V. Revenge

CHAPTER Y. REVENGE. § 134. Among intelligent creatures the struggle for ex istence entails aggressions. Where these are not the de structive aggressions of carnivorous creatures on their prey, they are the aggressions, not necessarily destructive but cornmonly violent, of creatures competing with one another for food. Animals severally impelled by hunger are inevitably led into antagonisms by endeavours severally to seize . whatever food they can; and injuries, more or less decided, are usual concomitants.~ Aggression leads to counter-aggression. Where both creatures have powers of offence, they are likely both to use them; especially where their powers of offence are approximately equal, that is, where they are creatures of the same species: such creatures being also.those comnlonly brought into competition. That results of this kind are inevitable, will be manifest on remembering that among members of the same species, those individuals which have oot, in any considerable degree, resented aggressions, must have ever tended to disappear, and to have left behind those which have with some effect made counter-aggres sions. Fights,therefore,not only of predatoryanimalswith prey but of animals of the same kind with one another, have been unavoidable from the first and have continued to the last.

Every fight is a succession o,f retaliations-bite being 362 THE INDUOTIONS OF ETHIOS. given for bite, and blow for blow. Usually these follo"\v one another in quick succession, but not always. There is a postponed retaliation; and a postponed retaliation is what we call revenge. It may be postponed for so short a time as to be merely a reCOIllmencement of the fight, or it may be postponed for days, or it Inay be postponed for years. And hence the retaliation which constitutes what we call re venge, diverges insensibly from the retaliations which char acterize a conflict. But the practice, alike of hnmediate revenge and of post poned revenge, establishes itself· as in some lneasure a check upon aggression; since the Illotive to aggress is checked by the consciousness that a counter-aggression will come: if not at once then after a time. § 135. Among human beings in early stages, there hence arises notonly the practice of revenge hut a belief that re venge is imperative-that revenge is a duty. Here, froln Sir George Grey's account of the Australians, we have a graphic picture of the sentiInent and its results :"The holiest duty a native is called on to perform is that of avenging the death of his nearest relation, for it is his peculiar duty to do so: until he has fulfilled this task, he is constantly taunted by the old women; his wives, if he be married, would soon quit him; if he is unmarried, not a single young woman would speak to him; his mother would constantly cry, and lament she should ever have given birth to so degenerate a son; his father would treat him with contempt, and reproaches would constantly be sounded in his ear."

Of illustrations froln North America that furnished by the Sioux may be nalned. Burton says :" The obstinate revengefulness of their vendetta is. proverbial; they hate with the' hate of Hell;' and, like the Highlanders of old, if the author of an injury escape them, they vent their rage upon the innocent, because he is of the same clan or colour." From South America a case given by Scholnburgk may be quoted. "My revenge is not yet satisfied, there still lives a member of the hated family,"·said a Guiana native, 'whose relative he suspected to have been poisoned.

REVENGE. 363 Here, again, is an instance from Williams' account of the Fijians. " At that hour of death, he never forgets an enemy, and at that time he never forgives one. .The dying man mentions his foe, that his children may perpetuate his hatred,-it may be against his own sOll,-and kill him at the first opportunity." And then Tholnson tells us of the NewZealanders that "not to avenge the dead, according to native law, indicates the most craven spirit." Passing to Asia I may quote Macrae's account of the Kukis. "Like all savage people,'~ the Kukis "are of a most vindictive disposi tion; blood must always be shed for blood.... If a man should happen to be killed by an accidental fall from a tree, all his relations assemble ..• and reduce it to chips." In Petherick, we read thatThe shedding of blood is "an offence with Arabs that neither time nor contrition can obliterate, thirst for revenge descending from father to son, and even through successive generations."

