CHAPTER XI. Motives

MOTIVES

NO enlightened and conscientious moral judge can regard his judgment as final, unless he know the motive, or motives, of the volition by which his judgment is occasioned. But in ordinary moral estimates little attention is paid to motives. Men desire that certain acts should be performed, and that certain other acts should be abstained from. The conative causes of acts or forbearances are not equally interesting, and they are often hidden. They are considered only in proportion as the moral judgment is influenced by reflection.

Take, for instance, acts which are performed from a sense of duty. It is commonly said that a person ought to obey his conscience. Yet, in point of fact, by doing so he may expose himself to hardly less censure than does the greatest villain. The reason for this is not far to seek. A man's moral conviction is to some extent an expression of his character, hence he may be justly blamed for having a certain moral conviction. And the blame which he may deserve on that account is easily exaggerated, partly because people are apt to be very intolerant concerning opinions of right and wrong which differ from their own, partly owing to the influence which external events exercise upon their minds.

Somewhat greater discrimination is shown in regard to motives consisting of powerful non-volitional conations which in no way represent the agent's character, but to which {284} he yields reluctantly, or by which he is carried away on the spur of the moment. In many such cases even the law--which regards it as no excuse if a person commits a crime from a feeling of duty--displays more or less indulgence to the perpetrator of a harmful deed.

Thus, in the eye of the law, compulsion is oftentimes a ground of extenuation. Strictly speaking, a volition can never be compelled into existence; to act under compulsion really means to act under the influence of some non-voluntary motive, so powerful that every ordinary human will would yield to it. As Aristotle puts it, pardon is given when "a man has done what he ought not to have done through fear of things beyond the power of human nature to endure, and such that no man could undergo them. And yet, perhaps, there are some things which a man must never allow himself to be compelled to do, but must rather choose death by the most exquisite torments." This principle has been in some degree recognised by legislation. In many cases of felony, if a married woman commits the crime in the presence of her husband, the law of England presumes that she acts under his coercion, and therefore excuses her from punishment, unless the presumption of law is rebutted by evidence; but children and servants are not acquitted if committing crimes by the command of a parent or a master. Besides the presumption made in favour of married women, compulsion by threats of injury to person or property is recognised as an excuse for crime only, as it seems, in cases in which the compulsion is applied by a body of rebels or rioters, and in which the offender takes a subordinate part in the offence. In a time of peace, on the other hand, though a man be violently assaulted, and have no other possible {285} means of escaping death but by killing an innocent person, if he commit the act he will be guilty of murder; "for he ought rather to die himself, than kill an innocent." It has even been laid down as a general principle that "the apprehension of personal danger does not furnish any excuse for assisting in doing any act which is illegal." But the English law relating to duress per minas, and to constraint in general, seems to be harsher both than most modern continental laws and than Roman law. Some of the Italian practitioners were even of opinion that a person who committed homicide by the command of his prince or some other powerful man was exempt from all punishment. According to the Talmud, any offence perpetrated under compulsion or in mortal fear is excusable in the eye of the law, excepting only murder and adultery.

Suppose, again, that the motive of breaking the law is what has been called "compulsion by necessity." The old instance of shipwrecked persons in a boat unable to carry them all is a standing illustration of this principle. Sir James Stephen says, that "should such a case arise, it is impossible to suppose that the survivors would be subjected to legal punishment." Yet, in a very similar case, occurring in the year 1884, they were. Three men and a boy escaped in an open boat from the shipwreck of the yacht Mignonette. After passing eight days without food, and seeing no prospect of relief, the men killed the boy, who was {286} on the verge of death, in order to feed on his body. Four days later they were rescued by a passing ship; and, on their arrival in England, two of the men were tried for the murder of the boy. The defence raised was that the act was necessary for the purpose of self-preservation. But it was held by the Court for Crown Cases Reserved, that such necessity was no justification of the act of causing death when there was a distinct intention to take away the life of another innocent person. However, the sentence of death was afterwards commuted by the Crown to six months' imprisonment. In the same case it was even said that if the boy had had food in his possession, and the others had taken it from him, they would have been guilty of theft. Bacon's proposition that "if a man steal viands to satisfy his present hunger, this is no felony nor larceny," is not law at the present day. It was expressly contradicted by Hale, who lays down the following rule:--"If a person, being under necessity for want of victuals, or clothes, shall upon that account clandestinely, and animo furandi steal another man's goods, it is felony and a crime by the laws of England punishable with death; altho the judge, before whom the trial is, in this case (as in other cases of extremity) be by the laws of England intrusted with a power to reprieve the offender before or after judgment, in order to the obtaining the king's mercy." Britton excuses "infants under age, and poor people, who through hunger enter the house of another for victuals under the value of twelve pence." According to the Swedish Westgöta-Lag, a poor man who can find no other means of relieving himself and his family from hunger may thrice with impunity appropriate food belonging to somebody else, but if he does so a fourth time he is punished for theft. The Canonist says, "Necessitas legem non {287} habet"--"Raptorem vel furem non facit necessitas, sed voluntas." This principle has the sanction of the Gospel. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungered, and they that were with him; How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?"

