CHAPTER VII. Customs and Laws As Expressions of Moral Ideas

CUSTOMS AND LAWS AS EXPRESSIONS OF MORAL IDEAS

MORAL ideas are expressed in moral judgments. We have hitherto examined the predicates of such judgments, the import and origin of the moral concepts. Now a much wider field or research remains for us to traverse. We shall direct our attention to the subjects of moral judgments, to the mass of phenomena which, among different peoples and in different ages, have had a tendency to call forth moral blame and moral praise. We shall discuss the general characteristics which all these phenomena have in common. We shall classify the most important of them, and study the moral ideas held with reference to the phenomena of each class separately. And in both cases we shall not only analyse, but try to find an answer to the question, Why?--the ultimate aim of all scientific research. But before entering upon this vast undertaking, we must define the lines on which it is to be conducted. How can we get an insight into the moral ideas of mankind at large?

In answering this question I need not dwell upon such obvious means of information as direct experience, or records of moral maxims and sentiments found in proverbs, literary and philosophical works, and religious codes. The sources which, from an evolutionary point of view, are of the most comprehensive importance for our study, are tribal and national customs and laws. It is to these sources that the present chapter will be devoted.

{159} We have seen that a custom, in the strict sense of the word, is not merely the habit of a certain circle of men, but at the same time involves a moral rule. There is a close connection between these two characteristics of custom: its habitualness and its obligatoriness. Whatever be the foundation for a certain practice, and however trivial it may be, the unreflecting mind has a tendency to disapprove of any deviation from it for the simple reason that such a deviation is unusual. As Abraham Tucker observes, "it is a constant argument among the common people, that a thing must be done, and ought to be done, because it always has been done." Children show respect for the customary, and so do savages. "If you ask a Kaffir why he does so and so, he will answer--'How can I tell? It has always been done by our forefathers.'" The only reason which the Eskimo can give for some of their present customs, to which they adhere from fear of ill report among their people, is that "the old Innuits did so, and therefore they must." In the behaviour of the Aleut, who "is bashful if caught doing anything unusual among his people," and in the average European's dread of appearing singular, we recognise the influence of the same force of habit.

On the other hand, it should be remembered that not every public habit is a custom, involving an obligation; certain practices, though very general in a society, may even be reprobated by almost every one of its members. The habits of a people must therefore be handled with discretion by the student of moral ideas. Yet when he has no reason to conclude as to some special habit that it is held obligatory, he may, probably always, be sure that it is either allowed, or, in spite of all assurances of its wickedness, that the disapproval of it is not generally very deep or genuine. In a community where lying is a {160} prevailing vice, truthfulness cannot be regarded as a very sacred duty; and where sexual immorality is widely spread, the public condemnation of it always smacks of hypocrisy. Men's standard of morality is not independent of their practice. The conscience of a community follows the same rule as the conscience of an individual. "Commit a sin twice," says the Talmud, "and you will think it perfectly allowable." Hence for the study of the inmost convictions of a nation, its "bad habits" form a valuable complement to its professed opinions.

The dictates of custom being dictates of morality, it is obvious that the study of moral ideas will, to a large extent, be a study of customs. But at the same time it should be borne in mind that custom never covers the whole field of morality, and that the uncovered space grows larger in proportion as the moral consciousness develops. Being a rule of duty, custom may only indirectly be an expression of moral approval, by claiming, in certain cases, that goodness should be rewarded. But even when demanding praise, custom is not always a reliable exponent of merit; it includes politeness, and politeness is a great deceiver. Custom may compel us to praise a man for form's sake, when he deserves no praise, and to thank him when he deserves no thanks. Moreover, custom regulates external conduct only. It tolerates all kinds of volitions and opinions if not openly expressed. It does not condemn the heretical mind, but the heretical act. It demands that under certain circumstances certain actions shall be either performed or omitted, and, provided that this demand is fulfilled, it takes no notice of the motive of the agent or omitter. Again, in case the course of conduct prescribed by custom is not observed, the mental facts connected with the transgression, if regarded at all, are dealt with in a rough and ready manner, according to general rules which hardly admit of individualisation. Yet the incongruity between custom and morality which ensues from these circumstances is on {161} the whole more apparent than real. It is rather an incongruity between different moral standards. The unreflecting moral consciousness, like custom, cares comparatively little for the internal aspect of conduct. It does not ask whether a man goes to church on Sunday from a religious motive or from fear of public opinion; it does not ask whether he stays at home from love of ease or from dissent of belief and avoidance of hypocrisy. It is ready to blame as soon as the dictate of custom is disobeyed. The rule of custom is the rule of duty at early stages of development. Only progress in culture lessens its sway.

Finally, the moral ideas which are expressed in the customs of a certain circle of men are not necessarily shared by every one of its members. This may, in the present connection, be considered a matter of slight importance by him who regards morality as "objectively" realised in the customs of a people, and who denies the individual the right to a private conscience. But from the subjective point of view which I am vindicating, individual conviction has a claim to equal consideration with public opinion, nay frequently, to higher respect, representing as it does in many cases a higher morality, a moral standard more purified by reflection and impartiality. At the lower stages of civilisation, however, where a man is led by his feelings more than by his thoughts, such a differentiation of moral ideas hardly occurs. The opinions of the many are the opinions of all, and the customs of a society are recognised as rules of duty by all its members.

In primitive society custom stands for law, and even where social organisation has made some progress it may still remain the sole rule for conduct. The authority of {162} a chief does not necessarily involve a power to make laws. Even kings who are described as autocrats may be as much tied by custom as is any of their subjects.

The Rejangs of Sumatra "do not acknowledge a right in the chiefs to constitute what laws they think proper, or to repeal or alter their ancient usages, of which they are extremely tenacious and jealous." There is no word in their language which signifies law, and the chiefs, in pronouncing their decisions are not heard to say, "So the law directs," but, "Such is the custom." According to Ellis, "the veneration of the Malagasy for the customs derived from tradition, or any accounts of their ancestors . . . influences both their public and private habits; and upon no individual is it more imperative than upon their monarch, who, absolute as he is in other respects, wants either the will or the power to break through the long-established regulations of a superstitious people." The king of Ashanti, although represented as a despotic monarch, is nevertheless under an obligation to observe the national customs which have been handed down to the people from remote antiquity, and a practical disregard of this obligation, in the attempt to change some of the old customs, cost one of the kings his throne. "The Africans," says Mr. Winwood Reade, with special reference to Dahomey, "have sometimes their enlightened kings, as the old barbarians had their sages and their priests. But it is seldom in the power of the heads of a people to alter those customs which have been held sacred from time immemorial." The Basutos, among whom "the chiefs have the right of making laws and publishing regulations required by the necessities of the times," regard such laws, or molaos, as inferior to the mekhoas, "the use and wont," which constitute the real laws of the country. Among the ancient Irish, there was no sovereign authority competent to enact a new law, the function of the king being merely, as chief of the tribal assembly, to see that the proper customs were observed.

