Tracing the feeling back to its origin, it seems due to this: minds of the lower order can never see anything go wrong without experiencing a certain sense of resentment12; and resentment, by its very nature, desires to vent13 itself upon some living and sentient14 creature, by preference a fellow human being. When the child, running too fast, falls and hurts itself, it gets instantly angry. "Naughty ground to hurt baby!" says the nurse: "Baby hit it and hurt it." And baby promptly15 hits it back, with vicious little fist, feeling every desire to revenge itself. By-and-by, when baby grows older and learns that the ground can't feel to speak of, he wants to put the blame upon somebody else, in order to have an object to expend16 his rage upon. "You pushed me down!" he says to his playmate, and straightway proceeds to punch his playmate's head for it—not because he really believes the playmate did it, but because he feels he must have some outlet17 for his resentment. When once resentment is roused, it will expend its force on anything that turns up handy, as the man who has quarrelled with his wife about a question of a bonnet18, will kick his dog for trying to follow him to the club as he leaves her.
The mob, enraged19 at the death of C?sar, meets Cinna the poet in the streets of Rome. "Your name, sir?" inquires the Third Citizen. "Truly, my name is Cinna," says the unsuspecting author. "Tear him to pieces!" cries the mob; "he's a conspirator20!" "I am Cinna the poet," pleads the unhappy man; "I am not Cinna the conspirator!" But the mob does not heed21 such delicate distinctions at such a moment. "Tear him for his bad verses!" it cries impartially22. "Tear him for his bad verses!"
Whatever sort of misfortune falls upon persons of the lower order of intelligence is always met in the same spirit. Especially is this the case with the deaths of relatives. Fools who have lost a friend invariably blame somebody for his fatal illness. To hear many people talk, you would suppose they were unaware23 of the familiar proposition that all men are mortal (including women); you might imagine they thought an ordinary human constitution was calculated to survive nine hundred and ninety-nine years unless some evil-disposed person or persons took the trouble beforehand to waylay24 and destroy it. "My poor father was eighty-seven when he died; and he would have been alive still if it weren't for that nasty Mrs. Jones: she put him into a pair of damp sheets." Or, "My husband would never have caught the cold that killed him, if that horrid25 man Brown hadn't kept him waiting so long in the carriage at the street corner." The doctor has to bear the brunt of most such complaints; indeed, it is calculated by an eminent26 statistician (who desires his name to remain unpublished) that eighty-three per cent. of the deaths in Great Britain might easily have been averted27 if the patient had only been treated in various distinct ways by all the members of his family, and if that foolish Dr. Squills hadn't so grossly mistaken and mistreated his malady28.
The fact is, the death is regarded as a misfortune, and somebody must be blamed for it. Heaven has provided scapegoats29. The doctor and the hostile female members of the family are always there—laid on, as it were, for the express purpose.
With us in modern Europe, resentment in such cases seldom goes further than vague verbal outbursts of temper. We accuse Mrs. Jones of misdemeanours with damp sheets; but we don't get so far as to accuse her of tricks with strychnine. In the Middle Ages, however, the pursuit of the scapegoat ran a vast deal further. When any great one died—a Black Prince or a Dauphin—it was always assumed on all hands that he must have been poisoned. True, poisoning may then have been a trifle more frequent; certainly the means of detecting it were far less advanced than in the days of Tidy and Lauder Brunton. Still, people must often have died natural deaths even in the Middle Ages—though nobody believed it. All the world began to speculate what Jane Shore could have poisoned them. A little earlier, again, it was not the poisoner that was looked for, but his predecessor30, the sorcerer. Whoever fell ill, somebody had bewitched him. Were the cattle diseased? Then search for the evil eye. Did the cows yield no milk? Some neighbour, doubtless, knew the reason only too well, and could be forced to confess it by liberal use of the thumb-screw and the ducking-stool. No misfortune was regarded as due to natural causes; for in their philosophy there were no such things as natural causes at all; whatever ill-luck came, somebody had contrived31 it; so you had always your scapegoat ready to hand to punish. The Athenians, indeed, kept a small collection of public scapegoats always in stock, waiting to be sacrificed at a moment's notice.
