Supra, i. 551. sida, Salntiy Gp 

5 Supra, ii. 275. 
WACOM 1 ZimeL 

views accepted in regard to the future life, whilst incomplete 
in the Gathas, are expanded in the Younger Avesta, and 
fully given in the Pahlavi books.’ The man who has 
lived for Ahura Mazda will have a seat near him in heaven, 
and there he remains undecaying and immortal, unalarmed 
and undistressed, full of glory and delight ; whereas the 
wicked soul will be tormented in the darkness of hell, “the 
dwelling of the demons.”* The good deeds of the 
virtuous and the bad deeds of the wicked, in the form of 
maidens, come to meet them on their roads to paradise or 
hell.? But the fate of the dead is not merely influenced by 
their conduct towards their fellow men while alive. It is 
said that “he who wishes to seize the heavenly reward, will 
seize it by giving gifts to him who holds up the Law.” * 
And the soul of him who recites the prayer Ahuna Vairya 
in the manner prescribed crosses over the bridge which 
separates this world from the next, and reaches the highest 
paradise.” 

In Vedic religion we likewise meet with a conflict 
between gods and demons, but the struggle is too unequal 
to result in anything like the Zoroastrian dualism.° 
Various misfortunes are attributed to the ill-will of evil 
spirits, but their power is comparatively slight, and the 
greater demons, like Vrtra, are represented as defeated or 
destroyed by the gods." On the other hand there is 
among the great gods themselves one who has a distinctly 
malevolent character, namely Rudra, a god of storm,‘ 
“terrible like a wild beast” ;° but though the hymns 

1 Cf. Jackson, Avesta Grammar, i. Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, p- 
p. Xxviil. 28 

2 Vendidad, xix. 28 sgg. Yasts, xxii. 
Bundahis, ch. xxx. Dind-? Mainég-t 
Khtrad, i. 123 sgg. ch. vii. <Ardéd 
VG. Tae 2s (Gf,  CEeer, 
Civilization of the Eastern Tranians, i. 
IOI. 

3 Dind-t Matnig-t Khirad, ii. 125, 
167 sgq. 

SL ASES EXSY 0- 

> Geiger, of. cit. i. 73. See also 
GAH, Sat, BENS Seen Ah MY ohh S 

8 Cf. Barth, Religions of India, p. 

13. 

7 Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, 
p. 281. Macdonell, .Vedic ALytholosy, 
p. 18. 

8 Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, v. 
147. Barth, of. cz¢t. p. 14. Macdonell, 
op. cit. p. 77- 

® Oldenberg, of. cé¢. pp. 63, 28r, 
284. Macdonell, of. cet. p. 18. 
Bergaigne, La religion védique, iii. 152 
59g. 

LI MORALITY yheg! 
addressed to him chiefly express fear of his dreadful shafts 
and deprecations of his wrath, he is also sometimes 
supplicated to confer blessings upon man and _beast.? 
With this exception the great gods are all beneficent 
beings,” though of course liable to punish those who 
offend them. Varuna has established heaven and earth,’ 
has made the celestial bodies to shine* and the rivers 
to flow.” He rules over nature by laws which are fixed 
and immutable, and which must be followed by the gods 
themselves.” He sees and knows everything, because 
he is the infinite light and the sun is his eye ;7 and in 
connection with Mithra he is said to dispel and punish 
falsehood.* Varuna has even been represented as ‘the 
supreme moral ruler,” but it seems to me that scholars 
have generally credited him with a somewhat more compre- 
hensive sense of justice than the hymns imply.” Every 
hymn to Varuna contains a prayer for forgiveness, but 
there is no indication that the sins which excite his wrath 
include ordinary moral wrongdoing. ‘That sin and moral 
guilt are not identical conceptions in the Rig-Veda is fairly 
obvious from the fact that forgiveness of sin is also sought 
from Indra,” whose favour is only won by those who 
contribute to his wellbeing or who. destroy persons 
neglectful of his worship." The Vedic religion i is preemin- 
ently ritualistic. The pious man par préférence is he who 
makes the soma flow in abundance and whose hands are 
always full of butter, the reprobate man is he who is 

penurious towards the gods; 

1 Macdonell, of. czt. p. 75 sg. 

2 Oldenberg, of. czt. pp. 60, 281. 
Macdonell, of. ctz. p. 18. 

3 Rig- Veda, vill. 42. 1. 

AD /G7G win 24 TOME MIO en Se 

De Myth, Ash fe 

6 Jbid. viii. 41. 7. Macdonell, of. 
Gp pe 20) Bobnenberger,. | er. 
altindische Gott Varuna, p. 38 sgq. 

7 Supra, ii. 598. Darmesteter, 
Essais orientaux, p. 126. 

8 Macdonell, of. cet. p. 26. 

2 Macdonell, op. cit. pp. 20, 26. 
Whitney, ‘On the main Results of the 

* and just like the other gods, 

later Vedic Researches in Germany,’ 
in Jour. American Oriental Soc. iil. 
326. Roth, ‘On the Morality of the 
Veda,’ zbzd. ili. 340 sy. Bergaigne, of. 
cit. iii. 156. Darmesteter, Zssazs 
ortentaux, . 111.  Bohnenberger, 
op. cit. Pp. 49 Sqq. 

10 Oldenberg, of. cet. p. 299. 

1 bid. pp. 282, 283, 300. 

12 Rig-Veda, viii. 31. See Barth, of. 
cu. Pp. 343 Kaegi, Azgveda, p. 29; 
Muir, of. ctt. v. 20; Macdonell, of. 
cit. p. 18. 

Varuna visits with disease those who neglect him,* and is 
appeased by sacrifices and prayers.” After death the souls 
of those who have practised rigorous penance,’ of those 
who have risked their lives in battle,t and above all of 
those who have bestowed liberal cna gifts,’ go with 
the smoke arising from the funeral pile to the heavenly 
world, where the Fathers dwell with Yama—the first man 
who died °— and Varuna, the two kings who reign in 
bliss.’ There they enjoy an endless felicity among the 
gods, clothed in glorious bodies and drinking the celestial 
soma, which renders them immortal.2 Yet there are 
different degrees of happiness in this heavenly mansion. 
The performance of rites in honour of the manes causes 
the souls to ascend from a lower to a higher state ; indeed, 
if no such offerings are made they do not go to heaven at 
all. Another source of happiness for the dead is their 
own pious conduct during their lifetime ; for in the abode 
of bliss they are united with what they have sacrificed and 
given, especially reaping the reward of their gifts to 
priests."° Unworthy souls, on the other hand, are kept 
out of this abode by Yama’s dogs, which guard the road 
to his kingdom." As to the destiny in store for those 
who are not admitted to heaven, the hymns have little to 
tell. Zimmer and others erroneously argue that a race 
who believe in future rewards for the good must logically 
believe in future punishments for the wicked.” So far as 
I can see, all the traces of such a belief which are to be 
found in the Vedic literature are requests made to gods, 

1 Rig- Veda, i. 122.-9. ® Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 

3 7bid. x. 154. 2. LU R7e= VV eOd, Xi) (TA. Ss exe USARESS 
SVLOtA exo DSA) 3. Oldenberg, he ctt. p. 535. Macdonell, 
Dyn Te ie Te SS Se Woy. BS - Obs IA oR WG 

Sor 154 LVL Of) CZ? Be EEC, 365 I AKO). Gefopy, (EE 
Oldenberg, of. ct. p. 536. Mac- Zimmer, op. cit. p- 421; Hopkins, of. 
donell, of. cz¢. p. 167. Clb Dita Te 

6 Muir, of. czt. Vv. 301. 2 Zimmer, of. cet. p. 418. Scherman, 

7 Rig-Veda, x. 14. 7 sq. Barth, Indische Vustonslitteratur, p. 123. 
op. cit. p. 22 sg. Macdonell, op. cet. dem, ‘Eine Art visionarer Hodllen- 
p. 165 sgq. schilderung aus dem indischen Mittel- 

8 Zimmer, <Adtzndisches Leben, p. alter,’ in Romanische Forschungen, v. 
410 sgg. Barth, op. cet. p. 23. Mac- 569, Oldenberg, of. czt. p. 537. 
donell, of. czt. p. 167 sg. 

or simply curses, to the effect that evil-doers may be 
thrown into deep ad dismal pits under the earth.' They 
do not imply that gods of their own accord punish 
wicked people after death. 

In post-Vedic times ritualism grew more important 
still. Sometimes the gods are represented as beings 
indifferent to every moral distinction, and the most 
indelicate stories are unscrupulously related of them.? In 
the Taittiriya Samhita of the Yajur Veda we are told that 
if anybody wishes to injure another, he need only say to 
Stirya, one of the most important among the solar deities,* 
‘¢ Smite such a one, and I will give you an offering,” and 
Surya, to get the offering, will smite him.* Civa, who is 
connected with the Vedic god Rudra, is in the Mahabha- 
rata clothed in terrible “‘ forms,” being armed with the 
trident and wearing a necklace of skulls; he exacts a 
bloody cultus, and is the chief of the mischievous spirits 
and vampires that frequent places of execution and burial 
grounds.? Vishnu, the other great god of Hinduism, 
though less fierce than Civa, is nevertheless, on one side 
of his character, an inexorable god;° and Krishna, as 
accepted by Vishnuism, is a crafty hero of a singularly 
doubtful moral character.” In Brahmanism religion is 
largely replaced by magic, the rites themselves are raised 
to the rank of divinities, the priests become the gods of 
gods.* And the point of view from which these man-gods 
look upon human conduct is expressed in the Satapatha 
Brahmana, where it is said that fees paid to priests are 
like sacrifices offered to other gods—those who gratify 
them are placed in a state of bliss.’ Ritual observances 
are essential for a man’s wellbeing both in this life and 
in the life to come, where paradise, hell, or transmigration 

1 Rig- Veda, iv. 5. 5; vii. 104.3, 11, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of 
17. Atharva-Veda, v. 19. 3, 12 S99. ; the Conception of God, p. 85. 

xil. 4. 3, 36. ® Barth, of. cz¢. pp. 159, 164. 
: arch, op. cit. p. 46 sg. Macdonell, iy (71 fa as 1. 
op. cit. p. 76. © Mitfeh, 1 UA 
3 Barth, of. czt. p. 20. 8 Supra, ii. 657. 
4 Tatttiriya Samhitd, vi. 4 sqq., 9 Satapatha Bradhmana, ii. 2. 2. 6. 

