the Korwás on the highlands of Sirgúja, when several persons are implicated in one offence, he has found them “most anxious that to each should be ascribed his fair share of it, and no more, the oldest of the party invariably taking on himself the chief responsibility as leader or instigator, and doing his utmost to exculpate as unaccountable agents the young members of the gang.”53 The Aleuts, according to Veniaminof, are “naturally inclined to be just,” and feel deeply undeserved injuries.54 Kolben, who is nowadays recognised as a good authority,55 wrote of the Hottentots, “The strictness and celerity of the Hottentot justice are things in which they outshine all Christendom.”56 Missionaries have wondered that, among the Zulus, “in the absence for ages of all revealed truth and all proper religious instruction, there should still remain so much of mental integrity, so much ability to discern truth and justice, and withal so much regard for these principles in their daily intercourse with one another.”57 Zöller ascribes to the Negro a well-developed feeling of justice. “No European,” he says, “at least no European child, could discriminate so keenly between just and unjust punishment.”58 Mr. Hinde observes:—“One of the most marked characteristics of black people is their keen perception of justice. They do not resent merited punishment where it is coupled with justice upon other matters. The Masai have their sense of justice particularly strongly developed.”59 Dieffenbach writes of the Maoris, “There is a high natural sense of justice amongst them; and it is from us that they have learnt that many forbidden things can be done with impunity, if they can only be kept secret.”60 Justice is a virtue which always commands respect among the Bedouins, and “injustice on the part of those in power is almost impossible. Public opinion at once asserts itself; and the Sheykh, who should attempt to override the law, would speedily find himself deserted.”61
52 Man, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 92.
53 Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 230.
54 Veniaminof, quoted by Dall, Alaska, p. 398.
55 Theophilus Hahn remarks (The Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi, p. 40) that Kolben’s reports have been doubted by European writers without any good reason.
56 Kolben, Present State of the Cape of Good Hope, i. 301. Cf. ibid. i. 339.
57 Quoted by Tyler, Forty Years among the Zulus, p. 197.
58 Zöller, Kamerun, ii. 92. Cf. Idem, Das Togoland, p. 37.
59 Hinde, The Last of the Masai, p. 34. Cf. Foreman, Philippine Islands, p. 185.
60 Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 106.
61 Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, ii. 224 sqq.
Much less conspicuous than the emotion of public resentment is the emotion of public approval. These public emotions are largely of a sympathetic character, and, whilst a tendency to sympathetic resentment is always involved in the sentiment of social affection, a tendency to sympathetic retributive kindly emotion is not. Among the lower animals this latter emotion seems hardly to occur at all, and in men it is often deplorably defective. Resentment towards an enemy is itself, as a rule, a much stronger emotion than retributive kindly emotion towards a friend. And, as for the sympathetic forms of these emotions, it is not surprising that the altruistic sentiment is more readily moved by the sight of pain than by the sight of pleasure,62 considering that its fundamental object is to be a means of protection for the species. Moreover, sympathetic retributive kindliness has powerful rivals in the feelings of jealousy and envy, which tend to make the individual hostile both towards him who is the object of a benefit and towards him who bestows it. As an ancient writer observes, “many suffer with their friends when the friends are in distress, but are envious of them when they prosper.”63 But though these circumstances are a hindrance to the rise of retributive kindly emotions of a sympathetic kind, they do not prevent public approval in a case when the whole society profits by a benefit, nor have they any bearing on those disinterested instinctive likings of which I have spoken above. I think, then, we may safely conclude that public praise and moral approval occurred, to some degree, even in the infancy of human society. It will appear from numerous facts recorded in following chapters, that the moral consciousness of modern savages contains not only condemnation, but praise.
62 Cf. Jodl, Lehrbuch der Psychologie, p. 686.
63 Schmidt, Ethik der alten Griechen, i. 259.
CHAPTER VI
ANALYSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL MORAL CONCEPTS
WE have assumed that the moral concepts are essentially generalisations of tendencies in certain phenomena to call forth moral emotions. We have further assumed that there are two kinds of moral emotions: indignation and approval. If these assumptions hold good, either indignation or approval must be at the bottom of every moral concept. That such is really the case will, I think, become evident from the present chapter, in which the principal of those concepts will be analysed.
Our analysis will be concerned with moral concepts formed by the civilised mind. Whilst the most representative of English terms for moral estimates have equivalents in the other European languages, I do not take upon myself to decide to what extent they have equivalents in non-European tongues. That all existing peoples, even the very lowest, have moral emotions is as certain as that they have customs, and there can be no doubt that they give expression to those emotions in their speech. But it is another question how far their emotions have led to such generalisations as are implied in moral concepts. Concerning the Fuegians M. Hyades observes, “Les idées abstraites sont chez eux à peu près nulles. Il est difficile de définir exactement ce qu’ils appellent un homme bon et un homme méchant; mais à coup sûr ils n’ont pas la notion de ce qui est bon ou mauvais, abstraction faite de l’individu ou de l’objet auquel ils appliqueraient l’un ou l’autre de ces attributs.”1