More even than that. Go one step further back, and you will find that man in his early stages has no conception of such a thing as natural death in any form. He doesn't really know that the human organism is wound up like a clock to run at best for so many years, or months, or hours, and that even if nothing unexpected happens to cut short its course prematurely32, it can only run out its allotted33 period. Within his own experience, almost all the deaths that occur are violent deaths, and have been brought about by human agency or by the attacks of wild beasts. There you have a cause with whose action and operation the savage34 is personally familiar; and it is the only one he believes in. Even old age is in his eyes no direct cause of death; for when his relations grow old, he considerately clubs them, to put them out of their misery35. When, therefore, he sees his neighbour struck down before his face by some invisible power, and writhing36 with pain as though unseen snakes and tigers were rending37 him, what should he naturally conclude save that demon38 or witch or wizard is at work? and if he cares about the matter at all, what should he do save endeavour to find the culprit out and inflict39 condign40 punishment? In savage states, whenever anything untoward41 happens to the king or chief, it is the business of the witch-finder to disclose the wrong-doer; and sooner or later, you may be sure, "somebody gets whopped for it." Whopping in Dahomey means wholesale42 decapitation.
Now, is it not a direct survival from this primitive43 state of mind that entails44 upon us all the desire to find a scapegoat? Our ancestors really believed there was always somebody to blame—man, witch, or spirit—if only you could find him; and though we ourselves have mostly got beyond that stage, yet the habit it engendered45 in our race remains46 ingrained in the nervous system, so that none but a few of the naturally highest and most civilised dispositions47 have really outgrown48 it. Most people still think there is somebody to blame for every human misfortune. "Who fills the butcher's shops with large blue flies?" asked the poet of the Regency. He set it down to "the Corsican ogre." For the Tory Englishmen of the present day it is Mr. Gladstone who is most often and most popularly envisaged49 as the author of all evil. For the Pope, it is the Freemasons. There are just a few men here and there in the world who can see that when misfortunes come, circumstances, or nature, or (hardest of all) we ourselves have brought them. The common human instinct is still to get into a rage, and look round to discover whether there's any other fellow standing50 about unobserved, whose head we can safely undertake to punch for it.
"It's all the fault of those confounded paid agitators51."
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1
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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2
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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3
scapegoat
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| n.替罪的羔羊，替人顶罪者；v.使…成为替罪羊 | |
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4
embarks
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| 乘船( embark的第三人称单数 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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isthmus
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| n.地峡 | |
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rend
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| vt.把…撕开，割裂；把…揪下来，强行夺取 | |
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7
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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8
alleges
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| 断言，宣称，辩解( allege的第三人称单数 ) | |
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alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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peculation
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| n.侵吞公款[公物] | |
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embodies
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| v.表现( embody的第三人称单数 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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12
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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14
sentient
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| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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15
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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expend
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| vt.花费，消费，消耗 | |
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17
outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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conspirator
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| n.阴谋者，谋叛者 | |
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21
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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waylay
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| v.埋伏，伏击 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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29
scapegoats
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| n.代人受过的人，替罪羊( scapegoat的名词复数 )v.使成为替罪羊( scapegoat的第三人称单数 ) | |
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predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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prematurely
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| adv.过早地，贸然地 | |
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33
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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37
rending
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| v.撕碎( rend的现在分词 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
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38
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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39
inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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40
condign
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| adj.应得的，相当的 | |
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41
untoward
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| adj.不利的，不幸的，困难重重的 | |
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42
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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43
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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44
entails
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| 使…成为必要( entail的第三人称单数 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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45
engendered
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| v.产生（某形势或状况），造成，引起( engender的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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47
dispositions
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| 安排( disposition的名词复数 )； 倾向； （财产、金钱的）处置； 气质 | |
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48
outgrown
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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49
envisaged
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| 想像，设想( envisage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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50
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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51
agitators
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| n.（尤指政治变革的）鼓动者( agitator的名词复数 )；煽动者；搅拌器；搅拌机 | |
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