CHAPTER III. The Nature of the Moral Emotions (_continued_)

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 reaction 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 and 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 us perish. Let the enemy be clubbed, swept away, utterly destroyed, piled in heaps. Let their teeth be broken. May they fall headlong into a pit. Let us live, and let our enemies perish." Such were the requests which generally concluded the prayers of the Fijians. A savage would find nothing objectionable in them. On the contrary, he regards revenge as a duty, and forgiveness of enemies as a sign of weakness, or cowardice, or want of honour. Nor {74} 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 fall of his enemy. The 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, "it belongs to the courageous man never to be worsted"; to take revenge on a foe rather than to be reconciled is just, and therefore honourable. Cicero defines a good man as a person "who serves whom he can, and injures none except when provoked by injury." Except in domestic life and in the case of friends, Professor Seeley observes, "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 his 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 forgiveness.

"Recompense injury with kindness," says Lao-Tsze. According 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 following rule is laid down for the twice-born man:--"Against an angry man let him not in return show anger, let him bless {75} when he is cursed." It is said in the Buddhistic Dhammapada: "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 overcome 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 thy people." Sirach, whom I have already quoted, says in another passage, "Forgive thy neighbour the hurt that he has done unto thee, so shall thy sins also be forgiven when thou prayest." According to the Talmud, "whosoever does not persecute them that persecute him, whosoever takes an offence in silence, he who does good because of love, he who is cheerful under his sufferings they are the friends of God, and of them the Scripture says, And they shall shine forth as does 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 "for 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 Prophet:--"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." Professor 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, {76} in spite of what has often been said to the contrary, forgiveness of injuries is by no means foreign to the spirit of Islam. Thus the author of the Kashshâf 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 Muhammedans 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 ruin." "Anger is a crime of the mind; . . . it often is even more criminal than 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 them 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, "I say 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 {77} 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 prohibits 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 forgive 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 done to God and their neighbours. For Chrysostom says, 'For it {78} 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 individuals; and we can sympathise with the man who, hearing 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 punishment 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 ays, "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 {79} 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 estimation 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 the resentment and retaliation which distinguishes 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 externally similar to an act of revenge; it causes, or is intended {80} 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. This 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 sanction to a very simple fact, the true nature of which they too often have failed to grasp. The infliction of pain, however, 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 order 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 elimination or seclusion, to make it physically impossible for him to commit fresh crimes.

These views were expressed already in Greek and Roman antiquity. According to Plato, a reasonable man punishes for the sake of deterring 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 {81} 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 advantage of the offender, or of him who suffers by the offence, or of persons in general." For 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 Montesquieu, 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 superseded by the principle of reformation; whilst certain contemporary 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 neighbourhood.

The advocates of these various theories are unanimous in condemning retributive punishment as wrong. Without 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 condemning the guilty to punishment, would become their fellows." For my own part I believe, on the contrary, that those who would venture to carry out all the consequences to which the theories of social defence or of reformation might lead, would be regarded even as more criminal than those they punished, not only by the {82} 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 the 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 elimination 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 sacrificed 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, is 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 an intricate lawsuit caused a person avowedly innocent to be bastinadoed with the hope that whoever was the real {83} culprit might be induced to confess out of compassion. Moreover, if the object of punishment is merely preventive, 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 principle 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 reformed 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, fill up the gap between the theory of retribution and the other theories of punishment.

{84} 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 consequently 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 which 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 consists in repentance, as manifested by avowal of the guilt and by the recital of a formula, the Patet. It is said in the Laws of Manu:--"In proportion as a man who has done wrong, himself {85} confesses it, even so far he is freed from guilt, as a snake from its slough. . . . He who has committed a sin and has repented, is freed from that sin, but he is purified only by the resolution of ceasing to sin and thinking 'I will do so no more.'" According 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. There 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 resentment 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 {86} 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 supererogativa--a doctrine which, in substance, is not restricted to Roman Catholicism, but is found, in a more or less developed form, in Judaism, Muhammedanism, 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 may 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 beinclihedinclihed 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 compensated 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 will has given way to repentance. Hence the Reformation {87} 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 quâ 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."

That 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 contradict us, and deny their guilt; but towards such as acknowledge themselves to be justly punished, we cease from our wrath." To 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 {88} these occasions--a present (katom) is made, an apology offered--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 compensation is often allowed to take the place of genuine repentance, 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 punishment, 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 {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 preventive in its nature, and, when sufficiently deliberate, regards the infliction of suffering 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 element 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 reference 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 reformation are open to objections which will be shared by almost everyone, that is due to other circumstances than their demand that punishment should serve 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 {90} 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 usefulness. 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 offensiveness 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 offence to such intense {91} suffering, other more serious consequences might easily result from leaving him unpunished. The public indignation 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 against the will rather than against the willer; as we have seen, it is desirous to inflict pain on the offender chiefly as a means of removing the cause of pain suffered, i.e., 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 {92} 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. The 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 indignation 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 however much we try to concentrate our indignation on the act, it derives its peculiar flavour from being directed {93} 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 connected 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 as his creditor. This feeling has {94} even been represented as essential to, or as a condition of, gratitude; but it is not implied in what I here understand 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 humiliation, 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 off by the conditions under which altruistic sentiments in general tend to arise--a subject which will be discussed in another connection. Indeed, social affection 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 promotes 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 {95} 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 kindliness 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 {96} 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 disapproval 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 enjoyment 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 pâpa, 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 punya 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 the idea that the merits or the pious may benefit their neighbours. According to one of the Pahlavi texts, persons who are wholly unable to perform good works are supposed to be entitled to a share of any supererogatory good works performed by others. The Chinese believe that {97} whole kingdoms are blessed by benevolent spirits for the virtuous conduct of their rulers. Yahveh promised not to destroy Sodom for the sake of ten righteous, provided that so many righteous could be found in the town. The doctrine of vicarious reward or satisfaction through good works is, in fact, more prevalent than the doctrine of vicarious punishment. 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 atonement 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 the merits of martyrs and saints were believed to benefit 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 regenerated 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 does 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 of satisfaction be deemed common to all the members of the {98} 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 transferred 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 {99} 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 blessings 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."