There have been, and still are, Christian sects which, on religious grounds, condemn war of any kind. In the fourteenth century the Lollards taught that homicide in war is expressly contrary to the New Testament; they were persecuted partly on that account.108 Of the same opinion were the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century; and they could claim on their side the words of men like Colet and Erasmus. From the pulpit of St. Paul’s Colet thundered that “an unjust peace is better than the justest war,” and that, “when men out of hatred and ambition fight with and destroy one another, they fight under the banner, not of Christ, but of the Devil.”109 According to Erasmus “nothing is more impious, more calamitous, more widely pernicious, more inveterate, more base, or in sum more unworthy of a man, not to say of a Christian,” than war. It is worse than brutal; to man no wild beast is more destructive than his fellow-man. When brutes fight, they fight with weapons which nature has given them, whereas we arm ourselves for mutual slaughter with weapons which nature never thought of. Neither do beasts break out in hostile rage for trifling causes, but either when hunger drives them to madness, or when they find themselves attacked, or when they are alarmed for the safety of their young. But we, on frivolous pretences, what tragedies do we act on the theatre of war! Under colour of some obsolete and disputable claim to territory; in a childish passion for a mistress; for causes even more ridiculous than these, we kindle the flame of war. Transactions truly hellish, are called holy wars. Bishops and grave divines, decrepit as they are in person, fight from the pulpit the battles of the princes, promising remission of sins to all who will take part in the war of the prince, and exclaiming to the latter that God will fight for him, if he only keeps his mind favourable to the cause of religion. And yet, how could it ever enter into our hearts, that a Christian should imbrue his hands in the blood of a Christian! What is war but murder and theft committed by great numbers on great numbers! Does not the Gospel declare, in decisive words, that we must not revile again those who revile us, that we should do good to those who use us ill, that we should give up the whole of our possessions to those who take a part, that we should pray for those who design to take away our lives? The world has so many learned bishops, so many grey-headed grandees, so many councils and senates, why is not recourse had to their authority, and the childish quarrels of princes settled by their wise and decisive arbitration? “The man who engages in war by choice, that man, whoever he is, is a wicked man; he sins against nature, against God, against man, and is guilty of the most aggravated and complicated impiety.”110 These were the main arguments of reason, humanity, and religion, which Erasmus adduced against war. They could not leave the reformers entirely unaffected. Sir Thomas More charged Luther himself and his disciples with carrying the doctrines of peace to the extreme limits of non-resistance.111 But, as we have noticed, these peaceful tendencies only formed a passing phase in the history of Reformation, and were left to the care of sectarians.

Among these the Quakers are the most important. By virtue of various passages in the Old and the New Testament,112 they contend that all warfare, whatever be its peculiar features, circumstances, or pretexts, is wholly at variance with the Christian religion. It is always the duty of Christians to obey their Master’s high and holy law—to suffer wrong, to return good for evil, to love their enemies. War is also inconsistent with the Christian principle that human life is sacred, and that death is followed by infinite consequences. Since man is destined for eternity, the future welfare of a single individual is of greater importance than the merely temporal prosperity of a whole nation. When cutting short the days of their neighbour and transmitting him, prepared or unprepared, to the awful realities of an everlasting state, Christians take upon themselves a most unwarrantable responsibility, unless such an action is expressly sanctioned by their divine Master, as was the case among the Israelites. In the New Testament there is no such sanction, hence it must be concluded that, under the Christian dispensation, it is utterly unlawful for one man to kill another, under whatever circumstances of expediency or provocation the deed may be committed. And a Christian who fights by the command of his prince, and in behalf of his country, not only commits sin in his own person, but aids and abets the national transgression.113

