X. Obedience

CHAPTERX. OBEDIENCE, § 161. Under the one name" obedience" are grouped two kinds of conduct, which have widely different sanctions: the one sanction being permanent and the other temporary. Filia} obedience and political obedience being thus bracketed, the idea of virtuousness is associated with both; and almost everyone thinks that a subn1ission which is praiseworthy in the one case, is praiseworthy in the other also. Here we have to recognize the truth that while due subor dination of child to parent originates in a permanent order of Nature, and is unconditionally good, the subordination of citizen to government is appropriate to a process which is transitional, and is but conditionally good. It is true that in societies which have had a genesis of the kind erroneously supposed by Sir Henry Maine to be universal, the two kinds of obedience have a common root: the patriarchal group grows out of the falnily, and, by insensible steps, the subjection of children to parents passes into the subjection of adult sons to their father, and the subjection of falnily-groups to the father of the father or patriarch. It is true, also, that by union of many patriarchal groups there is produced an organization in which a supreme patriarch is the political head. But in developed societies, such as those of lIlodern days, these prilniti ve' relationships have \vholly disappeared, and the two kinds of obedience have become quite distinet. N evertheOBEDIENOE. 411 less, being in large measure prompted by the same senti ment, the two comillonly vary together.

In contemplating the facts, we will first take those which concern the subordination of child to father, and then those which concern the subordination of citizen to governlnent. § 162. The earliest social stages are characterized not only by absence of chiefs, and therefore absence of the sentiment which causes political submission, but they are often char acterized by such slnall sublnission of sons as renders the human family-group near akin to the brutal family-group-a group in which parental responsibility on the one side, and filial subjection. on the other, soon cease. 'rhe American races yield instances. The Araucanians "never punish their male children, considering chastisement degrading, and calculated to render the future man pusil lanirnous and unfit for the duties of a warrior." Among the Ara waks affection seeins to prompt this lenient treatment: a father "will bear any insult or inconvenience from his child tamely, rather than administer personal correction."

And then of a Dakota boy we read that" At ten or twelV(', he openly rebels.against all domestic rule, and does not hesitate to strike his father: the parent then goes off rubbing his hurt, apd boasting to his neighbours of the brave boy whom he has begotten." Some old-"rorld races supply kindred illustrations. 9f the East Africans, Burton says :-" When childhood is past, the father and son becoine natural enemies, after the manner of 'wild beasts." So, too, when, writing about the Bedouin character, and cOlnmenting on "the daily quarrels between parents and children," Burckhardt tells us that" instead of teaching the boy civil manners, the father desires him to beat and pelt the strangers who come to the tent," to cultivate his high spirit: adding elsewhere that"The young man, as soon as it'is in his power, emancipates himself from the father's authority . . . whenever he can become master of a tent himself 412 THE INDUOTIONS OF ETHIOS • . . • he listens to no advice, nor obeys any earthly.command but that of his own will."

A.ssociated with insubordination to parents, we sornetimes have cruelty shown to them in age. A Ohippewayan old luan "is neglected, and treated ",~ith great disrespect, even by his own children;" and the Kamtschadales "did not even consider it a violation of filial duty to kill them [their parents] when-they became burdensome." Towards mothers, ruore especially, is disregard shown: their relatively low position as slaves to men, prompting contempt for them. By the Dakotail "the son is taught to make his rnother toil for him." In Fiji "one of the first lessons taught the infant is to strike its mother, a neglect of which would beget a fear lest the child should grow up to be a coward." When a young IIottentot-has beenadnlitted into the society of InenHe " may insult" his mother" when he will with Impunity. He may cudgel her, if he pleases, only for his Humour, without any danger of being called to an Account for it." Such actions are" esteemed as Tokens of a ManlV Temper and Bravery." • Concerning the Zulu boys Thompson writes:~ "It is a melancholy fact, that when they have arrived at a very early age, should their mothers attempt to chas tise them, such is the law, that these lads are at the moment allowed to kill their mothers."