{163} In competition with law, custom frequently carries the day. In India, especially in the South, "custom has always been to a great extent superior to the written law." In the Ramnad case, the Judicial Committee expressly declared that, "under the Hindu system of law, clear proof of usage will outweigh the written text of the law." It was also a maxim of the Roman jurists that laws may be abrogated by desuetude or contrary usage; and in modern times the same doctrine is acted upon in Scotland. Moreover, when a custom cannot abrogate the law, it may still have a paralysing influence on its execution. According to the laws of European nations, a man who has killed another in a duel is to be treated as a homicide; yet wherever the duel exists as a custom, the law against it is ineffective. So it is on the Continent, and so it was in England in the eighteenth century, when a well-informed writer could affirm that he had "not found any case of an actual execution in England in consequence of a duel fairly fought." In this instance the ineffectiveness of the law is owing to the fact that the law has not been able to abolish an old custom. But the superiority of custom also shows itself in cases where the law itself is getting antiquated, and a new custom, enforced by public opinion, springs up in opposition to it. Thus, contrary to law and earlier usage, it is nowadays the custom of certain European countries that a sentence of death is not carried into execution. Even "bad habits" tend to weaken the authority of the law. Probably the two most prominent civil vices of the Chinese are bribery and gambling. Against both these vices their penal code speaks with no uncertain sound; and yet, according to {164} Professor Douglas, it is no exaggeration to say that if the law were enforced, it would make a clean sweep of ninety-nine of every hundred officials in the empire. Other illustrations of the same principle may be found much nearer home.

Custom has proved stronger than law and religion combined. Sir Richard Burton writes of the Bedouins, "Though the revealed law of the Koran, being insufficient for the Desert, is openly disregarded, the immemorial customs of the Kazi al-Arab (the Judge of the Arabs) form a system stringent in the extreme." So, also, the Turkomans are ruled, often tyrannised over, by a mighty sovereign, invisible indeed to themselves, but whose presence is plainly discerned in the word deb--"custom," "usage." Our authority adds:--"It is very remarkable how little the 'Deb' has suffered in its struggle of eight centuries with Mahommedanism. Many usages, which are prohibited to the Islamite, and which the Mollahs make the object of violent attack, exist in all their ancient originality."

The laws themselves, in fact, command obedience more as customs than as laws. A rule of conduct which, from one point of view, is a law, is in most cases, from another point of view, a custom; for, as Hegel remarks, "the valid laws of a nation, when written and collected, do not cease to be customs." There are instances of laws that were never published, the knowledge and administration of which belonged to a privileged class, and which nevertheless were respected and obeyed. And among ourselves the ordinary citizen stands in no need of studying the laws under which he lives, custom being generally the safe guiding star of his conduct. Custom, as Bacon said, is "the principal magistrate of man's life," or, as the ancients put it, "the king of all men."

{165} Many laws were customs before they became laws. Ancient customs lie at the foundation of all Aryan law-books. Mr. Mayne is of opinion that Hindu law is based upon customs which existed even prior to and independent of Brahmanism. The Greek word [Greek: no/mos] means both custom and law, and this combination of meanings was not owing to poverty of language, but to the deep-rooted idea of the Greek people that law is, and ought to be, nothing more and nothing less than the outcome of national custom. A great part of the Roman law was founded on the mores majorum; in the Institutes of Justinian, it is expressly said that "long prevailing customs, being sanctioned by the consent of those who use them, assume the nature of Laws." The case was similar with the ancient laws of the Teutons and Irish.

The transformation of customs into laws was not a mere ceremony. Law, like custom, is a rule of conduct, but, while custom is established by usage and obtains, in a more or less indefinite way, its binding force from public opinion, a law originates in a definite legislative act, being set, as Austin says, by a sovereign person, or a sovereign body of persons, to a person or persons in a state of subjection to its author. By becoming laws, then, the customs were expressly formulated, and were enforced by a more definite sanction. It seems that the process in question arose both from considerations of social utility and from a sense of justice. Cicero observes that it was for the sake of equity that "laws were invented, which perpetually spoke to all men with one and the same voice." From these points of view it was neither necessary nor desirable that more than a limited set of customs should pass into laws. There are customs which are too indefinite to assume the stereotyped shape of law. There are others, the breach {166} of which excites too little public indignation, or which are of too little importance for the public welfare, to be proper objects of legislation. And there are others which may be said to exist unconsciously, that is, which are universally observed as a matter of course, and which, never being transgressed, are never thought of.

Laws which are based on customs naturally express moral ideas prevalent at the time when they are established. On the other hand, though still in existence, they are not necessarily faithful representatives of the ideas of a later age. Law may be even more conservative than custom. Though the latter exercises a very preservative influence on public opinion, it eo ipso changes when public opinion changes. Even among savages, in spite of their extreme regard for the customs of their ancestors, it is quite possible for changes to be introduced; the traditions of the Central Australian Arunta, for instance, indicate their own recognition of the fact that customs have varied from time to time. But the legal form gives to an ancient custom such a fixity as to enable it to survive, as a law, the change of public opinion and the introduction of a new custom. In all progressive societies, as Sir Henry Maine observes, social necessities and social opinion are always more or less in advance of law. "We may come indefinitely near to the closing of the gap between them, but it has a perpetual tendency to re-open."

The moral ideas of a people are less extensively represented in its laws than in its customs. This is a corollary of the fact that there are always a great number of customs which never become laws. Moreover, whilst law, like custom, directly expresses only what is obligatory, it hardly ever deals with merit, even indirectly. The Chinese have a method of rewarding and commemorating meritorious and virtuous subjects by erecting gates in their honour, and conferring upon them marks of public distinction; {167} and the Japanese and Coreans award prizes in the form of money or silver cups or monumental columns to signal exemplars of filial piety, arguing that, if the law punishes crime, it ought also to reward virtue. In Europe we have titles and honours, pensions for distinguished service, and the like; but the distribution of them is not regulated by law, and has often little to do with morality.

Law, like custom, only deals with overt acts, or omissions, and cares nothing for the mental side of conduct, unless the law be transgressed. Yet, as will be seen subsequently, though this constitutes an essential difference between law and the enlightened moral consciousness, it throws considerable light on the moral judgments of the unreflecting mind.

Being a general, and at the same time a strictly defined, rule of conduct, a law can even less than a custom make special provision for every case so as to satisfy the demand of justice. This disadvantage, however, was hardly felt in early periods of legislation, when little account was taken of what was behind the overt act; and at later stages of development, the difficulty was overcome by leaving greater discretion to the judge. The history of legal punishments in England, for instance, shows a change from a system which, except in cases of misdemeanour, left no discretion at all to judges, to a system under which unlimited discretion is left to them in all cases except those which are still liable to capital punishment--practically, high treason and murder. The study of law, then, must for our purpose be supplemented by the study of judicial practice.

Laws which represent public opinion are no more than customs safe exponents of the moral ideas held by particular members of the society. But on the other hand, there are cases in which a law, unlike a custom, may express the ideas, or simply the will, of a few, or even of {168} a single individual, that is, of the sovereign power only. It is obvious that laws imposed upon a barbarous people by civilised legislators may differ widely from the people's own ideas of right and wrong. For instance, when studying the moral sentiments of the Teutonic peoples from their early law-books, we must carefully set aside all elements of Roman or Christian origin. At the same time, however, it should be remembered that the moral consciousness of a people may gradually be brought into harmony with a law originally foreign to it. If the law is in advance of public opinion--as Roman law undoubtedly was in Teutonic countries--it may raise the views of the people up to its own standard by awaking in them dormant sentiments, or by teaching them greater discrimination in their judgments. And, as has been already noticed, what is forbidden and punished may, for the very reason that it is so, come to be regarded as wrong and worthy of punishment.

Finally, a law may enjoin or forbid acts which by themselves are regarded as indifferent from a moral point of view. This is, for instance, the case with the laws which require marriages to be celebrated at certain times and places only, and which forbid the cultivation of tobacco in England. Jurists divide crimes into mala in se and mala quia prohibita. The former would be wrong even if they were not prohibited by law, the latter are wrong only because they are illegal.

