THE ORIGIN OF CRIMINAL LAW. 439 



of violence and disorder. It is more than doubtful whether it was 

 either conceived or maintained with a view to the discouragement of 

 crime. It had its origin in natural feelings of resentment, and after- 

 ward became a matter of honor. But, though vicious in its operation, 

 the system had become so deeply rooted in the habits, the passions, 

 the pride, the sense of honor, and the almost religious convictions of 

 mankind, as to be among the most obstinate of institutions. Thus, 

 among the Israelites, even after the Mosaic dispensation, the avenger 

 was by public opinion so obligated to retaliation that in the words of 

 Michaelis " the neglect thereof drew after it the greatest possible in- 

 famy, and subjected the man who avenged not the death of his rela- 

 tive to unceasing reproaches of cowardice or avarice." Among the 

 Arabs, in the language of the same author, the avengement of blood 

 constitutes " the prevailing point of honor among the whole nation " ; 

 and the acceptance of pecuniary compensation is, notwithstanding its 

 recommendation by the Koran, considered vulgar. "Writing of the 

 Swedes, Geiger says — and his words apply with equal force to nearly 

 all the early German nations — " Revenge for blood was a sacred ob- 

 ligation. It was at once the dearest hei'itage and the condition of 

 every other, for in the olden time, if the father lay slain, the son could 

 not inherit until he had avenged him." The old Salic laws likewise 

 so linked the feuds of the family with its inheritances that a renun- 

 ciation of the one worked an incapacity for the other. The loss of 

 reputation which among the American Indians and other existing 

 barbarians is universally incurred by failure to avenge blood is a 

 matter of general notoriety. The difficulty experienced in some 

 modern States in suppressing the duel is a faint illustration of the in- 

 corrigibility of blood-avengement ; it being borne in mind that the 

 modern code of honor is the conventionality of one class of society, 

 while the old principle of retaliation rested on a universal passion and 

 inflamed all classes alike, and that, while the modern duelist can forego 

 his personal remedies, assured of the advantage of a matured system 

 of law, the avenger was obliged to choose between his vengeance and 

 a pecuniary composition, with the third alternative, in some instances, 

 of a crude and inefficient judicial proceeding. 



When King Alfred, outstripping the age in which he lived, and 

 probably inspired by the example of Moses, denounced against willful 

 murderers the punishment of death, his law was a dead-letter, and re- 

 mained unexecuted during his own reign and those of several of his 

 successors. The people preferred to redress their own grievances. 

 Even long after pecuniary compositions for felonies had been aban- 

 doned, the laws of England continuing to provide two concurrent 

 methods of prosecution for murder, one by indictment in the name 

 of the king, and the other by appeal of felony at the suit of the kin- 

 dred of the deceased, the latter was so confessedly the more favored 

 remedy that, lest it might be barred by an acquittal under an indict- 