And Mason says of the Karensthat"Occasionally, when the mother gives annoyance to her children by reproving them; one will say: 'My mother talks excessively. I shall not be happy till she dies. I will sell her, though I do not get more than a gong or five rupees for her.' And he sells her." So far as these instances go, they associate lack of obedience of children to parents with a low type· of social organization. This, however, is not a uniform relation, as we see in the case of. the Esquimaux, arnong whom "the affection of the parents for. their children is very great, and disobedience on the part of the latter is rare. The parents never inflict physical chastisement upon the children." The fact would appear to be that in the lowest social groups, we may have either filial obedience or filial disobedience; but OBEDIENCE. 413 that if the groups are o£kindswhich lead lives o£antagonism, then, in the absence·of filial .obedience, there· does not arise that cohesion required for social organizati?u.

§ 163. This is implied by the converse connexion which we see displayed among various types of filen. If, with the wandering Sernites above named, we contrast the Semites who, though· at first wandering, became.·settled and politically-organized, we see little filial subordination .in the one and much in the other. Among the Hebrews the head of the family exercised capital jurisdiction (Genesis xxxviii. 24). In the decalogue (Exodus xx. 12) honouring parents COUles next to obeying God.. In Leviti(yUtsxx. 9, punisllluent is threatened for cursing father orluother, just as it is for blasphemy; and in IJeuterronomyxxi. 1~21, it is ordered that a rebellious. son shall be· publicly· stoned to death. Of another branch of the· race,which assumed the coercive type of social organization-.-the .Assyrians-w~e read·that" A father was supreme in -his household . •. If the son or daughter dis owned his father he was. sold as a slave, and if he -disowned his mother he was outlawed." .

By the Hindus, filial piety, vividly shown by sacrifices of food to deceased father,. grandfather, great-grandfather, &c., ,vas in early times vividly shown, too, during life. "The father of Nakiketas had offered what is called an All-sacrifice, which requires a manto give away all that he possesses. His son, hearing of his father's vow, asks him, whether he does or does not lllean to fulfil his vow withOllt reserve. At first the father hesitates; at last, becoming angry, he says: 'Yes, I shall give thee also unto death.' The father, having once said so, was bound to fulfil his vow, and to sacrifice his son to death. The son·is quite· willing to go, in order to redeem his father's rash promise." No less conspicuously has this connexion been exhibited in China, where it has continued from the earliest recorded days down to our own. With the established worship of ancestors, by whom are 'supposed to be consumed the periodical offerings of food, &c., made to theIn, there has' all along gone the absolute subordination· ofchiIdrell 414 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

to Iiving parents. Says Confucius-" Filial piety and fraternal submission I-are they not the root of all benevolent actions ~ " An old Chinese saying runs-" Among the hundred virtues, filial piety is the chief;" and a sacred edict of 1670 says filial piety is "the first and greatest of the cOlnmandments in Ohina." It was the same in another large society of which the continuity goes back beyond our chronology: I ITlean that of the Egyptians. According to Ptah-hotep, "the secret of moral duty is obedience; filial obedience is its root." N or was it other\vise with the society 'which, beginning as a slnall cluster of clans, spread and. spread till it· over-ran all Europe, 'wHh parts of Asia and Africa. The subjection of sons to fathers in early Roman days, and long afterw'ards, was absolute-less qualified indeed, than in China; for though down to the present tirne Chinese parents have the right of infanticide, and may sell their children as servants or slaves; and though, by implica tion, adult sons can do nothing without parental approval, or own property not subject to parental confiscation; yet ,ve do not read that the Chinese have exercised the power of life and death over adult children, as did the Romans. Of course with the establishment of this absolute parental power ,vent the assumption that filial submission should be absolute. And if, throughout subsequent European history, a father's authority and a child's subjection have been less extrelue; yet, up to cOluparatively nlodern times, they have been very decided.

