However the details were arranged, the principle itself is clear enough, and we must now be content to remain in ignorance of the means adopted to reconcile conflicting interests measured by a standard so imperfect.
But the wergyld or price of the whole man was not all that the law professed to regulate. When once the principle had been admitted, that this might be fixed at a certain sum, it was an easy corollary not only that the sum in question should limit the amount of responsibility to the State[[522]] but that a tariff for all injuries should be settled. In the laws of Æðelberht and Ælfred we find very detailed assessments of the damage which could be done to a man by injuries, either of his person, his property, or his honour: many of these are amusing and strange enough, and highly indicative of the rude state of society for which they were adapted. But it seems unnecessary to pursue the details they deal with: they may serve to turn a period about Teutonic barbarism, or to point a moral about human fallibility; but the circumstances under which they were rational and convenient arrangements have passed away, and they are now of little interest as historical records, and of none with a view to future utility.
[495]. Fǽhðe is etymologically derived from fá, a foe: it is the state or condition of being fá with any one. “Gif hwá ofer ðæt stalige sý he fá wið ðone cyning and ealle his freónd.” “If after that, any one steal, be he foe (at feud) with the king, and all that love him.”
[496]. Tacit. Germ. xxii.
[497]. This is the wild right of every outlaw, the law of nature which resumes its force when human law has been relinquished.
“I lost mine eye in laying the prize aboard,
And therefore, to revenge it, shalt thou die!”
Hen. VI. Part 2, act iv. sc. 1.
Such is the justice of him who has returned to the universal state of war. Against such a one, Society, if it mean to be society, must on its side declare a war of extermination.