According to Muhammedan law, the hand is not to be cut off for stealing any article of food that is quickly perishable, because it may have been taken to supply the immediate demands of hunger. We are told that "no Chinese magistrate would be found to pass sentence upon a man who stole food under stress of hunger." In ancient Peru, according to Herrera, "he that robb'd without need was banish'd to the Mountains Andes, never to return without the Inga's leave, and if worth it paid the value of what he had taken. He that for want stole eatables only was reprov'd, and receiv'd no other punishment, but enjoyn'd to work, and threatened, that if he did so again, he should be chastiz'd by carrying a stone on his back, which was very disgraceful." We even hear of savages who regard "compulsion by necessity" as a ground of extenuation. Among the West African Fjort robbery of plantations, committed in a state of great hunger, is exempt from punishment in case there is no deception or secrecy in the matter; however, payment for damage done is expected. Cook says of the Tahitians:--"Those who steal clothes or arms, are commonly put to death, either by hanging or drowning in the sea; but those who steal provisions are bastinadoed. By this practice they wisely vary the punishment of the same crime, when committed from different motives."

{288} A special kind of self-preservation is self-defence. Here the ground of justification is not merely the motive of the agent, but also the wrongness or criminality of the act which he tries to prevent. Hence the right of inflicting injuries as a necessary means of self-preservation has been more generally recognised in the case of self-defence than in other cases of "compulsion by necessity." "Vim vi repellere" was regarded by the ancients as a natural right, as a law "non scripta, sed nata"; and the same view was taken by the Canonist. Even in the savage world self-defence and killing in self-defence are not infrequently justified by custom. But in other instances the influence of the external event makes itself felt also in the case of self-defence. Among the Fjort, though a person who kills another in self-defence is exempt from punishment, he is expected to pay damages. Among the Hottentots self-defence is regarded as a mitigating circumstance, but not as an excuse in the full sense of the word. Among other peoples it is not considered at all. Among the ancient Teutons a person who committed homicide in self-defence had to pay wer; and in Germany such a person seems to have been subject to punishment still in the later Middle Ages. In England, in the thirteenth century, he was considered to deserve royal pardon, but he also needed it.

{289} In self-defence there should of course be a proportion between the injury which the aggressor intended to inflict and the injury inflicted on him by the person attacked. The most widely-recognised ground on which life is allowed to be taken in self-defence is danger of death. But it is not the exclusive ground. Among the Wakamba "a thief entering a village at night can be killed"; though, if he is, the incident generally gives rise to a blood-feud between his family and the family of the slayer. In Uganda "there is no penalty for killing a thief who enters an enclosure at night"; and among various peoples at higher stages of culture we likewise find the provision that a nocturnal thief or house-breaker may be killed with impunity, though a diurnal thief may not. This law, however, seems to have been due not so much to the fact that by night the proprietor had less chance of recovering his property, as to the greater danger to which he was personally exposed. The Roman Law of the Twelve Tables allows the diurnal thief also to be killed, in case he defends himself with a weapon; and, as regards the nocturnal thief, Ulpian expressly says that the owner of the property is justified in killing him only if he cannot spare the life of the thief without peril to himself. The same rule was laid down by Bracton and by Grotius. The latter observes, "No one ought to be slain directly for the sake of mere things, which would be done if I were to kill an unarmed flying thief with a missile, and so recover my goods: but if I am myself in danger of life, then I may repel the danger even with danger to the life of another; nor does this cease to hold, however I have come into that danger, whether by trying to retain my property, or to {290} recover it, or to capture the thief; for in all these cases I am acting lawfully according to my right."

