CHAPTER III CRIME AMONG SAVAGES. IN every aggregation of living creatures may be found two great tendencies which we cannot explain-a tendency of offspring to be like their ancestors, and, on the other hand, a tendency to differ somewhat from their ancestors. These tendencies are mutually antagonistic and destructive, yet both are essentially necessary to the social welfare; for the one makes social life possible and the other makes possible social progress. How to foster both these tendencies toward the upbuilding of the social strength and effectiveness, is the great fundamental problem of every human society. The exclusive development of the principle of likeness will result in social stagnation, while the dominance of the principle of unlikeness will soon bring social disruption and death. In the ages before history, the great danger seems to have been from the latter tendency, and it was necessary to fuse every available social force into united opposition to the stiffnecked individualism of the human race. In historic times the difficulty has been reversed, and we have had to struggle manfully to prevent the crust of social custom from hardening so closely round us that individual and social growth be made impossible. When human life was very young upon the earth, men were like children, utterly wayward and impulsive, passionate, revengeful, thoughtless, cruel from ignorance, easily frightened and intensely superstitious, yet recovering quickly from the immediate effects of all impressions, both good and bad; easily plastic in any direction, but as easily diverted into one. another channel. They were natural fighters-the males of these wild human hordes-fighting with strange men and fierce animals without the group; fighting also among themselves; recovering very quickly from terrible wounds (as do lowest savages to-day), full of savage vigor and ferocity, untamed as yet-creatures of boundless possibilities, because not yet set and hardened in their ways. Our primitive human progenitors differed from the lowest modern savage, at least, in this: their lives were not yet run into the mould of a curiously twisted and contorted custom; but it is probable that in very many respects the resemblance was a close Social customs they undoubtedly must have inherited from a yet lower stage of social existence; but we may believe that earliest man was not quite so slavishly obedient to these despotic rules of life, as are the brutes; even as the higher orders of the merely animal world are somewhat less inflexibly bound by them than are the lower orders. Certainly, all social custom was then, as it were, in the stalk, and very many centuries were required for the development of the delicate branching twigs and of the curving leaves and flowers. Aristotle and Plato and Xenophon-so unlike in most of their teachings-all unite in telling us of the exceeding great difficulty of inducing men to submit themselves continuously to any form of social discipline. These great thinkers lived when the nations had not yet "had time to forget" that man is the "hardest of all animals to govern." In other words, the highest form of life tended far more strongly than lower forms toward individualism, toward divergence from its fellows, toward independence: that is, the thinking and acting for oneself. But human betterment-intellectual and moral-positively demanded a social medium for its development. Moreover, mutual aid in war and peace was the prime requisite for 1 Bagehot, p. 25. 40 The Taming Process survival, in the struggle for existence with other types of men and animals. For, among the rough hordes that roamed the untilled earth, which would secure the best hunting grounds, which would conquer their enemies, growing stronger and more dominant with time? Surely those that most speedily developed mutual aid among fellow members; that restrained by social pressure individual quarrels and strife within the group, especially in presence of the common enemy. As Walter Bagehot, in that wonderful little book Physics and Politics' puts it: "The slightest symptom of legal development, the least indication of a military bond, is then enough to turn the scale. The compact tribes win and the compact tribes are the tamest. Civilization begins, because the beginning of civilization is a military advantage." Those hordes which first succeeded in taming themselves, in uniting their forces for war, by the development and collective enforcement of a few social customs, securing cohesion and military effectiveness-these were the conquering hordes which grew into barbaric empires. This process meant the social fostering of certain tendencies toward likeness and the social repression of certain tendencies toward unlikeness. Those who refused obedience to this social pressure, awakened general abhorrence and both merited and obtained collective punishment-in a word, became criminals. At first it was unnecessary and surely impossible to curb savage liberty, or shall we call it license, in many directions. The actions punished as crimes were exceedingly few. Even the most necessary social discipline was endured with great difficulty, and any attempt to enlarge its sphere was sure to bring violent resistence and the probable destruction of the social bond. Thus it was imperative to unite all available social forces for the safe-guarding of the veriest fundamentals, making 1 Bagehot, p. 52. social life of any kind possible; and especially for the securing of that prime requisite for survival, military strength and efficiency; hardening the outside shell of the tribe for war, by turning the spear points outward against the common foe. Three strong instincts, found everywhere in the lowest human communities, were seized upon to do this work, linked together and sometimes united finally into one. Each is a true socializing force, developing centres of attraction, round which the hitherto almost homogeneous living mass begins to circle, resulting in a certain differentiation of function and co-ordination of efforts for the general welfare. These three instincts are manifest in practically every individual of the primitive social group. They are: I. Instinctive admiration and deference for strongest fighters. 2. Intense reverence for ancient customs. 3. Boundless superstition and fear of the unknown and mysterious. In no sense antagonistic and disruptive forces, they favor most strongly social unity and effectiveness. The first tendency calls into existence leaders in war and representatives of the social group. The second tendency raises up elders wise in the ancient customs of the race. The third tendency brings out witch doctors, medicine men, priests of heathendom; and around each set of leaders there is a natural grouping for, first war, second justice, third religion and medicine. In direct antagonism to these three strong trends of the primitive social life arise the three great crimes of savage peoples: 1. Treason: The crime against the warlike strength and unity of the group. 2. Incest: The typical crime against ancient social 42 Three Fundamental Crimes custom, and against that fundamental bond of kinship upon which all primitive society is based. For incest, if generally practised, would utterly, confound and confuse the ties of relationship, greatly weaken the racial stock, both physically and mentally, and prevent the development of that respect and reverence for elders, so important in the uplifting and strengthening of savage communities. 3. Evil-Witchcraft: The superstitious fears of the people -giving great influence and rewards to socially helpful wizards—make the use of their supernatural powers against the community a crime of the deepest heinousness. Among lowest savage hordes and tribes everywhere, in Australia and the Pacific Islands, in Greenland, in North and South America, in Asia and in Africa, these three forms of conduct are alike abhorred and severely punished by the social group, as wrongs against the whole community. Moreover, these are, in general, the only offences thus punished, or in other words, the only true crimes.' Other bad actions, adultery, murder, theft, are regarded as simple harms to an individual, or family group, to be revenged by the individual or family, unless vengeance is bought off by composition, i, e., payment of valuables. The use of the ferocious blood feud in repressing savage passions, through fear of undying hatred and the sleepless quest for blood, has already been mentioned; as has also the slow development of arbitration-first voluntary, then compulsory-the use of outlawry and the change from tort to crime, striking evidence of which will be given in the study of Anglo-Saxon England. Originally, there was no idea of individual moral guilt. connected with the three great fundamental crimes: Treason, Incest, Witchcraft. Even to-day, the traitor may be a man * See next chapter. The few notes for which the attention of the general reader is desired, are marked r. |