The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-01-07
SETTLING DISPUTES.
A Belief Still fingers That God Is
or the Side of the One That Does
Most Injury.

War is the last remnant of mans
mode of deciding disputes in the ami
NAL or savage state. AS soon as he
started on the road to civiliza ton he
set up judges or courts to settle con-
troversies. Before that. when two men
differed about anything. they tore or
mutilated each others bodies, and it
was tacitly agreed that the man who
was most mutilated, if not killed,
should give way. But he abode by the
decisions of courts very reluctantly
The hardest battle of the refOrmers Of
the race was TO get him to submit to
the judges. He always preferred in his
heart some kind of mutilation of his
adVersary's body, and in order to give
a certain dignity to this mode of set
Ting quarrels. he got up the theory
that God presided over it, and always
gave the victory to the man who was
in the right. In England this notion
lasted in the trial by battle or
wager by battle" almost down to our
own time. 1t vas held that the Deity
was on the side of the man who gave
most cuts and stabs.
When the wager of battle as a set
tlement Of disputes of any kind became
too absurd. the turbulent classes were
driven into starting the duel. They
felt that there must be some mode re-
served of getting at an adversary's
body with some weapon. So they es-
tablished the rule that all Offenses
against what they called their honor
that is, their sense of personal dig
nity-must be avenged by cutting,
stabbing or shooting, and that each
man must decide when his honor
was injured, and when cutting, stab
bling or shooting was necessary. This
C11nV7iror or.ra n crar11anf- for
if it were left to other people to say
when your honor was injured you
might never. or very rarely, get Z
chance 10 cut or stab or shoot at all,
because they might say your honor was
not injured but there was even a bet
ter device than this. for it was ar
ranged that the man who you said
had injured your honor could not deny
it or apologize without disgrace. He
was held bound, no matter how tri1inS
the injury, to give you a chance to
cut him or stab him, and to do his best
to cut or stab you. In what manner
this mended your honor was never eX-
planned. To all outward appearance,
after the theory of the interest of the
Deity in the matter had died out. your
honor remained after the fight exactly
what it was before the fight. The cut
ting and stabbing had neither proved
nor disproved anything; it had simply
gratified an animal instinct of The
primeval time. Dueling, however Has
here and in England. 1t
hourishes still in the old barbarous,
absurd form on the continent.
Disputes between nations, for obvi-
Gus reasons, have not come as rapidly
under human methods of decisions as
disputes between individuals Nations
have never agreed to have judges and
arguments as individuals have. The
result is that their mode Of deciding
differences of opinion has always re-
NAMED the old animal of doing as
much material injury as possible to
he other side; and there still fingers
he belief that God is on the side of
he one which does most injury; that
lie counts up the number of killed and
wounded, and decides that the one
which has most killed and wounded is
n the wrong. During the war he is
prayed to see that the number of
TILED and wounded on the other side
nay be the larger, and after what is
allied a victory is, the killing
md wounding of a larger number OF
o kill and wound on your Side-peOple
hurry TO church and sing hymns OF
hanks The belief is very strong still
n our day, and the enemy'S dead are
ounted joyfully The human plan of
Ieciding differences of opinion by
Judges, proofs and argumentative per-
uasion, as distinguished from the
nimal or feline plan of deciding by
he tearing and rending of bodies, has
n fact not made much progress.
hough it has begun to receive atten-
ion.-"The Absurdity of War" by E.
1. Godkin in the Century for January.
The present king of Italy is King Hum
ert. who assembled the throne Jan. 9, 1873
Fictor Emanuel, his father. assembled