quoted by Goblet d’Alviella, Azbber¢ 

a 

awaits the dead. In the Brahmanas immortality, or at 
least longevity, is promised to those who rightly under- 
stand and practise the rites of sacrifice, whilst those who 
are deficient in this respect depart before their natural 
term of life to the next world, where they are weighed in 
a balance and receive good or evil according to their 
deeds.1_ To repeat sacred texts a certain number of times 
is also laid down as a condition of salvation,’ and the 
doctrine is gradually developed that a single invocation 
of the divine name cancels a whole life of iniquity and 
crime. Hence the importance attached—as early as the 
Bhagavad Gita—to the last thought before death, and the 
idea of attaining complete possession of this thought by 
an act’ of “suicide.® According to “the Puranasieitests 
sufficient even in the case of the vilest criminal, when at 
the point of death, to pronounce by chance some syllables 
of the names Vishnu or Civa in order to obtain salvation ; * 
and in the preface to the Prem Sagar, which displays the 
religion of the Hindus at the present day, it is said that 
those who even ignorantly sing the praises of the greatness 
of Krishn Chand are rewarded with final beatitude, just 
as a person would acquire eternal life by partaking of the 
drink of immortality though he did not know what he 
was drinking.” On the other hand, ‘according to the 
Hindu Scriptures, whatever a man’s life may have been, 
if he do not die near some holy stream, if his body is not 
burned on its banks, or at any rate near some water as a 
representative of the stream ; or where this isimpracticable, 
if some portion of his body be not thrown into it—his 
spirit must wander in misery, unable to obtain the bliss 
for which he has done and suffered so much in life.”® At 
the same time we also find a great variety of social duties 

1 Weber, ‘Eine Legende des Cata- 3 Bhagavad Gitd, ch. 8. Barth, of. 
patha-Brahmana iiber die strafende zt. p. 228. 
Vergeltung nach dem Tode,’ in 4 Barth, of. cz¢. p. 228. 
Zeitschr. ad. Deutschen Morgenlindt- 5 Prem Sdgar, p. 56. Cf. Wilson, 

schen Gesellsch. ix. 238 sg. See also in Vish#u Purdna, p. 210, n. 13; 
Macdonell, of. cz¢. p. 168; Hopkins, dem, ‘ Religious Sects of the Hindus,’ 

op. ctt. pp. 190, 193; Vishnu Purdia, in Asiatic Researches, xvi. 115. 
44. s § Wilkins, Modern Hinduism, p. 
* Aitareya Brahmanam, ii. 17. 439 5g. 

| 

LI MORALITY eens 

inculcated in the sacred books of India—humanity even to 
enemies* and slaves,’ filial piety,® charity,‘ hospitality,” 
veracity ;° and in the Sitras the doctrine appears that in 
order to obtain the chief fruit of sacrifice it is necessary to 
practise the moral virtues in addition to the rite.’ But 
this doctrine is singularly free from any reference to the 
justice of gods. In the Upanishads and Buddhistic books 
it is distinctly formulated in the idea of karma, according 
to which each act of the soul, good or bad, inevitably and 
naturally works out its full effect to the sweet or bitter 
end without the intervention of any deity to apportion 
the reward or punishment.§ 

Buddha did not base his system on any belief in gods, 
hence there is no place in it for a ritual nor for sin 
in the sense of offending a supernatural being. He 
that is pure in heart is the true priest, not he that knows 
the Vedas ; the Vedas are nothing, the priests are of no 
account, save as they be morally of repute.® If the 
genuine Buddhist can be said to worship any higher 
power, it is the moral order which never fails to assert 
itself in the law of cause and effect. But Buddha’s 
followers were less metaphysical, and “the clouds 
returned after the rain.” The old gods of Brahmanism 
came back, Buddha himself was deified as an omniscient 
and everlasting god, and Buddhism incorporated most 
of the local deities and demons of those nations it 
sought to convert.’? From being originally a metaphysical 
and ethical doctrine, it was thus transformed into a 
religion full of ritualism, and, it should be added, 
profusely mixed with magic. In Lamaism, especially, 

1 Supra, i. 342. 301. Dhammapada, i. 1 sg. Rhys 

2 Supra, i. 689. Davids, Hibbert Lectures on the History 

3 Supra, i. 612. of Buddhism, p. 85.  Oldenberg, 

4 Supra, i. 550 5g. Buddha, p. 289. Hopkins, op. cit. 

5 Supra, i. 578 5g. Pp. 319 sg. 

6 Supra, il. 91. 9 Hopkins, of. c’t. p. 319. 

7 Barth, op. cet. p. 49. See, €.8., 0 Waddell, Buddhism in Tibet, pp. 
A pastamba, i. 7. 20. I sgq.3 i. 8. TZO3N 0325) Sen Grittis, Religions of 
2200: Japan, pp. 187, 207. Davis, China, 

8 Barth, of. czt. pp. 77, 78, 115 sg. il. SI. 

Miiller, Azthropological Religion, p., 

ritual is elevated to the front rank of importance; we 
find there pompous services closely resembling those of 
the Church of Rome, litanies and chants, offerings and 
sacrifice! And the muttering of certain mystic formulas 
and short prayers is alleged to be far more efficacious than 
mere moral virtue as a means of gaining the glorious 
heaven of eternal bliss, the paradise of the fabulous 
Buddha of boundless light.2 So also in China the 
teachers of Buddhism “were by no means rigorous in 
enforcing the obligations of men to morality. To 
expiate sins, offerings to the idols and to the priests 
were sufficient. A temple built in honour of Fd, and 
richly endowed, would suffice to blot out every stain 
of guilt, and serve as a portal to the blessed mansions of 
Buddhas 

In the national religion of China the heaven god, 
Shang-te, is the supreme being, the creator and sovereign 
ruler of the universe, whose power knows no bounds, 
and whose sight equally comprehends the past, the 
present, and the future, penetrating even to the remotest 
recesses of the heart.‘ He is the author and upholder 
not only of the physical but of the moral order of the 
world, watching over the conduct of men, rewarding 
the good, and punishing the wicked.° Sometimes he 
appears to array himself in terrors, as in the case of 
public calamities and the irregularity of the seasons ; 
but these are only salutary warnings intended to call 
men to repentance.° The cult which is offered Shang-te 
is frigid and ceremonial. The rules of ceremony have 
their origin in heaven, and the movement of them 

1 Waddell, of. czt. 421, 476. ctantsm and Taouism, pp. 77, 82. 

2 Jbid. pp. 142, 148, 573. 5 Doolittle, Soczal Life of the Chinese, 

3 Gutzlaff, quoted by Davis, of. cet. ii. 272. Legge, Chinese Classics, i. 98 ; 
il. 51. Cf Edkins, Religion in China, iil. 46. Smith, Proverbs of the Chinese, 

p-. 150. p- 40. Boone, Essay on the proper 
* Legge, Votions of the Chinese rendering of the Words Elohim and 
concerning God, pp. 33, 34, 100 sg.  @€os into the Chinese Language, p. 55. 

Idem, Chinese Classics, i. 98. Staunton, Judo®Chinese Gleaner, i. 162. Davis, 
Inquiry tnto the proper Mode of render- op. cit. ii. 26, 34. Douglas, of. cit. 
ing the Word ** God” in translating pp. 77, 78, 83. 

the Sacred Scriptures tnto the Chinese ® Staunton, op. cit. p. 9. Legge, 
Language, p. 8 sg. Douglas, Confu- Chinese Classics, iii. 46 sg. 

Meme Ore ee 

reaches to earth; their abandonment leads to “the ruin 
of states, the destruction of families, and the perishing 
of individuals.”* The Chinese are inclined to place 
ritualism on an equality with social morality. Confucius 
~ himself humbly submitted to the rules of ceremony, 
although he denounced hypocrisy. But to him morality 
was infinitely more important than religion. He 
altogether avoided the personal term God, and made only 
use of the abstract term Heaven. He admitted that 
spiritual beings exist, and even sacrificed to them,? but 
when questioned about matters relating to religion he was 
systematically silent.? Religious duties occupy a very 
insignificant place in his system. “To give one’s self 
earnestly to the duties due to men, and, while respecting 
spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called 
wisdom.” * Prayer is unnecessary because Heaven does 
not actively interfere with the soul of man; it has 
endowed him at his birth with goodness, which, if he 
will, may become his nature, and the reward or punish- 
ment is only the natural or providential result of his 
conduct.’ Of punishments in a future life Confucius says 
nothing, though he maintains that there are rewards 
and dignity for the good after death.° The belief of 
the Chinese in fost mortem punishments comes from 
Buddhism.’ 

The gods of ancient Greece were on the whole beneficent 
beings, who conferred blessings upon those who secured 
their goodwill. Zeus protects the life of the family, city, 
and nation ; he is a god of victory and victorious peace, 
who gathers the hosts against Troy, and saves Greece from 
Persia ; he brings the ships to land ; he is “the warder off 
of evil.”* But neither he nor the other gods bestow their 

1 [2 KZ, vii. 4. 5 Sg. 115, 299 sg. Reéville, of. cet. p. 345. 
2 un Vu, Wl, 12. 1 5) X, 6. 10. 1 Indo-Chinese Gleaner, iii. 288. 
3 Jbid. vii. 20. Cf. Réville, Za Edkins, of. cet. pp. 83, 87 sgg. Smith, 

religion chinotse, p. 320. 

4 [Tun Vu, vi. 20. 

5 Douglas, of. cit. p. 78. 
Relisions of China, p. 300. 
op. ctt. p. 645. ; 

6 Legge, Religions of China, pp. 

Legge, 
Réville, 

Proverbs of the Chinese, p. 227. 

8 Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, 
i. 59-61, 83, 107. Vischer, A7ezne 
Schriften, il. 352 sg. Preller, Grze- 
chische Mythologie, i. 146 sqq. 

favours for nothing ; Xenophon says that they assist with 
good advice those who worship them regularly,’ but take 
revenge on those who neglect them.? They punish severely 
even offences committed against them accidentally,’ and not 
infrequently they Hes actual malevolence towards men by 
seducing Bucy into sin * or inflicting harm upon them out of 
sheer envy.’ In other respects, also, they are by no means 
models of morality ; but this does not prevent them from 
acting as administrators of justice any more than, among 
men, a judge is supposed to lose all regard for justice be- 
cause he himself transgresses the rules of morality in some 
particular of private life.© ‘‘ For great crimes,” says Hero- 
dotus, “great punishments at the hands of the gods are in 
store.” " Dike, or Justice, the terrible virgin— who 
breathes against her enemies a destructive wrath,” * is repre- 
sented sometimes as the daughter, sometimes as the compan- 
ion of the all-seeing Zeus ;° and, as Welcker observes, Zeus 
was not only a god among other gods, but also the deity 
solely and abstractedly." We have noticed above that from 
ancient times the murder of a kinsman was an offence 
against Zeus and under the ban of the Erinyes, and that 
later on all bloodshed, if the victim had any rights at all 
within the city, became a sin which needed purification." Zeus 
protected guests and suppliants,” he punished children who 
reproached their aged parents,’ he was a guardian of the 
family property,“* he protected boundaries,” he was no friend 
of falsehood,” he punished perjury.” According to earlier 
beliefs retribution was exclusively restricted to this earthly 

1 Xenophon, Aipparchicus, ix. 9. 7 Herodotus, ii. 120. 
Idem, Cyropedia, i. 6. 46. 8 Aeschylus, Choephore, 949 sqq. 

2 Idem, Anabasts, v. 3. 133 Vil. ® Jbid. 949. Hesiod, Opera et dies, 
Sh. Ze 256 (254). Usener, Gotternamen, p. 

3 Nagelsbach, Dze machhomerische 197. Farnell, of. ctt. i. 71. Darme- 
Theologie des griechischen Volksglau-  steter, Essats orientaux, p. 106 sq. 

bens, p. 331 5qq. EO Welcker, Griechische Gotterlehre, 
4 Schmidt, Dze thik der alten i. 181. 

