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CHAPTER V.

DUTY AND PLEASURE.

Perceptions of right and wrong, and of our power of choice, and consequent responsibility, are universally diffused amongst mankind, and constitute an absolute character separating man from all other animals."

ture.

THOSE investigators take a sadly incomplete view of nature who confine themselves to such sciences as zoology, The existbotany, and physiology, even though, under the moral coulatter, the mere physical facts of language be in- fact of nacluded. The fundamentally distinct primary conceptions of the human mind form, no less than do physical facts, a part of nature, and one from which the most important lessons may be derived. Having, in the last chapter, noted the teaching of nature as respects the difference between. emotional and rational language, we may now proceed to advert to a distinction which seems naturally to have arisen in the minds of all races of men, and to have expressed itself unmistakably in their speech. The distinction referred to is that between duty and pleasure, as implied in expressions of moral reprobation, indicating a conviction of the existence of moral responsibility and therefore of a power of choice exercised by men in their actions.

conceptions

We may begin by inquiring whether it is indeed the case that this conception of moral worth is as wide- Are such spread as alleged-an inquiry, that is, concerning universal the universality or non-universality amongst man- mankind? kind of a power of apprehending "right" or "wrong."

amongst

And here, again, it is necessary to distinguish and define

case.

what is meant by this human mental power, because ambiguity A definition and misunderstanding respecting this matter are of morality. at least as common as in the matter of language. By this power is not meant merely a feeling of sympathy, a deference to the desires of others, or some emotional excitement tending to produce materially kind and benevolent actions. Still less is meant the volitional impulse which in all cases directly produces such action itself, since this may or may not be "moral," according to the circumstances of each What is meant is an intellectual activity evinced by the expression of definite judgments passed upon certain modes of action abstractedly considered. The existence of kindly social customs cannot be taken as necessarily proving the existence of such intellectual activity in the absence of some intimation by word or gesture of a moral apprehension. No preference for the interests of the tribe over self, or anger at the absence of such preference, is moral unless there is a judgment that such preference is "right." Similarly, no amount of gross or atrocious habits in any given tribe can be taken to prove the entire absence of morality. The liking or disliking (and therefore the frequent practice or neglect) of certain actions is one thing; the act of judging that such actions, whether pleasant or unpleasant, are "right" or "wrong" is an altogether different thing.

A man may, for instance, judge that he ought to renounce a tender friendship without its becoming less delightful to him to continue it. Another may perceive that he has acted rightly in foregoing a pecuniary advantage, though mentally suffering acute distress from the consequences of his just act. Again, differences of judgment as to the goodness or badness of particular concrete actions have nothing to do with the point we have to consider. Thus the most revolting act that can well be cited, that of the deliberate murder of aged parents, monstrous as the act in itself is, may really be one of filial piety if, as is asserted, the savage perpetrators do it at the wish of such parents themselves and from a conviction that thereby they not only save them from suffering

in this world but also confer upon them prolonged happiness in the next. Hence we must judge of the moral or nonmoral condition of savage tribes by their own declarations when these can be obtained or by expressive actions as far as possible the equivalent of such declarations. We have already seen the essential community of intellectual nature existing amongst all living races of men as regards the faculty of speech. From the existence of this community of nature, we may fairly conclude that deliberate articulate judgments of lower races have substantially the same meaning as those of our own race, whatever may be the concrete actions which occasion the expression of such abstract judgments.

ness of the

generally ad

We are all familiar with the constantly employed expressions denoting moral judgments amongst ourselves, The distinctand those amongst us who reflect upon the subject conception are generally aware that in asserting that anything mitted. is "right" they mean to make a judgment altogether distinct from one asserting the same thing to be pleasurable or advantageous. Even men who, like the late John Stuart Mill, assert that the principle regulating our actions should be the production of the greatest amount of pleasure to all sentient beings, must assert that there is either no obligation at all to accept this principle itself, or that such obligation is a "moral" one. The distinction being then generally and practically recognised as existing amongst ourselves, we have to examine the following points. Whether there is any evidence that moral perceptions are wanting in any savage tribes? Whether any races exist in a condition which may be considered as a transitional state between our own and the non-moral condition of beasts? Whether any peoples have their moral perceptions so perverted-so remote from those of the highest races-as to result in the formation of abstract judgments directly contradicting the abstract moral judgments of such highest races ?