According to the law of England, a woman is justified in killing one who attempts to ravish her; and so also the husband or father may kill a man who attempts a rape on his wife or daughter, if she do not consent. We meet with similar provisions in many other laws, modern and ancient. St. Augustine says that the law allows the killing of a ravisher of chastity, either before or after the act, in the same manner as it permits a person to kill a highwayman who makes an attempt upon his life. According to the Talmud, it is permissible to kill a would-be criminal, in order to prevent the commission of either murder or adultery "to save an innocent man's life, or a woman's honour"; but when the crime has already been accomplished, the criminal cannot be thus disposed of.

Among many peoples who in other cases prohibit self-redress, an adulterer and an adulteress may be put to death by the aggrieved husband, especially if they be caught flagrante delicto. Such a custom prevails in various uncivilised societies where justice is generally administered by a council of elders or the chief. Among the ancient {291} Peruvians "a man killing his wife for adultery was free; but if for any other fault he died for it, unless he were a man in dignity, and then some other penalty was inflicted." According to Chinese penal law, "when a principal or inferior wife is discovered by her husband in the act of adultery, if such husband at the very time that he discovers kills the adulterer, or adulteress, or both, he shall not be punishable." By the law of Nepal, the Parbattia husband retains the privilege of avenging, with his own hand, the violation of his marriage bed, and anyone, save a learned Brahman or a helpless boy, who instead of using his own sword, should appeal to the courts, would be covered with eternal disgrace. In all purely Moslem nations custom "overwhelms with ignominy the husband or son of an adulteress who survives the discovery of her sin; he is taboo'd by society; he becomes a laughing-stock to the vulgar, and a disgrace to his family and friends." According to the 'Lex Julia de adulteriis,' a Roman father had a right to kill both his married daughter and her accomplice if she was taken in adultery either in his house or in her husband's, provided that both of them were killed, and that it was done at once. The husband, on the other hand, had no such right as to his wife in any case, and no such right as to her accomplice unless he was an infamous person or a slave, taken, not in his father-in-law's house, but in his own. However, it seems that in more ancient times the husband was entitled to kill an adulterous wife; and his right of self-redress in the case of adultery was again somewhat extended by Justinian beyond the very narrow limits set down by the Lex Julia. According to an Athenian law, "if one man shall kill another . . . after catching him with his wife, or with his mother, or with a {292} sister, or with a daughter, or with a concubine whom he keeps to beget free-born children, he shall not go into exile for homicide on such account." Ancient Teutonic law allowed a husband to kill both his unfaithful wife and the adulterer, if he caught them in the act; according to the Laws of Alfred, an adulterer taken flagrante delicto by the woman's lawful husband, father, brother, or son, might be killed without risk of blood-feud. In the thirteenth century, however, there are already signs that, in England, the outraged husband who found his wife in the act of adultery might no longer slay the guilty pair or either of them, although he might emasculate the adulterer. The present law treats the killing of an adulterer taken in the act in the same way as homicide committed in a quarrel; by slaying him, the husband is guilty of manslaughter only, though, if the killing were deliberate and took place in revenge after the fact, the crime would be murder. This seems to be the only case in English law in which provocation, other than by actual blows, is considered sufficient to reduce homicide to manslaughter, if the killing be effected by a deadly weapon. There are corresponding provisions in other modern laws. As a rule, flagrant adultery does not justify homicide, but serves as an extenuating circumstance. But according to the French Code Pénal, "dans le cas d'adultère . . . le meurtre commis par l'époux sur son épouse, ainsi que sur le complice, à l'instant où il les surprend en flagrant délit dans la maison conjugale, est excusable." And in Russia, though the law does not exempt from punishment a {293} husband who thus avenges himself, the jury show great indulgence to him.

