40 Moral Responsibility. 



evidently bad not at first ; the idea of demerit in anyone 

 who deprives hiin of what he claims, who infringes on his 

 right to the proceeds of his labour. As this idea is unknown 

 among savages and young children, or any but an organised 

 society, and commences about the period when society first 

 becomes established by mutual agreement upon rules of asso- 

 ciation, or at the age of comprehension of the advantages of 

 co-operation and reciprocal security, it seems probable at 

 least, that these two circumstances have some causal con- 

 nection. The ideas of merit and demerit appear to me to 

 have arisen from the reciprocal demand for and supply of 

 sympathy and support by social allies, to resist aggression 

 and co-operate in labour ; superadded to the simple sym- 

 pathy and antipathy of an earlier development, and exagge- 

 rated by the unfortunate predominance of feeling over 

 reason. There is no antipathy in the feeling with which an 

 animal is pursued for the purposes of food ; but it is strong 

 in the chase of dangerous beasts of prey, and is proportioned 

 to their power to harm. Still this is but antipathy, and 

 there is nothing more in the wars of savages and the squab- 

 bles of young children, who cannot be said to have attained 

 to a social condition. Even civilised people who readily 

 recognise and deprecate breaches of moral right, inter se, 

 exterminate savages and appropriate their possessions, with- 

 out considering the principle infringed, or feeling more than 

 simple antipathy at most. They first attribute blame to such 

 savages, for conscious breaches of their moral code, as they 

 do to children when they likewise become familiarized with, 

 and appear to comprehend their conventional notions of social 

 rights and duties. On the other hand, praise is awarded by 

 them for the readiness with which some children and 

 savages comprehend and conform to such notions of moral 

 right and mutual service, and thence also the corresponding 

 idea of moral responsibility and obligation. 



But it is after men have begun to experience the security 

 and the power afforded by occasional and prolonged recip- 

 rocal assistance and co-operation in labour and defence ; and 

 when they begin to agree upon rules and conditions upon 



" property naturally diffuses through all classes the self-respect, regard 

 " for character and public opinion, circumspection of conduct, and considera- 

 " tion for others, which flow from or are connected with the possession of 

 " property, and render these influential on the morals, manners, and mode 

 " of thinking of the whole body of the people." S. Laing's " Residence in 

 "Norway, 1834-G. 1 ' Part I., p. 152. Traveller's Library, Longmans, 1851. 



