THE MILITANT TYPE OF SOCIETY. 767 



tion as its members are endowed with bodily vigor and courage. And, 

 on the average, among conflicting societies there will be a survival and 

 spread of those in which the physical and mental powers called for in 

 battle are not only most marked but also most honored. Egyptian 

 and Assyrian sculptures and inscriptions show us that prowess was the 

 thing above all others thought most worthy of record. Of the words 

 good, just, etc., as used by the ancient Greeks, Grote remarks that 

 they " signify the man of birth, wealth, influence, and daring, whose 

 arm is strong to destroy or to protect, whatever may be the turn of 

 his moral sentiments ; while the opposite epithet, bad, designates the 

 poor, lowly, and weak, from whose dispositions, be they ever so virtu- 

 ous, society has little to hope or to fear." In the identification of 

 virtue with bravery among the Romans, we have a like implication. 

 During early turbulent times throughout Europe, the knightly charac- 

 ter, which was the honorable character, primarily included fearless- 

 ness : lacking this, good qualities were of no account ; but, with this, 

 sins of manv kinds were condoned. 



If, among antagonist groups of primitive men, some tolerated more 

 than others the killing of their members if, while some always re- 

 taliated, others did not those which did not retaliate, continually 

 aggressed on with impunity, would either gradually disappear or have 

 to take refuge in undesirable habitats. Hence there is a survival of 

 the unforgiving. Further, the lex talionis, primarily arising between 

 antagonist groups, becomes the law within the group ; and chronic 

 feuds between component families and clans everywhere proceed upon 

 the general principle of life for life. Under the militant regime re- 

 venge becomes a virtue, and failure to revenge a disgrace. Among 

 the Feejeeans, who foster anger in their children, it is not infrequent for 

 a man to commit suicide rather than live under an insult rather than 

 submit to an unavenged injury ; and in other cases the dying Feejeean 

 bequeaths the duty of inflicting vengeance to his children. This sen- 

 timent and resulting practices we trace among peoples otherwise 

 wholly alien, who are, or have been, actively militant. In the remote 

 East may be instanced. the Japanese. They are taught that "with 

 the slayer of his father a man may not live under the same heaven ; 

 against the slayer of his brother a man must never have to go home to 

 fetch a weapon ; with the slayer of his friend a man may not live in 

 the same state." And in the West may be instanced France during 

 feudal days, when the relations of one killed or injured were required 

 by custom to retaliate on any relations of the offender even those 

 living at a distance, and knowing nothing of the matter. Down even 

 to the time of the Abbe Brantome the spirit was such that that ecclesi- 

 astic, bequeathing to his nephews the duty of avenging any unre- 

 dressed wrongs done to him in his old age, says of himself : "I may 

 boast, and I thank God for it, that I never received an injury without 

 being revenged on the author of it." That, where militancy is active, 



