Ethics. Джон Дьюи
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a citizen of one of the civilized nations, the injured party invokes the help of his government. A demand is usually made that the guilty party be delivered up for trial and punishment. If he is not forthcoming a "punitive expedition" is organized against the whole tribe; guilty and innocent suffer alike. Or in lieu of exterminating the offending tribe, in part or completely, the nation of the injured man may accept an indemnity in money or land from the offender's tribe. Recent dealings between British and Africans, Germans and Africans, France and Morocco, the United States and the Filipinos, the Powers and China, illustrate this. The State protects its own members against other States, and avenges them upon other States. Each opposes a united body to the other. The same principle carried out through private citizens as public agents, and applied to towns, is seen in the practice which prevailed in the Middle Ages. "When merchants of one country had been defrauded by those of another, or found it impossible to collect a debt from them, the former country issued letters of marque and reprisal, authorizing the plunder of any citizens of the offending town until satisfaction should be obtained." Transfer the situation to the early clan or tribe, and this solidarity is increased because each member is related to the rest by blood, as well as by national unity. The Arabs do not say "The blood of M. or N. has been spilt," naming the man; they say, "Our blood has been spilt."[11] The whole group, therefore, feels injured and regards every man in the offender's kin as more or less responsible. The next of kin, the "avenger of blood," stands first in duty and privilege, but the rest are all involved in greater or less degree.
Within the Group each member will be treated more or less fully as an individual. If he takes his kinsman's wife or his kinsman's game he will be dealt with by the authorities or by the public opinion of his group. He will not indeed be put to death if he kills his kinsman, but he will be hated, and may be driven out. "Since the living kin is not killed for the sake of the dead kin, everybody will hate to see him."[12]
When now a smaller group, like a family, is at the same time a part of a larger group like a phratry or a tribe, we have the phase of solidarity which is so puzzling to the modern. We hold to solidarity in war or between nations; but with a few exceptions[13] we have replaced it by individual responsibility of adults for debts and crimes so far as the civil law has jurisdiction. In earlier times the higher group or authority treated the smaller as a unit. Achan's family all perished with him. The Chinese sense of justice recognized a series of degrees in responsibility dependent on nearness of kin or of residence, or of occupation. The Welsh system held kinsmen as far as second cousins responsible for insult or injury short of homicide, and as far as fifth cousins (seventh degree of descent) for the payment in case of homicide. "The mutual responsibility of kinsmen for saraal and galanas (the Wergild of the Germans), graduated according to nearness of kin to the murdered man and to the criminal, reveals more clearly than anything else the extent to which the individual was bound by innumerable meshes to his fixed place in the tribal community."[14]
§ 5. THE KINSHIP OR HOUSEHOLD GROUP WAS A RELIGIOUS UNIT
The kinship or household group determined largely both the ideas and the cultus of primitive religion; conversely religion gave completeness, value, and sacredness to the group life. Kinship with unseen powers or persons was the fundamental religious idea. The kinship group as a religious body simply extended the kin to include invisible as well as visible members. The essential feature of religion is not unseen beings who are feared, or cajoled, or controlled by magic. It is rather kindred unseen beings, who may be feared, but who are also reverenced and loved. The kinship may be physical or spiritual, but however conceived it makes gods and worshippers members of one group.[15]
1. Totem Groups.—In totem groups, the prevailing conception is that one blood circulates in all the members of the group and that the ancestor of the whole group is some object of nature, such as sun or moon, plant or animal. Perhaps the most interesting and intelligible account of the relation between the animal ancestor and the members of the group is that which has recently been discovered in certain Australian tribes who believe that every child, at its birth, is the reincarnation of some previous member of the group, and that these ancestors were an actual transformation of animals and plants, or of water, fire, wind, sun, moon, or stars. Such totem groups cherish that animal which they believe to be their ancestor and ordinarily will not kill it or use it for food. The various ceremonies of religious initiation are intended to impress upon the younger members of the group the sacredness of this kindred bond which units them to each other and to their totem. The beginnings of decorative art frequently express the importance of the symbol, and the totem is felt to be as distinctly a member of the group as is any of the human members.
2. Ancestral Religion.—At a somewhat higher stage of civilization, and usually in connection with the patriarchal households or groups in which kinship is reckoned through the male line, the invisible members of the group are the departed ancestors. This ancestor worship is a power to-day in China and Japan, and in the tribes of the Caucasus. The ancient Semites, Romans, Teutons, Celts, Hindoos, all had their kindred gods of the household. The Roman genius, lares, penates, and manes, perhaps the Hebrew teraphim—prized by Laban and Rachel, kept by David, valued in the time of Hosea—were loved and honored side by side with other deities. Sometimes the nature deities, such as Zeus or Jupiter, were incorporated with the kinship or family gods. The Greek Hestia and Roman Vesta symbolized the sacredness of the hearth. The kinship tie thus determined for every member of the group his religion.
Religion Completes the Group.—Conversely, this bond of union with unseen, yet ever present and powerful kindred spirits completed the group and gave to it its highest authority, its fullest value, its deepest sacredness. If the unseen kin are nature beings, they symbolize for man his dependence upon nature and his kinship in some vague fashion with the cosmic forces. If the gods are the departed ancestors, they are then conceived as still potent, like Father Anchises, to protect and guide the fortunes of their offspring. The wisdom, courage, and affection, as well as the power of the great heroes of the group, live on. The fact that the gods are unseen enhances tremendously their supposed power. The visible members of the group may be strong, but their strength can be measured. The living elders may be wise, yet they are not far beyond the rest of the group. But the invisible beings cannot be measured. The long-departed ancestor may have inconceivable age and wisdom. The imagination has free scope to magnify his power and invest him with all the ideal values it can conceive. The religious bond is, therefore, fitted to be the bearer, as the religious object is the embodiment in concrete form, of the higher standards of the group, and to furnish the sanction for their enforcement or adoption.
§ 6. GROUPS OR CLASSES ON THE BASIS OF AGE AND SEX
While the kindred and family groups are by far the most important for early morality, other groupings are significant. The division by ages is widespread. The simplest scheme gives three classes: (1) children, (2) young men and maidens, (3) married persons. Puberty forms the bound between the first and second; marriage that between the second and third. Distinct modes of dress and ornament, frequently also different residences and standards of conduct, belong to these several classes. Of groups on the basis of sex, the men's clubs are especially worthy of note. They flourish now chiefly in the islands of the Pacific, but there are indications, such as the common meals of the Spartans, of a wide spread among European peoples in early times. The fundamental idea[16] seems to be that of a common house for the unmarried young men, where they eat, sleep, and pass their time, whereas the women, children, and married men sleep and eat in the family dwelling. But in most cases all the men resort to the clubhouse by day. Strangers may be entertained there. It thus forms a sort of general center for the men's activities, and for the men's conversation. As such, it is an important agency for forming and expressing public opinion,