A law expresses a rule of duty by making an act or omission which is regarded as wrong a crime, that is, by forbidding it under pain of punishment. Law does not in all cases directly threaten with punishment--I say directly, since all law is coercive, and all coercion at some stage involves the possibility of punishment. Sanctions, or the consequences by which the sovereign political authority threatens to enforce the laws set by it, may {169} have in view either the indemnification of the injured party, or the suffering of the injurer. In the latter case the sanctions are called punishments. But, though highly important, the distinction between indemnification and punishment is not absolute. A person who causes harm to another would hardly have to pay damages unless some kind of guilt or quasi-guilt were imputed to him; and, on the other hand, punishment may actually consist in the damages he has to pay. Moreover, the suffering involved in punishment must be regarded as a kind of indemnification in so far as it is intended to gratify the injured party's craving for revenge. The pleasure of vengeance, says Bentham, "is a gain; it calls to mind Samson's riddle--it is sweet coming out of the terrible, it is honey dropping from the lion's mouth." In cases where the injured party is allowed to decide whether the injurer shall be punished or not, or what punishment (within certain limits) shall be inflicted upon him, it is obvious that punishment is largely looked upon as a means of indemnification. However, the fact that such a privilege is granted to the injured party indicates the existence of some degree of sympathetic resentment in the public. Punishment, in all its forms, is essentially an expression of indignation in the society which inflicts it. Hence it is of extreme importance for the study of moral ideas, and calls for our careful consideration.

By punishment I do not understand here every suffering inflicted upon an offender in consequence of his offence, but only such suffering as is inflicted upon him in a definite way by, or in the name of, the society of which he is a permanent or temporary member. This definition holds good whatever may be the opinion about the final object of punishment. Whether its purpose is, or is supposed to be, either reformation, or determent, or retribution, its immediate aim is always to cause suffering. {170} We should not call it punishment if the reformation of the criminal were attempted, say, by means of hypnotism.

It is a common opinion that punishment, in this sense of the word, is a social institution of comparatively modern origin, which has sprung from, and gradually superseded, the earlier custom of individual or family revenge. This opinion may seem plausible to the student of European and Eastern law, but, as we shall see, the early history of civilised races is apt to give a somewhat erroneous idea of the evolution of punishment. Even among savages public indignation frequently assumes that definite shape which constitutes the difference between punishment and mere condemnation.

Savage punishment sometimes simply consists in publicly putting the offender to shame.

In Greenland the courts of justice were the public assemblies, which at the same time supplied the national sports and entertainments. Here "nith-songs" were used for settling all sorts of crimes or breaches of public order or custom, with the exception of those which could only be expiated by death; by means of cutting capers and singing, the offender was told of his faults, and the opposite virtues were praised to all who were present. The same institution is found, with only incidental differences, among several other tribes within and beyond the Arctic circle. And, knowing the sensitiveness of these peoples, we may assume that the punishment in question is by no means lenient. In Greenland "it now and then happens that some one or other, wounded, perhaps, by a single word from one of his kinsfolk, runs away to the mountains, and is lost for several days at least." And Adair, speaking of the public jesting by which North American Indians used to punish young people who were guilty of petty crimes, says that "they would sooner die by torture, than renew their shame by repeating the actions."

{171} In other instances the community as a whole expresses its indignation by inflicting suffering of a more material kind upon the culprit.

In certain Australian tribes, when a native for any transgression incurs the displeasure of his tribe, custom compels him to "stand punishment," as it is called; that is, he stands with a shield at a fair distance, while the whole tribe, either simultaneously or in rapid succession, cast their spears at him. Their expertness generally enables those who are exposed to this trial to escape without serious injury, though instances of a fatal result occasionally occur; however, there is a certain propriety even in this extraordinary punishment, as the accuracy and force with which the weapons are thrown will depend very much on the opinion entertained of the enormity of the offence. Among the North-West-Central Queensland aborigines, though each individual, within certain limits, can do what he pleases, "he has to reckon not only with the particular person injured, or his relatives, but also, in some cases, with the whole camp collectively. Thus the camp as a body, as a camp council, will take upon itself to mete out punishment in crimes of murder, incest, or the promiscuous use of fighting-implements within the precincts of the camping-ground: death, and probably the digging of his own grave, awaits the delinquent in the former case, while 'crippling,' generally with knives, constitutes the penalty for a violation of the latter." Again, if a woman makes herself obnoxious in the camp, especially to the female portion of it, she is liable to be set upon and "hammered" by her fellow-sisters collectively, the men on such occasions not interfering. Among the Bangerang tribe of Victoria, "any one who had suffered a wrong complained of it, if at all, at night aloud to the camp, which was silent and attentive. Then the accused was heard. Afterwards those who chose, men or women, expressed their views on the subject; and if general opinion pronounced the grievance a good one, the accused accepted the penalty sanctioned by custom." Among various tribes in Western Victoria, "should a person, through bad conduct, become a constant anxiety and trouble {172} to the tribe, a consultation is held, and he is put to death." Among the Mpongwe, if a man murders another, he is put to death, not by the nearest of kin, but by the whole community, being either drowned or burned alive. Among the Hudson Bay Eskimo, "when a person becomes so bad in character that the community will no longer tolerate his presence he is forbidden to enter the huts, partake of food, or hold any intercourse with the rest. Nevertheless, as long as he threatens no one's life, but little attention is paid to him. Should he be guilty of a murder, several men watch their opportunity to surprise him and put him to death, usually by stoning. The executioners make no concealment of their action and are supported by public opinion in the community."

Among various savage peoples expulsion from the tribe is the punishment of persons whose conduct excites great public indignation, and among others such persons are outlawed.

The Chippewyans, among whom "order is maintained in the tribe solely by public opinion," the chief having no power to punish crimes, occasionally expel from the society individuals whose conduct is exceptionally bad and threatens the general peace. The Salish, or flathead Indians, sometimes punished notorious criminals by expulsion from the tribe or band to which they belonged. Sir E. F. Im Thurn, whilst praising the Indians of Guiana for their admirable morality as long as they remain in a state of nature, adds that there are exceptions to the rule, and that such individuals "are soon killed or driven out from their tribe." Among the Bedouins of the Euphrates, "in extreme cases, and as the utmost penalty of the law, the offender is turned out of the tribe"; and the same is the case among the Beni Mzab. In the Scotch Highlands, even to this day, instances are common of public opinion operating as a punishment, to the extent of forcing individuals into exile. There are cases reported from various parts of the savage world of banishment being inflicted as a punishment for sexual {173} offences; and other instances of expulsion are mentioned by Dr. Steinmetz. In some cases, however, expulsion is to be regarded rather as a means of ridding the community from a pollution, than as a punishment in the proper sense of the term.

Nearly related to the punishment of expulsion is that of outlawry. Von Wrede states that the Bedouins of [H.]adhramaut give a respite of three days to the banished man, and that after the lapse of this period every member of the tribe is allowed to kill him. Among the Wyandots the lowest grade of outlawry consists in a declaration that, if the offender shall continue in the commission of crimes similar to that of which he has been guilty, it will be lawful for any person to kill him, whilst outlawry of the highest degree makes it the duty of any member of the tribe who may meet with the offender to kill him. Among the ancient Teutons, also, outlawry was originally a declaration of war by the commonwealth against an offending member, and became only later on a regular means of compelling submission to the authority of the courts.

Most generally, however, punishment is inflicted upon the culprit, not by the whole of the community, but by some person or persons invested with judicial authority. Indeed, it is not only civilised races who have judges and courts of justice. Among savages and barbarians justice is very frequently administered by a council of elders or by a chief. Even people of so low a type as the Australian aborigines have their tribunals.

