Amélineau, _Essai sur l'évolution des idées morales dans l'Égypt
Ancienne_, p. 353.]
[Footnote 54: _Vendîdâd_, i. 11.]
[Footnote 55: Maurer, _Die Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes
zum Christenthume_, ii. 150.]
[Footnote 56: Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, i. 253.
Hermann, _Lehrbuch der Griechischen Antiquitäten_, ii. pt. i. 34
_sq._ Blümner, _Ueber die Idee des Schicksals in den Tragödien
des Aischylos_, p. 131.]
[Footnote 57: Cicero, _De officiis_, i. 26.]
[Footnote 58: _Cf._ Kuenen, _Religion of Israel_, i. 62
_sq._]
[Footnote 59: Deutsch, _Literary Remains_, p. 58.]
[Footnote 60: _St. Matthew_, v. 11, 12, 39; vi. 25, 26, 30
_sqq._; xviii. 4; &c.]
[Footnote 61: _Koran_, iv. 40. _Cf._ Ameer Ali, _Ethics of
Islâm_, p. 44.]
[Footnote 62: Manzoni, _Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica_, p.
182 _sqq._]
At the same time, whilst pride is held blamable, humility may
also go too far to be approved of, and may even be an object of
censure. In early ethics, as we have noticed above, revenge is
enjoined as a duty and forgiveness of enemies is despised; and
this is the case not only among savages.[63] The device of
Chivalry was, "It is better to die than to be avenged by
shame";[64] and side by side with the nominal acceptance of the
Christian doctrine of absolute placability the idea still
prevails, in many European countries, that an assault upon honour
shall be followed by a challenge to mortal combat. Too great
humility is regarded as a sign of weakness, cowardice, hypocrisy,
or a defective sense of honour. We are not allowed to be
indifferent to the estimation in which we are held by our
neighbours. Such indifference springs either from a feeble moral
constitution and absence of moral shame, or from {146} a
depreciation of other people's opinions in comparison with our
own, and this is offensive to their _amour-propre_. Outward
humility may thus suggest inward pride and appear arrogant.
[Footnote 63: _Supra_, i. 73 _sq._]
[Footnote 64: Laurent, _Études sur l'histoire de l'Humanité_,
vii. 184.]
A person's "self-feeling" may be violated in innumerable ways, by
words and deeds. Almost any deviation from what is usual may
arouse a suspicion of arrogance. This largely accounts for the
fact mentioned in a previous chapter that habits have a tendency
to become true customs, that is, rules of duty. Transgressions of
the established forms of social intercourse are particularly apt
to be offensive to people's self-regarding pride. Many of these
forms originated in a desire to please, but by becoming habitual
they at the same time became obligatory. Politeness is a duty
rather than a virtue.
There is probably no people on earth which does not recognise
some rules of politeness. Many savages are conspicuous for their
civility.[65] It has been observed that Christian missionaries
working among uncivilised races often are in manners much
inferior to those they are teaching, and thus lower the native
standard of refinement.[66] The Samoans, we are told, "are a
nation of gentlemen," and contrast most favourably with the
generality of Europeans who come amongst them.[67] On their first
intercourse with Europeans, the Maoris "always manifest a degree
of politeness which would do honour to a more civilised people";
but by continued intercourse they lose a great part of this
characteristic.[68] Among the Fijians "the rules of politeness
are minute, and receive scrupulous attention. They affect the
language, and are seen in forms of salutation, in attention to
strangers, at meals, in dress, and, indeed, influence their
manners in-doors and {147} out. None but the very lowest are
ill-behaved, and their confusion on committing themselves shows
that they are not impudently so."[69] The Malagasy "are a very
polite people, and look with contempt upon those who neglect the
ordinary usages and salutations";[70] "even the most ragged and
tattered slave possesses a natural dignity and ease of manner,
which contrasts favourably with the rude conduct and boorish
manners of the lower class at home."[71] Of the Point Barrow
Eskimo Mr. Murdoch observes that "many of them show a grace of
manner and a natural delicacy and politeness which is quite
surprising"; and he mentions the instance of a young Eskimo being
so polite in conversing with an American officer that "he would
take pains to mispronounce his words in the same way as the
latter did, so as not to hurt his feelings by correcting him
bluntly."[72] The forms of Kafir politeness "are very strictly
adhered to, and are many."[73] Of the Negroes of Fida Bosman
wrote, "They are so civil to each other and the inferior so
respectful to the superior, that at first I was very much
surprised at it."[74] Monrad found the Negroes of Accra surpass
many civilised people in politeness.[75] So also in Morocco even
country-folks are much more civil in their general behaviour than
the large majority of Europeans. "The conversations of the
Arabs," says d'Arvieux, "are full of civilities; one never hears
anything there that they think rude and unbecoming."[76]
Politeness is a characteristic of all the great nations of the
East. The Chinese have brought the practice of it "to a pitch of
perfection which is not only unknown in Western lands, but,
previous to experience, is unthought of and almost unimaginable.
The rules of ceremony, we are reminded in the Classics, are three
{148} hundred, and the rules of behaviour three thousand."[77] In
Europe courtesy was recommended as the most amiable of knightly
qualities; and from "the wild and overstrained courtesies of
Chivalry" has been derived our present system of manners.[78]
[Footnote 65: Waitz-Gerland, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, vi.
143 _sqq._ (Polynesians). Macdonald, _Oceania_, p. 195 (Efatese).
Cranz, _History of Greenland_, i. 157. MacGregor, 'Lagos,
Abeokuta and the Alake,' in _Jour. African Soc._ July, 1904,
p. 466 (Yorubas).]
[Footnote 66: Brenchley, _Jottings during the Cruise of H.M.S.
'Curaçoa' among the South Sea Islands_, p. 349.]
[Footnote 67: Hood, _Cruise in H.M.S. 'Fawn' in the Western
Pacific_, p. 59 _sq._]
[Footnote 68: Dieffenbach, _op. cit._ ii. 108 _sqq._ See also
Colenso, _op. cit._ p. 53 _sqq._]
[Footnote 69: Williams and Calvert, _op. cit._ p. 129. _Cf._
_ibid._ pp. 128, 131 _sq._; Anderson, _Notes of Travel in Fiji_,
p. 135.]
[Footnote 70: Sibree, _The Great African Island_, p. 325.]
[Footnote 71: Little, _Madagascar_, p. 71.]
[Footnote 72: Murdoch, 'Ethn. Results of the Point Barrow
Expedition,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ ix. 42.]
[Footnote 73: Leslie, _Among the Zulus and Amatongas_, p. 203.]
[Footnote 74: Bosman, _Description of the Coast of Guinea_,
p. 317.]
[Footnote 75: Monrad, _Skildring af Guinea-Kysten_, p. 9.]
[Footnote 76: d'Arvieux, _Travels in Arabia the Desart_, p. 141.]
[Footnote 77: Smith, _Chinese Characteristics_, p. 35.]
[Footnote 78: _Ordre of Chyualry_, fol. 46. Robertson, _History
of the Reign of Charles V._ i. 84. Milman, _History of Latin
Christianity_, iv. 211. Turner, _History of England_, iii. 473.
Mills, _History of Chivalry_, i. 161 _sq._ Scott, 'Essay on
Chivalry,' in _Miscellaneous Prose Works_, vi. 58.]
The rules of politeness and good manners refer to all sorts of
social intercourse and vary indefinitely in detail. They tell
people how to sit or stand in each other's presence, or how to
pass through a door; a Zulu would be fined for going out of a hut
back first.[79] They prescribe how to behave at a meal; the
Indians of British Columbia consider it improper to talk on such
an occasion,[80] and it appears that in England also, in the
fifteenth century, "people did not hold conversation while
eating, but that the talk and mirth began with the liquor."[81]
Politeness demands that a person should never interrupt another
while speaking;[82] or that he should avoid contradicting a
statement;[83] or, not infrequently, that he should rather tell a
pleasant untruth than an unpleasant truth.[84] At times it
requires the use of certain phrases, words of thanks, flattery,
or expressions of self-humiliation. In Chinese there is "a whole
vocabulary of words which are indispensable to one who wishes to
pose as a 'polite' person, words in which whatever belongs to the
speaker is treated with scorn and contempt, and whatever relates
to the person addressed is honourable. The 'polite' Chinese will
refer to his wife, if driven to the extremity of referring {149}
to her at all, as his 'dull thorn,' or in some similar elegant
figure of speech."[85]
[Footnote 79: Tyler, _Forty Years among the Zulus_, p. 190 _sq._]
[Footnote 80: Woldt, _Kaptein Jacobsens Reiser til Nordamerikas
Nordvestkyst_, p. 99.]
[Footnote 81: Wright, _Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England
during the Middle Ages_, p. 396.]
[Footnote 82: Domenech, _Seven Years Residence in the Great
Deserts of North America_, ii. 72. Richardson, _Arctic Searching
Expedition_, i. 385 (Kutchin). Cranz, _History of Greenland_, i.
157. Dobrizhoffer, _Account of the Abipones_, ii. 136 _sq._
d'Arvieux, _op. cit._ p. 139 _sq._; Wallin, _Reseanteckningar
från Orienten_, iii. 259 (Bedouins).]
[Footnote 83: Nansen, _First Crossing of Greenland_, ii. 334
_sq._; Cranz, _op. cit._ i. 157 (Greenlanders). Dobrizhofifer,
_op. cit._ ii. 137 (Abipones). d'Arvieux, _op. cit._ p. 141
(Bedouins).]
[Footnote 84: _Supra_, ii. 111.]
[Footnote 85: Smith, _Chinese Characteristics_, p. 274.]
Politeness enjoins the performance of certain ceremonies upon
persons who meet or part. The custom of salutation is of
world-wide prevalence, though there are certain savages who are
said to have no greetings except when they have learnt the
practice from the whites.[86] As a ceremony prescribed by public
opinion it is an obligatory tribute paid to another person's
"self-feeling," whatever be the original nature of the act which
has been adopted for the purpose. The form of salutation has
sometimes been borrowed from questions springing from curiosity
or suspicion. Among the Californian Miwok, when anybody meets a
stranger he generally salutes him, "Whence do you come? What are
you at?"[87] The Abipones "would think it quite contrary to the
laws of good-breeding, were they to meet any one and not ask him
where he was going";[88] and a similar question is also a very
common mode of greeting among the Berbers of Southern Morocco.
Very frequently a salutation consists of some phrase which is
expressive of goodwill. It may be an inquiry about the other
person's health or welfare, as the English "How are you?" "How do
you do?" Among the Burmese two relatives or friends who meet
begin a conversation by the expressions, "Are you well? I am
well," if they have been some time separated; whereas those who
are daily accustomed to meet say, "Where are you going?"[89] The
Moors ask, "What is your news?" or, "Is nothing wrong?" The
ordinary salutation of the Zulus is, "I see you, are you well?"
after which the snuffbox, the token of friendship, is passed
round.[90] Among several tribes of California, again, a person
when greeting another {150} simply utters a word which means
"friendship."[91] The goodwill is often directly expressed in the
form of a wish, like our "Good day!" "Good night!" Among the
Hebrews the salutation at meeting or entering another's house
seems at first to have consisted most commonly in an inquiry
after mutual welfare,[92] but in later times "Health!" or "Peace
to thee!" became the current greeting.[93] According to the Laws
of Manu, a Brâhmana should be saluted, "May thou be long-lived, O
gentle one!"[94] The Greeks said [Greek: chai=re] ("Be joyful!");
the Romans, _Salve!_ ("Be in health!") especially on meeting, and
_Vale!_ ("Be well!") on parting. The good wish may have the form
of a prayer. The Moors say, "May God give thee peace!" "May God
give thee a good night!" and the English "Good-bye" and the
French _Adieu_ are prayers curtailed by the progress of time. But
there is no foundation for Professor Wundt's assertion that "the
words employed in greeting are one and all prayer formulæ in a
more or less rudimentary state."[95] A salutation may, finally,
be a verbal profession of subjection, as the Swedish "Ödmjukaste
tjänare," that is, (I am your) "most humble servant."
[Footnote 86: Krasheninnikoff, _History of Kamschatka_, p. 177.
Dall, _op. cit._ p. 397 (Aleuts). Egede, _Description of
Greenland_, p. 125; Rink, _Danish Greenland_, p. 223; Cranz, _op.
cit._ i. 157 (Greenlanders). Prescott, in Schoolcraft, _Indian
Tribes of the United States_, iii. 244 (Dacotahs). Lewin, _Wild
Races of South-Eastern India_, pp. 230 (Kumi), 256 (Kukis).]
[Footnote 87: Powers, _Tribes of California_, p. 347.]
[Footnote 88: Dobrizhoffer, _op. cit._ ii. 138.]
[Footnote 89: Forbes, _British Burma_, p. 69.]
[Footnote 90: Tyler, _op. cit._ p. 190.]
[Footnote 91: Powers, _op. cit._ p. 58.]
[Footnote 92: _Genesis_, xliii. 27. _Exodus_, xviii. 7.]
[Footnote 93: _Judges_, xix. 20. _1 Chronicles_, xii. 18. _Cf._
Keil, _Manual of Biblical Archæology_, ii. 183.]
[Footnote 94: _Laws of Manu_, ii. 125.]
[Footnote 95: Wundt, _Ethik_, p. 179.]
Salutations may consist not only in words spoken, but in
conventional gestures, either accompanied by some verbal
expression or performed silently.[96] They may be tokens of
submission or reverence, as cowering, crouching, and bowing. Or
they may originally have been signs of disarming or
defencelessness, as uncovering some particular portion of the
body. Von Jhering suggests that the offering of the hand belongs
to the same group of salutations, its object being to indicate
that the other person has nothing to fear;[97] but in many cases
at least handshaking seems to have the same origin as other
ceremonies consisting {151} in bodily contact. Salutatory
gestures may express not only absence of evil intentions but
positive friendliness; among respectable Moors it is a common
mode of greeting that each party places his right hand on his
heart to indicate, as Jackson puts it, "that part to be the
residence of the friend."[98] Various forms of salutation by
contact, such as clasping, embracing, kissing, and sniffing, are
obviously direct expressions of affection;[99] and we can hardly
doubt that the joining of hands serves a similar object when we
find it combined with other tokens of goodwill. Among some of the
Australian natives, friends, on meeting after an absence, "will
kiss, shake hands, and sometimes cry over one another."[100] In
Morocco equals salute each other by joining their hands with a
quick motion, separating them immediately, and kissing each his
own hand. The Soolimas, again, place the palms of the right hands
together, carry them then to the forehead, and from thence to the
left side of the chest.[101] But bodily union is also employed as
a method of transferring either blessings or conditional curses,
and it seems probable that certain salutatory acts have vaguely
or distinctly such transference in view. Among the Masai, who
spit on each other both when they meet and when they part,
spitting "expresses the greatest goodwill and the best of
wishes";[102] and in a previous chapter I have endeavoured to
show that the object of certain reception ceremonies is to
transfer a conditional curse to the stranger who is received as a
guest.[103] On the same principle as underlies these ceremonies,
handshaking may be a means of joining in compact, analogous to a
common meal[104] and the blood-covenant.[105]
[Footnote 96: See Tylor, 'Salutations,' in _Encyclopædia
Britannica_, xxi. 235 _sqq._; Ling Roth, 'Salutations,' in _Jour.
