The duty of revenge; the blood feud
In primitive society if a man slay a kinsman, he is punished by outlawry, that is, by expulsion from the family or clan.[44] The story of Cain, the first murderer of a kinsman in Hebrew legend, is typical.[45] If, however, a member of a clan is slain by an outsider, it is the duty of the nearest kinsman of the person killed, or of the collective body of his kinsfolk, to kill in revenge the slayer or some relative of his.[46] To ignore this obligation or to forgive the slayer of one’s kinsman is regarded as base and cowardly.
As, through the advance of society, the ties of the clan become relaxed and this group becomes more and more perfectly merged with the larger group of the tribe or state of which it has become a part, and justice comes to be administered by the tribal head or by regular tribunals, then blood revenge on the part of the kinsmen of the slain gradually ceases to be a duty and private vengeance becomes a crime. But this is a slow evolution, and within societies far advanced in civilization we often find belated groups still following with good conscience the ancient custom of blood revenge. The vendetta in Italy and the feud in some sections of our Southern states[47] are survivals or degenerate forms of this primitive virtue.
The Lex talionis
Closely related to the punishment of homicide in primitive society is punishment of lesser offenses, especially the infliction of bodily injury, within the social group. Here, too, private vengeance rules. The person wronged or injured inflicts such punishment upon the offender as passion or resentment may dictate. As time passes, however, and the sense of justice grows more discriminating, there are limits set to this private vengeance. There is established what is called the rule of equivalence. The avenger is not allowed to wreak upon the offender indiscriminate and unmeasured punishment, but is restricted to the infliction upon him of exactly such injury and pain as he has inflicted upon his victim. Hence arose the Lex talionis, limb for limb, eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.[48] This regulation thus registers an advance in moral feeling, and may be regarded as probably the first rule of the criminal code of the nations.
The virtue of courage; its altruistic element
In early society those virtues are most highly esteemed which are of service to the clan or tribe. Thus courage comes to hold a first place among the virtues. What is especially important to be noted here is that under courage is hidden the virtue of self-sacrifice, which we give the highest place in our ideal of character. It is this altruistic element in courage which lends to it its real ethical quality. In primitive society this virtue finds expression chiefly in the ready self-devotion of the individual in battle for the common good.
Throughout pagan antiquity this virtue held a central place in practically every ideal of excellence. In the words of Robertson Smith, “This devotion to the common weal was, as every one knows, the mainspring of ancient morality and the source of all the heroic virtues of which ancient history presents so many illustrious examples.”[49]
III. The Beginnings of Intertribal Morality
Primitive man’s double standard of morality