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in solitude, without expecting any assistance from others." 1 Among the Ainu, " for breaking into the storehouse or dwelling of another, a very sound beating was administered for the first offence; for the second, sometimes the nose was cut off, sometimes the ears, and in some cases both the nose and ears were forfeited. . . . Persons who had committed such a crime twice were driven bag and baggage out of the home and village to which they belonged." 2 Among the Murray Islanders repetition of an offence such as murder or robbery generally incurred a penalty of death, whereas the first offence was punished only by a fine. According to the Javanese Níti Sástra, if a man violates the law, he may for the first transgression be punished by a pecuniary fine, for the second by a punishment affecting his person, but for the third he may be punished with death." The Penal Code of the Chinese prescribes that, for the first offence, individuals convicted of being concerned in a theft shall be branded in the lower part of the left arm with two words signifying thief, that for the second offence they shall be branded again with the same words in the lower part of the right arm, but that for the third offence they shall suffer death by being strangled, after remaining the usual period in confinement. In Nepal, in the case of theft or petty burglary, for the first offence one hand is cut off, for the second the other hand, whilst the third offence is capital. Herodotus mentions with approval that in ancient Persia not even the king was allowed to put any one to death for a single crime. According to the Vendîdâd, the gravity of a crime does not depend only on the gravity of the deed, but on its frequency as well. In ancient Rome the repetition of a crime aggravated its punishment. According to early English law, the punishment upon a second conviction for nearly every offence was death or mutilation.10 In modern European legislation, the principle that the criminality of certain crimes is increased by their repetition is generally recognised.

The more a moral judgment is influenced by reflection, the more it scrutinises the character which manifests itself

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in that individual piece of conduct by which the judgment is occasioned. But however superficial it be, it always refers to a will conceived of as a continuous entity, to a person regarded as a cause of pleasure or pain. This holds good of savage and civilised men alike. Even tame animals, in response to a hurt or a benefit, behave differently towards different persons according to their previous experience of the agent.

WHY

CHAPTER XIII

MORAL JUDGMENTS ARE- PASSED ON CONDUCT

AND CHARACTER MORAL VALUATION AND FREE-WILL

We have examined the general nature of the subjects of moral judgments from an evolutionary point of view. We have seen that such judgments are essentially passed on conduct and character, and that allowance is made for the various elements of which conduct and character are composed in proportion as the moral judgment is scrutinising and enlightened. But an important question stills calls for an answer, the question, Why is this so? We cannot content ourselves with the bare fact that nothing but the will is morally good or bad. We must try to explain it.

After what has been said above the explanation is not far to seek. Moral judgments are passed on conduct and character, because such judgments spring from moral emotions; because the moral emotions are retributive emotions; because a retributive emotion is a reactive attitude of mind, either kindly or hostile, towards a living being (or something looked upon in the light of a living being), regarded as a cause of pleasure or as a cause of pain; and because a living being is regarded as a true cause of pleasure or pain only in so far as this feeling is assumed to be caused by its will. The correctness of this explanation I consider to be proved by the fact that not only moral emotions, but non-moral retributive emotions as well, are felt with reference to phenomena

exactly similar in nature to those on which moral judgments are passed.

Like moral indignation, the emotion of revenge can be felt only towards a sentient being, or towards something which is believed to be sentient. We may be angry with inanimate things for a moment, but such anger cannot last; it disappears as soon as we reflect that the thing in question is incapable of feeling pain. Even a dog which, in playing with another dog, hurts itself, for instance, by running into a tree, changes its angry attitude immediately it notices the real nature of that which caused it pain.1

Equivalent to injuries resulting from inanimate things are injuries resulting accidentally from animate beings. If my arm or my foot gives a push to my neighbour, and he is convinced that the push was neither intended nor foreseen nor due to any carelessness whatever on my part, surely he cannot feel angry with me. Why not? Professor Bain answers this question as follows:- "Aware that absolute inviolability is impossible in this world, and that we are all exposed by turns to accidental injuries from our fellows, we have our minds disciplined to let unintended evil go by without satisfaction of inflicting some counter evil upon the offender."2 Perhaps another answer would be that an accidental injury in no way affects the "selffeeling" of the sufferer. But neither of these explanations goes to the root of the question. Let us once remember that even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked; and this can neither be the result of discipline, nor have anything to do with the feeling of self-regarding pride. The reason is that the dog scents an enemy in the person who kicks him, but not in the one who stumbles. My neighbour, more clearly still, makes a distinction between a part of my body and myself as a

1 Hiram Stanley, Studies in the Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling, p. 154 sq.

2 Bain, Emotions and the Will, p. 185.

The Koussa Kafirs, according to Lichtenstein (Travels in Southern

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Africa, i. 254), expect a similar discrimination from the elephant; for "if an elephant is killed... they seek to exculpate themselves towards the dead animal, by declaring to him solemnly, that the thing happened entirely by accident, not by design."

volitional being, and finds that I am no proper object of resentment when the cause of the hurt was merely my arm or my foot. An event is attributed to me as its cause only in proportion as it is considered to have been brought about by my will; and I, regarded as a volitional and sensitive entity, can be a proper object of resentment only as a cause of pain.

We can hardly feel disposed to resent injuries inflicted upon us by animals, little children, or madmen, when we recognise their inability to judge of the nature of their acts. They are not the real causes of the mischief resulting from their deeds, since they neither intended nor foresaw nor could have foreseen it. 66 Why," says the Stoic, "do you bear with the delirium of a sick man, or the ravings of a madman, or the impudent blows of a child? Because, of course, they evidently do not know what they are doing. Would anyone think himself to be in his perfect mind if he were to return kicks to a mule or bites to a dog?" Hartley observes, "As we improve in observation and experience, and in the faculty of analysing the actions of animals, we perceive that brutes and children, and even adults in certain circumstances, have little or no share in the actions referred to them." 2

Deliberate resentment considers the motives of acts. Suppose that a man tells us an untruth. Our feelings towards him are not the same if he did it in order to save our life as if he did it for his own benefit. Moreover, our anger abates, or ceases altogether, if we find that he who injured us acted under compulsion, or under the influence of a non-volitional impulse, too strong for any ordinary man to resist. Then, the main cause of the injury was not his will, conceived as a continuous entity. It yielded to the will of somebody else, reluctantly, as it were out of necessity, or to a powerful conation which forms no part of his real self. He was merely an instrument in another's hand, or he was "beside himself," "beyond himself," "out of his 2 IIartley, Observations on Man, i.

1 Seneca, De ira, iii. 26 sq.

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