Читать книгу The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas - Edward Westermarck - Страница 108

90 Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, ii. 420. Clavigero, History of Mexico, i. 371.

91 Clavigero, op. cit. i. 363.

92 Bancroft, op. cit. ii. 740, 745.

93 Amélineau, L’évolution des idées morales dans l’Égypte ancienne, p. 344.

94 Cf. Seldeft, De Synedriis et Præfecturis Juridicis veterum Ebræorum, iii. 12, p. 1179 sqq.; Lament, Études sur l’histoire de l’humanité, i. 384 sq.

95 This was later on admitted by Lane (Modern Egyptians, p. 574), who had previously maintained that the duty of waging holy war is strongly urged in the Koran.

96 Pool, Studies in Mohammedanism, p. 246.

97 Logan, The Scottish Gael, i. 101. de Valroger, Les Celtes, p. 186.

98 Njála, ch. 40, vol. i. 167. Maurer, Rekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes, ii. 172.

99 Schmidt, Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 280. Laurent, op. cit. i. 46. Plato, Leges, i. 625. Livy, xxxi. 29: “Cum alienigenis, cum barbaris aeternum omnibus Graecis bellum est.”

100 Cf. Lecky, History of European Morals, ii. 257.

However, the foreigner is not entirely, or under all circumstances, devoid of rights. Among the nations of archaic civilisation, as among the lower races, hospitality is a duty, and the life of a guest is as sacred as the life of any of the permanent members of the household. In various cases the commencement of international hostilities is preceded by special ceremonies, intended to justify acts which are not considered proper in times of peace. In ancient Mexico it was usual to send a formal challenge or declaration of war to the enemy, as it was held discreditable to attack a people unprepared for defence;101 and, according to the fecial law of the Romans, no war was just unless it was undertaken to reclaim property, or unless it was solemnly denounced and proclaimed beforehand.102 In some cases warfare is condemned, or a distinction is made between just and unjust war with reference to the purpose for which the war is waged. The Chinese philosophers were great advocates of peace.103 According to Lao-Tsze, a superior man uses weapons “only on the compulsion of necessity”;104 there is no calamity greater than lightly engaging in war,105 and “he who has killed multitudes of men should weep for them with the bitterest grief.”106 In the Indian poem, Mahabharata, needless warfare is condemned; it is said that the success which is obtained by negotiations is the best, and that the success which is secured by battle is the worst.107 Among the Hebrews the sect of the Essenes went so far in their reprobation of war that they would not manufacture any martial instruments whatever.108 Roman historians, even in the case of wars with barbarians, often discuss the sufficiency or insufficiency of the motives “with a conscientious severity a modern historian could hardly surpass.”109 According to Cicero, a war, to be just, ought to be necessary, the sole object of war being to enable us to live undisturbed in peace. There are two modes of settling controversies, he says, one by discussion, the other by a resort to force. The first is proper to man, the second is proper to brutes, and ought never to be adopted except where the first is unavailable.110 Seneca regards war as a “glorious crime,” comparable to murder:—“What is forbidden in private life is commanded by public ordinance. Actions which, committed by stealth, would meet with capital punishment, we praise because committed by soldiers. Men, by nature the mildest species of the animal race, are not ashamed to find delight in mutual slaughter, to wage wars, and to transmit them to be waged by their children, when even dumb animals and wild beasts live at peace with one another.”111 History attests that the Romans, in their intercourse with other nations, did not act upon Cicero’s and Seneca’s lofty theories of international morality; as Plutarch observes, the two names “peace” and “war” are mostly used only as coins, to procure, not what is just, but what is expedient.112 Yet there seems to have been a general feeling in Rome that the waging of a war required some justification. In declaring it, the Roman heralds called all the gods to witness that the people against whom it was declared had been unjust and neglectful of its obligations.113

