[79] History of Human Marriage, p. 3 sqq.
On the authority of a zoologist “whose scrupulous accuracy was known to many persons,” Darwin relates the following story:—“At the Cape of Good Hope an officer had often plagued a certain baboon, and the animal, seeing him approaching one Sunday for parade, poured water into a hole and hastily made some thick mud, which he skilfully dashed over the officer as he passed by, to the amusement of many bystanders. For long afterwards the baboon rejoiced and triumphed whenever he saw his victim.”[80] Prof. Romanes considers this to be a good instance of “what may be called brooding resentment deliberately preparing a satisfactory revenge.”[81] This, I think, is to put into the statement somewhat more than it really contains; but at all events it records a case of revenge, in the sense in which Dr. Steinmetz uses the word. The same may be said of other instances mentioned by so accurate observers as Brehm and Rengger in their descriptions of African and American monkeys, and of various examples of resentment in elephants and even in camels.[82] According to Palgrave, the camel possesses the passion of revenge, and in carrying it out “shows an unexpected degree of far-thoughted malice, united meanwhile with all the cold stupidity of his usual character.” The following instance, which occurred in a small Arabian town, deserves to be quoted, since it seems to have escaped the notice of the students of animal psychology. “A lad of about fourteen had conducted a large camel, laden with wood, from that very village to another at half an hour’s distance or so. As the animal loitered or turned out of the way, its conductor struck it repeatedly, and harder than it seems to have thought he had a right to do. But not finding the occasion favourable for taking immediate quits, it ‘bode its time’; nor was that time long in coming. A few days later the same lad had to re-conduct the beast, but unladen, to his own village. When they were about half way on the road, and at some distance from any habitation, the camel suddenly stopped, looked deliberately round in every direction, to assure itself that no one was within sight, and, finding the road far and near clear of passers-by, made a step forward, seized the unlucky boy’s head in its monstrous mouth, and lifting him up in the air flung him down again on the earth with the upper part of his skull completely torn off, and his brains scattered on the ground.”[83] We are also told that elephants, though very sensitive to insults, are never provoked, even under the most painful or distracting circumstances, to hurt those from whom they have received no harm.[84] Sometimes animals show a remarkable degree of discrimination in finding out the proper object for their resentment. It is hardly surprising to read that a baboon, which was molested in its cage with a stick, tried to seize, not the stick, but the hand of its tormentor.[85] More interesting is the “revenge” which an elephant at Versailles inflicted upon a certain artist who had employed his servant to tease the animal by making a feint of throwing apples into its mouth:—“This conduct enraged the elephant; and, as if it knew that the painter was the cause of this teasing impertinence, instead of attacking the servant, it eyed the master, and squirted at him from its trunk such a quantity of water as spoiled the paper on which he was drawing.”[86]
[80] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 69.
[81] Romanes, Animal Intelligence, p. 478.
[82] Brehm, Thierleben, i. 156. Idem, From North Pole to Equator, p. 305. Rengger (Naturgeschichte der Säugethiere von Paraguay, p. 52) gives the following information about the Cay:—“Fürchtet er … seinen Gegner, so nimmt er seine Zuflucht zur Verstellung, und sucht sich erst dann an ihm zu rächen, wenn er ihn unvermuthet überfallen kann. So hatte ich einen Cay, welcher mehrere Personen die ihn oft auf eine grobe Art geneckt hatten, in einem Augenblicke lass, wo sie im besten Vernehmen mit ihm zu sein glaubten. Nach verübter That kletterte er schnell auf einen hohen Balken, wo man ihm nicht beikommen konnte, und grinste schadenfroh den Gegenstand seiner Rache an.” See, moreover, Watson, The Reasoning Power in Animals, especially pp. 20, 21, 24, 156 sq.; Romanes, op. cit. p. 387 sqq.; but also Morgan, Animal Life and Intelligence, p. 401 sq.
[83] Palgrave, Narrative of a Year’s Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia, i. 40.
[84] Watson, op. cit. p. 26 sq.
[85] Aas, Sjaeleliv og intelligens hos Dyr, i. 72.
[86] Smellie, Philosophy of Natural History, i. 448.
I find it inconceivable that anybody, in the face of such facts, could still believe that the revenge of early man was at first essentially indiscriminating, and became gradually discriminating from considerations of social expediency. But by this I certainly do not mean to deny that violation of the “self-feeling” is an extremely common and powerful incentive to resentment. It is so among savage[87] and civilised men alike; even dogs and monkeys get angry when laughed at. Nothing more easily rouses in us anger and a desire for retaliation, nothing is more difficult to forgive, than an act which indicates contempt, or disregard of our feelings. Long after the bodily pain of a blow has ceased, the mental suffering caused by the insult remains and calls for vengeance. This is an old truth often told. According to Seneca, “the greater part of the things which enrage us are insults, not injuries.”[88] Plutarch observes that, though different persons fall into anger for different reasons, yet in nearly all of them is to be found the idea of their being despised or neglected.[89] “Contempt,” says Bacon, “is that which putteth an edge upon anger, as much, or more, than the hurt itself.”[90] But, indeed, there is no need to resort to different principles in order to explain the resentment excited by different kinds of pain. In all cases revenge implies, primordially and essentially, a desire to cause pain or destruction in return for hurt suffered, whether the hurt be bodily or mental; and, if to this impulse is added a desire to enhance the wounded “self-feeling,” that does not interfere with the true nature of the primary feeling of revenge. There are genuine specimens of resentment without the co-operation of self-regarding pride;[91] and, on the other hand, the reaction of the wounded “self-feeling” is not necessarily, in the first place, concerned with the infliction of pain. If a person has written a bad book which is severely criticised, he may desire to repair his reputation by writing a better book, not by humiliating his critics; and if he attempts the latter rather than the former, he does so, not merely in order to enhance his “self-feeling,” but because he is driven on by revenge. Dr. Boas tells us that the British Columbia Indian, when his feelings are hurt, sits down or lies down sullenly for days without partaking of food, and that, “when he rises his first thought is, not how to take revenge, but to show that he is superior to his adversary.[92]