By JAMES WALKER, D.D., LL.D.
[_February 3._]
“As a madman who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the
man who deceiveth his neighbor, and saith, ‘Am I not in sport?’”
Proverbs xxvi, 18:19.
It is incalculable how much pain is inflicted, and how much injury is
done, without anything which can properly be called malicious intent, or
deliberate wrong. Thus there are those who, like the madman mentioned
in Scripture, will cast firebrands, arrows, and death, and then think
it a sufficient excuse to say, “Are we not in sport?” Let it be that
they _are_; I think it will not be difficult to show that this will not
excuse, or do much to palliate, the conduct in question. I think it will
not be difficult to show that men are answerable for the mischiefs they
do from mere wantonness or in sport, and that it is wrong-doing of this
description which makes up no inconsiderable part of every one’s guilt.
It is to little or no purpose to be able to say that such offences do
not originate in conscious malice, for, as has just been intimated,
the same is true of a large proportion of acknowledged crimes. It is
seldom, very seldom, that men injure one another from hatred, or for the
sake of revenge—because they find, or expect to find, any pleasure in
the mere consciousness of inflicting pain. Men injure one another from
wantonness, or want of consideration; or, more commonly still, because
the carrying out of their policy, or their prejudices, or their sport,
happens to interfere with the interests and comfort of others, and,
though really sorry for this, they are not prepared to give up either
their policy or their prejudices, or their sport to spare another’s
feelings. Wars are waged and conquests made, mourning and desolation
spread through a whole country, in the wantonness of honor, or to gratify
an insatiable ambition; but without anything which can properly be called
malice, either in the first movers or immediate agents. Men opposed to
each other in politics or religion will allow this opposition to go
to very unjustifiable lengths, even to the disturbing of the peace of
neighborhoods, and the breaking of friendships and family connections;
and all this, to be sure, must give rise to a great deal of ill-will and
hot blood; but it does not originate in malice, properly so called—in
positive malice toward anybody. Likewise a rash and improvident man may
bring incalculable mischief on all connected with him, involving them in
pecuniary difficulties, or committing and paining them in other ways, and
yet be able to allege with perfect truth that he did not mean to do them
any harm; that, so far from being actuated by malice, he feels nothing
and has felt nothing but the sincerest affection for the very persons
whom he has injured, and most affection, perhaps, for those whom he has
most injured. But why multiply illustrations? The whole catalogue of the
vices of self-indulgence and excess—black and comprehensive as it is—has
nothing to do with malicious intent; that is to say, these vices do not
find any part of their temptation or gratification in ill-will to others,
or in the consciousness of causing misery to others. And yet who, on this
account, denies that they are vices, or that they are among the worst of
vices?
The moral perplexity existing in some minds on this subject may be traced
to two errors: making malice to be the _only_ bad motive by which we
can be actuated, and confounding the mere _absence of malice_ with
that active principle of benevolence, or love of our neighbor, which
Christianity makes to be the foundation and substance of all true social
virtue.
How unfounded the first of these assumptions is, appears generally from
what has been said; but the same may also be shown on strictly ethical
grounds. We must distinguish between what is simply _odious_, and what
is immoral. The malignant passions when acted out by animals are odious,
but they are not immoral, because they are not comprehended in that light
by the agent. The reason why the malignant passions are immoral in man
is that he knows them to be immoral; and accordingly any other passion,
which he knows to be immoral, becomes for the same reason alike immoral
to him as a principle of conduct. Hence it follows that, though not
actuated by malice, we may be by some other motive equally reprehensible
in a moral point of view, though not perhaps as odious—by the love of
ease, by vanity or pride, by unjust partialities, by inordinate ambition,
by avarice or lust—dispositions which have nothing to do with malice, but
yet are felt and acknowledged by all to be bad and immoral.