Griechen, i. 231 sqq. ll Supra, i. 379. 
5 [bid. i. 79 sqq. 12 Supra, i. 579, 585 

6 Cf. Nagelsbach, Homerische Theo- 13 Supra, i. 624. 
logie, pp. 288, 317 sgg. 3 Schmidt, of. if “Supra, ii. 60. 
cit. 1. 48 sgg.; Maury, Histoire des Supra, ii. 61. 
religions de la Gréce antique, i. 342; 16 Spray Ay 110: 
Gladstone, Studzes on Homer, i. 384. 2S STi sty TOK 

ac ay (lal Os SO 

hf. 

Ath a dat) aN 

LI MORALITY vans 
existence, and if the guilty person himself escaped the 
punishment for his deed it fell on some of his descendants.! 
The transference of Menelaus to the Elysian plain, spoken 
of in the Odyssey,’ was not a reward for his virtue—in- 
deed, he was not particularly conspicuous for any of the 
Homeric virtues—but a privilege resulting from his being 
married to Zeus’ daughter Helena ;* and if the perjurer 
was tortured in Hades * the simple reason was that he had 
called down upon himself such torture in his oath. In 
later times we meet with the doctrine of retribution after 
death, not only in the speculations of isolated philosophers, 
but as a popular belief ;° but this belief seems to have been 
quite unconnected with any notion of Olympian justice.’ 
The souls in the world beyond the grave are sentenced by 
special judges ;* Aeschylus expressly says that it is another 
Zeus that administers justice there.® For him Hades with 
the powers by which it is governed exists only as a place 
where the guilty are punished, whereas for the virtuous he 
has no word of true hope ;"° and other writers also have much 
more to tell about future punishments than about future 
rewards." Particularly prominent among the offences which 
are punished in Hades are, besides perjury,” injuries to 
parents * and guests,* that is, offences which in this world 
are visited with the most powerful curses.’? According to 
Aeschylus, the retribution which the Erinyes—personifica- 
tions of curses—have begun on earth is completed in the 
nether world, and according to Pythagoras unpurified souls 
are kept chained there by the Erinyes without any hope of 
escape.'° We are, moreover, told that painters used to re- 
present allegorical figures of curses in connection with their 

0 Cf. Westcott, Essays in the History 
of Religious Thought, p. 87. 

U Schmidt, of. czt. i. IOI sg. 

12 Aristophanes, Rane, 150, 275. 

1 Supra, i. 49 Sg. 

2 Odyssey, iv. 561 sgq. 

3 Cf. Rohde, Psyche, p. 74. 

4 [liad, iii. 278 sg. 3 xix. 259 sg. 

5 Cf. Rohde, of. czt. p. 60. 

6 Schmidt, of. czt. 1. 99 sgg. Nigels- 
Theologie, p. 

bach, Machhomerische 
35, 89- ; oil x 

7 Cf. Schmidt, of. cét, i. 104. 
8 Jbid. i. 101. 

9 Aeschylus, Szpplices, 230 sg. 

13 Aeschylus, wmenides, 175, 267 
599-) 335 Sgg. Pausanias, x. 28. 4 sg. 
Aristophanes, Ran@, 147-150, 274. 

14 Aeschylus, Humenides, 209 sg. 
Aristophanes, Rane, 147 sg. 

5 See supra, i. 584 syg., 621 sq. 

16 Diogenes Laertius, De vitis philo- 
sophorum, Vill. 1. 31. 

images of wicked dead. From all these facts I conclude 
that the notion of punishments in Hades did not arise 
from a belief in the justice of gods, but from the idea that 
the efficacy of a curse may extend beyond the grave—an 
idea which we have already met with both in Vedic texts 
and among certain savages, and of which the supposed pun- 
ishment of perjury in Hades is only a particular instance.” 
As for the gods it should be added that the vulgar opinion 
of their character was not shared by all. Euripides affirms 
that the legends about them which tend to confuse human 
ideas as to right and wrong are not literally true.* “I 
think,”’ he says, “that none of the gods is bad”’ ; * “if the 
gods do aught that is base, they are not gods.”* Plato op- 
poses the popular views that the deity induces men to 
commit crimes,® that he is capable of feeling envy,’ and 
that evil-doers may avert divine punishments by sacrifices 
offered to the gods as bribes.* God is good, he is never the 
author of evil to any one, and if the wicked are miser- 
able the reason is that they require to be punished and are 
benefited by receiving punishment from God.’ Plutarch 
likewise asserts in the strongest terms that God is perfectly 
good and least of all wanting in justice and love, “the most 
beautiful of virtues and the best befitting the Godhead.” 

The gods of the Romans were on the whole unsympa- 
thetic and lifeless beings, some of them even actually 
pernicious, as the god of Fever, who had a temple on the 

Palatine hill, and the 
on the Esquiline hill. 

1 Demosthenes (?), Contra Aristo- 
gitonem oratto I, 52. 

2 The Arabs of the Ulad Bu ‘Aziz in 
Southern Morocco maintain that there 
are three classes of persons who are 
infalliibly doomed to hell, namely, those 
who have been cursed by their parents, 
those who have been guilty of unlawful 
homicide, and those who have burned 
corm. ‘They say that every grain curses 
him who burns it. 

3 Cf. Westcott, of. czt. p. 104. 

4 Euripides, /phzgenta tn Tauris, 
391. 

god of Ill-Fortune, who had an altar 
The relations between the gods 

5 Idem, Bellerophon, 17 (Fragmenta, 
300). 

6 Plato, Respublica, ii. 379 sg. 

uf Idem, Phedrus, p. 247. 
Timeus, p. 29. 

8 Idem, Respublica, ii. 364 sqqg. Idem, 
Leges, X. 905 sgg. ; xii. 948. 

9 Idem, Respublica, ii. 379 sg. Cf. 
Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 176 sqqg. 

10 Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum, 
24. See also /dem, De adulatore et 
amico, 22. 

1 Cicero, De 
20. 

Lden, 

natura deorunt, ili. 

and their worshippers were cold, ceremonial, legal. The 
chief thing was not to break “the peace of the gods,” or, 
when it was broken, to restore it.) They were rendered 
propitious by “sanctity” and ‘“piety.”? But sanctity 
was defined as “the knowledge of how we ought to 
worship them,” and piety was only ‘justice towards the 
gods,” the return for benefits received; Cicero asks, 
‘What piety is due to a being from whom you receive 
nothing?” ° The divine law, fas, was distinguished from 
the human law, jus. To the former belonged not only 
the religious rites but the duties to the dead, as also the 
duties to certain living individuals.* Offences against 
parents were avenged by the divi parentum;° the duty of 
hospitality was enforced by the dii hospitales and Jupiter ; ° 
boundaries were protected by Jupiter Terminalis and 
Terminus ;’ and Jupiter, Dius Fidius, and Fides, were 
the guardians of sworn faith.® 

The god of Israel was a powerful protector of his chosen 
people, but he was a severe master who inspired more fear 
than love. In the pre-prophetic period at least, he was no 
model of goodness. He had unaccountable moods, his 
wrath often resembled “rather the insensate violence of 
angered nature, than the reasonable indignation of a 
moralised personality” *—as appears, for instance, from 
the suggestion of David that Saul’s undeserved enmity 
might be due to the incitement of God.” At the same 
time his severity was also a guardian of human relation- 
ships. It turned against children who were disrespectful 
to their parents, against murderers, adulterers, thieves, 
false witnesses—indeed, the whole criminal law was a 
revelation of the Lord. He was moreover a protector of 

8 Supra, i. 580. 
7 Supra, i. 61. 
8 Supra, li. 96, 121 sg. Wissowa, 

1 Leist, Greco-italische  Rechtsge- 
schichte, p. 219 sgg. Granger, Worship 

of the Romans, p. 217. 

2 Cicero, De offictis, ii. 3. 

3 Idem, De natura deorum, i. 41. 

4 On the distinction between fas and 
jus see von Jhering, Geist des 
romischen Rechts, 1. 258. 

5 Supra, i. 624. 

Religion und Kultus der Romer, pp. 
48, 103, 104, 123 sg. 

9 Montefiore, Wzbdert Lectures on the 
Religion of the Ancient Hebrews, p. 

3°- , 
10 7 Samuel, xxvi. 19. 

the poor and needy,’ and a preserver of strangers.” But 
offences against God were, in the Ten Commandments, 
mentioned before offences against man; religious rites 
were put on the same level with the rules of social 
morality ; neglect of circumcision, or disregard of the 
precepts of ceremonial cleanliness, or sabbath-breaking, 
was punished with the same severity as the greatest 
crimes.® ‘To the ordinary man,” says Wellhausen, “it 
was not moral but liturgical acts that seemed to be truly 
religious.” * A different opinion, however, was expressed 
by the Prophets. They opposed the vice of the heart to 
the outward service of the ritual.’ God was said by them 
to desire not sacrifice but mercy,° and to hate the hypo- 
critical service of Israel with its feast-days and solemn 
assemblies ;’ and the true fast was declared to consist in 
moral welldoing.* ‘To them righteousness was the funda- 
mental virtue of Yahveh, and if he punished Israel his 
anger was no longer a merely fitful outburst, unrelated to 
Israel’s own wrongdoing, but an essential element of his 
righteousness.” Fflowever, as M. Halévy observes, the 
truly national conceptions of the Hebrews were not those 
which the Prophets maintained, but those which they 
opposed.” The importance of ritual was more than ever 
emphasised in the post-prophetic priestly code. 

The opposition against ritualism which was started by 
the Prophets reached its height in Christ. Men are defiled 
not by external uncleanness, but by evil thoughts and evil 
deeds." ‘It is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.” ” 
Those whose righteousness does not exceed that of the 
scribes and Pharisees shall not enter into the kingdom of 
heaven.” ‘The first and great commandment is that which 

1 Supra, i. 552, 505. 8 Jsaiah, lviii. 6 sq. 
2 Supra, i. 580. ® Cf. Montefiore, of. cet. p. 122 sg. 
3 Montefiore, of. cet. pp. 327, 470. 10 Halévy, Jélanges de critique et 
Kuenen, Relzgzon of Israel, ii. 276. @histoire relatifs aux peuples sémt- 
4 Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the tigues, p. 371. 
History of Israel, p. 468. 1 St, Matthew, xv. 19 sq. St. Mark, 
5 Cf. Caird, Evolution of Religion, vii. 6 sqq. 
1G TE), 2 St. Matthew, xii. 12. 
6 Ffosea, vi. 6. 13 Tbid. v. 20. 

