Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

278MORAL RESPONSIBILITY.

of rescuing the colt, I should have obliged him to stop. I should myself have appealed to the peasants for aid, and shoidd not have proceeded on my journey until I had seen the animal in safety. Here, I have aided in destroying him by an unmerciful silence. Who would be proud of his virtues, when forced to acknowledge that they depend upon circumstances more than upon self?

A great Russian lord who, in his fits of passion, does not beat to death any of his peasants, merits praise : he is in such case humane ; whilst I, a Frenchman, may be cruel for having simply suffered a foal to gallop on the road !

I have passed the night in meditating upon the great problem of relative virtues and vices, and I have concluded that a very important branch of political morals has not yet been sufficiently elucidated ; an inquiry, namely, as to the share of merit or of responsibility which each individual has the right to claim or to disclaim, in his own actions, and the share which belongs to the society where he is born. If society be exalted by the great things performed by some of its members, it ought also to regard itself as implicated in the crimes of others. In this respect ancient society was more advanced than modern. The scapegoat of the Jews shows us to what point that people feared the responsibility of crime. With them, the penalty of death was not only punishment of the guilty, it was a public expiation, a protestation of the community against all participation in the crime, and in the motive that inspired it. This view serves to show us how social man has been able to arrogate the right of legally disposing of the life of his fellow-