By various types of tnen we are thus shown that filial obedience has constantly accompanied social growth and con solidation: if not throughout, yet during its earlier stages. , § 164. The height to which political obedience rises is determined, in chief nleasure, by the existence of favourable conditions. If the physical characters of the habitat are such as to negative large aggregations of filen-as they do in wide tracts \vhich are barren, leading to nOlnadic life, or as OBEDIENCE. 415 they do where mountain chains cut off group from group -the tendency seems rather to be for the filial sentiment to develop no further than the patriarchal; and along with this restrict~d growth there may go resistance to a wider rule. The Khonds exempHfy this :- ) " For the head of a family all the tribes have the greatest respect, it being a proverb with them that' A man's father is his God on earth.' The so cial organization among thein is indeed strictly patriarchal, the father of a family being its absolute ruler in every case. Disobedience to him under any circumstances is regarded as a crime."

This trait is possessed by another mountain people; the Bhils, who, along with a certain amount of submission to general .chiefs, show an extreme allegiance to their family-chiefs or patriarchs, called Turwees. " So wonderful is the influence of the chief over this infatuated people, that in no situation, however desperate, can they be induced to betray him." "To kill another when their Turwee desires, or to suffer death themselves, appear to them equally a matter of indifference." From filial obedience, thus widening in range, Inay in time develop a settled political obedience, where physical circumstances favour it; and especially where there arises combined action in war. Pallas tells us that the Kalmucks manifest much" attachment towards their legitimate rulers"; and that they honour and obey their parents. Among the Sgaus, a division of the Karens (apparently unlike the other divisions)-"

"The elders say: '0 children and grandchildren! respect aolld reverence your mother and father.' . . . '0, children and grandchildren! obey the orders of kings, for kings in former times obeyed the commands of God." But it is in the larger societies of prirnitive types that the two kinds of obedience are most closely associated. In China where, as before shown, filial obedience is extreme, we see them jointly insisted upon; as implied by Tsze-hea when he lauded a man" if, in serving his parents, he can exert his utmost strength, if, in serving his prince, he can devote his life;" and as implied in the conduct of Confu cius, already quoted as enjoining filial obedience, who when 28 416 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS. . " passing the vacant place of the prince, his countenance ap peared to change, and his legs to bend under him, and his ~ words caIne as if he hardly had breath to utter them." After recognizing in Ohina occasional dissent, as of lJIencius, ,vho in one place suggests rebellion, we may pass to Persia.

Here, too, there were solitary expressions of independence, as by the Darwesh who said that" kings are for the pro tection of their ~ubjects, not subjects for the service of kings;" but, in general, political obedience was urged, for reasons of prudence if for no other. One of their vazirs said :"Opinions differing from the king, to have 'Tis your own hands in your own blood to lave. Should he affirm the day to be the night, Say you behold the moon and Pleiads' light." And Sadi enjoins the attitude of submission as a part of duty: instance the sentence :""\Vhosoever possesseth the qualities of righteousness placeth his head on the threshold of obedience." . Alnong the Ancient Indians, instanced above as carrying to an extreme the submission of son to father, political sub~ mission was strongly insisted on; as in the Oode of Manu, where it is held wrong to treat even a child-king" as if he ",'"ere a filortal; he is a great divinity in· human shape."