Anthr. Inst._ xix. 166 _sqq._]
[Footnote 97: von Jhering, _Der Zweck im Recht_, ii. 649 _sqq._]
[Footnote 98: Jackson, _Account of Timbuctoo, &c._ p. 235.]
[Footnote 99: See _infra_, on the Origin and Development of the
Altruistic Sentiment.]
[Footnote 100: Hackett, 'Ballardong or Ballerdokking Tribe,' in
Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 343.]
[Footnote 101: Laing, _Travels in the Timannee, Kooranko, and
Soolima Countries_, p. 368.]
[Footnote 102: Thomson, _Through Masai Land_, p. 166.]
[Footnote 103: _Supra_, i. 590 _sq._]
[Footnote 104: _Supra_, i. 587.]
[Footnote 105: See _infra_, on the Origin and Development of the
Altruistic Sentiment.]
Being an homage rendered to other persons self-regarding {152}
pride, the rule of politeness is naturally most exacting in
relation to superiors. Many of its forms have, in fact,
originated in humble or respectful behaviour towards rulers,
masters, or elders, and, often in a modified shape, become common
between equals after they have lost their original meaning.[106]
It has been noticed that the cruelty of despots always engenders
politeness, whereas the freest nations are generally the rudest
in manners.[107] Politeness is further in a special degree shown
by men to women, not only among ourselves, but even among many
savages;[108] in this case courtesy is connected with courtship.
Strangers or remote acquaintances, also, have particular claims
to be treated with civility, whereas politeness is of little
moment in the intercourse of friends; it imitates kindness, and
is resorted to where the genuine feeling is wanting.[109] And in
the capacity of guest, the stranger is often for the time being
flattered with exquisite marks of honour, for reasons which have
been stated in another connection.
[Footnote 106: See Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, ii.
'Ceremonial Institutions,' _passim_.]
[Footnote 107: Johnston, _Uganda_, ii. 685.]
[Footnote 108: Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur
Ethn._ iii. 270. Chanler, _Through Jungle and Desert_, p. 485
(Wakamba). See also _supra_, i. ch. xxvi.]
[Footnote 109: _Cf._ Tucker, _Light of Nature_, ii. 599 _sqq._;
Joubert, _Pensées_, i. 243.]
CHAPTER XXXIII
REGARD FOR OTHER PERSONS' HAPPINESS IN GENERAL--GRATITUDE--PATRIOTISM
AND COSMOPOLITANISM
IN previous chapters we have dealt with moral ideas concerning
various modes of conduct which have reference to other men's
welfare--to their life or bodily comfort, their liberty,
property, knowledge of truth, or self-regarding pride. But the
list of duties which we owe to our fellow-creatures is as yet by
no means complete. Any act, forbearance, or omission, which in
some way or other diminishes or increases their happiness may on
that account become a subject of moral blame or praise, being apt
to call forth sympathetic retributive emotions.
To do good to others is a rule which has been inculcated by all
the great teachers of morality. According to Confucius,
benevolence is the root of righteousness and a leading
characteristic of perfect virtue.[1] In the Taouist 'Book of
Secret Blessings' men are enjoined to be compassionate and
loving, and to devote their wealth to the good of their
fellow-men.[2] The moralists of ancient India teach that we
should with our life, means, understanding, and speech, seek to
advance the welfare of other creatures in this world; that we
should do so without expecting reciprocity; and that we should
enjoy the prosperity of others even though ourselves unprosperous.[3]
The writers {154} of classical antiquity repeatedly give expression
to the idea that man is not born for himself alone, but should assist
his fellow-men to the best of his ability.[4] In the Old
Testament we meet with the injunction, "Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself";[5] and this was declared by Christ to be
of equal importance with the commandment, "Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God."[6]
[Footnote 1: _Lun Yü_, xvii. 6. Douglas, _Confucianism and
Taouism_, p. 108.]
[Footnote 2: Douglas, _op. cit._ p. 272 _sq._]
[Footnote 3: Muir, _Religious and Moral Sentiments rendered from
Sanskrit Writers_, p. 107 _sq._ Monier Williams, _Indian Wisdom_,
p. 448.]
[Footnote 4: Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 275
_sqq._]
[Footnote 5: _Leviticus_, xix. 18.]
[Footnote 6: _St. Matthew_, xxii. 39.]
To a reflecting mind it is obvious that the moral value of
beneficence exclusively lies in the benevolent motive, and that
there is nothing praiseworthy in promoting the happiness of
others from selfish considerations. Confucius taught that self
must be conquered before a man can be perfectly virtuous.[7]
According to Lao-tsze, self-abnegation is the cardinal rule for
both the sovereign and the people.[8] Self-denial is the chief
demand of the Gospel, and is emphasised as a supreme duty by
Islam.[9] Generally speaking, the merit attached to a good action
is proportionate to the self-denial which it costs the agent.
This follows from the nature of moral approval in its capacity of
a retributive emotion, as is proved by the fact that the degree
of gratitude felt towards a benefactor is in a similar way
influenced by the deprivation to which he subjects himself. On
the other hand, there is considerable variety of opinion, even
among ourselves, as to the dictates of duty, in cases where our
own interests conflict with those of our fellow-men. To Professor
Sidgwick it is a moral axiom that "I ought not to prefer my own
lesser good to the greater good of another."[10] According to
Hutcheson, we do not condemn those as evil who will not sacrifice
their private interest to the advancement of the positive good of
others, "unless the private interest be very small, and the
publick good very great."[11]
[Footnote 7: _Lun Yü_, xii. i. 1.]
[Footnote 8: Douglas, _Confucianism and Taouism_, p. 192.]
[Footnote 9: Ameer Ali, _Ethics of Islâm_, p. 32.]
[Footnote 10: Sidgwick, _Methods of Ethics_, p. 383.]
[Footnote 11: Hutcheson, _Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the
Passions, &c._ p. 312.]
The idea that it is bad to cause harm to others and {155} good or
obligatory to promote their happiness, is in different ways
influenced by the relationship between the parties; and to many
cases it does not apply at all. We have previously noticed that
according to early ethics an enemy is a proper object of hatred,
not of love;[12] and according to more advanced ideas a person
who treats us badly has at all events little claim upon our
kindness. The very opposite is the case with a benefactor or
friend. To requite a benefit, or to be grateful to him who
bestows it, is probably everywhere, at least under certain
circumstances, regarded as a duty. This is a subject which in the
present connection calls for special consideration.
[Footnote 12: _Supra_, i. p. 73 _sq._]
The duty of gratefulness presupposes a disposition for
gratitude.[13] According to travellers' accounts, this feeling is
lacking in many uncivilised races.[14] Lyon writes of the Eskimo
of Igloolik:--"Gratitude is not only rare, but absolutely unknown
amongst them, either by action, word, or look, beyond the first
outcry of satisfaction. Nursing their sick, burying the dead,
clothing and feeding the whole tribe, furnishing the men with
weapons, and the women and children with ornaments, are
insufficient to awaken a grateful feeling, and the very people
who relieved their distresses when starving are laughed at in
time of plenty for the quantity and quality of the food which was
bestowed in charity."[15] Various other tribes in {156} North
America have been accused of ingratitude;[16] and of some South
American savages we are told that they evinced no thankfulness
for the presents which were given them.[17] The Fijians are
described as utterly indifferent to their benefactors. The Rev.
Th. Williams writes:--"If one of them, when sick, obtained
medicine from me, he thought me bound to give him food; the
reception of food he considered as giving him a claim on me for
covering; and, that being secured, he deemed himself at liberty
to beg anything he wanted, and abuse me if I refused his
unreasonable request."[18] Mr. Lumholtz had a similar experience
with regard to the natives of Herbert River, Northern
Queensland:--"If you give one thing to a black man, he finds ten
other things to ask for, and he is not ashamed to ask for all
that you have, and more too. He is never satisfied. Gratitude
does not exist in his breast."[19] In several languages there is
no word expressive of what we term gratitude or no phrase
corresponding to our "thank you";[20] and on this fact much
stress has been {157} laid, the deficiency of language being
regarded as an indication of a corresponding deficiency in feelings.
[Footnote 13: For the definition of gratitude, see _supra_, i. 93.]
[Footnote 14: Steller, _Beschreibung von Kamischatka_, p. 292.
Bergmann, _Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmüken_, ii. 310,
316. Foreman, _Philippine Islands_, p. 183. Modigliani, _Viaggio
a Nías_, p. 467. Selenka, _Sonnige Welten_, p. 286 (Malays).
Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, p. 207 (Malays of Sumatra).
Forbes, _A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago_,
p. 320 (natives of Timor-laut). Mrs. Forbes, _Insulinde_, p. 178
(natives of Ritabel). Hagen, _Unter den Papua's_, p. 266 (Papuans
of Bogadjim). Romilly, _Western Pacific and New Guinea_, p. 239.
La Pérouse, _Voyage round the World_, ii. 109 (Samoans). Colenso,
_Maori Races of New Zealand_, p. 48; Dieffenbach, _Travels in New
Zealand_, ii. 110. Ling Roth, _Aborigines of Tasmania_, p. 63.
Gason, 'Manners and Customs of the Dieyerie Tribe,' in Woods,
_Native Tribes of South Australia_, p. 258. Baker, _Albert
N'yanza_, i. 242 (Latukas), 289 (Negroes), von François, _Nama
und Damara_, p. 191 (Herero).]
[Footnote 15: Lyon, _Private Journal during the Voyage of
Discovery under Captain Parry_, p. 348 _sq._ See also Parry,
_Journal of a Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West
Passage_, p. 524 _sq._]
[Footnote 16: Cranz, _History of Greenland_, i. 174. Sarytschew,
'Voyage of Discovery to the North-East of Siberia,' in
_Collection of Modern Voyages_, vi. 78 (Aleuts). Harmon, _Voyages
and Travels in the Interior of North America_, p. 291
(Tacullies). Heriot, _Travels through the Canadas_, p. 319.
Lafitau, _M[oe]urs des sauvages ameriquains_, i. 106. Burton,
_City of the Saints_, p. 125 (Sioux and prairie tribes generally).]
[Footnote 17: von Spix and von Martius, _Travels in Brazil_, ii.
228, 241 _sq._ (Coroados). Stokes, quoted by King and Fitzroy,
_Voyages of the 'Adventure' and 'Beagle,'_ i. 77 (Fuegians).]
[Footnote 18: Williams and Calvert, _Fiji_, p. 111. See also
Anderson, _Notes of Travel in Fiji and New Caledonia_,
pp. 124, 131.]
[Footnote 19: Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_, p. 100.]
[Footnote 20: Southey, _History of Brazil_, iii. 399 (Abipones,
Guaranies). Hearne, _Journey to the Northern Ocean_, p. 307
(Northern Indians). Lewin, _Wild Races of South-Eastern India_,
p. 192 (Toungtha). Foreman, _op. cit._ p. 182 _sq._ (Bisayans).
Modigliani, _Viaggio a Nías_, p. 467. Ling Roth, _Natives of
Sarawak_, i. 74 (Dyaks). Chalmers, _Pioneering in New Guinea_,
p. 187; Romilly, _Western Pacific and New Guinea_, p. 239 _sq._
(However, Mr Romilly's statement that "in all the known New
Guinea languages there is not even a word for 'thank you,'" is
not quite correct, as appears from Chalmers _op. cit._ p. 187.)
Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_,
p. 365; Waitz-Gerland, _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, vi. 116
(Tahitians). Colenso, _op. cit._ p. 48 (Maoris). New, _Life and
Labours in Eastern Africa_, p. 100 (Wanika). von François, _op.
cit._ p. 191 (Herero). In the Vedic language, also, there was no
word for "thanks" (Oldenberg, _Die Religion des Veda_, p. 305);
and many Eastern languages of the present day lack an equivalent
for "thank you" (Ward, _View of the History, &c. of the Hindoos_,
ii. 81, n. _a_.; Pool, _Studies in Muhammedanism_, p. 176; Polak,
_Persien_, i. 9). When one of the missionaries in India was
engaged in the translation of the Scriptures into Bengali, he
found no common word in that language suitable to express the
idea of gratitude (Wilkins, _Modern Hinduism_, p. 397).]
Here again we must distinguish between a traveller's actual
experience and the conclusions which he draws from it; and it
seems that in many cases our authorities have been too ready to
charge savages with a total lack of grateful feelings, because
they have been wanting in gratitude on certain occasions. It is
too much to expect that a savage should show himself thankful to
any stranger who gives him a present. Speaking of the Ahts of
British Columbia, Mr Sproat remarks that the Indian's suspicion
prevents a ready gratitude, as he is prone to see, in apparent
kindness extended to him, some under-current of selfish motive.
"He is accustomed, among his own people, to gifts made for
purposes of guile, and also to presents made merely to show the
greatness and richness of the giver; but, I imagine," our author
adds, "when the Aht ceases to suspect such motives--when he does
not detect pride, craft, or carelessness--he is grateful, and
probably grateful in proportion to the trouble taken to serve
him."[21] As for the ingratitude of the Northern Queensland
natives, Mr. Lumholtz himself admits that "they assume that the
gift is bestowed out of fear";[22] and of the New Zealanders we
are told that their total want of gratitude was particularly due
to the fact that "no New Zealander ever did any kindness, or gave
anything, to another, without mainly having an eye to himself in
the transaction."[23] Moreover, gratitude often requires not only
the absence of a selfish motive in the benefactor, but some
degree of self-sacrifice. "A person," says Mr. Sproat, "may keep
an Indian from starving all the winter through, yet, when summer
comes, very likely he will not walk a yard for his preserver
without payment. The savage does not, in this instance, {158}
recognise any obligation; but thinks that a person who had so
much more than he could himself consume might well, and without
any claim for after services, part with some of it for the
advantage of another in want."[24] Mr. Powers makes a similar
observation with reference to the aborigines of California:--"White
men," he says, "who have had dealings with Indians, in
conversation with me have often bitterly accused them of
ingratitude. 'Do everything in your power for an Indian,' they
say, 'and he will accept it all as a matter of course; but for
the slightest service you require of him he will demand pay.'