[_February 10._]
Moreover, the tendencies of modern civilization are to be considered in
this connection. Times of violence are gradually giving place to times of
self-indulgence and fraud; and the consequence is that now, where one man
is betrayed into vices of malevolence and outrage, twenty are betrayed
into those of frivolity, licentiousness, or overreaching. I go further
still. Suppose a man actuated by none of these positively bad motives;
nay, suppose the injury done to be accidental and wholly unintentional,
this will not in all cases justify the deed. The question still arises
whether the injury done, supposing it to be wholly unintentional, might
not have been foreseen, and ought not to have been foreseen; for, where
the well-being of others is concerned, we are bound not only to mean no
harm, but to take care to avoid everything which is likely to do harm;
and negligence in this respect is itself a crime. So obviously just
is this principle, so entirely does it approve itself to the reason
and common sense of mankind, that we find it everywhere recognized, in
some form or other, in the jurisprudence of civilized countries. “When
a workman flings down a stone or piece of timber into the street, and
kills a man, this may be either misadventure, manslaughter, or murder,
according to the circumstances under which the original act is done. If
it were in a country village, where a few passengers are, and he calls
out to all people to have a care, it is misadventure only; but if it were
in London, or other populous town, where people are continually passing,
it is manslaughter, though he gives loud warning; and murder, if he knows
of their passing and gives no warning at all, for then it is malice
against all mankind.”[A]
Equally groundless is the second of the above mentioned assumptions, to
wit: that of confounding the mere _absence of malice_ with the active
principle of benevolence itself or that love of our neighbor which
Christianity makes to be the foundation and substance of all true social
virtue. There is nothing, perhaps, which more essentially distinguishes
worldly propriety and legal honesty from Christian virtue than this,
that they stop with negatives. They are content with avoiding what is
expressly forbidden, not reflecting that this, at the best, only makes
men to be _not bad_; it does not make them to be good. Besides, if we
take this ground, if we allege the absence of all anger and resentment,
we bar the plea that we were hurried into the act by the impetuosity
of our passions—a plea which the experience of a common infirmity has
always led men to regard as the strongest extenuating circumstance of
wrong-doing. If we have given pain to a fellow creature, it is stating an
aggravation of the fault and not an excuse, to say that we did not do it
in passion, but in cold blood; and worse still, if we say that we did it
in sport. What! find sport in giving pain to others? This may consist, I
suppose, with the absence of what is commonly understood by malice; but I
utterly deny its compatibility with active Christian benevolence, or with
what indeed amounts to the same thing, a kind, generous, and magnanimous
nature. Were I in quest of facts to prove the total depravity of man, I
should eagerly seize on such as the following: The shouts of heartless
merriment sometimes heard to arise from a crowd of idlers collected
around a miserable object in the streets; a propensity to turn into
ridicule, not merely the faults and affectations of others, but their
natural deformities or defects; jesting with sacred things, or practical
jests, the consequences of which to one of the parties are of the most
serious and painful character; and the pleasure with which men listen to
sarcastic remarks though causeless and unprovoked, or to wit the whole
point of which consists in its sting. Not that the doctrine of universal
and total depravity is actually proved even by such conduct, for happily
the conduct itself is not universal; to some it is repugnant from the
beginning; and besides, even where it is fallen into, I suppose it is to
be referred in a majority of cases to a love of excitement, rather than
to a love of evil for its own sake. Still I maintain that the conduct
in question, however explained, is incompatible, or at any rate utterly
inconsistent, with thoughtful and generous natures.
[A] Blackstone.
[_February 17._]
Still, many who would not think entirely to excuse the conduct in
question can find palliations for it and extenuating circumstances, some
of which it will be well to examine.