So too of the East Africans Burton writes" Revenge is a ruling passion, as the many rancorous fratricidal wars that have prevailed between kindred clans, even for a generation, prove. Re taliation and vengeance are, in fact, their great agents of moral control." In all these cases we see that either avowedly or tacitly re venge is considered a moral obligation. The early stages of various existing peoples yield equally clear evidence. In his Japan in DaY8 of Yore, ~Ir. Den~ng translates the life of Musashi, published by the ~Iomtusho (Education Department), narrating a prolonged vendetta full of cOlubats and murders ; apd, in partial sympathy with the Japa~ese educationists, remarks that his hero's acts of undying revenge, displayed" so many of the nobler aspects of human nature " and are" calculated to inspire confidence in humanity." A kindred spirit is sho'wn in the early In dian literature. The gods are revengeful. As described in the Rig-Veda" Agni swallows his enemies, tears their skin, minces their members, and throws them before thewolves to be eaten by them, or by the shrieking vultures."

364 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS. And the ascribed character of the gods is participated in by their devotees, as instance the invocation :" Indra and Soma, burn the Rakshas, destroy them, throw them down, ye two Bulls, the people that grow in darkness. Hew down the madmen, suffocate them, kill them, hurl them away, and slay the voracious. Indra and Soma, up together against the cursing demon! May he burn and hiss like an oblation in the fire! Put your everlasting hatred on the villain." The narrative of the "ferocious and deadly struggle" car ried on " with all the frenzied wrath of demons," as Wheeler says, is full of vows of revengea revenge extending to horrible treatment of enemies' remains. N or do we find a different sentiment displayed among the Hebrews, V\Thether in the ascribed actions of J ahveh or the actions of his wor shippers. The cOlumand to "blot out the rernelubrance of Alnalek from under heaven" (Deut. xxv. 19), and the ful filnlent of this cOlnmand by Saul and Samuel, to the extent of .destroying not only the Amalekites but all their cattle, is a typical exalnple of the implied divine revengea sam ple variously paralleled in other cases. And with this sanc tification of revenge we see that the acts and feelings of the IIebrews themselves harmonized. The wreaking of vengeance was bequeathed as a duty; as when David, after enjoining Solomon to walk in the ways of the Lord, told hilU not to spare the son of a luan who had cursed him, (and who had been forgiven on oath), saying-" but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave with blood." (1 Kings ii. 9.) It is superfluous to illustrate in detail the kindred senti ments and ideas of European peoples throughout mediffival times. lVlost of the political and private incidents narrated exhibit thenl. To inflict vengeance was among them, as now among savages, considered an obligation; and when, occasionally, the spirit flagged in men it was kept alive by ,vornen, as in the Merovingian period by Fredegonde and Brunehaut. Then in later centuries there were chronic farnily-feuds between nobles everywhere, translnitted from REVENGE. 365 generation to generation. And the spirit was still active down to the time of the Abbe Brantome, who, in his will, en joins a nephew to execute vengeance on his behalf should he be injur.ed when too old to avenge himself. Nay, the vendetta, once so .genera], is even now not extinct in the East of Europe.

Though, throughout the modern civilized world, not per turbed everywhere and always by conflicts" life does not furnish such multitudinous examples of like meaning, yet survival of the ethics of enruity, in so far as it enjoins re venge, is sufficiently Inanifest. Duels almost daily occurring someV\rhereor other on the Oontinent, exhibit the conceived obligation under its private form; and under its public form we have before us a striking example in the persistent desire which the French cherish to punish the Germans for defeating them-a desire of which the strength has lately (August, 1891) been shown by the relllarkable fact that while professedly enthusiastic advocates of liberty and up holders of free institutions, they have been lauding "the noble Russian people" and the despotic Czar who holds them in bondage; and all because they hope thus to be aided in their ,,,,,ished-forfight with Germany. Olearly the ap propriate expression of their feeting is-Not that we love freedom less but that we love revenge more.

§ 136. But, while jpcieties have been in course of growth and consolidation, there have been occasional expressions of ideas and sentiments opposite to these-occasional expres sionswhich, as they are associated with the arrival at more settled social states, may be fairly regarded as consequent upon a diminution of warlike activities. Various illustrations are furnished. by the literature of Hindostan. In the code of lffanu we read :" Wound not another, though by him provoked, Do no one injury by thought or deed, Utter no word to pain thy fellow-creatures."