These men do not enter into the Indian's ideas. This
'ingratitude' is really an unconscious compliment to our power.
The savage feels, vaguely, the unapproachable elevation on which
the American stands above him. He feels that we had much and he
had little, and we took away from him even his little. In his
view giving does not impoverish us, nor withholding enrich us.
Gratitude is a sentiment not in place between master and slave;
it is a sentiment for equals. The Indians are grateful to one
another."[25] Nor are men very apt to feel grateful for benefits
to which they consider themselves to have a right. Thus,
according to Mr. Howitt, the want of gratitude among the South
Australian Kurnai for kindnesses shown them by the whites is due
to the principle of community, which is so strong a feature of
the domestic and social life of these aborigines. "For a supply
of food, or for nursing when sick, the Kurnai would not feel
grateful to his family group. There would be a common obligation
upon all to share food, and to afford personal aid and succour.
This principle would also come into play as regards the simple
personal property they possess, and would extend to the
before-unknown articles procured from the whites. The food, the
clothes, the medical attendance which the Kurnai receive from the
whites, they take in the accustomed manner; and, in addition to
{159} this, we must remember that the donors are regarded as
having unlimited resources. They cannot be supposed by the Kurnai
to be doing anything but giving out of their abundance."[26] Mr.
Guppy found the same principle at work among the Solomon
Islanders:--"Often when during my excursions I have come upon
some man who was preparing a meal for himself and his family, I
have been surprised at the open-handed way in which he dispensed
the food to my party of hungry natives. No gratitude was shown
towards the giver, who apparently expected none."[27] It has also
been observed that the want of gratitude with which Arabs have
often been charged by Europeans has arisen "from the very common
practice of hospitality and generosity, and from the prevailing
opinion that these virtues are absolute duties which it would be
disgraceful and sinful to neglect."[28]
[Footnote 21: Sproat, _Scenes and Studies of Savage Life_,
p. 165 _sq._]
[Footnote 22: Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_, p. 159.]
[Footnote 23: Colenso, _op. cit._ p. 48.]
[Footnote 24: Sproat, _op. cit._ p. 165 _sq._]
[Footnote 25: Powers, _Tribes of California_, p. 411.]
[Footnote 26: Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 257.]
[Footnote 27: Guppy, _Solomon Islands_, p. 127.]
[Footnote 28: Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern
Egyptians_, p. 298. See also Burton, _Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah
and Meccah_, i. 51.]
We should further remember that savages often take care not to
display their emotions. Among the Melanesians, according to Dr.
Codrington, "it is not the custom to say anything by way of
thanks; it is rather improper to show emotion when anything is
given, or when friends meet again; silence with the eyes cast
down is the sign of the inward trembling or shyness which they
feel, or think they ought to feel, under these circumstances.
There is no lack of a word which may be fairly translated
'thank'; and certainly no one who has given cause for it will say
that Melanesians have no gratitude; others probably are ready
enough to say it."[29] Of the North American Chippewas Major
Strickland writes:--"If an Indian makes a present, it is always
expected that one equally valuable should be given in return. No
matter what you give them, or how valuable or rich the present,
they seldom betray the least emotion or appearance of gratitude,
it being considered beneath the dignity of a red man to betray
his feelings. For all this seeming indifference, {160} they are
in reality as grateful, and, I believe, even more so than our own
peasantry."[30] The Aleuts also, although they are chary of
expressions of thanks, "do not forget kindness, and endeavour to
express their thankfulness by deeds. If anyone assists an Aleut,
and afterwards offends him, he does not forget the former favour,
and in his mind it often cancels the offence."[31] From the want
of a word for a feeling we must not conclude that the feeling
itself is wanting. Mr. Sproat observes:--"The Ahts have, it is
true, no word for gratitude, but a defect in language does not
absolutely imply defect in heart; and the Indian who, in return
for a benefit received, says, with glistening eyes, that his
heart is good towards his benefactor, expresses his gratitude
quite as well perhaps as the English man who says 'Thank you.'"[32]
[Footnote 29: Codrington, _Melanesians_, p. 354.]
[Footnote 30: Strickland, _Twenty-seven Years in Canada West_,
ii. 58.]
[Footnote 31: Veniaminof, quoted by Dall, _Alaska_, p. 395.]
[Footnote 32: Sproat, _op. cit._ p. 165. See also Ling Roth,
_Natives of Sarawak_, i. 74 (Dyaks).]
It is not surprising, then, that in various cases a people which
to one traveller appears to be quite destitute of gratitude is by
another described as being by no means lacking in this
feeling;[33] and sometimes contradictory statements are made even
by the same writer. Thus Mr. Lumholtz, who gives such a gloomy
picture of the character of the Northern Queensland natives,
nevertheless tells us of a native who, though himself very
hungry, threw the animals which the traveller had shot for him to
an old man--his wife's uncle--whom they met, in order to give
some proof of the gratitude he owed the person from whom he had
received his wife;[34] and regarding the Fijians Mr. Williams
himself states that thanks for presents "are always expressed
aloud, and generally with a kind wish for the giver."[35] As we
have noticed before, retributive kindly emotions, of which
gratitude is only the most developed form, are commonly found
among gregarious animals, social affection being not only a
friendly {161} sentiment towards another individual, but towards
an individual who is conceived of as a friend.[36] And it is all
the more difficult to believe in the absolute want of gratitude
in some savage races, as the majority of them--to judge from my
collection of facts--are expressly acquitted of such a defect,
and several are described as remarkably grateful for benefits
bestowed upon them.
[Footnote 33: _E.g._, the Fuegians, Sioux, Ahts, Aleuts,
Kamchadales, Tasmanians, Zulus (see _supra_ and _infra_).]
[Footnote 34: Lumholtz, _Among Cannibals_, p. 221.]
[Footnote 35: Williams and Calvert, _op. cit._ p. 132.]
[Footnote 36: _Supra_, i. 94.]
The Fuegians use the word _chapakouta_, which means glad,
satisfied, affectionate, grateful, to express thanks.[37] Jemmy
Button, the young Fuegian who was brought to England on board the
_Beagle_, gave proofs of sincere gratitude;[38] and Admiral
Fitzroy also mentions a Patagonian boy who appeared thankful for
kindness shown to him.[39] Of the Mapuchés of Chili Mr. E. R.
Smith observes:--"Whatever present is made, or favour conferred,
is considered as something to be returned; and the Indian never
fails, though months and years may intervene, to repay what he
conscientiously thinks an exact equivalent for the thing
received."[40] The Botocudos do not readily forget kind
treatment;[41] and the Tupis "were a grateful race, and
remembered that they had received gifts, after the giver had
forgotten it."[42] The Guiana Indians "are grateful for any
kindness."[43] The Navahos of New Mexico have a word for thanks,
and employ it on all occasions which we would consider
appropriate.[44] The Sioux "evinced the warmest gratitude to any
who had ever displayed kind feelings towards them."[45] In his
'Voyages from Montreal to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans,'
Mackenzie mentions the gratitude shown him by a young Indian whom
he had cured of a bad wound. When well enough to engage in a
hunting party, the young man brought to his physician the tongue
of an elk, and when they parted both he and his relatives
expressed the heartiest acknowledgment for the care bestowed on
him.[46] If an Aleut receives a gift he accepts it, saying _Akh!_
which means "thanks."[47] Some of the Point Barrow Eskimo visited
by Mr. Murdoch "seem to feel truly {162} grateful for the
benefits and gifts received, and endeavoured by their general
behaviour, as well as in more substantial ways, to make some
adequate return"; whereas others appeared to think only of what
they might receive.[48]
[Footnote 37: Hyades and Deniker, _Mission scientifique du Cap
Horn_, vii. 314.]
[Footnote 38: King and Fitzroy, _op. cit._ ii. 327.]
[Footnote 39: _Ibid._ ii. 173.]
[Footnote 40: Smith, _Araucanians_, p. 258.]
[Footnote 41: Wied-Neuwied, _Reise nach Brasilien_, ii. 16.]
[Footnote 42: Southey, _op. cit._ i. 247.]
[Footnote 43: Im Thurn, _Among the Indians of Guiana_, p. 213.]
[Footnote 44: Matthews, 'Study of Ethics among the Lower Races,'
in _Journal of American Folk-Lore_, xii. 9.]
[Footnote 45: Eastman, _Dacotah_, p. ix.]
[Footnote 46: Mackenzie, _Voyages from Montreal to the Frozen and
Pacific Oceans_, p. 137 _sq._]
[Footnote 47: Veniaminof, quoted by Dall, _op. cit._ p. 395.]
[Footnote 48: Murdoch, 'Ethnol. Results of the Point Barrow
Expedition,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ ix. 42. See also Seemann,
_Voyage of 'Herald,'_ ii. 67 (Western Eskimo).]
Of the Tunguses it is said, "If you make them a present, they
hardly thank you; but though so unpolite, they are exceedingly
grateful."[49] The Jakuts never forget a benefit received; "for
they not only make restitution, but recommend to their offspring
the ties of friendship and gratitude to their benefactors."[50]
The Veddah of Ceylon is described as very grateful for attention
or assistance.[51] "A little kindly sympathy makes him an
attached friend, and for his friend . . . . he will readily give
his life."[52] Mr. Bennett once had an interview with two village
Veddahs, and on that occasion gave them presents. Two months
after a couple of elephant's tusks found their way into his front
verandah at night, but the Veddahs who had brought them never
gave him an opportunity to reward them. "What a lesson in
gratitude and delicacy," he exclaims, "even a Veddah may teach!"[53]
[Footnote 49: Georgi, _Russia_, iii. 111.]
[Footnote 50: Sauer, _Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia,
performed by Billings_, p. 124.]
[Footnote 51: Tennent, _Ceylon_, ii. 445. Sarasin, _Forschungen auf
Ceylon_, iii. 546.]
[Footnote 52: Nevill, 'Vaeddas of Ceylon,' in _Taprobanian_, i. 192.]
[Footnote 53: Pridham, _Account of Ceylon_, i. 460 _sq._]
The Alfura of Halmahera,[54] the Bataks of Sumatra,[55] and the
Dyaks of Borneo[56] are praised for their grateful disposition of
mind. Of the Hill Dyaks Mr. Low observes that gratitude
"eminently adorns the character of these simple people, and the
smallest benefit conferred upon them calls forth its vigorous and
continued exercise."[57] The Motu people of New Guinea are
"capable of appreciating kindness,"[58] and have words for
expressing thanks.[59] Chamisso speaks highly of the gratitude
evinced by the natives of Ulea, Caroline Islands:--"Any thing, a
useful instrument, for example, which they have received as a
gift from a friend, retains and bears among them as a lasting
memorial the name of the friend who bestowed it."[60] When
Professor Moseley at Dentrecasteaux Island, of the Admiralty
Group, gave a hatchet as pay to his guide, according {163} to
promise, the guide seemed grateful, and presented him with his
own shell adze in return.[61] Though the Tahitians never return
thanks nor seem to have a word in their language expressive of
gratitude, they are not devoid of the feeling itself.[62]
Backhouse tells us of a Tasmanian native who, having been nursed
through an illness, showed many demonstrations of gratitude; and
he adds that this virtue was often exhibited among these
people--a statement which is corroborated by the accounts of
other travellers.[63] Of the Australian aborigines Mr. Ridley
writes:--"I believe they are as a people remarkably susceptible
of impressions from kind treatment. They recognised me as one who
sought their good, and were evidently pleased and thankful to see
that I thought them worth looking after."[64] The Adelaide and
Encounter Bay blacks are said to display attachment to persons
who are kind to them.[65] Speaking of the Central Australian
tribes, Messrs. Spencer and Gillen observe that, though they are
not in the habit of showing anything like excessive gratitude on
receiving gifts from the white man, they are in reality by no
means incapable of that feeling;[66] and other writers report
instances of gratitude displayed by natives of West Australia[67]
and Queensland.[68]
[Footnote 54: Kükenthal, _Forschungsreise in den Molukken und
Borneo_, i. 188.]
[Footnote 55: Junghuhn, _Die Battaländer auf Sumatra_, ii. 239.]
[Footnote 56: Ling Roth, _Natives of Sarawak_, i. 74, 76.]
[Footnote 57: Low, _Sarawak_, p. 246.]
[Footnote 58: Stone, _A Few Months in New Guinea_, p. 95.]
[Footnote 59: Chalmers, _Pioneering in New Guinea_, p. 187.]
[Footnote 60: von Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery into the South
Sea_, iii. 214.]
[Footnote 61: Moseley, 'Inhabitants of the Admiralty Islands,' in
_Jour. Anthr. Inst._ vi. 416.]
[Footnote 62: Waitz-Gerland, _op. cit._ vi. 116.]
[Footnote 63: Ling Roth, _Aborigines of Tasmania_, pp. 47, 62, 64.]
[Footnote 64: Ridley, _Aborigines of Australia_, p. 24. See also
_ibid._ p. 20 _sqq._]
[Footnote 65: Wyatt, 'Manners and Superstitions of the Adelaide
and Encounter Bay Aboriginal Tribes,' in Woods, _Native Tribes of
South Australia_, p. 162.]
[Footnote 66: Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
Australia_, p. 48 _sqq._]
[Footnote 67: Salvado, _Mémoires historiques sur l'Australie_,
p. 146.]
[Footnote 68: Fraser, _Aborigines of New South Wales_, p. 44.]
Concerning the people of Madagascar the missionary Ellis
writes:--"Whether the noble and generous feeling of gratitude has
much place amongst the Malagasy has been questioned. Though often
characterised by extreme apathy, they are certainly susceptible
of tenderness of feeling, and their customs furnish various modes
of testifying their sense of any acts of kindness shewn them, and
their language contains many forms of speech expressive of
thankfulness. The following are among those in most general use:
'May you live to grow old--may you live long--may you live
sacred--may you see, or obtain, justice from the sovereign.'"