Whilst the law referring to self-defence has gradually become more liberal, the law referring to self-redress in the case of adultery has thus, generally speaking, become more severe. The reason for this is obvious. A husband who slays his unfaithful wife or her accomplice does not defend, but avenges himself; and it is to be expected that a society in which punishment has only just succeeded revenge should still admit, or tolerate, revenge in extreme cases. The privilege granted to the outraged husband is not the sole survival of the old system of self-redress lingering on under the new conditions. According to Kafir custom or law, the relatives of a murdered man become liable only to a very light fine if they kill the murderer. The ancient Teutons, at a time when their laws already prohibited private revenge, did not look upon an avenger of blood in the same light as an ordinary manslayer; and even the Church recognised the distinction. Some of the ancient Swedish laws entirely excused homicide committed in revenge immediately after the crime. According to the Östgöta-Lag, an incendiary taken in flagrancy might be at once burnt in the fire, and ancient Norwegian law permitted the slaying of a thief caught in the act. In the Laws of Ine there is an indication that a thief's fate was at the discretion of his captor, and a law of Æthelstan implies that the natural and proper course as to thieves was to kill them. In the Laws of King Wihtræd it is said, "If any one slay a layman while thieving; let him lie without 'wergeld.'" So also, according to Javanese law, if a thief be caught in the act it is lawful to put him to death. For our present {294} purpose it is important to note that all such cases imply a recognition of the principle that an act committed on extreme provocation requires special consideration. To declare that an adulterer or adulteress caught in flagrancy, or a manifest thief, may be slain with impunity, is a concession to human passions, which are naturally more easily aroused by the sight of an act than by the mere knowledge of its commission. It was for a similar reason that the Law of the Twelve Tables punished furtum manifestum much more heavily than furtum nec manifestum; and that the Laws of Alfred imposed death as the penalty for fighting in the King's hall if the offender was taken in the act, whereas he was allowed to pay for himself if he escaped and was subsequently apprehended.

The difference between an injury which a person inflicts deliberately, in cold blood, and one which he inflicts in the heat of the moment, under the disturbance of great excitement caused by a wrong done to himself, has been widely recognised. There are instances reported of savages who distinguish between murder and manslaughter. And the laws of all civilised nations agree in regarding, on certain conditions, passion aroused by provocation as a mitigating circumstance at the commission of a crime.

The Australian Narrinyeri, as we have seen, have a tribunal, called tendi, consisting of the elders of the clan, to which all offenders are brought for trial. "In case of the slaying by a person or persons of one clan of the member of another clan in time of peace, the fellow-clansmen of the murdered man will send to the friends of the murderer and invite them to bring him to trial before the united tendies. If, after full inquiry, he is found to have committed the crime, he will be punished according to the degree of guilt. If it were a case of murder, with malice aforethought, he would be handed over to his own clan to be put to death by spearing. If it should be what we call manslaughter, he would receive a good thrashing, or be banished from his clan, or compelled to go to his mother's {295} relations." In the Pelew Islands, if two natives are quarrelling, and the one says to the other, "Your wife is bad," the insulted party is entitled to chastise the provoker with a stone, and is not held liable even if the latter should die in consequence. The Eastern Central Africans "are aware of the difference between murder and homicide," even though the punishment of the two crimes is often the same. Among the Kandhs only slight compensation is awarded "for wounds, however serious, given under circumstances of extreme provocation." "Valdeyak, or manslaughter," says Georgi, "is not capital among the Tungusians, when it has been occasioned by some antecedent quarrel. The slayer is however whipped, and obliged to maintain the family of the deceased: he undergoes no reproaches on account of the affair; but on the contrary is considered as a brave and courageous man for it."

Among the ancient Peruvians, "when one killed another in a quarrel, the first thing enquired into was, who had been the aggressor; if the dead man, then the punishment was slight, at the will of the Inga; but if the surviver had given the provocation, his penalty was death, or at least perpetual banishment to the Andes, there to work in the Inga's fields of corn, which was like sending him to the galeys. A murderer was immediately publickly put to death, tho' he were a man of quality." Among the Mayas of Yucatan and Nicaragua, in case of great provocation or absence of malice, homicide was atoned by the payment of a fine.

From certain passages in the Mosaic law the conclusion has been drawn that the ancient Hebrews did not consider it obligatory to inflict death upon him who had killed his neighbour in a fit of passion. It is said that a man shall be put to death if he "come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile," or if he "hate his neighbour, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally that he die." On the other hand, he shall be allowed a resort to a city {296} of refuge if "he lie not in wait," or if he thrust his neighbour "suddenly without enmity."

