Note 43 — Chapter II · THE DAWN OF MORALITY: CONSCIENCE IN THE KINSHIP GROUP
Reading edition
The system of collective responsibility arises in part, it is true, from the belief that sin is contagious and infects all persons related to the transgressor. Therefore the innocent members of the family or group of the transgressor may be put out of the way as a merely preventive measure—not as a measure of justice or punishment. But the ethical element is seldom or never absent and it is this which gives the conception its importance for the student of morals.