Moreover, with all their expressions of thankfulness,
considerable action is used: sometimes the two hands are extended
open as if to make a present; or the party stoops down to the
ground, and clasps the legs, or touches the knee and the feet of
the person he is thanking.[69] Ingratitude, {164} again, is
expressed by many strong metaphors, such as "son of a
thunderbolt," or "offspring of a wild boar."[70] The Bushmans,
according to Burchell, are not incapable of gratitude.[71] The
statement made by certain travellers or colonists that the Zulus
are devoid of this feeling, is contradicted by Mr. Tyler, who
asserts that "many instances might be related in which a thankful
spirit has been manifested, and gifts bestowed for favours
received."[72] The Basutos have words to express gratitude.[73]
Among the Bakongo, says Mr. Ward, "evidences of gratitude are
rare indeed, although occasionally one meets with this sentiment
in odd guises. Once, by a happy chance, I saved a baby's life.
The child was brought to me by its mother in convulsions, and I
was fortunate enough to find in my medicine chest a drug that
effected an almost immediate cure. Yet the service I rendered to
this woman, instead of meeting with any appreciation, only
procured for me the whispered reputation of being a witch." But
twenty months afterwards, at midnight when all the people were
sleeping, the same woman came to Mr. Ward and gave him some
fowl's eggs in payment. "I come," she said, "in the darkness that
my people may not know, for they would jeer at me if they knew of
this gift."[74] A traveller tells us that the inhabitants of
Great Benin "if given any trifles expressed their thanks."[75]
Writing on the natives of Accra, Monrad states that gratitude is
among the virtues of the Negroes, and induces them even to give
their lives in return for benefits conferred on them.[76] The
Feloops, bordering on the Gambia, "display the utmost gratitude
and affection towards their benefactors."[77] As regards the
Eastern Central Africans, Mr. Macdonald affirms without any
hesitation that they have gratitude, "even though we define
gratitude as being much more than an 'acute sense of favours to
come.'"[78] The Masai and Wadshagga have "a curious habit of
spitting on things or people as a compliment or sign of
gratitude"[79]--originally, I presume, with a view to
transferring to them a blessing. The Barea are said to be
thankful for benefits.[80] According to Palgrave, "gratitude is
no {165} less an Arab than a European virtue, whatever the
ignorance or the prejudices of some foreigners may have affirmed
to the contrary";[81] and Burckhardt says that an Arab never
forgets the generosity shown to him even by an enemy.[82]
[Footnote 69: Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, i. 258. See also
Rochon, _Voyage to Madagascar_, p. 56.]
[Footnote 70: Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 139 _sq._]
[Footnote 71: Burchell, _Travels in the Interior of Southern
Africa_, ii. 68, 86, 447.]
[Footnote 72: Tyler, _Forty Years among the Zulus_, p. 194.]
[Footnote 73: Casalis, _Basutos_, p. 306.]
[Footnote 74: Ward, _Five Years with the Congo Cannibals_, p. 47
_sqq._]
[Footnote 75: Punch, quoted by Ling Roth, _Great Benin_, p. 45.]
[Footnote 76: Monrad, _Skildring af Guinea-Kysten_, p. 8.]
[Footnote 77: Mungo Park, _Travels in the Interior of Africa_,
p. 14.]
[Footnote 78: Macdonald, _Africana_, i. 10.]
[Footnote 79: Johnston, _Kilima-njaro Expedition_, p. 438.]
[Footnote 80: Munzinger, _Ostafrikanische Studien_, p. 533.]
[Footnote 81: Palgrave, quoted in Spencer's _Descriptive
Sociology_, 'Asiatic Races,' p. 31.]
[Footnote 82: Burckhardt, _Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys_,
p. 105.]
In other statements gratitude is directly represented as an
object of praise, or its absence as an object of disapproval.
Among the Atkha Aleuts, according to Father Yakof, gratitude to
benefactors was considered a virtue.[83] Among the Omahas, if a
man receives a favour and does not manifest his thankfulness, the
people exclaim:--"He does not appreciate the gift! He has no
manners."[84] The Kamchadales "are not only grateful for favours,
but they think it absolutely necessary to make some return for a
present."[85] The Chinese say that "kindness is more binding than
a loan."[86] According to the 'Divine Panorama,' a well-known
Taouist work, those who forget kindness and are guilty of
ingratitude shall be tormented after death and "shall not escape
one jot of their punishments."[87] In one of the Pahlavi texts
gratitude is represented as a means of arriving at heaven, whilst
ingratitude is stigmatised as a heinous sin;[88] and according to
Ammian ungrateful persons were even punished by law in ancient
Persia.[89] The same, we are told, was the case in Macedonia.[90]
The duty of gratitude was strongly inculcated by Greek and Roman
moralists.[91] Aristotle observes that we ought, as a general
rule, rather to return a kindness to our benefactor than to
confer a gratuitous favour upon a brother in arms, just as we
ought rather to repay a loan to a creditor than to spend the same
sum upon a present to a friend.[92] According to {166} Xenophon
the requital of benefits is enjoined by a divine law.[93] "There
is no duty more indispensable than that of returning a kindness,"
says Cicero; "all men detest one forgetful of a benefit."[94]
Seneca calls ingratitude a most odious vice, which it is difficult
to punish by law, but which we refer for judgment to the gods.[95]
The ancient Scandinavians considered it dishonourable for a man to
kill even an enemy in blood-revenge if he had received a benefit
from him.[96]
[Footnote 83: Yakof, quoted by Petroff, _Report on the
Population, &c. of Alaska_, p. 158.]
[Footnote 84: Dorsey, 'Omaha Sociology,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur.
Ethn._ iii. 270.]
[Footnote 85: Dobell, _Travels in Kamtschatka_, i. 75.]
[Footnote 86: Davis, _China_, ii. 123.]
[Footnote 87: Giles, _Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio_,
ii. 374 _sq._ See also _Thâi-Shang_, 4.]
[Footnote 88: _Dînâ-î Maînôg-î Khirad_, xxxvi. 28; xxxvii. 6;
xliii. 9.]
[Footnote 89: Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6. 81.]
[Footnote 90: Seneca, _De beneficiis_, iii. 6. 2.]
[Footnote 91: See Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii.
305 _sqq._]
[Footnote 92: Aristotle, _Ethica Nicomachea_, x. 2. 3.]
[Footnote 93: Xenophon, _Memorabilia_, iv. 4. 24.]
[Footnote 94: Cicero, _De officiis_, i. 15 (47); ii. 18 (63).]
[Footnote 95: Seneca, _De beneficiis_, iii. 6. 1 _sq._]
[Footnote 96: Maurer, _Die Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes_,
ii. 174.]
We may assume that among beings capable of feeling moral emotions
the general disposition to be kind to a benefactor will
inevitably lead to the notion that ungrateful behaviour is wrong.
Such behaviour is offensive to the benefactor; as Spinoza
observes, "he who has conferred a benefit on anyone from motives
of love or honour will feel pain, if he sees that the benefit is
received without gratitude."[97] This by itself tends to evoke in
the bystander sympathetic resentment towards the offender; but
his resentment is much increased by the retributive kindliness
which he is apt to feel, sympathetically, towards the benefactor.
He wants to see the latter's kindness rewarded; and he is shocked
by the absence of a similar desire in the very person who may be
naturally expected to feel it more strongly than anybody else**.
[Footnote 97: Spinoza, _Ethica_, iii. 42. A Japanese proverb says
that "thankless labour brings fatigue" (Reed, _Japan_, ii. 109).]
The moral ideas concerning conduct which affects other persons'
welfare vary according as the parties are members of the same or
different families, or of the same or different communities. For
reasons which have been stated in previous chapters parents have
in this respect special duties towards their children, and
children towards their parents; and a tribesman or a
fellow-countryman has claims which are not shared by a foreigner.
But there are duties not only to particular individuals, but also
to {167} whole social aggregates. Foremost among these is the
duty of patriotism.
The duty of patriotism is rooted in the patriotic sentiment, in a
person's love of the social body of which he is himself a member,
and which is attached to the territory he calls his country. It
involves a desire to promote its welfare, a wish that it may
prosper for the time being and for all future. This desire is the
outcome of a variety of sentiments: of men's affection for the
people among whom they live, of attachment to the places where
they have grown up or spent part of their lives, of devotion to
their race and language, and to the traditions, customs, laws,
and institutions of the society in which they were born and to
which they belong.
Genuine patriotism presupposes a power of abstraction which the
lower savages can hardly be supposed to possess. But it seems to
be far from unknown among uncultured peoples of a higher type.
North American Indians are praised for their truly patriotic
spirit, for their strong attachment to their tribe and their
country.[98] Carver says of the Naudowessies:--"The honour of
their tribe, and the welfare of their nation, is the first and
most predominant emotion of their hearts; and from hence proceed
in a great measure all their virtues and their vices. Actuated by
this, they brave every danger, endure the most exquisite
torments, and expire triumphing in their fortitude, not as a
personal qualification, but as a national characteristic."[99]
Patriotism and public spirit were often strongly manifested by
the Tahitians.[100] The Maori "loves his country and the rights
of his ancestors, and he will fight for his children's
land."[101] Of the Guanches of Teneriffe we are told that
patriotism was {168} their chief virtue.[102] The same quality
distinguishes the Yorubas of West Africa; "no race of men," says
Mr. MacGregor, "could be more devoted to their country."[103]
Burckhardt writes:--"As to the attachment which a Bedouin
entertains for his own tribe, the deep-felt interest he takes in
its power and fame, and the sacrifices of every kind he is ready
to make for its prosperity--these are feelings rarely operating
with equal force in any other nation; and it is with an exulting
pride of conscious patriotism, not inferior to any which ennobled
the history of Grecian or Helvetian republics, that an Aeneze,
should he be suddenly attacked, seizes his lance, and waving it
over his head exclaims, 'I am an Aeneze.'"[104]
[Footnote 98: Adair, _History of the American Indians_, p. 378
_sq._ Heriot, _Travels through the Canadas_, p. 317. Loskiel,
_History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the
Indians_, i. 17 (Iroquois).]
[Footnote 99: Carver, _Travels through the Interior Parts of
North America_, p. 412.]
[Footnote 100: Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 128.]
[Footnote 101: Angas, _Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and
New Zealand_, i. 338. See also Travers, 'Life and Times of Te
Rauparaha,' in _Trans. and Proceed. New Zealand Institute_,
v. 22.]
[Footnote 102: Bory de St. Vincent, _Essais sur les Isles
Fortunées_, p. 70.]
[Footnote 103: MacGregor, 'Lagos, Abeokuta, and the Alake,' in
_Jour. African Soc._ 1904, p. 466.]
[Footnote 104: Burckhardt, _Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys_,
p. 205.]
Many of the elements out of which patriotism proper has grown are
clearly distinguishable among savages, even the very lowest. We
have previously noticed the savage's attachment to members of his
own community or tribe. Combined with this is his love of his
native place, and of the mode of life to which he is habituated.
There is a touching illustration of this feeling in the behaviour
of the wild boy who had been found in the woods near
Aveyron--where he had spent most part of his young life in
perfect isolation from all human beings--when he, after being
removed to Paris, was once taken back to the country, to the vale
of Montmorence. Joy was painted in his eyes, in all the motions
and postures of his body, at the view of the hills and the woods
of the charming valley; he appeared more than ever restless and
savage, and "in spite of the most assiduous attention that was
paid to his wishes, and the most affectionate regard that was
expressed for him, he seemed to be occupied only with an anxious
desire of taking his flight."[105] How much greater must not the
love of home be in him who has there his relatives and friends!
Mr. Howitt tells us of {169} an Australian native who, on leaving
his camp with him for a trip of about a week, burst into tears,
saying to himself once and again, "My country, my people, I shall
not see them."[106] The Veddahs of Ceylon "would exchange their
wild forest life for none other, and it was with the utmost
difficulty that they could be induced to quit even for a short
time their favourite solitude."[107] The Stiêns of Cambodia are
so strongly attached to their forests and mountains that to leave
them seems almost like death.[108] Solomon Islanders not seldom
die from home-sickness on their way to the Fiji or Queensland
plantations.[109] The Hovas of Madagascar, when setting out on a
journey, often take with them a small portion of their native
earth, on which they gaze during their absence, invoking their
god that they may be permitted to return to restore it to the
place from which it was taken.[110] Mr. Crawfurd observes that in
the Malay Archipelago the attachment to the native spot is
strongest with the agricultural tribes;[111] but, though a
settled life is naturally most favourable to its development,
this feeling is not inconsistent with nomadism. The Nishinam, who
are the most nomadic of all the Californian tribes, have very
great attachment for the valley or flat which they count their
home.[112]
[Footnote 105: Itard, _Account of the Discovery and Education of
a Savage Man_, p. 70 _sqq._]
[Footnote 106: Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, ii. 305.]
[Footnote 107: Hartshorne, 'Weddas,' in _Indian Antiquary_,
viii. 317.]
[Footnote 108: Mouhot, _Travels in the Central Parts of
Indo-China_, i. 243.]
[Footnote 109: Guppy, _op. cit._ p. 167.]
[Footnote 110: Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, i. 141.]
[Footnote 111: Crawfurd, _History of the Indian Archipelago_,
i. 84.]
[Footnote 112: Powers, _op. cit._ p. 318 _sq._ For other
instances of love of home among uncivilised races see von Spix
and von Martius, _op. cit._ ii. 242, note (Coroados); von
Kotzebue, _op. cit._ iii. 45 (Indians of California); Gibbs,
_Tribes of Western Washington and North-Western Oregon_, p. 187;
Elliott, _Report of the Seal Islands of Alaska_, p. 240; Hooper,
_Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski_, p. 209; von Siebold,
_Aino auf der Insel Yesso_, p. 11; Mallat, _Les Philippines_, ii.
95 (Negritos); von Brenner, _Besuch bei den Kannibalen Sumatras_,
p. 194 (Bataks); Earl, _Papuans_, p. 126 (natives of Rotti, near
Timor); Ling Roth, _Aborigines of Tasmania_, p. 46; Dieffenbach,
_Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 174; Cumming, _In the Himalayas_,
p. 404 (Paharis); Lane, _Manners and Customs of the Modern
Egyptians_, p. 302 (Bedawees); Tristram, _Great Sahara_, p. 193
_sq._ (Beni M'zab); Burton, _Zanzibar_, ii. 96 (Wanika); _Emin
Pasha in Central Africa_, p. 315 (Monbuttu); Andersson, _Lake
Ngami_, p. 198 (Ovambo); Rowley, _Africa Unveiled_, p. 63 _sq._
(Kroos of the Grain Coast below Liberia); Price, 'Quissama
Tribe,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ i. 187.]