Professor Leist suggests that in ancient Greece, at a time when blood-revenge was a sacred duty in the case of premeditated murder, homicide committed without premeditation could be forgiven by the avenger of blood. Plato, in his 'Laws,' draws a distinction between him "who treasures up his anger and avenges himself, not immediately and at the moment, but with insidious design, and after an interval," and him "who does not treasure up his anger, and takes vengeance on the instant, and without malice prepense." The deed of the latter, though not involuntary, "approaches to the involuntary," and should therefore be punished less severely than the crime perpetrated by him who has stored up his anger. Aristotle, also, whilst denying that "acts done from anger or from desire are involuntary," maintains that "assaults committed in anger, are rightly decided not to be of malice aforethought, for they do not originate in the volition of the man who has been angered, but rather in that of the man who so angered him." And he adds that "everyone will admit that he who does a disgraceful act, being at the same time free from desire, or at any rate feeling desire but slightly, is more to be blamed than is he who does such an act under the influence of a strong desire; and that he who, when not in a passion, smites his neighbour, is more to be blamed than is he who does so when in a passion." Cicero likewise points out that "in every species of injustice it is a very material question whether it is committed through some agitation of passion, which commonly is short-lived and temporary, or from deliberate, prepense, malice; for those things which proceed from a short, sudden fit, are of slighter moment than those which are inflicted by forethought and preparation."

Of ancient Russian law M. Kovalewsky observes, "L'existence d'une excitation violente est prise en considération, par notre antique législation, qui déclare le crime accompli sous leur influence non imputable." According to ancient Irish law, "homicide was divisible into the two classes of simple manslaughter and murder, the difference between which lay in the {297} existence or absence of malice aforethought, the fine in the latter being double what it was in the former case"; and for a wound which was inflicted inadvertently in lawful anger, the payment was made upon a diminished scale. The ancient Teutons, also, held a wrong committed in sudden anger and on provocation to be less criminal than one committed with premeditation in cold blood; this opinion seems partly to be at the bottom of the distinction which they made between open and secret homicide. According to the law of the East Frisians, a man who kills another without premeditation may buy off his neck with money, not so he who commits a murder with malice aforethought. It is curious that Bracton should take no notice of the different grades of evil intention which may accompany voluntary homicide, and that he should omit altogether the question of provocation; Beaumanoir, the French jurist, who lived in the same age, mentions in his 'Coutumes du Beauvoisis' provocation as an extenuating circumstance, and the same view was taken by the Church. Coke, in his Third Institute--which may be regarded as the second source of the criminal law of England, Bracton being the first--gives an account of malice aforethought, and adds, "Some manslaughters be voluntary, and not of malice forethought, upon some sudden falling out. Delinquens per iram provocatus puniri debet mitius." Hume says that in Scotland "the manslayer on suddenty was to have the benefit of the girth or sanctuary: he might flee to the church or other holy place; from which he might indeed be taken for trial, but to be returned thither, safe in life and limb, if his allegation of chaude melle were proved." All modern codes regard provocation under certain circumstances as a mitigating circumstance. According to the criminal law of Montenegro, great provocation may even relieve a homicide of all guilt.

It has been said that a man who acts under the influence of great passion has not, at the time, a full knowledge of the nature and quality of his act, and that {298} the clemency of the law is "a condescension to the frailty of the human frame, to the furor brevis, which, while the frenzy lasteth, rendereth the man deaf to the voice of reason." But the main cause for passion extenuating his guilt is not the intellectual disability under which he acts, but the fact that he is carried away by an impulse which is too strong for his will to resist. This is implied in the provision of the law, that "provocation does not extenuate the guilt of homicide unless the person provoked is at the time when he does the act deprived of the power of self-control by the provocation which he has received."

That anger has been so generally recognised as an extenuation of guilt is largely due to the fact that the person who provokes it is himself blamable; both morality and law take into consideration the degree of provocation to which the agent was exposed. But, at the same time, the pressure of a non-volitional motive on the will may by itself be a sufficient ground for extenuation. In certain cases of mental disease a morbid impulse or idea may take such a despotic possession of the patient as to drive him to the infliction of an injury. He is mad, and yet he may be free from delusion and exhibit no marked derangement of intelligence. He may be possessed with an idea or impulse to kill somebody which he cannot resist. Or he may yield to a morbid impulse to steal or to set fire to houses or other property, without having any ill-feeling against the owner or any purpose to serve by what he does. The deed to which the patient is driven is frequently one which he abhors, as when a mother kills the child which she loves most. In such cases the agent is of course acquitted by the moral judge, and if he is condemned by the law of his country and its guardians, the reason for this can be nothing but ignorance. We must remember that this form of madness was hardly known even to medical {299} men till the end of the 18th century, when Pinel, to his own surprise, discovered that there were "many madmen who at no period gave evidence of any lesion of the understanding, but who were under the dominion of instinctive and abstract fury, as if the affective faculties had alone sustained injury." And there can be no doubt that the fourteen English judges who formulated the law on the criminal responsibility of the insane, made no reference to this manie sans délire simply because they had not sufficient knowledge of the subject with which they had to deal.

