This view is not new. More than one hundred and fifty years before Darwin, Shaftesbury wrote of resentment in these words:--"Notwithstanding its immediate aim be indeed the ill or punishment of another, yet it is plainly of the sort of those [affections] which tend to the advantage and interest of the self-system, the animal himself; and is withal in other respects contributing to the good and interest of the species."[94] A similar opinion is expressed by Butler, according to whom the reason and end for which man was made liable to anger is, that he might be better qualified to prevent and resist violence and opposition, while deliberate resentment "is to be considered as a weapon, put into our hands by nature, against injury, injustice, and cruelty."[95] Adam Smith, also, believes that resentment has "been given us by nature for defence, and for defence only," as being "the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence."[96] Exactly the same view is taken by several modern evolutionists as regards the "end" of resentment, though they, of course, do not rest contented with saying that this feeling has been given us by nature, but try to explain in what way it has developed. "Among members of the same species," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, "those individuals which have not, in any considerable degree, resented aggressions, must have ever tended to disappear, and to have left behind those which have with some effect made counter-aggressions."[97] Mr. {42} Hiram Stanley, too, quoting Junker's statement regarding the pigmies of Africa, that "they are much feared for their revengeful spirit,"[98] observes that, "other things being equal, the most revengeful are the most successful in the struggle for self-conservation and self-furtherance."[99] This evolutionist theory of revenge has been criticised by Dr. Steinmetz, but in my opinion with no success. He remarks that the _feeling_ of revenge could not have been of any use to the animal, even though the _act_ of vengeance might have been useful.[100] But this way of reasoning, according to which the whole mental life would be excluded from the influence of natural selection, is based on a false conception of the relation between mind and body, and, ultimately, on a wrong idea of cause and effect. [Footnote 94: Shaftesbury, 'Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit,' ii. 2. 2, in _Characteristicks_, ii. 145.] [Footnote 95: Butler, 'Sermon VIII.--Upon Resentment,' _op. cit._ p. 457.] [Footnote 96: Adam Smith, _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, p. 113.] [Footnote 97: Spencer, _Principles of Ethics_, i. 361.] [Footnote 98: Junker, _Travels in Africa during the Years 1882-1886_, p. 85.] [Footnote 99: Hiram Stanley, _op. cit._ p. 180. _Cf._ also Guyau, _Esquisse d'une Morale sans obligation ni sanction_, p. 162 _sq._] [Footnote 100: Steinmetz, _Ethnol. Studien, &c._ i. 135.]