366 THE INDUOTIONS OF ETHIOS. . And again, in another place, there is the exhortation " Treat no one with disdain, with patience bear Reviling language; with an angry man Be never angry; blessings give for curses." Of like spirit is the following frolIi the Gural .'" To do no evil even to enemies will be called the chief of virtues.~' So, too, among some of the Persians. In their literature of the 7th century we find the passage" Think not that the valour of a man consists only in courage and force; if you can rise above wrath and forgive, you are of a value inestimable." At a later date, namely in a story of Sadi, there occurs the injunction :" Hast thou been injured ~ suffer it and clear Thyself from guilt in pardoning others' sin." And still more extrenle is the doctrine we find in Hafiz, as translated by Sir William Jones :" Learn from yon orient shell to love thy foe, And store with pearls the hand, that brings thee woe, Free, like yon rock, frOln base vindictive pride, Imblaze with gems the wrist, that rends thy side."

Nor are the writings of the Ohinese sages without kindred utterances.of sentiment. ~ao-Tsze says, "Recolnpenseinjury with kindness." So also according to Mencius"A benevolent man does not lay up anger, nor cherish resentment against his brother, but only regards him with affection and love." While Oonfucius, in conformity wit!! his doctrine of the mean, expresses a less extreme view. " 'What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness ~' The Master said,' With what then will you recompense kindness ~ Recompense injury with justice, and recom pense kindness with kindness.'" In the later stages of Hebrew civilization, we siInilarly find the social and divine sanctions for revenge occasionally qualified-a luingling of opposed ideas and sentinlents. lVhile, in Eccle8ia8ticu8 xxx. 6,a father is regarded as REVENGE. 361 happy ,vho leaves·" an avenger against his enemies," yet in - ch. x. 6 there is an injunction to "bear not hatred"

for wrong. received-an injunction containing in germ the ethical principle which., centuries later, took shape in Christianity. § .131. Proofs that decline of vindictiveness and growth of forgiveness are associated with decrease of militancy and increase of peaceful cooperation, cannot be clearly disen tangled from the facts; since the two kinds of life have Iiearly everywhere, and at all times, been associated in one or other proportion. But to such general evidence as the foregoing quotations furnish, may be added some evidence furnished by existing societies. There is the fact that throughout the chief nations' of Europe, the family-vendetta has disappeared during a period in which the conflicts of nations have become less constant, and the peaceful exchange of s~rvices within ·each nation more active: a contrast between ancient and modern which asserted itself soonest where the industrial type was earliest developed, namely, among ourselves.

Again, there is the fact that in our own society, with its comparatively small number of soldiers and a militancy less predominant than that of continental societies with their vast armies and warlike attitudes, there has been a suppression of the revenge for private insults, while this with them continues; and so far has the vindictive. spirit declined that an injured man who shows persistent animosi ty towards one who has injured hiin, is reprobated rather than applauded: forgiveness is, at any rate by many, tacitly approved. But if we seek a case in which the virtue supposed to be especially Christian is practised, we must seek it among the non-Christians. Certain peaceful tribes of the Indian hills are characterized by it, as witness this account of the Lepchas:----__ 25 368 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS. " They are wonderfully honest, theft being scarcely known among them; they rarely quarrel among themselves ••.•They are singularly forgiving of injuries, when time is given them, after hasty loss of temper. Although they were ready enough to lodge complaints before the magistrate against one another in cases of .assault and other. offences, they rarely prosecuted to a decision, generally preferring to submit to arbitration, or making mutual amends and concessions. They are averse to soldiering, and cannot be induced to enlist in our army even for local service in the Hills."

Thus 'we get both positive and negative evidence that the revengefulness 'within each society is proportionate to the habitual conflict with other societies; and that while, at the one extreme, there is a lnoral sanction for revenge, at the other extreme there is a llloral sanction for forgiveness.