{170} Moreover, as we have noticed above, savages have the
greatest regard for their native customs and institutions.[113]
Many of them have displayed that love of national independence
which gives to patriotism its highest fervour.[114] And among
some uncivilised peoples, at least, the force of racial and
linguistic unity shows itself even outside the social or
political unit. Burckhardt observes that the Bedouins are not
only solicitous for the honour of their own respective tribes,
but consider the interests of all other tribes as more or less
attached to their own, and frequently evince a general _esprit de
corps_, lamenting "the losses of any of their tribes occasioned
by attacks from settlers or foreign troops, even though at war
with those tribes."[115] A Tongan "loves the island on which he
was born, in particular, and all the Tonga islands generally, as
being one country, and speaking one language."[116] Travellers
have noticed how gratifying it is, when visiting an uncultured
people, to know a little of their language; there is at once a
sympathetic link between the native and the stranger.[117] Even
the almost inaccessible Berber of the Great Atlas, in spite of
his excessive hatred of the European, will at once give you a
kindly glance as soon as you, to his astonishment, utter to him a
few words in his own tongue.
[Footnote 113: See _supra_, i. 118 _sq._]
[Footnote 114: _Cf._ Dobrizhoffer, _Account of the Abipones_, ii.
95, 105; Lomonaco, 'Sulle razze indigene del Brasile,' in
_Archivio per l'antropologia e la etnologia_, xix. 57 (Tupis);
Brett, _Indian Tribes of Guiana_, p. 348; Schoolcraft, _Indian
Tribes of the United States_, iii. 189 (Iroquois); Nansen,
_Eskimo Life_, p. 323 (Greenlanders); Macpherson, _Memorials of
Service in India_, p. 81 (Kandhs); Sarasin, _op. cit._ iii. 530
(Veddahs); Casati, _Ten Years in Equatoria_, i. 188, 304 (Negroes
of Central Africa); Fritsch, _Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika's_, p.
422 _sq._ (Bushmans).]
[Footnote 115: Burckhardt, _Bedouins and Wahábys_, p. 205.]
[Footnote 116: Mariner, _Natives of the Tonga Islands_, ii. 156.]
[Footnote 117: See Stokes, _Discoveries in Australia_, ii. 25.]
Like other species of the altruistic sentiment, patriotism is apt
to overestimate the qualities of the object for which it is felt;
and it does so all the more readily as love of one's country is
almost inseparably intermingled with love of one's self. The
ordinary, typical patriot has a strong will to believe that his
nation is the best. If, as many {171} people nowadays seem to
maintain, such a will to believe is an essential characteristic
of true patriotism, savages are as good patriots as anybody. In
their intercourse with white men they have often with
astonishment noticed the arrogant air of superiority adopted by
the latter; in their own opinion they are themselves vastly
superior to the whites. According to Eskimo beliefs, the first
man, though made by the Great Being, was a failure, and was
consequently cast aside and called _kob-lu-na_, which means
"white man"; but a second attempt of the Great Being resulted in
the formation of a perfect man, and he was called _in-nu_, the
name which the Eskimo give to themselves.[118] Australian
natives, on being asked to work, have often replied, "White
fellow works, not black fellow; black fellow gentleman."[119]
When anything foolish is done, the Chippewas use an expression
which means "as stupid as a white man."[120] If a South Sea
Islander sees a very awkward person, he says, "How stupid you
are; perhaps you are an Englishman."[121] Mr. Williams tells us
of a Fijian who, having been to the United States, was ordered by
his chiefs to say whether the country of the white man was better
than Fiji, and in what respects. He had not, however, gone far in
telling the truth, when one cried out, "He is a prating fellow";
another, "He is impudent"; and some said, "Kill him."[122] The
Koriaks are more argumentative; in order to prove that the
accounts they hear of the advantages of other countries are so
many lies, they say to the stranger, "If you could enjoy these
advantages at home, what made you take so much trouble to come to
us?"[123] But the Koriaks, in their turn are looked down upon by
their neighbours, the Chukchi, who call the surrounding peoples
old women, only fit to guard their flocks, and to be their
attendants.[124] The Ainu despise the Japanese {172} just as much
as the Japanese despise them, and are convinced of "the
superiority of their own blood and descent over that of all other
peoples in the world."[125] Even the miserable Veddah of Ceylon
has a very high opinion of himself, and regards his civilised
neighbours with contempt.[126] As is often the case with
civilised men, savages attribute to their own people all kinds of
virtue in perfection. The South American Mbayás, according to
Azara, "se croient la nation la plus noble du monde, la plus
généreuse, la plus exacte à tenir sa parole avec loyauté, et la
plus vaillante."[127] The Eskimo of Norton Sound speak of
themselves as _yu'-p[)i]k_, meaning fine or complete people,
whereas an Indian is termed _iñ-k[)i]-l[)i]k_, from a word which
means "a louse egg."[128] When a Greenlander saw a foreigner of
gentle and modest manners, his usual remark was, "He is almost as
well-bred as we," or, "He begins to be a man," that is, a
Greenlander.[129] The savage regards his people as the people, as
the root of all others, and as occupying the middle of the earth.
The Hottentots love to call themselves "the men of men."[130] The
Indians of the Ungava district, Hudson Bay, give themselves the
name _nenenot_, that is, true or ideal red men.[131] In the
language of the Illinois Indians the word _illinois_ means
"men"--"as if they looked upon all other Indians as beasts."[132]
The aborigines of Hayti believed that their island was the first
of all things, that the sun and moon issued from one of its
caverns, and men from another.[133] Each Australian tribe, says
Mr. Curr, regards its country as the centre of the earth, which
in most cases is believed not to extend more than a couple of
hundred miles or so in any direction.[134]
[Footnote 118: Hall, _Arctic Researches_, p. 566 _sq._]
[Footnote 119: Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI.
Ethnography and Philology_, p. 109.]
[Footnote 120: Keating, _Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's
River_, ii. 168. See also Boller, _Among the Indians_, p. 54 _sq._]
[Footnote 121: Williams, _Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea
Islands_, p. 514.]
[Footnote 122: Williams and Calvert, _Fiji_, p. 105.]
[Footnote 123: Krasheninnikoff, _History of Kamschatka_, p. 224.]
[Footnote 124: Sauer, _op. cit._ p. 255.]
[Footnote 125: Batchelor, 'Notes on the Ainu,' in _Trans. Asiatic
Soc. Japan_, x. 211 _sq._ Howard, _Life with Trans-Siberian
Savages_, p. 182.]
[Footnote 126: Nevill, in _Taprobanian_, i. 192. Sarasin, _op.
cit._ iii. 530, 534. 553.]
[Footnote 127: Azara, _Voyages dans l'Amérique méridionale_,
ii. 107.]
[Footnote 128: Nelson, 'Eskimo about Bering Strait,' in _Ann.
Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xviii. 306 _sq._]
[Footnote 129: Cranz, _History of Greenland_, i. 126.]
[Footnote 130: Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_, p. 92.]
[Footnote 131: Turner, 'Ethnology of the Ungava District,' in
_Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ xi. 267.]
[Footnote 132: Marquette, _Recit des voyages_, p. 47 _sq._]
[Footnote 133: Brett, _Indian Tribes of Guiana_, p. 376.]
[Footnote 134: Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 50. For other
instances of national conceit or pride among savages see Darwin,
_Journal of Researches_, p. 207 (Fuegians); von den Steinen,
_Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens_, p. 332 (Bakaïri);
von Humboldt, _Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial
Regions of the New Continent_, v. 423, and Brett, _op. cit._
p. 128 (Guiana Indians); James, _Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_,
i. 320 (Omahas); Murdoch, in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ ix. 42 (Point
Barrow Eskimo); Krasheninnikoff, _op. cit._ p. 180 (Kamchadales);
Brough Smyth, _op. cit._ ii. 284 (Australian natives);
Macpherson, _op. cit._ p. 67 (Kandhs); Munzinger, _Ueber die
Sitten und das Recht der Bogos_, p. 94; Andersson, _Lake Ngami_,
p. 198 (Ovambo).]
{173} We meet with similar feelings and ideas among the nations
of archaic culture. The Chinese are taught to think themselves
superior to all other peoples. In their writings, ancient and
modern, the word "foreigner" is regularly joined with some
disrespectful epithet, implying or expressing the ignorance,
brutality, obstinacy, or meanness of alien nations, and their
obligations to or dependence upon China.[135] To Confucius
himself China was "the middle kingdom," "the multitude of great
states," "all under heaven," beyond which were only rude and
barbarous tribes.[136] According to Japanese ideas, Nippon was
the first country created, and the centre of the world.[137]
The ancient Egyptians considered themselves as the peculiar
people, specially loved by the gods. They alone were termed
"men" (_romet_); other nations were negroes, Asiatics, or
Libyans, but not men; and according to the myth these nations
were descended from the enemies of the gods.[138] The national
pride of the Assyrians, so often referred to by the Hebrew
prophets,[139] is conspicuous everywhere in their cuneiform
inscriptions: they are the wise, the brave, the powerful, who,
like the deluge, carry away all resistance; their kings are the
"matchless, irresistible"; and their gods are much exalted above
the gods of all other nations.[140] To the Hebrews their own
land was "an exceeding good land," "flowing with milk and honey,"
"the glory of all lands";[141] and its inhabitants were a holy
{174} people which the Lord had chosen "to be a special people
unto Himself, above all people that are upon the face of the
earth."[142] Concerning the ancient Persians, Herodotus
writes:--"They look upon themselves as very greatly superior in
all respects to the rest of mankind, regarding others as
approaching to excellence in proportion as they dwell nearer
to them; whence it comes to pass that those who are the farthest
off must be the most degraded of mankind."[143] To this day the
monarch of Persia retains the title of "the Centre of the
Universe"; and it is not easy to persuade a native of Isfahan
that any European capital can be superior to his native
city.[144] The Greeks called Delphi--or rather the round stone in
the Delphic temple--"the navel" or "middle point of the
earth";[145] and they considered the natural relation between
themselves and barbarians to be that between master and slave.[146]
[Footnote 135: Philip, _Life and Opinions of the Rev. W. Milne_,
p. 257. _Cf._ Staunton, in _Narrative of the Chinese Embassy to
the Khan of the Tourgouth Tartars_, p. viii.]
[Footnote 136: Legge, _Chinese Classics_, i. 107. See also Giles,
_op. cit._ ii. 116, n. 2.]
[Footnote 137: Griffis, _Religions of Japan_, p. 207.]
[Footnote 138: Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, p. 32.]
[Footnote 139: _Isaiah_, x. 7 _sqq._; xxxvii. 24 _sqq._
_Ezekiel_, xxxi. 10 _sq._ _Zephaniah_, ii. 15.]
[Footnote 140: Mürdter-Delitzsch, _Geschichte Babyloniens und
Assyriens_, p. 104.]
[Footnote 141: _Numbers_, xiii. 27; xiv. 7. _Ezekiel_, xx. 6, 15.]
[Footnote 142: _Deuteronomy_, vii. 6.]
[Footnote 143: Herodotus, i. 134.]
[Footnote 144: Rawlinson, in his translation of Herodotus, i. 260
_sq._ n. 5.]
[Footnote 145: Pindar, _Pythia_, vi. 3 _sq._ _Idem_, _Nemea_,
vii. 33 _sq._ Aeschylus, _Eumenides_, 40, 166. Sophocles,
_[OE]dipus Tyrannus_, 480, 898. Livy, xxxviii. 48. _Cf._
Herodotus' theory of "extremities" (iii. 115 _sq._), and
Rawlinson's commentary, in his translation of Herodotus, i. 260
_sq._ n. 6.]
[Footnote 146: Euripides, _Iphigenia in Aulide_, 1400 _sq._
Aristotle, _Politica_, i. 2, 6, pp. 1252 b, 1255 a.]
In the archaic State the national feeling is in some cases
greatly strengthened by the religious feeling; whilst in other
instances religion inspires devotion to the family, clan, or
caste rather than to the nation, or constitutes a tie not only
between compatriots but between members of different political
communities. The ancestor-worship of the Chinese has hardly been
conducive to genuine patriotism. Whatever devotion to the common
weal may have prevailed among the Vedic Aryans, it has certainly
passed away beneath the influence of Brahmanism, or been narrowed
down to the caste, the village, or the family.[147] The
Zoroastrian Ahura-Mazda was not a national god, but "the god of
the Aryans," that is, of all the peoples who inhabited ancient
Iran; and these were constantly at war {175} with one
another.[148] Muhammedans, whilst animated with a common hatred
towards the Christians, show little public spirit in relation to
their respective countries,[149] composed as they are of a
variety of loosely connected, often very heterogeneous elements,
ruled over by a monarch whose power is in many districts more
nominal than real. In ancient Greece and Rome patriotism no doubt
contained a religious element--each state and town had its
tutelary gods and heroes, who were considered its proper
masters;[150] but in the first place it was free citizens' love
of their native institutions, a civic virtue which grew up on the
soil of liberty. When the two Spartans who were sent to Xerxes to
be put to death were advised by one of his governors to surrender
themselves to the king, their answer was, "Had you known what
freedom is, you would have bidden us fight for it, not with the
spear only, but with the battle-axe."[151] And of the Athenians
who lived at the time of the Persian wars, Demosthenes said that
they were ready to die for their country rather than to see it
enslaved, and that they considered the outrages and insults which
befell him who lived in a subjugated city to be more terrible
than death.[152] In classical antiquity "the influence of
patriotism thrilled through every fibre of moral and intellectual
life."[153] In some Greek cities emigration was prohibited by
law, at Argos even on penalty of death.[154] Plato, in the
Republic, sacrificed the family to the interests of the State.
Cicero placed our duty to our country next after our duty to the
immortal gods and before our duty to our parents.[155] "Of all
connections," he says, "none is more weighty, none is more dear,
than that between every individual and his country. Our parents
are dear to us; {176} our children, our kinsmen, our friends, are
dear to us; but our country comprehends alone all the endearments
of us all. What good man would hesitate to die for her if he
could do her service?"[156]
[Footnote 147: Wheeler, _History of India_, ii. 586 _sq._ See
also Leist, _Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_, p. 529.]
[Footnote 148: Meyer, _Geschichte des Alterthums_, i. 540.
Spiegel, _Erânische Alterthumskunde_, iii. 687 _sqq._]
[Footnote 149: Polak, _Persien_, i. 12. Urquhart, _Spirit of the
East_, ii. 427, 439 (Turks). Burckhardt, _Bedouins and Wahábys_,
p. 204 _sq._ (Turks and Arab settlers).]
