CHAPTER V. The Origin of the Moral Emotions

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 distinguished from other, non-moral, retributive emotions. First, how shall we explain their disinterestedness?

We have to distinguish between different classes of conditions under which disinterested retributive emotions arise. In the first place, we may feel disinterested resentment, or disinterested retributive kindly emotion, on account of an injury inflicted, or a benefit conferred, upon another person with whose pain, or pleasure, we sympathise, 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?

{109} 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 cognition 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 sympathise.

But the sympathetic feeling which results from association 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 feelings of the other person. It is not a reflex of what he feels--which, indeed, is a matter of complete indifference--and the activity which it calls forth is thoroughly selfish. If it is a feeling of pain, the spectator naturally, for his own sake, tries to get rid of it; but this {110} 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 disposition 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 production, 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 emotions. 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 console or to help him. For the altruistic sentiment is not merely willingness to sympathise; it is above all a conative {111} disposition to do good. The latter aptitude must be regarded 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 his desire would have been left ungratified if he had not stopped by the wayside. To the egoist, the relief offered to the sufferer is a means of suppressing the sympathetic 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 produce 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 benefited or injured. In all animal species which possess altruistic sentiments in some form or other, we may be sure to find sympathetic resentment as their accompaniment. {112} 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 sympathetic 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 maltreating 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 {113} 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 expansion 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 members 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 resentment. As Robertson observed long ago, "in small communities, 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, {114} 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 considers 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 "sympathetic 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 emotion 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 {115} 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, unfortunately, 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 instances 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 punishment 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, language deserves special mention. Moral disapproval may {116} 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. Quite 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 "disinterested 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 displaying 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 prominent 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 {117} 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 resentment, so sympathetic retributive kindly emotion may be produced by the signs of retributive kindliness. Language communicates emotions by terms of praise, as well as by terms of condemnation; and a reward, like a punishment, 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, disinterestedness 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. However, 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 disinterestedness, 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 judgments expressed, not the private emotions of isolated individuals, but emotions which were {118} 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 themselves." 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 disregard 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 Greenlanders "was all that was contrary to laws and customs, as {119} regulated by the angakoks," and when the Danish missionaries tried to make them acquainted with their own moral conceptions, the result was that they "conceived the idea of virtue and sin as what was pleasing 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." The Greek idea of the customary, [Greek: to\ no/mimon], shows the close connection between morality and custom; and so do the words [Greek: e)/thos, ê)/thos], and [Greek: e)thika/], the Latin mos and moralis, the German Sitte and Sittlichkeit. Moreover, in early society, customs are not only moral rules, but the only moral rules ever thought of. The savage strictly complies 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 {120} 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 obvious 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 transgression 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; I admit that a breach of the custom is equally wrong whether I myself am immediately 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 {121} 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 disinterested 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, considers 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 characteristics of moral indignation from its connection with custom, we implicitly contradict our initial assumption that moral emotions lie at the bottom of all moral judgments. But it is not so. Custom is a moral rule only on account of the indignation called forth by its transgression. In its ethical aspect it is nothing but a generalisation 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 {122} of a rule of duty, custom, mos, is derived from the emotion to which it gave its name.

As public indignation is the prototype of moral disapproval, 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 are certainly 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 evolution of the moral consciousness involves a progress in impartiality and justice; it tends towards an equalisation {123} 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 approval 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 individual's 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 consciousness is at its origin engaged in self-estimation, instead 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 of 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 {124} been distinguished as a special form of, or element in, the wider emotion of self-reproach, unless the idea of morality had been previously derived from another source. The similarity between regret and remorse is so close, that in certain European languages there is only one word for both.

