Читать книгу The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas - Edward Westermarck - Страница 64

110 Catechism of the Council of Trent, ii. 5. 72.

111 Am Urquell, ii. 101.

112 Peacock, ‘Executed Criminals and Folk-Medicine,’ in Folk-Lore, vii. 280.

113 Proverbs, xx. 7.

It is no doubt more becoming for a god to pardon the sinner on account of the merits of the virtuous, than to punish the innocent for the sins of the wicked. It shows that his compassion overcomes his wrath; and the mercy of the deity is, among all divine attributes, that on which the higher monotheistic religions lay most stress. Allah said, “Whoso doth one good act, for him are ten rewards, and I also give more to whomsoever I will; and whoso doth ill, its retaliation is equal to it, or else I forgive him.”114 Nevertheless, the moral consciousness of a higher type can hardly approve that the wicked should be pardoned for the sake of the virtuous, or that the reward for an act should be bestowed upon anybody else than the agent. The doctrine of vicarious merit or recompense is not just; it involves that badness is unduly ignored; it is based on crude ideas of goodness and merit. The theory of opera supererogativa, as we have seen, attaches badness and goodness to external acts rather than to mental facts, and assumes that reparation can be given for badness, whereas the scrutinising moral judge only forgives badness in case it is superseded by repentance. If thus a bad act cannot be compensated by a good one, even though both be performed by one and the same person, it can still less be compensated by the good act of another man. From various quarters we hear protests against the notion of vicarious merit—protests which emphasise the true direction of moral reward. Ezekiel, who reproved the old idea that the children’s teeth are set on edge because the fathers have eaten sour grapes, also taught that a wicked son is to reap no benefit from the blessings bestowed upon a righteous father.115 “Fear the day,” says the Koran, “wherein no soul shall pay any recompense for another soul.”116 The Buddhistic Dhammapada contains the following passage, which sums up our whole argument:—“By oneself the evil is done, by oneself one suffers; by oneself evil is left undone, by oneself one is purified. The pure and the impure stand and fall by themselves, no one can purify another.”117

114 Lane-Poole, Speeches and Table-Talk of Mohammad, p. 147.

115 Ezekiel, xviii. 5 sqq.

116 Koran, ii. 44.

117 Dhammapada, xii. 165.