{174} Speaking of the native tribes of Central Australia, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen observe:--"Should any man break through the strict marriage laws, it is not only an 'impersonal power' which he has to deal with. The head men of the group or groups concerned consult together with the elder men, and, if the offender, after long consultation, be adjudged guilty and the determination be arrived at that he is to be put to death--a by no means purely hypothetical case--then the same elder men make arrangements to carry the sentence out, and a party, which is called an ininja, is organised for the purpose." We hear of similar councils from various parts of the Australian continent. In his description of the aborigines of New South Wales, Dr. Fraser states, "The Australian council of old and experienced men--this aboriginal senate and witenagemot--has the power to decree punishment for tribal offences." The chiefs sit as magistrates to decide all cases which are brought before them, such as the divulging of sacred things, speaking to a mother-in-law, the adultery of a wife; and there is even a {175} tribal executioner. At the same time, many grievances are arranged without the intervention of the chiefs; for instance, if a man has been found stealing from his neighbour, or two men quarrel about a woman, a fight ensues, the one or the other gets his head broken, and there the matter ends. The Narrinyeri have a judgment council of the elders of the clan, called tendi, which is presided over by the chief of the clan; and when any member of the tendi dies, the surviving members select a suitable man from the clan to succeed him. "All offenders are brought to this tribunal for trial. In cases of the slaying by a person or persons of one clan of the member of another clan in time of peace, the fellow-clansmen of the murdered man will send to the friends of the murderer and invite them to bring him to trial before the united tendies. If, after full inquiry, he is found to have committed the crime, he will be punished according to the degree of guilt." Among another Australian tribe, the Gournditch-mara, again, the headman, whose office was hereditary, "settled all quarrels and disputes in the tribe. When he had heard both sides, and had given his decision in a matter, no one ever disputed it."

Among the Australian aborigines, then, we find cases in which punishment is inflicted by the whole community, and other cases in which it is inflicted by a tribunal or a chief. There can be little doubt that the latter system has developed out of the former; there are obvious instances of transition from the one to the other. Among the North-West-Central Queensland natives, for instance, in cases of major offences, such as murder, incest, or physical violence, the old men are only said to "influence" aboriginal public opinion. It is an inconvenient, and in larger communities a difficult, procedure for the whole group to inflict punishments in common, hence the administration of justice naturally tends to pass into the hands of the leading men or the chief. But the establishment of a judicial authority within the society may also have a different origin. Very frequently judicial organisation {176} seems to have developed, not out of a previous system of lynch-law, but out of a previous system of private revenge.

An act of individual or family revenge is by itself, of course, an expression of private, not of public, feelings--of revenge, not of moral indignation. But the case is different with the custom of revenge. We shall see in a following chapter that blood-revenge is regarded not only as a right, but, very frequently, as a duty incumbent upon the relatives of the slain person. So, also, revenge may be deemed a duty in cases where there is no blood-guiltiness. Among the Australian Geawe-gal tribe, for instance, the offender, according to the magnitude of his offence, was to receive one or more spears from men who were relatives of the deceased person; or the injured man himself, when he had recovered strength, might discharge the spears at the offender. And our authority adds, "Obedience to such laws was never withheld, but would have been enforced, without doubt, if necessary, by the assembled tribe." The obligatory character of revenge implies that its omission is disapproved of. It is of course the man on whom the duty of vengeance is incumbent that is the immediate object of blame, when this duty is omitted; and the blame may partly be due to contempt, especially when there is a suspicion of cowardice. But behind the public censure there is obviously a desire to see the injurer suffer. Instances may be quoted in which the society actually assists the avenger, in some way or other, in attaining his object. Speaking of the Fuegians, M. Hyades observes:--"Nous avons entendu parler d'individus coupables de meurtre sur leur femme, par exemple, et qui, poursuivis par tout un groupe de familles, finissaient, quelquefois un an ou deux après leur crime, par tomber sous les coups des parents de la victime. Il s'agit là plutôt d'un acte de justice que d'une satisfaction de vengeance. Nous devons faire remarquer en outre que, dans ces cas, le meurtrier est abandonné de tous, et qu'il ne peut se soustraire que pendant un temps {177} relativement assez court au châtiment qui le menace." Amongst the Central Eskimo, who have "no punishment for transgressors except the blood vengeance," a man has committed a murder or made himself odious by other outrages, "he may be killed by any one simply as a matter of justice. The man who intends to take revenge on him must ask his countrymen singly if each agrees in the opinion that the offender is a bad man deserving death. If all answer in the affirmative he may kill the man thus condemned, and no one is allowed to revenge the murder." Among the Greenlanders, in cases of extreme atrocity, the men of a village have been known to make common cause against a murderer, and kill him, though it otherwise is the business of the nearest relatives to take revenge. It is also noteworthy that, among the crimes which in savage communities are punished by the community at large, incest is particularly prominent. The chief reason for this I take to be the absence of an individual naturally designated as the avenger.

Thus public indignation displays itself not only in punishment, but, to a certain extent, in the custom of revenge. In both cases the society desires that the offender shall suffer for his deed. Strictly speaking, the relationship between the custom of revenge and punishment is not, as has been often supposed, that between parent and child. It is a collateral relationship. They have a common ancestor, the feeling of public resentment.

But whilst public opinion demands that vengeance shall be exacted for injuries, it is also operative in another way. Though in some cases the resentment may seem to outsiders to be too weak or too much checked by other impulses, it may in other cases appear unduly great. As a matter of fact, we frequently find the practice of revenge being regulated by a rule which requires equivalence between the injury and the suffering inflicted in return for {178} it. Sometimes this rule demands that only one life shall be taken for one; sometimes that a death shall be avenged on a person of the same rank, sex, or age as the deceased; sometimes that a murderer shall die in the same manner as his victim; sometimes that various kinds of injuries shall be retaliated by the infliction of similar injuries on the offender. This strict equivalence is not characteristic of resentment as such. There is undoubtedly a certain proportion between the pain-stimulus and the reaction; other things being equal, resentment increases in intensity along with the pain by which it is excited. The more a person feels offended, the greater is his desire to retaliate by inflicting counter-pain, and the greater is the pain which he desires to inflict. But resentment involves no accurate balancing of suffering against suffering, hence there may be a crying disproportion between the act of revenge and the injury evoking it. As Sir Thomas Browne observes, a revengeful mind "holds no rule in retaliations, requiring too often a head for a tooth, and the supreme revenge for trespasses, which a night's rest should obliterate." If, then, the rule of {179} equivalence is not suggested by resentment itself, this rule must be due to other factors, which intermingle with resentment, and help, with it, to determine the action. One of these factors, I believe, is self-regarding pride, the desire to pull down the humiliating arrogance of the aggressor naturally suggesting the idea of paying him back in his own coin; and it seems probable that the natural disposition to imitate, especially in cases of sudden anger, acts in the same direction. But besides this qualitative equivalence between injury and retaliation, the lex talionis requires, in a rough way, quantitative equivalence, and this demand has no doubt a social origin. If the offender is a person with whose feelings men are ready to sympathise, their sympathy will keep the desire to see him suffer within certain limits; and if, under ordinary circumstances, they tend to sympathise equally with both parties, the injurer and the person injured, and, in consequence, confer upon these equal rights, they will demand a retaliation which is only equal in degree to the offence. By suffering a loss the offender compensates, as it were, for the loss which he has inflicted; and when equal regard is paid to his feelings and to those of his victim, it is deemed just that the loss required of him as a compensation should be equivalent to the loss for which he compensates, anything beyond equivalence being regarded as undeserved suffering. If this explanation is correct, the rule of equivalence must originally have been restricted to offences within the social group; for, according to early custom and law, only members of the same society have equal rights. In speaking of the tit-for-tat system prevalent among the Guiana Indians, Sir E. F. Im Thurn expressly says, "Of course all this refers chiefly to the mutual relations of members of the same tribe." And when we find savages acting according to the same principle in their relations to other tribes, the reason for this may be sought partly in the strong hold which that principle has taken of their minds, and partly in the dangers accompanying intertribal revenge, {180} which make it desirable to restrict it within reasonable limits.