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From what has been said above it is obvious that moral resentment is of extreme antiquity in the human race, nay, that the germ of it is found even in the lower animal world, among social animals capable of feeling sympathetic resentment. The origin of custom as a moral rule no doubt lies in a very remote period of human history. We have no knowledge of a savage people without customs, and, as will be seen subsequently, savages often express their indignation in a very unmistakable manner when their customs are transgressed. Various data prove that the lower races have some feeling of justice, the flower of all moral feelings. And the supposition that remorse is unknown among them, is not only unfounded, but contradicted by facts. Indeed, genuine remorse is so hidden an emotion even among ourselves, that it cannot be expected to be very conspicuous among savages. As we have seen, it requires a certain power of abstraction, as well as great impartiality of feeling, and must therefore be sought for at the highest reaches of the moral consciousness rather than at its lowest degrees. But to suppose that savages are entirely without a conscience is quite contrary to what we may infer from the great regard in which they hold their customs, as also contrary to the direct statements of travellers who have taken some pains to examine the matter. The answer given by the young Australian when asked by Mr. Howitt whether he might not eat a female opossum if the old men were not present, certainly indicates conscientious respect for a moral rule, and is, as Mr. Fison observes, "a striking instance of that 'moral {125} feeling' which Sir John Lubbock denies to savages." Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden asserts that, among the people whom he had in his service, he found the Negroes, in their sense of duty, not inferior, but rather superior to the Europeans. Mr. New says of the Wanika:--"Conscience lives in them as the vicegerent of Almighty God, and is ever excusing or else accusing them. It may be blunted, hardened, resisted, and largely suppressed, but there it is." M. Arbousset once desired some Bechuanas to tell him whether the blacks had a conscience. "Yes, all have one," they said in reply. "And what does it say to them?" "It is quiet when they do well and torments them when they sin." "What do you call sin?" "The theft, which is committed trembling, and the murder from which a man purifies and re-purifies himself, but which always leaves remorse." Mr. Washington Matthews refers to a passage in a Navaho story which "shows us that he who composed this tale knew what the pangs of remorse might be, even for an act not criminal, as we consider it, but merely ungenerous and unfilial."

A different opinion as to the existence of moral feelings among savages has been expressed by Lord Avebury. To him even modern savages seem to be "almost entirely wanting in moral feeling"; and he says that he has "been forced to this conclusion, not only by the direct statements of travelers but by the general tenor of their remarks, and especially by the remarkable absence of repentance and remorse among the lower races of men." The importance of the subject renders {126} it necessary to scrutinise the facts which Lord Avebury has adduced in support of his conclusion.

Mr. Neighbors states that, among the Comanches of Texas, "no individual action is considered a crime, but every man acts for himself according to his own judgment, unless some superior power--for instance, that of a popular chief--should exercise authority over him." 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--anarchy, troubles, and confusion immediately prevail, and till a successor is appointed all labour is at an end." The Damaras "seem to have no perceptible notion of right or wrong." The Tasmanians were "without any moral views and impressions." Eyre says of the Australians that 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 any idea of sin. The Kacharis had "in their own language no words for sin, for piety, for prayer, for repentance"; and of another of the aboriginal 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 expressions which the Tonga Islanders have for ideas like vice and injustice "are equally applicable to other things." The 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 punishment or reward, nor any mysterious terror of some supernatural power." Finally, Lord Avebury observes that religion, except in the more advanced races, has no moral aspect or influence, that the 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 Paradise {127} and Hell. The statement concerning the Comanches 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 between 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 tenets of their ancient customs. As to the Basutos, Casalis expressly states that they have the idea of moral evil, and represent it in their language by words which mean ugliness, or damage, or debt, or incapacity; and M. Arbousset once heard a Basuto say, on an unjust judgment being pronounced, "The judge is powerful, therefore we must be silent; if he 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 the 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 differs 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 Tonga 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 than we should, and others much less so"; and in another place he 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 when 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 theological notions are regarded as essential to it, it is probably {128} 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 which have been noticeable 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 Korwás on the highlands of Sirgúja, when 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 the party invariably taking on himself the chief responsibility as leader or instigator, and doing his utmost to exculpate as unaccountable agents the young members of the gang." The Aleuts, according to Veniaminof, are "naturally inclined to be just," and feel deeply undeserved injuries. Kolben, who is nowadays recognised 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, there should still remain so much 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." Zöller 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 have their sense of justice particularly strongly developed." Dieffenbach writes of the Maoris, "There is a high natural sense of justice amongst them; {129} 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 resentment 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. Resentment 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 retributive 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 hindrance to the rise of retributive kindly emotions of a sympathetic 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 {130} 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.