Brutality and Humanity

We have seen that the massacres of the great French Revolution were not repeated in succeeding revolutions; that from 1830 to 1871 the revolutionary fighters, even when they were under the influence of the traditions established by the Regime of Terror, nevertheless in practice strove to be as humane as possible – in contrast to their enemies who, both before and after, developed the worst form of brutality in June 1848, as much as in May 1871.

During the whole of the nineteenth century we can observe a progressive humanising taking place among the working classes. Now, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Revolution in Russia and Germany has come, and has given rein to massacres, which remind us of the French Revolution of the eighteenth century. How can we explain this reversal? According to general ideas, humanity is a product of culture. We assume that man is by nature an evil unsociable creature with the instincts of beasts Of prey, ever ready to attack his neighbour, to oppress him, to torture and kill him. We believe further, that it is only after long progress in education and training, in other words, in Civilisation, that man acquires social sentiment, a sense of mutual assistance and of kindness, as well as of abhorrence of cruelty and murder.

This, idea is expressed in the language we employ, which uses the word “humanity” to describe those qualities that we have just mentioned, and distinguishes them from those other features, which are stigmatised as bestial (“bestis,” the beast) and brutal (“brutus,” the brute.) A great number of our ethnologists share this point of view, which is also that adopted by Lombroso and his school, who see in violent crime what they call atavism, a drop back into the sensient life of the animal precursors of man. Moreover, even bloodthirsty beasts of prey do not, as a rule, kill their own kind; and nothing justifies us in assuming that man is really by nature a beast of prey, with violent bloodthirsty instincts. We know nothing about the animal precursors of the human species, but we must assume that, among the animals of the present day, the human ape approaches them most nearly. Like these, the ancestor of man apparently lived on vegetable nourishment, which he occasionally supplemented with small animals, caterpillars, worms, reptiles, even small birds; but he never killed a large mammal in order to devour it. No ape does the like.

In the first place, the ape never carries on any murderous war against its own kind. From the very start, he has not the necessary organs for such. Single creatures may indulge in fights over their booty, or over a wife, and receive scratches but these scrimmages do not end fatally.

All this is changed in the case of man, as soon as his technical knowledge provides him with materials in addition to his natural organs, with tools and weapons of shell and sword. In this way he acquires the faculties of a beast of prey, and their development in him gives him all the functions and instincts of a beast of prey. Now he can kill larger animals and rend them. Vegetable nourishment thus loses its importance for him. The hunt and the shedding of blood became for him daily occupations. In this way, conflicts between two single individuals may lead to death. Nevertheless, the murder of whole peoples, namely war, cannot be explained by the invention of weapons alone. War presupposes a further cultivated development, namely, the grouping of people into close communities.

Since this point has hitherto been very little considered, and as I myself have hitherto not treated it sufficiently, a few remarks may here be made, although they lead us somewhat away from our subject. Without doubt man takes his origin from the social animals, but he distinguishes himself from them by the fact that he forms close communities. The social animals, as a rule, live in flocks and herds, which have very little internal cohesion. According to the conditions of life, to the supply of food, to the number of enemies, etc., these same individual creatures sometimes form themselves into immense herds. Another time they are split up into many small groups, and even into mere couples, until some more favourable opportunity brings them together again in large masses. Without any difficulty one individual can pass from one group to another. With man it is utterly different. It would lead us too far here to discuss to what this change is due, but the following short remarks may be made.

The animals’ means of communication between one another are dependent on the natural noises, which they instinctively make, as also on the method of speech contained in gesture and mimicry, which, however, they do not have to learn from each other, but which are innate in them. Hence every member of the community can equally well express itself in this manner, and be understood by all.

What distinguishes human beings from animals, apart from the use of tools, is articulated speech. Besides these tools, which are not given him at birth, but which he himself fashions, and the construction of which he must learn from his neighbours, there is a further means of understanding which likewise is not, born with him, but which his fellow-beings have developed as a result of their environment, and which he himself must learn from them. This means of communication is not given to the whole community from the start, but is differently formed in different places. Through this method of speech, social unity becomes stronger and more intimate, since, through it, understanding and community of labour are rendered easier and more varied. Through these differences the several tribes and groups of mankind are, from the very start, kept apart one from the other. Therefore each will be forced to remain with that particular tribe or group whose speech he has learnt. He cannot communicate with others. He feels strange and uncomfortable when he is among them. In addition to this another factor arises. Speech permits single individuals to establish their relations with one another. It also permits memories of the past to be recorded. In other words, it forms a conservative element. The fully developed animal easily forgets its parents and the members of its family, which it is unable to distinguish from other creatures of its kind. But the human being, his whole life long, can preserve these relations. He can even recognise and remember the parents of his own parents and the children of his own children, as well as the children of his brothers and sisters, and so on.