In the first place it is said that the sport is not found in the
sufferings of the victim, but in the awkward and ludicrous situations
and embarrassments into which he is thrown. Now I admit, that, if these
awkwardnesses and absurdities could be entirely disconnected with the
idea of pain, they might amuse even a good mind; but as they can not be
thus disconnected—as all this is known and seen to be the expression
of anguish either of body or mind, or to be the consequence of some
natural defect or misfortune, or some cruel imposition on weakness or
good nature—I affirm as before, that he whose mirth is not checked by
this single consideration betrays a want of true benevolence, and even
of common humanity. Neither will it help the matter much to say that the
pain and mortification are not known, are not seen, or at least _are not
attended_ to; that this view of the subject is entirely overlooked, the
mind being wholly taken up with its ludicrous aspects. For how comes it
that we have so quick a sense to everything ludicrous in the situation
and conduct of others, but no sense at all to their sufferings? Our
hearts, it would seem, are not as yet steeled against all sympathy in
the sufferings and misfortunes of our neighbors, provided we can be made
to apprehend and realize them; and this is well; but why _so slow_ to
apprehend and realize them? If, though directly before our eyes, the
thought of them never occurs to our minds; if we can say, and say with
truth, that while we enjoy the sport it never once occurred to us that
it was at the expense of another’s feelings, though this fact was all
the time staring us in the face—does it not at least betray a degree of
indifference or carelessness about the feelings of others, which is only
compatible with a cold and selfish temper? Put whatever construction you
will, therefore, on this kind of sport, it argues a bad state of the
affections; for either its connection with the pain and mortification
of others is perceived, and then it is downright cruelty; or it is not
perceived, and then it is downright insensibility.
Another ground is sometimes taken. There are those who will say, “We
cannot help it. Persons of a constitution less susceptible to the
ludicrous, or less quick to observe it, may do differently, but we
cannot.” Obviously, however, reasonings of this sort, if intended as a
valid excuse, betray a singular and almost hopeless confusion of moral
ideas. They cannot help it? Of course they do not mean that they would
be affected in the same way by the same thing, under all circumstances
and in all states of feeling. Let the coarse jest be at the expense of a
parent, or of a sister; or let its tendency be to bring derision on an
office, a cause, or a doctrine which we have much at heart; or let it
offend beyond a certain point against the conventional usages of what
is called good society—and, instead of provoking mirth, it provokes
indignation or contempt. All they can mean, therefore, is simply this:
Their sense of the ludicrous is so keen, that, when not restrained
by some present feeling of justice, humanity, or decorum, it becomes
irrepressible. Undoubtedly it does; but this is no more than what might
be said of the worst crimes of sensuality and excess. What would you
think if a sordid man should plead, that being sordid by nature, and not
having any high principle or feeling to restrain him, he cannot help
acting sordidly? Does he not know that it is this want of high principle
and feeling which constitutes the very essence of his sin? We have
shown that to find sport in what gives pain, argues a bad state of the
principles and affections. Manifestly, therefore, it is to no purpose
to urge as an excuse, that in the existing state of our principles and
affections we can not help it; for the existing state of our principles
and affections is the very thing which is complained of and condemned.
It may be contended, as a last resort, that this state of mind is
consistent, to say the least, with amiable manners, companionable
qualities, and good nature. But if herein is meant to be included real
kindness of heart, or the highest forms of generosity and nobleness of
soul, I deny that it can be. There is no necessity of trying to make it
out that men of this stamp are worse than they really are. Unquestionably
they can and often do make themselves agreeable and entertaining,
especially to those who are not very scrupulous about the occasions of
their mirth, and feel no repugnance to join in a laugh which perhaps they
would hesitate to raise. Good-natured also they may be, if nothing more
is meant by this than the absence of an unaccommodating, morose, and
churlish disposition; for there are two sorts of good nature, the good
nature of benevolence, and the good nature of ease and indifference. The
first will not consist, as we have seen, with wrong-doing from wantonness
or in sport; but the last may; yet even when it does, not much credit can
accrue from this circumstance. Worthy of all honor is that good nature
which springs from genuine kindness and sympathy, or a desire to make and
to see everybody happy; but the same can hardly be said of what often
passes for good-nature in the world, though it is nothing but the result
of an easy temper and loose principles.
[_February 24._]
Still, I can not but think that a large majority of those who sometimes
look for sport in wrong-doing have enough of humanity and of justice to
restrain them, if they could only be made to understand and feel the
extent of the injury thus occasioned. Take, for example, jesting with
sacred things. Its influence on those who indulge in it is worse than
that of infidelity, for it destroys our reverence, and it is harder to
recover our reverence, after it has been lost, than our convictions.