In this matter it is very necessary to be greatly on our guard against the involuntary misrepresentations and the

Needful cautions.

hasty and careless misinterpretations of unskilled observers and inaccurate narrators. Sir John Lubbock himself observes: "We all know how difficult it is to judge an individual, and it must be much more so to judge a nation. In fact, whether any given writer praises or blames a particular race, depends at least as much on the character of the writer as on that of the people." Again, we must be careful not to apply to savage tribes standards applicable only to higher races. The essence of morality being the conformity of acts to an ethical ideal, neither the worst any more than the best moral development, whatever be the concrete acts, can co-exist with an undeveloped intellectual condition. If any tribes are intellectually in a puerile condition, puerile also must be their moral state. Here we may again quote Sir John Lubbock with approval. He says (p. 340) :

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"The lowest moral and the lowest intellectual condition are not only, in my opinion, not inseparable, they are not even compatible.

The lower races of men may be, and are, vicious; but allowances must be made for them. On the contrary (corruptio optimi pessima est), the higher the mental power, the more splendid the intellectual endowment, the deeper is the moral degradation of him who wastes the one and abuses the other."

Now, one of the clearest ethical judgments is that as to Examples of "justice" and "injustice;" and by common conmorality in savages. sent the native Australians are admitted to be at about the lowest level of existing social development, while as we have seen, the Esquimaux are deemed by some to be surviving specimens of the (up to the present time hypothetical) "miocene men."

Concerning the first of these races, the Australians, Sir John Lubbock tells us:

"The amount of legal revenge, if I may so call it, is often strictly regulated, even where we should least expect to find such limitations. Thus, in Australia, crimes may be compounded for by the criminal appearing and submitting himself to the ordeal of having spears

* ‘Origin of Civilisation,' p. 259.

thrown at him by all such persons as conceive themselves to have been aggrieved, or by permitting spears to be thrust through certain parts of his body; such as through the thigh, or the calf of the leg, or under the arm. The part which is to be pierced by a spear is fixed for all common crimes, and a native who has incurred this penalty sometimes quietly holds out his leg for the injured party to thrust his spear through! So strictly is the amount of punishment limited, that if, in inflicting such spear wounds, a man, either through carelessness or from any other cause, exceeded the recognised limits-if, for instance, he wounded the femoral artery-he would in his turn become liable to punishment."-Origin of Civilisation, p. 318.

The next is a yet stronger example of savage refinement, furnished us by Sir John Lubbock:

"Among the Greenlanders, should a seal escape with a hunter's javelin in it, and be killed by another man afterwards, it belongs to the former. But if the seal is struck with the harpoon and bladder, and the string breaks, the hunter loses his right. If a man finds a seal dead, with a harpoon in it, he keeps the seal but returns the harpoon. . . . . Any man who finds a piece of drift-wood can appropriate it by placing a stone on it, as a sign that some one has taken possession of it. No other Greenlander will then touch it."-Ibid. p. 305.

But perhaps the recently extinct Tasmanians were at a lower level than the Australians. If so, Mr. Tylor shows us by a legend which he relates, that they had a strong appreciation of even male conjugal fidelity. The inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego are, if possible, more wretched savages than the Australians, yet it is very interesting to note that even with respect to these no less hostile a witness than Mr. Darwin himself informs us that when a certain Mr. Bynoe shot some very young ducklings as specimens, a Fuegian declared, in the most solemn manner, "Oh, Mr. Bynoe! much rain, snow, blow much!" And as to this declaration, Mr. Darwin tells us that the anticipated bad weather" was evidently a retributive punishment for wasting human food," i.e., for a transgression of the aborted moral code recognised by the Fuegian in question.

That the language of savage tribes is capable of expressing moral conceptions will probably be contested by no

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