7 Amos, V. 21 Sqq. 

enjoins love to God, but the second, according to which a 
man shall love his neighbour as himself, “is like unto it.”’! 
At the same time there are in the New Testament passages 
in which God’s judgment of men seems to be represented 
as determined by theological dogma.” The only sin which 
can never be forgiven either in this world or in the world 
to come, is blasphemy against the Holy Ghost ;* and the 
belief in Jesus is laid down as indispensable for salvation.* 
According to St. Paul, a man is justified by faith alone, 
without the deeds of the law.° This doctrine, which makes 
man’s salvation dependent upon his acceptance of the 
Messiahship of Jesus, has had a lasting influence upon 
Christian theology, and has, together with certain other 
dogmas, led to that singular discrepancy between the 
notions of divine and human justice which has up to the 
present day characterised the chief branches of the Christian 
Church. 

Some of the early Fathers maintained that the interference 
and suffering of Christ, in itself, unconditionally saved all 
souls and emptied hell for ever ;° but this theory never 
became popular. According to St. Augustine and, 
subsequently, Calvinian theology, the benefits of the 
atonement are limited to those whom God, of his sovereign 
pleasure, has from eternity arbitrarily elected, the effect of 
faith and conversion being not to save the soul, but simply 
to convince the soul that it is saved. A third theory— 
that of Pelagius, Armenius, and Luther—attributes to the 
sufferings of Christ a conditional efficacy, depending upon 
personal faith in his vicarious atonement, whereas those 
who for some reason or other do not possess such faith are 
excluded from salvation. A fourth doctrine, which early 
began to be constructed by the Fathers and was adopted 
by the Roman Catholic and the consistent portion of the 
Episcopalian Church, declares that by Christ’s vicarious 
1 St. Matthew, xxii. 37 599. 18, 36; vili. 24. 

2 Toy, Judaism and Christianity, p. 5 Romans, iii. 28. 
sq: 6 Alger, History of the Doctrine of a 
8 St. Matthew, xii. 31 sg. St. Future Life, pp. 550-552, 563. 

Mark, iii. 28 sq. Farrar, Mercy and Judgment, p. 58 
4 St. Mark, xvi. 16. St. John, ili. Sg. 

suffering power is given to the Church, a priestly hierarchy, 
to save those who confess her authority and observe her 
rites, whilst all others are lost. Certain sectarians, like 
the Unitarians, or those ‘liberal Christians” who do not 
feel themselves tied by the dogmas of any special creed, 
are the only ones among whom we meet with the opinion 
that a free soul, who by the immutable laws which the 
Creator has established may choose between good and evil, 
is saved or lost just so far and so long as it partakes of 
either the former or the latter.? 

According to the leading doctrines of Christianity, then, 
the fates of men beyond the grave are determined by quite 
other circumstances than what the moral consciousness by 
itself recognises as virtue or vice. They are all doomed to 
death and hell in consequence of Adam’s sin, and their 
salvation, if not absolutely predestined, can only be effected 
by sincere faith in the atonement of Christ or by valid re- 
ception of sacramental grace at the hands of a priest. 
Persons who on intellectual or moral grounds are unable 
to accept the dogma of atonement or to acknowledge the 
authority of an exacting hierarchy, are subject to the most 
awful penalties for a sin committed by their earliest 
ancestor, and so are the countless millions of heathen who 
never even had an opportunity to embrace the Christian 
religion. Luther was considered to have shown an 
exceptional boldness when he expressed the hope that ‘‘ our 
dear God would be merciful to Cicero, and to others like 
him.”? In the Westminster Confession of Faith the 
Divines declared the opinion that men not professing 
Christianity may be saved to be “‘ very pernicious, and to 
be detested’’;* and in their Larger Catechism they ex- 
pressly said that “they who, having never heard the gospel, 
know not Jesus Christ, and believe not in him, cannot be 
saved, be they never so diligent to frame their lives 
according to the light of nature, or the laws of that religion 
which they profess.” * This doctrine has had many ad- 

1 Alger, of. cit. p. 553 5gq. 4 Larger Catechism, Answer to 

2 Farrar, of. cet. p. 146. Question 60. 
3 Confession of Faith, x. 4. 

™ i 

LI MORALITY jee 
herents up to the present time,’ although a more liberal 
view in favour of virtuous heathen has obviously been 
gaining ground.” Even in the case of Christians errors in 
belief on such subjects as church government, the Trinity, 
transubstantiation, original sin, and predestination, have 
been declared to expose the guilty to eternal damnation.® 
In the seventeenth century it was a common theme of 
certain Roman Catholic writers that “Protestancy un- 
repented destroys salvation,” * while the Protestants on 
their part taxed Du Moulin with culpable laxity for 
admitting that some Roman Catholics might escape the 
torments of hell.? Nathanael Emmons, the sage of Franklin, 
tells us that ‘it is absolutely necessary to approve of the 
doctrine of reprobation in order to be saved.” ® 

Besides the heathen there is another large class of 
people whom Christian theology has condemned to hell for 
no fault of theirs, namely, infants who have died 
unbaptised. From a very early age the water of baptism 
was believed by the Christians to possess a magic power 
to wipe away sin,’ and since the days of St. Augustine 
it was deemed so indispensable for salvation that any 
child dying without “the bath of regeneration”? was 
regarded as lost for ever.* St. Augustine admitted that 
the punishment of such children was of the mildest sort,’ 
but other writers were more severe; St. Fulgentius 
condemned to “everlasting punishment in eternal fire” 
even infants who died in their mother’s womb.'° However, 

1 Farrar, op. cit. p. 146 sg. 

2 Prentiss, ‘Infant Salvation,’ in 
Presbyterian Review, iv. 576. For 
earlier instances of this opinion see 
Abbot, ‘ Literature of the Doctrine of 
a Future Life,’ forming an Appendix 
to Alger’s History of the Doctrine of a 
Future Life, pp. 859, 863, 865. 

3 Abbot, /oc. czt. p. 863. 

4 Wilson, Charity Mistaken, with 
the Want whereof Catholickes are 
unjustly charged, for affirming. 
that Protestancy unrepented destroys 
Salvation. 

5 Abbot, Joc. cit. p. 860. 

VOL. Il 

6 Emmons, Works, iv. 336. 

’ Tertullian, De baptismo, 1 sgq. 
(Migne, Patrologie cursus, 1. 1197 
sqgg.). Harnack, History of Dogma, 1. 
206 sg.; ll. 227. Stanley, Chréstzan 
Institutions, p. 16. Lewis, Paganism 
surviving in Christianity, pp. 72, 735 
129, 144 59. 

8 Bingham, Works, iii. 488 
Prentiss, Joc. czt. p. 549. 

® St. Augustine, De feccatorum 
meritts et remissione, 1. 16 (Migne, of. 
cit. xliv. 16). 

10 St. Fulgentius, De fide, 27 (Migne, 
op. ctt. \xv. 701). 

Sqq. 

a 

the notion that unbaptised children will be tormented, 

gradually gave way to a more humane opinion. In the 
middle of the twelfth century Peter Lombard determined 
that the proper punishment of original sin, when no 
actual sin is added to it, is “the punishment of loss,” 
that is, loss of heaven and the sight of God, but not 
“the punishment of sense,’ that is, positive torment. 
This doctrine was confirmed by Innocentius III. and 
shared by the large majority of the schoolmen, who 
assumed the existence of a place called limbus, or infernus 
puerorum, where unbaptised infants will dwell without 
being subject to torture." But the older view was again 
set up by the Protestants, who generally maintained that 
the due punishment of original sin is, in strictness, 
damnation in hell, although many of them were inclined 
to think that if a child dies by misfortune before it is 
baptised the parents’ sincere intention of baptising it, 
together with their prayers, will be accepted with God for 
the deed.” In the Confession of Augsburg the Anabap- 
tistic doctrine is emphatically condemned ;* and although 
Zwingli rejected the dogma that infants dying without 
baptism are lost, and Calvin, in harmony with his theory 
of election, refused to tie the salvation of infants to 
an outward rite, the necessity of baptism as the ordinary 
channel of receiving grace appears to have been a general 
belief in the Reformed churches throughout the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries... The damnation of infants 
was in fact an acknowledged doctrine of Calvinism,’ 
though an exception was made for the children of pious 
parents.” But in the latter part of the eighteenth 
century Toplady, who was a vehement Calvinist, avowed 

‘a 

1 Wall, Aestory of Infant-Baptism, 
i. 460 sg. 

2 Jbid. i. 462, 468. Luther and his 
followers, however, speak more 
doubtfully about the efficacy of the 
parents’ unrealised intention, and lay 
much stress on actual baptism (zézd. 1, 
400); a 
3 Augsburg Confession, i. 9. 
4 Prentiss, Zoc. ct. p. 550. 

5 Calvin, Jnstitutio Christiane re- 
lagionis, ~ iV. S05. 10, vol.) ii. )s7ie 
Norton, Zvacts concerning Christianity, 
PA79 Sg F 

§ Calvin, of. ct. iv. 16.°9, vol. ii. 
383 sg. Wall, of. czt. i. 469. Ander- 
son, ‘Introductory Essay,’ to Logan’s 
Words of Comfort for Parents bereaved 
of Little Children, p. xxi. 

i 

his belief in the universal salvation of all departed infants, 
whether baptised or unbaptised.'. And a hundred years 
later Dr. Hodge thought he was justified in stating that 
the common opinion of evangelical Protestants was that 
“Call who die in infancy are saved.”? The accuracy 
of this statement, however, seems somewhat doubtful. 
In 1883 Mr. Prentiss wrote of the doctrine of infant 
salvation independently of baptism :—‘“* My own im- 
pression is that, had it been taught as unequivocally in 
the Presbyterian Church even a third of a century ago, 
by a theologian less eminent than Dr. Hodge for 
orthodoxy, piety, and weight of character, it would have 
called forth an immediate protest from some of the more 
conservative, old-fashioned Calvinists.’ ® 

In order fully to realise the true import of the dogma 
of damnation it is necessary to consider the punishment 
in store for the condemned. The immense bulk of the 
Christians have always regarded hell and its agonies as 
material facts.* Origen, who was a Platonist and an 
heretic on many points, was severely censured for saying 
that the fire of hell was inward and of the conscience 
rather than outward and of the body ;° and in the later 
Middle Ages Scotus Erigena showed unusual audacity 
in questioning the locality of hell and the material 
tortures of the condemned.° The punishment is burning 
—a penalty which even in the most barbaric codes is 
reserved for the very gravest crimes; and some great 
divines, like Jeremy Taylor and Jonathan Edwards, 
have been anxious to point out that the fire of hell is 
infinitely more painful than any fire on earth, being 
“fierce enough to melt the very rocks and elements.” ‘ 
This awful punishment also exceeds in dreadfulness 
anything which even the most vivid imagination can 
conceive, because it will last not for a passing moment, 

