IN HIGHER PEOPLES 167 



lowing individuals to settle their differences them- 

 selves. The duel is one of these. The vendetta is 

 another. The vendetta is a private blood-feud in 

 which a family seeks to avenge an injury to one 

 of its members by injuring the offender or his 

 family in return. This half-savage form of so- 

 called " justice " prevails in Sicily, Sardinia, and 

 Corsica, and, to a considerable extent, under the 

 name of "feuds," in the mountainous parts of 

 Kentucky, Virginia, and other southerly states. 



The instinct of revenge, which we find in our 

 natures and which we see manifested even in the 

 decrees of courts of justice and in the theories of 

 punishment of all higher peoples, is a vestigial 

 survival from the natures of our savage ancestors. 

 It had its origin in those warlike times of early 

 man when every individual was compelled to fight 

 and to inflict injury-for-injury in order to main- 

 tain himself in the world. We continue to feel 

 this instinct today and allow ourselves to act upon 

 it, even tho our moral ideals prompt us to be 

 patient and forgiving and charitable, because the 

 machinery of our nature is so old and has been 

 going round and round so long in a certain way 

 that we can't stop it. 



Our natures are not modernized. And one rea- 

 son why we are not modernized is because we do 

 not realize that we are so largely out-of-date. 

 Many instincts of our nature are adapted to a 

 state of the world that has passed away. We have 

 many promptings within us that we do not need. 