[Footnote 150: Leist, _Alt-arisches Jus Gentium_, p. 529.
Schmidt, _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 221.]
[Footnote 151: Herodotus, vii. 134 _sq._]
[Footnote 152: Demosthenes, _De Corona_, 205, p. 296.]
[Footnote 153: Lecky, _History of European Morals_, i. 200.]
[Footnote 154: Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, xxvii. 5. Ovid,
_Metamorphoses_, xv. 29.]
[Footnote 155: Cicero, _De officiis_, i. 45 (160). _Cf._ _ibid._
iii. 23 (90).]
[Footnote 156: _Ibid._ i. 17 (57). _Cf._ Cicero, _De legibus_,
ii. 2, (5).]
The duty of patriotism springs, in the first instance, from the
patriotic feeling; when the love of country is common in a nation
public resentment is felt towards him who does not act as that
sentiment requires him to act. Moreover, lack of patriotism in a
person may also be resented by his fellow-countrymen as an injury
done to themselves; and as we have seen before, anger, and
especially anger felt by a whole community, has a tendency to
lead to moral disapproval. For analogous reasons deeds of
patriotism are apt to evoke moral praise. However, in benefiting
his own people the patriot may cause harm to other people; and
where the altruistic sentiment is broad enough to extend beyond
the limits of the State and strong enough to make its voice heard
even in competition with the love of country and the love of
self, his conduct may consequently be an object of reproach. At
the lower stages of civilisation the interests of foreigners are
not regarded at all, except when sheltered by the rule of
hospitality; but gradually, owing to circumstances which will be
discussed in the following chapter, altruism tends to expand, and
men are at last considered to have duties to mankind at large.
The Chinese moralists inculcated benevolence to all men without
making any reference to national distinctions.[157] Mih-tsze, who
lived in the interval between Confucius and Mencius, even taught
that we ought to love all men equally; but this doctrine called
forth protests as abnegating the peculiar devotion due to
relatives.[158] In Thâi-Shang it is said that a good man will
feel kindly towards every creature, and should not hurt even the
insect tribes, grass, and trees.[159] Buddhism {177} enjoins the
duty of universal love:--"As a mother, even at the risk of her
own life, protects her son, her only son, so let a man cultivate
goodwill without measure toward all beings, . . . unhindered love
and friendliness toward the whole world, above, below,
around."[160] According to the Hindu work Panchatantra it is the
thought of little-minded persons to consider whether a man is one
of ourselves or an alien, the whole earth being of kin to him who
is generously disposed.[161] In Greece and Rome philosophers
arose who opposed national narrowness and prejudice. Democritus
of Abdera said that every country is accessible to a wise man,
and that a good soul's fatherland is the whole earth.[162] The
same view was expressed by Theodorus, one of the later Cyrenaics,
who denounced devotion to country as ridiculous.[163] The Cynics,
in particular, attached slight value to the citizenship of any
special state, declaring themselves to be citizens of the
world.[164] But, as Zeller observes, in the mouth of the Cynic
this doctrine was meant to express not so much the essential
oneness of all mankind, as the philosopher's independence of
country and home.[165] It was the Stoic philosophy that first
gave to the idea of a world-citizenship a definite positive
meaning, and raised it to historical importance. The citizen of
Alexander's huge empire had in a way become a citizen of the
world; and national dislikes were so much more readily overcome
as the various nationalities comprised in it were united not only
under a common government but also in a common culture.[166]
Indeed, the founder of Stoicism was himself only half a Greek.
But there is also an obvious connection between the cosmopolitan
idea and the Stoic {178} system in general.[167] According to the
Stoics, human society has for its basis the identity of reason in
individuals; hence we have no ground for limiting this society to
a single nation. We are all, says Seneca, members of one great
body, the universe; "we are all akin by Nature, who has formed us
of the same elements, and placed us here together for the same
end."[168] "If our reason is common," says Marcus Aurelius,
"there is a common law, as reason commands us what to do and what
not to do; and if there is a common law we are fellow-citizens;
if this is so, we are members of some political community--the
world is in a manner a state."[169] To this great state, which
includes all rational beings, the individual states are related
as the houses of a city are to the city collectively;[170] and
the wise man will esteem it far above any particular community in
which the accident of birth has placed him.[171]
[Footnote 157: _Lun Yü_, xii. 22. Mencius, vii. 1. 45. Douglas,
_Confucianism and Taouism_, pp. 108, 205.]
[Footnote 158: Edkins, _Religion in China_, p. 119. Legge,
_Chinese Classics_, ii. 476, n. 45. de Groot, _Religious System
of China_, (vol. ii. book) i. 684.]
[Footnote 159: _Thâi-Shang_, 3.]
[Footnote 160: Quoted by Rhys Davids, _Hibbert Lectures on the
History of Buddhism_, p. 111.]
[Footnote 161: Muir, _Religious and Moral Sentiments rendered
from Sanskrit Writers_, p. 109.]
[Footnote 162: Stobæus, _Florilegium_, xl. 7, vol. ii. 80. _Cf._
Natorp, _Die Ethika des Demokritos_, p. 117, n. 41.]
[Footnote 163: Diogenes Laertius, _Vitæ philosophorum_, ii. 98
_sq._]
[Footnote 164: _Ibid._ vi. 12, 63, 72, 98. Epictetus,
_Dissertationes_, iii. 24. 66. Stobæus, xlv. 28, vol. ii.
252.]
[Footnote 165: Zeller, _Socrates and the Socratic Schools_,
p. 326 _sq._ _Idem_, _Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics_,
p. 327.]
[Footnote 166: _Cf._ Plutarch, _De Alexandri Magni fortuna aut
virtute_, i. 6, p. 329.]
[Footnote 167: See Zeller, _Stoics, &c._ p. 327 _sq._]
[Footnote 168: Seneca, _Epistulæ_, xcv. 52.]
[Footnote 169: Marcus Aurelius, _Commentarii_, iv. 4. _Cf._
_ibid._ vi. 44, and ix. 9; Cicero, _De legibus_, i. 7 (23);
Epictetus, _Dissertationes_, i. 13. 3.]
[Footnote 170: Marcus Aurelius, iii. 11.]
[Footnote 171: Seneca, _De otio_, iv. 1. _Idem_, _Epistulæ_,
lxviii. 2. Epictetus, _Dissertationes_, iii. 22. 83 _sqq._]
But the Roman ideal of patriotism, with its utter disregard for
foreign nations,[172] was not opposed by philosophy alone: it met
with an even more formidable antagonist in the new religion. The
Christian and the Stoic rejected it on different grounds: whilst
the Stoic felt himself as a citizen of the world, the Christian
felt himself as a citizen of heaven, to whom this planet was only
a place of exile. Christianity was not hostile to the State.[173]
At the very time when Nero committed his worst atrocities, St.
Paul declared that there is no power but of God, and that
whosoever resists the power resists the ordinance of God and
shall be condemned;[174] and Tertullian says that all Christians
send up their prayers for the life of the emperors, for their
ministers, for magistrates, for the good of the {179} State and
the peace of the Empire.[175] But the emperor should be obeyed
only so long as his commands do not conflict with the law of
God--a Christian ought rather to suffer like Daniel in the lions'
den than sin against his religion;[176] and nothing is more
entirely foreign to him than affairs of State.[177] Indeed, in
the whole Roman Empire there were no men who so entirely lacked
patriotism as the early Christians. They had no affection for
Judea, they soon forgot Galilee, they cared nothing for the glory
of Greece and Rome.[178] When the judges asked them which was
their country they said in answer, "I am a Christian."[179] And
long after Christianity had become the religion of the Empire,
St. Augustine declared that it matters not, in respect of this
short and transitory life, under whose dominion a mortal man
lives, if only he be not compelled to acts of impiety or
injustice.[180] Later on, when the Church grew into a political
power independent of the State, she became a positive enemy of
national interests. In the seventeenth century a Jesuit general
called patriotism "a plague and the most certain death of
Christian love."[181]
[Footnote 172: _Cf._ Lactantius, _Divinæ Institutiones_, vi. ('De
vero cultu'), 6 (Migne, _Patrologiæ cursus_, vi. 655).]
[Footnote 173: _St. Matthew_, xxii. 21. _1 Peter_, ii. 13 _sq._]
[Footnote 174: _Romans_, xiii. 1 _sq._ See also _Titus_, iii. 1.]
[Footnote 175: Tertullian, _Apologeticus_, 39 (Migne, _op. cit._
i. 468). See also Ludwig, _Tertullian's Ethik_, p. 98 _sq._]
[Footnote 176: Tertullian, _De idololatria_, 15 (Migne, _op.
cit._ i. 684).]
[Footnote 177: Tertullian, _Apologeticus_, 38 (Migne, _op. cit._
i. 465):--"Nec ulla magis res aliena, quam publica."]
[Footnote 178: See Renan, _Hibbert Lectures on the Influence of
Rome on Christianity_, p. 28.]
[Footnote 179: Le Blant, _Inscriptions chrétiennes_, i. 128.]
[Footnote 180: St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, v. 17.]
[Footnote 181: von Eicken, _Geschichte und System der
mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung_, p. 809.]
With the fall of the Roman Empire patriotism died out in Europe,
and remained extinct for centuries. It was a feeling hardly
compatible either with the migratory life of the Teutonic tribes
or with the feudal system, which grew up wherever they fixed
their residence. The knights, it is true, were not destitute of
the natural affection for home. When Aliaumes is mortally wounded
by Géri li Sors he exclaims, "Holy Virgin, I shall never more see
Saint-Quentin nor Néèle";[182] and the troubadour Bernard de
Ventadour touchingly sings, "Quan la doussa aura venta--Deves
nostre païs,--M'es veiaire que senta--Odor de {180}
Paradis."[183] But to a man of the Middle Ages "his country"
meant little more than the neighbourhood in which he lived.[184]
Kingdoms existed, but no nations. The first duty of a vassal was
to be loyal to his lord;[185] but no national spirit bound
together the various barons of one country. A man might be the
vassal of the king of France and of the king of England at the
same time; and often, from caprice, passion, or sordid interest,
the barons sold their services to the enemies of the kingdom.
The character of his knighthood was also perpetually pressing
the knight to a course of conduct distinct from all national
objects.[186] The cause of a distressed lady was in many
instances preferable to that of the country to which he belonged
--as when the Captal de Bouche, though an English subject, did
not hesitate to unite his troops with those of the Compte de
Foix to relieve the ladies in a French town, where they were
besieged and threatened with violence by the insurgent
peasantry.[187] When a knight's duties towards his country are
mentioned in the rules of Chivalry they are spoken of as duties
towards his lord:--"The wicked knight," it is said, "that aids
not his earthly lord and natural country against another prince,
is a knight without office."[188] Far from being, as M. Gautier
asserts,[189] the object of an express command in the code of
Chivalry, true patriotism had there no place at all. It was not
known as an ideal, still less did it exist as a reality, among
either knights or commoners. As a duke of Orleans could bind
himself by a fraternity of arms and alliance to a duke of
Lancaster,[190] so English merchants were in the habit of
supplying nations at war against England with provisions bought
at English fairs, and weapons wrought by English hands.[191] If,
as M. Gaston Paris maintains, a {181} deep feeling of national
union had inspired the Chanson de Roland,[192] it is a strange,
yet undeniable, fact that no distinct trace of this feeling
displayed itself in the mediæval history of France before the
English wars.
[Footnote 182: _Li Romans de Raoul de Cambrai_, 210, p. 185.]
[Footnote 183: Quoted by Gautier, _La Chevalerie_, p. 64.]
[Footnote 184: See Cibrario, _Della economia politica del medio
eve_, i. 263; de Crozals, _Histoire de la civilization_, ii. 287.]
[Footnote 185: _Ordre of Chyualry_, foll. 13 b. 32 b.]
[Footnote 186: See Mills, _History of Chivalry_, i. 140 _sq._]
[Footnote 187: Scott, _Essay on Chivalry_, p. 31.]
[Footnote 188: _Ordre of Chyualry_, fol. 14 b.]
[Footnote 189: Gautier, _op. cit._ p. 33.]
[Footnote 190: Sainte-Palaye, _Mémoires sur l'ancienne
Chevalerie_, ii. 72.]
[Footnote 191: Pike, _History of Crime in England_, i. 264 _sq._]
[Footnote 192: Paris, _La poésie du moyen age_, p. 107. M.
Gautier says (_op. cit._ p. 61) that Roland is "la France faite
homme."]
Besides feudalism and the want of political cohesion, there were
other factors that contributed to hinder the development of
national personality and patriotic devotion. This sentiment
presupposes not only that the various parts of which a country is
composed shall have a vivid feeling of their unity, but also that
they, united, shall feel themselves as a nation clearly distinct
from other nations. In the Middle Ages national differences were
largely obscured by the preponderance of the Universal Church, by
the creation of the Holy Roman Empire, by the prevalence of a
common language as the sole vehicle of mental culture, and by the
undeveloped state of the vernacular tongues. To make use of the
native dialect was a sign of ignorance, and to place worldly
interests above the claims of the Church was impious. When
Macchiavelli declared that he preferred his country to the safety
of his soul, people considered him guilty of blasphemy; and when
the Venetians defied the Papal thunders by averring that they
were Venetians in the first place, and only Christians in the
second, the world heard them with amazement.[193]
[Footnote 193: 'National Personality,' in _Edinburgh Review_,
cxciv. 133.]
In England the national feeling developed earlier than on the
Continent, no doubt owing to her insular position and freer
institutions; as Montesquieu observes, patriotism thrives best in
democracies.[194] At the time of the English Reformation the
sense of corporate national life had evidently gained
considerable strength, and the love of England has never been
expressed in more exquisite form than it was by Shakespeare. At
the same time the sense of patriotism was often grossly perverted
by religious {182} bigotry and party spirit.[195] Even champions
of liberty, like Lord Russell and Algernon Sidney, accepted
French gold in the hope of embarrassing the King; and Sidney went
so far as to try to instigate De Witt to invade England.
Loyalism, in particular, proved a much stronger incentive than
love of country. A loyalist like Strafford would have employed
half-savage Irish troops against his own countrymen, and the
Scotch Jacobites invited a French invasion.
[Footnote 194: Montesquieu, _De l'esprit des Lois_, iv. 5
(_[OE]uvres_, p. 206 _sq._).]
[Footnote 195: See _Edinburgh Review_, cxciv. 133, 136 _sq._;
Pearson, _National Life and Character_, p. 190.]