1 Toplady, Works, p. 645 sg. 4 Alger, op. czt. p. 516. 
2 Hodge, Systematic Theology, i. Loud. p. 516. : ane 
26 sq. 6 Milman, History of Latin Christ- 
8 Prentiss, Joc. cit. p. 559. See also  zamzty, ix. 88, n.k. 
Anderson, Zoc. c2t. p. XXiil. 7 Alger, op. czt. p. 516 sg. 
By 2 

GODS AS GUARDIANS OF 

nor for a year or a hundred, thousand, million, or 
milliard years, but for ever and ever. In case any doubt 
should arise as regards the physical capacity of the 
damned to withstand the heat, we are assured by some 
modern theologians that their bodies will be annealed 
like glass or asbestos-like or of the nature of salamanders," 
This, then, is the future state of the large majority of 
men, quite independently of any fault of their own, 
or of the degree of their ‘“guilt.”” It would seem that 
even the felicity of the few who are saved must be 
seriously impaired by their contemplation of this endless 
and undescribable misery, but we are told that the case 
is just the reverse. They become as merciless as their 
god. Thomas Aquinas says that a perfect sight of the 
punishment of the damned is granted to them that they 
‘‘may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more 
richly.”*® And the Puritans, especially, have revelled 
in the idea that “the sight of hell torments will exalt the 
happiness of the saints for ever,’ as a sense of. the 
opposite misery always increases the relish of any 
pleasure.* 

In the present times there is a distinct tendency among 
Christian theologians to humanise somewhat the doctrines 
of the future life.° But if Christianity is to be judged 
from the dogmas which almost from its beginning until 
quite recent times have been recognised by the immense 
majority of its adherents, it must be admitted that its 

1 Alger, of. czt. pp. 518, 520. Cf. down to our times, shall be saved” 

St. Augustine, De Czvitate Det, xxi. 
2 sqq. 

2 For the numbers of souls supposed 
to be lost see Alger, of. cit. p. 530 sq. 
St. Chrysostom (/7 Acta Afpostolorum 
Homil. XXIV. 4 |Migne, of. czt. Ser. 
Graeca, lx. 189]) doubted whether out of 
the many thousands of souls constituting 
the Christian population of Antioch in 
his day one hundred would be saved. 
And at the end of the seventeenth 
century a History Professor at Oxford 
published a book to prove ‘‘ that not 
one ina hundred thousand (nay prob- 
ably not one in a million) from Adam 

(Du-Moulin, Moral Reflections upon the 
Number of the Elect, title page). 

3 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theo- 
logica, iil. Supplementum, qu. xciv. 

2 (Migne, of. cet. Ser. Secunda, iv. 
1393): 

4 Jonathan Edwards, Works, vii. 480. 
Alger, op. czt. p. 541. 

® Thus the doctrine of endless tor- 
ments is opposed by a considerable 
number of theologians (Alger, of. cét. 
p- 546), and, ‘‘if held, is not practi- 
cally taught by the vast majority of the 
rs clergy” (Stanley, of. cit. p. 
94). 

conception of a heavenly Father and Judge has been 
utterly inconsistent with all ordinary notions of goodness 
and justice. Calvin himself avowed that the decree 
according to which the fall of Adam involved, without 
remedy, in eternal death so many nations together with 
their infant children, was a “horrible” one. “But,” 
he adds, “ no one can deny that God foreknew the future 
final fate of man before he created him, and that he did 
foreknow it because it was appointed by his own decree.” ! 

Like Christianity, Muhammedanism adorns its godhead 
with the highest moral attributes and at the same time 
ascribes to him decrees and actions which flatly contradict 
even the most elementary notions of human justice. The 
god of Islam is addressed as the compassionate and merciful ; 
but his love is restricted to ‘‘ those who fear,” ? and his 
mercy can only be gained by that submissiveness or 
self-surrender which is indicated by the very name of 
Islam. He demands a righteous life, he punishes the 
wrongdoer and rewards the charitable. Through his 
Prophet he has revealed to mankind both the rules of 
morality and the elements of a social system containing 
minute regulations for a man’s conduct in various circum- 
stances of life, with due rewards or penalties according to 
his fulfilment of these regulations.* The whole constitu- 
tion of the State has on it a divine stamp; as an Arab 
proverb says, “country and religion are twins.”° But 
foremost among duties is to believe in God and _ his 
Prophet. ‘‘God,” it is said, “does not pardon polytheism 
and infidelity, but He can, if He willeth, pardon other 
crimes.” ° And the “ pillars of religion” are the five duties 
of reciting the Kalimah or creed, of performing the five 
stated daily prayers, of fasting —especially ; in the month of 
Ramadan,—of giving the legal alms, and of making the 
pilgrimage to Mecca.’ These dies are based on clear 

1 Calvin, of. cit. ili. 23. 7, vol. ii. 295 sg.; Lane-Poole, Studies in a 
151. Mosque, p. 101. 

2 Koran, ii. ie 5 Sell, Hazth of Lslim, pp. 19, 39. 

3 Supra, 1. 553 8 Jbid. p. 241. 

* Cf. Muir, Life of Mahomet, iii. Toda pees. 

GODS AS GUARDIANS OF 

sentences of the Koran, but the traditions have raised the 
most trivial ceremonial observances into duties of the 
greatest importance. It is true that hypocrisy and form- 
alism without devotion were strongly condemned by 
Muhammed. ‘“ Righteousness,” he said, “‘is not that ye 
turn your faces towards the East or the West, but 
righteousness is, one who believes in God, and the last day, 
and the angels, and the Book, and the prophets, and who 
gives wealth for His love to kindred, and orphans, and the 
poor, and the son of the road, and beggars, and those in 
captivity ; and who is steadfast in prayer, and gives alms ; 
and those who are sure of their covenant when they make 
a covenant; and the patient in poverty, and distress, 
and in time of violence ; these are they who are true, 
and these are those who fear.”’! Yet in Muham- 
medanism, as in other ritualistic religions, the chief 
importance is practically attached to the punctual perform- 
ance of outward ceremonies, and the virtue of prayer is 
made dependent upon an ablution.” In the future life the 
felicity or suffering of each person will be proportionate 
to his merits or demerits,® but the admittance into paradise 
depends in the first place on faith. ‘“ Those who believe, 
and act righteously, and are steadfast in prayer, and 
give alms, theirs is their hire with their Lord.” * Those 
who have acknowledged the faith of Islam and yet acted 

wickedly will be punished in hell for a certain period, 

but will finally enter paradise.® As regards the future 
state of certain infidels the Koran contains contradictory 
statements. In one place it is said, ‘ Verily, whether 
it be of those who believe, or those who are Jews or 
Christians or Sabaeans, whosoever believe in God and 

1 Koran, il. 172. 

2 Cf. Polak, Perszen, i. 9; Wallin, 
Reseanteckningar fran Orienten, iv. 

p. 228. The Mu‘tazilas, however, teach 
that the Muslim who enters hell will 
remain there for ever, They maintain 

284 sg. ; Sell, op. cz. p. 256. 

3 Lane, Manners and Customs of the 
Modern Egyptians, 1.95 sg. Sell, of. 
cit. p. 231. Lane-Poole, Studies in a 
Aiiosque, p. 319. 

4 Koran, ii. 277. 

5 Lane, op. ctt. 1. 95. Sell, of. cet. 

Ss 

that the person who, having committed 
great sins, dies unrepentant, though not 
an infidel, ceases to be a believer, and 
hence suffers as the infidels do, though 
the punishment is lighter than that 
which an infidel receives (Sell, of. céé. 
Pp. 229, 241). 

the last day and act aright, they have their reward 
at their Lord’s hand, and there is no fear for them, 
nor shall they grieve.”! But this passage is considered 
to have been abrogated by another where it is stated 
that whoso desires any other religion than Islam shall 
in the next world be among the lost. The punishments 
inflicted upon unbelievers are no less horrible than the 
torments of the Christian hell. Yet in one point the 
Muhammedan doctrine of the future life is more merciful 
than the dogmas of Christianity. The children of 
believers will all go to paradise, and the children of 
unbelievers are generally supposed to escape hell. Some 
think they will be in A‘raf, a place situated between 
heaven and hell ; whilst others maintain that they will be 
servants to the true believers in paradise.’ 

The formalism of Muhammedan orthodoxy has from 
time to time called forth protests from minds with deeper 
aspirations. The earlier Muhammedan mystics sought 
to impart life to the rigid ritual ;* and in the nineteenth 
century Babiism revolted against orthodox Islam, 
opposing bigotry and enjoining friendly intercourse with 
persons of all religions.° At present there are some 
liberal Muhammedans who set aside the scholastic 
tradition, maintain the right of private interpretation 
of the Koran, and warmly uphold the adaptability of 
Islam to the most advanced ideas of civilisation.© To 
them Muhammed’s mission was chiefly that of a moral 
reformer. ‘In Islam,” says Syed Ameer Ali, “the 
service of man and the good of humanity constitute 
pre-eminently the service and worship of God.’’’ 

In the next chapter I shall try to explain the chief 
facts now set forth relating to gods as guardians of 
worldly morality. 

1 Koran, il. 59. Mohammed, passim. Idem, Ethics of 
2 Tbid. iii. 79. Sell, of. cet. p. Lsldm, passim. Cf. Lane-Poole, Studies 

359 59. , in a Mosque, p. 324; Sell, of. cet. p. 
3 Sell, of. cit. p. 204 5g. 198 sq. “ ; 
<e/o7d.. pa L LO: 7 Ameer Ali, Ethics of Islim, p. 
5 bid. p. 136 sgq. 35g. Idem, Life and Teachings of 

6 Ameer Ali, Lzfe and Teachings of Mohammed, p. 274,

GODS AS GUARDIANS OF MORALITY (concluded) 

We have seen that the gods of uncivilised races are to 
a very large extent of a malevolent character, that they 
as a rule take little interest in any kind of human conduct 
which does not affect their own welfare, and that, if they 
show any signs of moral feelings, they may be guardians 
either of tribal customs in general or only of. some special 
branch of morality. Among peoples of a higher culture, 
again, the gods are on the whole benevolent to mankind, 
when duly propitiated. They by preference resent offences 
committed against themselves personally ; but they also 
avenge social wrongs of various kinds, they are superin- 
tendents of human justice, and are even represented as 
the originators and sustainers of the whole moral order 
of the world. ‘The gods have thus experienced a gradual 
change for the better ; until at last they are described as 
ideals of moral perfection, even though, when more closely 
scrutinised, their goodness and notions of justice are found 
to differ materially from what is deemed good and just in 
the case of men. 

