399. Wilda, op. cit. p. 174.
269 Kovalewsky, Coutume contemporaine, p. 248. In Montenegro it was enjoined by Daniel I. (Post, Anfänge des Staats- und Rechtsleben, p. 181).
Passing to the vengeance of gods: according to the Atharva-Veda, Agni, who forgives sin committed through folly and averts Varuna’s wrath, also frees from the consequence of a sin committed by a man’s father or mother.270 Theognis asks, “How, O king of immortals, is it just that whoso is aloof from unrighteous deeds, holding no transgression, nor sinful oath, but being righteous, should suffer what is not just?”271 According to Bion, the deity, in punishing the children of the wicked for their fathers’ crimes, is more ridiculous than a doctor administering a potion to a son or grandson for a father’s or grandfather’s disease.272 The early Greek notion of an inherited curse was modified into the belief that the curse works through generations because the descendants each commit new acts of guilt.273 The persons who prohibited the sons of such as had been proscribed by Sylla, from standing candidates for their fathers’ honours, and from being admitted into the senate, were supposed to have been punished by the gods for this injustice:—“In process of time,” says Dionysius of Halicarnassus, “a blameless punishment, the avenger of their crimes, pursued them, by which they themselves were brought down from the greatest height of glory, to the lowest degree of obscurity; and none, even, of their race are now left, but women.”274 Among the Hebrews, Jeremiah and Ezekiel broke with the old notion of divine vengeance. The law of individual responsibility, which had already previously been laid down as a principle of human justice, was to be extended to the sphere of religion.275 “Every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.”276 “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.”277
270 Atharva-Veda, v. 30. 4. Cf. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, p. 98.
271 Theognis, 743 sqq.
272 Plutarch, De sera numinis vindicta 19. Cf. ibid. 12; Cicero, De natura Deorum, iii. 38.
273 Farnell, op. cit. i. 77. Maine, Ancient Law, p. 127.
274 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, op. cit. viii. 80.
275 Cf. Montefiore, op. cit. p. 220; Kuenen, op. cit. ii. 35 sq.
276 Jeremiah, xxxi. 30.
277 Ezekiel, xviii. 20. For Talmudic views, see Deutsch, Literary Remains, p. 52.
CHAPTER III
THE NATURE OF THE MORAL EMOTIONS (continued)
IT was said in the last chapter that moral disapproval is a sub-species of resentment, and that resentment is, in its essence, an aggressive attitude of mind towards an assumed cause of pain. It was shown that, in the course of mental evolution, the true direction of the hostile reaction involved in moral disapproval has become more apparent. We shall now see that, at the same time, its aggressive character has become more disguised.
This is evidenced by the changed opinion about anger and revenge which we meet at the higher stages of moral development. Retaliation is condemned, and forgiveness of injuries is laid down as a duty.
The rule that a person should be forbearing and kind to his enemy has no place in early ethics.
“Let those that speak evil of us perish. Let the enemy be clubbed, swept away, utterly destroyed, piled in heaps. Let their teeth be broken. May they fall headlong into a pit. Let us live, and let our enemies perish.” Such were the requests which generally concluded the prayers of the Fijians.1 A savage would find nothing objectionable in them. On the contrary, he regards revenge as a duty,2 and forgiveness of enemies as a sign of weakness, or cowardice, or want of honour.3 Nor is this opinion restricted to the savage world. In the Old Testament the spirit of vindictiveness pervades both the men and their god. The last thing with which David on his death-bed charged Solomon was to destroy an enemy whom he himself had spared.4 Sirach counts among the nine causes of a man’s happiness to see the fall of his enemy.5 The enemies of Yahveh can expect no mercy from him, but utter destruction is their lot.6 To do good to a friend and to do harm to an enemy was a maxim of the ancient Scandinavians.7 It was taken for a matter of course by popular opinion in Greece8 and Rome. According to Aristotle, “it belongs to the courageous man never to be worsted”; to take revenge on a foe rather than to be reconciled is just, and therefore honourable.9 Cicero defines a good man as a person “who serves whom he can, and injures none except when provoked by injury.”10 Except in domestic life and in the case of friends, Professor Seeley observes, “people not only did not forgive their enemies, but did not wish to do so, nor think better of themselves for having done so. That man considered himself fortunate who on his deathbed could say, in reviewing his past life, that no one had done more good to his friends or more mischief to his enemies. This was the celebrated felicity of Sulla; this the crown of Xenophon’s panegyric on Cyrus the Younger.”11
1 Fison, quoted by Codrington, Melanesians, p. 147, n. 1.
2 See infra, on Blood-revenge.