The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

the breeding

season and the duties of the nest. It is based entirely on

domestic life. But this sympathy is extended and intensified by

the struggle for existence; herd contends against herd,

community against community; that herd which best combines will

undoubtedly survive; and that herd in which sympathy is most

developed will most efficiently combine. Here, then, one herd

destroys another, not only by means of teeth and claws, but

also by means of sympathy and love. The affections, therefore,

are weapons, and are developed according to the Darwinian Law.

Love is as cruel as the shark’s jaw, as terrible as the

serpent’s fang. The moral sense is founded on sympathy, and

sympathy is founded on self -preservation. With all gregarious

animals, including men, self-preservation is dependent on the

preservation of the herd. And so, in order that each may

prosper, they must all combine with affection and fidelity, or

they will be exterminated by their rivals.

 

In the first period of the human herd, co-operation was merely

instinctive, as it is in a herd of dog-faced baboons. But when

the intelligence of man was sufficiently developed, they

realised the fact that the welfare of each individual depended

on the welfare of the clan, and that the welfare of the clan

depended on the welfare of each efficient individual. They then

endeavoured to support by laws the interests of the

association; and though, owing to their defective

understandings, they allowed, and even enjoined, many customs

injurious to their own welfare, yet, on the whole, they lived

well and wisely within the circle of their clan. It will now be

seen that the moral laws by which we are guided are all due to

the law of self-preservation. It was considered wicked and

wrong to assault, to rob, to deceive, or in any way to ill-treat or offend an able-bodied member of the clan; for, if he

were killed or disabled, his services were lost to the clan,

and if he were made discontented he might desert to another

corporation. But these vices were wrong, merely because they

were injurious; even murder in the abstract was not regarded by

them as a sin. They killed their sickly children, and dined

upon their superannuated parents without remorse; for the

community was profited by their removal. This feeling of

fidelity to the clan, though, no doubt, often supported by

arguments addressed to the reason, was not with them a matter

of calculation. It was rooted in their hearts; it was a true

instinct inherited from animal and ancient days; it was with

them an idea of duty, obedience to which was prompted by an

impulse, neglect of which was punished by remorse. In all

fables there is some fact; and the legends of the noble savage

possess this element of truth, that savages within their own

communion do live according to the Golden Rule, and would, in

fact, be destroyed by their enemies if they did not. But they

are not in reality good men. They have no conscience outside

their clan. Their virtue after all is only a kind of honour

among thieves. They resemble those illustrious criminals who

were excellent husbands and fathers, and whose biographies

cannot be read without a shudder. Yet it is from these people

that our minds and our morals are descended. The history of

morals is the extension of the reciprocal or selfish virtues

from the clan to the tribe, from the tribe to the nation, from

the nation to all communities living under the same government,

civil or religious, then to people of the same colour, and

finally to all mankind.

 

In the primitive period, the males contended at the courting

season for the possession of the females; polygamy prevailed,

and thus the strongest and most courageous males were the

fathers of all the children that were born; the males of the

second class died “old maids.” The weakly members of the herd

were also unable to obtain their share of food. But when the

period of brute force was succeeded by the period of law, it

was found that the men of sickly frames were often the most

intelligent, and that they could make themselves useful to the

clan by inventing weapons and traps, or at least by

manufacturing them.

 

In return for their sedentary labour, they were given food; and

as they were too weak to obtain wives by force, females also

were given them; the system of love-duels was abolished; the

women belonged to the community, and were divided fairly, like

the food. The existence of the clan depended on the number of

its fighting men, and therefore on the number of children that

were born. The birth of a male child was a matter of rejoicing:

the mother was honoured as a public benefactress. Then breeding

began to be studied as an art; young persons were methodically

paired. It was observed that children inherit the qualities and

inclinations of their parents, and so the brave and the

intelligent were selected to be sires.

 

If food was scarce and if children were difficult to rear, the

new-born infants were carefully examined, and those that did

not promise well were killed. Promiscuous intercourse on the

part of the females was found to result in sterility, and was

forbidden. Cohabitation during the suckling period, which

lasted at least three years, was supposed to injure the

mother’s milk, on which the savage baby is entirely dependent;

and during that period the woman was set apart. Premature

unions among children were forbidden, and sometimes prevented

by infibulation, but savages seldom seem to be aware that for

the young to marry as soon as the age of puberty has been

attained is injurious to the womb and to the offspring. The

ancient Germans, however, had excellent laws upon this subject.