Then in Egypt, along vdth that.exhortation to obey parents quoted from Ptah-llotep, may be named his approval of wider obedience :-" If thou abasestthyself in obeying a superior, thy conduct is entirely good before God." OOln. menting on the grovelling prostrations represented in their sculptures and paintings, Duncker remarks that the Egyp tians "worshipped their kings as the deities of the land." Indeed, in the inscriptions on the tombs of officials, the deeds inlplying such worship are specified as pro()fs of their virtue. N or was it otherwise with the Hebrews. While, in their decalogue, religious obedience and filial obedience are closely coupled, there was elsewhere joined with these politi cal obedience; as in Proverb8 xvi. 10, where it is said :-"A OBEDIENCE. 4:17 divine sentence is in the lips of the king;· his lllouth trans .. gresseth not." Throughout European history a like relationship is trace able. Along with. the theory and practice of absolute subjection of child to parent, there went the theory and practice of absolute subjection to the chief man of the group-now to the local head, while the groups were small and incoherent, and now to the central head, when they , became large and consolidated. Less definite forms of rule having been replaced by feudalism, there first came fealty to the feudal lord, and then, with advancing political inte gration, there came loyalty to the king. In the old French epic the one inexpiable critne is the treason of a vassal; the noblest virtue is a vassal's fidelity. In our o\vn coun try the extreme loyalty of the highlanders to the chiefs of their clans, and subsequently to the Stuarts as their kings, exemplifies the dominance of the sentiInent; while the English nobility have, among other ways of showing this feeling, shown it in sundry of their mottoes; as instance Paulet and others, "Aimez loyaulte;" Earl Grey and others, ~'De bon vouloir servir Ie roy;" Earl of Lindsay, . "Loyalty binds me;" Baron Mowbray, "I will be loyal during my life;" Earl of Rosse, "For God and the King; "

Adair, "Loyal to the death." And here let us note how the frequency with which loyalty is thus expressed as the highest of sentiments, reminds us of the frequency with whic]1 aggressiveness has been, by other nobles, chosen as the sentiment Jnost worthy to be professed. § 165. The significance of this association lies in the fact that they. are both accompanitnents of chronic militancy. When we remember that 'first of all the chief, and in later days the king, and later still the emperor, is primarily the supreme commander; and that his headship in peace is but / a sequence of· his headship in war; it is clear that at the outset political obedience is identical with military obedience' J 418 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS. Further, it needs but to consider that for success in war ab solute subordination to the conlmander-in-chief is essential, ' and that absolute subordination to him as king is a concomi tant, to see that while the Inilitancy remains active, the two remain one.

Additional evidence of this relationship is yielded by a few cases in which political obedience is carried to an extreme exceeding obedience of all other kinds. The first to be named is afforded by a people who have passed away-the warlike and cannibal Mexicans, who invaded their neighbours to get victirns to satisfy their hungry gods. Montezuma II., says Herrera, "caused himself to be so highly respected, that it almost came to be adoration. No commoner was to look him in the face, and if one did, he died for it." According to Peter of Ghent, "the worst feature in the character of the Indians is their submissive ness;" and then Herrera, illustrating their loyalty, names a man who would not betray his lord, but rather than do so allowed himself to be "torn pie"ce-Ineal" by dogs. Among existing peoples, a striking example is furnished by the cannibal Fijians. These ferocious savages, revelling in ,val' and destruction, are described by Erskine as intensely loyal.

So obedient are they to their chiefs, says Jackson, that they have been known to eat pumice-stone ,vhen comlnanded to do so; and Williams says that a condemned nlan stands unbound to be killed, himself declaring-" Whatever the king says, must be done." Of the bloody Dahomans, too, with their Amazon army, we are told by one traveller that " before the king all are slaves alike," and by another that " they reverence hiJn with a lnixture of love and fear, little short of adoration:" "parents are held to have no right or clahn to their children, who, like everything else, belong to the king." So that political subordination submerges all other kinds of subordination. N or is it only by these extreme cases, and by the extreme converse cases, that this connexion is shown. It is shown OBEDIENCE. 419 . also by the intermediate cases: instance the various peoples of Europe. In Russia militancy and its appliances subor dinate the entire national life; and among Europeans the Russians display the most abject obedience: gaining, there by, the applause of ~r. Oarlyle. Loyal to the point of wor ship, they submit unresistingly to the dictation of all State officials down to the lowest. On the other hand, we are our selves the people among whom nlilitancy and its appliances occupy the smallest space in the national life, and among whonl there is least political subjection. The Government has COlne to be a servant instead of a master. Citizens se verely criticize their princes; discuss the propriety of abol ishing onedi vision of·the legislature ; and expel from power ministers who do not please them.