The regulations to which the practice of revenge is subject, help us to understand the transition from revenge to punishment, and the establishment of a special judicial authority. As long as retaliation is in the hands of private individuals, there is no guarantee, on the one hand, that the offender will have to suffer, on the other hand, that the act of retaliation will be sufficiently discriminate.

The injured party may be too weak, or otherwise unable, to avenge himself. His readiest course, then, is to appeal to the chief for help. The chief, on his part, has an interest in interfering--he may of course expect a handsome reward for his assistance,--and, in so far as the community at large wishes that the offender shall suffer, the chief may even be bound to interfere. Thus in the Sandwich Islands, the family or the friends of an injured person--who in cases of assault or murder were by common consent justified in taking revenge--used to appeal to the chief of the district or to the king, when they were too weak to attack the offender themselves. Among the Wanyoro, according to Emin Pasha, should the murderer escape, the nearest relatives of the murdered man apply to the chief of the tribe to procure the punishment of the culprit. The Indians of Brazil, when offended, sometimes bring their cause before the chief; but they do it seldom, since they consider it disgraceful for a man not to be able to avenge himself. The judicial authority granted to the Basuto chief "also insures justice to foreigners, and to individuals who, having no relations, are deprived of their natural defenders and avengers." In ancient Greece, in early times, special care was taken by the State for the protection of the weak and helpless, who otherwise had been unavenged. In the Middle Ages, the {181} poor and the weak were placed under the King's protection; the intervention of royal justice, as Du Boys observes, "apparaissait comme un bienfait pour les faibles et un secours pour les opprimés."

Whilst resentment on behalf of injuries inflicted upon persons who are unable to avenge themselves has thus, to some extent, contributed towards the establishment of a central judicial and executive authority, the sympathy naturally felt for the object of an improper and immoderate revenge undoubtedly tended to bring about a similar result. The same feeling which checked indiscriminate revenge by establishing the rule of strict equivalence, restricted it once more, and in a more effective way, by referring the case to a judge who was less partial, and more discriminate, than the sufferer himself or his friends. Speaking of the feuds of the Teutons, Kemble remarks, "Setting aside the loss to the whole community which may arise from private feud, the moral sense of men may be shocked by its results: an individual's own estimate of the satisfaction necessary to atone for the injury done to him, may lead to the commission of a wrong on his part, greater than any he hath suffered; nor can the strict rule of 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' be applied where the exaction of the penalty depends upon the measure of force between appellant and defender." In the Island of Bali the judge steps in between the prosecutor and the person whom he pursues, "so as to restrain the indiscriminate animosity of the one, and to determine the criminality of the other." Crawfurd, in his account of native customs in the Malay Archipelago, says that "the law even expressly interdicts all interference when there appears a character of fairness in the quarrel." A Karen, we are told, always thinks himself right in taking the law into his own hands, this being the custom of the country, and "he is never interfered with, unless he is guilty of some {182} act contrary to Karen ideas of propriety, when the elders and the villagers interfere and exercise a check upon him." Among the Basutos the authority of the chief is stated to be "sufficiently respected to protect criminated persons, until their cases have been lawfully examined." Among the Californian Gallinomero the avenger of blood has his option between money and the murderer's life; "but he does not seem to be allowed to wreak on him a personal and irresponsible vengeance," the chief taking the criminal and executing the punishment.

Besides the desire that the offender shall suffer and the desire that his suffering shall correspond to his guilt, there is a third factor of importance which has contributed to the substitution of punishment for revenge and to the rise of a judicial organisation. For every society it is a matter of great consequence that there should be peace between its various members. Though the system of revenge helps to keep down crime, it also has a tendency to cause disturbance and destruction. Any act of vengeance which goes beyond the limits fixed by custom is apt to call forth retaliation in return. Among the Ossetes, says Baron von Haxthausen, "if the retaliation does not exceed the original injury the affair terminates; but if the wound given is greater than the one received, the feud begins afresh from the other side." The custom of blood-revenge certainly does not imply that the avenger of unjustifiable homicide may himself be a proper object of retaliation; but in the absence of a tribunal it may be {183} no easy thing to decide the question of guilt, and, besides, the dictate of custom may be overruled by passion. As a matter of fact, the blood-feud often consists of a whole series of murders, the revenge itself calling forth a new act of redress, and so on, until the state or hostility may become more or less permanent. In the long run this will prove injurious both to the families implicated in the feud and to society as a whole, and some method of putting a stop to the feud will readily be adopted. One such method is to substitute the payment of blood-money for revenge; another is to submit the cause to an authority invested with judicatory power. Casalis tells us that the Basutos are often heard to say, "If we were to revenge ourselves, the town or community would soon be dispersed"; and he adds that the instinctive fear of the disorders that might arise from the exercise of individual law has induced them to allow the chief of the tribe a certain right over the person of every member of the community.

As may be expected, it is only by slow degrees that revenge has yielded to punishment, and the private avenger has been succeeded by the judge and the public executioner of his sentence. Among many savages the chief is said to have nothing whatever to do with jurisdiction. Among {184} others he acts merely as an adviser, or is appealed to as an arbiter; or the injured party may choose between avenging himself and appealing to the chief for redress; or the judicial power with which the chief is invested is stated to be more nominal than real. It is also interesting to note that in several cases the injured party or the accuser acts as executioner, but not as judge.

Thus among some Australian tribes, "a man accused of a serious offence gets a month's citation to appear before the tribunal, on pain of death if he disobeys. If he is found guilty of a private wrong, he is painted white, and made to stand out at fifty paces in front of the accuser and his friends, all fully armed. They throw at him a shower of spears and 'bumarangs,' from which he protects himself with a light shield." Among the Aricara Indians of the Missouri, who, for the most part, punish murder with death, the nearest relative of the murdered man was deputed by the council to act the part of executioner. With reference to the natives of Bali, Raffles says that "in the execution of the punishment awarded by the court there is this peculiarity, that the aggrieved party or his friends are appointed to inflict it." In some parts of Afghanistan, "if the offended party complains to the Sirdar, or if he hears of a murder committed, he first endeavours to bring about a compromise, by offering the Khoon Behau, or price of blood; but if the injured party is inexorable, the Sirdar lays the affair before the King, who orders the Cauzy to try it; and, if the criminal is convicted, gives him up to be executed by the relations of the deceased." Among the peoples round Lake Nyassa and Tanganyika and among the Bantu tribes generally, "when a murderer is caught and proved guilty he is given over {185} to the relatives of the person murdered, who have power to dispose of him as they choose." A similar practice prevails among the Mishmis, Bataks, and Kamchadales. It was also recognised by early Slavonic, Teutonic, and English codes. According to the provisions of a code granted so late as 1231, by the Abbey of St. Bertin to the town of Arques, when a man was convicted of intentional homicide, he was handed over to the family of the murdered person, to be slain by them.

