The origin and development of the moral ideas

The Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast believe that the god Sasabonsum “takes delight in destroying all those who have offended him, even though the offence may have been accidental and unintentional”; whereas, among the same people, it is the custom that even deaths resulting from accidents, not to speak of minor injuries, are compensated for by a sum of money.74 Miss Kingsley says she is unable, from her own experience, to agree with Mr. Dennett’s statement with reference to the Fjort, that ignorance would save the man who had eaten prohibited food. From what she knows, Merolla’s story is correct: the man, though he eat in ignorance, dies or suffers severely. “It is true,” she adds, “that one of the doctrines of African human law is that the person who offends in ignorance, that is not a culpable ignorance, cannot be punished; but this merciful dictum I have never found in spirit law. Therein if you offend, you suffer; unless you can appease the enraged spirit, neither ignorance nor intoxication is a feasible plea in extenuation.”75 The Omahas believe that to eat of the totem, even in ignorance, would cause sickness, not only to the eater, but also to his wife and children.76

Speaking of the sacred animals of the ancient Egyptians, Herodotus says, “Should any one kill one of these beasts, if wilfully, death is the punishment; if by accident, he pays such fine as the priests choose to impose. But whoever kills an ibis or a hawk, whether wilfully or by accident, must necessarily be put to death.”77 According to the Chinese penal code, “whoever destroys or damages, whether intentionally or inadvertently, the altars, mounds, or terraces consecrated to the sacred and imperial rites, shall suffer 100 blows, and be perpetually banished to distance of 2000 lee.”78 In these cases the punishment inflicted by human hands is obviously a reflection of the supposed anger of superhuman beings.

The Shintoist prays for forgiveness of errors which he has committed unknowingly.79 According to the Vedic hymns, whoever with or without intention offends against the eternal ordinances of Varuna, the All-knowing and Sinless, arouses his anger, and is bound with the bonds of the god—with calamity, sickness, and death.80 Forgiveness is besought of Varuna for sins that have been committed in unconsciousness;81 even sleep occasions sin.82 The singer Vasishtha is filled with pious grief, because daily against his will and without knowledge he offends the god and in ignorance violates his decree.83 “All sages,” say the Laws of Manu, “prescribe a penance for a sin unintentionally committed”; such a sin “is expiated by the recitation of Vedic texts, but that which men in their folly commit intentionally, by various special penances.”84 Among the present Hindus, “even in cases of accidental drinking of spirits through ignorance on the part of any of the three twice-born classes, nothing short of a repetition of the initial sacramentary rites, effecting a complete regeneration, is held sufficient to purge the sin.”85

In the Greek literature there are several instances of guilt being attached to the accidental transgression of some sacred law, the transgressor being perfectly unaware of the nature of his deed. Oedipus is the most famous example of this. Actaeon is punished for having seen Diana. Pausanias, the Spartan king, made sacrifice to Zeus Phyxius, to atone for the death of the maiden whom he had slain by misfortune.86

The Babylonian psalmist, assuming that one of the gods is angry with him because he is suffering pain, exclaims:—“The sin which I committed I know not. The transgression I committed I know not. The affliction which was my food—I know it not. The evil which trampled me down—I know it not. The lord in the wrath of his heart has regarded me; the god in the fierceness of his heart has punished me.”87 In another psalm it is said:—“He knows not his sin against the god, he knows not his transgression against the god and the goddess. Yet the god has smitten, the goddess has departed from him.”88

So, also, the Hebrew psalmist cries out, “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.”89 Unintentional error, as Mr. Montefiore observes, would be as liable to incur divine punishment as the most voluntary crime, if it infringed the tolerably wide province in which the right or sanctity of Yahveh was involved.90 Whilst a deliberate moral iniquity was punished under the penal law, a sin committed “through ignorance, in the holy things of the Lord,” required a sin- or trespass-offering for its expiation.91 Speaking of the developed sacrificial system of the Jews, Professor Moore remarks, “The general rule in the Mishna is that any transgression the penalty of which, if wilful, would be that the offender be cut off, requires, if committed in ignorance or through inadvertence, a ḥaṭṭāth [or sin-offering]; the catalogue of these transgressions ranges from incest and idolatry to eating the (internal) fat of animals and imitating the composition of the sacred incense, but does not include the commonest offences against morals.”92 The Rabbis also maintained that a false oath, even if made unconsciously, involves man in sin, and is punished as such.93 We meet with a similar opinion in mediæval Christianity. The principle laid down by St. Augustine,94 and adopted by Canon Law,95 that “ream linguam non facit, nisi mens rea,” was not always acted upon.

Various penitentials condemned to penance a person who, in giving evidence, swore to the best of his belief, in case his statement afterwards proved untrue.96 In other cases, also, the Church prescribed penances for mere misfortunes. If a person killed another by pure accident, he had to do penance—in ordinary cases, according to most English penitentials, for one year,97 according to various continental penitentials, for five98 or seven99 years; whereas, according to the Penitential of Pseudo-Theodore, he who accidentally killed his father or mother was to atone his deed with a penance of fifteen years,100 and he who accidentally killed his son with a penance of twelve.101 The Scotists even expressly declared that the external deed has a moral value of its own, which increases the goodness or badness of the agent’s intention; and though this doctrine was opposed by Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Suarez, and other leading theologians, it was nevertheless admitted by them that, according to the will of God, certain external deeds entail a certain accidental reward, the so-called aureola.102 In some cases the secular law, also, punishes misadventure on religious grounds.

Thus the Salic law treated with great severity any person who accidentally put fire to a church, although it imposed no penalty on other cases of unintentional incendiary;103 and even to this day the Russian criminal law prescribes penitence for homicide by misadventure, “in order to quiet the conscience of the culprit.”104 According to the Koran, he who kills a believer by mistake shall expiate his deed, not only by paying blood-money to the family of the dead (unless they remit it), but by setting free a believing slave; and as to him who cannot find the means, “let him fast for two consecutive months—a penance this from God.”105