The malevolence of savage gods is in accordance with 
the theory that religion is born of fear. The assumed 
originators of misfortunes were naturally regarded as 
enemies to be propitiated, whilst fortunate events, if 
attracting sufficient attention and appearing sufficiently 
marvellous to suggest a supernatural cause, were. com- 
monly ascribed to beings who were too good to require 

hie - 

worship. But growing reflection has a tendency to attri- 
bute more amiable qualities to the gods. The religious 
consciousness of men becomes less exclusively occupied 
with the hurts they suffer, and comes more and more to 
reflect upon the benefits they enjoy. The activity of a 
god which displays itself in a certain phenomenon, or 
group of phenomena, appears to them on some occasions 
as a source of evil, but on other occasions as a source of 
good ; hence the god is regarded as partly malevolent, 
partly benevolent, and in all circumstances as a being 
who must not be neglected. Moreover, a god who is by 
nature harmless or good may by proper worship be 
induced to assist man in his struggle against evil spirits.’ 
This protective function of gods becomes particularly 
important when the god is more or less disassociated from 
the natural phenomenon in which he originally manifested 
himself. Nothing, indeed, seems to have contributed 
more towards the improvement of nature gods than the 
expansion of their sphere of activity. When supernatural 
beings can exert their power in the various departments of 
life, men naturally choose for their gods those among them 
who with great power combine the greatest benevolence. 
Men have selected their gods according to their usefulness. 
Among the Maoris “a mere trifle, or natural casualty, 
will induce a native (or a whole tribe) to change his 
Atua.”* The negro, when disappointed in some of his 
speculations, or overtaken by some sad calamity, throws 
away his fetish, and selects a new one.’ When hard- 
pressed, the Samoyede, after having invoked his own 
deities in vain, addresses himself to the Russian god, 
promising to become his worshipper if he relieves him 
from his distress; and in most cases he is said to be 
faithful to his promise, though he may still try to keep 
on good terms with his former gods by occasionally 

1 yon Rosenberg, Der malayische Buch, ‘Die Wotjiken,’ in Acta Soc. 
Archipfel, p. 162 (Niase). Howard, Scient. Fennica, xii. 633. Supra, ii. 
Life with Trans-Siberian Savages, 701, 702, 704 sq. 

p- 192 (Ainu). Georgi, Russéa, ii. ? Polack, Manners and Customs of 
273 sg. (shamanistic peoples of Siberia). the New Zealanders, i. 233. 
3 Wilson, Western Africa, p. 212. 

offering them a sacrifice in secret.' North American 
Indians attribute all their good or bad luck to their 
Manitou, and “if the Manitou has not been favourable 
to them, they quit him without any ceremony, and take 
another.”? Among many.of the ancient Indians of 
Central America there was a regular and systematical 
selection of gods. Father Blas Valera says that their 
gods had annual rotations and were changed each year 
in accordance with the superstitions of the people. ‘The 
old gods were forsaken as infamous, or because they had 
been of no use, and other gods and eae were elected. 

. Sons when they inherited, either accepted or re- 
pudiated the gods of their fathers, for they were not 
allowed to hold their pre-eminence against the: will of 
the heir. Old men worshipped other greater deities, but 
they likewise dethroned them, and set up others in their 
places when the year was over, or the age of the world, 
as the Indians had it. Such were the gods which all the 
nations of Mexico, Chiapa, and Guatemala worshipped, as 
well as those of Vera Paz, and many other Indians. They 
thought that the gods selected by themselves were the 
greatest and most powerful of all the gods.”* These are 
crude instances of a process which in some form or other 
must have been an important motive force in religious 
evolution by making the gods better suited to meet the 
wants of their believers. 

But men not only select as their gods such supernatural 
beings as may be most useful to them in their struggle for 
life, they also magnify their good qualities in  wor- 
shipping them. Praise and exaggerating eulogy are common 
in the mouth of a devout worshipper. In ancient 
Egypt the god of each petty state was within it held to be 
the ruler of the gods, the creator of the world, and the 
giver of all good things.* So also in Chaldea the god of 

1 Ahlqvist, ‘Unter Wogulen und 3 Blas Valera, quoted by Garcilasso 
Ostjaken,’ in Acta Soc. Scient. Hennice, de la Vega, first Part of the Royal 
xiv. 240. Commentaries of the Yncas, i. 124 sq. 

2 Bossu, Zravels through Loudsiana, + Wiedemann, Religion of the 

p- 103. Frazer, Totemzsm, p. 55. Ancient Egyptians, p. 11. 

LII MORALITY aT 

a town was addressed by its inhabitants with the most ex- 
alted epithets, as the master or king of all the gods.'_ The 
Vedic poets were engrossed in the praise of the particular 
deity they happened to be invoking, exaggerating his attri- 
butes to the point of inconsistency.? ‘Every virtue, 
every excellence,” says Hume, “must be ascribed to the 
divinity, and no exaggeration will be deemed sufficient 
to reach those perfections with which he is endowed.” ® 
The tendency of the worshipper to extol his god beyond 
all measure is largely due to the idea that the god is fond 
of praise,* but it may also be rooted in a sincere will to 
believe or in genuine admiration. That nations of a 
higher culture have especially a strong faith in the power 
and benevolence of their gods is easy to understand when 
we consider that these are exactly the peoples who have 
been most successful in their national endeavours.’ As the 
Greeks attributed their victory over the Persians to the assist- 
ance of Zeus,°so the Romans maintained that the grandeur 
of their city was the work of the gods whom they had 
propitiated by sacrifices.’ 

The benevolence of a god, however, does not imply 
that he acts asa moral judge. A friendly god is not gene- 
rally supposed to bestow his favours gratuitously ; it is 
hardly probable, then, that he should meddle with matters of 
social morality out of sheer kindliness and of his own accord. 
But by an invocation he may be induced to reward virtue 
and punish vice. We have often noticed how closely the 
retributive activity of gods is connected with the 
blessings and curses of men. In order to give efficacy to 
their good or evil wishes men appeal to some god, or simply 
bring in his name when they pronounce a blessing or a 
curse ; and if this is regularly done in connection with 
some particular kind of conduct, the idea may grow up 
that the god rewards or punishes it even independently of 

1 Miirdter-Delitzsch, Geschichte Baby- 4 See supra, il. 653 sq. 
loniens und Assyriens, p. 24. 5 Cf. Oldenberg, Die Religion des 
2 Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, p. 16 Veda, p. 281; Macdonell, of. cz¢. p. 
sq. Barth, Religions of India, p. 26. 18. ¥ 
Hopkins, Religions of [ndia, p. 139. ° Supra, il. 713. ie 
3 Hume, Philosophical Works, iv. 353. 7 Cicero, De natura deorum, ili. 2, 

ee GODS AS GUARDIANS OF CHAP. 

any human invocation. Moreover, powerful curses, as 
those uttered by parents or strangers, may be personified as 
supernatural beings, like the Greek Erinyes ; or the magic 
energy inherent in a blessing or a curse may become an 
attribute of the chief god, owing to the tendency of such 
a god to attract supernatural forces which are in harmony 
with his general nature.’ So also, the notion ofa perse- 
cuting ghost may be changed into the notion of an aveng- 
ing god.? Various departments of social morality have 
thus come to be placed under the supervision of gods :— 
the rights of life*® and property,* charity ° and hospitality,° 
the submissiveness of children,’ truthspeaking and fidelity 
to a given promise.* That gods are so frequently looked 
upon as guardians of truth and good faith is, as we have 
seen, mainly a result of the common practice of confirming a 
statement or promise by an oath ; and where the oath is an 
essential element in the judicial proceedings, as was the 
case in the archaic State,” the-consequence is that the 
guardianship of gods is extended to the whole sphere of 
justice. Truth and justice are repeatedly mentioned hand 
in hand as matters of divine concern. We have seen how 
frequently the same gods as are appealed to in oaths or 
ordeals are described as judges-of human conduct." “ En 

Egypte,” says M. Amélineau, “la vérité et la justice 
n’avaient qu’un seul et méme nom, M4éy, qui veut aussi bien 
dire vérite que justice, et justice que vérité.” " Zeus presided 
over assemblies and trials ; ” according to a law of Solon, 
the judges of Athens had to swear by him.” And the Erin- 
yes, the personifications of oaths and curses, are sometimes 
represented by poets and philosophers as guardians of right 
in general.” . 

1 See supra, ii. 68. 10" ‘Supra, Ui. 125, 116, 121, 122, 686, 
2 Supra, i. 378 sq. 687, 699. 

3 Supra, i. 379 59g. 1 Amélineau, L’évolution des idées 
4 Supra, ii. 59 Sgq. morales dans [ Egypte ancienne, p. 187. 
> Supra, i. 561 sgg. See also supra, ii. 115, 699. 

8 Supra, i. 578 sqq. 12 Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, 
7 Supra, i. 621 sqq. i. 58. : 

8 Supra, il. 114 Sgq. 13 Pollux, Onxomasticumt, Vili. 12. 142. 
9 Leist,  Greco-ztalische  Rechtsge- 14 Rohde, Psyche, p. 246. 

schichte, p. 228. 

é 

LII MORALITY me 

It has been said that when men ascribe to their gods a 
mental constitution similar to their own they also eo ipso 
consider them to approve of virtue and disapprove of 
vice.’ But this conclusion is certainly not true in general. 
Malevolent gods cannot be supposed to feel emotions 
which essentially presuppose altruistic sentiments ; and, as 
we have just noticed, an invocation is frequently required 
to induce benevolent gods to interfere -with the worldly 
affairs of men. | Moreover, where the system of private 
retaliation prevails, not even the extension of human 
analogies to the world of supernatural beings would lead 
to the idea of a god who of his own accord punishes social 
wrongs. But it is quite probable that such analogies have 
in some cases made gods guardians of morality at large, 
especially ancestor gods who may readily be supposed not 
only to preserve their old feelings with regard to virtue 
and vice but also to take a more active interest in the 
morals of the living, and who are notoriously opposed to 
any deviation from ancient custom.’ I also admit that the 
conception of a great or supreme god may perhaps, inde- 
pendently of his origin, involve retributive justice as a 
natural consequence of his power and benevolence towards 
his people. Yet it is obvious that even a god like Zeus 
was more influenced by the invocation of a suppliant than 
by his sense of justice. Dr. Farnell points out that the 
epithets which designate him as the god to whom those 
stricken with guilt can appeal are far more in vogue in 
actual Greek cult than those which attribute to him the 
function of vengeance and retribution. Hermes was 
addressed by thieves as their patron.* According to the 
Talmud “the thief invokes God while he breaks into the 
house.” ° And the Italian bandit begs the Virgin herself 
to bless his endeavours, 

At the same time we must again remember that men 

1 Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Anthropology, p. 369; Macdonald, 
Sentiments, p. 2325g. Darwin, Descent LKeligion and Myth, p. 2209. 
of Man, p. 95. Tiele, Hlements of the 3 Farnell, of. cat. 1. 66 sq. 
Sctence of Religion, 1. 92 sq. 4 Schmidt, Die Lthik der alten 
2 See supra, i. 519 sg. Cf. Tylor,  Gyrzechen, i. 136. 
5 Deutsch, Lzterary Remains, p. 57. 

