MORAL SENSE. Ill 



portant, although not necessary, the reverence or fear of the 

 Gods, or Spirits believed in by each man: and this applies es- 

 pecially in cases of remorse. Several critics have objected that 

 though some slight regret or repentance may be explained by 

 the view advocated in this chapter, it Is impossible thus to ac- 

 count for the soul-shaking feeling of remorse. But I can see 

 little force in this objection. My critics do not define what 

 they mean by remorse, and I can find no definition implying 

 more than an overwhelming sense of repentance. Remorse 

 seems to bear the same relation to repentance, as rage does to 

 anger, or agony to pain. It is far from strange that an instinct 

 so strong and so generally admired, as maternal love, should, if 

 disobeyed, lead to the deepest misery, as soon as the impression 

 of the past cause of disobedience is weakened. Even when an 

 action is opposed to no special instinct, merely to know that our 

 friends and equals despise us for it is enough to cause great 

 misery. Who can doubt that the refusal to fight a duel through 

 fear has caused many men an agony of shame? Many a Hindoo, 

 it is said, has been stirred to the bottom of his soul by having 

 partaken of unclean food. Here is another case of what must, I 

 think, be called remorse. Dr. Landor' acted as a magistrate in 

 West Australia, and relates,^' that a native on his farm, after 

 losing one of his wives from disease, came and said that "he was 

 "going to a distant tribe to spear a woman, to satisfy his sense 

 "of duty to his wife. I told him that if he did so, I would 

 "send him to prison for life. He remained about the farm for 

 "some months, but got exceedingly thin, and complained that 

 "he could not rest or eat, that his wife's spirit was haunting 

 "him, because he had not taken a life for hers. I was inex- 

 "orable, and assured him that nothing should save him if he 

 "did." Nevertheless the man disappeared for more than a year, 

 and then returned in high condition; and his other wife told 

 Dr. Landor that her husband had taken the life of a woman 

 belonging to a distant tribe; but it was impossible to obtain 

 legal evidence of the act. The breach of a rule held sacred by 

 the tribe, will thus, as it seems, give rise to the deepest feelings, 

 — and this quite apart from the social instincts, excepting in so 

 far as the rule is grounded on the judgment of the community. 

 How so many strange superstitions have arisen throughout the 

 world we know not; nor can we tell how some real and great 

 crimes, such as incest, have come to be held in an abhorrence 

 (which is not however quite universal) by the lowest savages. It 

 is even doubtful whether in some tribes incest would be looked on 

 with greater horror, than would the marriage of a man with a 

 woman bearing the same name, though not a relation. "To 



^ 'Insanity in Relation to Law;' Ontario, United States, 1871, p. 14. 