Nay, it is often worse than that of daring crime; the latter puts us in
opposition to religion, but it does not necessarily undermine our respect
for it, or the sentiment on which the whole rests. Consider, too, its
effect on others. The multitude are apt to mistake what is laughed at
by their superiors for what is ridiculous in itself. In France it was
not the sober arguments of a knot of misguided atheists, but the scoffs
and mockeries and ill-timed pleasantries in which the higher classes
generally shared, which destroyed the popular sense of the sanctity of
religion; and when this great regulative principle of society was gone,
it was not long before the mischief came back, amidst scenes of popular
license and desperation, “to plague the inventors.” And so of cruel
sports. In reading the Sermon on the Mount, you must have been struck
with the fact that, while he who is angry with his brother is only said
to be in danger of the judgment, “whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall
be in danger of hell fire.” But, on second thoughts, is this anything
more than a simple recognition of what we all know to be true; that
hatred does not inflict half so deep or bitter a feeling of wrong as
scorn? Much is said about the disorganizing doctrines and theories of
the day, but, bad as these are, they are not likely to do so much to
exasperate the poor against the rich, and break down the bulwarks of
order and law, as the conduct of some among the rich themselves. The time
was when the few could trample with indifference on the interests and
feelings of the many, and make sport of their complaints with impunity,
but that time has passed away.
One word also on those cruel sports where animals, and not men, are
the sufferers. Cruelty to animals is essentially the same feeling with
cruelty to a fellow-creature, and in some respects it is even more
unbecoming. Man is as a god to the inferior races. To abuse the power
which this gives us over the helpless beings that Providence has placed
at our mercy, is as mean as it is inhuman. If we would listen to the
pleadings of what is noble and generous in our natures, it would be as
impossible for us needlessly to harm an unoffending animal, as it would
be to strike an infant or an idiot. Shame on the craven who quails before
his equals, and then goes away and wreaks his unmanly resentments on a
creature which he knows can neither retaliate nor speak! Besides, we may
suppose that there are orders of beings above us, as well as below us.
Look then at our treatment of the lower animals, and then ask yourselves
what we should think, if a superior order of beings should mete out to
us the same measure. What if in mere wantonness, or to pamper unnatural
tastes, they should subject us to every imaginable hardship and wrong?
What if they should make a show, a public recreation, of our foolish
contests and dying agonies? Nay, more; what if it should come to this,
that in their language a man-killer should be called a _sportsman_ by way
of distinction?
But I must close. We have it on the authority of the Bible, and we read
it in the constitution of man, that there is “a time to weep and a time
to laugh.” There will also be ample scope for the legitimate action of
caustic wit, so long as there are follies to be shown up, pretenders to
be unmasked, and conceit and affectation to be taught to know themselves.
But, in the serious strifes of the world, the ultimate advantages of this
weapon, though wielded on the right side, are more than dubious. “The
Spaniards have lamented,” it has been said, “and I believe truly, that
Cervantes’ just and inimitable ridicule of knight-errantry rooted up,
with that folly, a great deal of their real honor. And it was apparent
that Butler’s fine satire on fanaticism contributed not a little, during
the licentious times of Charles II., to bring sober piety into disrepute.
The reason is evident; there are many lines of resemblance between truth
and its counterfeits; and it is the province of wit only to find out the
likenesses in things, and not the talent of the common admirers of it
to discover the differences.” At any rate we can shun the rock of small
wits who think to make up for poverty of invention by a scurrility and
grimace, who think to gain from the venom of the shaft what is wanting in
the vigor of the bow. We can imitate the example of those among the great
masters of wit in all ages, who have ennobled it by purity of expression
and a moral aim; so that, in the end, virtue may not have occasion to
blush, or humanity to mourn, for anything we have said or done. Take any
other course and we are reminded of the confession which experience wrung
from the lips of the wise man: “I said in my heart, go to now, I will
prove thee with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure; and behold this also
is vanity. I said of laughter, it is mad; and of mirth, what doeth it?”
“Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is
heaviness.”