101 Clavigero, op. cit. i. 370. Bancroft, op. cit. ii. 420, 421, 423.

102 Cicero, De officiis, i. 11.

103 Cf. Lanessan, Morale des philosophes chinois, pp. 54, 107.

104 Táo Teh King, xxxi. 2.

105 Ibid. lxix. 2.

106 Ibid. xxxi. 3.

107 Mahabharata, Bhisma Parva, iii. 81 (pt. xii. sq. p. 6).

108 Philo, Quod liber sit quisquis virtuti studet, p. 877.

109 Lecky, History of European Morals, ii. 258.

110 Cicero, De officiis, i. 11.

111 Seneca, Epistulæ, 95.

112 Plutarch, Vita Pyrrhi, xii. 3, p. 389.

113 Livy, i. 32.

Even in war the killing of an enemy is, under certain circumstances, prohibited either by custom or by enlightened moral opinion. Among the ancient Nahuas, who never accepted a ransom for a prisoner of war, the person of an ambassador was at all events held sacred.114 In the ‘Book of Rewards and Punishments,’ which embodies popular Taouism, it is said, “Do not massacre the enemies who yield themselves, nor kill those who offer their submission.”115 The Hebrews, whilst being commanded to “save alive nothing that breatheth” of the cities which the Lord had given them for an inheritance, were to deal differently with cities which were very far off from them: to kill only the men, and to take to themselves the women and the little ones.116 The Laws of Manu lay down very humane rules for a king who fights with his foes in battle:—“Let him not strike with weapons concealed in wood, nor with such as are barbed, poisoned, or the points of which are blazing with fire. Let him not strike one who in flight has climbed on an eminence, nor a eunuch, nor one who joins the palms of his hands in supplication, nor one who flees with flying hair, nor one who sits down, nor one who says ‘I am thine’; nor one who sleeps, nor one who has lost his coat of mail, nor one who is naked, nor one who is disarmed, nor one who looks on without taking part in the fight, nor one who is fighting with another foe; nor one whose weapons are broken, nor one afflicted with sorrow, nor one who has been grievously wounded, nor one who is in fear, nor one who has turned to flight; but in all these cases let him remember the duty of honourable warriors.”117 The Mahabharata contains expressions of similar chivalrous sentiments in regard to enemies. A car-warrior should fight only with a car-warrior, a horse-man with a horse-man, a foot-soldier with a foot-soldier. “Always being led by consideration of fitness, willingness, bravery, and strength, one should strike another after having challenged him. None should strike another who is confiding or who is panic-striken. One fighting with another, one seeking refuge, one retreating, one whose weapon is broken, and one who is not clad in armour should never be struck. Charioteers, animals, men engaged in carrying weapons, those who play on drums and those who blow conchs should never be smitten.”118 Among the Greeks, in the Homeric age, it was evidently regarded as a matter of course that, on the fall of a city, all the men were slain, and the women and children carried off as slaves;119 but in historic times such a treatment of a vanquished foe grew rarer, and seems, under ordinary circumstances, to have been disapproved of.120 The rulers of this land, says the messenger in the ‘Heraclidæ,’ do not approve of slaying enemies who have been taken alive in battle.121 In Rome the customs of war underwent a similar change. In ancient days the normal fate of a captive was death, in later times he was generally reduced to slavery; but many thousands of captives were condemned to the gladiatorial shows, and the vanquished general was commonly slain in the Mamertine prison.122 On the other hand, nations or armies that voluntarily submitted to Rome were habitually treated with great leniency. Cicero says:—“When we obtain the victory we must preserve those enemies who behaved without cruelty or inhumanity during the war; for example, our forefathers received, even as members of their state, the Tuscans, the Aequi, the Volscians, the Sabines, and the Hernici, but utterly destroyed Carthage and Numantia. … And, while we are bound to exercise consideration toward those whom we have conquered by force, so those should be received into our protection who throw themselves upon the honour of our general, and lay down their arms, even though the battering rams should have struck their walls.”123

114 Bancroft, op. cit. ii. 426, 412.

115 Douglas, Confucianism and Taouism, p. 261.

116 Deuteronomy, xx. 13 sqq.

117 Laws of Manu, vii. 90 sq.

118 Mahabharata, Bhisma Parva, i. 27 sqq. (pt. xii. sq. p. 2).

119 Iliad, ix. 593 sq.

120 Schmidt, Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 281 sqq.

121 Euripides, Heraclidæ, 966.

122 Laurent, op. cit. iii. 20 sq. Lecky, History of European Morals, ii. 257.

123 Cicero, De officiis, i. 11.