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That moral judgments are generally passed, in the first instance, with reference to acts immediately intended, and consider motives only in proportion as the judgment is influenced by reflection, holds good, not only of moral blame, but of moral praise. Every religion presents innumerable examples of people who do "good deeds" only in expectation of heavenly reward. This implies the assumption that the Deity judges upon actions without much regard to their motives; for if motives were duly considered, a man could not be held rewardable for an act which he performs solely for his own benefit. We are told that the homage which the Chinese "render the gods and goddesses believed to be concerned in the management of the affairs of this world is exceedingly formal, mechanical, and heartless," and that "there seems to be no special importance attached to purity of heart." According to Caldwell, "the Hindu religionist enjoins the act alone, and affirms that motives have nothing to do with merit." The argument, "Obey the law because it will {300} profit you to do so," constitutes the fundamental motive of Deuteronomy, as appears from phrases like these: "That it may go well with thee," "That thy days may be prolonged." Speaking of the modern Egyptians, Lane observes that "from their own profession it appears that they are as much excited to the giving of alms by the expectation of enjoying corresponding rewards in heaven as by pity for the distresses of their fellow-creatures, or a disinterested wish to do the will of God." Something similar may be said, not only of the "good deeds" of Muhammedans, but of those of many Christians. Did not Paley expressly define virtue as "the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness"?

Such views, however, cannot hold their ground against the verdict of the scrutinising moral consciousness. They have been repeatedly contradicted by the great teachers of morality. Confucius required an inward sincerity in all outward practice, and poured scorn on the pharisaism which contented itself with the cleansing of the outside of the cup and platter. He said that, "in the rites of mourning, exceeding grief with deficient rites is better than little demonstration of grief with superabounding rites; and that in those of sacrifice, exceeding reverence with deficient rites is better than an excess of rites with but little reverence." "Sacrifice is not a thing coming to a man from without; it issues from within him, and has its birth in his heart. When the heart is deeply moved, expression is given to it by ceremonies." The virtuous man offers his sacrifices "without seeking for anything to be gained by them." "The Master said, 'See what a man does. Mark his motives.'" The popular Taouist work, called 'The Book of Secret Blessings,' inculcates the necessity {301} of purifying the heart as a preparation for all right-doing. The religious legislator of Brahmanism, whilst assuming in accordance with the popular view that the fulfilment of religious duty will be always rewarded to some extent, whatever may be the motive, maintains that the man who fulfils his duties without regard to the rewards which follow the fulfilment, will enjoy the highest happiness in this life and eternal happiness hereafter. According to the Buddhistic Dhammapada, "if a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage. . . . If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him." In his description of the Buddhists of Mongolia, the Rev. James Gilmour observes:--"Mongol priests recognise the power of motive in estimating actions . . . . The attitude of the mind decides the nature of the act. He that offers a cup of cold water only, in a proper spirit, has presented a gift quite as acceptable as the most magnificent of donations." With reference to the Hebrews, Mr. Montefiore says:--"If it were true that the later Judaism of the law laid exclusive stress in its moral teaching upon the mere outward act and not upon the spirit--upon doing rather than being, as we might nowadays express it--we should scarcely find that constant harping upon the heart as the source and seat of good and evil. What more legal book than Chronicles? Yet it is there that we find the earnest supplication for a heart directed towards God. . . . The eudæmonistic motive is strongest in Deuteronomy; it is weakest with the Rabbis." Few sayings are quoted and applied more frequently in the Rabbinical literature than the adage which closes those tractates of the Mishna which deal with the sacrificial law:--"He that brings few offerings is as he that brings many; let his heart be directed {302} heavenward." The same faults which Jesus chastises in the hypocritical Rabbis of his day are also chastised in the Talmud. It is said, "Before a man prays let him purify his heart," and, "Sin committed with a good motive is better than a precept fulfilled from a bad motive." Rabbi Elazar says, "No charity is rewarded but according to the degree of benevolence in it, for it is said, 'Sow (a reward) for yourselves in giving alms as charity, you will reap according to the benevolence.'" Nor is the doctrine which requires disinterested motives for the performance of good deeds foreign to Muhammedan moralists. "Whatever we give," says the author of the Akhlâk-i-Jelâli, "should be given in the fulness of zeal and good-will. . . . We should spend it simply to please God, and not mix the act with any meaner motive, lest thereby it be rendered null and void."