Old is this saying and old and old again.

[Footnote 16: Aschylus, _Choephori_, 316, seq. These lines embody the
idea on which the dramas of the Shakespeare of Greece are principally
founded. But when was a work of the highest art based upon an idea
unsound, irrational and vicious?]

Nor must we be led away by Mill (_Utilitarianism_, c.v.) into
confounding retaliation, or vengeance, with self-defence. Self-defence
is a natural idea also, but not the same as retaliation. We defend
ourselves against a mad dog, we do not retaliate on him. Hence we must
not argue that, because self-defence is prospective, therefore so is
vengeance.

3. A thing is _essentially_ evil, when there is no possible use of it
which is not an abuse. Not far different is the conception of a thing
_positively_ evil, evil, that is, not by reason of any deficiency, or
by what it is not, but evil by what it is in itself. Such an
essential, positive evil in human nature would vengeance be, a natural
thing for which there was no natural use, unless punishment may in
some measure be retributive. We cannot admit such a flaw in nature.
All healthy philosophy goes on the principle, that what is natural is
so far forth good. Otherwise we lapse into Manicheism, pessimism,
scepticism, abysses beyond the reach of argument. Vengeance
undoubtedly prompts to many crimes, but so does the passion of love.
Both are natural impulses. It would scarcely be an exaggeration to set
down one third of human transgressions to love, and another third to
revenge: yet it is the abuse in each case, not the use, that leads to
sin. If the matrimonial union were wicked and detestable, as the
Manicheans taught, then would the passion of love be an abomination