Besides the desire that the offender shall suffer and the desire that his suffering shall correspond to his guilt, there is a third factor of importance which has contributed to the substitution of punishment for revenge and to the rise of a judicial organisation. For every society it is a matter of great consequence that there should be peace between its various members. Though the system of revenge helps to keep down crime,[96] it also has a tendency to cause disturbance and destruction. Any act of vengeance which goes beyond the limits fixed by custom is apt to call forth retaliation in return. Among the Ossetes, says Baron von Haxthausen, "if the retaliation does not exceed the original injury the affair terminates; but if the wound given is greater than the one received, the feud begins afresh from the other side."[97] The custom of blood-revenge certainly does not imply that the avenger of unjustifiable homicide may himself be a proper object of retaliation;[98] but in the absence of a tribunal it may be {183} no easy thing to decide the question of guilt, and, besides, the dictate of custom may be overruled by passion. As a matter of fact, the blood-feud often consists of a whole series of murders, the revenge itself calling forth a new act of redress, and so on, until the state or hostility may become more or less permanent.[99] In the long run this will prove injurious both to the families implicated in the feud and to society as a whole, and some method of putting a stop to the feud will readily be adopted. One such method is to substitute the payment of blood-money for revenge; another is to submit the cause to an authority invested with judicatory power. Casalis tells us that the Basutos are often heard to say, "If we were to revenge ourselves, the town or community would soon be dispersed"; and he adds that the instinctive fear of the disorders that might arise from the exercise of individual law has induced them to allow the chief of the tribe a certain right over the person of every member of the community.[100] [Footnote 96: Taylor, _Te Ika a Maui_, p. 96 (Maori). Im Thurn, _op. cit._ pp. 213, 330 (Guiana Indians). Burckhardt, _Bedouins and Wahábys_, p. 84, _sq._; Blunt, _Bedouins of the Euphrates_, ii. 207; Layard, _Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 305 _sq._ (Bedouins). Kohl, _Reise nach Istrien_, i. 409 _sq._ (Montenegrines). Stephen, _History of the Criminal Law of England_, i. 60 (Anglo-Saxons). Nordström, _Svenska samhälls-författningens historia_, ii. 228 (ancient Scandinavians). Steinmetz, _Ethnol. Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe_, ii. 125 _sqq._] [Footnote 97: von Haxthausen, _Transcaucasia_, p. 411.]