At the same time there have been developing under the same three
sanctions, restraints and incentives of another order, similarly
characterized by subordination of the proximate to the remote. Joint
aggressions upon men outside the society cannot prosper if there
are many aggressions of man on man within the society. War implies
co-operation; and co-operation is prevented by antagonisms among those
who are to co-operate. We saw that in the primitive ungoverned group,
the main check on immediate satisfaction of his desires by each man,
is the fear of other men's vengeance if they are injured by taking the
satisfaction; and through early stages of social development this dread
of retaliation continues to be the chief motive to such forbearance
as exists. But though long after political authority has become
established the taking of personal satisfaction for injuries persists,
the growth of political authority gradually checks it. The fact that
success in war is endangered if his followers fight among themselves,
forces itself on the attention of the ruler. He has a strong motive
for restraining quarrels, and therefore for preventing the aggressions
which cause quarrels; and as his power becomes greater he forbids the
aggressions and inflicts punishments for disobedience. Presently,
political restraints of this class, like those of the preceding class,
are enforced by religious restraints. The sagacious chief, succeeding
in war partly because he thus enforces order among his followers,
leaves behind him a tradition of the commands he habitually gave. Dread
of his ghost tends to produce regard for these commands; and they
eventually acquire sacredness. With further social evolution come, in
like manner, further interdicts, checking aggressions of less serious
kinds; until eventually there grows up a body of civil laws. And then,
in the way shown, arise beliefs concerning the divine disapproval
of these minor, as well as of the major, civil offences: ending,
occasionally, in a set of religious injunctions harmonizing with,
and enforcing, the political injunctions; while simultaneously there
develops, as before, a social sanction for these rules of internal
conduct, strengthening the political and religious sanctions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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