It must be added that views similar to these are also found independently of any particular form of sectarianism. According to Dr. Wayland, all wars, defensive as well as offensive, are contrary to the revealed will of God, aggression from a foreign nation calling not for retaliation and injury, but rather for special kindness and good-will.114 Theodore Parker, the Congregational minister, looks upon war as a sin, a corrupter of public morals, a practical denial of Christianity, a violation of God's eternal love.115 W. Stokes, the Baptist, observes that Christianity cannot sanction war, whether offensive or defensive, because war is an “immeasurable evil, by hurling unnumbered myriads of our fellow-men to a premature judgment and endless despair.”116 Moreover, those who compare the state of opinion during the last years with that of former periods, cannot fail to observe a marked progress of a sentiment antagonistic to war in the various sections of the Christian Church.117 Yet, speaking generally, the orthodox are still of the same opinion as Sir James Turner, who declared that “those who condemn the profession or art of soldiery, smell rank of Anabaptism and Quakery”;118 and war is in our days, as it was in those of Erasmus,119 so much sanctioned by authority and custom, that it is deemed impious to bear testimony against it. The duties which compulsory military service imposes upon the male population of most Christian countries presuppose that a Christian should have no scruples about taking part in any war waged by the State, and are recognised as binding by the clergy of those countries. With reference to the Church of England, Dr. Thomas Arnold asks, “Did it become a Christian Church to make no other official declaration of its sentiments concerning war, than by saying that Christian men might lawfully engage in it?”120

The protest against war which exercised perhaps the widest influence on public opinion came from a school of moralists whose tendencies were not only anti-orthodox, but distinctly hostile to the most essential dogmas of Christian theology. Bayle, in his Dictionary, calls Erasmus’ essay against war one of the most beautiful dissertations ever written.121 He observes that the more we consider the inevitable consequences of war, the more we feel disposed to detest those who are the causes of it.122 Its usual fruits may, indeed, “make those tremble who undertake or advise it, to prevent evils which, perhaps, may never happen and which, at the worst, would often be much less than those which necessarily follow a rupture.”123 To Voltaire war is an “infernal enterprise,” the strangest feature of which is that “every chief of the ruffians has his colours consecrated, and solemnly prays to God before he goes to destroy his neighbour.”124 He asks what the Church has done to suppress this crime. Bourdaloue preached against impurity, but what sermon did he ever direct against the murder, rapine, brigandage, and universal rage, which desolate the world? “Miserable physicians of souls, you declaim for five quarters of an hour against the mere pricks of a pin, and say no word on the curse which tears us into a thousand pieces.”125 Voltaire admits that under certain circumstances war is an inevitable curse, but rebukes Montesquieu for saying that natural defence sometimes involves the necessity of attack, when a nation perceives that a longer peace would place another nation in a position to destroy it.126 Such a war, he observes, is as illegitimate as possible:—“ It is to go and kill your neighbour for fear that your neighbour, who does not attack you, should be in a condition to attack you; that is to say, you must run the risk of ruining your country, in the hope of ruining without reason some other country; this is, to be sure, neither fair nor useful.”127 The chief causes which induce men to massacre in all loyalty thousands of their brothers and to expose their own people to the most terrible misery, are the ambitions and jealousies of princes and their ministers.128 Similar views are expressed in the great Encyclopédie:—“La guerre est le plus terrible des fléaux qui détruisent l’espèce humaine: elle n’épargne pas même les vainqueurs; la plus heureuse est funeste…. Ce ne sont plus aujourd’hui les peuples qui déclarent la guerre, c’est la cupidité des rois qui leur fait prendre les armes; c’est l’indigence qui les met aux mains de leurs sujets.”129

However vehemently Voltaire and the Encyclopedists condemned war, they did not dream of a time when all wars would cease. Other writers were more optimistic. Already in 1713 Abbé Saint-Pierre—whose abbotship involved only a nominal connection with the Church—had published a project of perpetual peace, which was based on the idea of a general confederation of European nations.130 This project was much laughed at; Voltaire himself calls its author “un homme moitié philosophe, moitié fou.” But once called into being, the idea of a perpetual peace and of a European confederation did not die. It was successively conceived by Rousseau,131 Bentham,132 and Kant.133 But on the other hand it met with a formidable enemy in the awakening spirit of nationalism.