But although, in innumerable cases, punishment and judicial organisation have succeeded a previous system of revenge, and thus are products of social development, their existence or non-existence among a certain people is no exact index to the general state of culture which that people has attained. Even among low savages we have noticed instances of punishments which are inflicted by the community as a whole, as also by special judicial authorities. On the other hand, we are taught by the history of European and Oriental nations, that the system of revenge is not inconsistent with a comparatively high degree of culture. We can now see the reason for this apparent anomaly. In a small savage community, all the members of which are closely united with each other, an injury inflicted upon one is readily felt by all. The case may be different in a State consisting of loosely-connected social components, which, though forming a political unity, have little communication between themselves, and take no interest in each other's private dealings. And, whilst in the smaller society public resentment is thus more easily aroused, such a society also stands in more urgent need of internal peace.

* * * * *

Our assumption that punishment is, in the main, an expression of public indignation, is opposed to another theory, according to which the chief object of punishment, not only ought to be, but actually is, or has been, {186} to prevent crime by deterring people from committing it. We are even told that punishment, inflicted for such a purpose, is, largely, at the root of the moral consciousness; that punishment is not the result of a sense of justice, but that the sense of justice is a result of punishment; that, by being punished by the State, certain acts gradually came to be regarded as worthy of punishment, in other words, as morally wrong.

There are certain facts which seem to support the supposition that punishment has, to a large extent, been intended to act as a deterrent. We find that among various semi-civilised and civilised peoples the criminal law has assumed a severity which far surpasses the rigour of the lex talionis.

Speaking of the Azteks, Mr. Bancroft observes that "the greater part of their code might, like Draco's, have been written in blood--so severe were the penalties inflicted for crimes that were comparatively slight, and so brutal and bloody were the ways of carrying those punishments into execution." The punishment of death was inflicted on the man who dressed himself like a woman, on the woman who dressed herself like a man, on tutors who did not give a good account of the estates of their pupils, on those who carried off, or changed, the boundaries placed in the fields by public authority; and should an adulterer endeavour to save himself by killing the injured husband, his fate was to be roasted alive before a slow fire, his body being basted with salt and water that death might not come to his relief too soon. Nor did the ancient Peruvian code economise human suffering by proportioning penalties to crimes; the punishment most commonly prescribed by it was death. The penal code of China, though less cruel in various respects than the European legislation of the eighteenth century, awards death for a third and aggravated theft, for defacing the branding inflicted for former offences, and for privately casting copper coin; whilst for the commission of the most heinous crimes {187} the penalty is "to be cut into ten thousand pieces," which appears to amount, at least, to a license to the executioner to aggravate and prolong the sufferings of the criminal by any species of cruelty he may think proper to inflict. In Japan, before the revolution of 1871, "the punishments for crime had been both rigorous and cruel; death was the usual punishment, and death accompanied by tortures was the penalty for aggravated crimes. According to the Mosaic law, death is inflicted for such offences as breach of the Lord's day, going to wizards, eating the fat of a beast of sacrifice, eating blood, approaching unto a woman "as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness," and various kinds of sexual offences. The laws of Manu provide capital punishment for those who forge royal edicts and corrupt royal ministers; for those who break into a royal store-house, an armoury, or a temple, and those who steal elephants, horses, or chariots; for thieves who are taken with the stolen goods and the implements of burglary; for cut-purses on the third conviction; whilst a wife, who, proud of the greatness of her relatives or her own excellence, violates the duty which she owes to her lord, shall be devoured by dogs in a place frequented by many, and the male offender shall be burnt on a red-hot iron bed.

Increasing severity has been a characteristic of European legislation up to quite modern times. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, the English law knows some seven crimes which it treats as capital, namely, treason, homicide, arson, rape, robbery, burglary, and grand larceny; but the number of capital offences grew rapidly. From the Restoration to the death of George III.--a period of 160 years--no less than 187 such offences, wholly different in character and degree, were added to the criminal code; and when, in 1837, the punishment of death was removed from about 200 crimes, it was still left applicable to exactly the same offences as were capital at the end of the thirteenth century. Pocket-picking was punishable with death until the year 1808; horse-stealing, cattle-stealing, {188} sheep-stealing, stealing from a dwelling-house, and forgery, until 1832; letter-stealing and sacrilege, until 1835; rape, until 1841; robbery with violence, arson of dwelling-houses, and sodomy, until 1861. And not only was human life recklessly sacrificed, but the mode of execution was often exceedingly cruel. In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Peine forte et dure, or pressing to death with every aggravation of torture, was adopted as a manner of punishment suitable to cases where the accused refused to plead. Burning alive of female offenders still occurred in England at the end of the eighteenth century, being considered by the framers of the law as a commutation of the sentence of hanging required by decency. Still more cruel was the punishment inflicted on male traitors: they were first hanged by the neck and cut down before life was extinct, their entrails were taken out and burned before their face, then they were beheaded and quartered, and the quarters were set up in diverse places. This punishment continued to exist in England as late as in the reign of George III., and even then Sir Samuel Romilly, the great agitator against its continuance, brought upon himself the odium of the law officers of the Crown, who declared that he was "breaking down the bulwarks of the Constitution." Such cruelties were not peculiar to the English. On the contrary, as Sir James Stephen observes, though English people, as a rule, have been singularly reckless about taking life, they have usually been averse to the infliction of death by torture. In various parts of the Continent we find such punishments as breaking on the wheel, quartering alive, and tearing with red-hot pincers, in use down to the end of the eighteenth century.

It is interesting to compare these punishments with those practised among savages. Wanton cruelty is not a general characteristic of their public justice.

{189} Among several uncivilised peoples capital punishment is said to be unknown or almost so. Among others it is restricted to a few particularly atrocious offences. Among the Greenlanders "none are put to death but murderers, and such witches as are thought to have killed some one by their art." The Aleuts punished with death murderers and betrayers of community secrets. In Samoa and New Guinea murder and adultery are punished capitally; among the Bataks, open robbery and murder, provided that the offender is unable to redeem his life by a sum of money; among the Kukis, only treason or an attempt at violence on the person of the King. Among the Mishmis, adultery committed against the consent of the husband is punished with death, but all other crimes, including murder, are punished by fines; however if the amount is not forthcoming the offender is cut up by the company assembled. In Kar Nicobar the only cause for a "death penalty" that Mr. Distant could discover was madness. Among the Soolimas "murder is the only crime punishable with death." Among the Congo natives "the only capital crimes are stated to be those of poisoning and adultery." Of the kingdom of Fida Bosman writes, "Here are very few capital crimes, which are only murthers, and committing adultery with the King's or his great men's wives." Among the Wanika two crimes are visited with capital punishment--murder and an improper use of sorcery; among the Wagogo and Washambala, witchcraft only. Among the Basutos every murderer is by law liable to death, but the sentence is generally commuted into confiscation; an incorrigible thief sometimes pays with his head, but is generally fined, whereas treason and rebellion against authority are treated with more severity. Among the Kafirs, cases of assault on the persons of wives of the chiefs, {190} and what are deemed aggravated cases of witchcraft, are the only crimes which usually involve the punishment of death, very summarily inflicted; whereas this punishment seldom follows even murder, when committed without the supposed aid of supernatural powers.

