"Let those that speak evil of us perish. Let the enemy be clubbed, swept away, utterly destroyed, piled in heaps. Let their teeth be broken. May they fall headlong into a pit. Let us live, and let our enemies perish." Such were the requests which generally concluded the prayers of the Fijians.[1] A savage would find nothing objectionable in them. On the contrary, he regards revenge as a duty,[2] and forgiveness of enemies as a sign of weakness, or cowardice, or want of honour.[3] Nor {74} is this opinion restricted to the savage world. In the Old Testament the spirit of vindictiveness pervades both the men and their god. The last thing with which David on his death-bed charged Solomon was to destroy an enemy whom he himself had spared.[4] Sirach counts among the nine causes of a man's happiness to see the fall of his enemy.[5] The enemies of Yahveh can expect no mercy from him, but utter destruction is their lot.[6] To do good to a friend and to do harm to an enemy was a maxim of the ancient Scandinavians.[7] It was taken for a matter of course by popular opinion in Greece[8] and Rome. According to Aristotle, "it belongs to the courageous man never to be worsted"; to take revenge on a foe rather than to be reconciled is just, and therefore honourable.[9] Cicero defines a good man as a person "who serves whom he can, and injures none except when provoked by injury."[10] Except in domestic life and in the case of friends, Professor Seeley observes, "people not only did not forgive their enemies, but did not wish to do so, nor think better of themselves for having done so. That man considered himself fortunate who on his deathbed could say, in reviewing his past life, that no one had done more good to his friends or more mischief to his enemies. This was the celebrated felicity of Sulla; this the crown of Xenophon's panegyric on Cyrus the Younger."[11] [Footnote 1: Fison, quoted by Codrington, _Melanesians_, p. 147, n. 1.] [Footnote 2: See _infra_, on Blood-revenge.] [Footnote 3: _Cf._ Domenech, _Great Deserts of North America_, ii. 97, 338, 438 (Dacotahs); Boas, _first General Report on the Indians of British Columbia_, p. 38; Baker, _Albert N'yanza_ i. 240 _sq._ (Latukas).] [Footnote 4: _1 Kings_, ii. 8 _sq._] [Footnote 5: _Ecclesiasticus_, xxv. 7.] [Footnote 6: _Cf._ Montefiore, Hibbert Lectures, p. 40.] [Footnote 7: Maurer, _Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes_, ii. 154 _sq._] [Footnote 8: Maury, _Histoire des religions de la Grèce antique_, i. 383. Schmidt, _Ethik der alten Griechen_, ii. 309 _sqq._] [Footnote 9: Aristotle, _Rhetorica_, i. 9. 24. _Cf._ Aeschylus, _Choeophori_, 309 _sqq._; Plato, _Meno_, p. 71; Xenophon, _Memorabilia_, ii. 6. 35.] [Footnote 10: Cicero, _De officiis_, iii. 19. iii. 19. _Cf._ _ibid._ ii. 14; but _cf._ also _ibid._ i. 25, where it is said that nothing is more worthy of a great and a good man than placability and moderation.] [Footnote 11: Seeley, _Ecce Homo_, p. 273.]