Pugnacity

“ In the overcoming of obstacles, whether in the work itself, or in the difficulties that a surgeon or a scholar meets with, or in frustrations deliberately put in our way by other people, pugnacity is an invaluable stimulant and sustainer of action. Every great personality of strong convictions and dominant energy has possessed it to some extent ”

“ And here, again, pugnacity is estimated not for itself but according to the moral value of the instinct which excites it and to which it lends its support. The individual or nation which fights gallantly for an object rightly gained and rightly held is known as a heroic defender; whereas the attack on property or rights possessed by other men is condemned as burglary or piracy.
Pugnacity, in the third place, is as all biologists know very often the outgrowth of fear. Fear, like pugnacity, is a primitive reaction in the face of danger. ”

“ Very much indeed of what we call moral education, he said, is such an artificial modification and perversion of instinct; pugnacity is trained into courageous self-sacrifice, and suppressed sexuality into religious emotion. ”

“ Fear is, therefore, absolutely incompatible with pugnacity since no animal can at one and the same time shrink back and make attack, feel afraid and feel angry. And yet it is plain matter of observation that fear incites to pugnacity, and in two ways. On the one hand, the fleeing animal, brought to bay, turns on its pursuers and the desperately frightened child suddenly attacks his tormenter and thus the instinct of fear suddenly gives way to anger. ”

“ Pugnacity is always incited by opposition. Animals and men alike fight when they are thwarted or balked in the free play of any instinct, or (if we confine ourselves to human pugnacity) in the exercise of any volitional activity. It follows that pugnacity is excited in many specifically different ways and that it is affiliated now with one and now with another instinct. ”

“ I believe that it's only amongst the Anglo-Saxon races that pugnacity takes place as a virtue.”
“Well, sir, if a man has n't got it, it very little matters what other qualities he possesses. They say courage is a bull-dog's property; but would any one like to be lower than a bull-dog? Besides, sir, it is what has made you great, and us greater.” ”

“ There is also in us an instinct of pugnacity, which especially appears when the working of any other instinct is thwarted. We know that the parental instinct when thwarted, as in the tigress robbed of her whelps, shows itself in pugnacity—even in the female,168 which commonly has no pugnacity ”

“ So in hand-to-hand fighting: the intention and passion which each imputes to the other is what he himself feels; but the imputation is probably just, since pugnacity is a remarkably contagious and monotonous passion. It is awakened by the slightest hostile suggestion and is greatly intensified by example and emulation; those we fight against and those we fight with arouse it concurrently and the universal battle-cry that fills the air, and that each man instinctively emits, is an adequate and exact symbol for what is passing in all their souls. ”

“ The "boiling point" varies in different individuals and races, and pugnacity is generally more readily roused in men than in women. There are some persons, like the proverbial Irishman, who, seeing the slightest opportunity for a fight, "want to know whether it is private, or whether anybody can get in." In most men pugnacity is more intense when it is provoked by persons; except for a moment, one does not try to fight a chair struck in the dark. ”

“ The virility of his style often becomes pugnacity. He defies opposition instead of conciliating prejudice. True, he sometimes makes monsters out of mild misdoers, and belabors them relentlessly for constructive crimes. ”

“ There is, after all, just one human activity left in which whole populations accomplish the union sacrée. It occurs in those middle phases of a war when fear, pugnacity, and hatred have secured complete dominion of the spirit, either to crush every other instinct or to enlist it, and before weariness is felt. ”

“ The wonderful woman was the same woman who, in the summer, at Poynton, had been so puzzled to conceive why a good-natured girl shouldn't have contributed more to the personal rout of the Brigstocks—shouldn't have been grateful even for the handsome puff of Fleda Vetch. Only her passion was keener now and her scruple more absent; the fight made a demand upon her, and her pugnacity had become one with her constant habit of using such weapons as she could pick up. She had no imagination about anybody's life save on the side she bumped against. ”