 

Finally the breeders made a discovery from which has resulted

one of the most universal of moral laws, and one which of all

laws has been the least frequently infringed. Clans made war on

foreign clans not only for game-preserves, and fish waters, and

root, and berry grounds, but also for the purpose of making

female prisoners. A bachelor was expected to catch a wild wife

for his own benefit, and for that of the community. He

accordingly prowled round the village of the enemy, and when an

eligible person came down to the brook to fill her pitcher, or

went into the bush to gather sticks, he burst forth from his

ambush, knocked her down with his club, and carried her off in

triumph to his own people. It was observed that the foreign

wives produced more children, and stronger children, than the

home-born wives, and, also that the nearer the blood-relationship between husband and wife, the more weakly and the

less frequent were the offspring. On this account a law was

passed forbidding marriage between those who were closely

related to one another; sometimes even it was forbidden to

marry within the tribe at all; and all wives were obtained from

foreign tribes by means of capture or exchange. These laws

relating to marriage, enacted by the elders, and issued as

orders of the gods, were at first obeyed by the young merely

out of fear; but in the second generation they were ingrained

on the minds of children, and were taken under the protection

of the conscience.

 

When the clans or families first leagued together in order to

form a town, the conscience of each man was confined to his own

circle. He left it at home when he went out into the town. He

considered it laudable to cheat his fellow townsmen in a

bargain, or to tell them clever lies. If he committed a murder

or a theft, his conscience uttered no reproach. But each father

was responsible for the crimes of the members of his clan; he

might inflict what punishment he chose on the actual offender;

but he himself was the culprit in the eyes of the law, and was

condemned to pay the fine. If the municipal government was not

fully formed, the injured family took its own revenge; it did

not seek for the thief or murderer himself; the individual did

not exist; all the family to them were one. No man, therefore,

could break a law without exposing his revered father and all

the members of his family to expense, and even to danger of

their lives. No savage dares to be unpopular at home; the

weight of opprobrium is more than any man can bear. His

happiness depends on the approbation of those with whom he

lives; there is no world for him outside his clan. The town

laws were, therefore, respected by each man for the sake of his

family, and then by a well-known mental process they came to be

respected for themselves, and were brought under the moral law

which was written on the heart. Men ceased to be clansmen; they

became citizens. They next learnt to cherish and protect those

foreigners who came to trade and who thus conferred a benefit

upon the town; and at last the great discovery was made.

Offences against the Golden Rule are wrong in themselves, and

displeasing to the gods. It is wicked for a man to do that

which he would not wish a man to do to him; it is wrong for a

man to do that to a woman which he would not wish done to his

sister or his wife. Murder, theft, falsehood, and fraud, the

infliction of physical or mental pain, all these from time

immemorial had been regarded as crimes between clansmen and

clansmen; they were now regarded as crimes between man and man.

And here we come to a singular fact. The more men are sunk in

brutality the less frequently they sin against their

conscience; and as men become more virtuous, they also become

more sinful. With the primeval man the conscience is an

instinct; it is never disobeyed. With the savage the conscience

demands little; that little it demands under pain of death; it

is, therefore, seldom disobeyed. The savage seldom does that

which he feels to be wrong. But he does not feel it wrong to

commit incest, to eat “grandfather soup”, to kill a sickly child

like a kitten, to murder any one who lives outside his village.

In the next period, the matrimonial and religious laws which

have proceeded from the science of breeding and the fear of

ghosts place a frequent restraint upon his actions. He now

begins to break the moral law; he begins a career of sin;

yet he is, on the whole, a better man.

 

We finally arrive at the civilised man; he has refined sentiments and a

cultivated intellect; and now scarcely a day passes in which he

does not offend against his conscience. His life is passed in self-reproach. He censures himself for an hour that he has wasted;

for an unkind word that he has said; for an impure thought

which he has allowed to settle for a moment on his mind. Such

lighter sins do not indeed trouble ordinary men, and there are

few at present whose conscience reproaches them for sins

against the intellect. But the lives of all modern men are

tormented with desires which may not be satisfied; with

propensities which must be quelled. The virtues of man have

originated in necessity; but necessity developed the vices as

well. It was essential for the preservation of the clan that

its members should love one another, and live according to the

Golden Rule; men, therefore, are born with an instinct of

virtue. But it was also essential for the existence of the clan

that its members should be murderers and thieves, crafty and

ferocious; fraudulent and cruel. These qualities, therefore,

are transmitted by inheritance. But as the circle of the clan

widens, these qualities are rarely