Sex and Society: Studies in the Social Psychology of SexThomas, William Isaac
Science
Sex and Society: Studies in the Social Psychology of Sex
Thomas, William Isaac
Sex; Women -- Social and moral questions; Women -- Social conditions
But there gradually grew up a set of disapprovals of conduct as such,
whether within or without the group. In the _Odyssey_ Pallas Athene
says that Odysseus had come from Ephyra from Ilus, son of Mermerus:
"For even thither had Odysseus gone on his swift ship to seek a deadly
drug, that he might have wherewithal to smear his bronze-shod arrows:
but Ilus would in no wise give it to him, for he had in awe the
everlasting gods."[203] Here is an extension to society in general
of a principle which had been first worked out in the group; for
poisoning without the group was long allowed after it was disallowed
in the group. The case of poisoning is, indeed, a particularly good
instance of an unsatisfaction felt in the substitution of clandestine
methods for simple motor force in deciding a dispute, and affords
a clear example of an important relation between moral feeling
and physiological functioning. Animal as well as human society has
developed strategy alongside of direct motor expressions, but strategy
is only an indirect application of the motor principle. Co-ordination,
associative memory, will, judgment, are involved in strategy; it is
only a different mode of functioning. On the other hand, there is
a peculiar abhorrence of murder by night, poisoning, drowning in a
ship's hold, because, while all the physiological machinery for action
is on hand, there is no chance to work it. It is a most exasperating
thing to die without making a fight for it. The so-called American
duel is an abhorrent thing, because life or death is decided by a turn
of the dice, not on the racially developed principle of the battle to
the strong.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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