The Napoleonic oppression called forth resistance. Philosophers and poets sounded the war trumpet. The dream of a universal monarchy was looked upon as absurd and hateful, and the individuality of a nation as the only possible security for its virtue.134 War was no longer attributed to the pretended interests of princes or to the caprices of their advisers. It was praised as a vehicle of the highest right,135 as a source or national renovation.136 By war, says Hegel, “finite pursuits are rendered unstable, and the ethical health of peoples is preserved. Just as the movement of the ocean prevents the corruption which would be the result of perpetual calm, so by war people escape the corruption which would be occasioned by a continuous or eternal peace.”137 Similar views have been expressed by later writers. War is glorified as a stimulus to the elevated virtues of courage, disinterestedness, and patriotism.138 It has done more great things in the world than the love of man, says Nietzsche.139 It is the mother of art and of all civil virtues, says Mr. Ruskin.140 Others defend war, not as a positive good, but as a necessary means of deciding the most serious international controversies, denying that arbitration can be a substitute for all kinds of war. Questions which are intimately connected with national passions and national aspirations, and questions which are vital to a nation’s safety, will never, they say, be left to arbitration. Each State must be the guardian of its own security, and cannot allow its independence to be calmly discussed and adjudicated upon by an external tribunal.141 Moreover, arbitration would prove effective only where the contradictory pretensions could be juridically formulated, and these instances are by far the less numerous and the less important.142 And would it not, in many cases, be impossible to find impartial arbiters? Would not arbitration often be influenced by a calculation of the forces which every power interested could bring into the field, and would not war be resorted to where arbitration failed to reconcile conflicting interests, or where a decision was opposed to a high-spirited people’s sense of justice? These and similar arguments are constantly adduced against the idea of a perpetual peace. But at the same time the opponents of war are becoming more numerous and more confident every day. Already after the fall of Napoleon, when there was a universal longing for peace in the civilised world, the first Peace Societies were formed;143 and the idea of Saint-Pierre, from being the dream of a philosopher, has become the object of a popular movement which is rapidly increasing in importance. There is every reason to believe that, when the present high tide of nationalism has subsided, and the subject of war and peace is no longer looked upon from an exclusively national point of view, the objections which are now raised against arbitration will at last appear almost as futile as any arguments in favour of private war or blood-revenge. There is an inveterate tendency in the human mind to assume that existing conditions will remain unchanged. But the history of civilisation shows how unfounded any such assumption is with reference to those conditions which determine social relationships and the extent of moral rights and duties.

It is said that, though Christianity has not abolished war, it has nevertheless, even in war, asserted the principle that human life is sacred by prohibiting all needless destruction. The Canon, ‘De treuga et pace,’ laid down the rule that non-resisting persons should be spared;144 and Franciscus a Victoria maintained not only that between Christian enemies those who made no resistance could not lawfully be slain,145 but that even in war against the Turks it was wrong to kill children and women.146 However, this doctrine of mercy was far in advance of the habits and general opinion of the time.147 If the simple peasant was often spared, that was largely from motives of prudence,148 or because the valiant knight considered him unworthy of the lance.149 As late as the seventeenth century, Grotius was certainly not supported by the spirit of the age when he argued that, “if justice do not require, at least mercy does, that we should not, except for weighty causes tending to the safety of many, undertake anything which may involve innocent persons in destruction”;150 or when he recommended enemies willing to surrender on fair conditions, or unconditionally, to be spared.151 Afterwards, however, opinion changed rapidly. Pufendorf, in echoing the doctrine of Grotius,152 spoke to a world which was already convinced; and in the eighteenth century Bynkershoek stands alone in giving to a belligerent unlimited rights of violence.153 In reference to the assumption that this change of opinion is due to the influence of the Christian religion, it is instructive to note that Grotius, in support of his doctrine, appealed chiefly to pagan authorities, and that even savage peoples, without the aid of Christianity, have arrived at the rule which in war forbids the destruction of helpless persons and captives.

