[102] Polybius, Historiae, vi. 6.
[103] Hartley, Observations on Man, i. 520.
[104] Adam Smith, op. cit. passim.
[105] Butler, op. cit. p. 458.
[106] Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 79.
Moral indignation, or disapproval, like non-moral resentment, is a reactionary attitude of mind directed towards the cause of inflicted pain. In a subsequent chapter we shall see that both are in a similar way determined by the answer given to the question, What is the cause of the pain?—a fact which, whilst strongly confirming their affinity, throws light upon some of the chief characteristics of the moral consciousness. Nay, moral indignation resembles non-moral resentment even in this respect that, in various cases, the aggressive reaction turns against innocent persons who did not commit the injury which gave rise to it. The collective responsibility assumed in certain types of blood-revenge is an evidence of this in so far as such revenge is not merely a matter of individual practice, but has the sanction of custom. And even punishment, which, in the strict sense of the term, is a more definite expression of public, or moral, indignation than the custom of private retaliation, is often similarly indiscriminate.
Like revenge, and for similar reasons, punishment sometimes falls on a relative of the culprit in cases when he himself cannot be caught. In Fiji, says Mr. Williams, “the virtue of vicarious suffering is recognised.” It once happened that a warrior left his charged musket so carelessly that it went off and killed and wounded some individuals, whereupon he fled himself. His case was judged worthy of death by the chiefs of the tribe, and the offender’s aged father was in consequence seized and strangled.[107]
[107] Williams and Calvert, Fiji, p. 24.
In other cases an innocent person is killed for the offence of another, not because the offender cannot be seized, but with a view to inflicting on him a loss, according to the rule of like for like. The punishment, then, is meant for the culprit, though the chief sufferer is somebody else. According to the Laws of Ḫammurabi, “if a builder has built a house for a man and has not made strong his work, and the house he built has fallen, and he has caused the death of the owner, that builder shall be put to death.” But “if he has caused the son of the owner of the house to die, one shall put to death the son of that builder.”[108] Similarly, “if a man has struck a gentleman’s daughter and caused her to drop what is in her womb, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for what was in her womb.” But “if that woman has died, one shall put to death his daughter.”[109] The following custom which Mr. Gason reports, as existing among the Australian Dieyerie, in case a man should unintentionally kill another in a fight, is probably based on a similar principle:—“Should the offender have an elder brother, then he must die in his place; or, should he have no elder brother, then his father must be his substitute; but in case he has no male relative to suffer for him, then he himself must die.”[110]
[108] Laws of Ḫammurabi, 229 sq.