“ Pugnacity, finally, may be excited in an altogether different way and may reinforce instincts of an entirely different character. Men and animals alike sometimes fight not through balked courage, or thwarted acquisitiveness, or in swift reaction against paralyzing fear but to protect or succor others, that is, because their social and sympathetic instincts are violated. ”

“ Time was when men had simple souls, desires as natural as their eyes, a little reasonable philanthropy, a little reasonable philoprogenitiveness, hunger, and a taste for good living, a decent, personal vanity, a healthy, satisfying pugnacity, and so forth. ”

“ The instinct of the brute has almost germinated into reason. Man has reason, why not give him intelligence?
We now come to the last great lesson of our motley teacher—the gallows! that accursed tree which has its root in injuries. How clearly PUNCH exposes the fallacy of that dreadful law which authorises the destruction of life! PUNCH sometimes destroys the hangman: and why not? Where is the divine injunction against the shedder of man's blood to rest? None can answer! To us there is but ONE disposer of life. At other times PUNCH hangs the devil: this is as it should be. ”

“ Therefore the accuser, when he says that anything has been done in compliance with some impulse, ought to exaggerate that impulse, and any other agitation or affection of the mind, with all the power of language and variety of sentiments of which he is master, and to show how great the power of love is, how great the agitation of mind which arises from anger, or from any one of those causes which he says was that which impelled any one to do anything. ”

“ Punch, swaying alternately from clumsy deception to helpless rage, badgered into sullenness, and betrayed by the inherent weakness of his poor, peace-loving little soul, is a picture burdened with bitter truth, drawn with revengeful fidelity. ”

“ For did ever any great or grave orator, when he wanted to render the judge angry with his antagonist, boggle at this, because he did not know whether anger was a heat of the mind, or the desire of punishing resentment? Was there ever a man, who, when he wanted to raise a whirl and agitation in the other affections of the soul, either in judges or people, expressed himself in the same terms which philosophers use, some of whom say that the mind ought not to be susceptible of any emotions, and that they who in pleading touch the passions of the judges are guilty of detestable practices. ”

“ Punch!' And then, 'Is it the baker?' 'No, Mr. Punch!' 'Who is it then?' (this in a squeak trembling with emotion and terror) ; and then the full, loud reply, booming like a judgement-bell, 'It is the Devil come to take you down to Hell,' and the form of Punch, with kicking legs, sunken in epilepsy on the floor,—all this was solemn and exquisite to me beyond words. I was not amused—I was deeply moved and exhilarated, 'purged', as the old phrase hath it, 'with pity and terror'. ”

“ Punch, such an extension of the House of Peers merely for the satisfaction of the vanity of a number of vulgar and puffing men would be a scandal to our civilisation. No, my good Sir, our noble order is large enough. ”

“ O infinite God, whose wrath is terrible, but yet just, against those who are angry without measure, clear the eyes of my soul, that, considering the terrible chastisements that proceed from Thy sacred indignation, I may restrain those evil and vehement passions that proceed from mine! Amen.
POINT II.
1. Secondly, I will consider the evils and chastisements of this vice, as well those it brings with it as those which God of His justice adds in this life and in the life to come.
i. Anger destroys our likeness to Almighty God, [115] whose works are full of great tranquillity. ”

“ THE MORAL OF PUNCH.
As we hope, gentle public, to pass many happy hours in your society, we think it right that you should know something of our character and intentions. Our title, at a first glance, may have misled you into a belief that we have no other intention than the amusement of a thoughtless crowd, and the collection of pence. We have a higher object. Few of the admirers of our prototype, merry Master PUNCH, have looked upon his vagaries but as the practical outpourings of a rude and boisterous mirth. ”

“ If this is really accomplished and some positive fact is established in the self-accusation, the question becomes one of finding the value seen by the confessor in blaming himself together with his fellow. Revenge, hatred, jealousy, envy, anger, suspicion, and other passions will be the forces in which this value will be found. One man brings his ancient comrade into jeopardy in revenge for the latter’s injustice in the division of the booty, or in deliberate anger at the commission of some dangerous stupidity in a burglary. ”

