The origin and development of the moral ideas

This is evidenced by the changed opinion about anger and revenge which we meet at the higher stages of moral development. Retaliation is condemned, and forgiveness of injuries is laid down as a duty.

The rule that a person should be forbearing and kind to his enemy has no place in early ethics.

“Let those that speak evil of us perish. Let the enemy be clubbed, swept away, utterly destroyed, piled in heaps. Let their teeth be broken. May they fall headlong into a pit. Let us live, and let our enemies perish.” Such were the requests which generally concluded the prayers of the Fijians.1 A savage would find nothing objectionable in them. On the contrary, he regards revenge as a duty,2 and forgiveness of enemies as a sign of weakness, or cowardice, or want of honour.3 Nor is this opinion restricted to the savage world. In the Old Testament the spirit of vindictiveness pervades both the men and their god. The last thing with which David on his death-bed charged Solomon was to destroy an enemy whom he himself had spared.4 Sirach counts among the nine causes of a man’s happiness to see the fall of his enemy.5 The enemies of Yahveh can expect no mercy from him, but utter destruction is their lot.6 To do good to a friend and to do harm to an enemy was a maxim of the ancient Scandinavians.7 It was taken for a matter of course by popular opinion in Greece8 and Rome. According to Aristotle, “it belongs to the courageous man never to be worsted”; to take revenge on a foe rather than to be reconciled is just, and therefore honourable.9 Cicero defines a good man as a person “who serves whom he can, and injures none except when provoked by injury.”10 Except in domestic life and in the case of friends, Professor Seeley observes, “people not only did not forgive their enemies, but did not wish to do so, nor think better of themselves for having done so.

That man considered himself fortunate who on his deathbed could say, in reviewing his past life, that no one had done more good to his friends or more mischief to his enemies. This was the celebrated felicity of Sulla; this the crown of Xenophon’s panegyric on Cyrus the Younger.”11

But side by side with the doctrine of resentment, we meet, among peoples of culture, the doctrine of forgiveness.

“Recompense injury with kindness,” says Lao-Tsze.12 According to Mencius, “a benevolent man does not lay up anger, nor cherish resentment against his brother, but only regards him with affection and love.”13 In the laws of Manu the following rule is laid down for the twice-born man:—“Against an angry man let him not in return show anger, let him bless when he is cursed.”14 It is said in the Buddhistic Dhammapada: “Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule…. Among men who hate us we dwell free from hatred…. Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good; let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth.”15 According to one of the Pahlavi texts, we ought not to indulge in wrathfulness; wrath is one of the fiends besetting man, and “goodness is little in the mind of a man of wrath.”16

In Leviticus hatred is condemned:—“Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart…. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people.”17 Sirach, whom I have already quoted, says in another passage, “Forgive thy neighbour the hurt that he has done unto thee, so shall thy sins also be forgiven when thou prayest.”18 According to the Talmud, “whosoever does not persecute them that persecute him, whosoever takes an offence in silence, he who does good because of love, he who is cheerful under his sufferings they are the friends of God, and of them the Scripture says, And they shall shine forth as does the sun at noon-day.”19 The Koran, whilst repeating the old rule, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,”20 at the same time teaches that Paradise is “for those who repress their rage, and those who pardon men;

God loves the kind.”21 Muhammedan tradition puts the following words in the mouth of the Prophet:—“Say not, if people do good to us, we will do good to them, and if people oppress us, we will oppress them: but resolve that if people do good to you, you will do good to them, and if they oppress you, oppress them not again.”22 Professor Goldziher emphasises Muhammed’s opposition to the traditional rule of the Arabs that an enemy is a proper object of hatred;23 and Syed Ameer Ali has collected various passages from the writings of Muhammedan scholars, which prove that, in spite of what has often been said to the contrary, forgiveness of injuries is by no means foreign to the spirit of Islam.24 Thus the author of the Kashshâf prescribes, “Seek again him who drives you away; give to him who takes away from you; pardon him who injures you: for God loveth that you should cast into the depth of your souls the roots of His perfections.”25 That “the sandal-tree perfumes the axe that fells it,” is a saying in everyday use among the Muhammedans of India.26 And Lane often heard Egyptians forgivingly say, on receiving a blow from an equal, “God bless thee,” “God requite thee good,” “Beat me again.”27

The principles of forgiveness had also advocates in Greece and Rome. In one of the Platonic dialogues, Socrates says, “We ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to any one, whatever evil we may have suffered from him”; though he wisely adds that “this opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable number of persons.”28 The Stoics strongly condemned anger as unnatural and unreasonable. “Mankind is born for mutual assistance, anger for mutual ruin.”29 “Anger is a crime of the mind; … it often is even more criminal than the faults with which it is angry.”30 He is the best and purest “who pardons others as if he sinned himself daily, but avoids sinning as if he never pardoned.”31 “If any one is angry with you, meet his anger by returning benefits for it.”32 “The cynic loves those who beat him.”33