In France the development of the national feeling was closely
connected with the strengthening of the royal power and its
gradual victory over feudalism. The word _patrie_ was for the
first time used by Charles VII.'s chronicler, Jean Chartier, and
he also condemned as _renégats_ those Frenchmen who, at the end
of the hundred years war, fought on the side of the English.[196]
But patriotism was for a long time inseparably confounded with
loyalty to the sovereign. According to Bossuet "tout l'État est
en la personne du prince";[197] and Abbé Coyer observes that
Colbert believed _royaume_ and _patrie_ to signify one and the
same thing.[198] In the eighteenth century the spirit of
rebellion succeeded that of devotion to the king; but the
key-note of the great movement which led to the Revolution was
the liberty and equality of the individual, not the glory or
welfare of the nation. Men were looked upon as members of the
human race, rather than as citizens of any particular country. To
be a citizen of every nation, and not to belong to one's native
country alone, was the dream of French writers in the eighteenth
century.[199] "The true sage is a cosmopolitan," says a writer of
comedy.[200] Diderot asks which is the greater merit, to
enlighten the human race, which remains for ever, or to save
one's fatherland, which is {183} perishable.[201] According to
Voltaire patriotism is composed of self-love and prejudice,[202]
and only too often makes us the enemies of our fellow-men:--"Il
est clair qu'un pays ne peut gagner sans qu'un autre perde, et
qu'il ne peut vaincre sans faire des malheureux. Telle est donc
la condition humaine, que souhaiter la grandeur de son pays,
c'est souhaiter du mal à ses voisins."[203] In Germany, Lessing,
Goethe, and Schiller felt themselves as citizens of the world,
not of the German Empire, still less as Saxons or Suabians; and
Klopstock, with his enthusiasm for German nationality and
language, almost appeared eccentric.[204] Lessing writes
point-blank:--"The praise of being an ardent patriot is to my
mind the very last thing that I should covet; . . . I have no
idea at all of love of the Fatherland, and it seems to me at best
but an heroical weakness, which I can very readily dispense
with."[205]
[Footnote 196: Guibal, _Histoire du sentiment national en France
pendant la guerre de Cent ans_, p. 526 _sq._]
[Footnote 197: Legrand, _L'idée de patrie_, p. 20.]
[Footnote 198: Block, _Dictionnaire général de la politique_,
ii. 518.]
[Footnote 199: Texte, _Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Cosmopolitan
Spirit in Literature_, p. 79.]
[Footnote 200: Palissot de Montenoy, _Les philosophes_, iii. 4,
p. 75.]
[Footnote 201: Diderot, _Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de
Néron_, ii. 75 (_[OE]uvres_, vi. 244).]
[Footnote 202: Voltaire, _Pensées sur l'administration publique_,
14 (_[OE]uvres complètes_, v. 351).]
[Footnote 203: _Idem_, _Dictionnaire philosophique_, art. Patrie
(_[OE]uvres complètes_, viii. 118).]
[Footnote 204: See Strauss, _Der alte und der neue Glaube_,
p. 259 _sq._]
[Footnote 205: Lessing, quoted by Ziegler, _Social Ethics_,
p. 121.]
The first French revolution marks the beginning of a new era in
the history of patriotism. It inspired the masses with passion
for the unity of the fatherland, the Republic "one and
indivisible." At the same time it declared all nations to be
brothers, and when it made war on foreign nations the object was
only to deliver them from their oppressors.[206] But gradually
the interest in the affairs of other countries grew more and more
selfish, the attempt to emancipate was absorbed in the desire to
subjugate; and this awoke throughout Europe a feeling which was
destined to become the most powerful force in the history of the
nineteenth century, the feeling of nationality. When Napoleon
introduced French administration in the countries whose
sovereigns he had deposed or degraded, the people resisted the
change. The resistance was popular, as the rulers were absent or
helpless, and it was national, being directed against foreign
institutions.{184} It was stirred by the feeling of national
rather than political unity, it was a protest against the
dominion of race over race. The national element in this movement
had in a manner been anticipated by the French Revolution itself.
The French people was regarded by it as an ethnological, not as
an historic, unit; descent was put in the place of tradition; the
idea of the sovereignty of the people uncontrolled by the past
gave birth to the idea of nationality independent of the political
influence of history. But, as has been truly remarked, men were
made conscious of the national element of the revolution by its
conquests, not in its rise.[207]
[Footnote 206: Block, _op. cit._ ii. 376.]
[Footnote 207: See 'Nationality,' in _Home and Foreign Review_,
i. 6 _sqq._]
Ever since, the racial feeling has been the most vigorous force
in European patriotism, and has gradually become a true danger to
humanity. Beginning as a protest against the dominion of one race
over another, this feeling led to a condemnation of every state
which included different races, and finally developed into the
complete doctrine that state and nationality should so far as
possible be coextensive.[208] According to this theory the
dominant nationality cannot admit the inferior nationalities
dwelling within the boundaries of the state to an equality with
itself, because, if it did, the state would cease to be national,
and this would be contrary to the principle of its existence; or
the weaker nationalities are compelled to change their language,
institutions, and individuality, so as to be absorbed in the
dominant race. And not only does the leading nationality assert
its superiority in relation to all others within the body
politic, but it also wants to assert itself at the expense of
foreign nations and races. To the nationalist all this is true
patriotism; love of country often stands for a feeling which has
been well described as love of more country.[209] But at the same
time opposite ideals are at work. The fervour of nineteenth
century nationalism has not been able to quench the {185}
cosmopolitan spirit. In spite of loud appeals made to racial
instincts and the sense of national solidarity, the idea has been
gaining ground that the aims of a nation must not conflict with
the interests of humanity at large; that our love of country
should be controlled by other countries' right to prosper and to
develop their own individuality; and that the oppression of
weaker nationalities inside the state and aggressiveness towards
foreign nations, being mainly the outcome of vainglory and greed,
are inconsistent with the aspirations of a good patriot, as well
as of a good man.
[Footnote 208: _Ibid._ p. 13 _sq._]
[Footnote 209: Robertson, _Patriotism and Empire_, p. 138.]
* * * * *
Our long discussion of moral ideas regarding such modes of
conduct as directly concern other men's welfare has at last come
to an end. We have seen that they may be ultimately traced to a
variety of sources: to the influence of habit or education, to
egoistic considerations of some kind or other which have given
rise to moral feelings, to notions of social expediency, to
disinterested likings or dislikes, and, above all, to sympathetic
resentment or sympathetic approval springing from an altruistic
disposition of mind. But how to account for this disposition? Our
explanation of that group of moral ideas which we have been
hitherto investigating is not complete until we have found an
answer to this important question. I shall therefore in the next
chapter examine the origin and development of the altruistic
sentiment.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ALTRUISTIC SENTIMENT
THERE is one form of the altruistic sentiment which man shares
with all mammals and many other animals, namely, maternal affection.
As regards its origin various theories have been set forth.
According to Aristotle, parents love their children as being
portions of themselves.[1] A similar explanation of maternal
affection has been given by some modern writers.[2] Thus
Professor Espinas regards this sentiment as modified self-love
and love of property. The female, he says, at the moment when she
gives birth to little ones resembling herself, has no difficulty
in recognising them as the flesh of her flesh; the feeling she
experiences towards them is made up of sympathy and pity, but we
cannot exclude from it an idea of property which is the most
solid support of sympathy. She feels and understands up to a
certain point that these young ones which are herself at the same
time belong to her; the love of herself, extended to those who
have gone out from her, changes egoism into sympathy and the
proprietary instinct into an affectionate impulse.[3] This
hypothesis, however, seems to me to be very inadequate. It does
not explain why, for instance, a bird takes more care of her eggs
than of other matter segregated from {187} her body, which may
equally well be regarded as a part of herself. Nor does it
account for a foster-mother's affection for her adopted
offspring.[4] Of this many instances have been noticed in the
lower animals; and among some savage peoples adopted children are
said to be treated by their foster-parents with the same
affection as if they were their own flesh and blood.[5]
[Footnote 1: Aristotle, _Ethica Nicomachea_, viii. 12. 2 _sq._]
[Footnote 2: Hartley, _Observations on Man_, i. 496 _sq._ Fichte,
_Das System der Sittenlehre_, p. 433.]
[Footnote 3: Espinas, _Des sociétés animales_ (2nd ed.), p. 444
_sq._, quoted by Ribot, _Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 280.]
[Footnote 4: _Cf._ Spencer, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 624.]
[Footnote 5: Murdoch, 'Ethnol. Results of the Point Barrow
Expedition,' in _Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn._ ix. 419 (Point Barrow
Eskimo). Thomson, _Savage Island_, p. 135.]
A very different explanation of maternal love has been given by
Professor Bain. He derives parental affection from the "intense
pleasure in the embrace of the young." He observes that "such a
pleasure once created would associate itself with the prevailing
features and aspects of the young, and give to all of these their
very great interest. For the sake of the pleasure, the parent
discovers the necessity of nourishing the subject of it, and
comes to regard the ministering function as a part or condition
of the delight."[6] But if the satisfaction in animal contact
were at the bottom of the maternal feeling, conjugal affection
ought by far to surpass it in intensity; and yet, among the lower
races at least, the case is exactly the reverse, conjugal
affection being vastly inferior in degree to a mother's love of
her child. It may indeed be fairly doubted whether there is any
"intense pleasure" at all in embracing a new-born baby--unless it
be one's own. It seems much more likely that parents like to
touch their children because they love them, than that they love
them because they like to touch them. Attraction, showing itself
either by elementary movements of approach, or by contact, or by
the embrace, is the outward _expression_ of tenderness.[7]
Professor Bain himself observes that as anger reaches a
satisfying term by knocking some one down, love is completed and
satisfied with an embrace.[8] But this by no means implies that
the embrace is the cause of love; it {188} only means that love
has a tendency to express itself outwardly in an act of embrace.
[Footnote 6: Bain, _Emotions and the Will_, p. 140.]
[Footnote 7: Ribot, _op. cit._ p. 234.]
[Footnote 8: Bain, _op. cit._ p. 126.]
In the opinion of Mr. Spencer, again, parental love is
essentially love of the weak or helpless. This instinct, he
remarks, is not adequately defined as that which attaches a
creature to its young. Though most frequently and most strongly
displayed in this relation, the so-called parental feeling is
really excitable apart from parenthood; and the common trait of
the objects which arouse it is always relative weakness or
helplessness.[9] This hypothesis undoubtedly contains part of the
truth. That the maternal instinct is in some degree love of the
helpless is obvious from the fact that, among those of the lower
animals which are not gregarious, mother and young separate as
soon as the latter are able to shift for themselves; nay, in many
cases they are actually driven away by her. Moreover, in species
which are so constituted that the young from the very outset can
help themselves there is no maternal love. These facts indicate
where we have to look for the source of this sentiment. When the
young are born in a state of utter helplessness somebody must
take care of them, or the species cannot survive, or, rather,
such a species could never have come into existence. The maternal
instinct may thus be assumed to owe its origin to the survival of
the fittest, to the natural selection of useful spontaneous
variations.
[Footnote 9: Spencer, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 623 _sq._
See also Hartley, _op. cit._ i. 497.]
This is also recognised by Mr. Spencer;[10] but his theory fails
to explain the indisputable fact that there is a difference
between maternal love and the mere love of the helpless. Even in
a gregarious species mothers make a distinction between their own
offspring and other young. During my stay among the mountaineers
of Morocco I was often struck by the extreme eagerness with which
in the evening, when the flock of ewes and the flock of lambs
were reunited, each mother sought for her own lamb, and each lamb
for its own mother. A similar {189} discrimination has been
noticed even in cases of conscious adoption. Brehm tells us of a
female baboon which had so capacious a heart that she not only
adopted young monkeys of other species, but stole young dogs and
cats which she continually carried about; yet her kindness did
not go so far as to share food with her adopted offspring,
although she divided everything quite fairly with her own young
ones.[11] To account for the maternal sentiment we must therefore
assume the existence of some other stimulus besides the signs of
helplessness, which produces, or at least strengthens, the
instinctive motor response in the mother. This stimulus, so far
as I can see, is rooted in the external relationship in which the
offspring from the beginning stand to the mother. She is in close
proximity to her helpless young from their tenderest age; and she
loves them because they are to her a cause of pleasure.
[Footnote 10: Spencer, _op. cit._ ii. 623.]
[Footnote 11: Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 70.]
In various animal species the young are cared for not only by the
mother, but by the father as well. This is the general rule among
birds: whilst the hatching of the eggs and the chief part of the
rearing-duties belong to the mother, the father acts as a
protector, and provides food for the family. Among most of the
mammals, on the other hand, the connections between the sexes are
restricted to the time of the rut, hence the father may not even
see his young. But there are also some mammalian species in which
male and female remain together even after the birth of the
offspring and the father defends his family against enemies.[12]
Among the Quadrumana this seems to be the rule.[13] All the best
authorities agree that the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee live in
families. When the female is pregnant the male builds a rude nest
in a tree, where she is delivered; and he spends the night
crouching at the foot of the tree, protecting the female and
their young one, which are in the nest above, from the nocturnal
attacks of leopards. Passing from the {190} highest monkeys to
the savage and barbarous races of men, we meet with the same
phenomenon. In the human race the family consisting of father,
mother, and offspring is probably a universal institution,
whether founded on a monogamous, polygynous, or polyandrous
marriage. And, as among the lower animals having the same habit,
whilst the immediate care of the children chiefly belongs to the
mother, the father is the guardian of the family.[14]
[Footnote 12: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 11
_sq._]
[Footnote 13: _Ibid._ p. 12 _sqq._]
[Footnote 14: Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_, p. 14
_sqq._]
The stimuli to which the paternal instinct responds are
apparently derived from the same circumstances as those which
call into activity the maternal instinct, that is, the
helplessness and the nearness of the offspring. Wherever this
instinct exists, the father is near his young from the beginning,
living together with the mother. And here again the sentimental
response is in all probability the result of a process of natural
selection, which has preserved a mental disposition necessary for
the existence of the species. Among birds paternal care is
indispensable. Equal and continual warmth is the first
requirement for the development of the embryo and the
preservation of the young ones; and for this the mother almost
always wants the assistance of the father, who provides her with
necessaries, and sometimes relieves her of the brooding. Among
mammals, again, whilst the young at their tenderest age can never
do without the mother, the father's aid is generally not
required. That the Primates form an exception to this rule is
probably due to the small number of young, the female bringing
forth but one at a time, and besides, among the highest apes and
in man, to the long period of infancy.[15] If this is true we may
assume that the paternal instinct occurred in primitive man, as
it occurs, more or less strongly developed, among the anthropoid
apes and among existing savages.