Nor, as it seems, is savage justice fond of torturing its victims before they are killed. The Maoris exclaimed loudly against the English method of executing criminals, first telling them that they are to die, then letting them lie for days and nights in prison, and finally leading them slowly to the gallows. "If a man commits a crime worthy of death," they said, "we shoot him, or chop off his head; but we do not tell him first that we are going to do so." Dr. Codrington gives the following description of the cases of burning persons alive which have occasionally happened in Pentecost Island:--"In fighting time there, if a great man were very angry with the hostile party, he would burn a wounded enemy. When peace had been made and the chiefs had ordered all to behave well that the country might settle down in quiet, if any one committed such a crime as would break up the peace, such as adultery, they would tie him to a tree, heap fire-wood round him, and burn him alive, a proof to the opposite party of their detestation of his wickedness. This was not done coolly as a matter of course in the execution of a law, but as a horrible thing to do, and done for the horror of it; a horror renewed in the voice and face of the native who told me of the roaring flames and shrieks of agony." This story is not without interest when compared with the cold-blooded burning of female criminals and women suspected of witchcraft in Christian Europe.

There is sufficient evidence to show that the severe punishments adopted by peoples of a higher culture have been regarded by them as beneficial to society. The legislators themselves often refer to the deterrent effects of punishment.

The Peruvian Incas considered that light punishments gave confidence to evil-doers, whilst "through their great care in punishing a man's first delinquency, they avoided the effects of his second and third, and of the host of others that are committed in every commonwealth where no diligence is observed {191} to root up the evil plant at the commencement." According to the Prefatory Edict of the Emperor Kaung-hee, published in 1679, the chief ends proposed by the institution of punishments in the Chinese Empire "have been to guard against violence and injury, to repress inordinate desires, and to secure the peace and tranquillity of an honest and unoffending community." In the Laws of Manu punishment is described as a protector of all creatures:--"If the king did not, without tiring, inflict punishment on those worthy to be punished, the stronger would roast the weaker, like fish on a spit; the crow would eat the sacrificial cake and the dog would lick the sacrificial viands, and ownership would not remain with any one, the lower ones would usurp the place of the higher ones. The whole world is kept in order by punishment, for a guiltless man is hard to find; through fear of punishment the whole world yields the enjoyments which it owes." Even the gods, the Dânavas, the Gandharvas, the Râkshasas, the bird and snake deities, give the enjoyments due from them only if they are tormented by the fear of punishment. In mediæval law-books determent is frequently referred to as an object of punishment. And in more modern times, till the end of the eighteenth century at least, the idea that punishment should inspire fear was ever present to the minds of legislators.

The same idea is also conspicuous in the practice of punishing criminals in public. A petty thief in the pillory and a scold on the cucking-stool were, in earlier times, spectacles familiar to everybody, whilst persons still living remember seeing offenders publicly whipped in the streets. "A gallows or tree with a man hanging upon it," says Mr. Wright, "was so frequent an object in the country that it seems to have been almost a natural ornament of a landscape, and it is thus introduced by no {192} means uncommonly in mediæval manuscripts." In atrocious cases it was usual for the court to direct the murderer, after execution, to be hung upon a gibbet in chains near the place where the fact was committed, "with the intention of thereby deterring others from capital offences"; and in order that the body might all the longer serve this useful purpose, it was saturated with tar before it was hung in chains. The popularity which mutilation as a punishment enjoyed during the Middle Ages was largely due to the opinion, that "a malefactor miserably living was a more striking example of justice than one put to death at once."

We shall now consider whether these facts really contradict our thesis that punishment is essentially an expression of public indignation.

It may, first, be noticed that the punishment actually inflicted on the criminal is in many cases much less severe than the punishment with which the law threatens him. In China the execution of the law is, on the whole, lenient in comparison with its literal and prima facie interpretation. "Many of the laws seem designed to operate chiefly in terrorem, and the penalty is placed higher than the punishment really intended to be inflicted, to the end that the Emperor may have scope for mercy, or, as he says, 'for leniency beyond the bounds of the law.'" In Europe, during the Middle Ages, malefactors frequently received charters of pardon, and in later times it became a favourite theory that it was good policy, in framing penal statutes, to make as many offences as possible capital, and to leave to the Crown to relax the severity of the law. In England, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, the punishment of death was actually inflicted in only a small proportion of the cases in {193} which sentence was passed; indeed, "not one in twenty of the sentences was carried into execution." This discrepancy between law and practice bears witness, not only to the extent to which the minds of legislators were swayed by the idea of inspiring fear, but to the limitation of determent as a penal principle. It has been observed that the excessive severity of laws hinders their execution. "Society revolted against barbarities which the law prescribed. Men wronged by crimes, shrank from the shedding of blood, and forbore to prosecute: juries forgot their oaths and acquitted prisoners, against evidence: judges recommended the guilty to mercy." Yet, in spite of all such deductions, there can be no doubt that the hangman had plenty to do. Hanging persons, says Mr. Andrews, was almost a daily occurrence in the earlier years of the nineteenth century, "for forging notes, passing forged notes, and other crimes which we now almost regard with indifference."

Another circumstance worth mentioning is, that in earlier times the detection of criminals was much rarer and more uncertain than it is now. It has been argued on utilitarian grounds that, "to enable the value of the punishment to outweigh that of the profit of the offence, it must be increased, in point of magnitude, in proportion as it falls short in point of certainty." But the rareness of detection would also for purely emotional reasons tend to increase the severity of the punishment. When one criminal out of ten or twenty is caught, the accumulated indignation of the public turns against him, and he becomes a scapegoat for all the rest.

However, the chief explanation of the great severity of certain criminal codes lies in their connection with despotism or religion or both. An act which is prohibited {194} by law may be punished, not only on account of its intrinsic character, but for the very reason that it is illegal. When the law is, from the outset, an expression of popular feelings, the severity of the penalty with which it threatens the transgressor depends, in the first place, on the public indignation evoked by the act itself, independently of the legal prohibition of it. But the case is different with laws established by despotic rulers or ascribed to divine lawgivers. Such laws have a tendency to treat criminals not only as offenders against the individuals whom they injure or against society at large, but as rebels against their sovereign or their god. Their disobedience to the will of the mighty legislator incurs, or is supposed to incur, his anger, and is, in consequence, severely resented. But however severe they be, the punishments inflicted by the despot on disobedient subjects are not regarded as mere outbursts of personal anger. In the archaic State the king is an object of profound regard, and even of religious veneration. He is looked upon as a sacred being, and his decrees as the embodiment of divine justice. The transgression of any law he makes is, therefore, apt to evoke a feeling of public indignation proportionate to the punishment which he pleases to inflict on the transgressor. Again, as to acts which are supposed to arouse the anger of invisible powers, the people are anxious to punish them with the utmost severity so as to prevent the divine wrath from turning against the community itself. But the fear which, in such cases, lies at the bottom of the punishment, is certainly combined with genuine indignation against the offender, both because he rebels against God and religion, and because he thereby exposes the whole community to supernatural dangers.

{195} Various facts might be quoted in support of this explanation. Whilst the punishments practised among the lower races generally, are not conspicuous for their severity, there are exceptions to this rule among peoples who are governed by despotic rulers.

Under the Ashanti code, even the most trivial offences are punishable with death. In Madagascar, also, "death was formerly inflicted for almost every offence." In Uganda the ordinary punishments were "death by fire, being hacked to pieces by reed splinters, fine, imprisonment in the stocks mvuba, or in the **slave fork kaligo, also mutilation. It is most common to see people deprived of an eye, or in some cases of both eyes; persons lacking their ears are also frequently met with." Among the Wassukuma, whose chieftains used to have power of life and death over their subjects, a person who was guilty of disobedience to his ruler, or of some action which the ruler considered wicked and punishable, was condemned to death. In the Sandwich Islands, "a chief takes the life of one of his own people for any offence he may commit, and no one thinks he has a right to interfere."