Nor is it otherwise "\vhen we compare earlier and later stages of the saIne nation. By these, too, we are shown that as fast as the life of internal anlity outgrows the life of external enmity, the sentiment of obedience declines. Though submissive loyality to the living German Kaiser is great, yet it is not so great as was the submissive loyalty to his conquering ancestor, Frederick II., when Forster wrote --" What chiefly disgusted Ine was the deification of the king." If, notwithstanding the nominally free form of their government, the mass of the French people let their liberties be trampled upon to an extent which the English delegates to a Trades-1Jnion Congress in Paris said is "a disgrace to, and an anomaly in,.a Republican nation;" yet their ,villing subordination is not so great as it was at the time when war had raised the French monarchy to its zenith. In our o,vncase, too, while there is a marked contrast between the amount of war, internaJ and external, in early days, and the complete internal peace, joined with long external peace, w'hich recent times have known; there is a contrast no less marked between the great loyalty shown in early days and the moderate loyalty, largely 1l0Iuinal, shown at present. / 420 THE INDUCTIONS OF ETHICS.

It remains only to add that, along with the decline of political subordination there has gone a decline of filial subordination. The harsh rule of parents and humble submission of children in past centuries, have, in our times, been exchanged for a very ITloderate exercise of parental authority and a filial subjection which, far less conspicuous during youth than it used to be, almost ceases when the age for lnarriage arrives. § 166. Thus, akin though they are in the sentiment prompting them, and in the main varying together, the two kinds of obedience, filial and political, have different sanctions. The one is bound up with the laws of life, while the other is dependent on the needs of the social state, and changes as they change. For the obedience of child to parent there is the warrant arising from relatively-imperfect development, and there is the "Tarrant arising from the obligation to Inake some return for benefits received. These are obviously perma nent; and though, with the advance froin lower to higher types of man and society, filial subjection decreases, yet some degree of it must ever remain, and nlust continue to be prolnpted by an ethical sentilnent properly so-called.

On the other hand, political obedience, non-existent in groups of primitive men, COITleS into existence during the -political integrations effected by war-during the growth and organization of large societies formed by successive con quests. The development of political obedience in such soci eties is a necessity; since, without it, there cannot be carried on the combined actions by which subjugations and consoli dations are brought abO\lt. The implication is that the sentiment of political obedience, . having but a transitional function, Inust decrease in amount as the function decreases in needfulness. Along with decline Qf that system of 8tatu8 characterizing the militant type of organization, and rise of that system of contract charac..; OBEDIENCE. 421 terizing the industrial type, the need for subjection becomes gradually less. The change of sentiment accompanying this change froln compulsory cooperation to voluntary cooperation, while it modifies the relations of citizens to one another, modifies also their relations to their govern ment: to this the same degree of obedience is neither required nor felt. HUlnble subnlission ceases to be a virtue; and in place of it there comes the virtue of independence.

Decline of political obedience and waning belief in the duty of it, go along with .increasing subordination to ethical principles, a clearer recognition of the supremacy of these, and a determination to abide by them rather than by legisla tive dictates. J\'Iore and lllore the pro-ethical sentiments prompting obedience to government, come into conflict with the ethical sentiment prompting obedience to conscience. More and more this last causes unconformity to laV\rs which are at variance with equity. And lnore and more it com~s to be felt that legal coercion is warranted only in so far as law is an enforcer of justice. That political obedience is thus a purely transitional virtue, cannot be perceived while the need for political sub Qrdination remains great; and while it remains great the un limited authority of the ruling-power (if not a man then a majority) will continue to be asserted. But if from past changes weare to infer futu·re changes, we may conclude that in an advanced state, the sphere of political 0 bedience will have cOlnparatively narrow limits; and that beyond those lirnits the submission of citizen to government will no more be regarded as meritorious than is now the cringing of a slave to a master.