The prevailing attitude towards war indicates the survival, in modern civilisation, of the old feeling that the life of a foreigner is not equally sacred with the life of a countryman. In times of peace this feeling is usually suppressed; it appears in no existing law on homicide, nor does it, generally, find expression in public opinion. It dares to disclose itself only in the form of national aggressiveness, under the flag of patriotism, or, perhaps, in the treatment of the aborigines of some distant country. The behaviour of European colonists towards coloured races only too often reminds us of the manner in which savages treat members of a foreign tribe. It was said that the frontier peasants at the Cape found nothing morally wrong in the razzias which they undertook against the Bushmans, without any provocation whatsoever, though they would consider it a heinous sin to do the same to their Christian fellow-men.154 In Australia there are instances reported of young colonists employing the Sunday in shooting blacks for the sake of sport. “The life of a native,” says Mr. Lumholtz, “has but little value, particularly in the northern part of Australia, and once or twice colonists offered to shoot blacks for me so that I might get their skulls. On the borders of civilisation men would think as little of shooting a black man as a dog. The law imposes death by hanging as the penalty for murdering a black man, but people live so far apart in these uncivilised regions that a white man may in fact do what he pleases with the blacks…. In the courts the blacks are defenceless, for their testimony is not accepted. The jury is not likely to declare a white man guilty of murdering a black man. On the other hand if a white man happens to be killed by the blacks, a cry is heard throughout the whole colony.”155

CHAPTER XVI

HOMICIDE IN GENERAL (concluded)

Mr. Spencer suggests that the taking of life was regarded as a wrong done to the family of the dead man or to the society of which he was a member, before it came to be conceived of as a wrong done to the murdered man himself.1 But considering the mutual sympathy which prevails in small savage communities, it seems extremely probable that sympathetic resentment felt on account of the injury suffered by the victim has from the beginning been a potent cause of the condemnation of homicide. Savages, no less than civilised mankind, practically regard a man’s life as his highest good. Whatever opinions may be held about the existence after death, whatever blessings may be supposed to await the disembodied soul, nobody likes to be hurried into that existence by another’s will. According to early beliefs, the soul of a murdered man is furious with the person who slew him, and finds no rest until his death has been avenged.2 His friends and comrades pity his fate and feel resentment on his behalf; whereas, in a state of culture where sympathy is restricted to a narrow group of people, no such resentment will be felt if the victim is a member of another group. On the contrary, when he is regarded as an actual or potential enemy, or when the slaying of him is taken for a test of courage, the manslayer will be applauded by his own people, and his deed will be styled good or meritorious. In some cases superstition, also, is an encouragement to extra-tribal homicide. The Kukis believe that, in paradise, all the enemies whom a man has killed will be in attendance on him as slaves.3 A similar belief partly lies at the bottom of the custom of head-hunting;4 whilst, according to other notions, the soul of the man whose head is procured is transformed into a guardian spirit.5 A Kayan chief said of the custom in question, “It brings us blessings, plentiful harvests, and keeps off sickness and pains; those who were once our enemies, hereby become our guardians, our friends, our benefactors.”6 Now, progress in civilisation is generally marked by an expansion of the altruistic sentiment; and this largely explains why the prohibition of homicide has come to embrace more and more comprehensive circles of men, and finally, in the most advanced cases, the whole human race.

But whilst homicide is censured as a wrong done to the person slain, it is at the same time viewed as an injury inflicted upon the survivors. It deprived his friends of his company, his family and community of a useful member. In Arabia, when a man was killed, his tribesmen, instead of mentioning his name, used to say, “Our blood has been spilt.”7 According to Lafitau, the loss of a single person seemed to the North American Indians a subject or great regret, because it weakened the family.8 Among the Basutos, again, murder is condemned “as a violation of the sacred rights of a father, who is deprived of the services of his son, or of a widow and orphans, who are left without support.”9 Especially when a person is considered more or less the property of another, the taking of his life is largely looked upon as an offence against the owner. Mr. Warner states of the Kafirs, “All homicide must … be atoned for; the principle assumed being, that the persons of individuals are the property of the Chief, and that having been deprived of the life of a subject, he must be compensated for it.”10 We meet with a somewhat similar notion in the history of English legislation. In his book on the Commonwealth of England, Thomas Smith observes, “Attempting to impoison a man, or laying a waite to kill a man, though hee wound him dangerously, yet if death follow not, it is no fellony by the law of England, for the Prince hath lost no man, and life ought to be giuen we say for life only.”11 In the Middle Ages homicide was conceived as a breach of the “King’s peace”; and both before and afterwards it has been stigmatised as a disturbance of public tranquillity and an outrage on public safety. In the Anglo-Saxon wer and wite we find a clear distinction between the private and public aspects of homicide.12