Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of MankindWundt, Wilhelm Max
Science
Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
Wundt, Wilhelm Max
Ethnopsychology
come to be used also in the inquisitional procedure; the endeavour
to force a confession causes them to become more severe, and this in
turn reacts upon the punishment itself. On the whole, the ultimate
tendency, of imprisonment was greatly to restrict the death penalty and
thus to contribute to more humane methods of punishment. Nevertheless,
it is impossible not to recognize that this result was preceded by
an increasing cruelty. The fact that the prisoner was under the
control of the punitive authority for a longer period of time led to a
multiplication of the means of punishment. How simple, and, one might
say, how relatively humane, was blood-revenge, satisfied as it was to
demand life for life, in comparison with the penal law of the Middle
Ages, with its methods of forcing confession by means of the rack and
of various forms of physical suffering and of death penalties!
The same is true of a further change inaugurated by the passing of
blood-revenge into punishment. This change likewise led to a decided
restriction of the death penalty, yet it also, no less than the forcing
of confession, brought upon penal justice the stigma of systematic
cruelty. The assumption of penal power on the part of the public
judiciary, in conjunction with the possession of unlimited control
over the person and life of the malefactor, led to the adoption of
a principle which long continued to dominate penal justice. This
principle was drastically expressed in the Priests' Code of the
Israelites, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth." True, this _jus talionis_
was already foreshadowed in the custom of blood-revenge, and yet the
simple form which it here possessed, 'a life for a life,' made it a
principle of just retribution, and not a demand sharpened by hate
and cruelty. In the case of blood-revenge, moreover, the emotions of
revenge were moderated by virtue of the fact that considerations of
property played a rôle. Requital was sought for the loss which the
clan sustained through the death of one of its members. Hence the clan
might be satisfied with a money compensation, or, occasionally, with
the adoption either of a fellow-tribesman of the murderer or, indeed,
even of the murderer himself. In contrast with this, even the most
severe physical injuries, so long as they did not result in death,
were originally always left to the retaliation of the individual. This
retaliation was sought either in direct combat, or, in the heroic age
proper, in a duel conducted in accordance with regulations of custom.
All this is changed as soon as the State abolishes blood-revenge and
assumes jurisdiction over cases of murder. In the event of personal
injuries, the judge determines the sentence, particularly if the
individual is unable for any reason to secure retaliation--having been
rendered helpless, for example, through his injury, or being prevented
by the fact of class differences. Under such circumstances it is
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