Page:Sin and Crime.pdf/10

 murdered results in a general agreement not to murder within the limits of the community; and when this custom, or agreement, is crystallised into law, such murder becomes a crime. The recognition that the taking of human life is a sin is a plant of very slow growth. Such taking is only regarded as a sin in cases in which actual enactment has stamped it as criminal. Murder by duelling, until forbidden by law, was thought honorable; a successful duellist who had often been "out", and had several times "killed his man", was regarded with admiration by society—English society, be it noted, not Fijian. So true is it that "conscience" is an artificial product! Murder by hanging within the community, and murder "by aggressive war outside it, are still considered right by most civilised nations. In fact, everyone admits that there are cases in which killing a human being is a justifiable act; a man defending his own life; a nation fighting against invasion; a people rebelling against despotism; in all these cases every moralist admits that man has a right to kill man. With such a past behind us, with such a present around us, is there any reason for wonder that the crime of murder is still found in our midst? It would, on the contrary, be a most extraordinary thing if no murders were committed. And we shall presently find reason to believe that all murderers—save those who have committed murder without premeditation, in some sudden fit of passion which has caused over-pressure of blood in the cerebral vessels—are persons suffering from congenital malformation, arrested development, or acquired lesion, of the brain.

Falsehood—always a sin, a crime only when complicated, as in perjury—may be traced from its root in similar fashion. Falsehood, regarded as a social, not as a self-regarding fault, is essentially an act of deception to the injury to another. We find it in the craft of the brute who traps his prey; in the cunning of the savage who robs without remorse. To quote Büchner once more: "Among the Indians, a well-executed theft is considered a most meritorious act; even the ancient Lacedemonians looked upon a theft carried out with great dexterity as worthy of the highest commendation. To the ever poor and hungry gipsies, larceny does not appear as a crime, but simply as a necessity" (Ibid, p. 363). Respect for the "rights of property" has not been quickly acquired, and at the present