It is generally assumed that the family is something ordained by nature, and that the “voice of blood” is proof of this fact. In reality it is the “voice of speech” that is created. Without some indication of relationship no family can exist as a permanent institution. “The voice of blood” ceases in the case of animals, so soon as the young creatures are fledged and have become independent. This makes it all the more ridiculous, when people of to-day attempt to explain not only family, but even national ties as being the result of the “voice of blood”; as, for instance, when the impulse of the German Austrians towards union with the Germans of the Empire is given as an example of the secret law of this “voice.” Actually in German Austria there are living more men of non-German origin, especially Czechs, than men directly connected with the German Empire.

The intimate nature of a family was further enhanced by the formation of households and by the accumulation of private property in the shape of tools and weapons, utensils of all kinds, which survive the possessor. For, after his death, all such private property went to those members of the family who lived in closest communication with him, and was therefore a good reason for maintaining the permanency of this communication to his death. The intimacy of the stock was further preserved through possessions of another kind, that is, through the possession of the land, which was the common property of the stock. Even animals prefer to live in those parts in which they have been brought up, and where they are, so to speak, at home; in which every source of food is known to them, every corner, and every dangerous spot. Nevertheless, the limits of such parts are not very closely drawn, and an individual member of the stock, which cannot find sufficient food in the locality, or because of danger in some way, can without difficulty extend the range of his sphere, until he comes into a different region that pleases him better. But there, sooner or later, he attaches himself to another to tribe.

This is different in the more intimate societies of human beings. Whoever comes into another province finds himself among a group of men and women he cannot understand. Primitive man does not adapt himself to new conditions by passing into new regions thinly populated, and there settling. This adaptation is to be found only in a higher state of culture, and even there in an imperfect state. On the contrary, the herd or stock keeps together, and seeks to extend its sphere at the cost of its neighbours. Thus we have the beginnings of war, and of race murder, as soon as the technique of armies has become sufficiently highly developed. Thus we see what we call “brutality” is not due to the animal precursors of man, but is rather a product of his development. Ethical instincts themselves, the feeling for solidarity, of sympathy for others, of rendering assistance, in the course of man’s development change their character. In the, case of the social animals, these instincts are shared in common by all the individual members of like species.

In the case of man, however, their sphere of influence is confined to the members of the immediate circle. Whoever is outside this circle is, for such a man, an object of indifference. He has no sympathy for him and is often directly hostile. As inter-communication develops, the sphere of society, a, member of which our “individual man” feels himself to be, is enlarged also. To-day we are, as it were, reverting to the origins of human development; and the sphere of our social and ethical feelings is again beginning to extend itself to all individuals of like species, in other wards, to the whole human race. But, generally speaking, this is more an ideal towards which we are very slowly striving. At the same time, economic development, through the division of labour and increasing variety of social communications, has led to the constitution of single, circumscribed societies within the State, which again, in its turn, is broken up into groups of varying kinds. These also become more or less separate communities, such as the nobility, families, ecclesiastical organisations, sects, guilds, etc. Each of these communities develops its own ethical ideals, which have effect only on the members of each particular community. And even these different communities can fall into disagreement with one another They are capable of developing great solidarity and sympathy for members of their own narrow group, at the same time showing a complete lack of charity towards other groups. Each individual may belong to several different social communities, with may belong and often opposing interests and ethical principles. The sharper the contradiction within the society, the greater will be the apposition between individual men. The ladies of the feudal barons of the Southern States were most charming and adorable to others of their own kind, full of generosity and sympathy; but their slaves they tortured unmercifully. The same man can show the most delicate feeling for the members of his family, and yet in his business relations be the most callous extortioner and pitiless taskmaster.

Culture does not necessarily, at the same time, help towards the humanising of conduct. On the other hand, it would be absurd to assume the contrary, and to regard the primitive state of nature as an idyllic condition of the Golden Age, from which we have been gradually falling away. In this connection we can distinguish two conflicting tendencies in the history of human development, of which either the one or the other becomes paramount according to the conditions at the time.