In the old monarchies of America and Asia there was an obvious connection between the punishments prescribed by their laws and the religious-autocratic form of their governments. According to Garcilasso de la Vega, the Peruvians--among whom the most common punishment was death--maintained "that a culprit was not punished for the delinquencies he had committed, but for having broken the commandment of the Ynca, who was respected as God," and that, viewed in this light, the slightest offence merited to be punished with death. In China the Emperor was regarded as the vicegerent of Heaven especially chosen to govern all nations, and was supreme in everything, holding at once the highest legislative and executive powers, without limit or control. According {196} to ancient Japanese ideas, "the duty of a good Japanese consists in obeying the Mikado, without questioning whether his commands are right or wrong. The Mikado is god and vicar of all the gods, hence government and religion are the same." In Rome the criminal law, which for a long time was characterised by great moderation, gradually grew more severe according as absolutism made progress. Sylla, the dictator, not only put thousands of citizens to death by proscription without any form of trial, but fixed, in the Cornelian criminal code, for heinous offences the punishment called aquæ et ignis interdictio. Under the Emperors some new and cruel capital punishments were introduced, such as burning alive and exposing to wild beasts; whilst at the same time offences such as driving away horses or cattle were made capital. In mediæval and modern Europe the increase of the royal power was accompanied by increasing severity of the penal codes. Every crime came to be regarded as a crime against the King. Indeed, breach of the King's peace became the foundation of the whole Criminal Law of England; the right of pardon, for instance, as a prerogative of the Crown, took its origin in the fact that the King was supposed to be injured by a crime, and could therefore waive his remedy. And the King was not only regarded as the fountain of social justice, but as the earthly representative of the heavenly lawgiver and judge.

Of the connection between punishment and the belief in supernatural agencies many instances are found already in the savage world. The great severity with which certain {197} infractions of custom are punished has obviously a superstitious origin. In Polynesia, according to Ellis, "the prohibitions and requisitions of the tabu were strictly enforced, and every breach of them punished with death, unless the delinquents had some very powerful friends who were either priests or chiefs. Among the western tribes of Torres Straits, "death was the penalty for infringing the rules connected with the initiation period i.e., for sacrilege." Among the Port Lincoln aborigines the women and children are not allowed to see any of the initiation ceremonies, and "any impertinent curiosity on their part is punishable with death, according to the ancient custom." Among the Masai, who believe that the boiling of milk will cause the cows to run dry, "any one caught doing so can only atone for the sin with a fearfully heavy fine, or, failing that, the insult to the holy cattle will be wiped out in his blood." The penalty of death which is frequently imposed on incest or other sexual offences is largely due to the influence of religious or superstitious beliefs. And in various cases of sacrilege the offender is offered up as a sacrifice to the resentful god.

According to Hebrew notions, it is man's duty to avenge offences against God; every crime involves a breach of God's law, and is punishable as such, and hardly any punishment is too severe to be inflicted on the ungodly. These ideas were adopted by the Christian Church and by Christian governments. The principle {198} stated in the Laws of Cnut, that "it belongs very rightly to a Christian king that he avenge God's anger very deeply, according as the deed may be," was acted upon till quite modern times, and largely contributed to the increasing severity of the penal codes. It was therefore one of the most important steps towards a more humane legislation when, in the eighteenth century, this principle was superseded by the contrary doctrine, "Il faut faire honorer la Divinité, et ne la venger jamais."

From the fact, then, that crimes are punished not only as wrongs against individuals, but as wrongs against the State, and, especially, as wrongs against some despotic or semi-divine lawgiver, or against the Deity, it follows that even seemingly excessive punishments may, to a large extent, be regarded as manifestations of public resentment. This emotion does not necessarily demand like for like. The law of talion presupposes equality of rights; it is not applicable to impersonal offences, nor to offences against kings or gods. And as the demands of public resentment may exceed the lex talionis, so they may on the other hand fall short of it. Moreover, though the degree of punishment on the whole more or less faithfully represents the degree of indignation aroused by any particular crime in comparison with other crimes belonging to the same penal system, we must not take the comparative severity of the criminal laws of different peoples as a safe index to the intensity of their reprobation of crime. As we have seen before, the strength of moral indignation cannot be absolutely measured by the desire to cause pain to the offender. When the emotion of resentment is sufficiently refined, the infliction of suffering is regarded as a means rather than as an end.

By all this I certainly do not mean to deny that punishment, though in the main an expression of public indignation, is also applied as a means of deterring from crime. Criminal law is preventive, its object is to forbid and {199} to warn, and it uses punishment as a threat. But the acts which the law forbids are, as a rule, such as public opinion condemns as wrong, and it is their wrongness that in all ages has been regarded as the justification of the penalties to which they are subject. It is true that there are instances in which the law punishes acts which in themselves are not apt to evoke public resentment, and others in which the severity of the punishment does not exactly correspond with the resentment they evoke. The State may have a right to sacrifice the welfare of individuals in order to attain some desirable end. It may have a right to do so in cases where no crime has been committed, it would therefore seem to be all the more justified in doing so when the evil has been preceded by a warning. And yet, in the case of punishment, it is only within narrow limits that such a right is granted to the State. To punish a person could not simply mean that he has to suffer for the benefit of the society; there is always opprobrium connected with punishment. Hence the scope which justice leaves for determent pure and simple is not wide. Sir James Stephen observes:--"You cannot punish anything which public opinion, as expressed in the common practice of society, does not strenuously and unequivocally condemn. To try to do so is a sure way to produce gross hypocrisy and furious reaction." Experience shows that the fate of all disproportionately severe laws which make too liberal use of punishment as a deterrent is that they come to be little followed in practice and are finally annulled. As Gibbon says, "whenever an offence inspires less horror than the punishment awarded to it, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind."

Numerous data, to be referred to in following chapters, will show how faithfully punishment reflects the emotion of resentment, and how impossible it would be to explain it from considerations of social utility without close reference {200} to the feeling of justice. Why, for instance, should the attempt to commit a crime, when its failure obviously depends on mere chance, be punished less severely than the accomplished crime, if not because the indignation it arouses is less intense? Would not the same amount of suffering be requisite to deter a person from attempting to murder his neighbour as to deter him from actually committing the murder? And is there any reason to suppose that the unsuccessful offender is less dangerous to society than he who succeeds? All the facts referring to criminal responsibility, as we shall see, suggest resentment, not determent, as the basis of punishment, and so does the gradation of the punishment conformably to the magnitude of the crime. According to the principle of determent, as expressed by Anselm von Feuerbach and others, punishment should be neither more nor less severe than is necessary for the suppression of crime. But if this rule were really acted upon, the penalties imposed, especially on minor offences, which the law has been utterly unable to suppress, would certainly be much less lenient than they actually are. Moreover, if there were no intrinsic connection between punishment and resentment, how could we explain the predilection of early law for the principle of talion--an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life-- which, as we have seen, so frequently regulates the custom of revenge?

The criminal law of a society may thus, on the whole, be taken for a faithful exponent of moral sentiments prevalent in that society at large. The attempt to make law independent of morality, and to allot to it a kingdom of its own, is really, I think, only an excuse for the moral shortcomings which it reveals if scrutinised from the standpoint of a higher morality. Law does not show us the moral consciousness in its refinement. But refinement {201} is a rare thing, and criminal law is in the main on a level with the unreflecting morality of the vulgar mind. Philosophers and theorisers on law would do better service to humanity if they tried to persuade people not only that their moral ideas require improvement, but that their laws, so far as possible, ought to come up to the improved standard, than they do by wasting their ingenuity in sophisms about the sovereignty of Law and its independence of the realm of Justice.