* 

ascribe to their gods not only ordinary human qualities 
but excellences of various kinds, and among these may 
also be a strong desire to punish wickedness and to reward 
virtue. The gods of monotheistic religions in particular 
have such a multitude of the most elevated attributes that 
it would be highly astonishing if they had remained 
unconcerned about the morals of mankind. If flattery 
and admiration make the deity all-wise, all-powerful, all- 
good, they also make him the supreme judge of human 
conduct. And there is yet another reason for investing 
him with the moral government of the world. The claims 
of justice are not fully satisfied on this earth, where it 
only too often happens that virtue is left unrewarded and 
vice escapes unpunished, that right succumbs and wrong 
triumphs ; hence persons with deep moral feelings and a 
religious or philosophical bent of mind are apt to look for 
a future adjustment through the intervention of the deity, 
who alone can repair the evils and injustices of the present. 
This demand of final retribution is sometimes so strongly 
developed that it even leads to the belief in a deity when 
no other proof of his existence is found convincing. 
Kant maintained that we must postulate a future life in 
which everybody’s happiness is proportionate to his virtue, 
and that such a postulate involves the belief in a God of 
infinite power, wisdom, and goodness who governs the 
moral as well as the physical world. Not even Voltaire 
could rid himself of the notion of a rewarding and avenging 
deity, whom, if he did not exist, “it would be necessary to 
invent.”’ 

The belief in a god who acts as .a guardian of worldly 
morality undoubtedly gives emphasis to its rules. To the 
social and legal sanctions a new one is added, which 
derives particular strength from the supernatural power 
and knowledge of the deity. The divine avenger can 
punish those who are beyond the reach of human justice and 
those whose secret wrongs even escape the censure of their 
fellow men. But on the other hand there are also certain 
circumstances which considerably detract from the influence 

= 

Lil MORALITY a8 

of the religious sanction when compared with other sanctions 
of morality. The supposed punishments and rewards of 
the future life have the disadvantage of being conceived as 
very remote ; and fear and hope decrease in inverse ratio to 
the distance of their objects. Men commonly live in the 
happy illusion that death is far off, even though it in 
reality is very near, hence also the retribution after death 
appears distant and unreal and is comparatively little 
thought of by the majority of people who believe in it. 
Moreover, there seems always to be time left for penance 
and repentance. Manzoni himself admitted, in his defence 
of Roman Catholicism, that many people think it an easy 
matter to procure that feeling of contrition by which, 
according to the doctrine of the Church, sins may be 
cancelled, and therefore encourage themselves in the 
commission of crime through the facility of pardon. The 
frequent assumption that the moral law would hardly 
command obedience without the belief in retribution 
beyond the grave is contradicted by an overwhelming 
array of facts. We hear from trustworthy witnesses that 
unadulterated savages follow their own rules of morality 
no less strictly, or perhaps more strictly, than civilised 
people follow theirs. Nay, it is a common experience 
that contact with a higher civilisation exercises a deterior- 
ating influence upon the conduct of uncultered races, 
although we may be sure that Christian missionaries do not 
fail to impart the doctrine of hell to their savage converts. 

It has also been noticed that a high degree of religious 
devotion is frequently accompanied by great laxity of 
morals. Of the Bedouins Mr. Blunt writes that, with 
one or two exceptions, “the practice of religion may be 
taken as the sure index of low morality in a tribe,’ 
Wallin, who had an intimate and extensive knowledge of 
Muhammedan peoples, often found that those Muslims 
who attended to their prayers most regularly were the 
greatest scoundrels.” ‘One of the most remarkable traits 

1 Mr. Blunt, in Lady Anne Blunt’s 2 Wallin,  Reseanteckningar fran 
Bedouin Tribes of the Huphrates,ii.217. Ortenten, i. 166. 

in the character of the Copts,” says Lane, “is their 
bigotry ” ; and at the same time they are represented as 
“deceitful, faithless, and abandoned to the pursuit of 
worldly gain, and to indulgence in sensual pleasure.” ' 
Among two hundred Italian murderers Ferri did not find 
one who was irreligious ; and Naples, which has the worst 
record of any European city for crimes against the person, 
is also the most religious city in Europe.” On the other 
hand, according to Dr. Havelock Ellis, “it seems extremely 
rare to find intelligently irreligious men in prison” ;°* 
and Laing, who himself was anything but sceptical, 
observed that there was no country in Europe where there 
was so much morality and so little religion as Switzer- 
land.* Most religions contain an element which consti- 
tutes a real peril to the morality of their votaries. They 
have introduced a new kind of duties—duties towards 
gods ;—and, as we have noticed above, even where religion 
has entered into close union with worldly morality, much 
greater importance has been attached to ceremonies or wor- 
ship or the niceties of belief than to good behaviour 
towards fellow men. People think that they may 
make up for lack of the latter by orthodoxy or pious 
performances. A Christian bishop of the seventh 
century, who. was canonised by the Church of Rome, 
described a good Christian as a man “who comes 
frequently to church ; who presents the oblation which is 
offered to God upon the altar ; who doth not taste of the 
fruits of his own industry until he has consecrated a part 
of them to God ; who, when the holy festivals approach, 
lives chastely even with his own wife during several days, 
that with a safe conscience he may draw near the altar of 
God 3 and who, in the last place, can repeat the Creed and 
the Lord’s Prayer.’’® A scrupulous observance of external 
ceremonies—that is all which in this description is required 

1 Lane, Manners and Customs of the 4 Laing, Motes of a Traveller, pp. 

Modern Egyptians, p. 551. 323, 324, 333. 
2 Havelock Ellis, Zhe Criminal, ° Robertson, Héstory of the Reign of 
p. 156. the Emperor Charles V. i, 282 sq. 

3 Jbid. p. 159. 

* 
By 

Lil MORALITY a3 

of a good Christian. And since then popular ideas on 
the subject have undergone but little change. Smollett 
observes in his * Travels into Italy’ that it is held more 
infamous to transgress the slightest ceremonial institution 
of the Church of Rome than to transgress any moral duty ; 
that a murderer or adulterer will be easily absolved by the 
Church, and even maintain his character in society ; but 
that a man who eats a pigeon on a Saturday is abhorred as 
a monster of reprobation.' In the nineteenth century 
Simonde de Sismondi could write :—‘Plus chaque homme 
vicieux a été régulier a observer les commandemens 
de I’Fglise, plus il se sent dans son cceur dispensé de 
Vobservation de cette morale céleste, a laquelle il faudroit 
sacrifier ses penchans dépravés.’”” And how many a 
Protestant does not imagine that by going to church on 
Sundays he can sin more freely on the six days between. 
It should also be remembered that the religious sanc- 
tion of moral rules only too often leads to an external 
observance of these rules from purely selfish motives. 
Christianity itself has, essentially, been regarded as a means 
of gaining a blessed hereafter. As for its influence upon 
the moral life of its adherents I agree with Professor 
Hobhouse that its chief strength lies not in its abstract 
doctrines but in the simple personal following of Christ.’ 
In moral education example plays a more important part 
than precept. But even in this respect Christianity has 
unfortunately little reason to boast of its achievements. 

1 Smollett, quoted by Kames, Sketches  républiques ttalrennes du moyen-dge, 

of the History of Man, wv. 380. Xvi. 419. , 
2 Simonde de Sismondi, Hestozre des 3 Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, ii. 

WiC leeme lil sy 18

CONCLUSION 

We have completed our task. Only a few words 
will be added to emphasise the leading features of our 
theory of the moral consciousness and to point out some 
general conclusions which may be drawn as regards 
its evolution. 

Our study of the origin and development of the moral 
ideas was divided into three main sections. As moral 
ideas are expressed in moral judgments, we had to 
examine the general nature of both the predicates and 
the subjects of such judgments, as well as the moral 
valuation of the chief branches of conduct with which 
the moral consciousness of mankind concerns itself. 
And in each case our aim was not only to describe or 
analyse but also to explain the phenomena which came 
under our observation. 

The theory was laid down that the moral concepts, 
which form the predicates of moral judgments, are ulti- 
mately based on moral emotions, that they are essentially 
generalisations of tendencies in certain phenomena to call 
forth either indignation or approval. It was therefore 
necessary for us to investigate the nature and origin of 
these emotions, and subsequently to consider their rela- 
tions to the various moral concepts. 

We found that the moral emotions belong to a wider 
class of emotions, which may be described as fetributues 
that moral disapproval is a kind of resentment, akin to 

Lhe MG Lae thee 

anger and revenge, and that moral approval is a kind of 
retributive kindly emotion, akin to gratitude. At the 
same time they differ from kindred non-moral emotions 
by their disinterestedness, apparent impartiality, and 
flavour of generality. As for the origin of the retributive 
emotions, we may assume that they have been acquired 
by means of natural selection in the struggle for exist- 
ence ; both resentment and retributive kindly emotion 
are states of mind which have a tendency to promote the 
interests of the individuals who feel them. This explan- 
ation also applies to the moral emotions in so far as they 
are retributive: it accounts for the hostile attitude of 
moral disapproval towards the cause of pain, and for the 
friendly attitude of moral approval towards the cause of 
pleasure. Our retributive emotions are always reactions 
against pain or pleasure felt by ourselves ; this holds 
true of the moral emotions as well as of revenge and 
gratitude. But how shall we explain those elements 
in the moral emotions by which they are distinguished 
from other, non-moral retributrve emotions? First, why 
should we, quite disinterestedly, feel pain evoking indig- 
nation because our neighbour is hurt, and pleasure 
calling forth approval because he is benefited ? 

We noticed that sympathy aided by the altruistic 
sentiment—sympathy in the common sense of the word 
—tends to produce disinterested retributive emotions. 
In all animal species which possess the altruistic senti- 
ment in some form or other we may be sure to find 
sympathetic resentment as its accompaniment. And this 
sentiment may also give rise to disinterested retributive 
kindly emotion, even though it is more readily moved by 
the sight of pain than by the sight of pleasure and 
though sympathetic retributive kindliness has a powerful 
rival in the feeling of envy. Moreover, sympathetic 
retributive emotions may not only be reactions against 
sympathetic pain or pleasure, but may also be directly 
produced by the cognition of the signs of resentment or 
of the signs of retributive kindliness. Punishments and 

Re ae? 

rewards tend to reproduce the emotions from which they 
sprang, and language communicates retributive emotions 
by terms of condemnation and by terms of praise. 
Finally, there are cases of disinterested retributive emo- 
tions into which sympathy does not enter at all— 
sentimental antipathies and paigee quite disinterested 
in character. 

There are thus various ways in which disinterested 
retributive emotions may originate. But how shall we 
explain the fact that disinterestedness together with 
apparent impartiality and the flavour of generality have 
become characteristics by which the so-called moral 
emotions are distinguished from other retributive emo- 
tions? To this question the following answer was 
given :—Society is the birthplace of the moral con- 
sciousness. ‘The first moral judgments expressed not 
the private emotions of isolated individuals but emotions 
which were felt by the community at large. Public 
indignation is the prototype of moral disapproval and 
public approval the prototype of moral approbation. And 
these public emotions are characterised by generality, 
individual disinterestedness, and apparent impartiality. 