[Footnote 15: See _ibid._ p. 20 _sqq._ Fiske, _Outlines of Cosmic
Philosophy_, ii. 342 _sq._]
By origin closely allied to the paternal feeling is the
attachment between individuals of different sex, which {191}
induces male and female to remain with one another beyond the
mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring. It
is obvious that, where the generative power is restricted to a
certain season--a peculiarity which primitive man seems to have
shared with other mammals[16]--it cannot be the sexual instinct
that causes the prolonged union of the sexes, nor can I conceive
any other egoistic motive that could account for this habit.
Considering that the union lasts till after the birth of the
offspring and that it is accompanied with parental care, I
conclude that it is for the benefit of the young that male and
female continue to live together. The tie which joins them seems
therefore, like parental affection, to be an instinct developed
through natural selection. The tendency to feel some attachment
to a being which has been the cause of pleasure--in this case
sexual pleasure--is undoubtedly at the bottom of this instinct.
Such a feeling may originally have induced the sexes to remain
united and the male to protect the female even after the sexual
desire was gratified; and if procuring great advantage to the
species in the struggle for existence, conjugal attachment would
naturally have developed into a specific characteristic.
[Footnote 16: Westermarck, _op. cit._ ch. ii.]
We have reason to believe that the germ of this sentiment
occurred already in our earliest human ancestors, that marriage,
in the natural history sense of the term, is a habit transmitted
to man from some ape-like progenitor.[17] In the course of
evolution conjugal affection has increased both in intensity and
complexity; but advancement in civilisation has not at every step
been favourable to its development. When restricted to men only,
a higher culture on the contrary tends to alienate husband and
wife, as is the case in Eastern countries and as was the case in
ancient Greece. Another fact leading to conjugal apathy is the
custom which compels the women before marriage to live strictly
apart from the men. In China it often happens that the parties
have not even seen each {192} other till the wedding day;[18] and
in Greece Plato urged in vain that young men and women should be
more frequently permitted to meet one another, so that there
should be less enmity and indifference in the married life.[19]
Conjugal love is both a cause and an effect of monogamy; but, as
we shall see subsequently, the course of civilisation does not
involve a steady progress towards stricter monogamy. The notions
about women also influence the emotions felt towards them; and we
have noticed that the great religions of the world have generally
held them in little regard.[20] In its fully developed form the
passion which unites the sexes is perhaps the most compound of
all human feelings. Mr. Spencer thus sums up the masterly
analysis he has given of it:--"Round the physical feeling forming
the nucleus of the whole, are gathered the feelings produced by
personal beauty, that constituting simple attachment, those of
reverence, of love, of approbation, of self-esteem, of property,
of love of freedom, of sympathy. These, all greatly exalted, and
severally tending to reflect their excitements on one another,
unite to form the mental state we call love."[21]
[Footnote 17: _Ibid._ _op. cit._ chs. i., iii.]
[Footnote 18: Katscher, _Bilder aus dem chinesischen Leben_, pp.
71, 84.]
[Footnote 19: Plato, _Leges_, vi. 771 _sq._]
[Footnote 20: _Supra_, i. 662 _sqq._]
[Footnote 21: Spencer, _Principles of Psychology_, i. 488.]
The duration of conjugal and parental feelings varies extremely.
Most birds, with the exception of those belonging to the
Gallinaceous family, when pairing do so once for all till either
one or the other dies;[22] whereas among the mammals man and
possibly some apes[23] are the only species whose conjugal unions
last any considerable time after the birth of the offspring.
Among many of the lower races of men lifelong marriages seem to
be the rule, and among a few separation is said to be entirely
unknown; but there is abundant evidence that marriage has, upon
the whole, become more durable with advancing civilisation.[24]
One cause of this is that conjugal affection has become more
lasting. And the greater duration of this sentiment may be
explained partly from the refinement {193} of the uniting
passion, involving appreciation of mental qualities which last
long after youth and beauty have passed away, and partly also
from the greater durability of parental feelings, which form a
tie not only between parents and children, but between husband
and wife.
[Footnote 22: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 11.]
[Footnote 23: _Ibid._ pp. 13, 14, 535.]
[Footnote 24: _Ibid._ ch. xxiii.]
The parental feelings originally only last as long as the young
are unable to shift for themselves--the paternal feeling possibly
less. As Mr. Fiske observes, "where the infancy is very short,
the parental feeling, though intense while it lasts, presently
disappears, and the offspring cease to be distinguished from
strangers of the same species. And in general the duration of the
feelings which insure the protection of the offspring is
determined by the duration of the infancy."[25] Among certain
savages parental love is still said to be restricted to the age
of helplessness. We are told that the affection of a Fuegian
mother for her child gradually decreases in proportion as the
child grows older, and ceases entirely when it reaches the age of
seven or eight; thenceforth the parents in no way meddle with the
affairs of their son, who may leave them if he likes.[26] When
the parental feelings became more complex, through the
association of other feelings, as those of property and pride,
they naturally tended to extend themselves beyond the limits of
infancy and childhood. But the chief cause of this extension
seems to lie in the same circumstances as made man a gregarious
animal. Where the grown-up children continued to stay with their
parents, parental affection naturally tended to be prolonged, not
only by the infusion into it of new elements, but by the direct
influence of close living together. It was, moreover, extended to
more distant descendants. The same stimuli as call forth kindly
emotions towards a person's own children evoke similar emotions
towards his grand- and great-grandchildren.
[Footnote 25: Fiske, _op. cit._ ii. 343.]
[Footnote 26: Bove, _Patagonia, Terra del Fuoco_, p. 133. See
also Wied-Neuwied, _Reise nach Brasilien_, ii. 40 (Botocudos), Im
Thurn, _Among the Indians of Guiana_, p. 219; Scaramucci and
Giglioli, 'Notizie sui Danakil,' in _Archivio per l'antropologia
e la etnologia_, xiv. 35.]
{194} It is an old truth that children's love of their parents is
generally much weaker than the parents' love of their children.
The latter is absolutely necessary for the subsistence of the
species, the former is not;[27] though, when a richer food-supply
favoured the formation of larger communities, filial attachment
must have been of advantage to the race.[28] No individual is
born with filial love. However, Aristotle goes too far when
saying that, whilst parents love their children from their birth
upward, "children do not begin to love their parents until they
are of a considerable age, and have got full possession of their
wits and faculties."[29] Under normal circumstances the infant
from an early age displays some attachment to its parents.
Professor Sully tells us of a girl, about seventeen months old,
who received her father after a few days absence with special
marks of affection, "rushing up to him, smoothing and stroking
his face and giving him all the toys in the room."[30] Filial
love is retributive; the agreeable feeling produced by benefits
received makes the individual look with pleasure and kindliness
upon the giver. And here again the affection is strengthened by
close living together, as appears from the cooling effect of long
separation of children from their parents. But the filial feeling
is not affection pure and simple, it is affection mingled with
regard for the physical and mental superiority of the parent.[31]
As the parental feeling is partly love of the weak and young, so
the filial feeling is partly regard for the strong and
(comparatively) old.
[Footnote 27: This observation was made already by Hutcheson
(_Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue_,
p. 219) and Adam Smith (_Theory of Moral Sentiments_, p. 199).
The latter wrote, a hundred years before the publication of 'The
Origin of Species,' that parental tenderness is a much stronger
affection than filial piety, because "the continuance and
propagation of the species depend altogether upon the former, and
not upon the latter."]
[Footnote 28: Darwin maintains (_Descent of Man_, p. 105) that
the filial affections have been to a large extent gained through
natural selection.]
[Footnote 29: Aristotle, _Ethica Nicomachea_, viii. 12. 2.]
[Footnote 30: Sully, _Studies of Childhood_, p. 243.]
[Footnote 31: See _supra_, i. 618 _sq._]
Besides parental, conjugal, and filial attachment we find among
all existing races of men altruism of the fraternal {195} type,
binding together children of the same parents, relatives more
remotely allied, and, generally, members of the same social unit.
But I am inclined to suppose that man was not originally a
gregarious animal, in the proper sense of the word, that he
originally lived in families rather than in tribes, and that the
tribe arose as the result of increasing food-supply, allowing the
formation of larger communities, combined with the advantages
which under such circumstances accrued from a gregarious life.
The man-like apes are not gregarious; and considering that some
of them are reported to be encountered in greater numbers in the
season when most fruits come to maturity,[32] we may infer that
the solitary life generally led by them is due chiefly to the
difficulty they experience in getting food at other times of the
year. That our earliest human or half-human ancestors lived on
the same kind of food, and required about the same quantities of
it as the man-like apes, seems to me a fairly legitimate
supposition; and from this I conclude that they were probably not
more gregarious than these apes. Subsequently man became
carnivorous; but even when getting his living by fishing or
hunting, he may still have continued as a rule this solitary kind
of life, or gregariousness may have become his habit only in
part. "An animal of a predatory kind," Mr. Spencer observes,
"which has prey that can be caught and killed without help,
profits by living alone: especially if its prey is much
scattered, and is secured by stealthy approach or by lying in
ambush. Gregariousness would here be a positive disadvantage.
Hence the tendency of large carnivores, and also of small
carnivores that have feeble and widely-distributed prey, to lead
solitary lives."[33] It is certainly a noteworthy fact that even
now there are rude savages who live rather in separate families
than in tribes; and that their solitary life is due to want of
{196} sufficient food is obvious from several facts which I have
stated in full in another place.[34] These facts, as it seems to
me, give much support to the supposition that the kind of food
man subsisted upon, together with the large quantities of it
which he wanted, formed in olden times a hindrance to a true
gregarious manner of living, except perhaps in some unusually
rich places.
[Footnote 32: Savage, 'Observations on the External Characters
and Habits of the _Troglodytes Niger_, in _Boston Journal of
Natural History_, iv. 384. _Cf._ von Koppenfels, 'Meine Jagden
auf Gorillas,' in _Die Gartenlaube_, 1877, p. 419.]
[Footnote 33: Spencer, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 558.]
[Footnote 34: Westermarck, _op. cit._ p. 43 _sqq._]
But man finally overcame this obstacle. "He has," to quote
Darwin, "invented and is able to use various weapons, tools,
traps, &c., with which he defends himself, kills or catches prey,
and otherwise obtains food. He has made rafts or canoes for
fishing or crossing over to neighbouring fertile islands. He has
discovered the art of making fire, by which hard and stringy
roots can be rendered digestible, and poisonous roots or herbs
innocuous."[35] In short, man gradually found out new ways of
earning his living and more and more emancipated himself from
direct dependence on surrounding nature. The chief obstacle to a
gregarious life was by this means surmounted, and the advantages
of such a life were considerable. Living together in larger
groups, men could resist the dangers of life and defend
themselves much better than when solitary--all the more so as the
physical strength of man, and especially savage man, is
comparatively slight. The extension of the small family group may
have taken place in two different ways: either by adhesion, or by
natural growth and cohesion. In other words, new elements whether
other family groups or single individuals may have united with it
from without, or the children, instead of separating from their
parents, may have remained with them and increased the group by
forming new families themselves. There can be little doubt that
the latter was the normal mode of extension. When gregariousness
became an advantage to man, he would feel inclined to remain with
those with whom he was living even after the family had fulfilled
its object--the preservation of {197} the helpless offspring. And
he would be induced to do so not only from egoistic
considerations, but by an instinct which, owing to its
usefulness, would gradually develop, practically within the
limits of kinship--the gregarious instinct.
[Footnote 35: Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 48 _sq._]
By the gregarious instinct I understand an animal's proneness to
live together with other members of its own species, apart from
parental, conjugal, and filial attachment. It involves, or leads
to, pleasure in the consciousness of their presence. The members
of a herd are at ease in each other's company, suffer when they
are separated, and rejoice when they are reunited. By actual
living together the instinct is individualised,[36] and it is
strengthened by habit. The pleasure with which one individual
looks upon another is further increased by the solidarity of
interests. Not only have they enjoyments in common, but they have
the same enemies to resist, the same dangers to encounter, the
same difficulties to overcome. Hence acts which are beneficial to
the agent are at the same time beneficial to his companions, and
the distinction between _ego_ and _alter_ loses much of its
importance.
[Footnote 36: In mankind we very early recognise the child's
tendency to sympathise with persons who are familiar to it
(Compayré, _L'évolution intellectuelle et morale de l'enfant_,
p. 288).]
But the members of the group do not merely take pleasure in each
other's company. Associated animals very frequently display a
feeling of affection for each other--defend each other, help each
other in distress and danger, perform various other services for
each other.[37] Considering that the very object of the
gregarious instinct is the preservation of the species, I think
we are obliged to regard the mutual affection of associated
animals as a development of this instinct. With the pleasure they
take in each other's company is intimately connected kindliness
towards its cause, the companion himself. In this explanation of
social affection I believe no further step can be made. Professor
Bain asks why a more lively feeling should grow up towards a
fellow-being than towards an {198} inanimate source of pleasure;
and to account for this he suggests, curiously enough, "the
primary and independent pleasure of the animal embrace"[38]--although
embrace even as an outward expression of affection plays a very
insignificant part in the social relations of gregarious animals.
It might as well be asked why there should be a more lively
feeling towards a sentient creature which inflicts pain than
towards an inanimate cause of pain. Both cases call for a similar
explanation. The animal distinguishes between a living being and
a lifeless thing, and affection proper, like anger proper, is
according to its very nature felt towards the former only. The
object of anger is normally an enemy, the object of social
affection is normally a friend. Social affection is not only
greatly increased by reciprocity of feeling, but could never have
come into existence without such reciprocity. The being to which
an animal attaches itself is conceived of as kindly disposed
towards it; hence among wild animals social affection is found
only in connection with the gregarious instinct, which is
reciprocal in nature.
[Footnote 37: Darwin, _op. cit._ p. 100 _sqq._ Kropotkin, _Mutual
Aid_, ch. i. _sq._]
[Footnote 38: Bain, _op. cit._ p. 132.]
Among men the members of the same social unit are tied to each
other with various bonds of a distinctly human character--the
same customs, laws, institutions, magic or religious ceremonies
and beliefs, or notions of a common descent. As men generally are
fond of that to which they are used or which is their own, they
are also naturally apt to have likings for other individuals
whose habits or ideas are similar to theirs. The intensity and
extensiveness of social affection thus in the first place depend
upon the coherence and size of the social aggregate, and its
development must consequently be studied in connection with the
evolution of such aggregates.