“ But as we never look for perfection in human nature, it is too much to expect it in wood. We wish it to be understood that we repudiate such principles and conduct. We have a Judy of our own, and a little Punchininny that commits innumerable improprieties; but we fearlessly aver that we never threw him out of window, nor belaboured the lady with a stick—even of the size allowed by law.
There is one portion of the drama we wish was omitted, for it always saddens us—we allude to the prison scene. PUNCH, it is true, sings in durance, but we hear the ring of the bars mingling with the song. ”

“ The repugnance that I feel is counsel from on high, sent, it may be, to protect you from some great evil."
"The only evil could be that he did not love me."
"Always he!"
"Yes, always," she answered. "He is my life, my good, my thought. Even if I obeyed you he would be ever in my soul. ”

“ For a man to look and behave cooly towards his wife, to withdraw the testimonies of his love, to cease to trust and to speak familiarly and chearfully to her, these things I call punishments. And all things of this kind must be more or less sharp, as the fault is greater or less, being suited, not to the passion, or loss, or hurt of the reprover, but to the offence of the reproved. ”

“ Punch, that godless old rebel, breaks every law and laughs at it with odious triumph, outwits his lawyer, bullies the beadle, knocks his wife about the head, and hangs the hangman,—don't you see in the comedy, in the song, in the dance, in the ragged little Punch's puppet-show,—the Pagan protest? Doesn't it seem as if Life puts in its plea and sings its comment? ”

“ They whine when they ought to be up and denouncing, and they crouch and crawl instead of standing upright like free and fearless men, and giving the devil's agent the straightest eye-puncher of which the human arm is capable. I thank Heaven, Sir, that I'm not made on that plan. I'm out to fight humbug and hypocrisy, even when they masquerade as friendship and benevolence; and when I see a fellow coming along with hundreds of pious texts in his mouth, and his hands dripping with the blood of innocent women and children, why, I've got to say what I think of him or die. ”

“ A RULE OF LIFE
‘If you want to annoy an opponent thoroughly, and even to harm him,’ said a crafty old knave to me, ‘you reproach him with the very defect or vice you are conscious of in yourself. Be indignant ... and reproach him!
‘To begin with, it will set others thinking you have not that vice.
‘In the second place, your indignation may well be sincere.... You can turn to account the pricks of your own conscience. ”

“ In disposition he is mild and affable, but when roused to indignation, his keen eyes glitter and flash, the muscles of his large mouth work convulsively, and he looks the very impersonation of the spirit of evil. He is implacable in anger, and bitter in revenge ”

“ How does that man feel who meets another whom he has cruelly robbed, or whose home he has basely dishonoured? But, for all this, I confess with shame that I am overflowing with faults. My imagination is too vivid, and my temper is choleric when suddenly thwarted and opposed in ridiculously small matters: a false accusation or a false suspicion drives me mad. ”

“ Because the sentence which is to he given is definitive and irrevocable, and at that instant is to he executed without resistance, iii. Because the issue on my side is very doubtful, since the sin that I committed is manifest to me, hut not the true penance that I did, and my conscience accuses me to have offended the Judge, hut I know not whether I have appeased Him. " For man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred [36] and though I find no sins in myself, yet it may be that God will find them. ”

“ And you may see those very persons, whose opinions I am combating, frequently urging on the young by praises, and frequently checking them by rebukes, though pleasure follows the one, pain the other. For rebukes and censure produce repentance and shame, the one bringing grief, the other fear, and these they mostly make use of for purposes of correction. ”

“ Instead of the punishment there is seen a false glitter of gaudy life,—a glitter which is damnably false,—and which, alas, has been more often portrayed in glowing colours, for the injury of young girls, than have those horrors, which ought to deter, with the dark shadowings which belong to them. ”