The moral emotions give rise to a variety of moral 
concepts, which are in different ways connected with the 
emotions from which they were derived. Thus moral 
disapproval is at the bottom of the concepts bad, vice, 
and wrong, ought and duty, right and rights, justice Ai 
injustice ; whilst moral approval has led to the concepts 
good, virtue, and merit. It has, in particular, been of 
fundamental importance for the whole of our investiga- 
tion to recognise the true contents of the notions of 
ought and duty. If these concepts were unanalysable, as 
they have often been represented to be, any attempt to 
explain the origin and development of the moral ideas 
would, in my opinion, be a hopeless failure. 

From the predicates of moral judgments we proceeded 
to consider their subjects. Generally speaking, such 
judgments are passed on conduct or character, and 

allowance is made for the various elements of which 
conduct and character are composed in proportion as the 
moral judgment is scrutinising and enlightened. It is 
only owing to ignorance or lack of due reflection if, as is 
often the case, moral estimates are influenced by external 
events which are entirely independent of the agent’s will ; 
if individuals who are incapable of recognising any act x 
theirs as right or wrong are treated-as responsible beings ; 
if motives are completely or partially disregarded ; if little 
cognisance is taken of forbearances in comparison with 
acts; if want of foresight or want of self-restraint is 
overlooked when the effect produced by it is sufficiently 
remote. We were also able to explain why moral judg- 
ments are passed on conduct and character. ‘This is due 
to the facts that moral judgments spring from moral 
emotions ; that the moral emotions are retributive emo- 
tions ; that a retributive emotion is a reactive attitude of 
mind, either kindly or hostile, towards a living being (or 
something looked upon in the light of a living being), 
regarded as a cause of pleasure or as a cause of pain; and 
that a living being is regarded as a true cause of pleasure 
or pain only in so far as this feeling is assumed to be 
caused by its will. It is a circumstance of the greatest 
importance that not only moral emotions but non-moral 
retributive emotions are felt with reference to phenomena 
exactly similar in their general nature to those on which 
moral judgments are passed. How could we account for 
this remarkable coincidence unless the moral judgments 
were based on emotions and the moral emotions were 
retributive emotions akin to gratitude and revenge ? 

Our theory as to the nature of the moral concepts 
and emotions is further supported by another and very 
comprehensive set of facts. In our discussion of the 
particular modes of conduct which are subject to moral 
valuation and of the judgments passed on them by different 
peoples and in different ages, this theory has constantly 
been called in to explain the data before us. It is note- 
worthy that the very acts, forbearances, and omissions 

which are condemned as wrong are also apt to call forth 
anger and revenge, and that the acts and forbearances 
which are praised as morally good are apt to call forth 
gratitude. This coincidence, again, undoubtedly bears 
testimony both to the emotional basis of the moral 
concepts and to the retributive character of the moral 
emotions. Thus the conclusions arrived at in the first 
section of the work, while helping to explain the facts 
mentioned in the two other sections, are at the same time 
greatly strengthened by these facts. Any attempt to 
discover the nature and origin of the moral consciousness 
must necessarily take into account the moral ideas of 
mankind at large. And though painfully conscious of 
the incompleteness of the present treatise, I think I may 
confidently ask, with reference to its fundamental thesis, 
whether any other theory of the moral consciousness has 
ever been subjected to an equally comprehensive test. 

The general uniformity of human nature accounts for 
the great similarities which characterise the moral ideas of 
mankind. But at the same time these ideas also present 
radical differences. A mode of conduct which among one 
people is condemned as wrong is among another people 
viewed with indifference-or regarded as praiseworthy or 
enjoined as a duty. One reason for these variations lies 
in different external conditions. Hardships of life may 
lead to the killing of infants or abandoning of aged parents 
or eating of human bodies ; and necessity and the force of 
habit may deprive these actions of the stigma which would 
otherwise be attached to them. Economic conditions have 
influenced moral ideas relating, for instance, to slavery, 
labour, and cleanliness ; whilst the form of marriage and 
the opinions concerning it have been largely determined 
by such a factor as the numerical proportion between the 
sexes. But the most common differences of moral esti- 
mates have undoubtedly a psychical origin. 

When we examine the moral rules of uncivilised races 
we find that they ina very large measure resemble those 
prevalent among nations of culture. In every savage 

community homicide is prohibited by custom, and so is 
theft. Savages also regard charity as a duty and praise 
generosity as a virtue—indeed, their customs concerning 
mutual aid are often much more stringent than our own ; 
and many uncivilised peoples are conspicuous for their 
aversion to telling lies. But at the same time there is a 
considerable difference between the regard for life, 
property, truth, and the general wellbeing of a neighbour, 
which displays itself in primitive rules of morality and 
that which is found among ourselves. Savages’ prohibi- 
bitions of murder, theft, and deceit, as also their injunc- 
tions of charity and kind behaviour, have, broadly 
speaking, reference only to members of the same com- 
munity or tribe. They carefully distinguish between an 
act of homicide committed among their own people and- 
one where the victim is a stranger ; whilst the former is 
in ordinary circumstances disapproved of, the latter is in 
most cases allowed and often considered worthy of praise. 
And the same thing holds true of theft and lying and 
other injuries. Apart from the privileges which are 
granted to guests, and which are always of a very short 
duration, a stranger is in early society devoid of all rights. 
This is the case not only among savages but among nations 
of archaic culture as well. When we from the lower races 
pass to peoples more advanced in civilisation we find that 
the social unit has grown larger, that the nation has taken 
the place of the tribe, and that the circle of persons within 
which the infliction of injuries is prohibited has extended 
accordingly. But the old distinction between offences 
against compatriots and harm done to foreigners remains. 
Nay, it survives to some extent even among ourselves, as 
appears from the prevailing attitude towards war and the 
readiness with which wars are waged. But although the 
difference between a fellow countryman and a foreigner 
has not ceased to affect the moral feelings of men even in 
the midst of modern civilisation, its influence has certainly 
been decreasing. The doctrine has been set forth, and has 
been gradually gaining ground, that our duties towards our 

fellow men are universal duties, not restricted by the limits 
of country or race. Those who recognise the emotional 
origin of the rules of duty find no difficulty in explaining 
all these facts. The expansion of the commandments 
relating to neighbours coincides with the expansion of the 
altruistic sentiment. And the cause of this coincidence at 
once becomes clear when we consider that such command- 
ments mainly spring from the emotion of sympathetic 
resentment, and that sympathetic resentment is rooted in 
the altruistic sentiment. 

Besides the extension of duties towards neighbours so. 

as to embrace wider and wider circles of men, there is 
another point in which the moral ideas of mankind have 
undergone an important change on the upward path from 
savagery and barbarism to civilisation. They have become 
more enlightened. Though moral ideas are based upon 
emotions, though all moral concepts are essentially gene- 
ralisations of tendencies in certain phenomena to call forth 
moral approval or disapproval, the influence of intellectual 
considerations upon moral judgments is naturally very 
great. All higher emotions are determined by cognitions 
—-sensations or ideas; they therefore vary according: as 
the cognitions vary, and the nature of a cognition may 
very largely depend upon reflection or insight. Ifa person 
tells us an untruth we are apt to feel indignant ; but if, on 
due reflection, we find that his motive was benevolent, for 
instance a desire to save the life of the person to whom 
the untruth was told, our indignation ceases, and may even 
be succeeded by approval. The change of cognitions, or 
ideas, has thus produced a change of emotions. Now, 
the evolution of the moral consciousness partly consists in 
its development from the unreflecting to the reflecting 
stage, from the unenlightened to the enlightened. ‘This 
appears from the decreasing influence of external events 
upon moral judgments and from the growing discrimina- 
tion with reference to motives, negligence, and other factors 
in conduct which are carefully considered by a scrupulous 
judge. More penetrating reflection has also reduced the 

rors ee 

ties 

part played by disinterested likings and dislikes in the 

formation of moral ideas. When we clearly realise that a 
certain act is productive of no real harm but is condemned 
simply because it causes aversion or disgust, we can hardly 
look upon it as a proper object of moral censure—unless, 
indeed, its commission is considered to imply a blamable 
disregard for other persons’ sensibilities. Deliberate re- 
sentment, whether moral or non-moral, is too much con- 
cerned with the will of the agent to be felt towards a 
person who obviously neither intends to offend anybody 
nor is guilty of culpable oversight. Nay, even when the 
agent knows that his behaviour is repulsive to others, he 
may be considered justified in acting as he does. Some 
degree of reflection easily leads to the notion that senti- 
mental antipathies are no sufficient ground for interfering 
with other individuals’ liberty of action either by punishing 
them or by subjecting them to moral censure, provided of 
course that they do not in an indelicate manner shock their 
neighbours’ feelings. Hence many persons have recourse 
to utilitarian pretexts to support moral opinions or legal 
enactments which have originated in mere aversions ; thus 
making futile attempts to reconcile old ideas with the 
requirements of a moral consciousness which is duly 
influenced by reflection. 

In innumerable cases the variations of moral estimates 
are due to differences of beliefs. Almost every chapter of 
this work has borne witness to the enormous influence 
which the belief in supernatural forces or beings or in a 
future state has exercised upon the moral ideas of man- 
kind, and has at the same time shown how exceedingly 
varied this influence has been. Religion, or superstition 
(as the case may be), has on the one hand stigmatised 
murder and suicide, on the other hand it has commended 
human sacrifice and certain cases of voluntary self-destruc- 
tion. It has inculcated humanity and charity, but has also 
led to cruel persecutions of persons embracing another creed. 
It has emphasised the duty of truthspeaking, and has itself 
been a cause of pious fraud. It has promoted both cleanly 

74.6 CONCLUSION CH. LIT 

habits and filthiness. It has enjoined labour and 
abstinence from labour, sobriety and drunkenness, mar- 
riage and celibacy, chastity and temple prostitution. It 
has introduced a great variety of new duties and virtues, 
quite different from those which are recognised by the 
moral consciousness when left to itself, but nevertheless 
in many cases considered more important than any other 

duties or virtues. It seems that the moral ideas of — 

uncivilised men are more affected by magic than by 
religion, and that the religious influence has reached its 
greatest extension at certain stages of culture which, 
though comparatively advanced, do not include the 
highest stage. Increasing knowledge lessens the sphere 
of the supernatural, and the ascription of a perfectly 
ethical character to the godhead does away with moral 
estimates which have sprung from less elevated religious 
conceptions. 

I have here pointed out only the most general changes 
to which the moral ideas have been subject in the course 
of progressive civilisation; the details have been dealt 
with each in their separate place. There can be no doubt 
that changes also will take place in the future, and that 
similar causes will produce similar effects. We have 
every reason to believe that the altruistic sentiment will 
continue to expand, and that those moral commandments 
which are based on it will undergo a corresponding 
expansion ; that the influence of reflection upon moral 
judgments will steadily increase; that the influence of 
sentimental antipathies and likings will diminish; and 
that in its relation to morality religion will be increasingly 
restricted to emphasising ordinary moral rules, and less 
preoccupied with inculcating special duties to the deity. 

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